NTSC

Analog television encoding systems by nation; NTSC (green), SECAM (orange), and PAL (blue)

NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published in 1941.[1] In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170.[2]

In 1953, a second NTSC standard was adopted, which allowed for color television broadcast compatible with the existing stock of black-and-white receivers. It is one of three major color formats for analog television, the others being PAL and SECAM. NTSC color is usually associated with the System M; this combination is sometimes called NTSC II.[3][4] The only other broadcast television system to use NTSC color was the System J. Brazil used System M with PAL color. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos used System M with SECAM color.

The NTSC/System M standard was used in most of the Americas (except Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay), Myanmar, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Japan, and some Pacific Islands nations and territories (see map).

Since the introduction of digital sources (ex: DVD) the term NTSC has been used to refer to digital formats with number of active lines between 480 and 487 having 30 or 29.97 frames per second rate, serving as a digital shorthand to System M. The so-called NTSC-Film standard has a digital standard resolution of 720 × 480 pixel for DVD-Videos, 480 × 480 pixel for Super Video CDs (SVCD, Aspect Ratio: 4:3) and 352 × 240 pixel for Video CDs (VCD).[5] The digital video (DV) camcorder format that is equivalent to NTSC is 720 × 480 pixels.[6] The digital television (DTV) equivalent is 704 × 480 pixels.[6]

  1. ^ National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplementary references cited in the Reports, and the Petition for adoption of transmission standards for color television before the Federal Communications Commission, n.p., 1953], 17 v. illus., diagrs., tables. 28 cm. LC Control No.:54021386 Library of Congress Online Catalog
  2. ^ "Canon ES8400V Instruction Manual, page 72". Canon. Retrieved October 11, 2023.
  3. ^ "Engineers and Electrons: A Century of Electrical Progress (chapter list)". doi:10.1109/9780470616321.ch9. Retrieved October 11, 2023.
  4. ^ Wilt, Adam (June 12, 2019). "10 Years Ago: The Analog Shutoff". provideocoalition.com. Retrieved October 11, 2023.
  5. ^ NTSC (National Television System Committee) in Television Standards - formats and techniques by Raffael Amadeus Trappe, 2013.
  6. ^ a b NTSC in PCMag Encyclopedia