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NTSC is the analog television system in use in the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and some other countries (see map). It is named for the National Television System Committee[1], the U.S. standardization body that adopted it. ^[1]. The first black-and-white NTSC standard for broadcast was developed prior to the Second World War and had no provision for color transmissions. The standard called for 525 lines of picture information in each frame, and 30 frames per second; the frame rate was later slightly adjusted for the color standard. Civilian development of commercial television was halted with the entry of the United States into the war. In 1953 a second standard was issued, which allowed color broadcasting to be compatible with the existing stock of black-and-white receivers, while maintaining the broadcast channel bandwidth already in use. This was an important commercial advantage over incompatible color systems that had also been proposed. NTSC was the first widely adopted broadcast color system. After over a half-century of use, over-the-air NTSC transmissions will be replaced with ATSC in the United States in 2009. Various digital television systems have replaced the vacuum-tube era standard. Image File history File links Acap. ... Analog television (or analogue television) encodes television and transports the picture and sound information as an analog signal, that is, by varying the amplitude and/or frequencies of the broadcast signal. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Established in 1982, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is the group that developed the ATSC digital television standard for the United States, also adopted by Canada, Mexico, South Korea, and recently Honduras and is being considered by other countries. ... Digital television (DTV) refers to the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by means of discrete (digital) signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV. Introduced in the late 1990s, this technology appealed to the television broadcasting business and consumer electronics industries as offering new...

Television encoding systems by nation, Countries using the NTSC system are shown in green.

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...

History

See also: History of television

The National Television System Committee was established in 1940 by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to resolve the conflicts that arose between companies over the introduction of a nationwide analog television system in the United States. In March 1941, the committee issued a technical standard for black-and-white television that built upon a 1936 recommendation made by the Radio Manufacturers Association (RMA). Technical advancements of the vestigial sideband technique allowed for the opportunity to increase the image resolution broadcast to consumer televisions. The NTSC compromised between RCA's desire to keep a 441–scan line standard (which was already being used by RCA's NBC TV network) and Philco's desire to increase the number of scan lines to between 605 and 800: A 525-line transmission standard was selected. Other technical standards in the final recommendation were a frame rate (image rate) of 30 frames per second consisting of two interlaced fields per frame (2:1 interlacing) at 262½ lines per field or 60 fields per second, along with an aspect ratio of 4:3, and frequency modulation (FM) for the sound signal (which was quite new at the time). The History of television technology can be divided along two lines: those developments that depended upon both mechanical and electronic principles, and those which are purely electronic. ... FCC redirects here. ... A photograph of a sign in grayscale The same photograph in black and white Monochrome comes from the two Greek words mono (μωνο, meaning one), and chroma (χρωμα, meaning surface or the color of the skin). A monochromatic object has a single color. ... Single-sideband modulation (SSB) is a refinement of the technique of amplitude modulation designed to be more efficient in its use of electrical power and bandwidth. ... RCA, formerly an acronym for the Radio Corporation of America, is now a trademark owned by Thomson SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Thomson. ... A scan line is one line, or row, in a raster scanning pattern, such as a video line on a Cathode ray tube (CRT) display of a television or computer. ... This article is about the television network. ... A Philco 90 cathedral style radio from 1931. ... Frame rate, or frame frequency, is the measurement of the frequency (rate) at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. ... Interlace is a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal without consuming any extra bandwidth. ... For other uses, see Aspect ratio. ... In telecommunications, frequency modulation (FM) conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its frequency. ...

In January 1950 the Committee was reconstituted to standardize color television. In December 1953, it unanimously approved what is now called simply the NTSC color television standard (later defined as RS-170a). The updated standard retained full backwards compatibility ("compatible color") with older black-and-white television sets. Color information was added to the black-and-white image by adding a color subcarrier of 4.5 × 455/572 MHz (approximately 3.58 MHz) to the video signal. In order to minimize interference between the chrominance signal and FM sound carrier, the addition of the color subcarrier also required a slight reduction of the frame rate from 30 frames per second to 30/1.001 (very close to 29.97) frames per second, and changing the line frequency from 15,750Hz to 15,734.26Hz. A subcarrier is a separate analog or digital signal carried on a main radio transmission, which carries extra information such as voice or data. ... Frame rate, or frame frequency, is the measurement of the frequency (rate) at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. ...

The FCC had briefly approved a different color television standard, starting in October 1950, which was developed by CBS.^[2] However, this standard was incompatible with black-and-white broadcasts. It used a rotating color wheel (a technique re-used in the first DLP projectors developed in the late 1980s), reduced the number of scan lines from 525 to 405, and increased the field rate from 60 to 144 (but had an effective frame rate of only 24 frames a second). Legal action by rival RCA kept commercial use of the system off the air until June 1951, and regular broadcasts only lasted a few months before manufacture of all color television sets was banned by the Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM) in October, ostensibly due to the Korean War.^[3] Most of the existing devices were soon destroyed and only two receivers are known to exist today.^{[citation needed]} CBS rescinded its system in March 1953,^[4] and the FCC replaced it on December 17, 1953 with the NTSC color standard, which was cooperatively developed by several companies (including RCA and Philco).^[5] The first publicly announced experimental TV broadcast of a program using the NTSC "compatible color" system was an episode of NBC's Kukla, Fran and Ollie on August 30, 1953.^[6] This article is about the broadcast network. ... This article is about Digital Light Processing. ... A scan line is one line, or row, in a raster scanning pattern, such as a video line on a Cathode ray tube (CRT) display of a television or computer. ... Frame rate, or frame frequency, is the measurement of the frequency (rate) at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. ... The Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM) was an independent agency of the United States government whose function was to plan, coordinate, direct and control all wartime mobilization activities of the federal government, including manpower, economic stabilization, and transport operations. ... Belligerents United Nations: Republic of Korea Australia Belgium Canada Colombia Ethiopia France Greece Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Philippines South Africa Thailand Turkey United Kingdom United States Naval Support and Military Servicing/Repairs: Japan Medical staff: Denmark Italy Norway India Sweden DPR Korea PR China Soviet Union Commanders Syngman Rhee Chung... Kukla, Fran and Ollie was an early television show using puppets, originally created for children but soon watched by more adults than children. ... is the 242nd day of the year (243rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The first color NTSC television camera was the RCA TK-40, used for experimental broadcasts in 1953; an improved version, the TK-40A, introduced in March 1954, was the first commercially available color TV camera. It was replaced later that year by an improved version, the TK-41, which became the standard camera used throughout much of the 1960s. A professional video camera (often called a television camera even though the use has spread) is a high-end device for recording electronic moving images (as opposed to a movie camera, that records the images on film). ... The RCA TK-40 is considered to be the first color television camera, initially used for special broadcasts in late 1953, and with the follow-on TK-40A actually becoming the first to be produced in quantity in March 1954. ...

The NTSC standard has been adopted by other countries, including most of the Americas and Japan. With the advent of digital television, analog broadcasts are being phased out. NTSC broadcasts are mandated by the FCC to end in the United States on February 17, 2009. World map showing the Americas The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere historically considered to consist of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... Digital television (DTV) refers to the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by means of discrete (digital) signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV. Introduced in the late 1990s, this technology appealed to the television broadcasting business and consumer electronics industries as offering new... is the 48th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2009 (MMIX) will be a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Technical details

Lines and refresh rate

NTSC color encoding is used with the M format (see broadcast television systems), which consists of 30/100.1% (or approximately 29.97) interlaced frames of video per second. Each frame consists of a total of 525 scanlines, of which 486 make up the visible raster. The remainder (the vertical blanking interval) are used for synchronization and vertical retrace, and can contain other data such as closed captioning and vertical interval timecode. In the complete raster (ignoring half-lines), the even-numbered or 'lower" scanlines (lines 21 to 263 in the video signal) are drawn in the first field, and the odd-numbered or "upper" (signal lines 283 to 525) are drawn in the second field, to yield a flicker-free image at the field refresh frequency of approximately 59.94 Hertz (actually 60 Hz/100.1%). For comparison, PAL uses 625 lines (576 visible), and so has a higher vertical resolution, but a lower temporal resolution of 25 frames or 50 fields per second. There are several broadcast television systems in use in the world today. ... Interlace is a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal without consuming any extra bandwidth. ... For other uses, see Video (disambiguation). ... This article is about the unit of time. ... Raster can refer to either of the following items: Raster graphics, Bit array, the general-purpose data structure, or The scanning pattern of the electron beam to a screen of a Cathode Ray Tube. ... The vertical blanking interval (VBI), also known as the vertical interval or VBLANK, is the time difference between the last line of one frame or field of a raster display, and the beginning of the next. ... Synchronization (or Sync) is a problem in timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. ... A commonly-used symbol indicating that a program or movie is closed-captioned. ... Vertical interval timecode (VITC, pronounced vitsee or sometimes vits) is a form of SMPTE timecode embedded as black-and-white bars in a pair of the normally unseen vertical interval lines in a television signal. ... The flicker fusion threshold (or flicker fusion rate) is a concept in the psychophysics of vision. ... For other uses, see Frequency (disambiguation). ... Hz or hz may mean: Herero language (ISO 639 alpha-2, hz) Hertz, unit of frequency This is a disambiguation page — a list of articles associated with the same title. ... For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ...

The NTSC field refresh frequency was originally exactly 60 Hz in the black-and-white system, chosen because it matched the nominal 60 Hz frequency of alternating current power used in the United States. Matching the field refresh rate to the power source avoided wave interference which produces rolling bars on the screen. Synchronization of the refresh rate to the power incidentally helped kinescope cameras record early live television broadcasts, as it was very simple to synchronize a film camera to capture one frame of video on each film frame by using the alternating current frequency as a shutter trigger. City lights viewed in a motion blurred exposure. ... Kinescope (IPA: ) originally referred to the cathode ray tube used in television monitors. ... This article is about motion pictures. ...

The figure of 525 lines was chosen as a consequence of the limitations of the vacuum-tube-based technologies of the day. In early TV systems, a master voltage-controlled oscillator was run at twice the horizontal line frequency, and this frequency was divided down by the number of lines used (in this case 525) to give the field frequency (60 Hz in this case). This frequency was then compared with the 60 Hz power-line frequency and any discrepancy corrected by adjusting the frequency of the master oscillator.

The only practical method of frequency division available at the time was the use of multivibrators, which could only divide by small numbers. For interlaced scanning an odd number of lines per frame was required in order to make the vertical retrace distance identical for the odd and even fields; an extra odd line means that the same distance is covered in retracing from the final odd line to the first even line as from the final even line to the first odd line, so simplifying the retrace circuitry. This meant that a chain of multivibrators was needed, each of which had to divide by a small, odd number. (Note that an odd number is never divisible by any even number). The closest practical sequence to 500 was 3 × 5 × 5 × 7 = 525. Similarly, the British 405-line system used 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 5 and 625-line PAL used 5 × 5 × 5 × 5. Although other values were theoretically possible, all of them involved division by unacceptably large numbers like 13 or 17, which produced reliability problems. Modern systems derive all their frequencies from the color subcarrier frequency (see below). A multivibrator is an electronic circuit used to implement a variety of simple two-state systems such as oscillators, timers and flip-flops. ...

In the color system the refresh frequency was shifted slightly downward to 59.94 Hz to eliminate stationary dot patterns in the color carrier, as explained below in "Color encoding".

Color encoding

There are three main standards in use around the world, PAL (Phase Alternating Line), NTSC (National Television System Committee) and SECAM (Séquentiel Couleur à Mémoire—Sequential Color with Memory). For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ... SECAM, also written SÉCAM (Séquentiel couleur à mémoire, French for Sequential Color with Memory), is an analog color television system first used in France. ...

The system used in North America is NTSC. Western Europe, Australia, and Eastern South America use PAL. Eastern Europe used SECAM, but switched to PAL after the change of the political regimes there. France still uses SECAM. Generally, a device (such as a television) can only read or display video encoded to a standard which the device is designed to support; otherwise, the source must be converted (such as when European programs are broadcast in North America or vice versa). North American redirects here. ... For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ...

This table illustrates the differences:

For backward compatibility with black-and-white television, NTSC uses a luminance-chrominance encoding system invented in 1938 by Georges Valensi. Luminance (derived mathematically from the composite color signal) takes the place of the original monochrome signal. Chrominance carries color information. This allows black-and-white receivers to display NTSC signals simply by ignoring the chrominance. As applied to analog television signals, two different words are used, luminance and luma, meaning two different things. ... Chrominance (chroma for short) comprises the two components of a television signal that encode color information. ... Georges Valensi was a French telecommunications engineer who, in 1938, invented and patented a method of transmitting color images so that they could be received on both color and black & white television sets. ...

The original chromaticities of the NTSC color primaries were R=[0.67,0.33], G=[0.21,0.71], B=[0.14,0.08].^[7], yielding a far larger gamut than most of today's monitors. Over the decades, however, desire for a brighter picture prompted TV manufacturers to deviate from that specification, sacrificing saturation for increased brightness^[8]. This deviation from the standard, which happened both at the receiver and broadcaster stage, was the source of considerable color variation in the 1960s^[9] As a result, in 1968 the SMPTE recommended a new set of phosphor primaries for studio use^[10], which in 1979 became part of SMPTE 170M, the engineering standard describing the American broadcasting system. Although the old 1953 NTSC specifications are still part of the United States Code of Federal Regulations, all modern broadcast equipment follows the SMPTE 170M standard instead and thus encodes a signal for the SMPTE "C" set of phosphor primaries.^[11] Chromaticity is the quality of a color as determined by its purity and dominant wavelength. ... The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers or SMPTE (pronounced simptee or sometimes sumptee) is a US professional association of engineers. ... The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the codification of the general and permanent rules and regulations (sometimes called administrative law) published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government of the United States. ...

In NTSC, chrominance is encoded using two 3.579545 MHz signals which are 90 degrees out of phase, known as I (in-phase) and Q (quadrature) QAM. Mathematically, the combination of two sine waves 90 degrees out of phase with each other, with varying respective amplitudes, can be viewed as a single sine wave with varying phase relative to a reference, and varying amplitude. In essence, the phase represents the instantaneous color hue captured by a TV camera and the amplitude represents the color saturation. QAM is a TLA that may stand for: Quadrature amplitude modulation Quality Assurance Management (qam. ...

For a TV or a display to recover hue information from the I/Q phase as just described, it must know the reference for it (i.e. what phase is zero). It also needs a reference against which to compare the amplitude to make saturation sense out of it. So the NTSC signal includes a short sample of this reference signal, known as the color burst, located on the 'back porch' of each horizontal line (the time between the end of the horizontal synchronization pulse and of the blanking pulse on each line). The color burst consists of a minimum of eight cycles of the unmodulated (fixed phase and amplitude) color subcarrier. By comparing the reference signal derived from color burst to the chrominance signal's amplitude and phase at a particular point in the scan, the device determines what chrominance to assign to the pixel then being displayed. Combining that with the amplitude of the luminance signal, the receiver calculates exactly what color to make the pixel. Colorburst is a signal used to keep the chrominance subcarrier synchronized in a color television signal. ...

When a transmitter broadcasts an NTSC signal, it amplitude-modulates a radio-frequency carrier with the NTSC signal just described, while it frequency-modulates a carrier 4.5 MHz higher with the audio signal. If non-linear distortion happens to the broadcast signal, the 3.58 MHz color carrier may beat with the sound carrier to produce a dot pattern on the screen. To make the resulting pattern less noticeable, designers adjusted the original 60 Hz field rate down by a factor of 1.001%, to approximately 59.94 fields per second. In acoustics, a beat is an interference between two sounds of slightly different frequencies, perceived as periodic variations in volume whose rate is the difference between the two frequencies. ...

The 59.94 rate is derived from the following calculations. Designers chose to make the chrominance subcarrier frequency an n + 0.5 multiple of the line frequency to minimize interference between the luminance signal and the chrominance signal. They then chose to make the audio subcarrier frequency an integer multiple of the line frequency to minimize interference between the audio signal and the chrominance signal. The original black-and-white standard, with its 15750 Hz line frequency and 4.5 MHz audio subcarrier, does not meet these requirements, so designers had either to raise the audio subcarrier frequency or lower the line frequency. Raising the audio subcarrier frequency would prevent existing receivers from properly tuning in the audio signal. Lowering the line frequency is comparatively innocuous, because the horizontal and vertical synchronization information in the NTSC signal allows a receiver to tolerate a substantial amount of slop in the line frequency. So that is the route the color standard took. In the black-and-white standard, the ratio of audio subcarrier frequency to line frequency is 4.5 MHz / 15,750 = 285.71. In the color standard, this becomes rounded to the integer 286, which means the color standard's line rate is 4.5 MHz / 286 ~ 15,734 lines per second. Dividing by 262.5 lines per field, this gives approximately 59.94 fields per second.

Transmission modulation scheme

Spectrum of a System M television channel with NTSC color.

An NTSC television channel as transmitted occupies a total bandwidth of 6 MHz. A guard band, which does not carry any signals, occupies the lowest 250 kHz of the channel to avoid interference between the video signal of one channel and the audio signals of the next channel down. The actual video signal, which is amplitude-modulated, is transmitted between 500 kHz and 5.45 MHz above the lower bound of the channel. The video carrier is 1.25 MHz above the lower bound of the channel. Like most AM signals, the video carrier generates two sidebands, one above the carrier and one below. The sidebands are each 4.2 MHz wide. The entire upper sideband is transmitted, but only 750 kHz of the lower sideband, known as a vestigial sideband, is transmitted. The color subcarrier, as noted above, is 3.579545 MHz above the video carrier, and is quadrature-amplitude-modulated with suppressed carrier. The highest 25 kHz of each channel contains the audio signal, which is frequency-modulated, making it compatible with the audio signals broadcast by FM radio stations in the 88–108 MHz band. The main audio carrier is 4.5 MHz above the video carrier. Sometimes a channel may contain an MTS signal, which is simply more than one audio signal. This is normally the case when stereo audio and/or second audio program signals are used. The term television channel generally refers to either a television station or its cable/satellite counterpart (both outlined below). ... For other uses, see Interference (disambiguation). ... Amplitude modulation (AM) is a technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. ... Carrier frequency is the fundamental frequency used in both amplitude modulation and frequency modulation i. ... In radio communications, a sideband is a band of frequencies higher than or lower than the carrier frequency, containing energy as a result of the modulation process. ... Single-sideband modulation (SSB) is a refinement of the technique of amplitude modulation designed to be more efficient in its use of electrical power and bandwidth. ... “QAM” redirects here. ... In telecommunications, frequency modulation (FM) conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its frequency. ... Multichannel television sound, better known as MTS (often still as BTSC, for the Broadcast Television Systems Committee that created it), is the method of encoding three additional channels of audio into an NTSC-format audio carrier. ... Label for 2. ... Second[ary] audio program[ming] (SAP) is an auxiliary audio channel for television that can be broadcast or transmitted both over the air and by cable TV. It is often used for an alternate language (hence giving the facetious Spanish audio program expansion to the acronym), or for the Descriptive...

• One odd thing about NTSC is the Cvbs (Composite vertical blanking signal) is something called "setup". This is a voltage offset between the "black" and "blanking" levels. Cvbs is unique to NTSC.
• Cvbs has one defect: it makes NTSC more easily separated from its primary sync signals, but Cvbs has a smaller dynamic range when compared with PAL or SECAM.

For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ... SECAM, also written SÉCAM (Séquentiel couleur à mémoire, French for Sequential Color with Memory), is an analog color television system first used in France. ...

Framerate conversion

There is a large difference in framerate between film, which runs at 24.0 frames per second, and the NTSC standard, which runs at approximately 29.97 frames per second. Frame rate, or frame frequency, is the measurement of how quickly an imaging device can produce several consecutive images, called frames. ...

Unlike the two other video formats, PAL and SECAM, this difference cannot be overcome by a simple speed-up. A video format describes how one device sends video pictures to another device, such as the way that a DVD player sends pictures to a television, or a computer to a monitor. ... For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ... SECAM, also written SÉCAM (Séquentiel couleur à mémoire, French for Sequential Color with Memory), is an analog color television system first used in France. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into PAL. (Discuss) PAL speedup is the speeding up of audio and video by a factor of 4% when transferring film (24 frames per second) to PAL video (25 frames per second). ...

A complex process called "3:2 pulldown" is needed, which duplicates parts of frames. This induces noticeable jitter/"stutter" during slow pans of the camera. Telecine (IPA pronunciation: . Phonetic: tel-e-Sin-ee; tel-e-Sin-a as cine is the same root as in cinema; also tele-seen.) is the process of transferring motion picture film into electronic form, or the machine used in this process. ...

For viewing native PAL or SECAM material (such as European television series and some European movies) on NTSC equipment, a standards conversion has to take place. There are basically two ways to accomplish this. A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ...

• The framerate can be slowed from 25 to 23.976 frames per second (a slowdown of about 4%) to subsequently apply 3:2 pulldown.
• Interpolation of the contents of adjacent frames in order to produce new intermediate frames; this introduces artifacts, and even the most modestly trained of eyes can quickly spot video which has been converted between formats. (See also stutter frame)

Telecine (IPA pronunciation: . Phonetic: tel-e-Sin-ee; tel-e-Sin-a as cine is the same root as in cinema; also tele-seen.) is the process of transferring motion picture film into electronic form, or the machine used in this process. ... This article is about interpolation in mathematics. ... In film, video production, animation, and related fields, a frame is one of the many still images which compose the complete moving picture. ... In natural science and signal processing, an artifact is any perceived distortion or other data error caused by the instrument of observation. ...

Modulation for TVRO transmission

NTSC when it is transmitted for TVRO viewing is transmitted substantially differently from terrestrial transmission. Television receive-only, or TVRO, refers to satellite television reception equipment that is based primarily on open standards equipment. ...

Full transponder mode (e.g.: 36 MHz)

• Luma signal is FM modulated, but with a 60Hz dithering signal to spread out energy over the transponder
• Chroma is phase modulated
• FM subcarrier at 6.8 MHz is added for mono sound
• Other FM subcarriers are added for discrete stereo service, or stereo multiplex, often 5.8 and/or 6.2 MHz
• Data subcarriers may be added as well

Half transponder mode (e.g.: 18 MHz)

• all of the above is done, but signal is bandwidth limited to 18 MHz
• the bandwidth limiting does not affect audio subcarriers

Use with progressive sources

When NTSC is used to transmit content which was originally composed of 29.97 progressive full frames per second, the even field of the frame is transmitted first. This is opposite to PAL, and opposite to what would be expected ('Even first' means the frame starts being drawn on the second line). Systems which recover progressive frames or transcode video should ensure that this 'Field Order' is obeyed, otherwise the recovered frame will consist of a field from one frame and a field from an adjacent frame, resulting in 'comb' interlacing artifacts. For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ...

Comparative quality

Video professionals and television engineers jokingly referred to NTSC as "Never The Same Color" or "Never Twice the Same Color".^[12] Reception problems can degrade an NTSC picture by changing the phase of the color signal, so the color balance of the picture will be altered unless a compensation is made in the receiver. This necessitates the inclusion of a tint control on NTSC sets, which is not necessary on PAL or SECAM systems. This article is about a portion of a periodic process. ... Because the NTSC color television standard is susceptible to color errors, there is a tint control on NTSC television sets, which allows the image hue to be corrected. ... For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ... SECAM, also written SÉCAM (Séquentiel couleur à mémoire, French for Sequential Color with Memory), is an analog color television system first used in France. ...

However, the mismatch between NTSC's 30 frames per second and film's 24 frames is well overcome by an ingenious process which capitalizes on the field rate of the interlaced NTSC signal, thus avoiding the film playback speedup used for PAL and SECAM at 25 frames per second (which results in audio distortion). See Framerate conversion above.

There is no question the NTSC system reflects the technology of its originating era, but its compatibility and flexibility has been the key to its longevity over seven decades. The coming of digital television and high-definition television may end the need for analog television systems. Digital television (DTV) refers to the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by means of discrete (digital) signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV. Introduced in the late 1990s, this technology appealed to the television broadcasting business and consumer electronics industries as offering new... High-definition television (HDTV) is a digital television broadcasting system with greater resolution than traditional television systems (NTSC, SECAM, PAL). ...

Variants

NTSC-M

Unlike PAL, with its many varied underlying broadcast television systems in use throughout the world, NTSC color encoding is invariably used with broadcast system M, giving NTSC-M. There are several broadcast television systems in use in the world today. ...

NTSC-J

Only Japan's variant "NTSC-J" is slightly different: in Japan, black level and blanking level of the signal are identical (at 0 IRE), as they are in PAL, while in American NTSC, black level is slightly higher (7.5 IRE) than blanking level. Since the difference is quite small, a slight turn of the brightness knob is all that is required to enjoy the "other" variant of NTSC on any set as it is supposed to be; most watchers might not even notice the difference in the first place. NTSC-J is a videogame region which covers Japan. ... Diagram of composite video field with IRE measurements An IRE is a unit used in the measurement of composite video signals. ... Diagram of composite video field with IRE measurements An IRE is a unit used in the measurement of composite video signals. ...

PAL-M

The Brazilian PAL-M system uses the same broadcast bandwidth, frame rate, and number of lines as NTSC, but using PAL encoding. It is therefore NTSC-compatible in sources such as video cassettes and DVDs, but its color picture cannot be received on a standard NTSC television set. For other meanings of PAL see PAL (disambiguation). ...

NTSC-N

Main article: PAL#PAL-N

This is used in Paraguay and Bolivia (though Paraguay has recently switched to NTSC-M from PAL-N). This is very similar to PAL-M (used in Brazil). It is also closely related to PAL-Nc (used in Argentina) and PAL-N (used in Uruguay). For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ... Television encoding systems by nation PAL, short for phase-alternating line, phase alternation by line or phase alternation line, is a colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in large parts of the world. ... PAL-M is the TV system used in Brazil. ...

The similarities of NTSC-M and NTSC-N can be seen on the broadcast television systems#ITU identification scheme table, which is reproduced here: There are several broadcast television systems in use in the world today. ...

As it is shown, aside from the number of lines and frames per second, the systems are identical. NTSC-N/PAL-N/PAL-Nc are compatible with sources such as game consoles, VHS/Betamax VCRs, and DVD players. However, they are not compatible with baseband broadcasts (which are received over an antenna), though some newer sets come with baseband NTSC 3.58 support (NTSC 3.58 being the frequency for color modulation in NTSC: 3.58 MHz). World map showing the Americas CIA political map of the Americas in an equal-area projection The Americas are the lands of the New World, consisting of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... West Indies redirects here. ... Frame rate, or frame frequency, is the measurement of the frequency (rate) at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. ... The Nintendo GameCube is an example of a popular video game console. ... Bottom view of VHS cassette with magnetic tape exposed Top view of VHS cassette with front casing removed The Video Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard. ... Sonys Betamax is the 12. ... The video cassette recorder (or VCR, less popularly video tape recorder) is a type of video tape recorder that uses removable cassettes containing magnetic tape to record audio and video from a television broadcast so it can be played back later. ... DVD (also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is a popular optical disc storage media format. ... Baseband is an adjective that describes signals and systems whose range of frequencies is measured from 0 to a maximum bandwidth or highest signal frequency; it is sometimes used as a noun for a band of frequencies starting at 0. ... A Yagi-Uda beam antenna Short Wave Curtain Antenna (Moosbrunn, Austria) A building rooftop supporting numerous dish and sectored mobile telecommunications antennas (Doncaster, Victoria, Australia) An antenna is a transducer designed to transmit or receive radio waves which are a class of electromagnetic waves. ...

NTSC 4.43

In what can be considered an opposite of PAL-60, NTSC 4.43 is a pseudo color system which transmits NTSC encoding (525/29.97) in a color subcarrier of 4.43 MHz instead of 3.58 MHz. The resulting output is only viewable by TVs which support the resulting pseudo-system (usually multi-standard TVs). Using a native NTSC TV to decode the signal yields no color, while using a PAL TV to decode the system yields erratic colors (observed to be lacking red and flickering randomly). The format is apparently limited to few early laserdisc players and some game consoles sold in markets where the PAL system is used. For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ...

The NTSC 4.43 system, while not a broadcast format, appears most often as a playback function of PAL cassette format VCRs, beginning with the Sony 3/4" U-Matic format and then following onto Betamax and VHS format machines. As Hollywood has the claim of providing the most cassette software (movies and television series) for VCRs for the world's viewers, and as not all cassette releases were made available in PAL formats, a means of playing NTSC format cassettes was highly desired.

Multi-standard video monitors were already in use in Europe to accommodate broadcast and professional needs regarding PAL, SECAM, and NTSC video formats from sources dedicated to just one of those formats. The heterodyne color-under process of U-Matic, Betamax & VHS lent itself to minor modification of VCR players to accommodate NTSC format cassettes. The color-under format of VHS uses a 629khz subcarrier while U-Matic & Betamax use a 688KHz subcarrier to carry an amplitude modulated chroma signal for both NTSC and PAL formats. Since the VCR was ready to play the color portion of the NTSC recording using PAL color mode, the PAL scanner and capstan speeds had to be adjusted upwards from PAL's slower 50Hz field rate to match NTSC's 59.94Hz field rate, and faster linear tape speed. In telecommunications, to heterodyne is to generate new frequencies by mixing two or more signals in a nonlinear device such as a vacuum tube, transistor, or diode mixer. ...

Although easier to do than explain, the changes to the PAL VCR are very minor thanks to the existing VCR recording formats. The output of the VCR when playing an NTSC cassette in NTSC 4.43 mode is 525 lines/29.97 frames per second with PAL compatible heterodyned color. The multi-standard receiver is already set to support the NTSC H & V frequencies; it just needs to do so while receiving PAL color.

The existence of those multi-standard receivers was probably part of the need for region coding of DVDs. As the color signals are component on disc for all display formats almost no changes would be required for PAL DVD players to play NTSC (525/29.97) discs as long as the display was frame-rate compatible.

NTSC-film

NTSC with a frame rate of 23.976 fps is described in the NTSC-film standard.

Vertical Interval Reference

The standard NTSC video image contains some lines (lines 1–21 of each field) which are not visible; all are beyond the edge of the viewable image, but only lines 1–9 are used for the vertical-sync and equalizing pulses. The remaining lines were deliberately blanked in the original NTSC specification to provide time for the electron beam in CRT-based screens to return to the top of the display.

VIR (or Vertical interval reference), widely adopted in the 1980s, attempts to correct some of the color problems with NTSC video by adding studio-inserted reference data for luminance and chrominance levels on line 19. [2] Suitably-equipped television sets could then employ these data in order to adjust the display to a closer match of the original studio image. The actual VIR signal contains three sections, the first having 70 percent luminance and the same chrominance as the color burst signal, and the other two having 50 percent and 7.5 percent luminance respectively. [3] Colorburst is a signal used to keep the chrominance subcarrier synchronized in a color television signal. ...

A less-used successor to VIR, GCR, also added ghost (multipath interference) removal capabilities. Ghost-canceling reference, or GCR, is a special sub-signal on a television channel that receivers can use to attenuate the ghosting effect of a television signal split into multiple paths between transmitter and receiver. ...

The remaining vertical blanking interval lines are typically used for datacasting or ancillary data such as video editing timestamps (vertical interval timecodes or SMPTE timecodes on lines 12–14 [4] [5]), test data on lines 17–18, a network source code on line 20 and closed captioning, XDS, and V-chip data on line 21. Early teletext applications also used vertical blanking interval lines 14–18 and 20, but teletext over NTSC was never widely adopted by viewers [6]. The vertical blanking interval (VBI), also known as the vertical interval or VBLANK, is the time difference between the last line of one frame or field of a raster display, and the beginning of the next. ... Datacasting (data broadcasting) is the broadcasting of data over a wide area via radio waves. ... Vertical interval timecode (VITC, pronounced vitsee or sometimes vits) is a form of SMPTE timecode embedded as black-and-white bars in a pair of the normally unseen vertical interval lines in a television signal. ... The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers or SMPTE (pronounced simptee or sometimes sumptee) is a US professional association of engineers. ... A commonly-used symbol indicating that a program or movie is closed-captioned. ... XDS (eXtended Data Services), previously known as EDS, is an American standard classfied under EIA standard EIA-766 for the delivery of any auxillary data to be sent with a television program, or NTSC video signal. ... V-chip is a generic term used for a feature of television receivers allowing the blocking of programs based on their ratings category. ... EIA-608, also known as line 21 captions, is the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States and Canada. ... A BBC Ceefax page from January 9, 2007. ...

Many PBS stations transmit TV Guide On Screen (TVGOS) data for an electronic programme guide on VBI line 17. Not to be confused with Public Broadcasting Services in Malta. ... Guide Plus+ (in Europe), TV Guide On Screen and Guide Plus+ Gold (in Northern America) or G-Guide (in Japan) is an interactive electronic programme guide system that is used in consumer electronics products, such as television sets, DVD recorders, personal video recorders, and other digital television devices. ...

Countries and territories using NTSC

North America

•  Canada, NTSC broadcast to be abandoned by August 2011, simulcast in ATSC ^[13]
•  Mexico, NTSC broadcast to be abandoned by 2022, simulcast in ATSC
•  United States, NTSC broadcast to be abandoned in 2009, simulcast in ATSC

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Mexico. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...

Central America and the Caribbean

Image File history File links Flag_of_Antigua_and_Barbuda. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Aruba. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Bahamas. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Barbados. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Belize. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Bermuda. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_British_Virgin_Islands. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Cayman_Islands. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Costa_Rica. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Cuba. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Dominica. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Dominican_Republic. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_El_Salvador. ... ATSC redirects here. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Guatemala. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Grenada. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Haiti. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Honduras. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Jamaica. ... The Leeward Islands are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Montserrat. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Netherlands_Antilles. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Nicaragua. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Panama. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Puerto_Rico. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Saint_Kitts_and_Nevis. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Saint_Lucia. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Saint_Vincent_and_the_Grenadines. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Trinidad_and_Tobago. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_United_States_Virgin_Islands. ... The United States Virgin Islands is a group of islands in the Caribbean that is a dependency of the United States. ...

South America

Image File history File links Flag_of_Bolivia. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Chile. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Colombia. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Ecuador. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Guyana. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Paraguay. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Peru. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Suriname. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Venezuela. ...

Asia

Image File history File links Flag_of_Japan. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Philippines. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_South_Korea. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China. ... For the Chinese civilization, see China. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Myanmar. ... Anthem: Kaba Ma Kyei Capital Naypyidaw Largest city Yangon (Rangoon) Official language(s) Burmese Government Military junta  - Chairman, SPDC Sr. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_North_Korea. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Cambodia. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Vietnam. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Thailand. ...

Pacific

US Territories

•  American Samoa
•  Guam
• Northern Mariana Islands
• Midway Atoll (a US military base)

Image File history File links Flag_of_American_Samoa. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Guam. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Northern_Mariana_Islands. ... Orthographic projection centred over Midway. ...

Other Pacific island nations

•  Marshall Islands (in Compact of Free Association with US; US aid funded NTSC adoption)
• Micronesia (in Compact of Free Association with US)
•  Palau (in Compact of Free Association with US; adopted NTSC before independence)
•  Samoa (closely tied to American Samoa; US aid funded NTSC adoption)
•  Tonga (US aid funded NTSC adoption)

Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Marshall_Islands. ... The Compact of Free Association (COFA) defines the relationship that three sovereign states—the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau—have entered into as associated states with the United States. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Micronesia. ... The Compact of Free Association (COFA) defines the relationship that three sovereign states—the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau—have entered into as associated states with the United States. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Palau. ... The Compact of Free Association (COFA) defines the relationship that three sovereign states—the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau—have entered into as associated states with the United States. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Samoa. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Tonga. ...

Historic (used NTSC experimentally before adopting PAL)

•  Fiji (Historic; used before 1989, Fiji has used PAL since 1990)

Image File history File links Flag_of_Fiji. ...

Indian Ocean

• Diego Garcia

Diego Garcia ( ) is an atoll located in the heart of the Indian Ocean, some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south of Indias southern coast. ...

Middle East

•  South Yemen (Historic; all of Yemen now uses PAL)

Image File history File links Flag_of_South_Yemen. ...   Capital Aden Language(s) Arabic Government Socialist state President Haidar Abu Bakr al-Attas Prime Minister Yasin Said Numan Historical era Cold War  - Independence November 30 1967  - UN membership December 14, 1967  - Constitution October 31, 1978  - Reunification May 22 1990 Area  - 1990 332,970 km2 Expression error: unrecognised punctuation character...

Europe

•  United Kingdom (Experimented with a 405-line variant of NTSC in the 1950s and 1960s; dropped in favor of PAL)

Image File history File links Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. ... The 405-line monochrome analogue television broadcasting system was the first electronic television system to be used in regular broadcasting. ... For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ...

See also

• Broadcast television systems
  • ATSC Standards
  • BTSC
  • NTSC-J
  • NTSC-US
  • PAL
  • RCA
  • SECAM
• Moving image formats
• Oldest television station
• Television channel frequencies
• Very high frequency
• Ultra high frequency
  • Knife-edge effect
  • Channel 1
  • Channel 37
  • North American broadcast television frequencies
  • North American cable television frequencies
  • Australasian TV frequencies
• U.S. cable television channel frequencies
• TVTower.com - Commercial Television Frequencies
• Broadcast safe

There are several broadcast television systems in use in the world today. ... ATSC redirects here. ... Multichannel television sound, better known as MTS (often still as BTSC, for the Broadcast Television Systems Committee that created it), is the method of encoding three additional channels of audio into an NTSC-format audio carrier. ... NTSC-J is a videogame region which covers Japan. ... NTSC-US is a videogame territory which covers the North American continent. ... For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ... RCA, formerly an acronym for the Radio Corporation of America, is now a trademark owned by Thomson SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Thomson. ... SECAM, also written SÉCAM (Séquentiel couleur à mémoire, French for Sequential Color with Memory), is an analog color television system first used in France. ... This article discusses moving image capture, transmission and presentation from todays technical and creative points of view; concentrating on the aspects of frame rates. ... // The title of Oldest Television Station is a controversial one, but can be assumed from several in Europe (particularly of England and Germany), and in the United States. ... The following tables show the frequencies assigned to broadcast television channels in various regions of the world, along with the ITU letter designator for the system used. ... Very high frequency (VHF) is the radio frequency range from 30 MHz (wavelength 10 m) to 300 MHz (wavelength 1 m). ... This article is about the radio frequency. ... In electromagnetic wave propagation, the knife-edge effect is a redirection by diffraction of a portion of the incident radiation that strikes a well-defined obstacle such as a mountain range or the edge of a building. ... In North America, channel 1 is a former broadcast (over-the-air) television channel (44-50 MHz, with visual at 45. ... In the United States and Canada, TV channel 37 occupies a band of frequencies from 608 to 614 MHz. ... In North America, terrestrial television is broadcast on designated channels numbered 2 through 69. ... North America cable television broadcast band Channels T-7 through T-14 are sub-band channels and are not used for normal television channel distribution. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...

Notes

Color Television Inc. ... is the 293rd day of the year (294th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 295th day of the year (296th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The New York Times is a daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed internationally. ... is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see NASA (disambiguation). ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 353rd day of the year (354th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 243rd day of the year (244th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC, in French Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes) was established in 1968 by the Canadian Parliament to replace the Board of Broadcast Governors. ...

References

• A standard defining the NTSC system was published by the International Telecommunication Union in 1998 under the title "Recommendation ITU-R BT.470-7, Conventional Analog Television Systems". It isn't publicly available on the Internet, but it can be purchased from the ITU.
• Ed Reitan (1997). CBS Field Sequential Color System.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU; French: Union internationale des télécommunications, Spanish: Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones) is an international organization established to standardize and regulate international radio and telecommunications. ...

External links

• Representation of the NTSC refresh rate on a television and on a DVD

The horizontal resolution numbers in the following tables and graphs may not reflect reality, when transmitted over an analog medium in NTSC format.

v • d • e Digital Video Resolutions
Designation	Usage Examples Definition (lines) Rate (Hz) Interlaced (fields) Progressive (frames)
Low; MP@LL	LDTV, VCD 240; 288 (SIF)   24, 30; 25
Standard; MP@ML	SDTV, SVCD, DVD, DV 480 (NTSC, PAL-M) 60 24, 30 576 (PAL, SECAM) 50 25
Enhanced	EDTV 480; 576   60; 50
High; MP@HL	HDTV, BD, HDV 720   24, 30, 60; 25, 50 1080 50, 60 24, 30; 25
This table illustrates total horizontal and vertical pixel resolution via box size. It does not accurately reflect the screen shape (aspect ratio) of these formats, which is either 4:3, or 16:9.