NTSC

NTSC (an acronym of National Television System Committee) was the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. It was one of three major color formats for analog television; the others were PAL and SECAM. NTSC color was usually associated with System M, and this combination was sometimes called NTSC II. A second NTSC standard was adopted in 1953, which allowed color television compatible with the existing stock of black-and-white sets. The EIA defined NTSC performance standards in EIS-170 (also known as RS-170) in 1957. The term "NTSC" has referred to digital formats with 480 active lines and a 30 or 29.97 FPS frame rate since the introduction of digital sources such as DVDs, and is a digital shorthand for System M. The NTSC-film standard has a digital resolution of 720 × 480 pixels for DVD-Videos, 480 × 480 pixels for Super Video CDs (SVCD, aspect ratio 4:3) and 352 × 240 pixels for Video CDs (VCD). The digital video (DV)-camcorder format equivalent of NTSC is 720 × 480 pixels. The digital television (DTV) equivalent is 704 × 480 pixels.