Most countries of the world use TV Standards that are incompatible with other countries. For example, a video recording made in the Germany could not be played back on a American standard VCR or shown on the American TV. You can read more about this topic and its solutions on our FAQs page. There are three main world standards and the rest are minor branches of these main systems. The systems are NTSC, PAL, SECAM. The charts below give a description of each standard and the technical variations within them.

NTSC:
Which is sometimes misspelled as NSTC. The first color TV broadcast system was implemented in the United States in 1953. This was based on the NTSC (National Television System Committee) standard. NTSC is used by many countries on the American continent as well as many Asian countries including Japan. NTSC runs on 525 lines/frame.

PAL:
The PAL (Phase Alternating Line) standard was introduced in the early 1960's and implemented in most European countries except for France. The PAL standard utilizes a wider channel bandwidth than NTSC which allows for better picture quality. PAL runs on 625 lines/frame.

SECAM:
The SECAM (Sequential Couleur Avec Memoire or Sequential Color with Memory) standard was introduced in the early 1960's and implemented in France. SECAM uses the same bandwidth as PAL but transmits the color information sequentially. SECAM runs on 625 lines/frame and is mainly used in France for broadcasting. DVDs in France are in PAL format. VHS tapes after 2002 are also PAL format.

We sell everything you need for world wide travel and use: PAL/NTSC/SECAM Multi System TVs,  Multi Region Blu-Ray Players, Region Free DVD Players, Pal/Ntsc Video Converters, Step up/down Voltage Transformers and more!