NTSC, named after the National Television System Committee,[1] is the analog television system that was used in most of the Americas (except Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and French Guiana), Myanmar, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories (see map).

Most countries using the NTSC standard, as well as those using other analog television standards, have switched to newer digital television standards, there being at least four different standards in use around the world. North America, parts of Central America, and South Korea are adopting the ATSC standards, while other countries are adopting or have adopted other standards.

Various consumer digital video formats have standards designed to work with NTSC TVs. These include VCD, SVCD, DVD, and DV. Below is a table showing the standard Resolutions for each format. In the case of DV, the Full Frame represents the Active Area of the Frame, meaning you may need to resize and add borders to the sides when converting to other formats like MPEG-2 for DVD. DVD players may also implement the digital to analog conversion improperly, resulting in the Full Frame being squeezed into the analog video's Active Area.

Format NTSC Resolution

DVD: 720x480, 704x480, 352x480, 352x240

SVCD: 480x480

VCD: 352x240

Countries and territories using NTSC

United States, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.

The first NTSC standard was developed in 1941 and had no provision for color television. In 1953 a second NTSC standard was adopted, which allowed for color television broadcasting which was compatible with the existing stock of black-and-white receivers. NTSC was the first widely adopted broadcast color system and remained dominant until the first decade of the 21st century, when it was replaced with digital ATSC. After nearly 70 years, the majority of over-the-air NTSC transmissions in the United States ceased on June 12, 2009, and by August 31, 2011, in Canada and most other NTSC markets[citation needed]. Digital broadcasting allows higher-resolution television, but digital standard definition television continues to use the frame rate and number of lines of resolution established by the analog NTSC standard; systems using the NTSC frame and line rate (such as DVDs) are still referred to informally as "NTSC". NTSC video signals are still used in video playback (typically of recordings from existing libraries using existing equipment) and in CCTV and surveillance video systems. Broadcast of analog television signals by organizations exempt from the mandated upgrade continue as of January 2014; one example of such is Daystar, a religious organization.