Can videotapes recorded in the United States be used overseas?
Generally no. The reverse is true as well: videotapes recorded overseas cannot be used in the United States, except on specialized equipment. The United States uses a television standard called NTSC (for “National Television System Committee”), which is not a worldwide standard. Historically, the problem with NTSC was twofold. First, electric current in the U.S. is 60 cycles per second, which provided engineers a simple timing reference, so it was very natural to create a 30 frames-per-second video standard here. In countries with 50-cycle current, NTSC did not make sense. Second, most nations began broadcasting several years after the United States and, by the time they did, several significant improvements in image quality were possible. Not being committed to NTSC-compatible equipment, they went with a better standard. Today NTSC, which uses 525 lines per frame (and actually 59.95 fields-or interlaced half-frames-per second) is used throughout North America, western South America, J
