What do NTSC and PAL stand for?
NTSC stands for National Television Standards Committee and refers to the North American television broadcast standard. The standard was set in 1941 and was updated to enable color broadcast in 1953. The NTSC signal is an interlaced signal transmitted at 60 fields, or 30 frames, per second. Each field consists of 241 1/2 active lines. Odd fields display odd lines (i.e. 1, 3, 5), and even fields display even lines (i.e. 2, 4, 6). Thus, an NTSC display consists of 483 active lines (525 total lines). When color was added to the NTSC signal, it was imperative that it be backwards compatible, so that the broadcast would be displayed in color on color television sets and in black and white on black and white sets. NTSC (or composite) video signals transmit both color and luminance information on one single wire. PAL stands for Phase Alternate Line and is the broadcast standard in many countries worldwide. It was developed in Great Britain in the late 1950s. PAL is similar to NTSC, but displa
