Unfortunately, the only thing standard about standards is the name. Video users often find themselves in a situation where a video tape must be used or sent to other countries.

Most countries use standard tape formats
[e.g. VHS - BETA -UMATIC - BETACAM - BETACAM SP - 1 INCH (SP) - BVU - SUPER VHS etc ] but there is no worldwide system standard. This means that even though your video tape will fit and even play in foreign machines it will not be viewable without a Standards or System Conversion.

You may wonder, why are there so many countries on different TV formats?

The answer: Who Knows? Even in such a modern world, a universal standard cannot be agreed upon. We hope that this documentation will help answer the question: Which country? Which System?

The technical difference [In Brief]

PAL 50hz 625 Lines Scan Rate 25 Fields Per Second

NTSC 60Hz 525 Lines Scan Rate 30 Fields Per Second

SECAM Similar to PAL but technical differences such as continual luminance transmission and 1 Horizontal delay line make it play Monochrome [Black and White] in a PAL system.

As with most things today, there are mutant versions that you may stumble across that were designed years ago by different organizations for one reason or another.

For example: Standard NTSC operates with a subcarrier of 3.58...there is another version of NTSC that operates with a subcarrier of 4.43. This was designed by the Armed Forces as a cheaper playback format only! What this means to you, the video user, is that a video conversion going to America, for example, must be recorded in true 3.58 NTSC not 4.43.

There are Multi Standard machines available that will play back NTSC -PAL and SECAM. These are fitted with 4.43 -Fine for playback only!

There are also Multi Standard Monitors [Televisions] many of these have 4.43 also. Once again, fine for a look at what's on your tape!

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