Standard-Definition Standards

Despite the variations, there are only two fundamental video standards you’ll encounter in the standard-definition production universe, as outlined in the following sections.

525/59.94, a.k.a “NTSC”

Video in North America, Japan, and South Korea is based on the NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) broadcast standard. Although NTSC refers to a specific manner of encoding a composite video signal with subcarrier-modulated color, it’s often used as shorthand for all the video formats that conform to NTSC’s standards for timing, frequency, frame rate, and line count.