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NTSC

Webopedia Staff
Last Updated May 24, 2021 7:50 am

Short for National Television System Committee. The NTSC is responsible for setting television and video standards in the United States (in Europe and the rest of the world, the dominant television standards are PAL and SECAM). The NTSC standard for television defines a composite video signal with a refresh rate of 60 half-frames(interlaced) per second. Each frame contains 525 lines and can contain 16 million different colors.

The NTSC standard is incompatible with most computer video standards, which generally use RGB video signals. However, you can insert special video adapters into your computer that convertNTSC signals into computer video signals and vice versa.