What does NTSC mean?

[XXxJOExXX]

What does it mean if the backup is in the NTSC version?

[Bkball boy]

>
>What does it mean if the backup is in the NTSC version?
>

it means it's the american version

[Cool Games]

True, it does sorta mean "american version", but to be exact, it stands for National Television Standards Commission, a group of TV Techs who designed and standardized the way television signals would broadcast to American televisions in the early days of TV, and is still used today.

We'll spare you the whole technical jargon on scan lines, fields and frames of video, and whatnot... but the long and short of it is that videogames must playback in NTSC, the acronym given to the TV Standard for North American TV, because that is the way TVs are set up to receive video.

Incidentally, the Japanese standard for television broadcast is called PAL, although we couldn't offer you the translation for that acronym.
 

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[Kevin]

PAL = Phase Alternate Line
NTSC = Never the same colour

Kevin

[Victor Ireland]

In article <19990619140202...@ng-fu1.aol.com>, xxxj...@aol.com says...

> What does it mean if the backup is in the NTSC version?
>

From "whatis.com" :
'The NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) was responsible for developing, in
1953, a set of standard protocols for television (TV) broadcast transmission and reception
in the United States. Other standards were adopted in the rest of the world. The NTSC
standards have not changed significantly since their inception, except for the addition of
new parameters for color signals. NTSC signals are not directly compatible with computer
systems.

In recent years, there has been increasing pressure to adopt a new set of TV standards.
One of the proposed protocols is known as high-definition television (HDTV). Ideally, the
HDTV standard that is ultimately adopted will be directly compatible with computer
systems. However, there are engineering problems associated with this. Some industry
experts fear such compatibility could dramatically increase the cost of a conventional TV
set.

An NTSC TV image has 525 horizontal lines per frame (complete screen image). These lines
are scanned from left to right, and from top to bottom. Every other line is skipped. Thus
it takes two screen scans to complete a frame: one scan for the odd-numbered horizontal
lines, and another scan for the even-numbered lines. Each half-frame screen scan takes
approximately 1/60 of a second; a complete frame is scanned every 1/30 second. This
alternate-line scanning system is known as interlacing.

Adapters exist that can convert NTSC signals to digital video that a computer can
"understand." Conversely, there are devices that can convert computer video to NTSC
signals, allowing a TV receiver to be used as a computer display. But because a
conventional TV receiver has lower resolution than a typical computer monitor, this does
not work well for all computer applications, even if the TV screen is very large.'

Reader's Digest version: NTSC is the North American TV system version of something, in
this case, probably an illegal CD-ROM copy of a Playstation game. If you spent more
time studying and less time shopping for WaReZ of games you'll play once and put
on a shelf because they have little real value to you due to the method you used
to obtain them, you're going to be better off in the long run. Perhaps even smart
enough to answer a similar question in the future for a similiarly misguided soul off
the top of your head.

--
Don't Believe the Hype -
Vic

[Steve Liu]

In article <376BEA68...@coolgamesonline.com>,
Cool Games <coo...@coolgamesonline.com> wrote:

>True, it does sorta mean "american version", but to be exact, it stands
>for National Television Standards Commission, a group of TV Techs who
>designed and standardized the way television signals would broadcast to
>American televisions in the early days of TV, and is still used today.

>We'll spare you the whole technical jargon on scan lines, fields and
>frames of video, and whatnot... but the long and short of it is that
>videogames must playback in NTSC, the acronym given to the TV Standard
>for North American TV, because that is the way TVs are set up to receive
>video.

>Incidentally, the Japanese standard for television broadcast is called
>PAL, although we couldn't offer you the translation for that acronym.

PAL stands for Phase Alternate Line I think.

However.

Japan uses NTSC. Otherwise, the import scene would be a lot more
expensive. Europe and Australia use PAL.

Just remember:
NTSC -> Never Twice Same Color (sloppy work, must be US)
PAL -> Picture Always Lousy (poor SFX, must be the BBC)

:)
==============================================================================
Steve C. Liu Internet address: koal...@radix.net
"I can do anything I like!" The Doctor: Remembrance of the Daleks
This sig has been brought to you by... Frungy! The Sport of Kings!
==============================================================================

[Cool Games]

Coming from a television background, you'd think I would have remembered the PAL origin... oh well.

Sorry for the misrepresentation on that one, however, I'm pretty close to the NTSC definition. (Committee or Commission, I was close.)

It's funny to see the 'never the same color' twice slogan so widely known outside of the tv biz...

[Ian Firth]

Never Twice the Same Color...

--
Regards,
Ian Firth - ian at divsoft dot com
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