NTSC

The National Television Standards Committee standard of 525-lines in use by USA, Canada and Japan.

NTSC has a lower vertical resolution than PAL but has a greater number of frames per second (30fps) and a higher refresh rate (60Hz). The lower vertical resolution makes the NTSC picture less clear than the PAL equivalent - scan lines are also much more visible on an NTSC picture.

The conversion from the theatrical 24fps to the NTSC 30fps involves a process where for every 5 frames displayed one is repeated - this introduces a 'feature' known as 3:2 Pulldown that can cause the picture to appear jumpy on horizontal pans.