NTSC-PAL Converters are also called Standards Converters and allow you to convert video signals between a wide variety of worldwide broadcast television standards, such as NTSC, PAL and SECAM. Bi-directional conversion allows you to go in both directions. For example, if you have a video tape from Europe in the PAL standard and a PAL VCR, you can play it back through a Standards Converter and change it to an NTSC signal to view it on a regular USA-type TV Set or record it onto a standard USA-type VCR.

(1) Full Digital Conversion and Processing provides better overall performance, less video noise in the picture, superior motion compensation and a built-in Time Base Corrector to compensate for unstable video tapes.

(2) Digital Conversion meaning the actual conversion process is digital, but some of the support circuitry is analog, is fine for normal applications where there are few fast motion scenes, such as car chases. These type scenes may result in some motion artifacts in the picture.

(3) Analog Conversion is very basic and only converts the image enough to make it visible on a TV Set and is not suitable for recording the resulting converted video on a VCR. In some cases, Analog conversion results in a black and white image instead of color.

A number of countries appear in more than one standard.These countries have (or have had) more than one standard in operation.

A quick note on NTSC 4.43 (525 lines, 60 fields, 15.734KHz line, Sub-Carrier 4.43MHz)

This isn't really a standard at all, though it does crop up occasionally. Inexpensive VHS and DVD players which claim 'NTSC playback on a PAL TV' often output NTSC 4.43. They do not perform a standards conversion as such, but merely convert the color information to something which resembles 4.43MHz PAL. The line and field rates are not modified at all, leaving it it up to the timebase of the downsteam equipment to lock up (hopefully!). On some sets this works well, on others an assortment of squashed looking pictures may result.

A few notes on SECAM

Owing to the somewhat poor documentation (in English at least!) of this format, all SECAM countries have been grouped together in the table above. There are several variations on the theme including horizontal, vertical and MESECAM.

MESECAM  uses an AM color subcarrier (allegedly) and is popular in the Middle East, where as the original French SECAM version uses an FM color subcarrier.

SECAM uses only a single FM carrier for the color information, and so only one color difference signal can be transmitted at any one time. R-Y and B-Y are sent on alternate lines (a delay line in the receiver makes up for the chroma 'holes' left on every other line). In its original form (so called VERTICAL SECAM) lines 7-15 and 320-328 contained a chroma synchronisation sawtooth. These indicate to the receiver the order of the incoming R-Y & B-Y lines of color (referred to as DR & DB). Being rather wasteful of bandwidth, this system has been dropped in later sets. The frequency of the color burst (which is different for each color difference signals) can be used to make the identification instead. This system is referred to as HORIZONTAL SECAM.

It is interesting to note that most material transmitted in these counties originates in PAL, and is transcoded to SECAM prior to transmission. This is due to the fact that the SECAM signal is difficult to edit, and near impossible to dissolve/mix. This is something of a moot point thanks to the arrival of component production techniques, where the chroma signal need not be modulated onto the luma at all.