Originally posted by R-Tillery What's ntsc? National Television Standards Committee - that is the tv norm for america. in europe usually PAL ( Phase Alternating Line) or SECAM is used. the basic difference of pal and ntsc is that pal has 50 half-frames per second (25 fps) and ntsc has 60 (30 fps). the resolution of pal has 625 lines per frame (576 are used for the image) and ntsc has 525 lines per frame (480 are used for the image). a vhs cassete is the same for pal or ntsc - but if it got recorded in ntsc, then it is incompatible with a pal vcr.