Video display standards

Video display standards

[edit] Digital television

New formats for digital television broadcasts use the MPEG-2 video codec and include:

• ATSC - USA, Canada, etc.; a DVB video standard
• Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) - European
• Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB) - Japanese; also a DVB video standard

[edit] Analog television

Analog television broadcast standards include:

• Field-sequential color system - USA, Russia; obsolete
• Multiplexed Analogue Components (MAC) - Europe, obsolete
• Multiple sub-nyquist sampling Encoding (MUSE) - Japan, analog HDTV
• NTSC - USA, Canada, Japan, etc.
• PAL - Europe, Asia, Australia, etc.
  • PAL-M - PAL variation. Brazil
  • PALplus - PAL extension, Europe only
• RS-343 (military)
• SECAM - France, ex-USSR, Central Africa

An analog video format consists of more information than the visible content of the frame. Preceding and following the image are lines and pixels containing synchronization information or a time delay. This surrounding margin is known as a blanking interval or blanking region; the horizontal and vertical front porch and back porch are the building blocks of the blanking interval.

Many countries are planning a digital switchover to cease using these analog formats via terrestrial television broadcast. However, analog television sets expecting these older standards as input will be able to display standard definition digital signals if coupled with a converter box.