NTSC (National Television System Committee) is the television broadcasting standard used widely in North America. It is referred to as a 525-line standard, but actually displays only 480 lines. NTSC is to be replaced with new DTV (Digital TV) standards in the coming years.

PAL (Phase Alternating Line) standard was introduced in the early 1960's and was implemented widely in Europe. It has a wider channel bandwidth than NTSC as it runs on 635 lines.

SECAM (Sequential Couleur avec Mémoire) broadcasts 819 lines of resolution per second and is the television broadcast standard in France, the Middle East, and many of Eastern Europe.