NTSCM

NTSCM is an acronym that can refer to more than one concept, but in media technology it is commonly a shorthand for NTSC-M, the North American variant of the analog television standard developed by the National Television System Committee (NTSC). The NTSC-M system governs color encoding and broadcasting in the United States, Canada, and several other regions. It was introduced in the early 1950s to add color while maintaining compatibility with existing monochrome receivers. NTSC-M specifies a frame rate of approximately 29.97 frames per second and a total of 525 lines per frame, of which around 480 are typically visible. The color information is carried by a high-frequency subcarrier near 3.58 MHz, designed to minimize interference with luminance signals and to allow black-and-white sets to display a grayscale image. The system uses interlaced scanning, with two fields per frame, producing 60 fields per second.

With the transition to digital television, analog NTSC-M has largely been phased out in favor of digital standards such as ATSC in North America, though NTSC-M signals may still be encountered in legacy equipment and certain testing contexts. NTSCM, as an acronym, is not standardized on its own and may be encountered in documentation where NTSC-M is abbreviated. Outside broadcasting, NTSCM has not established a single widely recognized meaning, and its interpretation is highly context-dependent.

In summary, NTSCM most often points to the NTSC-M broadcast standard in technical discussions, while recognizing that the exact meaning can vary by field or document. See also NTSC, NTSC-J, ATSC.