2. Why don't they standardize Worldwide on one TV system? To do this, all TV's, video recorders, transmitting stations, etc. would have to be fundamentally changed to one standard all at once which would be prohibitive in cost to stations and consumers. This is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future however the SECAM standard is being phased out in favor of PAL leaving the main Worlwide formats at PAL (Europe) and NTSC ( USA).

Even the coming of the digtial video disks (DVD) have not overcome the different standards for viewing on TV around the world. AIV-Video.com can assist with converting tapes or disks to and from any World TV standard.
ZONES. Zones used to control where copyrighted DVDs can be played are not a different TV standard but a commercial security measure. AIV-Video.com does not copy or convert copyrighted material.

3. How compatible are video tapes worldwide?
There are 3 or 4 basic systems or standards. These roughly follow the geopolitical histories of the USA, Western Europe and France.
NTSC: USA, Japan, etc.
PAL: Britain, Germany, most of Western Europe etc., except France
SECAM (V) France, Russia, etc. *
SECAM (H): Middle East, etc. *
*SECAM systems are losing ground to PAL. PAL is technically favored over SECAM in these areas for production and editing work and for consumer camcorders, VCR's and Multi-standard TV's. We recommend that PAL be used for these countries.
To play a tape from one country in another, a conversion needs to take place. Otherwise the picture will be "snow" or rolling/flashing in black and white with the sound off speed.

4. What is standards conversion?
For example, to go from NTSC to PAL the number in lines on the signal to the TV set goes from 525 to 625 (lines have to be added). The number of frames per second goes from 30 to 25 (frames have to be dropped). The encoding of the color signal changes and the speed of the VHS tape changes to accommodate the different amount of signal recorded on the tape.

5. How is conversion achieved?
A Digital conversion processor uses multiple storage of fields or frames in a digitized format. This data is reassembled at high speed into the new standard and output continuously split second behind the input signal. This method uses high quantities of high speed solid state memory and special microprocessors to control the breaking up and reassembly of all the data. It is highly specialized and expensive equipment and therefore the best standards conversion is not cheap. However, it provides a conversion with almost no noticeable loss of picture quality and therefore is the only acceptable method for professional use. For consumer work there is excellent "prosumer" equipment to ensure that even if the quality of the tape to be converted is not good, the process will yield maximum retention of picture quality.