The country's electric current

Televisions, many radios, video and DVD players, as well as videotapes, are often specific to the broadcast system used in the country that they are sold in, usually associated with the frequency of the country's electric current. For example, North America is 60 Hz and its television is 30 frames per second, while Europe is 50 Hz and its television is 25 frames per second. The main three television broadcast systems are PAL, the closest to a worldwide standard, NTSC, used mostly in the Americas and some East Asian countries (notably Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan) and SECAM, originally from France and adopted by much of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but there are various incompatibilities even within these supposed standards. There is no difference between PAL and SECAM for unconverted DIGITAL video including DVDs. However, any analog output to a television set would be in the native format of the country of location. Brazil uses a hybrid PAL/NTSC standard called "PAL-M". In Brazil, DVDs and video tape are the same as NTSC (without region coding -- see below), but all players and TV sets are useless outside the country unless they have a separate NTSC setting.

Before purchasing any video equipment, read the manual and warranty carefully. For TVs and VCRs don't forget about cable television frequencies; they may not be the same, even if everything else is. Television sets often won't work correctly in another country from where they were sold, even if the voltage and video standard are the same. For example, a television set made for the USA will skip a few channels in Japan. Unless you have an internationally compatible device you may find your expensive looking system is little more than worthless junk in another country because it won't work with your country's broadcast system. Your warranty is probably only valid in the country of purchase, and you may need to return the goods to the place you purchased them from.

DVDs, infuriatingly, have a completely artificial limitation introduced in the form of region coding, which attempts to limits the region where the discs can be used, as a technique to keep the various regions as separate markets. For example, a Region 1 player in North America will not play a Region 3 DVD from Hong Kong. The workaround are to obtain either a regionless DVD player which ignores the code, purchase multi-region discs (regions 1 & 3 in this case), or better yet, region 0 discs that can be played on any device.

Technically, there is no such thing as a NTSC or PAL DVD disc, as all color information is the same for both. When discs are labeled as such, what they're refering to is the picture size and frame rate (i.e. number of frames per second) that are used in most (but not all!) countries that have TV broadcasts on this same system. Many NTSC players cannot play PAL DVDs, unless that's a specific feature included (many Philips and JVC models include this). PAL DVD players are generally much better at playing NTSC, but it's not a certainty. If all else fails, a computer DVD-ROM can play any DVD movie (not including HD & Blu-ray), though there's a limit on how many times you can change the region code. Unlike analogue televison sets, computer monitors can automatically handle both 25 (PAL & SECAM) and 30 (NTSC) frames per second, as well as various picture sizes. This also applies to LCD and plasma "flat panel" television sets, but don't expect their tuner to be compatible outside the country in which they were sold.

Videocameras can usually be charged with both electrical systems so you can record during travels and view it back home. Digital cameras and videocameras can usually output to both PAL, NTSC, and SECAM, so you can view your recording while travelling. Bring an RCA (yellow plug) to SCART adaptor if you plan to view video from a camcorder on a European television set.