Are these tapes in Color? Do they have Sound?

Generally all our videos are in color, and have sound. Those that have a little black and white footage mixed in are noted as such, and videos that have music are usually mentioned as well. For the most part contemporary productions have color and live audio, except for some general audience titles that have some music as noted. No video programs are completely silent. There is music on some old films like the New Haven Videos, since there was no train audio to go with them.

What do I do if the tape plays poorly?

The common problem is tracking...There is a button on your VCR, or on the remote for the VCR that says "Tracking". Since the video cassette was not made on YOUR video machine, it may not line up 100% with yours. This does not happen often but when you see a lot of snow at the top of bottom, the tracking will clear it up normally. If tracking doesn't do the job, you may have a defective tape(a rare occurrence), in which case you should return it along with the GSVP invoice for a replacement.

What is PAL video?

PAL stands for Phase Alternation by Line, and was adopted in 1967. It has 625 horizontal lines making up the vertical resolution. 50 fields are displayed and interlaced per second, making for a 25 frame per second system. An advantage of this system is a more stable and consistent hue (tint). PAL-M is used only in Brazil. It has 525 lines, at 30 frames per second.

PAL countries include:

Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina (PAL-N), Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brunei, Cameroon, Canary Islands, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece (also SECAM), Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, North Korea, Kuwait, Liberia, Luxembourg (also SECAM), Madeira, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay (PAL-N), Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (also SECAM), Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay (PAL-N), Yemen (the former Yemen Arab Republic was PAL, and the former People's Democratic Republic of Yemen was NTSC ), Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

What is NTSC video?

NTSC stands for National Television System Committee, which devised the NTSC television broadcast system in 1953. NTSC is also commonly used to refer to one type of television signal that can be recorded on various tape formats such as VHS, 3/4" U-matic and Betacam-SP. The NTSC standard has a fixed vertical resolution of 525 horizontal lines stacked on top of each other, with varying amounts of "lines" making up the horizontal resolution, depending on the electronics and formats involved. There are 59.94 fields displayed per second. A field is a set of even lines, or odd lines. The odd and even fields are displayed sequentially, thus interlacing the full frame. One full frame, therefore, is made of two interlaced fields, and is displayed about every 1/30 of a second.

NTSC countries are:

USA, Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Burma, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Greenland, Guam, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, St. Kitts, Saipan, Samoa, Surinam, Taiwan, Tobago, Trinidad, Venezuela, Virgin Islands.

The following countries were listed as Monochrome 625/50 in one resource: Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia (or PAL or SECAM in other resources).

Multi-system VCR's - Many companies now offer mult-system video cassette player/recorders that will play several formats of tape, including NTSC, PAL, and SECAM. One simply changes a switch.