To make it simple, (M) NTSC is the color video standard used in North America and some other parts of world to get video into your home and to record onto video tape. One of the requirements for the color television broadcast standard that the NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) created in the 1950s was that it had to be capable of being received on a black-and- white set. When it came down to selecting what color space to use for this new color TV standard, RGB couldn't be used since all three colors, or planes, are independent. This means that each plane-red, green, or blue-has the same chance, or probability, of representing the picture as any other, so all three are needed. How could a black-and-white set, that receives only one plane, receive three? The answer was, it couldn't.

The NTSC decided to make a new color space based on a black and white component and two color difference signals. Since, in the RGB space, each color has as good a chance of representing the image as any other color (equal bandwidth), the black-and-white component is made up of portions of all three colors. This black and white component is often referred to as the luma. The two color difference signals were developed by taking the red signal minus the luma, and taking the blue signal minus the luma. Thus, the color space for (M) NTSC is a luma component (Y') with red minus luminance (R'-Y') and blue minus luminance (B'-Y'). After a little bit of mathematics, the R'-Y' component turns into an I component while the B'-Y' component turns into a Q component. I and Q are modulated and added together to create the chroma, which contains all of the color information for the picture. The color information is then added to the black-and-white information. Therefore, the (M) NTSC system is just like a black-and-white sketch with a water color wash painted over it for color.

The (M) NTSC system uses 525 lines per frame, a 29.97 frame per second update rate, and the Y'IQ color space. Modern (M) NTSC encoders and decoders may also use the Y, R-Y, B-Y or YU V color space instead.