Collection of work/projects I've done involving NTSC.
Check out the diagram below that outlines the components of an NTSC signal for broadcasting images in YUV color with audio. To simplify as much as possible, NTSC allows for the transmission of a YUV image at either 29.97 or 59.94 frames per second. This is done by projecting either ~486 or ~242 horizontal lines of image onto the display, respectively. There is no hard resolution such as this on each line. Instead, the analog signal that occupies the indicated 52.6 microseconds below compose the data on each line. For the purposes of handling this digitally, I broke that space into 526 samples, creating 526 'pixels'. With this decision, my digital NTSC implementation therefore runs at 10 million samples per second, which seems to approximate the true analog signal well enough for hobby purposes.
All together, if running with the ~60 FPS non-interlaced standard, this means that a 526x242 image will be converted to NTSC and output. This is not to say however that the produced image will be at such an aspect ratio. If you intend to receive the signal on a 4:3 display, start out with a 4:3 image. The resize to 526x242 is only for the purpose of packaging the signal into the NTSC signal, and its display aspect ratio is wholly determined at the output display (such as a television).
