Daily LifePlaying American videos and cassettes in France

NTCS formatted videos and cassettes, the format used in America and Canada, are easily playable in France as long as you buy a multi-speed (bi-vitesse) VCR (Magnétoscope). The VCR you buy should have NTCS marked somewhere on the packaging or its front cover, it all else fails ask the salesperson, assuming you can find one, if the VCR you would like to buy plays American videos and cassettes.

The normal format in Europe is PAL, France also has it own format - SECAM, but I have seen little of this format as of late.

Recently we bought a non-name brand VCR for around 150 euro and so far we have had very little trouble playing videos and cassettes sent over from States. Our VCR automatically detects what type of videos or cassettes are inserted and then after a few seconds of adjusting the tracking we clearly see the picture.