I work in the TV elctronics universe, and I had a Sony sales rep tell
me that you are always better off buying a Japanese named product
because their NIST
required certain minimum standards. And I have seen the same VHS VCR
with a Panasonic name tag and RCA and GE that looked the same.
However the inside was very different. The USA versions had fewer parts
and
did not have anywhere near the signal to noise in the video playback.
I think the name of the organizaton was JIS.
Terry