The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has published a guideline aimed at creators and distributors of video content. The "Recommended Practice" document is entitled "Conversion of ATSC Signals for Distribution to NTSC Viewers," and was released on Jan. 7. It is aimed at television broadcasters and others involved in ATSC standard- and high-definition video production, as well as to the operators of cable and satellite distribution systems for this content.

The new work is referred to as Recommended Practice A/79 and provides specific guidance of system architectures for multichannel video program distribution systems involved in acquiring ATSC signals and converting them to meet the needs of viewers equipped with NTSC receivers and other analog devices.

"The effort to develop A/79 is another example of inter-industry cooperation to help ensure that the digital television transition is a smooth as possible for all consumers," said Glenn Reitmeier, chair of the ATSC board of directors. "This new ATSC Recommended Practice provides technical guidance on the retransmission of over-the-air broadcast DTV signals to analog viewers on multichannel delivery systems."

The 28 page document addresses such matters as PSIP, closed captioning and aspect ratio and may be viewed and downloaded from the ATSC Web site, http://www.atsc.org/standards/a_79.pdf