Using AFD to Maintain Creative Control of Programming

The 2009 Analog Shutdown has changed how broadcast programming is delivered to the home. Programming content will continue to originate in both SD and HD for many years, so broadcasters have been forced to find ways to maintain the presentation quality for each home viewer. In 2007, SMPTE standardized Active Format Description (AFD) with SMPTE 2016–1 and 2016–3. AFD has become the cornerstone of some broadcasters' strategies for management of aspect ratio throughout the delivery path to the home. With thousands of different touch points, end-to-end deployment of AFD has been a challenge, but significant progress has been made. How are broadcasters utilizing AFD in the post DTV transition landscape? What steps have been taken to deploy AFD throughout the end-to-end delivery path to the home? This paper answers these questions and provides technical background on many of these issues.