Advanced Television Systems Committee. Formed to establish technical standards for advanced television systems, including digital high definition television (HDTV). 1750 K Street NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20006. Tel: 202-828-3130. Fax: 202-828-3131. Email: atsc@atsc.org . Internet: www.atsc.org . ATSC Formats are 18 voluntary video formats, known as Table 3. The U.S. digital television transmission standard using MPEG-2 compression and the audio surround-sound compressed with Dolby Digital (AC-3). So that a wide variety of source material, including that from computers, can be best accommodated, two line standards are included, each operating at 24, 30, and 60 Hz. The Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA) has said that all receivers will be capable of operating with all of the formats. All pixels are square and pixel sampling rates vary, but all are around 75 MHz. There is a Transport Layer that packages video, audio and auxiliary data and allows their mix to be dynamically varied, opening the door to new services and forms of programming (e.g., many channels of stereo audio, distribution of computer software, or very high resolution images). The data is compressed to 19.39 Mbits per second and delivered using a 6 MHz bandwidth channel. HD and SD assignments are per ATSC announcement on February 20, 1998. Note that 1,088 lines are actually coded in order to satisfy the MPEG-2 requirement that the coded vertical size be a multiple of 16 (progressive scan) or 32 (interlaced scan). See also: HD0, HD1, HD2, MPEG-2, HDTV.