Public Committee Drafts

Public Committee Drafts Overview

Public Committee Drafts (PCDs) are open documents that are distributed for review and comment by the professional community for a limited time. Distribution of public CDs does not constitute publication, as the material remains work under development. Therefore, public CDs shall not be referred to as a SMPTE Standard, Recommended Practice, or Engineering Guideline. 

The process is designed to satisfy, among others, the following industry needs:

• Orient public CDs towards published business-driven requirements
• Lightweight and nimble process
• Allow public comment (not just the SMPTE Standards Community) to encourage wide review (and trial implementation)
• Make it easy to follow the rules, provide a checklist of actions because no-one reads the manual
• Make it easier for trade bodies to work with SMPTE
• Validate that documents meet the published requirements
• Validate that the development of the public CD has followed an agreed process
• Limit the time that a public CD exists before it becomes a stable document type

You can read more about public CDs, their purpose and process in an updated SMPTE AG-22 available at https://doc.smpte-doc.org/ag-22/main/.

Public CDs are managed in GitHub. GitHub is used as a store of repositories for SMPTE software projects, as a tool for iterative document development and maintenance, and is used for SMPTE code development as well as issue tracking and resolution.

Feedback on any of the public CDs can be submitted through the GitHub Issue Tracking feature.

Current and Completed Public CDs

Public CD listings currently within the active review period provide live links to their document repositories.