DTV Innovations

DTV Innovations is a US-based, privately held company that develops software and hardware which enable television broadcasters to deliver programming reliably to their viewers, specifically through inclusion of data conforming to Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP), mandated by the FCC. PSIP data, as defined by the American Television Standards Committee (ATSC) Standard A/65, is a collection of tables and information designed to operate within every digital broadcast transport stream and includes critical data which describes the information at the system and event levels for all virtual channels carried within a broadcaster’s transport stream. Without this PSIP data, broadcast programming cannot be received or viewed by any television receiver. Additionally, PSIP is the basis for the Electronic Program Guide which is displayed on all ATSC-compatible digital TV receivers and used by viewers to review information regarding the program and make selections for viewing and recording.
Company background
DTV Innovations was founded in September 2002 as a Broadcast Products Group within LINX Electronics, Inc., to provide engineering and development support for one of the company’s investors, broadcast station group owner Liberty Corporation, during Liberty’s transition from analog transmission to Digital Television and ATSC broadcasting.
In June, 2004, LINX Electronics was acquired by Micronas Semiconductors Inc. (MSI), the US subsidiary of the German parent company, Micronas Semiconductors Holding AG. The acquisition was based on the intellectual property owned by LINX Electronics. Subsequently, in December 2005, Micronas determined that the Broadcast Products Group was no longer a key part of their core business and elected to spin off the Broadcast Products Group to DTV Innovations, LLC, a newly formed company located in Palatine, IL, owned by Mercantile Capital Group, a private equity fund investor.
In 2014, Benitius Handjojo acquired 100% ownership of DTV Innovations and became Chief Executive Officer. Under the new management, DTV Innovations continued to provide critically necessary support to ATSC broadcasters, but with a new vision towards expanding the company to prepare for the next generation of television broadcast requirements.
In November, 2016, DTV Innovations completed the acquisition of the professional video contribution product line from International Datacasting Corporation (IDC). The acquisition brought a line of professional, hardware-based MPEG-2 and MPEG-4/H.264 encoding and decoding products, initially developed under the brands of Tiernan and Logic Innovations prior to their acquisition by IDC. In conjunction with the acquisition, DTV Innovations opened their Research and Development Facility in San Diego, CA.
Also in 2016, as a result of the company’s continued growth and expansion, the corporate headquarters were relocated to a larger facility in Elgin, IL, approximately four times the size of their previous location. This move allowed DTV Innovations to better support the larger volume of domestic and international broadcast customers with expanded capacity for engineering, manufacturing, and critical support operations.
Importance of PSIP
Today, more than one-half of the terrestrial broadcast television stations that are received and viewed in the US are reliant upon the PSIP software integration provided by DTV Innovations. Owned and operated stations (O&O) from major US television networks including all CBS O&O, all NBC O&O, all FOX O&O, and all Univision O&O, as well as affiliated stations from each network including ABC are broadcasting today with PSIP data provided by DTV Innovations products. Group television station owners, such as Gray Television, Tribune Media, News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG), Grupo Imagen (Mexico), plus many of the member stations of PBS are among the many broadcasters that depend on DTV Innovations as a critical component to maintain their 24/7 broadcast operations.
DTV Innovations products are developed and built using common industry technology platforms and environments. The company is an active participant in several industry organizations, including the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE)
Mobile wireless service providers continue to expand their offerings, but have been limited by the available space that can be allocated by the FCC. At the same time, it was determined that television broadcasters in the upper end of the UHF spectrum could relocate their services to a new channel assignment lower in the band, allowing the vacated spectrum to be sold and re-purposed to wireless providers. In 2016, the FCC initiated a program to supervise the auction of this spectrum and coordinate the subsequent relocation of television broadcast stations, commonly referred to as the “FCC Repack”. With this repack effort, many stations saw an opportunity to vacate their channel assignment and investigate a new business model known as a Channel Sharing Agreement (CSA). Under a CSA, two or more broadcast stations would combine to broadcast on a single channel assignment using multiple virtual channels. The PSIP generated data is essential to enabling this new model, as it must provide the information that allows television receivers to interpret and display the channels while transparently maintaining each station’s individual branding identity. As stations complete the repack process, with or without a CSA, viewers must perform a one-time re-scan of their over-the-air receivers, whereby the updated PSIP data allows the viewer to continue to receive these channels as usual.
The dynamic evolution of digital television continues with the introduction of ATSC 3.0, which will once again transform the way television is delivered and consumed by the viewer. Supporting new compression schemes for 4K Ultra-High Definition (UHD) and providing viewers and advertisers with new services previously unavailable under the current ATSC broadcast standard. DTV Innovations is actively participating with the ATSC Technical Group 3 (TG3), which continues to develop new standards and recommended practices for the ATSC 3.0 broadcast community. New products to provide PSIP data, signaling, and broadcast gateway systems to enable ATSC 3.0 delivery are being researched and developed by companies such as DTV Innovations and other members of the TG3.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu