ATSC Technology and Standards Group

Art Allison
Director, Advanced Engineering
NAB

Mr. Allison joined NAB in September 1995, and his responsibilities include technical issue management with a focus on policy and technical developments of advanced television systems (HDTV, industry convergence, multimedia, fiber optics, CATV/telephone issues, and new television technologies).

He is currently Chairman of the Advanced Television Systems Committee's Implementation Subcommittee, and participates in multiple specialists groups of the ATSC's Technology Group on Distribution. He is a co-author of "Channel Branding and Navigation for DTV: Understanding PSIP" a book published in March 2000 about the ATSC's Standard for MPEG-2 system information. He is active in various other standard development organizations where the work affects broadcasting.

Mr. Allison earned a BSEE from Clemson University and a MEA from George Washington University.

Thomas Jung
Alticast

Dane Ericksen
SBE

Education

California State University, BS Degree in Electrical Engineering, 1970

Professional Licenses and Affiliations

• Registered Professional Engineer (Electrical), State of California, E-11654
• Fellow, Society of Broadcast Engineers, and six-term SBE National Director
• SBE-certified as Senior Broadcast Engineer with Radio and Television endorsements (CSRTE)
• SBE-certified as Broadcast Network Technologist (CBNT)
• FCC Radiotelephone License, General Class, Radar Endorsed, PG-12-14271
• FCC Amateur Radio License, Extra Class, N6AJY
• Chairman, SBE FCC Liaison Committee, 1987-2007
• Chairman, ATSC T3/S3 Specialist Group on Digital ENG, January 2005-present
• Chapter Secretary, and former multi-term Chapter Chairman and Chapter Vice Chairman, SBE Chapter 40, San Francisco
• Member, SBE Certification, EAS, and International Committees
• Served on NAB/SBE Engineering Conference Committee, 1993-2001
• Served on Subcommittee 4 (SC4) of IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 28 (SCC28), 1985-2000 (ANSI C95.1-1992 and C95.1-1995 RFR standards)

Experience

• Federal Communications Commission, Field Operations Bureau, San Francisco, 1970-1982
• Field Engineer, 1970-1974; FM/TV Specialist, 1974-1978; Senior FM/TV Specialist, 1978-1982
• Associate in the firm of Hammett & Edison, Inc., since 1982
• Technical Publications

Numerous technical articles and papers, including:

• "Understanding the September 2000 U.S.-Canada DTV LOU," December 2000 Television Broadcast magazine
• "DTV: Gold Mine or Land Mine" October 1999 Television Broadcast magazine
• "NAD83: What Is It and Why You Should Care," 1994 SBE Proceedings
• Co-author, NAB Guide to Television Aural and Visual Performance Measurements
• Co-author, Chapter 7.8, "The Emergency Broadcast System," NAB Engineering Handbook, Eighth Edition
• Author, Chapter 1.6, "Distance and Bearing Calculations," NAB Engineering Handbook, Ninth Edition

Mark Aitken
Director, Advanced Technology
Sinclair Broadcast Group

Mark A. Aitken concluded his education at Springfield Technical Community College with continuing education in Engineering Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Mr. Aitken joined the Sinclair Broadcast Group in April of 1999. His activities are focused on the present and future technology requirements for the group's 62 television stations. He is currently responsible for representation of the groups interests in industry technical and standards issues, (H)DTV implementation, and represents SBG within ATSC and other trade related organizations. Prior to his involvement with SBG, the Comark Division of Thomcast (now Thales) employed Mr. Aitken. He held many diversified positions within these organizations including Manager of Systems Engineering, RF Engineering and Sales Engineering groups, as well as Director Strategic Planning responsibilities. Mr. Aitken is a member of the AFCCE and IEEE, and is the author of many papers dealing with innovative RF product developments, advanced digital television systems design and related implementation strategies, and a participant in NATAS activities.

Pat Waddell
Harmonic

A veteran of the broadcasting and performing arts industries, Mr. Waddell has over 30 years experience serving a variety of staff and freelance positions with a number of different facilities. As a second-generation broadcaster, his primary area of expertise is digital video system implementation for broadcaster television. Mr. Waddell joined Harmonic in December 2000 where he works closely with engineering to define and deliver high quality encoding products. Mr. Waddell is also responsible for compliance with industry standards. Previously, Mr. Waddell worked at Sony, as a sustaining engineer for MPEG compression, as well as high-definition signal processing and conversion products.

Mr. Waddell serves as Harmonic's representative to a number of industry standards bodies, including the DVB, SMPTE, SCTE, and the ATSC. He currently serves as the Chair of the ATSC's TSG/S6, the Specialist Group on on Video/Audio Coding.

Mr. Waddell earned a BSEE degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and did graduate studies in Technical Production for Live Performance at San Jose State University.

Mark Eyer
Director of Systems for the Technology Standards Office
Sony

Mark K. Eyer is currently Director of Systems for the Technology Standards Office of Sony Electronics. He graduated Cum Laude with a B.S. degree from the University of Washington in 1973 and received an MSEE degree in 1978 from the same institution.

For the past twenty years, Mark has been involved with the development of technologies and products related to secure and digital television and he holds eighteen US patents in these areas. After joining General Instrument (now Motorola) in 1982, Mr. Eyer supported the company's development of products employing digital video compression technology by designing cryptographic processing firmware, decoder acquisition state machines, and various software projects related to verification and production testing.

Since 1994, Mark has made contributions to various digital television standards including ATSC A/65 Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP), part of which was derived from his protocols work at GI. He became involved in digital interconnection standards in 1997, and co-chaired the committees in CEA that created the CEA-775 DTV 1394 Interface Specification as well as several others. Mark was a primary contributor to various SCTE Digital Video Subcommittee (DVS) standards including SCTE 26 Home Digital Network Interface, SCTE 65 Service Information Delivered Out-of-Band for Digital Cable Television, and (jointly with CEA) SCTE 18 Emergency Alert Message for Cable (also known as ANSI-J-STD-042).

In addition to chairing ATSC's S8 subcommittee, Mr. Eyer represents Sony in various standards committees in the US, and contributes systems engineering expertise to development of Sony's digital television products.

Charles Einolf
Consultant

Charlie worked for Westinghouse for over twenty-seven years, including two years at the Westinghouse Wireless Solutions Company (now iBiquity Digital), and was responsible for the design and development of the advanced electronic systems incorporating sensor, computer, communication and signal processing techniques. In 1996, Charlie took advantage of the opportunity to become involved in digital television, and joined the Advanced Television Technology Center (ATTC) as Deputy Executive Director. He was responsible for its technical programs until the completion, in 2003, of its mission to facilitate the transition to digital television in the United States. During his tenure at ATTC, Charlie became actively involved in the technical aspects of the digital television broadcast industry, including RF, propagation, and reception analysis.

Currently, Charlie participates in a variety of ATSC specialist and ad hoc groups, including serving as chair of the ATSC T3/S9 Specialist Group on RF Transmission. He also participates in the standards activities of the International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunications (ITU-R), and is chair of the United States ITU-R Working Party 6P on Content Production and Postproduction.

Dr. Einolf holds a Ph.D. and M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester, and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is currently the vice-president of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and chairs its Publication Committee. Charlie is also president-elect of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society and a life member of its AdCom. He has been awarded the IEEE Centennial and Millennium medals, holds 14 U.S. patents and has published over 30 papers.

Charlie and his wife, Susanna, reside in Bowie, Maryland. They enjoy four adult children, including two Dr. Einolf's, and four grandsons (Caleb, at eight months, is pictured above). Charlie's leisure time is spent with model railroading (HO-scale) and gardening, and he is currently the secretary of the Bowie-Crofton Garden Club. An avid swimmer, he recently qualified for the National Senior Olympics and is looking forward to being a competitor in the breaststroke swimming events.

John Henderson
CEA

See the bio at the top of this page.

Michael Dolan
Founder & President
Television Broadcast Technology

Michael A. Dolan is founder and president of Television Broadcast Technology, providing specialized professional encoders, test tools, and technical consulting in the field of digital television. He holds a BSEE degree from Virginia Tech '79 and has worked for and founded various leading edge computer graphics and real time systems companies since then, including early foundational work in W3C technology and analog data broadcasting. Mr. Dolan has been involved in digital television engineering for the past 8 years, including data broadcast system architecture and receiver design and compliance. He also currently chairs the ATSC Data Broadcasting Specialist Group (TSG/S13), and the SMPTE Technology Committee on Data Essence (D27), and is active in various other data-related television standards activities. Mr. Dolan holds several patents in computer web technology. (27-June-2005)

John Henderson
CEA

See the bio at the top of this page.