Dolan Named TG1 Chairman

Posted on November 7, 2013 in ATSC News

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7, 2013

Long-time industry expert Michael Dolan has been named Chairman of the ATSC’s Technology and Standards Group 1 (TG1).  Dolan assumes the role on Jan. 1, succeeding Dr. Richard Chernock, Chief Science Officer of Triveni Digital, whose three-year term as TG1 Chairman expires at year-end.

Dolan, currently an industry consultant sponsored by The Nielsen Company, is founder and president of the Television Broadcast Technology consulting group, providing specialized professional encoders, test tools, and technical consulting in the field of digital television and Internet media. He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech in 1979 and has worked for and founded a number of leading-edge computer graphics and real-time systems companies since then, including early foundational work in W3C technology and analog data broadcasting.

TG1 is one of two ATSC technology groups working on enhancements and new standards for broadcast television, with TG1 focused on improvements to the existing standard that we call ATSC 2.0. Those improvements include non-real-time program caching, enhanced service guides, audience measurement, and conditional access for TV broadcasts. These elements are fundamental stepping stones to the next-generation ATSC 3.0 Standard, so the work of TG1 is critical to our mission.

Dolan has been involved in digital television engineering for many years, including data broadcast system architecture, digital receiver design and compliance. He also currently chairs the ATSC Data Broadcasting Specialist Group (TG1/S13), co-chairs the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) Working Groups on Digital Closed Captioning (R4SC3WG1) and Internet Captions (R4SC3WG15), co-chairs the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) Committee on File Formats and Systems (31FS), co-chairs the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem/Ultraviolet Technical Working Group, and is active in the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers and the World Wide Web Consortium.

A SMPTE Fellow and a former SMPTE Governor for the Hollywood Region, Dolan has received many industry honors, including the ATSC Bernard J. Lechner award and the CEA Technology Leadership Award. He has written the SMPTE Journal Almanac column for over a decade, is co-author of Data Broadcasting, and holds a number of U.S. patents in computer web technology.

The ATSC looks forward to Dolan’s leadership and thanks Dr. Chernock for his leadership of this important standards group working on the evolution of broadcast TV standards.

Posted in ATSC News