Station Information Services (SIS) and Program Associated Data (PAD)
Station Information Services (SIS)
Station call letters are typically set by the exciter manufacturer and located in the Short Name field under System Setup/Station Information. In addition, there is a Long Name field which normally comes set by the manufacturer with a standard message. Not all HD Radio receivers display this field, but many do. This is an ideal field to use for more descriptive station names or slogans. If you are multicasting, the Long Name field will still be visible when the HD2 or HD3 channel is selected.
This field should display generic information relevant to all of your channels’ programming. While the field supports longer names, it is advisable to keep the length of this field under 20 characters to support the receiver’s limited screen sizes and field lengths. Some receivers will scroll through the entire field; however, others may truncate the text of longer messages. Experimentation with this feature may be required since all radios do not display the same amount of characters.
Program Associated Data (PAD): Text Messages
Program Service Data (PSD) consists of a number of different fields which are displayed on many HD Radio receivers, including: song title, program title, artist name, album name, and music genre. The fields are populated by interfacing your studio automation system to the HD Radio Exciter and the Importer. A growing number of studio automation and digital storage system providers have integrated the necessary software into their products to support HD Radio PSD operation.
Contact your vendor to find out the compatibility of your existing system or the availability of upgrades to interface with your HD Radio equipment.
If the station does not have a hard drive or automation system, all of these fields can be manually entered through the exciter GUI under the station info section. Additional station information can be entered in these fields and remain there as a static display.
Future
iBiquity Digital’s PSD implementation is currently divided into two areas:
-
Now, MPS PAD becoming MPSD for “Main Program Service Data”
-
Now, SPS PAD becoming SPSD for “Supplemental (multicast) Program Service Data”
To ease broadcaster PSD implementation to SPSD, iBiquity will establish a common PSD interface to the Importer, where PSD implementation will be unified for MPSD and SPSD services.
Overview of MPSD and SPSD
HD Radio system supports PSD for both the Main Program Service audio, as well as the Supplemental Program Services (e.g., HD2, HD3, etc.). The system currently has two interfaces for PSD. First the Exporter or the Exciter receives both program audio and PSD from the studio automation system. The station to transmitter link (STL) provides audio and data channels for this. For the Supplemental Services, HD2 for instance, the audio and PSD is routed from the studio automation to the Importer located at the station.
For a list of some of the broadcast equipment manufacturers that might be helpful, click here.
