Program Services Data (PSD)

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 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.

NEW PSD IMPLEMENTATION

We are suggesting that all HD Radio stations adopt the following best practices when setting up their stations with Dynamic or Static PSD
1) Whenever possible, actual Song Title and Artist should be displayed in the appropriate PSD fields. This condition is referred to as Dynamic PSD use
2) If Dynamic PSD is not available, the station should populate ONLY the Song Title field with a short station slogan or other message. In this condition, PSD Artist field should not be populated. Please remember that the Title field has a maximum of 124 characters / spaces.
3) If Dynamic PSD is employed and a station elects to intersperse slogans, advertisements or other text in the PSD fields, the added text should be sent for less than 10 seconds at a time, and should not be repeated before resending the dynamic PSD Title and Artist information.
4) These guidelines apply to multicast channels as well as the main program service.

FUTURE

HD Radio Technology’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, Xperi has established a common PSD interface to the Importer, called HDP, where PSD implementation is 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 latest version of the system features a single interface for PSD, replacing the two-interface system in previous versions. 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.