Mark K. Eyer was Director of Systems for the Technology Standards Office of Sony Electronics until his retirement in December, 2017.  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 35 years, Mark has been involved with the development of technologies and products related to secure and digital television and he holds 85 US patents in these areas.  Since 1994, Mark has been involved in the standards development process and made contributions to various digital television standards published by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), Society for Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), and the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC).

Career Highlights

  • Twice elected to the Advanced Television Systems Committee Board of Directors for 3-year terms (2010, 2013)
  • Winner of the ATSC 2007 Bernard Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award, established in 2000 to recognize outstanding technical contributions to the ATSC
  • Winner of the SCTE Excellence in Standards Award for 2007, given to an individual who has “significantly contributed to both the technical standards program and the spirit of cooperation necessary for the success of voluntary standards”
  • Winner of the 2005 ANSI Finegan Standards Medal, which honors an individual who has shown “extraordinary leadership in the actual development and application of voluntary standards”
  • Author of PSIP: Program and System Information Protocol, 2002, McGraw-Hill
  • Listed as inventor on over 100 US Patents; 150 pending Patent Applications

Standards Work

  • Editorial and technical contributions to ATSC 3.0 Digital Television Standards including:
    • ATSC A/331 Signaling, Delivery, Synchronization, and Error Protection
    • ATSC A/335 Video Watermark Emission
    • ATSC A/336 Content Recovery in Redistribution Scenarios
    • ATSC A/344 ATSC 3.0 Interactive Content
  • Editorial and technical contributions to ATSC 2.0 Digital Television Standards including:
  • Primary author (except as noted) of digital television standards including:
    • ATSC A/56 System Information for Digital Television
    • ATSC A/58 Harmonization with DVB SI in the use of the ATSC Digital TV Standard
    • ATSC A/65 Program and System Information Protocol for Terrestrial Broadcast and Cable (co-author, principal architect)
    • ATSC A/71 ATSC Parameterized Services Standard (co-architect)
    • ATSC A/98 System Renewability Message Transport
    • ANSI/SCTE 27 2003 Subtitling Methods for Broadcast Cable
    • ANSI/SCTE 54 2003 Digital Video Service Multiplex and Transport System Standard for Cable Television
    • ANSI/SCTE 26 2004 Home Digital Network Interface Specification with Copy Protection
    • ANSI/SCTE 65 2002 Service Information Delivered Out-of-Band for Digital Cable Television
    • ANSI/CTA-708.1 Digital Television Closed Captioning: 3D Extensions
    • CTA-752 Transport of Transmission Signal Identifier (TSID) Using Extended Data Service (XDS)
    • CTA-775 1394 DTV Interface Standard (co-author, co-chair of CEA R4.8 WG)
    • CTA-775.2 Service Selection Information for Digital Storage Media Interoperability
    • ANSI-J-STD-042 Emergency Alert Messaging for Cable
    • CTA-849 Application Profiles for CEA-775-A Compliant DTVs
    • CTA-CEB16 Active Format Description and Bar Data Recommended Practice
    • ITU-R Draft Rec. [TG 11/3-XXE] Service Multiplex, Transport, and Identification Methods for Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting
  • Expertise includes cryptography as applied to secure digital TV, MPEG-2 systems and transport, ATSC and DVB Service Information, subtitling and captioning for advanced television, Electronic Program Guides, satellite uplink and cable headend architectures, Emergency Alert protocols, IEEE 1394 protocols, powerline communications technology, IPTV.
  • Presented tutorials at IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE) on topics of Program and System Information Protocol and Powerline Communications

US Patents

  • See full list of granted patents at USPTO here: select “USPAT” database and use (eyer adj mark).inv. as search term. As of 2/15/2023 there are 135 issued patents with “Eyer, Mark” listed as inventor.
  • To list patent applications using the same tool, select “US-PGPUB” database instead.

Work Experience

SONY ELECTRONICS     3/98 to 12/17

Director of Systems, Technology Standards Office (TSO)

Represent Sony in various standards organizations dealing with digital television, home networking, and powerline communications, including ATSC, SCTE DVS, CEA, IEEE and ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum.  Chair ATSC Transport Specialists Group, TSG/S8. Chair working groups involved with Emergency Alert signaling standards.

MOTOROLA (Formerly GENERAL INSTRUMENT), San Diego     11/82 to 3/98

Principal Staff Engineer, 2/94 – 3/98

Adapted DigiCipher®II control channel protocols to comply with MPEG-2 standard; created a System Information standard for the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC); developed an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) system for PrimeStar and “4Dtv” digital satellite receivers; developed a standard for MPEG-2 compatible streaming bitmapped subtitles, now approved by the Digital Video Subcommittee of SCTE; proposed to ATSC a new standard for Content Advisories for Digital Television.

Senior Staff Engineer, 4/90 – 2/94

Defined and documented the decoder control channel protocol for DigiCipher®II; created “anytime” free preview and “package purchase” concepts; developed a method for secure code download to decoders; developed a method to deliver access rights incrementally; designed System Information protocols.

Associate Staff Engineer/Manager, 4/88 – 4/90

Managed a firmware group responsible for development of DigiCipher®I encoder, decoder, and crypto processor firmware; designed decoder acquisition state machine, encoder inter-processor communications protocols; created a Test Control Computer to support DigiCipher encoder and decoder firmware testing; designed the control software to support high-volume acceptance testing for production of the EuroCypher Access Control Module.

Senior Engineer/Manager, 12/82 – 4/88

Responsible for firmware design for the VideoCipher®I decoder; designed PC-based control computer to control backhaul distribution of major league baseball using VideoCipher® I system; led high-level design for firmware in VideoCipher® II+ decoder, designed PC-based test software.

OAK COMMUNICATIONS, San Diego     11/80 – 11/82
Manufacturer of addressable pay-television systems for broadcast, satellite, and cable. Responsible for the firmware and hardware implementation of the company’s encryption and decryption algorithms for satellite television scramblers, descramblers, and production equipment.

INFOLINK DATA COMMUNICATIONS, San Diego     11/79-11/80
Manufacturer of data terminal products and voice response peripherals.  Developed firmware for a multi-processor communications interface for credit verification; worked on an FCC-certified Direct Access Arrangement (DAA) and performed a feasibility study for a new-generation voice-response unit.

CENTER FOR BIOENGINEERING, University of Washington, Seattle     1974-76 – 1977-79
Research toward the development of medical instrumentation involving ultrasonic echo and Doppler signal processing and imaging.  Designed hardware and firmware for digital processing and display of real-time ultrasonic echo and Doppler data; built and demonstrated several working models of the prototype instrument.

ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY LABORATORIES, Inc., Bellevue WA     1976-77
Manufacturer of medical ultrasound instruments and marine electronics systems.  Performed digital design on ultrasonic echo systems; developed a marine multi-point temperature monitor/alarm system with video display.

Education

MSEE, 1978, University of Washington, Seattle
BSEE, 1973, Cum Laude, 1973, University of Washington

Publications and Presentations

Lechner, Bernard; Chernock, Richard; Eyer, Mark; Goldberg, Adam; Goldman, Matthew; The ATSC Transport Layer, Including Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP), Transactions/Journal: Proceedings of the IEEE, Volume: 94, Issue: 1

Eyer, Mark, Optimized Image Formatting and Display Using Active Format Description Data (AFD), presented at ICCE, 2006.

Eyer, Mark, Broadband Powerline Communicaitons, Tutorial presented at ICCE, 2006. 

Eyer, Mark, The Need for Coexistence Standards, presented at UPLC Broadband Power Line 2005.

Eyer, Mark, Communication of Remote Control Key Codes in the Home Network, presented at ICCE, 2003.

Eyer, Mark, New Developments in IEEE-1394 Standards for the Cable Set-Top Box, presented at NCTA Cable 2003.

Eyer, Mark, Digital Interface Standards for HDTV, presented at 2001 Society for Information Display Symposium.

Eyer, Mark, The Challenge of a Standard Software API, presented at NCTA Cable 2000, May 2000.

Eyer, Mark, i.LINK for DTV ¾ Recent Developments in IEEE 1394 Standards for Digital Television in the US , Proceedings of the 21st Montreux International Television Symposium, June 1999.

Eyer, Mark, New Developments in System Information and Program Guide Standards, Proceedings of the 47th Annual NCTA Convention and International Exposition, Atlanta May, 1998.

Eyer, Mark, Program Navigation in the Digital World, Proceedings of the 20th Montreux International Television Symposium, 1997.

Eyer, Mark and Rast, Robert, System Information for Digital Television on Cable, Proceedings of NCTA ’96.