Basic HTML Version
ë
Annapolis,
Maryland, USA
■
202
TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 06-07-08/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
Rod Hewitt lives and works in this
modern apartment building in Annapolis,
Maryland, USA. Just a small 40cm antenna
identifies the location of his apartment.
One of the most well-known analyzer
programs for digital TV is TSReader.
This program can be used to analyze
the transport stream of a digital chan-
nel: the software identifies every single
PID of a digital transponder as well as
a world of additional information such
as bit rate or the type of PIDs. Video
PIDs are displayed as a live picture
and audio PIDs can be listened to. An
analyzer program like TSReader is an
invaluable tool for technicians; it lets
them monitor the data stream so that
any errors can be quickly identified and
dealt with.
TSReader was developed by Rod
Hewitt who is originally from England.
For the past several years he has called
Annapolis, the capital of the state of
Maryland on the east coast of the USA,
his home. Rod Hewitt’s life story is
typical for many software engineers:
he dropped out of school early and yet
despite of that (or perhaps because
of that) he became successful. We
met up with him at his home in
Annapolis. Computers (he’s a
fan of Apple) and digital receiv-
ers are scattered all over his
apartment. “I used to have
more satellite dishes includ-
ing a 4.5-meter antenna”,
explains Rod to us, “but to-
day a cable connection and
good Internet access is suf-
ficient.”
But first things first. Rod
Hewitt comes from Ware, a
small town about 40km north of
London, about half way between
Stevenage and Harlow. “Ware sits
exactly on the Prime Meridian, that
is, precisely at 0° longitude”, says
Rod. His father worked as the Manag-
ing Director at Ferguson, a well-known
manufacturer of TVs back then. “My
Software Programmierer Rod Hewitt, USA
COMPANY REPORT