itaas announces testing of Digital-to-Analog (DTA) converters for set-top box system compliance

MSOs and manufacturers leverage itaas industry expertise and lab infrastructure to support the rollout of DTA devices

ATLANTA, GA — itaas, Inc., announced today, a program for the testing and certification of DTA devices. MSOs have identified several sources of these devices as part of the effort to transition to all digital service. Converting signals to digital provides MSOs with bandwidth gains, which can be used to provide additional services and programming. Manufacturers of DTA devices are relying on itaas experience and comprehensive infrastructure to ensure compliance with industry standards.

“We are pleased to add another support component to the deployment of digital technologies”, says Jaspal Bhasin, COO of itaas. “Our customers across the industry count on us to provide development and support for the latest technologies and tools to facilitate the rollout of digital TV services and equipment.”

The DTA compliance testing process will involve working with a variety of manufacturers to test subscriber devices prior to deployment in MSO systems. The DTA devices are designed to work with major cable headend systems, simplifying inventory and deployment. Companies that supply the DTA devices will be able to test compliance as well as take advantage of itaas expertise and labs in early pre-production and development processes.

The use of DTA converters will allow service providers to convert existing analog services to digital, freeing up bandwidth currently used to transmit analog programming. The DTA device converts the digital signals to analog for older TV sets that do not have digital tuners.

itaas portfolio of services includes a full range of software design, development, testing and support services for MSOs, Programmers, Application Developers and Technology Providers. In addition, itaas supports the development and deployment of interactive applications and services through the istart developer program. This program offers SDKs and support for Time Warner Cable’s MDN, ODN and MAS software, Ciscos SARA/PowerTV and OCAP Axiom, FourthWall Medias EBIF user agent and the TVWorks ETV platform.