The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the
MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined
program-specific information Program-specific information (PSI) is metadata about a program (channel) and part of an MPEG transport stream.
The PSI data as defined by ISO/IEC 13818-1 (MPEG-2 Part 1: Systems) includes four tables:
* PAT (Program Association Table)
* CAT (Con ...
originally defined by
General Instrument for the
DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the
ATSC digital television system for carrying
metadata
Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
about each
channel in the
broadcast MPEG transport stream
MPEG transport stream (MPEG-TS, MTS) or simply transport stream (TS) is a standard digital container format for transmission and storage of audio, video, and Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) data. It is used in broadcast systems ...
of a
television station and for publishing information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch by title and description. Its FM radio equivalent is
Radio Data System (RDS).
Function
PSIP defines
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver' ...
s and
content ratings, as well as