Orban/CRL Teams With Digital Radio Express on Streaming Module

Digital Radio Express and CRL announced an Orban Opticodec 1010 streaming module for the DRE FMeXtra Digital SCA Encoder.
The companies positioned it as a “breakthrough” software module, saying it permits direct streaming of encoded aacPlus (MPEG4 HE AAC) audio from Orban Opticodec-compatible audio servers into the FMeXtra encoder and over-the-air to FMeXtra-enabled receivers.
The streaming capture software is now a standard feature of the DRE FMeXtra encoder.
FMeXtra is intended to allow FM broadcasters to air multiple digital channels at low cost. The suppliers said the Orban Opticodec helps stations solve problems of creating the infrastructure to aggregate, condition and encode that digital content.
DRE VP of Engineering Derek Kumar said in the statement that the future of digital radio is in streaming technology using standard audio codecs.
“FMeXtra in combination with Orban’s Opticodec fundamentally changes the distribution model for broadcasting digital audio. There is no longer any distinction between Internet streaming, cellular streaming and broadcast streaming.”
With the Opticodec software, the companies said, DRE’s FMeXtra encoder can receive industry-standard RTP/RTSP aacPlus streams with Orban-optimized audio quality from a TCP connection and streaming server.
Orban VP Greg Ogonowski said, “Orban’s Opticodec streaming software is MPEG4 standards-based and can already address multiple devices, like media players in computers and 3GPP mobile devices. Adding the ability to feed the FMeXtra transmission chain makes it easier for broadcasters, netcasters and narrowcasters to make high-quality, aacPlus-encoded audio ubiquitous.”