KUALA LUMPUR — We recently reported about DAB at the just-completed Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Digital Broadcasting Symposium. Also there was Digital Radio Mondiale, which sponsored Session two on “New Technologies & Standards — What’s New, What’s Next” and a DRM workshop.
A presentation was given on “DRM in Asia-Pacific” by the DRM Consortium Chair, Ruxandra Obreja, on March 5 followed another on the India Roll-Out, by Alexander Zink (of Fraunhofer IIs) on March 7. Zink was immediately followed by the DRM Implementation workshop, the participants of which included Radu Obreja (DRM Marketing Director); Lindsay Cornell (BBC, Chair DRM Technical Committee); Chuck Kelly (Nautel); Tom King (Kintronics) and Ruxandra Obreja.
The participants attending the workshop were “very interested in digital radio and represented countries with genuine interest in DRM” (Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, etc.), according to DRM news.
During the recent BES conference, DRM had several presentations. During the morning Session on day two, Bernd Linz (of Fraunhofer IIS) gave a presentation on xHE-AAc for DRM and web streaming; in the afternoon, Nigel Fry (Head of Distribution, BBC World Service Group) addressed the subject of “Revitalization of AM Bands.” The point of his presentation was that, while AM bands have seen a decline in use due to the limited audio quality they could provide, the unique benefits and advantages of the AM bands for radio broadcasting and short-wave transmissions in particular are being rediscovered due to their unique coverage opportunities to reach listeners around the world.
“Upgrading the AM transmissions to the DRM digital radio technology not only brings the audio quality to the level of local FM transmissions, it also adds advanced features such as free-to-air Journaline text articles and takes away the hassle of memorizing frequencies — all while retaining the unique advantages of most efficient large-area coverage,” also according to DRM news.
