Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) demonstrated the new DRM commercial receiver with
crystal clear audio and extra capability like the emergency warning
functionality at this year’s International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in
Amsterdam.
Pressing the emergency button on the new Indian–produced
receiver was the highlight of the first DRM event at the Fraunhofer IIS booth
(Hall 8 B80). The rich features of the Indian receiver (from the new Consortium
member Communication Systems Inc. (www.avionelectronics.in) were in evidence:
colour LCD with million colours, 10-12 hours of backup on single charging,
xHE-AAC audio coding, emergency warning, Alternative Frequency Search (AFS), DRM
text and scrolling messages. The receiver (available on www.amazon.in), was
used to capture a daily SW DRM live broadcast (10-13th September) transmitted by
Babcock international on 6040kHz, 100kW from Woofferton, UK, on 114 degrees to
Europe. Featuring BBC, NHK and Radio Vaticana content, the transmission was
crystal clear even on a boat under the many bridges of Amsterdam.
Recent
and exciting market developments in Asia, Africa (where the DRM30 trial might be
soon joined by a DRM+ trial in the Johannesburg area), Europe and Latin America
featured large at the four DRM events on September 11th, 12th and
13th.
TheThomson Broadcast event on the 12th focused on transmitters for
alert systems and gave details of a “hot off the press” announcement about a new
transmission contract (DRM ready) for Morocco.
TheNautel event, held the
same day in Hall 8 C49 and extremely well attended, featured new developments in
DRM transmitter technology, more about the continued roll-out of DRM in India,
news about the DRM+ trial in St. Petersburg and new innovative multi-band
receiver in development.
On Sunday morning Ampegon and Transradio
featured integrated transmission systems, demonstrated the energy efficiency of
new antennas and transmitters like the low-power solid-state Ampegon transmitter
sitting in the middle of their booth (Hall 8 D35).
IBC is a great
occasion for members of the Consortium to meet industry experts and contacts
from countries as far apart as South Africa, Romania, India, Turkey and
Indonesia.
Ruxandra Obreja, the Consortium Chairman, says that: “IBC 2015
has been the best ever for us and all those interested in the most modern and
flexible truly global audio broadcasting standard, DRM. During IBC 2015 we
shortened our presentations and demonstrated more how DRM can close the loop
between excellent transmitted sound with multimedia services, at much lower cost
than before, and reception on state of the art receivers”.
Other DRM
members present at IBC are: Babcock International, GatesAir, RIZ Transmitters
and RFmondial.
DRM will next be present at the Asia Broadcasting Union
General Assembly in Istanbul, Turkey – October 27-30.
If you want more
details on DRM and our next events please contact:
projectoffice@drm.org
About DRM:
Digital Radio Mondiale™ (DRM)
is the universal, openly standardised digital broadcasting system for all
broadcasting frequencies.
The DRM standard comprises two major
configurations: ‘DRM30′ intended for broadcasts on short, medium and long
wave
up to 30 MHz and providing large coverage areas and low power
consumption. The configuration for the VHF bands above
30 MHz is called
‘DRM+’, tailored for local and regional coverage with broadcaster-controlled
transmissions.
All DRM configurations share the same audio coding, data
and multimedia services, service linking, multiplexing and signalling schemes.
DRM provides high quality sound combined with a wealth of enhanced features:
Surround Sound, Journaline text information, Slideshow, EPG, and data
services.
The DRM Consortium was awarded by ITU for it outstanding
contribution to the Telecommunications over the past years and has signed the
EBU Smart Radio Memorandum that promotes access to free to air radio on all
devices.
http://www.drm.org/?p=4056
