Next Phase of the DRM Project in India - Round table meeting with stakeholders

The DRM Consortium, in collaboration with BECIL, is organising and hosting a high level round table meeting in New Delhi on January 31st. Its aim is to update and stimulate the interest of key Indian stakeholders in the public phase launch of the project to digitize radio in India, following the successful installation of DRM digital radio transmitters by All India Radio (AIR).

The aim of the event, "DRM: Digital Radio for All – Achieving PM's Dream of Digital India", is to help the launch of the next phase of the DRM project by incorporating the views of all stakeholders for the successful deployment of all features of DRM digital radio. This will ensure that high quality sound, additional services, exciting content and the DRM's extra features are available to enhance and enrich the lives of Indian and overseas listeners.

Shri M Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, has kindly consented to inaugurate the event. All stakeholder groups involved in the successful launch of digital terrestrial radio in India are invited to attend the event, including several senior officers from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Prasar Bharati (both All India Radio and Doordarshan), private FM broadcasters, Radio receiver manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, mobile phone manufacturers, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), UNDP, BECIL and DRM experts.

The meeting will be held on 31st January at the Shangri-La's - Eros Hotel, New Delhi. For further information contact: projectoffice@drm.org.

Following the round table event, representatives of the DRM Consortium will also participate in the annual BES Expo 2017 (Broadcast Engineering Society) at The Leela Ambience Convention Hotel, New Delhi February 2nd - 4th. The DRM Consortium is proud to officially endorse this year's BES Expo. During the BES Conference, members of the Consortium will present their views on the development of digital radio and DRM in the world and address issues to do with the practical and optimum implementation of the DRM standard. DRM will be part of the Nautel stand 27/28 where experts will be available to inform and answer questions on DRM, while visitors to the BES Expo can learn about DRM solutions from a range of DRM member representatives (Ampegon, Fraunhofer IIs, Gospell, NXP, Rfmondial, Communication Systems INC, Transradio).

In the view of the DRM Consortium's Chairman, Ruxandra Obreja: "The DRM project in India is entering a new phase after the installation of 37 transmitters of which 35 are in medium wave and broadcasting in simulcast or even in pure digital mode. Medium wave is covering over 99% of the population and half are already in the incidence of a digital signal. FM only covers 47% of the Indians. The roll-out of DRM all over India is probably the biggest digital radio project in the world.

We will support All India Radio and closely work with the Indian industry and all stakeholders in joining the next phase of this project. Now is the time to optimize and enrich the DRM services while the industry steps up its involvement and the listeners get to know and enjoy the fruit of their investment – making Digital India reality."

About DRM

Digital Radio Mondiale™ (DRM) is the universal, openly standardised digital broadcasting system for all broadcasting frequencies, able to cover fully any country whatever its size at much reduced energy costs.

The DRM standard comprises two major configurations one intended for broadcasts on short, medium and long wave up to 30 MHz providing medium to large coverage areas and low power consumption (called 'DRM30'). 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.

DRM can help deliver the mandate of any government: to reach all its citizens with information, education, emergency warnings and entertainment.

For more information and DRM updates please visit www.drm.org or subscribe to DRM news by writing to pressoffice@drm.org.  Click here for the Newsletter with all the latest DRM news from around the world.

                                                       

DRM Consortium

E-Mail: pressoffice@drm.org

Site for DRM: www.drm.org

(Press Release)

CII meet urges manufacturers to meet digital radio needs

The country is poised to experience better sound quality and coverage area in radio by next year, as revealed by participants at the CII National Seminar on DRM

The move towards digital radio is expected to take off in 2015.

The seminar comes at the heels of the Pitroda Expert Committee's report in January, which endorsed All India Radio's decision to convert analogue medium wave to DRM. Apart from quality and range, DRM is an open global standard that can cover all the bands.

Ruxandra Obreja, Chairperson, DRM Consortium, said it was time that Indian-developed and manufactured receivers available to listeners. India, she said, was uniquely poised as it had both the market as well as the technical knowhow to manufacture digital radio receivers.

AIR plans to continue analogue and digital simulcast till 2016, and thereafter shift to digital broadcast.

Confirming this, Mr R K Budhiraja, Engineer-in-Chief, All India Radio, informed that the installation of DRM transmitters was proceeding on schedule and called upon the industry to make receivers available by the first quarter of 2015. Former Prasar Bharati Engineer-in-Chief R R Prasad looked back on the DRM test run in 2007 and how it had surpassed everybody's expectations. But, he asserted that there should be an environment for the public to have reasons to buy digital receivers.

More at : http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/cii-meet-urges-manufacturers-to-meet-digital-radio-needs-114022801273_1.html