Digital Radio Mondiale at ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium 2015

"DRM: Clever Radio for Smart Countries" at ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

 

The Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) Consortium will have a strong presence once again at the ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium (DBS) 2015 in Kuala Lumpur LINK, one of the premier digital events in Asia.  DBS is a key event in the DRM calendar. A general update will be offered on the opening day (Wednesday 4th March) under the title 'Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) - Delivering to all your needs'. 

 

Focusing on the significant cost and spectrum savings delivered by DRM (i.e. using Single Frequency Network deployment) the DRM Workshop "Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) - Clever Radio for Smart Countries" is to be held on Thursday 5th March 1400-1500 in Safir room 2. The event will offer participants an opportunity to learn more about digital radio and to experience the full DRM technology.  Attendees will be invited to ask their own questions about the practical steps needed to create a healthy digital system involving the key stakeholders: listeners, regulator, broadcasters and the receiver manufacturing industry. The new Avion DRM radio has recently been unveiled in India and participants will be able to see and hear for themselves how the listener can experience more choice, enhanced sound quality, text and additional data services. 

 

Ruxandra Obreja, DRM Chairman, is excited about this premier ABU event which has been supported by the Consortium for quite a number of years now because: "We can bring the latest developments to a wide range of specialists while having DRM championed by some of our best DRM experts and practitioners."

(Press Release)

DRM to Celebrate Indian Platform Activity with Workshop in New Delhi

India is one of the leading countries in introducing DRM through an ambitious roll-out plan spearheaded by the public broadcaster, All India Radio (AIR). The progress has been good but the successful take-up of Digital Radio for the millions of radio listening Indians will depend on: affordable receivers, sufficient digital broadcasts, effective marketing and good content.

With the endorsement of AIR, the DRM Consortium launched an "Indian DRM Chapter" (Platform) in February 2011. Its focus is to support the digital roll-out in India.

The Platform, which meets virtually every month in order to exchange information and share in the latest development, is to hold a DRM Workshop at the LaLit Hotel in New Delhi on November 22 offer an opportunity to all interested parties and stakeholders to hear how the DRM transmissions in India have been progressing, to get the latest DRM news from all over the world and receive an update on the All India Radio digital roll-out.

Mr Yogendra Pal, the Honorary Chair of the India Platform is looking forward to this meeting of the India Platform: "The meeting of the Indian Platform members is long overdue. Though we share information virtually all the time there is no better way to get the latest information and contribute to the successful introduction of DRM in India, than meeting face to face."

Ruxandra Obreja, DRM Consortium Chair, is keen that this event should be open and welcoming to anyone interested: "DRM needs to go beyond the transmission sites and excite radio manufacturers, content-makers and listeners now. As you know, the DRM India Platform is open to membership from other broadcasters, digital chip, module and receiver manufacturers, transmission companies, distributors and retailers. On the 22nd we will all meet and take the project forward."

For more information on the event on November 22nd please write to : projectoffice@drm.org

About DRM

 

Dgital Radio Mondiale TM (DRM) is the universal, openly standardised digital broadcasting system for all broadcasting frequencies below and above 30 MHz, including LW, MW, SW, band I, II (FM band) and band III. DRM provides digital sound quality and the ease-of-use that comes from digital radio, combined with a wealth of enhanced features: Surround Sound, Journaline text information, Slideshow, EPG, and data services. DRM on short, medium and long wave for broadcasting bands up to 30 MHz (called 'DRM30') provides large coverage areas and low power consumption. The enhancement of the DRM standard for broadcast frequencies above 30 MHz ('DRM+') uses the same audio coding, data services, multiplexing and signalling schemes as DRM30 but introduces an additional transmission mode optimized for those bands.

(Press Release)

International DRM Digital Radio Workshop in India

New Delhi, India - With the growing interest shown by India in the adoption of DRM - the universal, openly standardised, digital radio system - the DRM consortium is organising presentations and a dedicated DRM session during the BES Expo International Conference to be held in Delhi from 23-25 Feb 2009. Mrs.Ruxandra Obreja, Chairperson DRM Consortium, will deliver the keynote speech on the first day of the conference. On the opening day, 23rd February, DRM will conduct a specialised workshop covering many aspects of the technology and its usage. About 40 engineers of All India Radio (AIR) stations from all over India have expressed interest in the DRM workshop. These are stations which the national broadcaster plans to convert to digital using DRM technology. On the 24th there will be a two hour long DRM session dealing with the subject of multiple delivery platforms chaired by Mr Sharad Sadhu, Technical Director, Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union. During BES, there will be chance to listen to the special transmission of the recently launched DW & BBC channel for Europe. Deutsche Welle(DW) will offer this additional DRM transmission from Trincomalee (Sri Lanka) to India (New Delhi) from 22 to 26 February at 0500-0759 UTC on 12055 kHz. DW has also regular DRM transmission to India from 0800 UTC to 0859 UTC on 12005 kHz. Indian state broadcaster AIR is already broadcasting in DRM from one of its high-power shortwave transmitter located at Khampur near Delhi. The DRM service was formally launched on 16th January, 2009, and almost five hours of transmissions are aimed at listeners in the UK and Europe.

Ruxandra Obreja, Chair of the DRM Consortium and Controller Business Development, BBC World Service, said: "Our presence at BES will give the All India Radio engineers the chance to explore the benefits and challenges of a DRM roll-out in India. As India is one of the most populated countries in the world with a dynamic media landscape, the DRM Consortium is very happy that a well-known broadcaster like All India Radio has decided to expand their DRM transmissions and take an interest in this most suitable digital option for India."

H.R.Singh, Engineer-in-Chief, All India Radio, the overall engineering head of the All India network said, "Our regular DRM transmission from a 250 kilowatt shortwave is the first step of our digital radio switchover strategy. The DRM transmission is being beamed towards Europe from 1745 to 2230 UTC on 9950 KHz and a NVIS service in DRM mode is also under operation from 1430 to 1730 IST on 6100 KHz, to cover an area of approximately 800 kilometre radius around Delhi. We are also in the process of converting four 250 kW shortwave transmitters to DRM mode by March 2009. There are plans to introduce DRM transmissions in high power medium wave and short wave transmitters on a large scale in the near future."

About AIR
AIR is the national public service broadcaster of India. AIR today has a network of 232 broadcasting centers with 149 medium frequency (MW), 54 high frequency (SW) and 171 FM transmitters. The coverage is 91.79% of the area, serving 99.14% of the people in the largest democracy of the world. AIR covers 24 Languages and 146 dialects in home services.
In External services, it covers 27 languages; 17 national and 10 foreign languages.

About DRM
Digital Radio MondialeTM (DRM) is the digital broadcasting system for the broadcasting bands below 30MHz (long, medium and short wave). DRM has near-FM sound quality plus the ease-of-use that comes from digital transmissions, combined with long range and low power consumption . Further information on DRMTM is available from www.drm.org .

About BES
BES EXPO 2009: Conference & Exhibition on Terrestrial & Satellite Broadcasting is the fifteenth in the series of events to be organised by Broadcast Engineering Society. Nearly 300 companies from 25 countries displayed their products in BES EXPO 2008 directly or through their dealers in India. Exhibiting companies included those from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, U.K. and U.S.A. BES EXPO 2009 is scheduled to be held from 23rd February 2009 to 25th February 2009 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India. The theme of the Conference is "Broadcast Technology: Integrating the World".

(DRM Press release)