The Nautel/DRM event was held on 9 April in the Nautel stand at NAB Convention in Las Vegas, US. It was well attended by approximately 60 people from the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Nautel CEO and President Peter Conlon welcomed the crowd. Hal Kneller from Nautel, and also a member of the DRM Steering Board gave an overview of DRM and DRM+ technologies followed by John Abdnour of Nautel and Rakesh Aggarwal of India on the medium wave and short wave rollout in that country. India is now in the process of commissioning a number of Medium Wave sites for DRM and in the coming year, many more sites will be broadcasting with DRM30. When the DRM implementation is finished, more than one billion people will be within DRM coverage, hence the title of today’s event was “Preparing for the First Billion Listeners”.
We also had an update from Joao Eduardo Ferreira of Digicast in Brazil on the progress towards a digital decision in that country. Mr. Ferreira reported progress has been made on multiple fronts and ANATEL (the regulator) and the Communications Ministry is studying the two digital systems (HD Radio and DRM) and that one more round of tests is expected to be completed this year before a final decision can be rendered. We were honoured with the presence of Otavio Caixeta of the Ministry of Communications in Brazil.
Finally Alex Zink of Fraunhofer IIs explained the various demonstrations which were in the stand such as Journaline and other applications plus a live DRM+ broadcast which could be witnessed, including a DRM30 modulator/content server called DRM Inside was installed in a medium wave Nautel NX50 on display.
Following the updates, refreshments were served and networking continued for nearly two hours.
Hal Kneller
