The DRM Consortium will have a strong presence (Ruxandra Obreja, Lindsay Cornell, Alex Zink) at the ABU 50th General Assembly to be held in Hanoi, Vietnam from 23rd – 29th October.  On Friday 25th October, Alexander Zink, deputy Chair of the DRM Tech Committee and the DRM Chairman, will update the ABU Technical group on the recent update to the DRM Codec.  DRM is the first digital radio standard to embrace the high efficiency codec, Extended HE-AAC, the latest in the MPEG AAC family of audio codecs, allowing for a natural fit with all modern digital devices.

DRM Chair, Ruxandra Obreja is also scheduled to deliver two presentations to the ABU Radio Group.  The first presentation will be on October 24th and titled Digital Radio: “Hardware vs. Software”.

This will be about the added benefits of digital radio (“hardware”) but also about the difficulty of transition for programme makers, managers and sometimes audiences as well – hence the term of “software”. The difficulty seems to be the speed of innovation and multitude of competing offers to the user, who is living his/her life still in a linear and not digital way.

The second presentation to the ABU Radio group, on 25th October looks at radio audience behaviour and is called “The digital radio users – a new audience with old habits or an old audience with new habits?”  If you are in Hanoi come and listen to the presentation or request them after October 29th.