Press Release
The Digital Radio Mondiale Consortium will participate for the first time in the Meeting of regional Broadcasting organizations and Transmitting equipment manufacturers (MBT) hosted by Antenna Hungária Zrt. This is the most important annual event of the industry in Central and South Eastern Europe and will take place in Budapest, May 22-24.
At the MBT conference, the Consortium representatives will have a chance to update participants with the latest DRM developments across the world and also show DRM in action and new receiver solutions.
On May 23 a new DRM module (W102) with integrated hard coded baseband decoder will be launched at MBT by Starwaves. The module will be suitable for applications such as consumer radios or aftermarket automotive solutions. The module contains a high-quality tuner frontend and audio DAC as well as a digital input for external audio sources e.g. from an external MCU to provide Bluetooth or USB audio. It measures only 40x40mm and covers all bands from LW, MW, SW to the FM Band (64-108 MHz) in DRM and analogue radio. All data services such as Journaline or MOT Slide Shows can be extracted from the data stream for further processing in the target device. The module can be ordered and will be available in the 3rd quarter of 2019.
About DRM
Digital Radio Mondiale™ (DRM) is the universal, openly standardised digital radio system for all broadcasting frequencies and coverage needs.
DRM on short, medium and long wave up to 30 MHz provides for the efficient coverage in large areas with at least FM quality, while significantly reducing power consumption. DRM in the FM & VHF bands above 30 MHz enables flexible local and regional broadcaster-controlled services, with up to 3 stereo audio programmes plus multimedia components in half the bandwidth of a single analogue FM signal.
Advanced radio functionality thanks to DRM comprises: More services based on the highly efficient audio codec MPEG xHE-AAC and free-to-air Journaline multi-lingual text information, detailed service signalling, service linking (including to analogue AM/FM services) and DRM EWF – Emergency Warning Functionality. Enhanced DRM features include native Unicode support, station logos via SPI, Slideshow images and traffic and travel information.
The DRM Consortium was awarded by ITU for its outstanding contribution to the Telecommunications sector over the past years and has signed the EBU Smart Radio Memorandum that promotes access to free to air radio on all devices.
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About STARWAVES
Founded in 2003, STARWAVES is known for its ongoing innovative achievements in the sector of digital broadcasting solutions. STARWAVES was the first to present a multi-standard digital radio (DRM-DAB) back in 2004 and continued its pioneer role with automotive DRM receivers, as well as community broadcast radio and television broadcasting solutions.
STARWAVES initiated and conducted Africa´s first DRM trial in the FM Band together with a Johannesburg based community radio station for which the Consortium honoured Starwaves (as joint winners) with the DRM Enterprise Award 2017.
STARWAVES´ aim is to develop and provide affordable DRM consumer radio solutions to make universal access to digital Information available to everyone.
