Texas Instruments (TI) and RadioScape have signed an agreement
to develop technology which can bring Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)
to the mass market by reducing the price of the radio
receivers.
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| Nigel Oakley |
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"At the moment DRM receivers are £600 to £700," said
Nigel Oakley, v-p of marketing at RadioScape. "Obviously we'll see
a dramatic reduction in that price and we're being encouraged to
target the mass market. The components being used are very similar
to the DAB [digital radio] market which means leverage from volumes
in that."
DRM is a digital broadcasting system operating in the AM bands
below 30MHz. It can broadcast over distances of thousands of
kilometres which means signals can span several countries.
The BBC has devoted R&D effort to DRM and is one of 65
broadcasters already transmitting programmes.
The company has said it hoped "radio manufacturers will take
note of our commitment to DRM, and produce exciting and attractive
digital radios which make best use of all services which are now
being broadcast, be they analogue or digital".
According to Oakley, RadioScape and TI's aim is to address this.
"The goal is to produce multi-band radio that'll be DRM and all
flavours of DAB, FM and AM in one device," he said.
"We believe by doing that we can take the complexity of the
technology away from the user interface, so the user tunes by
content rather than worrying about the technology," he
continued.
TI will supply the DSP-based digital radio silicon while
RadioScape will provide the software. The first product should be
available this year.
www.radioscape.com
www.ti.com