[comradio-l] The Guardian - 03/03/10: New system will unite DAB and FM so listeners can choose stations by name

[Bill Best]

Chip-maker Frontier Silicon has shown a demo version of a new software
system that provides one menu for both FM and DAB digital radio
stations so users don't have to think about the technology, just the
content they want

A new generation of radios could make it simpler for consumers to
choose their station by name, regardless of whether it broadcasts on
digital DAB or analogue FM or both. Listeners could then choose by
content, without having to think about the different technologies used
for broadcasting.

In a demo of the prototype at Frontier Silicon's office in London
yesterday, an off-the-shelf Roberts EcoLogic 1 radio was upgraded via
a chip swap, given a factory reset, and then set to scanning for
stations. It picked up the local DAB stations first, then the FM
stations, and sorted them into alphabetical order. After that, you
could scroll through all the available stations on its single-line
display. It was simple, and it worked, even on a low-end radio.

The idea was originally floated in January by former media minister
Siôn Simon in a parliamentary debate on the future of radio. He said
that "the current generation of DAB sets has tended to make that move
[to a new platform] a rather sharp distinction," and that "future sets
will simply have a list of station names" (UK government prepares for
DAB+ and proposes a new EPG for radio). He added:

"We are already working with the industry on that system and
encouraging its development and introduction as quickly as possible.
That is a crucial difference that has not been widely promulgated or
understood. It means that people can stay on FM and the new sets can
service the same market."

While planning a "digital switchover", the government has no plans to
turn off FM broadcasting. It plans to use it for local radio. Future
UK radios will therefore need to be able to handle DAB and FM, and
preferably the new standard DAB+.

Tony Moretta from Digital Radio UK said what I'd seen was a "proof of
concept" demo, and that it didn't need additional hardware, so it
didn't add cost. The system would now be refined by Frontier Silicon
and the leading radio manufacturers, who were given the same demo last
week at a Digital Radio Group meeting held by Intellect, the UK
technology industry trade association.

"At the moment you've got a DAB mode and an FM mode, so manufacturers
might want to add a 'mixed mode'," said Moretta. An alternative
suggested by Frontier Silicon was to remove the band switch
altogether. There were issues still to sort out, including what do
with stations that appear more than once on FM. Should you just index
the one with the strongest signal?

The finished software would be offered in Frontier Silicon chip sets,
which are used in most digital radios.

Upgrading old sets would be hard, though some PC users could download
the code and upgrade their DAB radios via the USB port, if fitted.
Moretta did not think that most consumers would take this route, but
it was something that needed to be addressed in the future. "What
about over-the-air downloads like you do with a Freeview box? That's
one of the things we're looking into," he said.

Moretta would also like digital radios sold in the UK to meet the
WorldDMB's Profile 1 specification, which is supported by Frontier
Silicon's Venice 7 chipset, announced in September.

The UK is still on DAB, and Moretta thinks France is going for DMB,
while Germany ("with a few hiccups") and Italy will adopt DAB+. "So
Profile 1 is a European standard in the sense that they're all going
to be using systems supported in Profile 1," he said.

The idea isn't that people will take their radios around Europe,
though a few car drivers will. The issue is that radio manufacturers
need standards that work over wide geographical areas, so they don't
have to build different sets for different countries. With that being
the case, a software system prototyped in Cambridge could reach a very
wide audience indeed.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/mar/03/uk-dab-fm-menu-system
Posted by  Jack Schofield, Wednesday 3 March 2010, 10.05 GMT

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