Fraunhofer and Sinclair Show Digital Radio Mondiale Integration Into ATSC 3.0 Digital TV Platform

Fraunhofer IIS, the primary developer of the xHE-AAC audio codec and long-time member of the ATSC as well as the DRM Consortium, and Sinclair Broadcast Group, the US media company, are joining forces to bring the best possible DRM digital radio experience to users of the ATSC 3.0 digital TV platform. This is definitely a great idea to relaunch awareness of digital radio services, which have remained largely ignored in the midst of the streaming media transition.

Silicon Labs has introduced new hybrid software-defined radio (SDR) tuners, expanding its portfolio to meet the growing need of automotive radio manufacturers to support all global digital radio standards with a common platform. In addition to introducing new DRM-capable tuners, Silicon Labs is enhancing its Si4790x/1x/5x/6x automotive tuners with unique “SDR-friendly” technology, effectively transforming these devices into hybrid SDR tuners.

To encourage adoption of the highest efficiency encoding audio technology, world-wide intellectual property solutions provider, Via Licensing, announced the upcoming availability of Extended High Efficiency AAC (xHE-AAC) as part of the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) patent pool. The expanded patent pool license will be available at no additional cost to licensees, starting in Q4 of 2017. This will enable audio streaming services to adopt the most efficient encoding technology available, at lower costs.

At the IBC 2015 show there was a unique chance to compare how really efficient audio compression algorithms have become, from mp3 and ogg-vorbis to AAC, HE-AAC and the new xHE-AAC, optimized for speech and music transmission with very low bit rates. The Fraunhofer Institute For Integrated Circuits IIS together with Modulation Index promoted the demonstration.