#Digital radio mp3 player trial

įor various reasons such as high receiver costs and limited reception, adoption of DAB had initially been slow, with the exception of the United Kingdom and Denmark. In the UK, commercial stations started broadcasting in November 1999. Pilot broadcasts were launched in 1995: the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) launched the first DAB channel in the world on 1 June 1995 ( NRK Klassisk), and the BBC and Swedish Radio (SR) launched their first broadcasts later in September while in Germany a pilot broadcast started in Bavaria in October 1995. The protocol specification was finalized in 1993 and adopted by the ITU-R standardization body in 1994, the European community in 1995 and by ETSI in 1997. Public demonstrations were made in 1993 in the United Kingdom.

#Digital radio mp3 player trial

DAB was the first standard based on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation technique, which since then has become one of the most popular transmission schemes for modern wideband digital communication systems.Ī choice of audio codec, modulation and error-correction coding schemes and first trial broadcasts were made in 1990. The MPEG-1 Audio Layer II ('MP2') codec was created as part of the EU147 project. Later, DAB was developed as a research project for the European Union ( EUREKA), which started in 1987 on an initiative by a consortium formed in 1986. The first DAB demonstrations were held in 1985 at the WARC-ORB in Geneva, and in 1988 the first DAB transmissions were made in Germany. DAB has been under development since 1981 at the Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT).

The DAB standard was initiated as a European research project called Eureka-147 in the 1980s. History and development Prototype DAB receiver (1993) Similar terrestrial digital radio standards are HD Radio, ISDB-Tb, DRM, and the related DMB. DAB+ is a ' green' platform and brings 85 percent energy consumption savings compared to FM broadcasting (but analog tuners are more efficient than digital ones and DRM+ has been recommended for small scale transmissions). DAB is more robust with regard to noise and multipath fading for mobile listening, although DAB reception quality degrades rapidly when the signal strength falls below a critical threshold (as is normal for digital broadcasts), whereas FM reception quality degrades slowly with the decreasing signal, providing more effective coverage over a larger area.

High-fidelity equates to a high bit rate and higher transmission cost.

The broadcaster can select any desired sound quality, from high-fidelity signals for music to low-fidelity signals for talk radio, in which case the sound quality can be noticeably inferior to analog FM. Today the majority of DAB broadcasts around the world are using the upgraded DAB+ standard, with only the UK, Romania, Brunei, and the Philippines still using a significant number of legacy DAB broadcasts.ĭAB is generally more efficient in its use of spectrum than analogue FM radio, and thus can offer more radio services for the same given bandwidth. The original version of DAB used the MP2 audio codec an upgraded version of the system was later developed and released named DAB+ which uses the HE-AAC v2 (AAC+) audio codec and is more robust and efficient. In recent years, DAB has become the most popular radio listening platform in Norway, Switzerland and the UK, and has become a requirement for all new cars sold in the EU since 2021. As of 2023, Norway is the first country to have implemented a national FM radio switch-off, with others to follow in the next years. Initially it was expected in many countries that existing FM services would switch over to DAB, although the take up of DAB has been much slower than expected. ĭAB was the result of a European research project and first publicly rolled out in 1995, with consumer-grade DAB receivers appearing at the start of this millennium. The standard is dominant in Europe and is also used in Australia, and in parts of Africa and Asia as of 2022, 55 countries are actively running DAB broadcasts.

Official DAB+ logo Official DAB logo (1990s-2018) A Pure branded DAB receiver ĭigital Audio Broadcasting ( DAB) is a digital radio standard for broadcasting digital audio radio services in many countries around the world, defined, supported, marketed and promoted by the WorldDAB organisation. For digital audio broadcasting in general, see Digital radio.