1. Copyright © Commercial Radio Australia Ltd 2006 Digital Radio New Audio Coding RadComms 2006 Joan Warner Chief Executive Officer Commercial Radio Australia

2. 2006 National Radio Conference Making the DAB standard more efficient  The Australian Bandwidth Problem  The aacPlus Solution  Creating a World Standard  Audio coding Task Force

3. 2006 National Radio Conference Australian Bandwidth Scarcity  Digital Radio to launch before 2009 (State Capitals)  The best spectrum is Band III  Currently likely to be a maximum of three Digital Radio RF Channels in each state capital.  The Minister has stated that Commercial, National and Wide Area Community broadcasters need to be accommodated – up to 27 in largest markets.  This means 1/9 of a mux per station.

4. 2006 National Radio Conference What does 1/9 of a multiplex mean?

5. 2006 National Radio Conference Traditional Eureka Capability  Audio codec is Mpeg 1 Layer II.  “Better Than FM quality” needs 192-256 Kb/s  “Similar to FM quality” needs 160-192 Kb/s  “Acceptable, worse than FM” needs 128-160 Kb/s

6. 2006 National Radio Conference If each station gets 1/9 of a mux:-  1/9 is equivalent to about 128 Kb/s per service.  Just enough space to simulcast an existing channel at worse than FM quality.  Hardly any capacity for data.  Not a compelling consumer proposition. Current Eureka - 1/9 of a mux

7. 2006 National Radio Conference Solution  Use a better audio codec

8. 2006 National Radio Conference Eureka With aacPlus  Audio codec is aacPlus v2.  “Better Than FM quality” needs 56 - 96 Kb/s  “Similar to FM quality” needs 40 - 64 Kb/s  “Acceptable, worse than FM” needs 24 - 48 Kb/s  Perceived quality will vary enormously with listener, receiver, audio content and reception environment.

9. 2006 National Radio Conference Eureka - aacPlus - 1/9 of a mux  If each station gets 1/9 of a mux:-  1/9 is equivalent to about 128 Kb/s per station.  Enough space to broadcast two FM quality sub channels with small amounts of data.  Or one very high quality channel with a data channel.  A more compelling consumer proposition

10. 2006 National Radio Conference Why Create a Standard?  Need a multi-national standard to enable manufacturers to build products.  DAB standards are published by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute)  DAB standards are written by WorldDMB (Global forum of broadcasters and manufacturers)  WorldDMB has created a task force of experts to create and test the proposed new standard.  Commercial Radio Australia, Broadcast Australia and the ABC are members of that task force.

11. 2006 National Radio Conference WorldDMB Task force  WorldDMB Task force formed - Dec 2005.  Approx 30 members – broadcasters, manufacturers, research institutes. ( 4 from Australia)  Monthly meetings to develop proposals.  Formal proposals finalised - June 2006  Computer simulated tests – August 2006  Developing Test Equipment – Sept. 2006  Field Trials – Oct 2006.  Standard to be published by end 1 st quarter 2007.

12. 2006 National Radio Conference Field Trials of DAB with aacPlus  Happening in Sydney (Now!)  Parallel trials in the UK  Australian trials a collaboration of :- CRA – Transmission BA – Data acquisition – (drive tests) ABC – Analysis and Reporting

13. 2006 National Radio Conference CRA’s Involvement  Commercial Radio Australia has actively promoted the launch of this technology  Two representatives participated in Task force meetings in Europe and Asia.  We are currently participating in field trials.  Establishing contacts with broadcasters and regulators in other countries to promote aacPlus.  Liaising with receiver manufacturers.

14. 2006 National Radio Conference New audio coding  More spectrum efficiency means broadcasters can do more with their block of spectrum  For example in existing coding we could just do an FM equivalent service  New coding would allow one FM equivalent, a second audio service and space for some data.

15. 2006 National Radio Conference Conclusion – work to be done  Australian broadcasters are confident of a successful launch  There is much work to be done to finalise the spectrum we will use – we are in talks with Govt on access to spectrum that would allow SFN’s  We need to get AAC+ into receivers – and into stores.  We are encouraging other countries to follow our lead: China, France, India, even a relaunch in Germany.  The industry is in control of its future

16. 2006 National Radio Conference Thank you for listening www.commercialradio.com.au