Xperi is positioning its proprietary system to be a leading player in what it calls the "digital transition" of Indian radio.
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HD in India
- Thread starter CTListener
- Start date
The real elephant in that room is the fact that All India Radio already adopted for full national coverage in multiple languages the DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) system and is already through the first phase of adopting the system, consisting of many high power regional and major metro transmitters.
India wanted a system suitable for the AM band so that they could get large regional coverage without the need for thousands of transmitters such as with the European digital system or the restrictions of the coverage of the FM band.
Any chance that some US broadcasters might adopt all digital HD on AM with the same kind of regional broadcast goals? I realize that the US radio market is probably different than broadcast in India. The consumer uptake of HD capable AM receivers is also a key issue. It seems like there might be some advantages in cost of broadcast infrastructure however.
I've seen shootouts of both HD-MA3 and DRM. For coverage and ease of receive capture/decoding at MW frequencies, DRM is slightly better. The main issue is receiver availability. Ibquity/Xperi have a jump on that front, since it was the chosen standard.
It's a lot like the whole ATSC vs. European DTV standards. ATSC was ultimately chosen as the U.S. DTV modulation standard, in spite of a strong case for the existing and proven COFDM Euro-standard.
The other issue with DRM is that it sounds fairly horrible. I've listened, both on SDR receivers and on an actual portable DRM radio, and there's a distinct wishy-washy metallic sound that isn't there to the same extent with HD Radio or European DAB. I don't know if this is the case with DRM+ (which uses the FM band and has more bandwidth to play with) as there's only been one recent trial to my knowledge, in St Petersburg, Russia.
DRM doesn't support the hybrid operation mode ("sidebands") that HD Radio does - but the Indians are using "combined" transmitters on AM to provide both AM and DRM services on adjacent channels. In Delhi, they run DRM on 810kHz and AM on 819, for instance.
DRM doesn't support the hybrid operation mode ("sidebands") that HD Radio does - but the Indians are using "combined" transmitters on AM to provide both AM and DRM services on adjacent channels. In Delhi, they run DRM on 810kHz and AM on 819, for instance.
And, in India, AIR owns the AM band and they can reallocate to fit their needs. In the Western Hemisphere, the band is far more occupied and there would be no way to duplicate channels for each station to add a DRM channel.
Meanwhile at the beginning of 2022 All India Radio shut down all but one of its remaining domestic shortwave outlets. There used to be a lot of these, but the huge expansion of FM in the country as well as upgraded AM and DRM signals has made SW unnecessary.
One could run DRM on SW too. But since SW went to 'ghost town' status 20 years ago, there wasn't any point of pursuing the transition.
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