Saturday 7 December 2013

Confusion on DAB Standards Continues in France

The French Ministry of Culture and Communication will shortly authorize the transmission standard DAB+. The government envisages that this will co-exist alongside the standard already authorized, T-DMB (DMB-R). This reveals that the government still considers digital radio to be a matter for experimentation, in that its decision "will enrich the period of experimentation in offering two technical paths for digital radio with their particular costs and modes of operation". 

For the time being a  DAB+ radio will not suffice in France in order to receive all the services available. A device also supporting DMB-R will continue to be necessary. DAB+ is currently being tested in Paris and Nantes. According to Wohnort DMB-R differs from the DMB in use in Korea because the audio codecs are different. France uses AAC. Korea uses BSAC. A standard Korean DMB receiver will most likely not receive the forthcoming DMB-R transmissions in France.

The major French broadcasters as the public radio and the largest commercial networks are presently not using DAB or any other digital service except the Internet. 2012 the government stopped the public radio from going DAB because of several reasons among this high costs.