RadioDNS - Important News

[Nick Piggott (RadioDNS)]

Hello,

We promised to keep this mailing list low traffic, so you may not have heard much from us recently, but now we have some important changes to tell you about.

RadioDNS supports the convergence of broadcast radio and the Internet to create Hybrid Radio.

Today we're publishing a proposal to update the RadioDNS specification to better handle radio delivered using IP streaming. The technical detail is available on our developers' mailing list, but the primary aim of this change is to give listeners the same experience regardless of whether they're listening to a station via broadcast radio or streaming it over the Internet. This means that broadcasters' enhanced applications will now be available to all their audience, not just those who listen via broadcast radio. All our existing application specifications (RadioVIS, RadioEPG, RadioTAG) will be updated to support this new functionality.

The other significant change is to our RadioEPG specification. It has always been an aim of the project to enable true Hybrid Radio - a radio that can switch seamlessly between distribution technologies. The update to the RadioEPG specification gives a radio all the information it needs to find the same radio station in different ways. In practical terms, that means a broadcaster can tell a device to move listeners from IP streaming to FM, HD, DAB where a good broadcast signal is available, or vice versa. The technical details are on the EPG developers' mailing list.

We're very excited about these changes. The proposals are being circulated now on the relevant mailing lists for peer technical review and comment, or for people to build prototypes against. They are not yet confirmed changes. We will notify everyone separately when the proposals have been adopted as updates to the specifications, which is likely to be the end of 2011, beginning of 2012.

I'd like to thank the members of the technical Teams who have worked on these changes.

I'd also like to let you know that RadioDNS will be present or represented at three major events happening soon:

- Die Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) in Berlin - September 5th/6th

- IBC in Amsterdam - September 9th - 12th (thanks to our member EBU)

- NAB Radio Show in Chicago, IL - September 15th and 16th (thanks to our member NAB)

As an open and collaborative project, we like meeting people to discuss Hybrid Radio and the opportunities for new applications that combine broadcast radio and the Internet. If you'd like to meet myself or James Cridland (our Secretary Elect), then just send either of us an email.

Thank you for your interest in the RadioDNS project.

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Nick Piggott
Chairperson
RadioDNS Project

http://radiodns.org // @RadioDNS