The second workshop organised by the Indonesian Public broadcaster RRI and the DRM consortium took place on July 3. It was attended by about 140 participants from RRI stations and headquarters, and other interested Indonesian parties.
This workshop follows an introductory workshop held in April with a presentation from the DRM consortium participants and contributions from RRI, KOMINFO (ministry) and BMKG (disaster agency).
The aim of the second joint Indonesian seminar was to go step by step with suggestions for introducing DRM for local, regional and national coverage of the country in a costly efficient and practical way.
Key DRM speakers detailed how DRM can build on existing and new infrastructure to offer enhanced audio and multimedia services in all frequency bands. They also detailed how DRM can also offer special benefits like emergency warning, highway traffic news and e-learning. The many receiver solutions including the mobile ones were of particular interest to the participants.
Some of the main conclusions of the workshop were that DRM is already a tested and recommended digital radio standard in Indonesia. The versatility of the standard is demonstrated as DRM offers flexible paths to digitization as a per-broadcaster operation (as AM/FM successor), as well as an efficient transmitter-sharing option (Multichannel-DRM). This latest modern and ultra-efficient option enables RRI to be the industry-leading platform operator in the FM-band and band-III. As the transmission chain elements and receiver technologies exist already, the final conclusion of the workshop was that DRM is ready to fully digitise Indonesian radio now.
This story first appeared on RadioInfo.asia