LAS VEGAS — Speaking in the Radio Technology section, Sunday at the NAB Show, Roman Holzhause from the Anhault University of Applied Sciences in Germany, highlighted recent developments in the use of ancillary data in the DAB digital radio standard.
The session, entitled “Building Web Services To Embed Online Data In DAB+; Adds, Social Feeds, News & More,” looked in particular at use of the Dynamic Label Segment (DLS), the Multimedia Object Transfer Slideshow (MOT) and the Journaline menu driven structured text system.
Although all these elements have seen real-world use in Europe for some time, the developments explained by Holzhause highlighted integration with cloud-based data delivery and content management approaches to interchange information with DAB+ encoders through a secure, closed, API. A built-in return path allows playout metrics to be shared with web-based applications, which can also aggregate and track the hosted data. A visualization of the software showed real-world applications, such as program information, live weather data and advertising content, which Holzhause noted would allow additional commercial messaging to be streamed to listeners without interruption to broadcasts.
Alexander Zink, project development manager, explained that the system was now ready for operation and had been offered to the communications regulator in the United Kingdom, Ofcom, for use in its ongoing localized DAB trial transmissions.
