Better late than never dept: Digital Radio Tech reports that France has adopted the DMB system for digital radio (PDF). The site says:
The big French radio broadcasters claim that they've adopted DMB because it allows them to broadcast pictures or low bit rate video or interactive graphics alongside radio stations to make radio more appealing, and they say that a wider choice of stations doesn't drive people to adopt digital radio.
According to Wikipedia: "DMB was developed in South Korea under the national IT project and the world's first official DMB broadcast started in South Korea in 2005, although trials were available much earlier." Trials are also being run in Germany, Italy, Norway, Indonesia and other places.
DMB and DAB+ are almost identical. However, the need to allow for images means DMB is about 35% less efficient than DAB+, reckons DRT. The French will therefore get fewer stations or a lower audio quality than they would have got with DAB+.
Steve Green, who runs Digital Radio Tech, reckons the only solution to the radio problem is to provide "over the air" (OTA) software updates so that radios can be upgraded to cope with whatever new systems are introduced. This type of approach works with Wi-Fi radios.
