PARIS — Eager to move its proprietary audio/video codec into Europe's steadily growing digital radio market, Microsoft Corp. has gained membership in the World DAB Forum, an industry group developing digital audio broadcasting (DAB) technology.
"The Forum is moving forward with multiple new opportunities such as 5.1 surround sound and video-to-mobile implementations" using radio signals, said Gareth Sutcliffe, senior business manager of Windows Digital Media div. at Microsoft. "We want to be an active voice in the World DAB Forum."
Microsoft is targeting digital radio as the next battleground for its Windows Media Series 9 platform. Meanwhile, it continues to campaign for adoption of its Windows Media codec in the next generation HD DVD spec and emerging TV-on-mobile standard called DVB-Handheld (DVB-H).
The software giant hopes to convince radio broadcasters to embrace Windows Media Audio 9 Professional (WMA Pro) and Windows Media Video 9 (WMV9) and layer them on top of the current digital broadcast technology — based on the Eureka 147 standard — for next-generation multimedia data services.
Mike Wolf, principal analyst with In-Stat/MDR's Consumer Media and Content Group, called Microsoft's latest move "a part of a larger domino effect Microsoft has been seeding for some time." The software giant, angling to move beyond the PC and finding digital entertainment a growth market, is "putting their technology into systems, into portable hard media and downloadable media," Wolf said.
Microsoft's participation in the World DAB Forum is viewed by some in the indsutry as a much needed boost for the digital radio standard. Steve Evans, vice president of sales at Frontier Silicon, a London-based fabless chip company, added, "Microsoft's bringing its codec into the market will broaden the appeal of DAB."
Although the Eureka 147 standard has been around since the mid-1990's, it has only recently taken off. DAB has been gaining momentum over the past two years, particularly in the U.K., a fact that has not escaped Microsoft's notice.
In contrast to the U.S. where terrestrial digital radio technology called HD Radio, developed and owned by iBiquity, is in its early stages, DAB digital radio is available in 35 countries in Europe and Asia along with Canada and Australia.
According to the World DAB Forum, 478,000 radios have been sold in the U.K. as of January. That number is expected to exceed 1 million by the end of the year.
Microsoft has been participating in a London trial of 5.1-channel surround sound over DAB. The demo is using Microsoft's WMA Pro audio compression technology.
Microsoft also demonstrated a full-motion live video broadcast over DAB at last year's International Broadcast Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam. Windows Media Video 9 was also used in the demo.
The Eureka 147 System, on which the current DAB services are based, uses the follwing specs: Musicam audio coding, which employs a psycho-acoustical coding technique specified for MPEG-2 Audio Layer II encoding; transmission coding/multiplexing; and coded orthogonal frequency- division multiplex modulation.
Eureka 147 was initially developed as an audio spec. Nigel Oakley, vice president of marketing at RadioScape, said DAB nevertheless has enough bandwidth to be exploited "as a delivery mechanism for multimedia services in the mobile world." Oakley called Microsoft's membership in the DAB Forum "a recognition and endorsement on potential of DAB."
Microsoft's Sutcliffe said it will be an active participant in the World DAB Forum both on technology and business levels.
