Radio the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) and the ABU have organised a trial of HD Radio this week. The event, with the rarther unwieldy title of “HD-RADIO-VOV-ABU Digital Radio Showcase: Digital Radio Transmission Workshop and Field Measurements in MW & FM Band” takes place from 10-13 February. It will trial digital radio HD Radio transmissions using the In-Band On-Channel (IBOC) approach, where broadcasters are able to transmit digital signals along with analogue signals within the existing allocated spectrum. It will also demonstrate the ability to support new digital receivers while remaining backward compatible with existing analogue receivers.
The principle objective of the project is to showcase the feasibility and working of the technology of HD Radio broadcasting MW and FM signals. The project aims at equipping the participants with sufficient expertise in the area of simulcasting, helping them in carrying out similar trials in their own countries.
Given that the Asia-Pacific region has some of the largest mediumwave radio broadcasters, the ABU believes that successful trials and measurements will pave the way for easy and cost effective transition to digital transmissions.
The Voice of Vietnam commenced AM and FM HD Radio transmissions in Hanoi in June, 2008 including multicasting, in anticipation of making HD Radio technology a standard.
on Feb 8th, 2009 at 17:06
I guess that Vietnam doesn’t realize that HD Radio (IBLOCK, IBUZZ) simply doesn’t work, and there is zero consumer interest:
http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com
on Feb 8th, 2009 at 20:39
Congrats for the trials of HD Radio in Vietnam….
on Feb 8th, 2009 at 21:54
Blocking and buzzing adjacent frequencies from other countries is axually helpful in information control. If it becoms The Standard, every Vietnamese `consumer` who wishes to listen to national radio will have to be `interested`.
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 11:47
Glenn Hauser said… “Blocking and buzzing adjacent frequencies from other countries is axually helpful in information control.”
Kind of reminds one of the Cold War, where jamming was common-place. Since iBiquity is having a hard time breaking into European markets (they see through the snake-oil), they are going after the less-informed third-world markets:
“Digital Radio Wobbles Around the World’
“My personal mission was to warn as many other countries away from casting their fates with iBiquity’s HD Radio platform, as it not only carries a plethora of technical risks, but it may decimate community radio stations as we know them. Fortunately, this was an easy job: the Europeans can see through the snake-oil that is HD Radio, and the general consensus of the workshop was that HD should be opposed at every step… However, this is not stopping iBiquity from trying to break into international markets… iBiquity sees these as ripe markets, where the ‘no-pain, some-gain’ mantra of HD’s biggest selling-point may sway the less-informed… But perhaps the most important thing I learned at the Budapest workshop is that many established countries, which settled upon digital radio transition plans many years before the U.S. did, are now rethinking their own initiatives. The problem is not inherent to any specific technology; it’s due to the fact that no digital radio protocol exists which does things that citizen-consumers see as important enough to upgrade their receivers for.”
http://diymedia.net/archive/0608.htm#062308
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 12:13
This Vietnamese initiave clearly shows that digital radio is only an issue for state run broadcasters, my guess is that in Vietnam they have the monopoly, no other parties allowed on the air.
In more -democratic- areas such as USA, Latin America and Europe where commercial stations take the lead, the interest for HD radio is less.
Internet Radio would not be a good idea for Vietnam, the option that the citizin can tune into many -free- stations is the governments nightmare.
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 17:34
It’s the same monopoly in the US and UK - the HD Radio Alliance owned stations in the US, and the Digital One monopoly in the UK. In the US, the smaller broadcasters are not part of the iNiquity investors, and they are being jammed off the dial. What is ineresting, is that my blog has gotten over 12,000 hits in six months, yet none from Vietnam - I have even gotten visits from China, and other such countries. Vietnam must really have a lock down on unlimited Internet access - a perfect situation for iNiquity’s scam. What gets me, is how iNiquity scammed Brazil, when there are other much less costly alternatives such as FMeXtra that actually work, and don’t require confiscatory licening fees.