DAB – just an in-car option

The Ford Motor Company, although a shareholder in MXR Digital, plans to offer DAB Digital Radio in three models from later this year – but only as an option.

For the not insignificant upgrade cost of £300, future owners of new models of the Ford Focus, Ford C-MAX and Ford Kuga will be able to order their car with a Sony digital receiver.

While is expected to remain only an option for most Ford cars in the near future, one model – the Ford Kuga Titanium – will come with DAB as standard.

Car manufacturers traditionally require a very long lead-time to introduce new features and costs of DAB car units remain relatively high.    This step by Ford may be a small step in the right direction for DAB, but it seems that the important in-car radio listener market will continue to rely on AM and FM as their main means of radio reception for the immediate future.

Looking forward to the NEXT digital switchover

As the UK slowly moves into the switchoff phase of it’s analogue television services, it seems inevitable that in time MPEG-4 along with the new DVB-T2 standard will be used for Standard Definition TV services as well as HDTV. This combination would permit as many as 19 TV channels per multiplex instead of the current 8.

A complete changeover would render all existing Freeview receivers obsolete.

Last Friday, the UK regulator Ofcom published Terms of Reference for a technical pilot to trial digital TV DVB-T2 transmissions.

The pilot will help to establish the technical standards for the delivery of high definition services on digital terrestrial television. The document can be found here http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/dttfuture/pilot_tor.pdf

Ofcom, who will coordinate the pilot, has also published an open letter inviting participation in the pilot from interested parties. The letter can be found here http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/dttfuture/pilot_letter.pdf