LAS VEGAS -Although terrestrial digital audio radio (DAR) receivers aren’t expected to be available commercially until 2002, iBiquity will stage demonstrations at CES of terrestrial broadcasting to keep suppliers and retailers excited about the technology’s progress.
iBiquity is developing the only terrestrial in-band on-channel (IBOC) standard under consideration by the FCC.
At CES, the company is teaming up with Kenwood to demonstrate a modified Kenwood car head unit that controls a prototype outboard digital receiver, which will receive digital broadcasts from a local FM station. The electronics will be installed in a vehicle in iBiquity’s booth, which is in the digital radio pavilion, and in a kiosk in Kenwood’s booth.
iBiquity also hopes to demonstrate live digital AM reception from a local AM station in its kiosk.
At the same time, digital radio’s data capabilities will be demonstrated in kiosks in the Alpine, iBiquity, Kenwood, and Visteon displays and in the front lobby of the main convention center.
For these demos, hard drives are being used to store and play back 30 minutes of music and data, which will be displayed on a mock radio front panel appearing on a video monitor. The data will include album and song titles and cover art, as well as advertising and data from the Associated Press, Accuweather and Smart Route System, which provides traffic information in 83 cities to radio stations and cable channels, as well as on the Web.
Because iBiquity is still merging separate incompatible IBOC standards into a unified standard, the live broadcasts at CES will use one of the previous standards, which was demonstrated live at last year’s CES.
