News

Digital Radio you can pause, rewind...

by Guy J Kewney | posted on 23 November 2006

It looks a bit like a portable radio - with an SD memory card stuck in the side. And that's exactly what it is: the first portable radio which you can pause, rewind, and record your music with - a winner for Morphy Richards. It's next generation Digital Radio, or DRM.

The product hasn't even been launched in the UK yet, and nonetheless it's sold out from its T-Online store in Germany, at 200 Euros.

Radio chip maker Radioscape paraded the new toy at a celebration of ten years of DAB (digital audio broadcast) transmissions in the UK, as the technology goes global.

First response of casual observers is sceptical. "It's just another digital radio," they say, disappointed. Ah yes; but a digital radio that also picks up FM, AM and short-wave broadcasts; and one that works outside the UK.

"As new stations come online, you'll see new digital broadcasts on AM radio," said David Hawkins [right] VP of business development at Radioscape. "You can actually do digital radio on medium wave using this technology, and it's far more efficient than analogue broadcasts."

It also sounds a lot better.

NewsWireless did some brief tests of the new Digital Radio Mondiale technology this morning at the Radioscape HQ in London, using the Morphy Richards set. Here's what impressed us:

Electronic programme guide: all stations, digital or not, DAB or FM, are listed on the blue front panel. Twist the knob to select the station you want, press to tune it in. Set up recordings for up to a week in the future.

Pause and rewind: the radio has enough internal memory to store ten minutes worth of DAB transmission. If you're listening to a DRM broadcast, it goes up to an hour's worth. Plenty of time to answer the door-bell, and go back to where you were. And if you want to go back a few minutes, just twist the knob back.

Rock solid reception: DRM either has a signal, or it doesn't. So AM transmissions which, normally, are pretty noisy and buzzy at night come through clear and steady

Good audio: the idea of true Hi-Fi is impossible with the bandwidth, but honestly, you'd never guess unless you are a gold-ear wonder. "It guesses the harmonics based on the lower-frequencies," was the way Hawkins described it.

Up to four hours worth of recording on a 1G secure digital Flash memory chip on DAB - more or DRM. Transfer stored music in MPEG2 or WMA format to your PC or portable music player - or play it back on the DRM radio.

Yes, you can listen to old analogue transmissions. But if the station has a digital channel somewhere else, it will quietly switch to a source that is better quality.

What we didn't like:

The on/off switch. It's far too easy to bump accidentally!

It doesn't actually matter, because if the feature is unpopular, it can be changed. The SD slot on the side is actually primarily there to allow software updates. So if (as now seems likely) Morphy Richards decides to change the way the on/off switch works, a new OS upgrade can be downloaded by users, stored on the SD card, and plugged in.

After that, the switch would require a "press-and-hold" to operate; or, perhaps, would put up a dialog box on the display "Really cancel current recording?" or "You are listening to delay-radio! - switching off will clear the memory - do you want to go ahead?"

Radioscape believes that the amazing success that DAB radio has seen in the UK will almost certainly now spread all over the world with DRM.

"It was conceived as a global standard," said Hawkins, " and while we aren't sure what America will do, because they have an equivalent standard called HD Radio from Ubiquity, we think they will go for DRM because HD Radio has problems in the AM bands."

The news that the first DRM set is sold out is excellent news for Radioscape. It produces a single module, the RS500, which is a complete DRM/DAB unit - no other DAB manufacturer yet can match it.

"It is more costly than the DAB unit," admitted Hawkins, "but only about $40 more costly; we'll have that down to about $20 delta this time next year, and even less after that, if sales go the way we expect." Makers like Roberts and Samsung are close to launch, and several other "very well known names" will announce soon - it was not possible, for example, to conceal the presence of iRiver personnel at the 10th Anniversary party last night, amongst others.