LONDON--()--Frontier Silicon, the leading supplier of Digital Radio and Network Audio solutions, today announces the launch of Venice 8.1, the latest in their successful Venice range of modules.
In response to the increasing use of multi-media capabilities by digital radio broadcasters, Frontier Silicon has introduced the Venice 8.1 module bringing a highly responsive colour touch-screen graphical-user-interface into competitively priced DAB/DAB+ radios. This module gives OEMs and ODMs the opportunity to bring advanced digital radios and dockers to the market, which are able to display slideshow images broadcast over DAB or DAB+ providing a colourful and informative backdrop to any radio programme. Slideshow is rapidly becoming a feature of DAB/DAB+ broadcasts across Europe as well as in Australia and Hong Kong and it provides radio manufacturers with a significant opportunity to differentiate their products with a colour display and deliver a rich radio experience to consumers.
In the ever evolving media market, broadcasters continue to develop and support technology which differentiates and enhances digital broadcasting. DAB/DAB+ Slideshow, which allows rich images to be sent alongside broadcast audio content, is a good example of such technology. DAB/DAB+ Slideshow is an established part of the WorldDMB family of standards and is a robust, mature technology. Frontier Silicon’s mass market proven tools allow brands and manufacturers to quickly produce advanced multimedia radios to take advantage of this enhancement to broadcast radio.
Steve Evans, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Frontier Silicon, said, “It is great to see the rapid progress that broadcasters are making as they exploit the opportunities to innovate that digital radio brings over and above FM radio. The full digital radio experience is about more than just receiving audio and Frontier Silicon remains committed to ensure that our customers can build exciting products that bring listeners the benefits of these advances in technology.”
Michael Reichert, leader of the Digital Radio Project office representing both public and private broadcasters in Germany said “We are delighted that Frontier Silicon has taken the initiative to bring advanced digital radio features into the market. Since the launch of advanced data services across Germany in 2011 we are seeing an increasing consumer interest in these services. With cost effective colour radios coming to the market this year we expect this growth to continue.”
DAB/DAB+ slideshow transmissions are supported by both commercial and public broadcasters and include news, sports reports, weather, traffic camera pictures, now-playing screens and station logos. Commercial broadcasters are seeing the potential to increase advertising revenues by enriching audio adverts with full colour screen images increasing their effectiveness.
In addition to the advanced radio features, Venice 8.1 plays music from a docked iPod/iPhone, or from an external USB mass storage device, supporting all the popular audio codecs including MP3, WMA, AAC, HE-AAC, FLAC and WAV.
The Venice 8.1 module is supported by the Jupiter 8.1 reference platform, a fully qualified reference design for colour touch screen digital radio to provide a fast-to-market solution for radio manufacturers.
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