Paris / January 2014 As you may noticed, I posted two interviews on digital radio, one of which is with Mr. Patrick Hannon & the second is with Ms. Ruxandra Obreja. I am pleased to say that both interviews were very informative for me & also for the Turkish market. I was working on the digital radio transition project professionally when I posted those interviews. After a change in my position, although I am not directly involved in the project any more, I keep following the progress and still try to understand the technology. This is the third interview with the same 4 questions. Mr. Attila Ladanyi is the CTO of T & C Holding and also a Board Member of the RDS - Forum. The photo in this post is from Paris. 1. There are many examples of digital radio transitions all over the world. Some are great success whereas some are total fail.  I think there is not a one-right-path to follow. What do you recommend us, I mean in Turkey, with all those experiences? ...

According to the news in the web site of EBU, 470 - 694 MHz will be reserved for DTT & radio microphones not only till WRC 2019, but also till WRC 2023. At the WRC 2023, 470 - 960 MHz band will be reconsidered. It is good news for the DTT business in Europe. But is it a good news for Turkey? As you may well know, Turkey has not yet spend any money on DTT. There is no DTT network, nor a finished frequency allocation tender. Hence, we can say that there is nothing, just NOTHING regarding DTT.  So, in best circumstances, the tender for DTT frequencies can be finished by 2016 & the network would be ready by 2017. Well, the picture becomes interesting from that point. The frequency allocation would be for 10 years, which covers 2016-2026. But, during the WRC 2023, the frequency usage will be reconsidered again. It may be more meaningful to think not to build DTT at all, and start thinking to work on xG mobile networks. I would appreciate for your comment...

Actually this post might be a little shorter then usual, here goes: Nothing new was happening regarding the progress of DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) in Turkey, suprisingly this changed, a presenter of Turk Telekom attended the event in Istanbul.   And thank God that Mr. Umut (Udo) Keten attended this event organized by the Chamber of Electrical Engineers (EMO). He started explaining the view of Turk Telekom (the largest telco in Turkey) and how they see DTT. And what a suprise this was, not many expected this interest with DTT and we definately would like to hear more from Turk Telekom’s point of view regarding this ‘sensitive’ matter. I figured I should at least try to summarize the presentation but it would only mislead or misconceive some idea’s to my readers.   However rest assured, I will try to get in touch with a senior officer at Turk Telekom, this in turn to squeeze out an e-interview on their position of the DTT process in Turkey. While you...

Some love to talk with abbreviations. They think that talking with abbreviations make them look to know a lot about the subject that they are talking about. Well, looking to know and to really know is absolutely different. To really know a subject, the recipe is the same for all; hard work. It needs many nights without sleep and many hours of talk with experts.  To be honest, I am trying to keep me updated with the latest technology in radio & television, which is not always possible. To be updated one should follow some major events, which are mainly the IBC in Amsterdam, the NAB in Las  Vegas, the DVB World Congress in different cities of Europe and some other events of EBU & ABU. As an amateur blogger it is not so easy to do for me. But, any way God helps and I manage to follow most of them. With luck, the General Assembly (GA) of the Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union, ABU, was in Istanbul this year. I had a presentation on Emergency War...

This post will be a short covarage of the potential problems regarding the DTT launch in Turkey: It is quite obvious for anyone that the ASO in Turkey, should have been completed till now. This lateness make the things some how more problematic. Broadcast sector actually are not using the terrestrial transmitters any more. TV reception is heavily, nearly fully depends on FTA satellite, for which each & every broadcaster has license. So, for the broadcasters, the DTT is not needed with this model:  Pay for the licence, ---MONEY Build the Network,   ---MONEY Pay for the Transmitter + Multiplex operator company,  ---MONEY also pay for the annual fee of frequency usage. ---MONEY Well this is a all give model actually :) There is not even one income, with building DTT.  Or just forget about the DTT, just close down analog terrestrial transmitters and save money and leave the full UHF band to the mobile networks. Well, to be honest the...

Finally, Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, the public broadcaster of Turkey, has officially announced the re-start of the DAB tests in Turkey. At a meeting where the 4K broadcast was announced the General Manager of TRT, Mr. Şenol GÖKA, has declared their interest in DAB.  There is also an article in a magazine of TRT Radio , in which the details of the tests are explained.  I hope that this tests will be the first steps for a digital radio in Turkey. 

You probably know that WRC 2015, is going to start in 2 weeks. There will be debate on the use of 470-694 MHz. The European public broadcasters, and the organization of the public broadcasters, namely European Broadcasting Union, EBU are trying to secure the rest of UHF band for terrestrial broadcasting.  For the ones out of broadcasting, the frequency band can be thought as the road for the automobiles. When the road is wider, you can put more cars on it. If you squeeze the cars, then it is OK for you to live with a narrower road. That's exactly what happened when the terrestrial television went through the digital transmission. The size of the cars, the bandwidth needed for a TV channel, has went down. Hence, the whole UHF band for analogue TV transmission is more then enough. On the other hand, there was a increasing demand of bandwidth in mobile networks. This demand, caused the release of 800 MHz band to mobile.  With the developments in the encoding techn...

This is the most common question I am facing: What is the situation about DTT? Actually I do not know. So you may ask, why are you writing this? Let me try to explain: According to the WRC 2006, we (I mean Turkey) should switch off its analogue terrestrial television transmitters this summer. But we did not. According to Act 6112, we (I again mean Turkey) should complete the frequency allocation tender process. But we did not. According to the Head of Supreme Council at the time of 2006, we (I, for the third time, mean Turkey) in three years time ASO would be completed. But it did not. Above I listed the THINGS that have to be DONE but did not.  Now, lets look what we (I will not write you I mean, but I guess you got it) DID: Assign the 800 MHz to the mobile world for 4.5 G. Do not ask what the 4.5G is, or do not ask me :) From an email I got from the CTO of ANTEN AS, with a decision to downsize the company, I mean ANTEN AS, the only network operator in Turkey f...

There are mainly three worldwide digital radio technologies: DAB/DAB+, DRM30/DRM+ and  HD Radio™ . According to some sector professional Turkey should not even think of  HD Radio™  as an alternative for the digitization of radio. I have some doubts on that. Lets have a closer look at  HD Radio™ : Who is behind the  HD Radio™ ? IBiquity  Digital is the firm that developed the  HD Radio™  technology. Some argues that as it is a firm, not a consortium, so broadcasters should avoid choosing  HD Radio™  as the digital radio technology. It sounds a little bit ambiguous. Why should broadcasters avoid using it? Do they avoid using Windows, for their PCs? Well, it is the same actually. Microsoft is a firm, that has a product, and broadcasters, like many others are using it. So, Ibiquity Digital is a firm like Microsoft. They have an approach to digital radio, with using FM band, they can digitize the r...

There has been a debate on the standard of the digital radio all over the world. WorldDAB & DRM are the two leading non profit organisation to support their solutions; DAB+ & DRM+. There is also another alternative with radio over DVB-T2 Lite profile. During IBC 2015 all three tried to convince the attendees that their solution was the ONE.   The panel of WorldDAB  Mr. Kenneth Wenzel, showing the digital radio over DVB-T2 Lite profile  Head of WorldDAB, Mr. Patrick Hannon Actually I should admit that I did not have chance to attend any DRM event. Although I promised to attend & I shared their program on this blog, I totally forgot this. I had the chance to meet with Mr. Kenneth Wenzel again, with whom I first met at the Levira's event in Tallinn in 2013. I also found chance to chat with the CEO of DVB Project, Dr. Peter Siebert & Head of DigiTAG Mr. Simon Fell & Deputy Head of DigiTAG Mr. Stan Baaijens. We had a meeting with t...

It's been quite a while since the IBC 2015 is over. I started to post about it, on my blog in Turkish. Actually, it is still much easier for me to write in my native. But, as a PRESS member, I know that I should also post in English. I will start with a general covarage, after that I will write on some specific technology/application, and finally I will comment on the companies & their solutions in IBC 2015.  First of all I should thank to all, working for the IBC. It was the first time I attended to the IBC, but it worth every cent that I spent on my own. Amsterdam is a lovely city. The hotels are quite expensive during IBC, but you may stay in Leiden, Delft, Den Haag or even Rotterdam. They are not far away by train. You should also take in to account the transportation cost. IBC gives you a free card which is valid in all bus, tram & metro in Amsterdam. If you choose to stay in another city, you have to use train, which is not that cheap. I stayed at Leiden, for 6...

Photo from IBC's web site, Press Zone. IBC 2014 1967, First IBC was held in London. 1992, IBC in Amsterdam RAI for the first time.  1994+, IBC in Amsterdam RAI. 14 exhibition halls. 1700+ exhibitors 170+, the number of countries which visitors came. 55000+, visitors in 2014. 70+ sessions in conference 2015. 16+, age to enter IBC. 2570 €, Gold PASS Early Bid.

It is my pleasure to announce that I have booked my 4 full days with some interviews & demos. To be honest, I was some how not sure, how will people find me, I mean, this will be my first time in IBC. But, thanks God, I still take mails from companies, to whom, unfortunately I say, hopefully next year.  I will write long posts on IBC, when I come back. I will, hopefully, have chance to take some videos from the event, if I manage to take permission form my girls to have one of their tablets :) Hope to meet you there!

There are hundreds of TV channels, each of which are 7/24 broadcasting. It becomes very complicated for the viewer to choose among these. Recommendation engines play important role on that. They help the people on their choices.  Recently I got an e-mail from Platform agency, about a partnership between ContentWise & Bebeleye. The TV professionals will recognise these firms, they are doing great job in their own field and region. I believe this partnership will open new possibilities for both. 

As I wrote before, with the recent speech of Mr. Esat ÇIPLAK, one of the members of RTÜK, the Supreme Council for radio & television, there is a new debate on DTT in Turkey. I believe Turkey is the only country with "completely none" DTT investment in Europe. This uniqueness, may open a window of opportunity to Turkey, giving him the chance to dedicate UHF band directly to mobile, without the need to wait for the diminish of DTT.  I have to admit that when I first read the speech of Mr. ÇIPLAK, I thought that the offer was quite meaningless. He claimed that LTE-B was enough for DTT, which has never installed in a country. Actually after searching about the technology I realized that the offer of giving all UHF band to mobile operators is not an invention. It has been talked by the mobile world quite a while. I read a presentation by Nokia Networks in March 2015, in which the future of UHF band is shown as LTE.  I believe this debate has the potential to cha...

I started to think of IBC. As I have said before, it will be the first time I have the chance to attend such an important event. I feel lucky that IBC accepted my application as PRESS. So I will try to do my job and inform my followers with daily digest from the show. The details of my IBC program is more clear now: My flight to Amsterdam is on 10 th of September. I will be in Amsterdam at 12.30 pm. It is the first day of the conference and the fair is not opened yet. I will come back to Ankara on 15 of September, in the afternoon. This means I will have 4 full days for the event. Till today I organised just one appointment on 13.09 at 10.30. I want to inform you that as I will also follow the conference, I may not have enough time for your inquiries.  I will not come to IBC as a delegate of my company. I will pay all my expenses on my own, but to be honest, the subjects that I personally interested and the ones that I work on are not different. DAB/DAB+, ...

I have been using LinkedIn frequently. I post some updates on DTT and digital radio transition in Turkey. I found out that there are not enough source of information on these subjects. So, although it is extra work for me, I try to post my comments on these in English also.  Recently Mr. Esat ÇIPLAK, gave a speech on DTT transition in Turkey. He is one of the members of Supreme Council of Radio & Television in Turkey, namely RTÜK. There are nine members of RTÜK. Mr. ÇIPLAK claims that there is no need to build a new DTT network as there are very little percentage left watching analog terrestrial television. According to Mr. ÇIPLAK, even in Europe percentage of population watching television via DTT is decreasing. As you well know, Turkey has not yet build DTT. So, Mr. ÇIPLAK claims that the UHF band should be released to mobile operators. Mobile operators will use the frequency band more efficient.  I posted a comment on these in my blog in Turkish. Thinking of ...

I have been blogging since 2004, in Turkish about many: books, travel, cooking and also radio & television technology. As you may guess the most viewed posts I made are the cooking & travel ones. Radio & television are the main, may be nowadays  were the main, way of entertainment for all. But the technology behind radio & tv are not the hot topic for all.  In 2013 I decided to post in English on radio & television technology in Turkey. My main goal was to become a reference blog for the radio & TV industry in Turkey. I know that there are not many sources for information on what is going on in Turkey about the digital transition in radio & TV. I tried to share my knowledge, actually the open sources of information which are mainly in Turkish, to the professionals all over the world. By that I dreamed that one day I would be accredited as PRESS to the important events of broadcasting.  In 2013, I managed to attend three conference...