A low cost DAB multichannel receiver comprising a simplified buffering method for buffering content segments from multiple streams contained within the DAB channel, where the receiver enables the listener to navigate buffered content segments from multiple streams within the DAB channel while enabling the broadcaster to control the timeshift of commercial content to the receiver output stream. The receiver's buffered content grows over time and is cleared when tuning away from the channel, thus encouraging listeners desiring to tune in to new content to instead navigate to new buffered segments. Broadcaster control of the listener experience may be enabled by setting content control fields which are observed in the broadcast by the multichannel receivers. Additional embodiments are disclosed.

Tools and techniques are provided for identifying, collecting, and processing music-related content within a radio broadcast environment. In one embodiment, a method is provided for processing music-related broadcast radio data. The method includes receiving a plurality of broadcast radio station signals; identifying each radio station signal as an analog signal or a digitally broadcast signal in response to the identified radio station signals; obtaining a broadcast sample from at least one of the radio stations; identifying at least one music-related information element missing from the broadcast sample; obtaining missing music-related information elements; updating a computer server with the obtained music-related information elements; and generating and communicating a music guide including the updated information to various user devices.

Systems and methods for increasing transmission bandwidth efficiency by the analysis and synthesis of the ultimate components of transmitted content are presented. To implement such a system, a dictionary or database of elemental codewords can be generated from a set of audio clips. Using such a database, a given arbitrary song or other audio file can be expressed as a series of such codewords, where each given codeword in the series is a compressed audio packet that can be used as is, or, for example, can be tagged to be modified to better match the corresponding portion of the original audio file. Each codeword in the database has an index number or unique identifier. For a relatively small number of bits used in a unique ID, e.g. 27-30, several hundreds of millions of codewords can be uniquely identified. By providing the database of codewords to receivers of a broadcast or content delivery system in advance, instead of broadcasting or streaming the actual compressed audio signal, all that need be transmitted is the series of identifiers along with any modification instructions to the identified codewords. After reception, intelligence on the receiver having access to a locally stored copy of the dictionary can reconstruct the original audio clip by accessing the codewords via the received IDs, modify them as instructed by the modification instructions, further modify the codewords either individually or in groups using the audio profile of the original audio file (also sent by the encoder) and play back a generated sequence of phase corrected codewords and modified codewords as instructed. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, such modification can extend into neighboring codewords, and can utilize either or both (i) cross correlation based time alignment and (ii) phase continuity between harmonics, to achieve higher fidelity to the original audio clip.

A method performed by a radio receiver comprises: receiving digital radio broadcast (DRB) signals on respective frequency channels: acquiring a list that identifies which of the DRB signals are all-digital signals: receiving a tune command to tune to a particular DRB signal among the DRB signals; and upon determining that the particular DRB signal is an all-digital signal based on the list: playing muted audio: while playing muted audio, tuning to the particular DRB signal based on the tune command and performing digital signal acquisition of the particular DRB signal; and when the digital signal acquisition is complete, performing digital demodulation of the particular DRB signal to recover digital audio, and switching from playing muted audio to playing digital audio.

A method and system is presented for coordinating the transmission of supplemental digital data to accompany broadcast data, and in particular, analog radio broadcasts, among a plurality of broadcasters. The supplemental digital data may provide information about the particular broadcast data being transmitted or may be supplemental to such data. The supplemental digital data to be presented is sorted based on particular algorithms which may take into account broadcaster-specified criteria such as target audience, time of day, type of broadcast data presented, and the like. The supplemental digital data may be audio data, visual data, or audio-visual data for presentation with the broadcast data. The supplemental digital data may further be advertisement data. The advertisement data may be sold by the broadcasters or the party coordinating the IBOC transmission of the supplemental digital data. The supplemental digital data may play simultaneously with muted broadcast data or at a user-specified time.

A method includes determining, at a device, that transmission data indicates that first data was transmitted via a digital radio channel. The method also includes determining, at the device, that reception data indicates that second data was received via the digital radio channel. The first data has a first size that is less than a second size of the second data. The method also includes determining, at the device, whether an error occurred in transmission of the first data based on determining whether each of a plurality of portions of the first data is included at least once in the second data. Other aspects are also disclosed.

The present disclosure relates to a method and system for receiving a broadcast signal. The system includes a broadcast receiver device having two receiving units, two decoding units, a combining unit and a further processing unit. A broadcast signal is received by both receiving units, so that two reception signals are provided. From each reception signal, a raw data stream is extracted and decoded by the decoding units. It is checked if the data stream provided by each decoding unit is complete. If a first data stream is complete, it is processed by the further processing unit. If the first data stream is incomplete and the second data stream is complete, the second data stream is further processed. If both data streams are incomplete, they will be combined to a combined data stream by the combining unit, the combined data stream being further processed, if it is complete.

A low cost DAB multichannel receiver comprising a simplified buffering method for buffering content segments from multiple streams contained within the DAB channel, where the receiver enables the listener to navigate buffered content segments from multiple streams within the DAB channel while enabling the broadcaster to control the timeshift of commercial content to the receiver output stream. The receiver's buffered content grows over time and is cleared when tuning away from the channel, thus encouraging listeners desiring to tune in to new content to instead navigate to new buffered segments. Broadcaster control of the listener experience may be enabled by setting content control fields which are observed in the broadcast by the multichannel receivers. Additional embodiments are disclosed.

A method performed by at an importer-exporter of an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcasting system comprises: receiving, from a first audio client, first protocol data units (PDUs) (first PDUs) of encoded main audio and that include first sequence numbers that progress in a first order; sending the first PDUs for transmission over a logical channel of an IBOC waveform; receiving, from a second audio client, second PDUs of encoded non-main audio and that include second sequence numbers; aligning the second PDUs to the first PDUs by aligning the second sequence numbers to the first sequence numbers, to produce aligned second PDUs; and switching to sending the aligned second PDUs for transmission over the logical channel in place of the first PDUs such that the second sequence numbers of the aligned second PDUs after switching maintain the first order of the first sequence numbers as established prior to switching.

A method for processing a digital audio broadcast signal in a radio receiver, includes: receiving a hybrid broadcast signal; demodulating the hybrid broadcast signal to produce an analog audio stream and a digital audio stream; and using a normalized cross-correlation of envelopes of the analog audio stream and the digital audio stream to measure a time offset between the analog audio stream and the digital audio stream. The time offset can be used to align the analog audio stream and the digital audio stream for subsequent blending of an output of the radio receiver from the analog audio stream to the digital audio stream or from the digital audio stream to the analog audio stream.