Visteon Promotes Digital Radio Mondiale for Automotive Applications

KERPEN, Germany, Sept. 2  /PRNewswire/ -- Through a collaborative project with the RTL Group, Europe's leading broadcasting and production company, Visteon Corporation (NYSE:VC) will demonstrate an in-vehicle Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) receiver at the IFA World of Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin, Sept. 2-7.  The Visteon DRM, FM & AM CD-Tuner will be on display at the DRM Automotive Digital Radio booth (hall 5.2a - stand 102).

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With support of the RTL Group, Visteon has contributed its audio and infotainment expertise to develop a modified radio receiver for DRM signal reception.  The RTL Group is one of the key members of the Digital Radio Mondiale consortium.

The introduction of Digital Radio Mondiale will enable broadcasters to continue moving radio technology from analog to digital format, increasing sound and content quality.  As a key benefit of DRM, consumers will be able to receive broadcasts in their homes and cars.  DRM is designed to deliver a noise- and hiss-free sound quality, substantially improved over conventional analog radio.  Most importantly for drivers, as already demonstrated in test drives, DRM can generally deliver excellent reception results in vehicles, even at high speeds.

"Digital Radio Mondiale is already aired in more than 30 countries with broadcast members from all six continents," said Gerhard Zeiler, RTL Group's chief executive officer.  "Many broadcasters have committed to the DRM format including RTL Group stations."

Linda Rivers Bell, Visteon's electronics product strategy and planning director, points out that Visteon's infotainment and sound management capabilities are well established in the automotive industry, "We are prepared to deliver automotive grade DRM solutions, whenever the market is ready."

Visteon designs, tests and engineers sound systems for the automotive environment that accurately reproduce sound across all broadcast standards. Visteon is already supplying HD Radio/In-Band On-Channel (IBOC) modules and Satellite Radio Systems in North America, as well as Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) modules in Europe.

"As a strong supporter of new technologies, we consider DRM a complementary technology to the existing digital radio standards," says Bell.

The first DRM receivers will be available immediately following the IFA consumer show as tabletop radios able to receive DRM, DAB, FM and AM bands. Portable radios are expected to follow in 2006 and the market is expecting the first automotive solutions to follow thereafter.

About Digital Radio Mondiale

The DRM consortium formed in March 1998, when a small group of pioneering broadcasters and manufacturers joined forces to create a universal, digital system for the broadcasting bands below 30 MHz.  DRM is the world's only, non- proprietary digital radio system for short-wave, AM/medium-wave and long-wave. DRM currently covers the broadcasting bands below 30 MHz, the DRM consortium voted in March 2005 to begin the process of extending the system to broadcasting bands up to 120 MHz.  The design, development and testing phases are expected to be completed in the 2007-2009 time frame.  The quality of DRM audio is considered excellent, and the improvement upon analog AM is immediately noticeable.  Unlike digital systems that require a new frequency allocation, DRM uses existing AM broadcast frequency bands.  DRM applications will include fixed and portable radios, car receivers, software receivers and PDAs.  Broadcasters supporting DRM include Deutsche Welle and Sudwestrundfunk (SWR) in Germany, RTL Group stations, BBC World Service, Radio France and Voice of America, to name only a few.  See http://www.drm.org/ for more information.

About RTL Group

RTL Group is Europe's leading commercial broadcaster, with interests in 31 television channels and 33 radio stations in 10 countries and content production throughout the world.  Its television portfolio includes RTL Television in Germany, M6 in France, Five in the UK, and the RTL channels in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Croatia and Hungary, as well as Antena 3 in Spain and TVI in Portugal.  RTL Group's flagship radio station is RTL in France.  In addition, it also owns or has interests in other stations in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg. RTL Group's content production arm, FremantleMedia is one of the largest international producers outside the U.S.  It is currently producing more than 260 programs in over 40 countries including the U.S., providing a wide range of drama, entertainment and factual programming for viewers around the world.

About Visteon

Visteon is the second largest manufacturer worldwide of factory-installed audio systems to the automotive industry; the company also supplies leading- edge in-vehicle audio and infotainment solutions to both automotive manufacturers and the automotive aftermarket.

Visteon was first-to-market with the integration of Bluetooth(R) wireless and voice technology.  The company is also leading in Satellite Radio Systems and was voted best-in-class for several of its family in-car entertainment systems, including the portable Dockable Media Player and the terrestrial Digital Video Broadcasting tuner DigiTune(TM) DVB-T M1.

Visteon Corporation is a leading, full-service supplier that delivers consumer-driven technology solutions to automotive manufacturers worldwide and through multiple channels within the global automotive aftermarket.  Visteon has about 70,000 employees and a global delivery system of more than 200 technical, manufacturing, sales and service facilities located in 24 countries. 

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DATASOURCE: Visteon Corporation



CONTACT:  UK & Northern Europe: Vivien Ronco, ([phone],

 , Germany & Eastern Europe: Britta Lange,

([phone],  , or France & Southern Europe:

Dolores Muniz, ([phone],  , all of Visteon

Corporation



Web site:  http://www.visteon.com/

http://www.drm.org/ 

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