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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION
Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB);
Dynamic Label Plus (DL Plus);
Application specification
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2 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
Reference
RTS/JTC-DAB-95
Keywords
broadcast, DAB, text
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3 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
Contents
Intellectual Property Rights . 4
Foreword . 4
Modal verbs terminology . 4
1 Scope . 5
2 References . 5
2.1 Normative references . 5
2.2 Informative references . 5
3 Definition of terms, symbols and abbreviations . 5
3.1 Terms . 5
3.2 Symbols . 6
3.3 Abbreviations . 6
4 Introduction . 7
5 DL Plus objects . 8
5.0 Introduction . 8
5.1 Content types . 9
5.2 Linking of DL Plus objects. 10
5.2.0 Introduction. 10
5.2.1 Aggregating DL Plus objects (category Item) . 10
5.2.2 Compiling DL Plus objects into tables . 11
5.2.3 Linking a Descriptor object to another DL Plus object . 12
5.3 Life time, updating and deletion . 12
5.3.0 Introduction. 12
5.3.1 Updating objects . 13
5.3.2 Deleting objects . 13
6 DL Plus tags . 13
6.0 Introduction . 13
6.1 Creating a dummy object . 14
6.2 Creating a delete object . 14
7 Command structure . 15
7.1 Transport of DL Plus commands . 15
7.2 DL Plus commands: general structure . 16
7.3 The DL Plus tags command . 16
7.4 Transmission sequence . 17
8 Receiver behaviour . 17
8.0 Introduction . 17
8.1 Basic requirements . 17
8.2 History . 18
Annex A (normative): List of DL Plus content types . 19
Annex B (informative): Use cases and Examples . 22
B.1 Use cases . 22
B.2 Examples for navigation and display use . 26
B.3 Prioritization . 26
Annex C (informative): DL Plus and the compatibility with RDS/RT+ . 28
Annex D (informative): Bibliography . 29
History . 30
ETSI
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4 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
Intellectual Property Rights
Essential patents
IPRs essential or potentially essential to normative deliverables may have been declared to ETSI. The information
pertaining to these essential IPRs, if any, is publicly available for ETSI members and non-members, and can be found
in ETSI SR 000 314: "Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); Essential, or potentially Essential, IPRs notified to ETSI in
respect of ETSI standards", which is available from the ETSI Secretariat. Latest updates are available on the ETSI Web
server (https://ipr.etsi.org/).
Pursuant to the ETSI IPR Policy, no investigation, including IPR searches, has been carried out by ETSI. No guarantee
can be given as to the existence of other IPRs not referenced in ETSI SR 000 314 (or the updates on the ETSI Web
server) which are, or may be, or may become, essential to the present document.
Trademarks
The present document may include trademarks and/or tradenames which are asserted and/or registered by their owners.
ETSI claims no ownership of these except for any which are indicated as being the property of ETSI, and conveys no
right to use or reproduce any trademark and/or tradename. Mention of those trademarks in the present document does
not constitute an endorsement by ETSI of products, services or organizations associated with those trademarks.
Foreword
This Technical Specification (TS) has been produced by Joint Technical Committee (JTC) Broadcast of the European
Broadcasting Union (EBU), Comité Européen de Normalisation ELECtrotechnique (CENELEC) and the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
NOTE 1: The EBU/ETSI JTC Broadcast was established in 1990 to co-ordinate the drafting of standards in the
specific field of broadcasting and related fields. Since 1995 the JTC Broadcast became a tripartite body
by including in the Memorandum of Understanding also CENELEC, which is responsible for the
standardization of radio and television receivers. The EBU is a professional association of broadcasting
organizations whose work includes the co-ordination of its members' activities in the technical, legal,
programme-making and programme-exchange domains. The EBU has active members in about
60 countries in the European broadcasting area; its headquarters is in Geneva.
European Broadcasting Union
CH-1218 GRAND SACONNEX (Geneva)
Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 717 21 11
Fax: +41 22 717 24 81
The Eureka Project 147 was established in 1987, with funding from the European Commission, to develop a system for
the broadcasting of audio and data to fixed, portable or mobile receivers. Their work resulted in the publication of
European Standard, ETSI EN 300 401 [1], for DAB (see note 2) which now has worldwide acceptance.
NOTE 2: DAB is a registered trademark owned by one of the Eureka Project 147 partners.
The DAB family of standards is supported by World DAB, an organization with members drawn from broadcasting
organizations and telecommunication providers together with companies from the professional and consumer
electronics industry.
Modal verbs terminology
In the present document "shall", "shall not", "should", "should not", "may", "need not", "will", "will not", "can" and
"cannot" are to be interpreted as described in clause 3.2 of the ETSI Drafting Rules (Verbal forms for the expression of
provisions).
"must" and "must not" are NOT allowed in ETSI deliverables except when used in direct citation.
ETSI
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5 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
1 Scope
The present document defines a backward compatible extension of the Dynamic Label feature used in Digital Audio
Broadcasting (DAB) (ETSI EN 300 401 [1]).
2 References
2.1 Normative references
References are either specific (identified by date of publication and/or edition number or version number) or
non-specific. For specific references, only the cited version applies. For non-specific references, the latest version of the
referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
Referenced documents which are not found to be publicly available in the expected location might be found at
https://docbox.etsi.org/Reference.
NOTE: While any hyperlinks included in this clause were valid at the time of publication, ETSI cannot guarantee
their long term validity.
The following referenced documents are necessary for the application of the present document.
[1] ETSI EN 300 401 (V2.1.1): "Radio Broadcasting Systems; Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) to
mobile, portable and fixed receivers".
[2] IEC 62106: "Radio data system (RDS) - VHF/FM sound broadcasting in the frequency range from
64,0 MHz to 108,0 MHz".
2.2 Informative references
References are either specific (identified by date of publication and/or edition number or version number) or
non-specific. For specific references, only the cited version applies. For non-specific references, the latest version of the
referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
NOTE: While any hyperlinks included in this clause were valid at the time of publication, ETSI cannot guarantee
their long term validity.
The following referenced documents are not necessary for the application of the present document but they assist the
user with regard to a particular subject area.
Not applicable.
3 Definition of terms, symbols and abbreviations
3.1 Terms
For the purposes of the present document, the terms given in ETSI EN 300 401 [1] and the following apply:
category: group of content types
content type: classification of the content of a DL Plus object
Dynamic Label (DL): feature of DAB for providing a programme with text messages; it also provides commands,
e.g. for presentation on the receiver terminal
ETSI
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6 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
Dynamic Label (DL) message: text messages that are associated with a programme service and are transmitted in the
PAD part of that programme
NOTE: One single DL message should be sufficient for complete comprehension by a (human) listener.
Dynamic Label Plus (DL Plus): extension of the Dynamic label feature; it allows storing and filtering parts of the text
(sent as DL messages) in the receiver terminal as DL Plus objects, which then can be selected and accessed by the
listener independently from the currently transmitted DL messages
DL plus command: mechanism for carrying the DL tags necessary for identifying DL Plus objects
DL plus object: text string created in a receiver with a defined content type to allow selection by the listener
DL plus tag: contains the location and the content type of a DL Plus object carried in a corresponding Dynamic Label
Message
programme item: time-slice of a programme, for example, a piece of music or a documentary report
3.2 Symbols
Void.
3.3 Abbreviations
For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations apply:
CD Compact Disc
CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check
DAB Digital Audio Broadcasting
DL Plus Dynamic Label Plus
DL Dynamic Label
EPG Electronic Programme Guide
FIG Fast Information Group
FM Frequency Modulation
IR Item Running
IT Item Toggle
MMS Multimedia Message Service
NT Number of Tags
ODA Open Data Application
PAD Programme Associated Data
PC Personal Computer
PDA Personal Digital Assistant
PMP Personal Media Player
RDS Radio Data System
RT RadioText
RT+ RadioText Plus
SMS Short Message Service
UECP Universal Encoder Communication Protocol
URL Universal Resource Location
USB Universal Serial Bus
ETSI
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7 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
4 Introduction
Digital Audio Broadcasting DAB [1] provides the text feature Dynamic Label (DL) which allows the service provider
to send text messages with information such as track playing, now/next, news headlines, weather, sport results, etc. To
serve all the different interests of listeners, the service provider has to send DL messages frequently and with different
content, one after the other, each message replacing the one before. The more information he wants to provide, the more
frequently he has to update the messages, and the less time is left for presentation of a message on the display and for
reading by a listener. So it will happen that a listener has to wait until specific information he is interested in shows up
and - even worse - has to observe the display continuously in order not to miss the instant when the desired information
is displayed.
DL Plus solves this dilemma by allowing the listener to select the kind of information he is interested in. For that
purpose DL messages are complemented by tags which identify specific content of the DL message by its content type.
Users can select the content types of information to be presented; they do not need to read, or even be aware of, the
complete stream of DL messages.
DL Plus is a backwards compatible extension of the DL feature: the transmitted tags are not visible in the DL message
so that listeners with receivers without a DL Plus decoder still view the DL messages as before. For the broadcaster, the
additional data rate (for tag transmission) is significantly less than the data rate necessary for text.
A receiver can use the content classification and tagging in two different ways: by improving the presentation of the text
messages and/or by providing the information to other applications and devices.
DL messages may contain any kind of text: some will be quite general - news headlines, for example - whilst others
relate directly to the audio - artist and title information, for example. In this latter case, special consideration is given to
allow correct grouping of all the different item-related information and an unambiguous reference to the audio of the
respective programme item. This timing information may also be used to ensure that the text and audio make sense for
time-shifted programmes.
DL Plus, by identifying text by content type, can automatically provide information to other devices like mobile phones,
PDAs, PCs and personal audio players. This means listeners can interact with the radio station more easily because the
transfer of telephone and SMS numbers, web addresses and event information may be done with a single click. DL Plus
is designed to stimulate the integration of radio with other devices in order to strengthen the competitiveness of radio
with respect to other media and to gain new and greater audiences.
Figure 1 illustrates the way that a DL Plus decoder in a receiver processes the received DL message and DL Plus tags to
create DL Plus objects that are then displayed or stored. In this example, the DL message contains the title and artist of
a music item that is currently on air. These two pieces of text are tagged so that the receiver may identify them and
create the DL Plus objects.
ETSI
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8 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
Figure 1: Example of a simplified schematic of DL Plus object creation
from DL message and DL Plus tags
The DL Plus tags are carried in the PAD using the same mechanism as the DL message but utilizing the command
feature of the DL application. Up to four DL Plus tags may correspond to a single DL message. DL Plus tags contain a
content type, a start marker and a length marker to identify the piece of text to be assigned to a DL Plus object. The DL
Plus objects may contain additional data fields, if so required by the receiver functionality. It is recommended to store a
time stamp indicating the time when the corresponding DL message was received (see clause 8.2). This allows history
oriented handling of the DL Plus objects, e.g. by assembling a play list with the last received programme items.
DL Plus offers similar functionality to the FM-RDS RT+ feature (see annex C).
5 DL Plus objects
5.0 Introduction
DL Plus objects are created in receivers from DL messages and associated DL Plus tags. Therefore the DL Plus objects
inherit some basic properties from the DL messages they are based on:
• The text of DL Plus objects shall be contained within a single DL message, and so has a maximum text length
determined by the limit of 128 bytes.
• The throughput of DL Plus objects is limited by the throughput of DL messages; the need for non-DL Plus
equipped receivers to be able to display all DL messages limits the throughput.
• These limitations restrict the overall amount of data that can be made available for the DL Plus application
decoder.
ETSI
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9 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
5.1 Content types
Each DL Plus object is assigned a content type chosen by the service provider from those available. 64 content types are
currently defined, see table A.1. These content types correspond exactly to those defined for the FM-RDS RT+ feature.
A further 64 content types are reserved for future addition.
The user can select which content types should be presentable to him and therefore which should be filtered and chosen
from the stream of received DL Plus objects.
The content types are grouped in the following categories:
• Item
Content types within this category are related closely to the current audio programme item. A programme item
could be a music track from a popular music programme, or a feature in a magazine programme. In some cases
there may be a single programme item in a programme, in other cases there may be many programme items.
All content types in the Item category conform to the use of ID3 tags.
• Info
Content types within this category carry information that is more or less unrelated to the audio, but offers
important additional information to the listener, including news, headlines, alarms, advertisements and events.
• Programme
Content types within this category describe the programme and the programme service (i.e. the "radio
station").
• Interactivity
Content types within this category include telephone numbers, SMS numbers, e-mail addresses or web
addresses (URLs) to support the implementation of interactivity by integration of radio and mobile phones,
PCs and PDAs.
• Private
Content types within this category are defined by the service provider and have no pre-determined use. The
interpretation is dependent on the programme service and may be used in closed user groups with special
receivers.
• Descriptor
Content types within this category are used to provide further detail to another DL Plus object
(see clause 5.2.3).
Up to four DL Plus objects can be created from each DL message and the DL Plus objects may contain different text,
the same text, or a portion of the same text which corresponds to the assigned content type.
EXAMPLE: The DL message "Coming soon: Performance featuring the SSSSSS in Concert, on Saturday
11.8.2017 at the RRRRR AAAAAA HHHH."
DL Plus tags are transmitted to produce the following DL Plus objects:
INFO.EVENT: "Performance featuring the SSSSSS in Concert, on Saturday 11.8.2017 at the
RRRRR AAAAAA HHHH"
DESCRIPTOR.APPOINTMENT: "11.8.2017"
DESCRIPTOR.PLACE: "RRRRR AAAAAA HHHH"
The text for both descriptor objects are completely contained in that of the INFO.EVENT object.
So the service provider ensures that a receiver can filter, store and present all details but also
allows for a more advanced receiver to identify the descriptor objects APPOINTMENT and
PLACE and provide them to calendar managing software on a PDA or PC.
ETSI
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10 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
5.2 Linking of DL Plus objects
5.2.0 Introduction
In general, DL Plus objects carry information that is meaningful in itself, without knowledge of information provided
by other DL Plus objects (except for DL Plus objects in category Descriptor).
DL Plus provides mechanisms to combine the information of two or more DL Plus objects. There are three structuring
methods:
• Aggregating all DL Plus objects with content types belonging to the Item category related to the same
programme item.
• Compiling several DL Plus objects of the same content type to a table (applicable to the categories Info,
Programme and Interactivity).
• Linking a DL Plus object with content types belonging to the Descriptor category to another DL Plus object.
5.2.1 Aggregating DL Plus objects (category Item)
Whilst a programme item is in progress, several DL messages may be sent and some of them will signal the creation of
various DL Plus objects with content types in the Item category (with information about title, artist, composer, etc.) and
all referring to the same programme item. These may be aggregated to give a fuller description of the programme item.
To ensure that DL Plus objects are associated correctly to the appropriate programme item, two flag bits are defined: the
item toggle bit and the item running bit.
These flag bits are set according to the audio and are transmitted with the DL Plus tags (see clause 6). The timing
precision of the signalling is dependant on the transmission of the DL Plus tags.
The value of the item toggle bit is changed at the start of each programme item.
The value of the item running bit is normally set to 1, but it is reset to 0 when the programme is interrupted, for example
by a news bulletin or by an announcer, for the duration of the interruption. When the item running bit is 0, a receiver
should not display DL Plus objects in the Item category and may interrupt recording of the programme.
The item toggle bit and the item running bit are used by receivers for the association of DL Plus objects in the Item
category with programme items and to control the recording of a programme.
If the broadcaster does not wish to signal the boundaries between programme items, then the item toggle bit and the
item running bit should be set to zero. However, it is recommended that these bits be correctly signalled to assist time-
shifting of programmes (both audio and messages) and the operation of "rewind-radio" devices.
Some examples of the use of these bits are shown below.
EXAMPLE 1:
Item 1 Item 2
Audio
Item toggle bit
Item running bit
Figure 2: Setting of item toggle bit and item running bit when one programme item follows another
In example 1, each programme item follows the previous one. The item toggle bit changes at the start of each
programme item; the item running bit remains set for the whole programme.
ETSI
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11 ETSI TS 102 980 V2.1.2 (2019-02)
EXAMPLE 2:
Item 2
Audio Item 1 News
Item toggle bit
Item running bit
Figure 3: Setting of item toggle bit and item running bit when news interrupts a programme
In example 2, a news item is transmitted between programme items in the middle of a programme. The item toggle bit
changes at the start of each programme item; the item running bit is set for each programme item, but reset for the
duration of the news.
EXAMPLE 3:
Item 1 Talk Item 1
Audio
Item toggle bit
Item running bit
Figure 4: Setting of item toggle bit and item running bit when an announcer interrupts
a programme item
In example 3, an announcer interrupts a programme item. The item toggle bit changes at the start of the programme
item; the item running bit is set for the programme item, but reset for the duration of the announcer's interruption.
5.2.2 Compiling DL Plus objects into tables
DL Plus objects can be compiled to a table, provided:
• they all have the same content type from categories Info, Programme or Interactivity; and
• the text of the objects contains redundant spaces.
The term "redundant spaces" is defined as two or more space/blank characters together within the text of the DL
message.
The table is identified by a content type belonging to the Info, Programme or Interactivity category - all DL Plus objects
with the same content type contribute DL Plus objects to the same table.
The text of DL Plus objec
...