Digital Audio Industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Digital Audio Industry - Essay Example There is, however, a transition in progress. Much of the audio equipment used today is digital inside. The development of digital technology in the last half a decade has been significant to changing the way people communicate. The market is set to welcome a digital audio networking technology. The various advantages of digital over analog signals include that you can pick up or transmit multiple audio signals over a single connection. Digital signals are also less prone to attenuation and noise, and the degradation and delay that the multiple A/D and D/A conversions can be avoided. The process of audio distribution, processing, and even mixing can be undertaken in a digital domain. Despite these advantages, however, digital distribution has not become as popular as investors would have hoped or expected. Unfortunately, the principle reason for the lack of popularity and the low rates of sales is quite simply that the digital products offered so far can be described as both proprietary and inflexible. A viable product to introduce to the market at this point - to put an end to this digital resistance is one that is groundbreaking in the field of digital audio networking technology. ... t will open the doors and pave the way for digital technology to live up to its full potential; a product that links together all the benefits of digital audio technology and makes these accessible to users across Australia and the world will truly be able to leverage digital technology for future enterprises and innovations in the field. Market Analysis Although the market research information on digital audio usage in Australia is not widely available, it is viable to regard the situation in the United States as something of a case study comparison to the situation in Australia. In the United States, one of the most telling examples of the problem surrounding digital media is provided as an example by Sirius Satellite Radio. According to one US-based market research company, Bridge Ratings (2006) projected that the weekly come for analog radio would slide from about 95%, where it is currently, to 70% by 2020. This is an indicator for increased demand of the digital technology. In their 2006 report, Bridge Ratings established that satellite radio should reach over 34 million users by 2010 and 60 million by 2020. A condition of this, however was that the satellite radio/digital radio model would have to alter its current status of only very small market penetration. The market penetration was estimated to be about 555,000 by year end and this was noted to be best efforts to have HD improving to almost 20 million in 2010 and 46 million by 2020. Another part of the problem was evidence that the advent of HD radio essentially coincided with the growth of Internet radio. Internet radio, unlike digital audio and its presentation in satellite radio, is highly popular. It is also set to benefit greatly from pervasive Wi-Max or Wide Area Wireless Access which will bring