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odr-audioenc

Encodes audio into the DAB and DAB+ formats a multiplexer expects

What it does

Encodes audio to HE-AAC for DAB+ or MPEG Layer II for classic DAB, at the bit rates and framing a DAB multiplexer requires, taking input from a file, a sound card, or a network stream.

Why you would want it

It is the first stage of the transmission chain: nothing else in the ODR tools accepts ordinary audio. Its bit-rate and codec choices are also what determine how a station sounds, which on DAB is decided at the encoder and nowhere else.

Before it will work

Audio to encode, and odr-dabmux to feed. On Debian 13 the package is absent, so this manifest will report an apt gap there rather than install -- which is the correct behaviour and not a defect.

How it installs

  • apt: odr-audioenc
  • NOT in Debian 13, and present on Parrot -- 3.6.0-2 on both Parrot and Kali, 3.6.0-2build1 on Ubuntu 26.04, absent on Debian 13 and Mint (measured 2026-08-28). That direction is unusual: Parrot tracks Debian, so this is one of the few places it carries something its base does not, and it is the reason the rest of the ODR chain is installable on the primary target and this piece is the one to check.

Known problems

DAB+ bit rates below about 48 kbit/s are where the codec's limits become obvious, and broadcasters are routinely tempted lower to fit more services into a multiplex. Encoding is lawful everywhere; what the chain does at its far end is the part that is not (see odr-dabmod).

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

The Open Digital Radio project. Debian declares opendigitalradio.org as the Homepage and that host answered nothing on http or https when checked on 2026-08-28 -- the same finding as the dablin manifest -- so the repository is cited. It is live: head of the default branch is 20d3b59de3aa, 2024-12-03, read from the branch rather than from GitHub's updated_at (D-032).

Source: catalog/packages/odr-audioenc.yaml