Why Freeview Boxes do not have a DAB Tuner inside them?
joshua_welby
Posts: 9,025 Forum Member
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I know that a Few Freeview boxes like the Goodmans GBD5 and the Matsui Boxes have Dab Tuners inside them, but why cannot all Freeview Boxes have two tuners inside?
I thought it would be better if all Freview Boxes have DAB Tuners inside, so if you want to listen to the radio you can,
even your local ones all through your TV
I know that the Humax Freview HD boxes have the Internet Radio App, so you can select any Radio station you want via the Internet
What do you think, do you agree with me that Freeview or Freeview HD boxes should come with DAB Tuners inside them?
I thought it would be better if all Freview Boxes have DAB Tuners inside, so if you want to listen to the radio you can,
even your local ones all through your TV
I know that the Humax Freview HD boxes have the Internet Radio App, so you can select any Radio station you want via the Internet
What do you think, do you agree with me that Freeview or Freeview HD boxes should come with DAB Tuners inside them?
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Comments
DAB sucks though, we need to move to DAB+. And by the time we do, everything will be internet-delivered anyway.
The Freeview box would have to have a display so that you could see what you are tuning to.
Instead of using a normal radio, you want people to power up a TV (most likely large format), and a freeview box too? You're talking about a few hundred Watts instead of just a few Watts.
TV and Radio should never have been paired together.
Well they are powering up TVs to listen to radio stations via DVB-T. A DAB tuner probably consumes less power than a DVB-T tuner in the same box (less complex decoding).
The problem is the aerial system. You can pick up DAB off the down lead of UHF tv aerials but it's definitely sub-optimal. People in general are not going to understand or go to the trouble of fitting a Band III aerial. So to avoid lots of complaints about poor performance it's probably not worth the hassle.
My LG KP350 has an option to turn the screen off when listening to music.
Many new TVs do this now.
But yes the sound might suck a little though.
I never use my TV for this and use my N900 or Pure Evoke Flow most the time connected to my amps.
I am guessing people who bother to turn the screen off, and users with A/V amps, are going to be in the minority.
Much better than DAB!
I'm not sure that would work everywhere.
DVB-T was pushed 10 years ago with the launch of Freeview, DAB has been going for a few years without success and there was lots of offers made available about 2 years ago, trade-in, DAB radio's sold below £20, etc.
There is quite a bit of difference where a mature technology Used in large parts of the world is superseded by a newer one which brings other benefits, such as better compression, HD, etc as in the case of DVB-T2 compared to pushing a technology which had already been rejected by most of the world and superseded by DAB+ as in the case of DAB.
It was wrong to continue to promote DAB and put more sets in homes when a better option should have been taken of moving to DAB+. Any move to DAB+ has been delayed for at least 10 years as a result of continuing to promote a obsolete technology.
I have a DAB radio. It cost me a hundred quid several years ago.
I wouldn't mind in the least if it became obsolete and I had to buy a DAB+ radio. I've definitely had my money's worth and moving to DAB+ would be more than worth it.
Interstingly, while searching for a new mini-stereo, I noticed virtually all of them came with DAB+ (DAB compatible) recievers, so maybe the move to DAB+ won't be so far away.
Despite your niggles, radio listenership has gone up in the UK, a fairly unique situation worldwide, and is down almost entirely to people listening via Freeview and their tv rather than a portable radio.
While the sound quality from television speakers is far from idea, it is considerably better than that from tinny portable radios which is the yardstick against which most people measure.
It would be interesting to get figures for those listeners that actually listen to DAB radio by preference (rather than the usually available FM alternative provided on DAB radios).
This thread is going a bit OT and straying into Radio forum territory. We were talking about putting DAB tuners into DVB-T receivers....
Yes - but DAB tuners or DAB+ tuners?