They shouldn't have put Radios 1 to 4 on DAB in the first place. The BBC should have put the digital-only stations on in good quality stereo, and waited for analogue switch-off before switching the analogue stations over. That way we'd have have had decent quality on BBC stations before any transition to DAB+.
They should have done whatever necessary to provide all stations in near CD quality from the outset.
Oh, hang on, they did! Then launched five more stations... :rolleyes:
I don't think DAB without Radios 1-4 would have been a good idea.
They initially kept Radio 1-4 off Freeview, arguing that "they aren't digital radio stations" but were forced to buy space on a commercial Freeview mux to broadcast Radios 1-4, due to public demand.
Grumble grumble - DAB radios should all have onchip software radio - all that'd be required to upgrade then would be a firmware upgrade over the air, because all the decoding would be done in software. Radios with USB connections? Upgrade them by hooking them up to a PC and flashing them over the USB connection.
Can't understand why Radioscape don't do this, sure it might cost a bit more initially but they could charge a bit more for the chips and the radio manufacturers could charge a bit more as they'd last longer and have a guaranteed upgrade path - you can retrospectively introduce new codec support and you don't get hundreds of thousands of people going "oh for f***'s sake... now I have to go buy another £100 radio, bloody hell."
Some guy on working lunch today suggested the UK is sticking with the old DAB while the rest of the world jumps past the 80s technology that is MP2 and goes straight for the 90s technology that is AAC.
Surely if we are looking towards the future, we should use something a bit more up to date.
Guess in some ways as well as the UK having 3M MP2 only DAB sets, it's also a matter of band III bandwidth, the UK gave up TV in band III so the UK has more space for several existing MP2 stations (52 in London going up to maybe 60 with 5+ DMB TV and other data services).
But other countries still have band III TV so the number of possible DAB/DMB muxes are limited and DAB+ makes more sense.
That guy was Quentin Howard, the chief exec of WorldDMB and one of the chief architects of the mess that we have today! Both the BBC and Channel 4 have said that they want to use AAC+ on DAB as soon as possible so I'm afraid Quentin is being rather economical with the truth.
DAB+ makes more sense for us as well, unless you're saying that it's OK for us to carry on listening to Radio 4, BBC7, Asian Network in mono and Radios 1 & 2 in poor audio quality.
It doesn't matter which country you're talking about, MP2 is too inefficient to be used on digital radio even in the UK! Then of course there's the introduction of Reed-Solomon coding on DAB+ to give decent quality reception instead of the signal dropping out every few hundred yards. Don't British people deserve these high standards as well as the French and the Germans, why must we alone be shortchanged?
3.51 The digital radio system to which this licence pertains is terrestrial digital audio broadcasting (T-DAB). The system is specified by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), as its standard of ETS 300 401.
Copies may be obtained from: http://www.etsi.org/.
3.52 All non-encrypted digital sound programme services (including any provided by the BBC) must be in conformance with the audio coding standards defined in ETS 300 401, namely ISO/IEC 11172-3 (layer II), or 13818-3 (layer II) –LSF format, according to whether sampling rates of 48 or 24 kHz are applied to the source audio. These standards are often referred to as 'MPEG 1 Layer 2', or 'MP2' for short. This is set out in Ofcom’s Digital Technical Code with which licensees must comply by virtue of their licence.
3.53 The use of other audio coding standards is acceptable for the provision of audio content not delivered in real time, but for storage and use at a time after transmission (e.g. 'podcasts' – see paragraph 3.31), and for any technical services (see paragraph 3.34).
"Most of the retail stores now are not selling analogue radios anymore, you can only buy DAB digital radio sets" Quentin Howard, Working Lunch today.
Which retail stores? The only one I know about is Dixons Online.
Analogue radios are in the Argos catalogue, just checked John Lewis and Tesco online and they are listed there, they are in my local Morrisons, in fact the majority there are analogue, and Currys Digital.
He can wave the current Ofcom technical document around as much as he likes, the fact of the matter is that some broadcasters have asked Ofcom for the terms of the document to be changed to allow transmissions in the new format.
Guess in some ways as well as the UK having 3M MP2 only DAB sets, it's also a matter of band III bandwidth, the UK gave up TV in band III so the UK has more space for several existing MP2 stations (52 in London going up to maybe 60 with 5+ DMB TV and other data services).
But other countries still have band III TV so the number of possible DAB/DMB muxes are limited and DAB+ makes more sense.
That's not right at all.
We stopped VHF TV broadcasting, and then gave the spectrum to other uses. It's the difficulty of clawing it back from these uses that causes the UK's lack of VHF DAB spectrum.
In the countries where VHF TV is widely used, anaogue switch off is going to free up masses of spectrum for VHF DAB and DVB-T. Several countries who secured the spectrum for DVB-T have already said they'll use one DVB-T VHF channel slot to provide 4 DAB channels instead.
So they're in a potentially better position than us, not worse.
They still need DAB+ though, because most have higher numbers of stations on FM than the UK. This means transitioning all existing stations and adding an enticing number of new ones can't happen with DABv1, even with more spectrum.
DAB+ and DRM+ solve the problem. DAB+ will do for now, but I hope no one forgets DRM+ for smaller stations. I bet the DRM+/DAB+ chipsets will be ready before the DRM+ standard itself, so no worry there!.
Analogue radios are in the Argos catalogue, just checked John Lewis and Tesco online and they are listed there, they are in my local Morrisons, in fact the majority there are analogue, and Currys Digital.
. . . and let's not forget:
Anywhere that sells mobile phones!
It goes on to explain the new DAB+ system and concludes that:
If the broadcasters and regulators suddenly dropped DAB in favour of DAB+, digital radio owners may be able to upgrade their model to receive a DAB+ signal. This is because when the DAB+ standard was developed, the boffins behind it kept to a minimum any mucking about with the technology for processing the signal. This should allow as many current digital radios as possible to be upgraded.
And advice for new purchases:
If you’re planning to buy a new digital radio, don’t let the news about DAB+ put you off. New digital radios will be developed with the DAB+ signal in mind – so they are also likely to be easily upgradeable.
This advice does not match the posts on this and other forums,
so have WHICH? got it completly wrong?
Partly because the new DAB+ modules will be pin compatable with the old DAB modules, but for the hastle unless you have a favourite set say an Evoke, it might be worth waiting untill DAB+ starts in UK, then buying a new set which might also have web streaming or DRM.
Existing DAB will be still arround for a few years in UK before broadcasters and regulators drop DAB in favour of DAB+, DAB+ broadcasts may not happen untill say 50% of digital sets are DAB+ compatable and there will still be some DAB stations for a while after that.
It's terrible that we got landed with shoddy audio quality in comparison with European DAB broadcasters.
It took so long for people to get on to DAB that I think the leap to DAB+ will have consumers guessing 'when will it end?' After all, for an increase in audio quality, I'd rather wait until DAB++ or whatever the subsequent formats will be called.
It's terrible that we got landed with shoddy audio quality in comparison with European DAB broadcasters.
It took so long for people to get on to DAB that I think the leap to DAB+ will have consumers guessing 'when will it end?' After all, for an increase in audio quality, I'd rather wait until DAB++ or whatever the subsequent formats will be called.
Shocking! I shall write to the times about it! Dear sir, Anoraks of Britain are most annoyed that their advice about methods of radio transmission had been ignored! Despite hundreds of radio stations being available, these people have audio checking equipment whichj says that although they're getting thirty more channels than they used to, the audio quality isn't rolls-royce, so yah sucks boo!
Oh, by the way they post on forums, but their command of the English language is about as poor as they claim DAB is!
I half heard a news report today that seemed to suggest that DAB was going to be replaced, around the time of DSO, by DAB+ (?) That the new service would offer a broader range of stations, but that current sets would be useless after the changeover.
Surely this can't be true?
PAH !!! BOO !!!
I bought one about 18 months ago and have only used it a couple of times.
Wish I hadn't bothered now
I don't get great reception due to a nearby factory towering overhead and blocking the signal. I though DAB would have helped. Got that wrong.
Shocking! I shall write to the times about it! Dear sir, Anoraks of Britain are most annoyed that their advice about methods of radio transmission had been ignored! Despite hundreds of radio stations being available, these people have audio checking equipment whichj says that although they're getting thirty more channels than they used to, the audio quality isn't rolls-royce, so yah sucks boo!
Oh, by the way they post on forums, but their command of the English language is about as poor as they claim DAB is!
Funny that!
You don't need audio checking equipment, just a pair of ears, to hear that mono is mono...
Talking about the English language, did you mean 'The Times', 'which' and 'Rolls-Royce' ? :rolleyes:
It goes on to explain the new DAB+ system and concludes that:
If the broadcasters and regulators suddenly dropped DAB in favour of DAB+, digital radio owners may be able to upgrade their model to receive a DAB+ signal. This is because when the DAB+ standard was developed, the boffins behind it kept to a minimum any mucking about with the technology for processing the signal. This should allow as many current digital radios as possible to be upgraded.
And advice for new purchases:
If you’re planning to buy a new digital radio, don’t let the news about DAB+ put you off. New digital radios will be developed with the DAB+ signal in mind – so they are also likely to be easily upgradeable.
This advice does not match the posts on this and other forums,
so have WHICH? got it completly wrong?
If I sent a comment to a similar forum 10 years ago and said that CD was doomed and that vinyl would outlive the young pretender I would have been written off as a looney - but that could well come true. The point is that if that were used then as a reason to abandon buying a CD walkman or in car player then it would have been the buyer that would have lost out.
As I have said many a time on this forum, DAB is not the total disaster that some people try to put accross. My in car DAB (£150 plus decent all band aerial) is the best sounding radio with the most reliable reception I have ever had in the car. It is tailor made for in car use, and like my hi-fi tuner etc. sounds OK for most of the time (the odd spell of sub standard Radio Three being the exception) on the stations I listen to. What is more important is that whilst other drivers might be listening to a second best choice of radio station I am listening to 6 Music - the station that gives me what I want to listen to, and BBC7 and XFM as alternatives I don't have otherwise.
At a guess I would assume that the BBC will continue to put out compatable programs for at least another 8 to 10 years. As the only fully comprehensive UK broadcaster I would hope they are given the means to do this whilst developing the next generation of transmitters alongside utilising what is supposed to be allocated DAB spectrum. If all radios sold from when the new system was decided upon was enabled with the new system but (as I gather they can easily be) were backwards compatable, then the above transition could go smoothly. I would hope that at least the BBC would be able to twin track well in excess of the 10 years so as to avoid the scourge of built in obsolescense and the wastefulness in such areas as electronics.
Meanwhile "Chill" and enjoy the programs and easy interference free reception of a well chosen and properly installed DAB receiver (with FM on hand for those occasional 160kbps Radio Three moments!).
If the radio you buy today includes a chipset which has the power to decode DAB+, and the manufacturer provides a software upgrade in the future, and you have the ability to install this upgrade, then you'll be fine.
For the rest, forget it. Some recent models may be "pin compatible", but have you seen the size of the pins on these chips? It's not a DIY job swapping them over! Easier, and cheaper, to dump the radio and buy a new one when the time comes.
As for older (originally expensive) DAB radios - enjoy them. They won't become land fill overnight anymore than FM radios have become land fill. Yes, stations will appear on DAB+ that your DABv1 radio can't receive. Yes, eventually you'll buy a DAB+ radio (inevitable really, if you buy another DAB radio for anywhere else in the house). Later still, you'll decide you want the DAB+ stations on your DABv1 radio, and replace it (if it hasn't broken first).
The problem (the only problem) is the lack of information. As soon as all back stock of DABv1 only radios have sold out, I predict that we'll hear a very different message from virtually everyone. New radios will be marked as DAB+ compatible, and new stations will launch to take advantage of them. Meanwhile, most DABv1 owners will remain happy for a while.
Currently, it's just like the situation with HDTVs. The first batch didn't have HDCP. Manufactures kept very quiet about this, and made very sure they got most of these into shops and sold before launching the HD-Ready marking. Suddenly, the information was everywhere: "HD Ready means 720 lines or more, and HDMI inputs with HDCP for direct digital connection from HD digital sources". The older HDTVs work, but are obsolete. They can't display an HDCP protected signal. This means they'll be useless for some HD sources.
This doesn't really matter here and now, because so few of those sources are available. But being compatible with future products is a selling point, and all TVs which are "HD-ready" are prominently marked.
That guy was Quentin Howard, the chief exec of WorldDMB and one of the chief architects of the mess that we have today! Both the BBC and Channel 4 have said that they want to use AAC+ on DAB as soon as possible so I'm afraid Quentin is being rather economical with the truth.
QUOTE]
don't forget Quentin is Ralph Bernards big chum and one of the Big GWR bigwigs - who spent so much pushing the crappy mp2 DAB technology. They can't let go of thier investment so far and argue to switch to newer technology as they have spent so much of GWR/CGaps money on the technology. They would look foolish and probabbly face a backlast from investors. Quentin is looking after Quentin and Ralph not the ears of the great listening public.
In car DAB.....some cars already have this (the current DAB format) built in or as an optional upgrade....So these will be obsolete most likely before the car reaches the big car crusher. With this in mind, I will make sure I tick the "FM radio please" tick box on my next car.
If only I had kept my "old" Sony FM rds tuner for the hifi. I changed it for a DAB one before the new DAB+ was even being talked about. At least it has FM built in as well, but the old Sony FM tuner was a better FM tuner.
Comments
They should have done whatever necessary to provide all stations in near CD quality from the outset.
Oh, hang on, they did! Then launched five more stations... :rolleyes:
I don't think DAB without Radios 1-4 would have been a good idea.
They initially kept Radio 1-4 off Freeview, arguing that "they aren't digital radio stations" but were forced to buy space on a commercial Freeview mux to broadcast Radios 1-4, due to public demand.
Cheers,
David.
Can't understand why Radioscape don't do this, sure it might cost a bit more initially but they could charge a bit more for the chips and the radio manufacturers could charge a bit more as they'd last longer and have a guaranteed upgrade path - you can retrospectively introduce new codec support and you don't get hundreds of thousands of people going "oh for f***'s sake... now I have to go buy another £100 radio, bloody hell."
http://www.radioscape.com/PressRoom/Press_Releases/2006/Oct_Dec/201106.asp
Surely if we are looking towards the future, we should use something a bit more up to date.
But other countries still have band III TV so the number of possible DAB/DMB muxes are limited and DAB+ makes more sense.
DAB+ makes more sense for us as well, unless you're saying that it's OK for us to carry on listening to Radio 4, BBC7, Asian Network in mono and Radios 1 & 2 in poor audio quality.
It doesn't matter which country you're talking about, MP2 is too inefficient to be used on digital radio even in the UK! Then of course there's the introduction of Reed-Solomon coding on DAB+ to give decent quality reception instead of the signal dropping out every few hundred yards. Don't British people deserve these high standards as well as the French and the Germans, why must we alone be shortchanged?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/5170354.stm
Well I've looked on the site but cannot find the document he was refering to.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radio/ifi/rbl/dcr/adverts/advrt_national/national.pdf
(Printed page 16, PDF page 19)
Which retail stores? The only one I know about is Dixons Online.
Analogue radios are in the Argos catalogue, just checked John Lewis and Tesco online and they are listed there, they are in my local Morrisons, in fact the majority there are analogue, and Currys Digital.
He can wave the current Ofcom technical document around as much as he likes, the fact of the matter is that some broadcasters have asked Ofcom for the terms of the document to be changed to allow transmissions in the new format.
That's not right at all.
We stopped VHF TV broadcasting, and then gave the spectrum to other uses. It's the difficulty of clawing it back from these uses that causes the UK's lack of VHF DAB spectrum.
In the countries where VHF TV is widely used, anaogue switch off is going to free up masses of spectrum for VHF DAB and DVB-T. Several countries who secured the spectrum for DVB-T have already said they'll use one DVB-T VHF channel slot to provide 4 DAB channels instead.
So they're in a potentially better position than us, not worse.
They still need DAB+ though, because most have higher numbers of stations on FM than the UK. This means transitioning all existing stations and adding an enticing number of new ones can't happen with DABv1, even with more spectrum.
DAB+ and DRM+ solve the problem. DAB+ will do for now, but I hope no one forgets DRM+ for smaller stations. I bet the DRM+/DAB+ chipsets will be ready before the DRM+ standard itself, so no worry there!.
Cheers,
David.
Anywhere that sells mobile phones!
Shame to waste a good radio!!
Will UK digital radios soon be obsolete?
It goes on to explain the new DAB+ system and concludes that:
If the broadcasters and regulators suddenly dropped DAB in favour of DAB+, digital radio owners may be able to upgrade their model to receive a DAB+ signal. This is because when the DAB+ standard was developed, the boffins behind it kept to a minimum any mucking about with the technology for processing the signal. This should allow as many current digital radios as possible to be upgraded.
And advice for new purchases:
If you’re planning to buy a new digital radio, don’t let the news about DAB+ put you off. New digital radios will be developed with the DAB+ signal in mind – so they are also likely to be easily upgradeable.
This advice does not match the posts on this and other forums,
so have WHICH? got it completly wrong?
Existing DAB will be still arround for a few years in UK before broadcasters and regulators drop DAB in favour of DAB+, DAB+ broadcasts may not happen untill say 50% of digital sets are DAB+ compatable and there will still be some DAB stations for a while after that.
It took so long for people to get on to DAB that I think the leap to DAB+ will have consumers guessing 'when will it end?' After all, for an increase in audio quality, I'd rather wait until DAB++ or whatever the subsequent formats will be called.
Oh, by the way they post on forums, but their command of the English language is about as poor as they claim DAB is!
Funny that!
PAH !!!
I bought one about 18 months ago and have only used it a couple of times.
Wish I hadn't bothered now
I don't get great reception due to a nearby factory towering overhead and blocking the signal. I though DAB would have helped. Got that wrong.
Talking about the English language, did you mean 'The Times', 'which' and 'Rolls-Royce' ? :rolleyes:
If I sent a comment to a similar forum 10 years ago and said that CD was doomed and that vinyl would outlive the young pretender I would have been written off as a looney - but that could well come true. The point is that if that were used then as a reason to abandon buying a CD walkman or in car player then it would have been the buyer that would have lost out.
As I have said many a time on this forum, DAB is not the total disaster that some people try to put accross. My in car DAB (£150 plus decent all band aerial) is the best sounding radio with the most reliable reception I have ever had in the car. It is tailor made for in car use, and like my hi-fi tuner etc. sounds OK for most of the time (the odd spell of sub standard Radio Three being the exception) on the stations I listen to. What is more important is that whilst other drivers might be listening to a second best choice of radio station I am listening to 6 Music - the station that gives me what I want to listen to, and BBC7 and XFM as alternatives I don't have otherwise.
At a guess I would assume that the BBC will continue to put out compatable programs for at least another 8 to 10 years. As the only fully comprehensive UK broadcaster I would hope they are given the means to do this whilst developing the next generation of transmitters alongside utilising what is supposed to be allocated DAB spectrum. If all radios sold from when the new system was decided upon was enabled with the new system but (as I gather they can easily be) were backwards compatable, then the above transition could go smoothly. I would hope that at least the BBC would be able to twin track well in excess of the 10 years so as to avoid the scourge of built in obsolescense and the wastefulness in such areas as electronics.
Meanwhile "Chill" and enjoy the programs and easy interference free reception of a well chosen and properly installed DAB receiver (with FM on hand for those occasional 160kbps Radio Three moments!).
If the radio you buy today includes a chipset which has the power to decode DAB+, and the manufacturer provides a software upgrade in the future, and you have the ability to install this upgrade, then you'll be fine.
For the rest, forget it. Some recent models may be "pin compatible", but have you seen the size of the pins on these chips? It's not a DIY job swapping them over! Easier, and cheaper, to dump the radio and buy a new one when the time comes.
As for older (originally expensive) DAB radios - enjoy them. They won't become land fill overnight anymore than FM radios have become land fill. Yes, stations will appear on DAB+ that your DABv1 radio can't receive. Yes, eventually you'll buy a DAB+ radio (inevitable really, if you buy another DAB radio for anywhere else in the house). Later still, you'll decide you want the DAB+ stations on your DABv1 radio, and replace it (if it hasn't broken first).
The problem (the only problem) is the lack of information. As soon as all back stock of DABv1 only radios have sold out, I predict that we'll hear a very different message from virtually everyone. New radios will be marked as DAB+ compatible, and new stations will launch to take advantage of them. Meanwhile, most DABv1 owners will remain happy for a while.
Currently, it's just like the situation with HDTVs. The first batch didn't have HDCP. Manufactures kept very quiet about this, and made very sure they got most of these into shops and sold before launching the HD-Ready marking. Suddenly, the information was everywhere: "HD Ready means 720 lines or more, and HDMI inputs with HDCP for direct digital connection from HD digital sources". The older HDTVs work, but are obsolete. They can't display an HDCP protected signal. This means they'll be useless for some HD sources.
This doesn't really matter here and now, because so few of those sources are available. But being compatible with future products is a selling point, and all TVs which are "HD-ready" are prominently marked.
So it will be with DAB+ radios.
Cheers,
David.
A converter to pick up Astra 1D? Whats that??? The Mini dish was part of the original price (cut in price due to subscription).
Dave
If only I had kept my "old" Sony FM rds tuner for the hifi. I changed it for a DAB one before the new DAB+ was even being talked about. At least it has FM built in as well, but the old Sony FM tuner was a better FM tuner.
Dave