Kráftéé wrote:
> DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
> | "Alan" <junk@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote in message
> | news:AtSTnMGj7pQKFwgC@amac.f2s.com
> || In message <7afjm6F1vb133U1@mid.individual.net>, DAB sounds worse
> || than
> || FM <dab.is@fooked.com> wrote
> ||| There's a 10 Downing St petition to stop FM/AM being switched off:
> |||
> ||| http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AM-FM-Radio/
> |||
> ||| Please sign. Thanks.
> |||
> |||
> ||
> ||
> || Why would anyone want to sign something that may prevent us getting
> || hundreds of radio stations on DAB?
> |
> |
> | What you say is wrong for the following reasons:
> |
> | * The Digital Britain report said that the FM band would be used for
> | "ultra-local" FM stations once all of the bigger FM radio stations
> | have been switched off. So FM actually isn't planned to be switched
> | off, so the FM band couldn't be freed up for DAB anyway
> |
> | * DAB uses frequencies of around 200 MHz, whereas FM uses
> | frequencies of around 100 MHz - i.e. DAB couldn't be transmitted in
> | the FM band anyway
> |
> | * DAB won't be getting any more spectrum than it's already got,
> | because DAB spectrum was all allocated to Europeam countries in 2006
> | (there is one unused DAB channel at the moment that was going to be
> | used for a 2nd national commercial multiplex which fell through when
> | Channel 4 decided against entering radio last year, but I think
> | that's just going to be pretty much wasted when they replan the
> | spectrum)
> |
> | * Apart from in London, where I think the figure is around 55
> | stations, people can typically receive about 35 radio stations on
> | DAB. DAB could never carry hundreds of radio stations. DAB was
> | designed in the 1980s. It is an incredibly inefficient system
> | because the technologies it uses are so old.
> |
> | Some other things that you might like to bear in mind which it
> | sounds like you're probably unaware of at the moment are that
> |
> | * DAB provides lower audio quality than FM, Internet radio and radio
> | via digital TV
> |
> | * DAB's audio quality isn't going to get any better in future
> | because the MP2 audio codec it uses is 20 years old so they've
> | obviously been optimising it for years but it still sounds crap at
> | the low bit rates that it's used at in the UK
> |
> | * DAB's audio quality is actually only likely to go down, because as
> | more people get DAB then that makes it more appealing to commercial
> | radio stations to launch new stations because there's more potential
> | revenue. The downside of that is that the bit rate levels of
> | existing stations have to be reduced to fit new stations in, so the
> | audio quality goes down as a result
> |
> | * 98% of stereo stations on DAB in the UK use a bit rate of either
> | 112 or 128 kbps with the MP2 codec - in comparison, the BBC uses a
> | bit rate of 256 kbps MP2 for the audio on its TV channels, and the
> | vast majority of TV channels tend to use a bit rate of 192 kbps MP2
> | for the audio. Basically, the UK radio broadcasters are using bit
> | rates that the MP2 audio codec wasn't designed to be used at.
> |
> | * One thing that might surprise quite a few people is that the
> | digital platform that carries digital radio at the highest audio
> | quality is now the Internet, because the BBC launched new 128 kbps
> | AAC live streams for the stereo stations apart from Radio 3 and 192
> | kbps AAC for Radio 3 last week - 128 kbps AAC is the equivalent of
> | around 224 kbps MP2, so it's far higher quality than 128 kbps MP2
> | that the BBC uses on DAB. Also most of the bigger commercial radio
> | stations also provide far higher qulaity online streams than they
> | provide on DAB. And the audio quality on Internet radio's only
> | likely to increase over time as Internet speeds get faster and cost
> | per Mbps falls.
> |
> | * If you actually do want hundreds of radio stations there are over
> | 10,000 Internet radio stations, so DAB obviously can't compete with
> | that
> |
> | * DAB cannot deliver on-demand content - only broadband (and cable)
> | can deliver true on-demand streams
> |
> | So if you were thinking that DAB's going to turn into a good digital
> | radio system, I'm afraid it's basically just FM done digitally but
> | at lower audio quality and you get a few more stations. If you have
> | shit FM reception then you'd benefit, otherwise you'll actually get
> | lower audio quality on DAB than on FM.
> |
> | The reason why DAB is being backed by the government is because it's
> | to bail out the commercial radio groups who don't want to pay to
> | transmit both analogue and digital for the next few decades - DAB
> | was just a few years from failing, because sales have been really
> | shit since 2006 (that's why DAB nearly collapsed last year when
> | GCap Media said it wanted to withdraw from DAB completely). The
> | BBC's Director of Radio Tim Davie said recently that at the rate
> | we're going FM wouldn't be switched off "in our lifetime", which is
> | correct, because it's only selling at 2 millino per year with 6%
> | growth last year (which is shit) and basically it would have taken
> | about 30 - 40 years to switch FM off, so we have to all be forced
> | to get DAB like good little citizens to bail out the commercial
> | radio groups so that they don't have to pay dual analogue and
> | digital transmission costs.
> |
> | The radio broadcasters also have another reason why they want
> | everyone to listen via DAB, which is that it's the platform where
> | their stations face the least amount of competition - so they'd
> | lose the least amount of listeners and hence revenue - whereas if
> | Internet radio became popular they're scared that people would
> | desert their stations and listen to others, and they can't allow
> | that, and neither can the government. It's just pure protectionism,
> | basically.
>
> I doff my cap to your superior knowledge on this subject and shall
> withdraw from the argument.
>
>
This Internet Radio sounds like the dogs b#ll#cks, how can I receive it
in my car at the same cost as FM broadcasts (I only listen to the radio
in a car).

JN