Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"BBC is biased towards DAB" wrote in message
...
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message


BTW - I've never heard a decent DAB radio sound as bad as MW.


Try listening to Kerrang.


I'd never heard of it, but I've just looked at it's website. It looks
dreadful, why should I be interested in listening to that?

Round here there is *nothing*, other than BBC World Service that can be
heard on MW that isn't buried under a mush of interference.

David.

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"David Looser" wrote in message

"Rob" wrote in message
om...

I'm of a view that if you do have an opportunity to provide
something to
a high standard, you take it. Not everyone will appreciate it,
maybe,
small price. I found the whole roll-out of DAB wrong-headed.


How high is high?


Higher than the **** we've got now.

128 kbps MP2 is the equivalent of about 80 kbps MP3. How many people
use 80 kbps? No-one, basically. Everyone uses higher bit rates, and
many use 192k+ these days.

DAB is a ridiculous system. (cue Lesurf sticking up for this FAILURE
of a system using some pedantry or other)



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"BBC is biased towards DAB" wrote in message
...
"David Looser" wrote in message


I appreciate
"Listen Again" to allow me to catch up on Radio 4 programmes I have
missed, but the quality is crap,


The quality of BBC listen again is crap? When did you last try it?



I'm listening to it now. Are you *seriously* suggesting that it's better
than DAB?

David.

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article ,
David Looser wrote:
"Rob" wrote in message
om...

I'm of a view that if you do have an opportunity to provide
something
to a high standard, you take it. Not everyone will appreciate it,
maybe, small price. I found the whole roll-out of DAB
wrong-headed.


How high is high?

Indeed. Most of these comments come with the benefit of hindsight.


Here's the 3rd post on THE THREAD announcing that the BBC had just
reduced their bit rate levels on 21st December 2001:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt...97a3eb21?hl=en

"MP2 was designed as a high-bitrate codec,
below 192kbps it becomes very inefficient and isn't best suited."

Hindsight, eh?


DAB was
a long time in the planning - and making radical changes late in
that
process would have been difficult.


YOu haven't got a clue.




--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article ,
Mike O'Sullivan wrote:
I remember driving round Birmingham on a coach equipped with a
demonstration system long before actual transmissions started -
and the
difference in reception between that and FM was quite astounding.

A high bit rate I'd imagine, it being a demo, not the real
commercial
world.

Nope - IIRC the same bitrates as used at the start of the service.
the
current reduced ones came later.


I've been told they used 256 kbps in that demo. Then when they
launched they used 192 kbps for Radios 1, 2, 3, 4. Then in 2002 they
slashed the bit rates of R1, 2, 4 to 128k and 6 Music and 1Xtra
started using 128k, and Asian Network's in mono and Radio 7's in mono,
and Radio 4 is in mono in the evenings when R5 Sports Extra is on-air,
and R3 is 160k in teh daytime when R5 Sports Extra is on-air

You're sticking up for a national disgrace, Plowman.


But just to point out, bitrates have little to do with actual
reception.


Gosh, how insightful.



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
I reckon that Dab as we know it will die away left behind by other
radio
tech, and theres still no firm date for digital changeover indeed a
lot
of the commercial sector can't afford to run DAB and FM
transmissions..

If enough pull out of DAB it will force the 'rental' costs down.
They were
ludicrous to start with.


Really? You were disputing that the transmission costs were high a
week or two ago. You seem to have changed your tune.



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"David Looser" wrote in message

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...

Well the number of the bits and the way you use them do affect the
quality of both Sound and Vision;!..
--

Indeed, but it's not necessarily the case that it's "more bits the
better".


With all else being equal, more bits the better does apply.

There's teh garbage-in garbage-out principle, of course, but that
isn't the fault of the encoder, and you should actually expect radio
stations to handle their audio properly.


Some recent digital cameras with high "megapixel counts" produce
poorer pictures than older ones with fewer megapixels. Similarly an
audio
stream with a high number of bits/sec may sound worse than one with
fewer, all depending on other factors.


If you're resorting to using garbage-in garbage-out as an excuse for
the **** quality on DAB then I pity you.




--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

In article , David Looser
wrote:
"tony sayer" wrote in message
...

You went involved in the MP2 codec tests for the development of
DAB?..


No, voice codecs only, but the principle is the same. More to the
point
I know just how hard it is, and the lengths we had to go to, to
eliminate bias from listening tests.

FWIW I've now had a chance to record some mp3 streams 'broadcast' by
some
of the net stations. This meant I could write the results onto a
CDRW and
listen to them on some players. Have examples at 128/192/256kbps.
What
I've found interesting is that the results *didn't* show that the
'higher
the bitrate the better the sound'. This was a totally uncontrolled
test,
so is suspect, but it does strengthen my bias towards feeling that
the
way the specific encoder is used (and the details of the sound
patterns
to be encoded) can matter more that the output bitrate chosen.


It is ridiculous to suggest that using a higher bit rate lowers the
audio quality, right?

The reality is that you're just using the garbage-in garbage-out
principle to stick up for the use of low bit rates.

And this is supposed to be a NG on audio. Strewth.



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:41:02 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Rob
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

FWIW I've now had a chance to record some mp3 streams 'broadcast'
by
some of the net stations. This meant I could write the results
onto a
CDRW and listen to them on some players. Have examples at
128/192/256kbps. What I've found interesting is that the results
*didn't* show that the 'higher the bitrate the better the sound'.
This
was a totally uncontrolled test, so is suspect, but it does
strengthen
my bias towards feeling that the way the specific encoder is used
(and
the details of the sound patterns to be encoded) can matter more
that
the output bitrate chosen.


I don't suppose it makes a great deal of difference if you record
using
a lossless format, but isn't it more logical to just capture the
streamed audio?

Erm... that is what I have been doing. Recording the mp3 stream as
an mp3
file on my computer. Then writing these files into a CDRW for
playing on
various 'audio'/'video' disc players.

Slainte,

Jim

Can you really do that - record an MP3 stream as an MP3 file, I
mean?


There's various stream grabbers. Streamripper for Winamp will save an
MP3 stream as MP3, and that's free. There's quite a few altogether
though.



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"David Looser" wrote in message

"BBC is biased towards DAB" wrote in message
...


I do find this phrase "BBC is biased towards DAB", odd to say the
least.
DAB simply stands for "Digital Audio Broadcasting" it says nothing
about
coding standards or bit rates.


Que? What have coding standards or bit rates have to do with the BBC
being biased towards DAB???


And internet radio is a completely
different animal, which can exist alongside digital broadcasting,
but is
hardly a replacement for it.


But the BBC is extremely biased against Internet radio, so the BBC is
going to push everyone forcefully towards DAB whether that's the best
system for them or not. That's the point.




--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm