"David Looser" wrote in message

"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?


I was responding to the fact that Kerrang sounds worse on DAB than MW
stations sound. Who cares whether you would be interested in it or
not?


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.


That makes it alright for Kerrang to sound like MW in Manchester then,
presumably?



--
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

"David Looser" wrote in message

"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?


I can't say I've listened to every single listen again programme
available, but yes, the quality of the listen again programmes I've
listened to recently have been significantly better quality than on
DAB.

So, what are you listening to?


--
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

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


I was responding to the fact that Kerrang sounds worse on DAB than MW
stations sound. Who cares whether you would be interested in it or not?


I'd assumed you were putting Kerrang forward as an MW station that sounds
good, but from the above I guess you are saying it's not on MW. So what was
the point of mentioning it? if it's not on both MW and DAB there's nothing
to compare.

David.

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

I can't say I've listened to every single listen again programme
available,

You couldn't, unless you are capable of listening to many programmes at the
same time 24 hours a day.

but yes, the quality of the listen again programmes I've listened to
recently have been significantly better quality than on DAB.


Well don't listen to DAB then. Analogue radio will be with us for the
forseeable future, and most radio stations are now available as an internet
stream. So why get so excercised over DAB?

So, what are you listening to?

Yesterday's "Any Questions". Curiously I often notice the distortion is most
noticable on the voices of the continuity announcers.

David.

"David Looser" wrote in message

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

I can't say I've listened to every single listen again programme
available,

You couldn't, unless you are capable of listening to many programmes
at
the same time 24 hours a day.


Gosh, how do you come out with such clever comebacks?


but yes, the quality of the listen again programmes I've listened
to
recently have been significantly better quality than on DAB.


Well don't listen to DAB then.


That's missing the point though, because the rest of the general
public are being forcefully pushed towards DAB even though for
millions of people the Internet or even digital TV woudl be a better
platform for what they want.

Also, because the BBC is so biased towards DAB and DAB offers crap
quality it's trying to keep the quality down on other platforms.
Basically, everything revolves around DAB. If they provided the best
quality they could on other platforms and acknowledged taht there are
problems with DAB's audio quality then I wouldn't mind.


Analogue radio will be with us for the
forseeable future, and most radio stations are now available as an
internet stream. So why get so excercised over DAB?


See above.


So, what are you listening to?

Yesterday's "Any Questions". Curiously I often notice the distortion
is
most noticable on the voices of the continuity announcers.


Yes, I have actually heard R4's listen again streams are screwed up at
the moment.

That's a temporary problem though, not an inherent problem.

R4's listen again streams use 128 kbps MP3, whereas R4 on DAB uses 128
kbps MP2. And MP3 is a far better codec to use at 128 kbps than MP2
is, that's for sure.

To be fair, speech on DAB isn't the main problem. The main problem is
music.

BTW, the BBC's live and listen again streams should be moving over to
using AAC/AAC+ over the next week or two (if you're not aware,
AAC/AAC+ is an excellent codec). And the bit rates should increase
over time, because Internet bandwidth costs are plummetting.

Stick to DAB if you like, but you'd be sticking with the lowest
quality digital platform.


--
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

"David Looser" wrote in message

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


I was responding to the fact that Kerrang sounds worse on DAB than
MW
stations sound. Who cares whether you would be interested in it or
not?


I'd assumed you were putting Kerrang forward as an MW station that
sounds
good, but from the above I guess you are saying it's not on MW. So
what
was the point of mentioning it? if it's not on both MW and DAB
there's
nothing to compare.


I see you've snipped what I was responding to, so here's what Plowman
said:

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

So I was saying that Kerrang on DAB sounds as bad as MW.



--
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

On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:43:07 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Don Pearce
wrote:

[big snip]

Interesting. Presumably the player just ignores the first data chunks
until it finds a frame header, then uses the info from that to read the
succeeding stuff.

I will be doing some more checking later today if I get a chance. But IIUC
I am editing by snipping at chunk (frame) boundaries. That is certainly
what I am trying to get my edit program to do. If so, here will be a frame
header at the start of each output file because it was present at the
relevant point in the source file.

I do have a (three, actually) general editor(s) that display hex. So will
check that way. Can also then scan for hex patterns (sequences) to find
where header declarations repeat. May also write a simple util for this.

Thanks for giving me the URL for the info on the mpeg file format. It means
I can modify my track editor to read the file and determine the frame size
and data rate. At present I have to tell it the value in kbps to get the
times and durations of the snipped files correct.

Is there a similar spec for ac3 (Dolby)? I'm also looking at files of that
type. I can export the ac3 stream from home-recorded video VOB files and
then play these on my computer. Can also edit them, but again I have
currently to tell my track editor what bitrate to presume as I don't know
how to read this from the actual ac3 data.

At some point I'd also like to be able to transcode ac3 to mp3 - ideally
with no 'losses' if that is possible. At present I'd have to convert via
using LPCM as an intermediate. That is fine, but slower and probably gives
more scope for losses - although I suppose I could use 32bit LPCM to
minimise this. :-)

FWIW I'm currently writing a series of articles and utility applications
for a RO computer mag - and for my own use. This in turn is useful as a
basis for finding out things that might then pop up in HFN. So am finding
this very interesting.

Slainte,

Jim


Try this for a start

http://rmworkshop.com/dvd_info/related_info/ac3hdr.html

d

In article 49910797.332092281@localhost, Don Pearce (Don Pearce) wrote:
On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:43:07 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:
[snip]

Is there a similar spec for ac3 (Dolby)? I'm also looking at files of
that type. I can export the ac3 stream from home-recorded video VOB
files and then play these on my computer. Can also edit them, but again
I have currently to tell my track editor what bitrate to presume as I
don't know how to read this from the actual ac3 data.



Try this for a start

http://rmworkshop.com/dvd_info/related_info/ac3hdr.html

Thanks again! :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
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In article ,
BBC is biased towards DAB wrote:
I also wonder how many who say 'internet' radio sounds better than
DAB are comparing like for like. Do they have a DAB tuner fed into the
same sound system as their PC? Or are they comparing their PC sound
system to a DAB portable radio?


Utterly ridiculous. Why would anyone compare the quality on a DAB
portable radio with what you hear on a hi-fi system??

Wondered when you'd turn up. Your search on DAB topics seems a bit slow
compared to usual.

But you could try reading *carefully* before replying.

--
*Gaffer tape - The Force, light and dark sides - holds the universe together*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
David Looser wrote:
"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. And internet radio is a completely
different animal, which can exist alongside digital broadcasting, but
is hardly a replacement for it.

He's simply a sad person who spends his whole life grizzling about the BBC
and DAB.

--
*Is there another word for synonym?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.