hd radio
 

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry.

Who says the UK radio industry is "terrified"?

I believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years to
come, offering very local, unregulated content,

Who the hell wants to listen to "very local unregulated" (i.e. crap)
content?

as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world."

Back in the 1930s there was a brief craze for short-wave listening, which
opened a "window to the radio stations of the world". It soon died out, the
internet may spawn another brief interest in the same thing, but it won't
amount to a hill of beans in terms of listening hours.

- from the Myers Report

If the above is representative of the quality of this report it isn't worth
the paper it's written on.

David.

hd radio
 

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote

Rubbish. The engineers thought the broadcasters would use the high
bit rate levels needed to provide high audio quality, but they
completely ignore the cost aspects, because DAB is extraordinarily
expensive to transmit, which is one of the main reasons why such
low bit rates are used in the UK.


"Rubbish" yourself!

It's only "extraordinarily expensive to transmit" because Arquiva
has an effective monopoly on transmission, so it makes bugger-all
difference what system is used, and indeed whether it's digital or
analogue, to these high costs of transmission.


DAB was extraordinarily expensive to transmit long before Arqiva
became the monopoly transmission provider, so you'll need to find a
new theory to explain why it is so expensive.

The cost of transmitting a 128 kbps stereo station on the Digital One
multiplex was over £1m per annum the last time I saw any figures. The
cost is proportional to the bit rate, so if we say that DAB needs to
use 192 kbps MP2 to provide "good" audio quality than it would
obviously cost £1.5m per annum to broadcast nationally at "good" audio
quality. It's no wonder that we get teh **** audio quality we do given
such ridiculously high costs.

The main problem is that DAB is simply a ridiculously inefficient
system, so that only a very low number of stations can be carried at
"good" audio quality on each multiplex. If they'd have made the system
more efficient prior to properly launching it (which was possible,
because teh AAC audio codec was standardised in 1997) then we
basically wouldn't have had the issue with the audio quality, because
for example the BBC could have delivered its stations at high quality
at 128 kbps AAC.

The fact of the matter is that the BBC was grossly incompetent when it
decided to go ahead with using DAB in the late 1990s without first
upgrading it. End of story.



--
Steve - www.savefm.org - stop the BBC bullies switching off FM

www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry. I
believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years to
come, offering very local, unregulated content, as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world." - from the Myers Report

hd radio
 

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry.

Who says the UK radio industry is "terrified"?


John Myers, ex-chief exe of GMG Radio group in the "Myers report":

http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/pub...cial_Radio.pdf


I believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years
to
come, offering very local, unregulated content,

Who the hell wants to listen to "very local unregulated" (i.e. crap)
content?


People other than yourself, presumably.


as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world."

Back in the 1930s there was a brief craze for short-wave listening,
which opened a "window to the radio stations of the world". It soon
died out, the internet may spawn another brief interest in the same
thing, but it won't amount to a hill of beans in terms of listening
hours.


I don't think that listening to local stations from other countries
will ever take off either. But there's also tens of thousands of
Internet-only stations that cover every niche music genre imaginable,
so anybody who doesn't want to listen to lowest common denominator
playlisted drivel on DAB they do have somewhere to turn.

There also happens to be personalised radio services such as last.fm
and music streaming services such as Spotify that will increasingly
eat into traditional radio listening, as will listening on-demand
instead of listening live, which obviously can't be done via DAB
because DAB cannot deliver on-demand streams - you have to use the
Internet (or cable).


- from the Myers Report

If the above is representative of the quality of this report it
isn't worth the paper it's written on.


The quote is a highly accurate portrayal of the radio industry's view
of Internet radio. If you disagree, you don't know what you're talking
about. Sorry.


--
Steve - www.savefm.org - stop the BBC bullies switching off FM

www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry. I
believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years to
come, offering very local, unregulated content, as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world." - from the Myers Report

hd radio
 

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...

The main problem is that DAB is simply a ridiculously inefficient
system


Just to give you an idea of how inefficient DAB is, the new DVB-T2
system is TEN TIMES as efficient as DAB - i.e. DVB-T2 can carry 10
times as many radio statinos at the same level of audio quality as DAB
in the same amount of bandwidth.

And transmission costs are inversely proportional to efficiency, so
the cost of transmitting a station on DVB-T2 would be TEN TIMES lower
than the cost of transmitting at the same level of audio quality on
DAB.

Because the cost is so much lower, if we had used DVB-T2 instead of
the ridiculously inefficient DAB system then there's no chance that
we'd have a problem with audio quality. We have a problem with the
audio quality BECAUSE we use DAB.


--
Steve - www.savefm.org - stop the BBC bullies switching off FM

www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry. I
believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years to
come, offering very local, unregulated content, as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world." - from the Myers Report

hd radio
 

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...

The quote is a highly accurate portrayal of the radio industry's view of
Internet radio.

As if there was a thing called "the radio industry's view". Individuals have
their own views. Some commercial radio stations may feel threatened, but
then those aren't worth much anyway.

If you disagree, you don't know what you're talking about.

As if you were the great expert that you pretend to be.

Sorry.

Yeah, so am I

David.

hd radio
 

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...

The quote is a highly accurate portrayal of the radio industry's
view of Internet radio.

As if there was a thing called "the radio industry's view".


Okay then, "the radio industry's conensus view", or if you want to
narrow it down further, "the consensus view of the bigger UK radio
broadcasting groups, including the BBC".


Individuals have their own views. Some commercial radio stations may
feel threatened, but then those aren't worth much anyway.


Your view of them is irrelevant.


If you disagree, you don't know what you're talking about.

As if you were the great expert that you pretend to be.


Compared to you I'm definitely an expert on this, so I can safely
ignore any doubts you have about my expertise.


Sorry.

Yeah, so am I


?


--
Steve - www.savefm.org - stop the BBC bullies switching off FM

www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry. I
believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years to
come, offering very local, unregulated content, as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world." - from the Myers Report

hd radio
 

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...

The quote is a highly accurate portrayal of the radio industry's view of
Internet radio.

As if there was a thing called "the radio industry's view".


Okay then, "the radio industry's conensus view", or if you want to narrow
it down further, "the consensus view of the bigger UK radio broadcasting
groups, including the BBC".


Oh yes? Care to offer evidence that there is such a "consensus"?


Individuals have their own views. Some commercial radio stations may feel
threatened, but then those aren't worth much anyway.


Your view of them is irrelevant.


If you disagree, you don't know what you're talking about.

As if you were the great expert that you pretend to be.


Compared to you I'm definitely an expert on this, so I can safely ignore
any doubts you have about my expertise.


You reckon?, when you claimed that transmission costs are proportional to
bit rate? give me a break!

David.

hd radio
 

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...

The quote is a highly accurate portrayal of the radio industry's
view of Internet radio.

As if there was a thing called "the radio industry's view".


Okay then, "the radio industry's conensus view", or if you want to
narrow it down further, "the consensus view of the bigger UK radio
broadcasting groups, including the BBC".


Oh yes? Care to offer evidence that there is such a "consensus"?


There's a few different quotes I could point to that show how biased
the radio industry is general against Internet radio, but it would
take time to dig the various quotes up, and I don't feel that I need
to justify what I say to you about this, so if you want to disagree
with me that's fine, but suffice it to say that you'd be wrong.


Individuals have their own views. Some commercial radio stations
may feel threatened, but then those aren't worth much anyway.


Your view of them is irrelevant.


If you disagree, you don't know what you're talking about.

As if you were the great expert that you pretend to be.


Compared to you I'm definitely an expert on this, so I can safely
ignore any doubts you have about my expertise.


You reckon?, when you claimed that transmission costs are
proportional to bit rate? give me a break!


I know with 100% certainty that DAB's carriage costs in teh UK are
propotional to the number of "capacity units" a radio station
consumes, and the number of capacity units consumed is either exactly
proportional to the bit rate (in the case of bit rates that are an
integer multiple of 64 kbps) or almost exactly proportional (for the
other bit rates). Therefore, the transmission costs for a radio
station broadcasting on DAB are proportional to the bit rate (or
almost exactly proportional if the bit rate isn't an integer multiple
of 64 kbps).




--
Steve - www.savefm.org - stop the BBC bullies switching off FM

www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry. I
believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years to
come, offering very local, unregulated content, as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world." - from the Myers Report

hd radio
 

On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:40:21 +0100, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

There's a few different quotes I could point to that show how biased
the radio industry is general against Internet radio, but it would
take time to dig the various quotes up, and I don't feel that I need
to justify what I say to you about this, so if you want to disagree
with me that's fine, but suffice it to say that you'd be wrong.

They may not approve of it. But they all do it :-)

hd radio
 

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:40:21 +0100, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

There's a few different quotes I could point to that show how biased
the radio industry is general against Internet radio, but it would
take time to dig the various quotes up, and I don't feel that I need
to justify what I say to you about this, so if you want to disagree
with me that's fine, but suffice it to say that you'd be wrong.

They may not approve of it. But they all do it :-)


Yes, but only because they have to use it or otherwise they'd lose
(primarily young) listeners. If they could have their way, audio would
be banned from the Internet.


--
Steve - www.savefm.org - stop the BBC bullies switching off FM

www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry. I
believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years to
come, offering very local, unregulated content, as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world." - from the Myers Report