Home cinema - BBC iMP Trial to start 1st September

HomeCinemaBanter (http://www.homecinemabanter.com/index.php)

- UK digital tv (http://www.homecinemabanter.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5)

- - BBC iMP Trial to start 1st September (http://www.homecinemabanter.com/showthread.php?t=35431)

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

DRM has a completed specification. The audio codec won't change.
The fact it uses OFDM and QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM won't change.
The vast majority of the spec won't change, and it's
predominantly just being extended and the extensions required to
work at higher frequencies are not difficult to define, because
they're simple transmission parameters that are easily arrived at
from experience of DAB, DVB-T/H etc.

3 years is too long for these changes, let alone 5 years.

Anyway, someone from teh DRM consortium has admitted that it's DAB
broadcasters that are employing delaying tactics so that DRM
doesn't compete with DAB. Pathetic.

Does that apply to the BBC World Service which has nothing to
benefit from DAB ?

Remember the BBC W/S is paid for by the F&CO and not the licence fee
and I would have thought the F&CO would have been very positive
about DRM.

The companies that want to delay DRM are the ones that support DAB
and don't want any competition for DAB. So, from the list of DRM
members:

http://www.drm.org/members/members.php

the organisations that are in the DRM consortium, or are associate
members, that support DAB a

BBC
IRT
EBU (full of ex-BBC people)

Do you have any evidence to substantiate your claim that these companies
which are members of the DRM consortium have made the decision to delay
DRM in favour of DAB.

Possibly not as I don't see how Neutel, VT Communications any many
other companies in that list can benefit from such a decision.
Especially if they don't sell or operate DAB equipment.

J

John wrote:
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

DRM has a completed specification. The audio codec won't change.
The fact it uses OFDM and QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM won't change.
The vast majority of the spec won't change, and it's
predominantly just being extended and the extensions required to
work at higher frequencies are not difficult to define, because
they're simple transmission parameters that are easily arrived at
from experience of DAB, DVB-T/H etc.

3 years is too long for these changes, let alone 5 years.

Anyway, someone from teh DRM consortium has admitted that it's DAB
broadcasters that are employing delaying tactics so that DRM
doesn't compete with DAB. Pathetic.

Does that apply to the BBC World Service which has nothing to
benefit from DAB ?

Remember the BBC W/S is paid for by the F&CO and not the licence fee
and I would have thought the F&CO would have been very positive
about DRM.

The companies that want to delay DRM are the ones that support DAB
and don't want any competition for DAB. So, from the list of DRM
members:

http://www.drm.org/members/members.php

the organisations that are in the DRM consortium, or are associate
members, that support DAB a

BBC
IRT
EBU (full of ex-BBC people)

Do you have any evidence to substantiate your claim that these
companies which are members of the DRM consortium have made the
decision to delay DRM in favour of DAB.

I've seen someone (whom I trust not to lie) say that they spoke to
someone in the DRM consortium who told them that some members that
support DAB wanted to delay DRM to allow DAB to "have a clear run".

DAB needs all the help it can get, because all the technology that the
DAB system comprises of is literally 15-years-old. So new competing
systems such as DRM, that wipe the floor with DAB are bound to be
discouraged by DAB proponents.

Pathetic.

Possibly not as I don't see how Neutel, VT Communications any many
other companies in that list can benefit from such a decision.
Especially if they don't sell or operate DAB equipment.

Where did I say that everybody in that list is in favour of delaying
DRM? I didn't, and some, such as the names you mention, will obviously
be in favour of DRM being extended ASAP. But if you've got powerful
organisations such as the BBC, IRT and the EBU wanting DRM to be delayed
as long as possible then what can they do about it?

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

Find the cheapest Freeview, DAB & MP3 Player Prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...tal_radios.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/mp...rs_1GB-5GB.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/mp...e_capacity.htm

Bruce Stewart wrote:
What about .OGG Vorbis?
It's open, available on different platforms and appears to sound good at
that rate.

They trialled the audio and I think politics killed it off.
The server they were talking about at www.fave.org.uk can
stream Ogg. The BBC are developing a video codec called Dirac
and haven't done much visible with Ogg Theora (sometimes .ogm),
but presumably one Ogg container is much like another.

Then again, the failure to use open multiplatform systems on
digital satellite (for EPG or text service, for a start)
suggests they don't care strongly for open standards.

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

Yes, but one drawback of AAC is that it's only the iPod that supports it
out of the MP3 players. Or at least I can't think of any other MP3
players that support AAC. Unfortunately, a lot of MP3 players do support
WMA.

There are a handful that do support AAC; there are even some phones that
support it.

The problem with WMA/Ogg/AAC is that two out of three are supported on
90% of portable players, but no one format other than MP3 has 90%
support.

Of the "better than MP3" catagory, AAC might have more "devices in
pockets" support thanks to the overwhelming popularity of iPods.

U n d e r a c h i e v e r (and proud)
--

John wrote:
Do you have any evidence to substantiate your claim that these companies
which are members of the DRM consortium have made the decision to delay
DRM in favour of DAB.

Only what I was told directly by "someone" senior at the BBC.

It wouldn't be fair to tell you who it was. He wouldn't have known my
personal "vested" interest because I was there in a professional
capacity for a completely different reason. So he spoke very freely.

It could be this Steve is passing on, but he probably has other
sources. It's not rocket science - the extended DRM spec to bury DAB
could be out next year, but is likely to be held back until 2008-2010.
It didn't take that long to put the original DRM spec together from
scratch!

Cheers,
David.

U n d e r a c h i e v e r wrote:
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

Yes, but one drawback of AAC is that it's only the iPod that
supports it out of the MP3 players. Or at least I can't think of any
other MP3 players that support AAC. Unfortunately, a lot of MP3
players do support WMA.

There are a handful that do support AAC; there are even some phones
that support it.

Quite a lot of mobile phones support AAC. A lot of, if not most, new
Nokia phones seem to support AAC, and Nokia are the market leaders with
about 35-40% of sales.

The problem with WMA/Ogg/AAC is that two out of three are supported on
90% of portable players, but no one format other than MP3 has 90%
support.

Yeah, that's the problem, really.

Of the "better than MP3" catagory, AAC might have more "devices in
pockets" support thanks to the overwhelming popularity of iPods.

Yeah, but WMA is supported by a wide range of MP3 players.

It is really too much to ask for them to provide files in both WMA and
AAC (or a different combination)? WMA rules out iPods, whereas AAC rules
out a lot of the other MP3 players.

MP3 player owners have had to encode their files to one standard or
another, so they should be tech savvy enough to make a simple choice
when setting the iMP up on their PC so that they can then only access
WMA or AAC. If they make the wrong decision they could always change it
afterwards.

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

Find the cheapest Freeview, DAB & MP3 Player Prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...tal_radios.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/mp...rs_1GB-5GB.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/mp...e_capacity.htm