Article in Sunday Herald

In article ,
DAB is the Betamax of digital radio [email protected] wrote:
Nah, I think FM will be switched off within the next 15 years, because
the commercial radio groups won't want to transmit it any longer than
they have to, because simulcasting is expensive, and they think they'll
make more profit if everybody's listening on digital radio.

What more profitable use could the government sell the spectrum for than
commercial radio?

Answers on the back of a postage stamp...

--
*Keep honking...I'm reloading.

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

Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:02:49 GMT, "DAB is the Betamax of digital
radio" [email protected] wrote:

I read somewhere that they were going to turn off analogue
by some TBD date that was not too far away.


Ofcom said they expect digital radio listening will account for 90%
of all radio listening by 2017. So it's at least a decade before
they switch FM off.

Probably means no more than official prognostications usually do, or
in other words practically nothing.


Yes, it seems like they're having a consultation about whether to have a
review of FM in 5 years' time. Big deal.


How many times has the projected
switch off date for digital TV been moved?

My impression of the way this works is that every now and then some
grey-suited ignoramus in an office somewhere comes up with a cunning
plan, then makes it public, and then somebody who actually knows a bit
about the subject points out a few practical consequences of the
cunning plan and it has to be changed.


According to Ofcon there's 4.6m DAB receivers sold so far, but there's
estimated to be somewhere in the region of 120m - 180m FM receivers in the
UK. So actually they're not doing very well in terms of the percentage of
receivers that have been replaced. Furthermore, the DRDB has gone very quiet
on the subject of DAB sales lately, and it seems that sales are not
accelerating at the rate at which they were forecasting.

Basically, FM is going to be around for another 10 - 15 years, and when it
comes time to switch off FM DAB will have been long gone and replaced by
DAB+ anyway, and the audio quality of radio via the Internet will be better
than FM within the next 2-3 years, so I won't be against FM being switched
off when it happens.


Then it's all forgotten until
the next time. I wouldn't believe any official blether about anything
technical until it actually happens.

It'll be interesting to see if or when any official line emerges about
the so called "DAB Plus" system which the rest of Europe are
apparently going to adopt.


The UK will adopt DAB+, and even the spinmeisters at the DRDB have admitted
so:

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/ar...-in-the-UK.php

Also, Channel 4 has applied to run the new national DAB multiplex, and it's
proposing to use DAB+ for their proposed podcast service:

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/ar...-multiplex.php

So if they're awarded the national multiplex licence, DAB+ will effectively
be adopted next year. Then it's just a matter of waiting until the number of
DAB+ receivers outnumber DAB-only receivers before they start launching DAB+
radio stations, then DAB will quickly die.

As I say, DAB will be long gone by the time FM is switched off.


If we don't adopt it too, we'll be left
behind and our portable radios won't work on holiday, and if we do
adopt it, the protagonists of digital radio will have the tough job of
selling it to people who were promised the ultimate radio system only
a few years previously, though clearly it wasn't.


The vast majority of DAB receivers sold so far are portable radios, so it
won't be the end of the world to tell people that they've got to buy a new
£25 DAB+ radio in say 3 years' time.

DAB+ will just naturally take over from DAB, because in 18 months to 2 years
from now you won't be able to buy a DAB-only receiver in the shops, because
they'll all be able to receive DAB+ as standard.

But anyway, the best audio quality on the radio will be via the Internet
anyway. All of the BBC's radio stations will be available at 128 kbps AAC
once the BBC iPlayer launches this summer:

http://support.bbc.co.uk/multicast/streams.html

and we're not going to get 128 kbps AAC on DAB+ on the BBC DAB multiplex for
years.

Most commercial radio stations are providing 128 kbps WMA live Internet
streams already (as of 2-3 months ago), and 128 kbps WMA is in a different
league to 128 kbps MP2.



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

Find the cheapest Freeview & DAB prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.php
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/dab/dab_radios.php

In article , Roderick
Stewart writes
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:19:51 +0100, Edster wrote:


Anyone who thinks DAB is good enough to replace analogue is obviously
a Radio 3 listener.

No, they're probably somebody who has a crappy portable radio playing
in the background. People who listen critically on good hi-fi
equipment - and it seems a reasonable guess that a lot of Radio 3
listeners will do this - will soon get tired of DAB. Radio 3 may have
the least worst bit rate, but it's still worse than good FM.

Rod.

Agreed .. but FM isn't as good as high bitrate MP2 on satellite
--
Tony Sayer

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Roderick
Stewart writes
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:19:51 +0100, Edster wrote:


Anyone who thinks DAB is good enough to replace analogue is obviously
a Radio 3 listener.

No, they're probably somebody who has a crappy portable radio playing
in the background. People who listen critically on good hi-fi
equipment - and it seems a reasonable guess that a lot of Radio 3
listeners will do this - will soon get tired of DAB. Radio 3 may have
the least worst bit rate, but it's still worse than good FM.

Rod.

Agreed .. but FM isn't as good as high bitrate MP2 on satellite

try getting that in your car ;-)

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in
:

. After all there was talk of switching off medium
wave stuff - some makers even produced FM only car radios etc - and that
was many many years ago.

Not so many years ago that I didn't get caught by it!

Another BBC scam that I fell for - and I worked for them!

But I was very junior, you soon learned not to trust the b*ggers.

mike

Scott wrote in
:


Apologies for the OT nature of this post. I intended to post it to
the digital radio group !!!

Good job you posted it before Clark came in

mike

In article , charles
writes
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Roderick
Stewart writes
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:19:51 +0100, Edster wrote:


Anyone who thinks DAB is good enough to replace analogue is obviously
a Radio 3 listener.

No, they're probably somebody who has a crappy portable radio playing
in the background. People who listen critically on good hi-fi
equipment - and it seems a reasonable guess that a lot of Radio 3
listeners will do this - will soon get tired of DAB. Radio 3 may have
the least worst bit rate, but it's still worse than good FM.

Rod.

Agreed .. but FM isn't as good as high bitrate MP2 on satellite

try getting that in your car ;-)

Bloody well wish I could!,


--
Tony Sayer

On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:47:35 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:
[of DAB...]
Of course there's no need to always compare it to FM. Why not the positive
- it sounds rather better than AM?

I hope you're joking.

Rod.