Channel 4 pulls out of DAB

In article en.co.uk,
Roderick Stewart wrote:
In article , Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I didn't say *all* 78s sound better than *all* LPs. Just that there's
no intrinsic reason for them not to.

I think we're in agreement over that.

[...]
There were vinyl 78s made using up to date equipment.

I've never had the pleasure of hearing one of those, except a BBC test
record (DOM85 or whatever it was called), and that wasn't very helpful
because it wasn't typical of the sort of music I would normally listen
to. Just sounded like sine waves to me....

Pye Nixa was one brand. Marketed as unbreakable.

:-)

Rod.

--
*If I throw a stick, will you leave?

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

In article ,
Agamemnon wrote:
enjoyment of good music as heard on a good stereo system in a decent
room. Indeed can distract from that.

Poppycock. 5.1 is designed so that the centre channel always comes from
the centre for all listeners no matter where they are sitting and so
that the sounds from the rear come from the rear left and right.

As I said - designed for home cinema where you want the *dialogue* to come
from the centre. Not the 'dialogue frequencies' of musical instruments.

7.1 is
even better but its never been properly implemented since all that they
ever do in movies is to put all the dialogue in the centre and not
centre left or centre right if the actor is standing centre left or
centre right, and music is nearly always mixed as ambient spectral mono
rather than proper stereo or surround with individual instruments
placed in the positions where the band members are actually standing.

WTF has something designed for film use got to do with DAB?

Ideally 5.1 EX/ES and 7.1 should be set up with 3 front speakers, two
side speakers wider apart than the front speakers and 2 rear speakers at
the same speration as the front speakers.

--
*I want it all and I want it delivered

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

"Paul Murray" wrote in message
ng.com...
On 2008-10-13, Edster wrote:
Paul Murray wrote:
If quality prevailed, TV would be broadcast at 1080p, which would be
unarguably the best quality. However, that uses too much bandwidth, so
instead they use 1080i and get more channels in.
Quantity chosen over quality.
But chosen by the broadcasters, for financial reasons. Not chosen by
viewers.

Financial reasons being that they will get more viewers (and thus more
advertising revenue) by showing more channels at lower resolution than
vice versa. *Because that seems to be what people want.*
You seem to be assuming that all the broadcasters have got it wrong.

This might work for TV if all the shows are restricted from being broadcast
on other channels but not for Radio when all the commercial stations on DAB
played exactly the same songs and were directed exclusively at teenagers.
Like how were they even supposed to listen to the radio in the day time
which is supposed to be peak time when they were supposed to be at school
and there were no DAB pocket sized Walkmans to listen to on the way there
and way home, like they didn't have anything better to do anyway.

Besides which the quantity over quality TV model is already proven to be a
disaster for ITV. Fewer people are watching TV because the content of each
channel for most of the day is complete and utter garbage. When the
programme people want to watch is over they quit watching the TV altogether,
and people no longer watch commercials, they PVR the programme and skip
them.

In article ,
Marky P wrote:
Some 78s were made using vynil.

I have some vinyl 78's on the Pye label and these sound exceptional.

Indeed. Some sounded excellent.

--
*Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups

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

In article ,
Edster wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:


In article ,
Agamemnon wrote:
If they can for out £2000 for an HDTV then they can fork out for an AV
amp and surround speakers to get the full cinema experience. Most
people with computers have 5.1 speakers by now.

Thanks for confirming you prefer gimmicks over quality.

5.1 is better quality than Dolby Surround Pro Logic IIx.

So?

Technology is supposed to improve. The path should be something like

Mono === stereo === 5.1

Thanks for proving you've never heard decent stereo.

and not

Mono === stereo === mono

Going back to mono is a regression. It would be the TV equivalent of
Freeview being black and white.

Tell me - do you like the pictures you get from an LCD when viewing it at
an angle?

--
*A plateau is a high form of flattery*

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

Edster wrote:
Stuart Clark wrote:

I'm not saying they wouldn't downmix to stereo, but why (as an equipment
manufacturer or broadcaster) would you go to the expense of enabling 5.1
sound when 99% of your audience will never hear it?

Why did they broadcast colour TV when 99% of their audience only had
black and white sets? Why did they broadcast stereo radio when 99% of
their audience only had mono radios? When technology moves forward it
creates a desire for new equipment among consumers. When technology

Because the expectation was for the majority to have colour or stereo
very quickly.

After a certain time it became much harder to buy a mono or B&W set from
the high street.

The same is true of HD - most people aren't going out and buying a new
TV just for HD. Instead they are buying a new TV because the old one is
broken, because they want a bigger one or because they want a flat one,
and it just happens to be HD too (try buying a non HD TV these days from
the high street).


But 5.1 sound would never be expected to replace stereo, and indeed
can't for a variety of different common cases (eg. headphones). Having a
5.1 system will therefore remain a luxury, just as it does with regards
to 5.1 TV. People will spend a few hundred pounds to replace a broken
TV, but will think much harder about spending a few hundred more to get
a 5.1 system (and probably not bother)

Agamemnon wrote:

"Stuart Clark" wrote in message
...

How many people actually have a 5.1 system though?

If they can for out £2000 for an HDTV then they can fork out for an AV
amp and surround speakers to get the full cinema experience. Most people
with computers have 5.1 speakers by now.


But my point is that most people aren't spending £2000 for a TV.

Yes there are some people who do, but the vast majority of the public
spend a few hundred.

I don't think I know anyone who has 5.1 on their computer.


I'm not saying they wouldn't downmix to stereo, but why (as an
equipment manufacturer or broadcaster) would you go to the expense of
enabling 5.1 sound when 99% of your audience will never hear it?

The entire selling point is that 90% of your audience will be able to
hear it in their cars, which form the perfect environment, or in their
living rooms built into their AV amps. It's car owners and people with
their own house who the advertisers need to buy their products, not
teenagers who don't have any money to spend. The days of DAB radio
stations funded by telephone voting scams are over.


What do you mean by the car being the "perfect environment"?


The people listening to Classic FM are the ones who have the most money
to spend. Classic FM could easily be broadcast in 5.1 at no extra cost.

The costs I can think of a

Extra bandwidth needed at the mux.
Licensing of Dolby or equivalent (both for manufacturer & broadcaster).
Replacement of playout system to work with more than stereo.
Upgrade of studio to work above stereo.
Finding as much material as possible in 5.1 and importing it to playout
system.
Extra costs in transporting audio from studio to transmitter.

And even then I'd expect the player to have a few hundred pound price
premium over the normal stereo set.

Radio 3 is funded by the licence fee so there is no problem there. All

Just because it is from the license fee doesn't mean they can just spend
willy nilly. They need to get approval from the BBC Trust, who would
need to believe the costs are in the best interests of the licence fee
payer. Would they approve spending a load of extra cash on R3 (with a
small listenership) instead of say more original content production?


demand instead of selling them all of to one group and abandon
multiplexes altogether except for the national stations, thus each
station would have its own frequency and DXing would be possible. 5.1

You realise that using a mux can be more efficient - you can do
statistical multiplexing for a start (as used extensively on Freeview)
to "borrow" bandwidth from one station for another in the case of a
complex few seconds of audio (borrow when reaching musical crescendo,
lend when silent). Also a 2Mbps data feed would use up less frequency
spectrum than 8x 256K feeds (because of guard bands, etc).

A lot of the channels are going to share transmission sites anyway.


There is no reason why all the BBC and commercial stations apart from 5
Live and Talksport couldn't broadcast in 5.1. They can get the extra

Other than there being little source material in anything more than
stereo (eg. CDs) and having all their studios designed for stereo only.


When everyone has a 5.1 receiver then the FM band could be given over

I can't see that ever being the case.

I would never have a portable 5.1 receiver - it would just downmix to
stereo.

5.1 cars would remain a more expensive option for a long time.

Given the choice between a stereo player for £100 and a 5.1 player for
£300 + having to mess around with setting up a load of speakers, the
vast majority will choose the cheaper "good enough" option.

Alan White wrote:
On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:42:33 +0100, tony sayer
wrote:

Ever wondered how the Dartford tunnel holds up so well for FM Radio?....

Leaky feeder?

Yep, same for the Mersey and Tyne tunnels. Those two are mentioned on Ofcom's
tech parameter sheet as carrying City FM and Metro FM respectively, perhaps
also the Beeb ?

Dartford Tunnel is shown as only carrying AM services Absolute (aka Virgin)
and TalkSport, however ISTR BBC FM Network radio is available in there (though
the south portals do face the right way for Wrotham :-) )

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radio/ifi/rb...ch_parameters/

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

On 14 Oct 2008 10:02:05 GMT, Paul Murray wrote:

On 2008-10-13, Paul Ratcliffe wrote:
On 13 Oct 2008 13:32:05 GMT, Paul Murray wrote:
Plowman
Don't talk crap. If R3 lowered the audio quality on their feed, they would
get more listeners. It's obvious innit?
/Plowman
If that lowered quality meant that they could produce two stations rather
than one, that might well be true.
So, you're saying they'd get more listeners per station then? Somehow I
doubt it.
No, that isn't what I said.
Thanks for agreeing with me. You've just admitted that lowering the audio
quality of a station does NOT result in an increase in people listening to
that station.
QED.

If snipping people's responses to make it seem like they were making a
different point than they actually did makes you feel good, go ahead.

I didn't. You admitted it of your own free will.
If it was my station, I would not be interested in whether some other
station got listeners at my expense if I was forced to reduce my audio
quality just so they could exist.

Marky P wrote:

I may be incorrect, but I believe V2000 died around 1985 and Betamax
around 1988?

Sony brought out (in Europe) their first range on VHS machines in 1989, so
that date sounds about right for Betamax.

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.