OT - All DAB receivers to be obsolete - DAB is dead

Luke Bosman wrote:
Mike Henry wrote:

In , Edster wrote:

"Graham" wrote in message

There are no BBC stations "on SKY"
There is on mine.
No. Sky Digital is a subscription satellite service. The BBC stations
can be picked up by a Digibox and they also appear in the EPG (which is
regulated by Ofcom). Those stations are not, and never have been, part
of Sky's subscription satellite service and so they are not "on Sky".
They are just digital satellite stations.

Do you take everything 100% literally?

Mike is quite correct to in this case. This is a technical newsgroup dealing
with technical matters. BBC satellite transmissions are not handled or
uplinked by Sky, therefore the BBC are not 'on Sky'. The same applies to
ITV, C4, and some other broadcasters. All broadcasters that are on Sky's EPG
do have to transmit EPG/SI data supplied by Sky however.

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

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 13:54:26 +0000,
(Luke Bosman) wrote:

A properly installed aerial and a good quality receiver can usually
give excellent results on FM, but no matter what you do to receive
DAB, the damage has been done to the audio signal before it is even
transmitted so you can never achieve perfection, not even in theory.

And that's the key. The reception I have on DAB is better than that on
FM because FM requires a properly installed aerial.

What sort of aerial you need for *any* type of radio reception depends
on the available signal. Where I live, it is possible to receive both
systems on portable radios with telescopic aerials, and I can spots in
the house where I get good reception and others where there is none.
It is the transition between good reception and bad that is handled
completely differently by DAB and FM, the latter being incomparably
better. The awful squawking, crunching and muting produced by my DAB
portable as I go through bad spots is so annoying that even if I liked
the audio quality (which I don't), I wouldn't consider a portable with
a telescopic a remotely practical way of receiving it.

Rod.

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
DAB has adopted the AAC+ audio codec and stronger error correction coding:

http://www.worlddab.org/upload/uploa...e_November.pdf

Ignore the spin in the article about the UK not switching to using AAC+ - we
will switch to using the AAC+ codec, and all existing DAB receivers will
eventually be made obsolete.

Receivers that support the new DAB standard will come on sale next year, and
in about 2 - 3 years' time we will see radio stations launch in the UK using
AAC+. I have no proof that stations will launch using AAC+ in 2 - 3 years'
time, but there's expected to be 4.6m DAB receivers in the UK by the end of
this year, and according to the DRDB's sales forecasts, there will be 13m by
the end of 2008 and 20m by the end of 2009, so the large majority of
receivers will support the new DAB standard in 2 - 3 years' time, and Ofcom
will allow the broadcasters to launch new stations using AAC+.

The only countries where the old DAB system has sold in any quantity have
been the UK Denmark and Norway (DAB sales have been low there, but they're
too stubborn to change), and all other European countries are expected to
adopt the new DAB standard.

The old DAB system is now basically dead, and not a second too soon, AFAIAC.

Forgive me for laughing at the DAB apologists who have continually argued
that the low audio quality on DAB is oh so hunky dory, but:
hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahha. Oh, and BTW, you're going to need a new
radio.


I think if DAb dies then it will make a lot of people very angry and
they will not be fooled again and any new digital radio system will not
get off the ground.

I got a DAB set just to listen to Primetime radio, and have not used the
set since Primetime went off the air, I can assure you now that there is
now way I am going to buy another digital radio. I am sticking with
standard FM, which is far better than any digital system anyway.

Luke Bosman wrote:
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

Forgive me for laughing at the DAB apologists who have continually argued
that the low audio quality on DAB is oh so hunky dory, but:
hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahha. Oh, and BTW, you're going to need a new
radio.

While, of course, those who haven't bought DAB yet will need a new radio
too.

And, you know what, compared with FM, DAB does sound better here. If you
doubt me, I would invite you to come and compare. I have spent £100 on
DAB equipment and £100 on FM.

why would I need a new radio? There are no plans to replace Fm.

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 15:31:29 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

BTW, I can't hear the "bubling mud" effect, maybe because my hearing has
deteriorated with age.

Remember modulation noise on a 3.75ips tape recorder? It's a bit like
that. Some of the grittiness rises and falls with the loudness of the
programme material, so it is almost, but not quite, concealed by it.
You have a sense of something that shouldn't be there but you can't
quite put your finger on what it is until you realise exactly what to
listen for. No doubt the strain of trying to make out the obtrusive
noise contributes to the listening fatigue. Even if you're not quite
sure why, you'll probably want to stop listening sooner than you would
if you were listening to an audio source without this impairment.

Rod.

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 15:25:07 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

think it has ever been a relevant analogy to use for whether people want
quality or not. I believe the marketing was better for VHS, which is very
important, and there were more films you could hire for VHS, which is also
very important.

Quite so. VHS was made by a number of manufacturers, but Betamax was
available from only one. They were technically almost identical
systems, neither of them using any fundamental technique that the
other lacked, but the entire manufacturing process being in-house
probably resulted in Betamax equipment being better made. It also
resulted in it being more expensive, as you'd expect, just as with Mac
computers versus IBM/Windows today. The price, and the fact that tapes
and machines were all interchangeable, almost certainly determined
which system most people went for.

Rod.

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 13:07:44 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

It's interesting that they've gone for the one that
will require the public to spend more money, instead of simply
reducing the number of stations and increasing the bandwidth available
to each, or in other words curtailing what they are trying to do to
fit the resources available to do it, which would cost the
broadcasters less and the public nothing.

In other words, a complete reversal of the "public service" ethos that used
to exist.

Broadcasting is not a public service. It is a money making exercise, just
like everything else these days.
Despite the claims of giving people more choice, I have less choice of what
I want to watch than I had 10 years ago.
I certainly won't be able to choose what quality I want in the future as it
will all be unadulterated crap, instead of only most of it now.

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 13:07:44 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

It's interesting that they've gone for the one that
will require the public to spend more money, instead of simply
reducing the number of stations and increasing the bandwidth available
to each, or in other words curtailing what they are trying to do to
fit the resources available to do it, which would cost the
broadcasters less and the public nothing.

In other words, a complete reversal of the "public service" ethos that used
to exist.

The public service ethos that used to exist aimed to provide broadcast
signals to the highest quality that could be consistently maintained
using the resources available, giving the listener the choice of
listening quality depending on what sort of equipment they bought. In
other words, radio to serve everybody and not just to maximise
advertising revenue from the most lucrative majority. I'm not sure
what you mean by a "reversal", but I'd like to see a *return* to the
public service ethos that used to exist.

Rod.

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 17:30:39 +0000, Luke Bosman
wrote:

Don't try and patronise me, pal. I'll eat you for breakfast, spit you out
and eat a Dave Plowman for brunch.

I'm not trying to patronise you and I'm not your pal.

"I'm not your f***ing mate. My name's Gordon."

Read the message
in the mildly cheeky manner in which it was intended and I think you'll
see my point.

You can be just as terse and belligerent as I.

"... as ME".

In article ,
Edster wrote:
So what? That's a pretty lame excuse for having a broadcast quality
that will make even £500 radios sound exactly the same as a £20
kitchen radio.

Well, I'm listening to DAB R4 at the moment on a reasonable system here in
the study - Linsey Hood 100 watt amp driving LS35/A speakers. And it
sounds a great deal better than any 20 quid radio. I daresay 500 quid one
too. Have you ever heard DAB?


They sell crap FM radios in the pound shops, but only
an idiot would think that all FM transmissions should be geared
towards that type of radio.

It already is through the excessive use of signal processing on the vast
majority of stations...

--
*Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack? *

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