Freeview audio quality compared to DAB.

Graham Murray wrote:
"R. Mark Clayton" writes:

For really dross quality try streamed over the internet!

Why does the quality have to be so bad? With broadband, there should
be no reason why they could not stream at 128kbps or even 256kbps.


Absolutely. The biggest UK commercial radio group, GCap Media, is already
providing 128 kbps WMA streams for nearly all of its stations, as is Virgin
Radio for its stations, and the BBC will be launching 128 kbps AAC Internet
streams later this year for all of its national stations.


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

Anyway, they all sound crap now due to excessive analogue
compression, including FM transmissions, so everything sounds like
medium wave AM!

Please explain.


By "analogue compression", he presumably means dynamic range compression,
AKA audio processing, as opposed to data or digital compression, for
example AAC, MP2, MP3 etc.

Yes, dynamic range compression, which makes every part of a piece of music
sound a similar volume, regardless of whether it is meant to be background,
vocal and accompaniment or whatever. In the process, it necessarily creates
distortion and makes it for me much less pleasant to listen to. Freeview
radio seems to take it to the extreme. I mentioned AM radio because analogue
compression has been applied for years to limit the bandwidth of the
transmission, which is quite justifiable.

To make matters worse, many new recordings (particularly bands like
Coldplay) already have lots of dynamic range compression which is then added
to by the radio transmissions.

Whatever the digital coding method, if you have a crap analogue audio stream
to start with, you get crap out.

Paul

Sensitive! And no I wasn't.
Who were you referring to then?

With 100% honesty, I can say I had nobody in mind. As I was trying to get
across to the OP, this, and threads like it, attract people who have
definite "black and white" views from both sides of the "is DAB good/bad"
divide. I think we have different opinions as to what constitutes a rant -
nothing more. Perhaps I should have said something like "there will be a
spirited, lengthy, and polarized debate".

Paul DS.

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
Graham Murray wrote:
"R. Mark Clayton" writes:

For really dross quality try streamed over the internet!
Why does the quality have to be so bad? With broadband, there should
be no reason why they could not stream at 128kbps or even 256kbps.


Absolutely. The biggest UK commercial radio group, GCap Media, is already
providing 128 kbps WMA streams for nearly all of its stations, as is Virgin
Radio for its stations, and the BBC will be launching 128 kbps AAC Internet
streams later this year for all of its national stations.


Would that be the BBC Multicast experiment? I'm with Plusnet and the
*******s have canned that!

Rob.

On 6 Aug, 17:13, "DAB sounds worse than FM" [email protected] wrote:

(snip)

The BBC at least will provide higher quality on DAB+.


If and when that happens.

There are absolutely no concrete proposals, let alone plans, to
transfer over to DAB+ by either the BBC or the commercial
broadcasters.

Bear in mind that there are now 5 million DAB sets out in the wild,
the vast majority of which can't be upgraded to DAB+, and no
broadcasters - having encouraged listeners to convert to DAB receivers
- are going to be keen on alienating those with this equipment. No
amount of wishful thinking will change that.

It's a shame because the DAB+ technology would certainly appear to be
preferable. We are however where we are.

On Tue, 7 Aug 2007 15:30:15 +0100, "Paul"
wrote:


Anyway, they all sound crap now due to excessive analogue
compression, including FM transmissions, so everything sounds like
medium wave AM!

Please explain.


By "analogue compression", he presumably means dynamic range compression,
AKA audio processing, as opposed to data or digital compression, for
example AAC, MP2, MP3 etc.

I mentioned AM radio because analogue
compression has been applied for years to limit the bandwidth of the
transmission, which is quite justifiable.

Surely not. The bandwidth of an AM transmission depends on the
frquency range of the modulation.

On Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:32:17 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
[email protected] wrote:

I stand by what I said about the anti-smokers being true Nazi members.

So the Labour Party, who passed that *disgraceful* law, are actually
Nazis then? Blair was, presumably, the Fuehrer?

You see, they've followed my ...

Sorry..you'll have to forgive me if I ignore your self-congratulatory
statements. Your anti-smokers are Nazis argument has deleted any
credibility you have in my eyes.

--
Z

"DAB sounds worse than FM" [email protected] wrote in message
news:[email protected]
Oh, I'm allowed a rant about that, and I stand by what I said about the
anti-smokers being true Nazi members. The full smoking ban is an absolute
disgrace. But I don't want to get back into another argument about that,
so please don't start one now.

I refrain from farting around others so I don't see why you feel you should
be allowed to smoke.

And nobody ever had to wash the smell of someone else's fart out of their
clothes and hair.

For one thing one generally only farts once or twice while a smoker expects
us to put up with him/her exhaling every 30 seconds or so for several
minutes.

--

Brian Gregory. (In the UK)

To email me remove the letter vee.

Zathras wrote:
On Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:32:17 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
[email protected] wrote:

I stand by what I said about the anti-smokers being true Nazi
members.

So the Labour Party, who passed that *disgraceful* law, are actually
Nazis then? Blair was, presumably, the Fuehrer?

You see, they've followed my ...

Sorry..you'll have to forgive me if I ignore your self-congratulatory
statements. Your anti-smokers are Nazis argument has deleted any
credibility you have in my eyes.





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

Take 2.

Zathras wrote:
On Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:32:17 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
[email protected] wrote:

I stand by what I said about the anti-smokers being true Nazi
members.

So the Labour Party, who passed that *disgraceful* law, are actually
Nazis then? Blair was, presumably, the Fuehrer?


I said that I don't intend to get into an argument about this again, but I
maintain that people who support the full ban when there was a perfectly
workable compromise solution are members of the Nazi party.


You see, they've followed my ...

Sorry..you'll have to forgive me if I ignore your self-congratulatory
statements. Your anti-smokers are Nazis argument has deleted any
credibility you have in my eyes.


But you're forgetting that I don't care whether you think I'm credible or
not, because I know I'm credible or else they wouldn't have done what I'd
recommended they should do.


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