Channel 4 pulls out of DAB

On 2008-10-11, Agamemnon wrote:
satisfied with the present DAB. What people want is quality, not qunatity.

Experience seems to suggest that this is exactly wrong.
Freeview has done very well by offering more channels, even if the quality
is lower. I'd be interested in an example of mainstream success for a
quality over quantity situation.

On 2008-10-12, Paul Ratcliffe wrote:
On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 09:45:02 +0100, Edster wrote:
What people want is quality, not qunatity.
More ********, I'm afraid. Just look at any viewing/ listening figures.
I would suspect the reason not many people listen to Radio 3 would be
more because of its content than because of its high quality.
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.

"Paul Murray" wrote in message
ng.com
On 2008-10-11, Agamemnon wrote:
satisfied with the present DAB. What people want is quality, not
qunatity.

Experience seems to suggest that this is exactly wrong.


Experience? Whose? Yours? Irrelevant.


Freeview has done very well by offering more channels, even if the
quality
is lower. I'd be interested in an example of mainstream success for
a
quality over quantity situation.


HDTV seems to be doing pretty well the last time I saw take-up
figures, and that is purely offering quality and very little quantity.


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

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Paul Martin wrote:
In article ,
Richard Evans wrote:
Paul Martin wrote:

My guess is that the BBC will jump in and take control of the D2 mux,
like they did with parts of the DTT system on the collapse of ITV
Digital. They'll probably have to offer to share use of it, but there
may not be takers. It's likely that it will be mixed DAB and DAB+.

Nice idea. I hope you are right, but I have my doubts.

It would be nice if the BBC could run the D2 mux, and move some of their
services onto it, so that they can then increase bit rates. However if
they wanted to do that, then why haven't they just bought up some of the
capacity on D1.

Because D1 is "allocated" and the slots are only for use with the
genres that they have been allocated by the regulator. eg. "Birdsong"
has to be a speech-based station, like Oneword. The slot vacated by
"Life" has to follow that station's format, etc.

D2 is a clean slate. If the Beeb take it on, they already have most of
the facilities to distribute the feed to the transmitters, already have
the aerials and RF power amps. Assuming the amps are linear enough, it
may merely be matter of adding another satellite receiver and DAB
exciter (and a combiner) to each existing BBC site. This has got to be
cheaper than a new operator taking it on. (Yes, I know it's all
sub-contracted to Arqiva nowadays.)

Well I hope you are right, and I hope that the BBC get channel 11A to
set up their second national Mux. We'll have to wait and see.

Richard E.

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
In message , Agamemnon
writes
[]
Given that bitrates on DAB were always too low from the very start and

Debatable; certainly, there are some here who think (especially with the
CoDecs then available) that, but in its early days it _was_ broadcast at
rates high enough to give a signal of comparable quality to that
obtainable from an average FM set without an external aerial - some of the
time. (Didn't last, though.)

No it wasn't. The sound quality was dire. Virtually all the commercial
station were on 128kbps mp2 and even the BBC stations at 192kpbs were
nowhere near as good as FM quality on a tiny portable radio without the
aerial extended. DAB offered people no advantage whatsoever over FM and AM
and in fact sounded worse. Why should anyone have spend £300 on one of those
crappy looking one speaker fake wood effect receivers. How could its
intended market, teenagers afford the receivers anyway and why would the
want to listen to something that wasn't portable and with sound quality that
was unbearable to listen to on headphones?


the sound quality was abysmal why should anyone have bought the super
expensive receivers when they were first introduced and why should anyone
buy them now when they offer barley any improvement over the sound quality
of Medium Wave.

Well, for whatever reason, they _are_ buying them now: just look in your
local CurDiGosWorths.

No they are not.



The vast majority of those who listen to radio are perfectly happy with
the present DAB (if they own a set). Try asking your neighbours rather
than those with axes to grind on here, etc.

The vast majority of people who listen to radio are not and have never
been satisfied with the present DAB. What people want is quality, not

That is your opinion.

Actually, it would be interesting - whichever side of the current debate
one is on - to obtain figures for repeat buyers - by which I mean people
who've bought a set _in the last year or so_ and come back to buy another
one. Such figures I suspect are not available.

Lets look at the figures of people who have not bought a receiver, 90% or
more of the population.


qunatity. DAB in the UK should have been launched with a minimum bit rate
of 320 kbps so that it was comparable to the sound quality on the
equivalent system on the continent, near CD quality, and designed so that
it would be compatible with 5.1 surround. It should have allowed

Why the 5.1? (I'm just curious - no axe to grind one way or the other.)

Because the current encoding system which uses joint stereo is incompatible
with Dolby Surround Pro-Logic at bit rates lower than 256 kbps and there is
no way of putting 5.1 surround on FM, therefore 5.1 surround would be the
strongest possible selling point for DAB assuming it passed Dolby and THX
certification, and therefore was of sufficient quality.

On 13 Oct 2008 10:24:59 GMT, Paul Murray wrote:

What people want is quality, not qunatity.
More ********, I'm afraid. Just look at any viewing/ listening figures.
I would suspect the reason not many people listen to Radio 3 would be
more because of its content than because of its high quality.
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.

"Paul Murray" wrote in message
ng.com...
On 2008-10-11, Agamemnon wrote:
satisfied with the present DAB. What people want is quality, not
qunatity.

Experience seems to suggest that this is exactly wrong.

You've seen that sales figures of DAB radios and the complete and utter
failure of the DAB platform that almost all of the Independent content
providers have pulled out?

Experience suggests that I am 100% correct. Quality is what sold 625 line TV
and Colour TV, CD and then NICAM stereo followed by DVD and High Definition.
In Europe Betamax outsold VHS because it was higher quality. The only reason
why VHS held on to win is because in the US VHS tapes were twice the length
you could possibly get on Betamax using the NTSC system and by that time VHS
HQ and Hi-Fi stereo had arrived which was better that the original
specification.

Freeview has done very well by offering more channels, even if the quality

No. It is not more channels that sold it. It is FREE channels that sold it.
The previous system also offered more channels but no one was willing to pay
for it considering there were even more channels from Sky at a much lower
price.

is lower. I'd be interested in an example of mainstream success for a
quality over quantity situation.

See above. Add 12inch 33 1/3rpm LPs and 45s over 78 inch discs. Add FM radio
over Medium Wave. Add the Marconi's 405 line system over Baird's 32 line
system. Add mp3 over mp2. Add 1280 line HDTV over 720 line HDTV.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
The vast majority of those who listen to radio are perfectly happy with
the present DAB (if they own a set). Try asking your neighbours rather
than those with axes to grind on here, etc.

Ever though of what it must be like to be a commercial broadcaster and
know that a lot of people won't be listening cos as yet theirs bugger
all DAB sets fitted in cars as standard equipment?...

Indeed - no demand for it. Which has got nothing to do with the bitrate on
DAB.

There is no demand for it because the system used to broadcast it is dire
and doesn't work when you are on the move.

In article ,
Paul Martin wrote:
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Edster wrote:
I bought a Wavefinder when they dropped down to £150, I had about a
year of good use out of it before it all turned into ****e. I got it
expecting the World Service to be in stereo, and got rid of it when
Radio 4 became mono.

Radio 4 is mono on FM too.

The 19kHz pilot tone ceased to be switched on and off by continuity in
about 1988. Even the Archers is produced in stereo (actually Ambisonic
UHJ) nowadays.

The presence of the pilot tone doesn't turn mono progs into stereo.

If all you listen to is the news programming, then you're missing out
on some very good stuff which is mostly in stereo.

I'm not missing out on it - just sending up those who think R4 DAB is mono.

--
*Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?

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

In article ,
Paul Martin wrote:
In article ,
Edster wrote:
I bought a Wavefinder when they dropped down to £150, I had about a
year of good use out of it before it all turned into ****e. I got it
expecting the World Service to be in stereo, and got rid of it when
Radio 4 became mono.

Radio 4 is mono on FM too.

False.

Yes it's false - but then so is saying it's mono on DAB. Take it up
with Edster.

It's mono on DAB at certain times of the day (admittedly during periods
where the programming doesn't need stereo),

I'm perfectly aware of that - so direct your comments to Edster.

and there's an audible splat on many receivers when the mux is
reconfigured.

Indeed.

--
*Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot.

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