No DAB reception in cars near BBC Television Centre!

In article , Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
DAB is taking off like a lead balloon, despite huge advertising
campaigns. People could argue that this is not entirely due to sound
quality, but I suspect that sound quality is a significant factor.

IMHO, no. It's usually poor reception on portable radios. It was being
discussed at a barbecue this afternoon. Everyone there complained about
poor reception on a portable. I asked if they got perfect reception on FM
portables - and the general answer was no - but the artifacts on that were
less unpleasant than on DAB.

Let's see-

Reception.
Annoyance value of artefacts.
Sound quality.
Cost.
Battery consumption.

It's difficult to think of *any* way in which it could be regarded as
superior.

Rod.
--
Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/

"Andy Champ" wrote in message
. uk
Chris Malcolm wrote:

I wasn't. I had decided to get a DAB receiver, and borrowed what
was
supposed to be a good one to find out if reception was ok in my
area. I was looking forward to the "digital sound quality" the
advertising promised, which I assumed would be at least as good as
the
best CDs in the same way that FM radio had been at least as good as
the best vinyl gramophone records. I was startled and disgusted by
the mediocre audio quality, which in many cases was actually lower
than "listen now" over the internet, and that's not too hot. The
only
kind of FM radio it could be said to be an improvement on would be
FM
radio in a car with a running engine.

So instead of spending the money on a DAB radio I bought a roof top
FM
aerial. I now see no point in switching to digital radio until the
BBC
makes a fundamental revision in its attitude to digital quality.
Since
BBC apologists seem to think that the quality must be fine if most
people don't complain about it, and are completely ignorant about
both
digital audio technology and the very high FM sound quality the BBC
was once world famous for, I see no prospect of that happening
anytime
soon.


Be fair. Don't blame the BBC for the quality.


Here's a BBC News web article from 1998 that mentions how many new
stations the BBC was planning to launch on DAB:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/174535.stm

"New tuners are being developed now to accommodate the current five
national services, plus proposals for BBC Parliament, which offers
gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Commons and Lords; the Asian Network,
which is currently only broadcast in the Midlands; a new music service
to exploit the archives of Radios One and Two; and side-channels to
back-up Radio Five Live, to allow it to continue non-stop news
coverage during sporting events, and vice versa."

That's 4 new channels even though they only had the capacity to add 2
new channels without degrading the audio quality as it was at the
time.

The BBC is absolutely to blame for the audio quality being bad on DAB.



--
Steve - www.savefm.org - stop the BBC bullies switching off FM

www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry. I
believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years to
come, offering very local, unregulated content, as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world." - from the Myers Report

"Ian Jackson" wrote in message
...

I wonder if anyone will ever bring out a Freeview audio-only tuner/radio?
Obviously, without a TV 'helper' (if only for the initial setup), this
would need to have some form of visual display, but nothing really more
complicated than you have on a DAB radio. It might solve the problems of
the relative poor audio that DAB delivers.

Most areas require a decent, usually outdoor aerial for Freeview, so
portables would be out.

--
Max Demian

I'm not sure who posted this, as my News server is playing up again, and
doesn't show this post, it only shows other people quoting it.

IMHO, no. It's usually poor reception on portable radios. It was being
discussed at a barbecue this afternoon. Everyone there complained about
poor reception on a portable.

On thought comes to mind.

The BBC keep on trying to make people believe that sound quality
problems are a reception issue. Eg. the comment on Feedback (I think),
where the BBC guy said that sound quality depends upon distance from the
transmitter.

So I wonder how many people have fallen for this. Hence when they hear
the audio artefacts they think, oh the reception here is terrible.

I asked if they got perfect reception on FM
portables - and the general answer was no - but the artifacts on that were
less unpleasant than on DAB.

Right, so FM with poor reception, is less unpleasant than DAB.
Well done DAB ;-0

Ok I realise I probably interpreted that the wrong way, they probably
think the bubbling mud is worse than a poor FM signal. Fair enough, it is.

Then again, if they can't get DAB without bubbling mud, then they
haven't had much of a chance to to hear DAB's "superb digital quality
sound", and they haven't had much of a chance to realise the reality,
that even DAB with a good signal sounds very poor. Perhaps if more
people had good DAB reception, then more people would be complaining
about the sound quality.

Richard E.

Roderick Stewart wrote:


Let's see-

Reception.
Annoyance value of artefacts.
Sound quality.
Cost.
Battery consumption.

It's difficult to think of *any* way in which it could be regarded as
superior.

Rod.

It is a superior method of wasting license fee money :-0

In message , Max Demian
writes
"Ian Jackson" wrote in message
...

I wonder if anyone will ever bring out a Freeview audio-only tuner/radio?
Obviously, without a TV 'helper' (if only for the initial setup), this
would need to have some form of visual display, but nothing really more
complicated than you have on a DAB radio. It might solve the problems of
the relative poor audio that DAB delivers.

Most areas require a decent, usually outdoor aerial for Freeview, so
portables would be out.

True. But, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent, you could same about DAB.
--
Ian

Chris Malcolm wrote:


Yes absolutely. In fact it was hearing how bad it sounded that brought
me to alt.radio.digital, where I learned about why it sounds so bad.

Exactly what happened to me. I expected it to be of high quality. When
I heard with my own ears what it sounded like I came here to find out
what on earth had gone wrong. I was hoping to find it was some kind of
early days technical malfunction which they were working on solving. I
discovered instead that not only was it deliberate, but they seem to
be spending a lot of money on pretending they haven't very seriously
compromised the quality.


I had actually heard before a I got a DAB radio, that bit rates were
lower in the UK than in other countries, and I'd heard that it this was
for mostly "commercial reasons".

But I was so enthusiastic about he idea of getting digital radio. I
thought OK so perhaps it wont be as good as it could be, but then when
more people buy receivers, it will start to bring more money into the
system, and they will be able to increase the bit rates.

Oh how wrong I turned out to be.

I put up with the poor audio quality for about 18 months, and gradually
it got on my nerves more and more, and I gradually realized that this
situation is not going to improve. I gradually turned from a big DAB
fan, into a highly disappointed DAB sceptic.

Richard E.

Ian Jackson wrote:
In message , Max Demian
writes
"Ian Jackson" wrote in message
...

I wonder if anyone will ever bring out a Freeview audio-only
tuner/radio?
Obviously, without a TV 'helper' (if only for the initial setup), this
would need to have some form of visual display, but nothing really more
complicated than you have on a DAB radio. It might solve the problems of
the relative poor audio that DAB delivers.

Most areas require a decent, usually outdoor aerial for Freeview, so
portables would be out.

True. But, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent, you could same about DAB.

I'd of thought they could design a Freeview hi-fi tuner. No need to have
a screen at all, it could simply scan for DVB multiplexes, find all the
audio only services and organise them into a list. However since the
radio services on Freeview are not actually hi-fi quality, (and some are
even as poor as DAB), perhaps there isn't much point in such a tuner.

Perhaps it would be better to design an internet radio hi-fi tuner. Oh I
forgot, I sort of already have one of those, my Squeezebox :-) .

Richard E.

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
"Andy Champ" wrote in message


Be fair. Don't blame the BBC for the quality.


Here's a BBC News web article from 1998 that mentions how many new
stations the BBC was planning to launch on DAB:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/174535.stm

"New tuners are being developed now to accommodate the current five
national services, plus proposals for BBC Parliament, which offers
gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Commons and Lords; the Asian Network,
which is currently only broadcast in the Midlands; a new music service
to exploit the archives of Radios One and Two; and side-channels to
back-up Radio Five Live, to allow it to continue non-stop news
coverage during sporting events, and vice versa."

That's 4 new channels even though they only had the capacity to add 2
new channels without degrading the audio quality as it was at the
time.

The BBC is absolutely to blame for the audio quality being bad on DAB.

And not forgetting that the BBC were largely responsible for the design
of this very poor DAB system.

The BBC R&D said that for near CD quality 256k would be required, and
yet when they launched in 1995, most of the music services were at only
192k. So basically they were using lower than ideal bit rates right from
day 1. Did they not have the sense to think, hang on a minute, perhaps
this system isn't going to be good enough. Couldn't they then think
perhaps using aac instead of mp2 would be far better, and it would be
better to delay the launch a few more years to upgrade the standards.

Launching a system that is already clearly not good enough, on day 1.
Who other than the BBC is to blame for that.

Richard E.

In message , Richard Evans
writes
Ian Jackson wrote:
In message , Max Demian
writes
"Ian Jackson" wrote in message
...

I wonder if anyone will ever bring out a Freeview audio-only
tuner/radio?
Obviously, without a TV 'helper' (if only for the initial setup), this
would need to have some form of visual display, but nothing really more
complicated than you have on a DAB radio. It might solve the problems of
the relative poor audio that DAB delivers.

Most areas require a decent, usually outdoor aerial for Freeview, so
portables would be out.

True. But, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent, you could same about DAB.

I'd of thought they could design a Freeview hi-fi tuner. No need to
have a screen at all, it could simply scan for DVB multiplexes, find
all the audio only services and organise them into a list. However
since the radio services on Freeview are not actually hi-fi quality,
(and some are even as poor as DAB), perhaps there isn't much point in
such a tuner.

Perhaps it would be better to design an internet radio hi-fi tuner. Oh
I forgot, I sort of already have one of those, my Squeezebox :-) .
I understood that most Freeview audio was usually 'more hi-fi' than DAB.
--
Ian