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Electronics Repair (sci.electronics.repair) Discussion of repairing electronic equipment. Topics include requests for assistance, where to obtain servicing information and parts, techniques for diagnosis and repair, and annecdotes about success, failures and problems. |
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#81
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: Not so. You're assuming that DAB+ could only be launched on new multiplexes. But DAB+ stations could fit onto existing multiplexes, and DAB and DAB+ stations only pay for the capacity they use, and that's why DAB+ stations are 2-3 times cheaper to transmit, because they use 2-3 times less capacity. FFS. Transmitter rental is a figure plucked out of the air - based on what 'they' think the market can stand. There's absolutely no reason to believe a more efficient transmission method will alter this. Bull****. The multiplex transmission costs are already known (and contracts have been signed), and the transmitter networks don't need to change at all to carry DAB+, so the transmission providers can't turn round and just increase costs. The broadcasters all know this, so the multiplex operators (which are all owned by the broadcasters anyway) can hardly just bump the price up. See: http://www.worlddab.org/public_docum...ure_200803.pdf "The benefits of DAB+ include: Lower transmission costs for digital stations" -- 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 |
#82
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
On 2008-10-16, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: Not so. You're assuming that DAB+ could only be launched on new multiplexes. But DAB+ stations could fit onto existing multiplexes, and DAB and DAB+ stations only pay for the capacity they use, and that's why DAB+ stations are 2-3 times cheaper to transmit, because they use 2-3 times less capacity. FFS. Transmitter rental is a figure plucked out of the air - based on what 'they' think the market can stand. There's absolutely no reason to believe a more efficient transmission method will alter this. Bull****. The multiplex transmission costs are already known (and contracts have been signed), and the transmitter networks don't need to change at all to carry DAB+, so the transmission providers can't turn round and just increase costs. The broadcasters all know this, so the multiplex operators (which are all owned by the broadcasters anyway) can hardly just bump the price up. See: http://www.worlddab.org/public_docum...ure_200803.pdf "The benefits of DAB+ include: Lower transmission costs for digital stations" Page 4 of 12: [...] WorldDMB created a Task Force of its Technical Committee to develop the additional standard. After examining the options, DAB+ using MPEG-4 HEAAC v2 was adopted. DAB+ was published in February 2007 as ETSI TS 102 563 Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB);Transport of Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) audio. [...] Which could just be a clue as to why Ofcom didn't insist on DAB+ being immplemented five years earlier. Don't you think? Page 8 (Graphics omitted, for obvious reasons): Possible scenarios with DAB+ The following figures show how the bit rate of a DAB ensemble may be assigned to: Multiplex with MPEG Audio Layer II (DAB) 9 radio services using MPEG Audio Layer II at 128 kbps Multiplex with HE-AAC v2 (DAB+) 28 radio services using HE-AAC v2 at 40 kbps and 1 audio service using HE-AAC v2 at 32 kbps. Multiplex with MPEG Audio Layer II and HE-AAC v2 (DAB and DAB+) 5 radio services using MPEG Audio Layer II at 128 kbps and 12 radio services using HE-AAC v2 at 40 kbps and 1 radio service using HE-AAC v2 at 32 kbps A 40 kbps subchannel with HE-AAC v2 provides a similar audio quality (even slightly better in most cases) to MPEG Audio Layer II at 128 kbps. Technology is the easy bit, content is the hard part. -- -- ^^^^^^^^^^ -- Whiskers -- ~~~~~~~~~~ |
#83
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Whiskers" wrote in message
On 2008-10-16, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: Not so. You're assuming that DAB+ could only be launched on new multiplexes. But DAB+ stations could fit onto existing multiplexes, and DAB and DAB+ stations only pay for the capacity they use, and that's why DAB+ stations are 2-3 times cheaper to transmit, because they use 2-3 times less capacity. FFS. Transmitter rental is a figure plucked out of the air - based on what 'they' think the market can stand. There's absolutely no reason to believe a more efficient transmission method will alter this. Bull****. The multiplex transmission costs are already known (and contracts have been signed), and the transmitter networks don't need to change at all to carry DAB+, so the transmission providers can't turn round and just increase costs. The broadcasters all know this, so the multiplex operators (which are all owned by the broadcasters anyway) can hardly just bump the price up. See: http://www.worlddab.org/public_docum...ure_200803.pdf "The benefits of DAB+ include: Lower transmission costs for digital stations" Page 4 of 12: [...] WorldDMB created a Task Force of its Technical Committee to develop the additional standard. After examining the options, DAB+ using MPEG-4 HEAAC v2 was adopted. DAB+ was published in February 2007 as ETSI TS 102 563 Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB);Transport of Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) audio. [...] Which could just be a clue as to why Ofcom didn't insist on DAB+ being immplemented five years earlier. Don't you think? You must just ignore anything that you don't want to know. I've already explained what happened in a reply to you once today. That was a long post, so I'm not going to ****ing rewrite it all for some moron who will deliberately choose not to believe me anyway. Here's the contents of the post you chose not to read earlier today: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I did ask you to read this: http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm But you clearly haven't bothered, so I'll briefly explain why you're wrong. AAC was standardised in 1997. DAB was re-launched in 2002. That's a 5-year gap, so don't try to make out that the UK DAB people couldn't have upgraded DAB in that 5-year period. If you release a new broadcast radio system, it's meant to last a long time, so you have to get the design right before you launch it. But they launched an incredibly inefficient system, and its inefficiency also makes it extremely expensive to transmit, which is something that is still plaguing the system today, because Channel 4 wouldn't have had to drop out if the transmission costs had been lower, and the national stations that closed down earlier this year were all due to the sky high transmission costs. On the day that the BBC dropped its bit rates, which if I remember correctly was on 18th or 21st December 2001, in the first couple of posts on the first thread about the BBC slashing their bit rates someone said that they should have used AAC, and that MP2 was not designed to be used at such low bit rates as 128 kbps. So it is not me taking advantage of hindsight. The BBC screwed things up completely. That's all there is to it. Basically, the non-technical BBC execs simply over-ruled the engineers. For example, here's a brochure for a BBC R&D open day in 1999: http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/do...9_Open_Day.pdf and at the top it says: "New audio coding systems (such as AAC) can halve the bit-rate" "Don't squeeze the bit-rate" The BBC R&D department had also taken part in 2 listening tests that compared AAC with MP2 in 1996 and 1998, and both of those tests had confirmed that AAC was twice as efficient as MP2 (see links to these listening tests on my page about the incompetent adoption of DAB), hence why they said what they did about AAC above. When non-technical execs make technical decisions at the BBC, they first take advice from the experts in R&D. So they will have heard what the R&D people were saying about AAC vs MP2, but they must have simply ignored them. The BBC had been saying since the early 1990s that they were going to launch new radio stations on DAB, and by 1998 they were already saying they were going to launch 4 new stations: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/174535.stm That's in addition to Radios 1-5 and the World Service. They could have realised that the audio quality would be crap on DAB at any point from when they first said they were going to launch a load of new stations on DAB. But they didn't, and here we are. So don't try to make out that I'm only saying this with the benefit of hindsight. (AAC is not DAB+; one is a codec, the other is a radio broadcast standard). Don't try to lecture me about what DAB+ is. DAB+ was basically my idea. I was by far the first to point out on my website just how much more efficient (6x and 4x for DVB-H and DMB respectively) and therefore how much cheaper for the broadcasters the mobile TV systems were for carrying radio than DAB is, because they use AAC (and later AAC+) and stronger error correction. And DAB+ is simply the DMB mobile TV system but without the video. See: http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/dv...ld_Replace_DAB ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Page 8 (Graphics omitted, for obvious reasons): Possible scenarios with DAB+ The following figures show how the bit rate of a DAB ensemble may be assigned to: Multiplex with MPEG Audio Layer II (DAB) 9 radio services using MPEG Audio Layer II at 128 kbps Multiplex with HE-AAC v2 (DAB+) 28 radio services using HE-AAC v2 at 40 kbps and 1 audio service using HE-AAC v2 at 32 kbps. Multiplex with MPEG Audio Layer II and HE-AAC v2 (DAB and DAB+) 5 radio services using MPEG Audio Layer II at 128 kbps and 12 radio services using HE-AAC v2 at 40 kbps and 1 radio service using HE-AAC v2 at 32 kbps A 40 kbps subchannel with HE-AAC v2 provides a similar audio quality (even slightly better in most cases) to MPEG Audio Layer II at 128 kbps. Technology is the easy bit, content is the hard part. If technology was the easy bit, why did the BBC et al adopt DAB? The adoption of DAB was grossly incompetent. -- 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 |
#84
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
In article ,
DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: You must just ignore anything that you don't want to know. I've already explained what happened in a reply to you once today. That was a long post, so I'm not going to ****ing rewrite it all for some moron who will deliberately choose not to believe me anyway. Here's the contents of the post you chose not to read earlier today: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I did ask you to read this: http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm Quoting your own website is hardly proof of anything... -- *It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats* Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
#85
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
In article , DAB sounds worse than
FM dab.is@dead.? scribeth thus "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: 4 national stations closed on the Digital One multiplex earlier this year because they couldn't afford to pay the £1 million per year transmission costs. DAB+ is 2 - 3 times cheaper to transmit per station. That's a big, big saving for a station. The costs charged for rental have little to do with actual costs. Totally wrong. It was the TRANSMISSION COSTS that caused the DAB crisis earlier this year. GCap wanted to close 4 stations (theJazz, Core, Life and Planet Rock - the latter was sold), and it wanted to sell its 67% stake in Digital One for £1 to Arqiva. Who do the actual transmission. And I reckon before long will become a large broadcaster in their own right.. Then all the commercial broadcast and transmission platforms will be Aussie controlled;(... It was the transmission costs that led to that and to Fru Hazlitt saying that DAB is "not an economically viable platform". It's common knowledge that the transmission costs are exhorbitant on DAB. Indeed couldn't be better set up for a Monopoly organisation;!... -- Tony Sayer |
#86
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: You must just ignore anything that you don't want to know. I've already explained what happened in a reply to you once today. That was a long post, so I'm not going to ****ing rewrite it all for some moron who will deliberately choose not to believe me anyway. Here's the contents of the post you chose not to read earlier today: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I did ask you to read this: http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm Quoting your own website is hardly proof of anything... I merely asked him to read it. But if there's anything you'd like to dispute on that page, fire away. -- 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 |
#87
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
"tony sayer" wrote in message
In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead.? scribeth thus "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: 4 national stations closed on the Digital One multiplex earlier this year because they couldn't afford to pay the £1 million per year transmission costs. DAB+ is 2 - 3 times cheaper to transmit per station. That's a big, big saving for a station. The costs charged for rental have little to do with actual costs. Totally wrong. It was the TRANSMISSION COSTS that caused the DAB crisis earlier this year. GCap wanted to close 4 stations (theJazz, Core, Life and Planet Rock - the latter was sold), and it wanted to sell its 67% stake in Digital One for £1 to Arqiva. Who do the actual transmission. And I reckon before long will become a large broadcaster in their own right.. Then all the commercial broadcast and transmission platforms will be Aussie controlled;(... It was the transmission costs that led to that and to Fru Hazlitt saying that DAB is "not an economically viable platform". It's common knowledge that the transmission costs are exhorbitant on DAB. Indeed couldn't be better set up for a Monopoly organisation;!... How did Arqiva taking over NGW get past the monopolies and mergers thing? -- 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 |
#88
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: You must just ignore anything that you don't want to know. I've already explained what happened in a reply to you once today. That was a long post, so I'm not going to ****ing rewrite it all for some moron who will deliberately choose not to believe me anyway. Here's the contents of the post you chose not to read earlier today: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I did ask you to read this: http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm Quoting your own website is hardly proof of anything... I merely asked him to read it. But if there's anything you'd like to dispute on that page, fire away. I have read it - before I read anything you've posted in usenet, as it happens. You express your own opinion very forcibly, but with little support from external sources and the very blindness to your own ignorance that you are so fond of accusing others of. At excessive length. -- -- ^^^^^^^^^^ -- Whiskers -- ~~~~~~~~~~ |
#89
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Whiskers" wrote in message
On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: You must just ignore anything that you don't want to know. I've already explained what happened in a reply to you once today. That was a long post, so I'm not going to ****ing rewrite it all for some moron who will deliberately choose not to believe me anyway. Here's the contents of the post you chose not to read earlier today: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I did ask you to read this: http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm Quoting your own website is hardly proof of anything... I merely asked him to read it. But if there's anything you'd like to dispute on that page, fire away. I have read it - before I read anything you've posted in usenet, as it happens. You express your own opinion very forcibly, but with little support from external sources and the very blindness to your own ignorance that you are so fond of accusing others of. At excessive length. Little support from external sources, you say? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance...tandardization "AAC was first specified in the standard MPEG-2 Part 7 (known formally as ISO/IEC 13818-7:1997) in 1997" Multi-channel listening test for AAC vs MP2 in which the BBC took part in 1996: http://sound.media.mit.edu/mpeg4/audio/public/w1420.pdf Conclusion from test was that AAC is twice as efficient as MP2. Stereo listening test for AAC vs MP2 in which the BBC took part in 1998: http://sound.media.mit.edu/mpeg4/audio/public/w2006.pdf Conclusion from test was that AAC is twice as efficient as MP2. BBC R&D open day brochure from 1999 saying AAC it twice as efficient as MP2, and they say "don't squeeze the bit rate": http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/do...9_Open_Day.pdf BBC mentions plans to launch 4 new stations in 1998: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/174535.stm We've seen that it took them about 16 months to add AAC+ and RS coding to DAB when they designed DAB+. So, explain to me why they couldn't add AAC and RS coding in the 1990s when they had a 5-year window from when AAC was standardised in 1997 to when DAB was re-launched in March 2002 when the BBC launched 6 Music and they began the first of 21 TV advertising campaigns for DAB? The FACT IS that they could easily have adopted AAC prior to relaunching DAB in 2002, but they didn't, and here we are in a right 2 and 8. That's soon to be 22 TV ad campaigns by November, when they start advertising DAB again on BBC TV, even though they will be advertising DAB when the large majority of receivers in teh shops won't support DAB+ - BBC encouraging people to go out and buy to-be-obsolete DAB radios. Tut tut. The adoption of DAB was grossly incompetent, and only people who *deliberately choose* to ignore *the facts* would suggest otherwise. -- 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 |
#90
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote:
"Whiskers" wrote in message On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: [...] I did ask you to read this: http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm Quoting your own website is hardly proof of anything... I merely asked him to read it. But if there's anything you'd like to dispute on that page, fire away. I have read it - before I read anything you've posted in usenet, as it happens. You express your own opinion very forcibly, but with little support from external sources and the very blindness to your own ignorance that you are so fond of accusing others of. At excessive length. Little support from external sources, you say? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance...tandardization "AAC was first specified in the standard MPEG-2 Part 7 (known formally as ISO/IEC 13818-7:1997) in 1997" Yes. Not DAB+, just another audio codec. Multi-channel listening test for AAC vs MP2 in which the BBC took part in 1996: http://sound.media.mit.edu/mpeg4/audio/public/w1420.pdf Conclusion from test was that AAC is twice as efficient as MP2. Stereo listening test for AAC vs MP2 in which the BBC took part in 1998: http://sound.media.mit.edu/mpeg4/audio/public/w2006.pdf Conclusion from test was that AAC is twice as efficient as MP2. Yes indeed, no dispute with that. But that's about audio codecs, not about digital radio broadcsting standards (which are not the responsibility of the BBC anyway). BBC R&D open day brochure from 1999 saying AAC it twice as efficient as MP2, and they say "don't squeeze the bit rate": http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/do...9_Open_Day.pdf BBC mentions plans to launch 4 new stations in 1998: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/174535.stm We've seen that it took them about 16 months to add AAC+ and RS coding to DAB when they designed DAB+. "They" isn't the BBC, or Ofcom. The point is, DAB+ didn't exist as a standard to which anyone could build commercial equipment until 2007. So, explain to me why they couldn't add AAC and RS coding in the 1990s when they had a 5-year window from when AAC was standardised in 1997 to when DAB was re-launched in March 2002 when the BBC launched 6 Music and they began the first of 21 TV advertising campaigns for DAB? The FACT IS that they could easily have adopted AAC prior to relaunching DAB in 2002, but they didn't, and here we are in a right 2 and 8. Because the BBC weren't in the business of inventing new broadcasting systems, they were and are in the business of providing content for systems. Your "FACT" is not a fact, it's an opinion - which you still haven't given any support for. That's soon to be 22 TV ad campaigns by November, when they start advertising DAB again on BBC TV, even though they will be advertising DAB when the large majority of receivers in teh shops won't support DAB+ - BBC encouraging people to go out and buy to-be-obsolete DAB radios. Tut tut. So when do those DAB-only receivers become useless? You are the one with hindsight before the event; the world needs to know and only you can tell us. The adoption of DAB was grossly incompetent, and only people who *deliberately choose* to ignore *the facts* would suggest otherwise. No, the adoption of DAB was bold, but not in the least incompetent. We've had years of digital radio to enjoy which no other country has. If the exercise were being started from scratch today, as is the case in other countries, provision ab intio for the latest codecs would make sense - but no-one can turn back the clock. Ideally, I'd want Vorbis, FLAC, and Dirac, to be accomodated; that's an opinion. I am not going to create a large web site and spend my days posting uselessly to newsgroups bemoaning any 'facts' of 'incompetence' that such facilites are not already available for me - and certainly not attacking the BBC for not having invented a way to do it before anyone else had and without international consensus. There are many ways digital radio broadcasting /could/ be done, but most of those ways are not going to be developed. DAB is right here, right now, and it works - just as it did ten years ago. DAB+ looks likely to get off the ground within the next year in one or two countries; doubtless it will eventually become useable here too, but there's no point whingeing about it not having happened years ago. In the UK, the BBC has set a very high standard for any commercial radio or TV station to equal. That's something to be glad about, I think. But then I'm not a commercial broadcaster trying to come up with content that rivals the Beeb's but lacking more than 70 years experience and back-catalogue and a guaranteed revenue stream. I do sympathise with the likes of Channel 4 about that ) That's the big problem for independent broadcasters in this country, not the technology. It has been ever since the first commercial TV stations were licensed in the 1950s. -- -- ^^^^^^^^^^ -- Whiskers -- ~~~~~~~~~~ |
#91
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Whiskers" wrote in message
On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Whiskers" wrote in message On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: [...] I did ask you to read this: http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm Quoting your own website is hardly proof of anything... I merely asked him to read it. But if there's anything you'd like to dispute on that page, fire away. I have read it - before I read anything you've posted in usenet, as it happens. You express your own opinion very forcibly, but with little support from external sources and the very blindness to your own ignorance that you are so fond of accusing others of. At excessive length. Little support from external sources, you say? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance...tandardization "AAC was first specified in the standard MPEG-2 Part 7 (known formally as ISO/IEC 13818-7:1997) in 1997" Yes. Not DAB+, just another audio codec. DAB+ has got nothing to do with this discussion whatsoever. DAB+ came years later. I'm talking about the fact that the AAC audio codec was available to be used from 1997 onwards, but the non-technical BBC executives chose to ignore its existence - even though the BBC R&D guys were saying how good it was. AAC was the solution to DAB's problems. But the non-technical BBC execs simply didn't have a clue what they were doing. And here we are today. Multi-channel listening test for AAC vs MP2 in which the BBC took part in 1996: http://sound.media.mit.edu/mpeg4/audio/public/w1420.pdf Conclusion from test was that AAC is twice as efficient as MP2. Stereo listening test for AAC vs MP2 in which the BBC took part in 1998: http://sound.media.mit.edu/mpeg4/audio/public/w2006.pdf Conclusion from test was that AAC is twice as efficient as MP2. Yes indeed, no dispute with that. But that's about audio codecs, not about digital radio broadcsting standards (which are not the responsibility of the BBC anyway). If the BBC wanted to upgrade DAB prior to relaunch it could have done and it would have done. BBC R&D open day brochure from 1999 saying AAC it twice as efficient as MP2, and they say "don't squeeze the bit rate": http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/do...9_Open_Day.pdf BBC mentions plans to launch 4 new stations in 1998: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/174535.stm We've seen that it took them about 16 months to add AAC+ and RS coding to DAB when they designed DAB+. "They" isn't the BBC, or Ofcom. The point is, DAB+ didn't exist as a standard to which anyone could build commercial equipment until 2007. Again, what on earth has DAB+ got to do with this? You don't even seem able to follow which digital radio standard we're talking about here. We're talking about DAB, and the fact that DAB wasn't upgraded prior to its relaunch when it should have been upgraded. So, explain to me why they couldn't add AAC and RS coding in the 1990s when they had a 5-year window from when AAC was standardised in 1997 to when DAB was re-launched in March 2002 when the BBC launched 6 Music and they began the first of 21 TV advertising campaigns for DAB? The FACT IS that they could easily have adopted AAC prior to relaunching DAB in 2002, but they didn't, and here we are in a right 2 and 8. Because the BBC weren't in the business of inventing new broadcasting systems, they were and are in the business of providing content for systems. Your "FACT" is not a fact, it's an opinion - which you still haven't given any support for. BBC R&D has always been in teh business of inventing new broadcasting technologies. For example, DVB-T2 that will be used to deliver HDTV via Freeview from next year was basically an idea that stemmed from BBC R&D experimenting with MIMO antennas. That's soon to be 22 TV ad campaigns by November, when they start advertising DAB again on BBC TV, even though they will be advertising DAB when the large majority of receivers in teh shops won't support DAB+ - BBC encouraging people to go out and buy to-be-obsolete DAB radios. Tut tut. So when do those DAB-only receivers become useless? You are the one with hindsight before the event; the world needs to know and only you can tell us. People that know about DAB+ and who're considering buying a DAB radio tend to want one that supports DAB. By keeping quiet about the DAB+ issue, and especially advertising DAB aat a time when most receivers don't support DAB+, the BBC is misleading the general public. The adoption of DAB was grossly incompetent, and only people who *deliberately choose* to ignore *the facts* would suggest otherwise. No, the adoption of DAB was bold, but not in the least incompetent. This is just ridiculous. From when you first turned up on this thread, you continually got things wrong, and now you're lecturing ME about DAB. You get one chance at launching a new radio system, so it's got to be right. But they screwed up royal, and here I am basically some know-nothing telling me what's what. THEY HAD FIVE WHOLE YEARS TO ADOPT AAC BETWEEN 1997 AND 2002. THEY DID NOTHING. THAT IS GROSSLY INCOMPETENT. We've had years of digital radio to enjoy which no other country has. If the exercise were being started from scratch today, as is the case in other countries, provision ab intio for the latest codecs would make sense - but no-one can turn back the clock. They had the opportunity from 1997 to 2002. They did nothing. Nada. Niet. Sweet FA. The DAB crisis this year could have been avoided if they'd have adopted AAC. The audio quality on the BBC's stations would be ****hot if they'd have adopted AAC. There wouldn't have been the bubbling mud that people suffer from if they'd have adopted AAC, because adoption of AAC also requires adapting the error correction coding. Ideally, I'd want Vorbis, FLAC, and Dirac, to be accomodated; that's an opinion. That just displays your incompetence. FLAC is a lossless codec, and the chance of a lossless codec ever being used on a terrestrial digital broadcasting system are nil. Diract is a sodding video codec. Why would you want sodding Diract to be implemented? Eh? Explain yourself oh wise one. I am not going to create a large web site and spend my days posting uselessly to newsgroups bemoaning any 'facts' of 'incompetence' that such facilites are not already available for me - and certainly not attacking the BBC for not having invented a way to do it before anyone else had and without international consensus. The thing you're ignoring is that the BBC R&D people were already telling the non-technical suits to use AAC. DAB is right here, right now, and it works It works if you don't mind **** quality, and if you actually receive a signal that doesn't suffer from bubbling mud. - just as it did ten years ago. DAB+ looks likely to get off the ground within the next year in one or two countries; doubtless it will eventually become useable here too, but there's no point whingeing about it not having happened years ago. Don't tell me what to do or what not to do. In the UK, the BBC has set a very high standard for any commercial radio or TV station to equal. The audio quality on BBC DAB stations is ****. And BBC has been providing far lower quality on its Internet radio streams than commercial radio for the last 2 years, and it's currently trying to fabricate excuses to avoid providing the SAME bit rate as commercial radio Internet streams. That's your idea of setting a very high standard, is it? How would you explain the BBC providing its Internet radio streams at 32 kbps until last year? And transcoding the audio by receiving the radio stations off satellite? And why did they transcode the stations for the listen again streams when they could have been sent via the Internet? And why did they transcode anythying when it would only have cost £10k per year for a direct link? And why is the audio quality on Radio 1 and Radio 2 FM **** these days when it used to be superb? You saying that the BBC sets very high standards is yet another ridiculous thing you've said. That's something to be glad about, I think. Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. I'm over teh moon about the BBC's performance. -- 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 |
#92
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote:
"Whiskers" wrote in message On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Whiskers" wrote in message On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: [...] Little support from external sources, you say? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance...tandardization "AAC was first specified in the standard MPEG-2 Part 7 (known formally as ISO/IEC 13818-7:1997) in 1997" Yes. Not DAB+, just another audio codec. DAB+ has got nothing to do with this discussion whatsoever. DAB+ came years later. I'm talking about the fact that the AAC audio codec was available to be used from 1997 onwards, but the non-technical BBC executives chose to ignore its existence - even though the BBC R&D guys were saying how good it was. AAC was the solution to DAB's problems. But the non-technical BBC execs simply didn't have a clue what they were doing. And here we are today. DAB with AAC support, is DAB+. You are trying to pretend that DAB should have been DAB+ from the start, but it couldn't be. AAC didn't exist in the mid '90s, for a start. [...] Conclusion from test was that AAC is twice as efficient as MP2. Yes indeed, no dispute with that. But that's about audio codecs, not about digital radio broadcsting standards (which are not the responsibility of the BBC anyway). If the BBC wanted to upgrade DAB prior to relaunch it could have done and it would have done. That 'relaunch' seems to be something you've invented; the BBC started broadcasting on DAB in the mid '90s. All that happened in 2002 was the addition of more BBC stations and some advertising of the services. Clearly the BBC didn't change the codecs used for their broadcasts, because the existing broadcasting standards (which are not set by the BBC) made no provision for doing so. As for what the BBC may or may not have 'wanted', that is unknown. You know what /you/ want to have happened, but that's just your own opinion. [...] "They" isn't the BBC, or Ofcom. The point is, DAB+ didn't exist as a standard to which anyone could build commercial equipment until 2007. Again, what on earth has DAB+ got to do with this? You don't even seem able to follow which digital radio standard we're talking about here. We're talking about DAB, and the fact that DAB wasn't upgraded prior to its relaunch when it should have been upgraded. You are talking about DAB with the ability to handle AAC codecs; that is DAB+, not DAB. DAB by definition does not support AAC and never will; DAB+ does, and is about to 'go live' in Italy and Australia. So, explain to me why they couldn't add AAC and RS coding in the 1990s when they had a 5-year window from when AAC was standardised in 1997 to when DAB was re-launched in March 2002 when the BBC launched 6 Music and they began the first of 21 TV advertising campaigns for DAB? The FACT IS that they could easily have adopted AAC prior to relaunching DAB in 2002, but they didn't, and here we are in a right 2 and 8. Because the BBC weren't in the business of inventing new broadcasting systems, they were and are in the business of providing content for systems. Your "FACT" is not a fact, it's an opinion - which you still haven't given any support for. BBC R&D has always been in teh business of inventing new broadcasting technologies. For example, DVB-T2 that will be used to deliver HDTV via Freeview from next year was basically an idea that stemmed from BBC R&D experimenting with MIMO antennas. They do research (or used to); sometimes the results of that research eventually finds its way into new broadcasting standards, sometimes it doesn't. The BBC don't impose technical standards unilaterally; such things have to be done by international agreement between governments, broadcasters, manufacturers, and others. That's soon to be 22 TV ad campaigns by November, when they start advertising DAB again on BBC TV, even though they will be advertising DAB when the large majority of receivers in teh shops won't support DAB+ - BBC encouraging people to go out and buy to-be-obsolete DAB radios. Tut tut. So when do those DAB-only receivers become useless? You are the one with hindsight before the event; the world needs to know and only you can tell us. People that know about DAB+ and who're considering buying a DAB radio tend to want one that supports DAB. By keeping quiet about the DAB+ issue, and especially advertising DAB aat a time when most receivers don't support DAB+, the BBC is misleading the general public. When mass-market DAB receivers support both DAB and DAB+, people will be able to buy them. At present, hardly any support DAB+ at all, and only a few claim to be 'upgradeable'. That's how new the new standard is. Now that there is an agreed standard for DAB+, manufacturers have undertaken to start designing models to accomodate it. But there is nothing to listen to on DAB+ in this country yet, and it's anybody's guess when there will be. The adoption of DAB was grossly incompetent, and only people who *deliberately choose* to ignore *the facts* would suggest otherwise. No, the adoption of DAB was bold, but not in the least incompetent. This is just ridiculous. From when you first turned up on this thread, you continually got things wrong, and now you're lecturing ME about DAB. Actually, I'm tryig to introduce you to the concept of 'logic'. You get one chance at launching a new radio system, so it's got to be right. But they screwed up royal, and here I am basically some know-nothing telling me what's what. No, you are expressing an unsupported and unrealistic opinion and I'm telling you so. THEY HAD FIVE WHOLE YEARS TO ADOPT AAC BETWEEN 1997 AND 2002. THEY DID NOTHING. THAT IS GROSSLY INCOMPETENT. That's your opinion. How "they" were supposed to start using a standard in 2002 or 1995 or at any other time in the past, that wasn't available until 2007 at the earliest, is beyond anyone but you. We've had years of digital radio to enjoy which no other country has. If the exercise were being started from scratch today, as is the case in other countries, provision ab intio for the latest codecs would make sense - but no-one can turn back the clock. They had the opportunity from 1997 to 2002. They did nothing. Nada. Niet. Sweet FA. The DAB crisis this year could have been avoided if they'd have adopted AAC. The audio quality on the BBC's stations would be ****hot if they'd have adopted AAC. There wouldn't have been the bubbling mud that people suffer from if they'd have adopted AAC, because adoption of AAC also requires adapting the error correction coding. It would be iven better if they;d used soe other system that doesn't exist yet. Get real! Ideally, I'd want Vorbis, FLAC, and Dirac, to be accomodated; that's an opinion. That just displays your incompetence. FLAC is a lossless codec, and the chance of a lossless codec ever being used on a terrestrial digital broadcasting system are nil. I don't see why; it's still a more efficient use of resources than analogue, and would give the potential for genuinely 'as good as a CD' sound - which no lossy codec ever will, not even your beloved AAC. It would also remove the temptation to impose low bit rates to get more stations into the space - which will always tend to result in listeners getting a 'just about good enough for the uncritical masses' listening experience. FLAC is also royalty-free, unlike AAC. Diract is a sodding video codec. Why would you want sodding Diract to be implemented? Eh? Explain yourself oh wise one. Why not? Moving pictures would be a useful adjunct to sound radio - without necessarily going the whole hog to 'television' quality. Film trailers, animations, traffic-cameras, ... I notice you haven't commented in Vorbis. [...] and certainly not attacking the BBC for not having invented a way to do it before anyone else had and without international consensus. The thing you're ignoring is that the BBC R&D people were already telling the non-technical suits to use AAC. No they weren't, they were publishing the results of some research. DAB is right here, right now, and it works It works if you don't mind **** quality, and if you actually receive a signal that doesn't suffer from bubbling mud. Aha. I think we've got to the point of your ire; you're in a poor reception area, or haven't got a good enough aerial. - just as it did ten years ago. DAB+ looks likely to get off the ground within the next year in one or two countries; doubtless it will eventually become useable here too, but there's no point whingeing about it not having happened years ago. Don't tell me what to do or what not to do. Why not? You put a huge amount of effort into telling everyone else what to do. In the UK, the BBC has set a very high standard for any commercial radio or TV station to equal. The audio quality on BBC DAB stations is ****. Actually, no, it isn't. The quality of your DAB reception may be though. The quality of the BBC VHF/FM stations is about as good as DAB (at its best it used to be better, but I don't think any of the content now on analogue radio has escaped being digitised and compressed at least once on its way to the transmitter). Where I live, analogue reception is mostly poor - Radio 3 FM is useless. But that's down to geography and transmitter placement and power, not to the underlying technology. But I'm close enough to the BBC's local DAB transmitter to get a 'full strength' signal even with the aerial of my portable folded. That's luck, not technology. And BBC has been providing far lower quality on its Internet radio streams than commercial radio for the last 2 years, and it's currently trying to fabricate excuses to avoid providing the SAME bit rate as commercial radio Internet streams. That's your idea of setting a very high standard, is it? You are confusing content with transmission technology; they aren't the same thing at all. I agree that for internet listeners with a lot of bandwidth available, the BBC could provide better streams and 'podcasts'. But they'd still have to accomodate those on lesser internet connections. How would you explain the BBC providing its Internet radio streams at 32 kbps until last year? And transcoding the audio by receiving the radio stations off satellite? And why did they transcode the stations for the listen again streams when they could have been sent via the Internet? And why did they transcode anythying when it would only have cost Ā£10k per year for a direct link? If you think you could run the BBC better than the present staff, why not apply for a job? And why is the audio quality on Radio 1 and Radio 2 FM **** these days when it used to be superb? I've never understood why anyone would choose to listen to Radio 1 so I can't comment on that. I seldom listen to Radio 2 either - and would use DAB if I did. But apart from poor reception (which is often worse now than it used to be thanks to the profusion of licensed and pirate stations in what used to be a nearly empty VHF waveband), I'm pretty sure even the analogue stations now get digitised and compressed material, which will never sound as good as genuine analogue. You saying that the BBC sets very high standards is yet another ridiculous thing you've said. That's something to be glad about, I think. Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. I'm over teh moon about the BBC's performance. Do try not to confuse technology with the content. Content is /programmes/, not codecs or transmitters. Anyone trying to compete with the BBC has access to exactly the same technology, but finding programmes to equal what the BBC produce is what defeats commercial competitors. -- -- ^^^^^^^^^^ -- Whiskers -- ~~~~~~~~~~ |
#93
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
In article ,
Whiskers wrote: If you think you could run the BBC better than the present staff, why not apply for a job? Think he did and was turned down. Hence the crusade... -- *I got a sweater for Christmas. I really wanted a screamer or a moaner* Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
#94
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
In article , DAB sounds worse than FM
dab.is@dead.? scribeth thus "tony sayer" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead.? scribeth thus "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: 4 national stations closed on the Digital One multiplex earlier this year because they couldn't afford to pay the £1 million per year transmission costs. DAB+ is 2 - 3 times cheaper to transmit per station. That's a big, big saving for a station. The costs charged for rental have little to do with actual costs. Totally wrong. It was the TRANSMISSION COSTS that caused the DAB crisis earlier this year. GCap wanted to close 4 stations (theJazz, Core, Life and Planet Rock - the latter was sold), and it wanted to sell its 67% stake in Digital One for £1 to Arqiva. Who do the actual transmission. And I reckon before long will become a large broadcaster in their own right.. Then all the commercial broadcast and transmission platforms will be Aussie controlled;(... It was the transmission costs that led to that and to Fru Hazlitt saying that DAB is "not an economically viable platform". It's common knowledge that the transmission costs are exhorbitant on DAB. Indeed couldn't be better set up for a Monopoly organisation;!... How did Arqiva taking over NGW get past the monopolies and mergers thing? They rolled over and let them tickle their tummies like the way we do so well;(... I expect that no one at the commission really understood it all.... -- Tony Sayer |
#95
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Whiskers" wrote in message
On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Whiskers" wrote in message On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Whiskers" wrote in message On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: [...] Little support from external sources, you say? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance...tandardization "AAC was first specified in the standard MPEG-2 Part 7 (known formally as ISO/IEC 13818-7:1997) in 1997" Yes. Not DAB+, just another audio codec. DAB+ has got nothing to do with this discussion whatsoever. DAB+ came years later. I'm talking about the fact that the AAC audio codec was available to be used from 1997 onwards, but the non-technical BBC executives chose to ignore its existence - even though the BBC R&D guys were saying how good it was. AAC was the solution to DAB's problems. But the non-technical BBC execs simply didn't have a clue what they were doing. And here we are today. DAB with AAC support, is DAB+. You are trying to pretend that DAB should have been DAB+ from the start, but it couldn't be. AAC didn't exist in the mid '90s, for a start. Ah, I see the penny looks to have dropped a bit, but not all the way to the floor yet. You say that AAC didn't exist in teh mid 90s. It was actually in development from 1993/4 (so BBC R&D would have known about it from 1993/4). The BBC carried out a listening test on it in 1996. It was standardised in 1997. There was FIVE WHOLE YEARS for them to adopt it before 2002, but they did nothing. Hence the accusation of gross incompetence. AAC would have solved all of DAB's main problems. It's incompetent to launch the system they did when AAC had been available for so long. Conclusion from test was that AAC is twice as efficient as MP2. Yes indeed, no dispute with that. But that's about audio codecs, not about digital radio broadcsting standards (which are not the responsibility of the BBC anyway). If the BBC wanted to upgrade DAB prior to relaunch it could have done and it would have done. That 'relaunch' seems to be something you've invented; the BBC started broadcasting on DAB in the mid '90s. The "big launch" happened in 2002. There had been absolutely no TV advertising for DAB prior to that. I remember something published by the DRDB in around 2002 which said that consumer awareness of DAB before the TV ads was 1%. A whopping 1%. DAB was properly launched in 2002. All that happened in 2002 was the addition of more BBC stations and some advertising of the services. Clearly the BBC didn't change the codecs used for their broadcasts, because the existing broadcasting standards (which are not set by the BBC) made no provision for doing so. As for what the BBC may or may not have 'wanted', that is unknown. You know what /you/ want to have happened, but that's just your own opinion. The BBC could have added AAC if they'd have wanted to. "They" isn't the BBC, or Ofcom. The point is, DAB+ didn't exist as a standard to which anyone could build commercial equipment until 2007. Again, what on earth has DAB+ got to do with this? You don't even seem able to follow which digital radio standard we're talking about here. We're talking about DAB, and the fact that DAB wasn't upgraded prior to its relaunch when it should have been upgraded. You are talking about DAB with the ability to handle AAC codecs; that is DAB+, not DAB. DAB by definition does not support AAC and never will; DAB+ does, and is about to 'go live' in Italy and Australia. No, we're talking about DAB. We're talking about what happened in the 1990s. DAB+ only came out about 18 months ago. DAB+ is irrelevant to this discussion. So, explain to me why they couldn't add AAC and RS coding in the 1990s when they had a 5-year window from when AAC was standardised in 1997 to when DAB was re-launched in March 2002 when the BBC launched 6 Music and they began the first of 21 TV advertising campaigns for DAB? The FACT IS that they could easily have adopted AAC prior to relaunching DAB in 2002, but they didn't, and here we are in a right 2 and 8. Because the BBC weren't in the business of inventing new broadcasting systems, they were and are in the business of providing content for systems. Your "FACT" is not a fact, it's an opinion - which you still haven't given any support for. BBC R&D has always been in teh business of inventing new broadcasting technologies. For example, DVB-T2 that will be used to deliver HDTV via Freeview from next year was basically an idea that stemmed from BBC R&D experimenting with MIMO antennas. They do research (or used to); sometimes the results of that research eventually finds its way into new broadcasting standards, sometimes it doesn't. The BBC don't impose technical standards unilaterally; such things have to be done by international agreement between governments, broadcasters, manufacturers, and others. The BBC could have done whatever it wanted with DAB. If the BBC didn't want to launch DAB, DAB would have failed in the UK. So the BBC had the opportunity to adopt AAC if it wanted. Sorry, but it's just ridiculous to launch a radio system - which are things taht are meant to be around for a long time - when it simply wasn't up to the job from day one. And I'm talking about day 1 being March 2002, when the TV ads started. There were no DAB receivers in teh shops until late 1999 / early 2000 (IIRC), and then they cost £800 - Malcolm Knight off this group bought one of the first ones. It will have been late 2000 or early 2001 when VideoLogic brought out their DRX601E DAB tuner at £300, and probably the Psion Wavefinder came out at about the same time. So with AAC being standardised in 1997, it's not as if they didn't have the opportunity to hold things up so that AAC could be added to DAB. Face facts. The BBC was grossly incompetent. That's all there is to it. Deny it if you like, but you're just deluding yourself due to your BBC Fanboyism. That's soon to be 22 TV ad campaigns by November, when they start advertising DAB again on BBC TV, even though they will be advertising DAB when the large majority of receivers in teh shops won't support DAB+ - BBC encouraging people to go out and buy to-be-obsolete DAB radios. Tut tut. So when do those DAB-only receivers become useless? You are the one with hindsight before the event; the world needs to know and only you can tell us. People that know about DAB+ and who're considering buying a DAB radio tend to want one that supports DAB. By keeping quiet about the DAB+ issue, and especially advertising DAB aat a time when most receivers don't support DAB+, the BBC is misleading the general public. When mass-market DAB receivers support both DAB and DAB+, people will be able to buy them. At present, hardly any support DAB+ at all, and only a few claim to be 'upgradeable'. That's how new the new standard is. Now that there is an agreed standard for DAB+, manufacturers have undertaken to start designing models to accomodate it. But there is nothing to listen to on DAB+ in this country yet, and it's anybody's guess when there will be. Thanks for an update on DAB+. I wasn't aware of the overall DAB+ picture. Thanks for that. Very interesting. Ta. The adoption of DAB was grossly incompetent, and only people who *deliberately choose* to ignore *the facts* would suggest otherwise. No, the adoption of DAB was bold, but not in the least incompetent. This is just ridiculous. From when you first turned up on this thread, you continually got things wrong, and now you're lecturing ME about DAB. Actually, I'm tryig to introduce you to the concept of 'logic'. There wasn't any logic in what you said above. You get one chance at launching a new radio system, so it's got to be right. But they screwed up royal, and here I am basically some know-nothing telling me what's what. No, you are expressing an unsupported and unrealistic opinion and I'm telling you so. There is absolutely nothing unrealistic about saying that a digital radio system that the broadcasters originally intended to be used in this country for a very long time, and they thoroughly expected it would become a global digital radio standard should be fit for purpose BEFORE it was launched. You don't get two goes with these things. It needed to be right first time. It wasn't. THEY HAD FIVE WHOLE YEARS TO ADOPT AAC BETWEEN 1997 AND 2002. THEY DID NOTHING. THAT IS GROSSLY INCOMPETENT. That's your opinion. How "they" were supposed to start using a standard in 2002 or 1995 or at any other time in the past, that wasn't available until 2007 at the earliest, is beyond anyone but you. You're still sticking to this nonsense about DAB+. DAB+ is just a standard that was designed recently. I'm talking about the AAC codec being added to DAB. That could have happened at any time from 1997 onwards. We've had years of digital radio to enjoy which no other country has. If the exercise were being started from scratch today, as is the case in other countries, provision ab intio for the latest codecs would make sense - but no-one can turn back the clock. They had the opportunity from 1997 to 2002. They did nothing. Nada. Niet. Sweet FA. The DAB crisis this year could have been avoided if they'd have adopted AAC. The audio quality on the BBC's stations would be ****hot if they'd have adopted AAC. There wouldn't have been the bubbling mud that people suffer from if they'd have adopted AAC, because adoption of AAC also requires adapting the error correction coding. It would be iven better if they;d used soe other system that doesn't exist yet. Get real! Sorry, but you're just coming out with drivel. I've repeatedly said that I'm referring to the AAC codec being added to DAB. Nothing to do with DAB+ - that came a lot later. AAC could have been added to DAB from 1997 onwards - they could have worked towards adding it from 1994 onwards, because that's when it got the go-ahead from MPEG. Ideally, I'd want Vorbis, FLAC, and Dirac, to be accomodated; that's an opinion. That just displays your incompetence. FLAC is a lossless codec, and the chance of a lossless codec ever being used on a terrestrial digital broadcasting system are nil. I don't see why; it's still a more efficient use of resources than analogue, An average FLAC bit rate is around 800 kbps. A DAB multiplex can carry 1184 kbps. So only one FLAC-compressed station could be carrier per DAB multiplex. A DAB multiplex has a bandwidth of 1.75 MHz, so that's 1.75 MHz per station. An FM station has a bandwidth of about 400 kHz. So, no, it's more efficient than analogue, it's far less efficient than analogue. And the cost of transmitting a FLAC-encoded station on a national DAB multiplex to 90% of the population would be £11m per year - nice and economically feasible to go with the high spectral efficiency. It's basically one of the most ridiculous things anybody has said on this newsgroup all year - possibly 2 years in fact. But you'll just ignore that, and come up with some more idiocy in your next post no doubt. and would give the potential for genuinely 'as good as a CD' sound - which no lossy codec ever will, not even your beloved AAC. FLAC doesn't offer the potential to provide CD quality, it does provide CD quality. That's why it's called a lossless codec, because there is no loss - it is a perfect bit-for-bit copy of the original when decompressed - that's what a lossless codec is, otherwise it's not lossless. Strewth. It would also remove the temptation to impose low bit rates to get more stations into the space - which will always tend to result in listeners getting a 'just about good enough for the uncritical masses' listening experience. FLAC is also royalty-free, unlike AAC. I bet the broadcasters would be over the moon that FLAC is royalty-free. Just the £11m per annum transmission costs on national DAB to worry about then. Gordon Bennett. And what choice we'd have. I'd be able to receive 4 stations on DAB. Do you work for the FSA by any chance? Diract is a sodding video codec. Why would you want sodding Diract to be implemented? Eh? Explain yourself oh wise one. Why not? Moving pictures would be a useful adjunct to sound radio - without necessarily going the whole hog to 'television' quality. Film trailers, animations, traffic-cameras, ... Yeah, I can see you've considered the bandwidth required for this as well. You are aware that video requires far higher bit rates than audio, are you? Video on handheld devices requires a bit rate of about 200 kbps for the video, then there's the audio. You can do video on DAB - that's what DMB is, but it consumes a lot of bandwidth, and it's basically a waste of capacity when it could be delivered via the Internet. I notice you haven't commented in Vorbis. I didn't need to comment on Ogg, because I had more than enough ammunition with your idiotic suggestion to use FLAC. Regarding Ogg, what's the point in using it when you'ev got AAC/AAC+? AAC+ is more efficient than Ogg, so the broadcasters will use AAC+. and certainly not attacking the BBC for not having invented a way to do it before anyone else had and without international consensus. The thing you're ignoring is that the BBC R&D people were already telling the non-technical suits to use AAC. No they weren't, they were publishing the results of some research. I've already told you that when non-technical BBC suits make technical decisions they get presentations by BBC R&D people to advise them about the technical issues. They will have known what the score was, but they ignored it. DAB is right here, right now, and it works It works if you don't mind **** quality, and if you actually receive a signal that doesn't suffer from bubbling mud. Aha. I think we've got to the point of your ire; you're in a poor reception area, or haven't got a good enough aerial. No bubbling mud on 3 multiplexes. A bit of bubbling mud on 1 multiplex. That's indoor reception. Perfect FM reception, BTW. - just as it did ten years ago. DAB+ looks likely to get off the ground within the next year in one or two countries; doubtless it will eventually become useable here too, but there's no point whingeing about it not having happened years ago. Don't tell me what to do or what not to do. Why not? You put a huge amount of effort into telling everyone else what to do. I could say the same thing about you. In the UK, the BBC has set a very high standard for any commercial radio or TV station to equal. The audio quality on BBC DAB stations is ****. Actually, no, it isn't. Erm, yes, it is. The quality of your DAB reception may be though. See above - there's nothing wrong with my DAB reception quality on 3 multiplexes. The quality of the BBC VHF/FM stations is about as good as DAB The quality on FM still easily beats DAB, and that's with the BBC degrading R1 and R2. R3 FM wipes the floor with R3 DAB. The only station that has a similar quality on both is R4. (at its best it used to be better, but I don't think any of the content now on analogue radio has escaped being digitised and compressed at least once on its way to the transmitter). The audio for BBC FM stations is distributed to the transmitters via NICAM. NICAM uses a 14-to-10 bit companding algorithm with a bit rate of 728 kbps. Anybody with a high SNR signal is effectively listening to NICAM, and NICAM ****es all over MP2. Where I live, analogue reception is mostly poor - Radio 3 FM is useless. Right. So don't even bother commenting on FM. Bored of this now. snip -- 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 |
#96
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
In article , Whiskers wrote: If you think you could run the BBC better than the present staff, why not apply for a job? Think he did and was turned down. Hence the crusade... I have never applied for a job at the BBC. Hence you're talking out of your arse again. -- 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 |
#97
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new DAB pocket radio story
I've never understood why anyone would choose to listen to Radio 1 so I
can't comment on that. I seldom listen to Radio 2 either - and would use DAB if I did. But apart from poor reception (which is often worse now than it used to be thanks to the profusion of licensed and pirate stations in what used to be a nearly empty VHF waveband), I'm pretty sure even the analogue stations now get digitised and compressed material, which will never sound as good as genuine analogue. You saying that the BBC sets very high standards is yet another ridiculous thing you've said. That's something to be glad about, I think. Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. I'm over teh moon about the BBC's performance. Do try not to confuse technology with the content. Content is /programmes/, not codecs or transmitters. Anyone trying to compete with the BBC has access to exactly the same technology, but finding programmes to equal what the BBC produce is what defeats commercial competitors. Well seeing they have the licence fee behind them that shouldn't be too difficult They could up the rates on satellite so as to get rid of that metallic audio on 192 K this would cost them bugger all and then they'd match other European broadcasters. DAB can then be consigned to clock radios and the like;!... -- Tony Sayer |
#98
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new DAB pocket radio story
The reason i wanted a small DAB radio is mainly for news and world service
whilst walking around. In north london my other small FM radios keep breaking up at almost every other corner. I rang phillips and they are now saying something different. that the *wiping off* of all the presets after a 'local' scan is normal for this Phillips pocket DAB radio DA1103/05. I emailed the 'Pure' radio people and they have advised: Ofcom has explicitly not licensed DAB+ services, and key figures in the UK broadcast industry have indicated that it will be years before the new standard starts to be used and many years after that before there is expected to be any change to existing DAB services. So I think I'll go and get another phillips DA1103 and make do with it for a few years. thanks for all the 'education'/ hornets nest i got in this group. |
#99
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new DAB pocket radio story
So I think I'll go and get another phillips DA1103 and make do
with it for a few years. thanks for all the "education" / hornet's nest I got in this group. The problem had nothing to do with the question and everything to do with the fact (???) that the DAB system -- and DAB radios - seem to be poorly designed and executed. |
#100
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new DAB pocket radio story
"john d hamilton" wrote in message
The reason i wanted a small DAB radio is mainly for news and world service whilst walking around. In north london my other small FM radios keep breaking up at almost every other corner. I rang phillips and they are now saying something different. that the *wiping off* of all the presets after a 'local' scan is normal for this Phillips pocket DAB radio DA1103/05. I emailed the 'Pure' radio people and they have advised: Ofcom has explicitly not licensed DAB+ services, and key figures in the UK broadcast industry have indicated that it will be years before the new standard starts to be used and many years after that before there is expected to be any change to existing DAB services. Pure is hardly going to say "yeah, DAB+ is just around the corner, so don't buy a DAB radio at the moment, wait until everything supports DAB+", are they? -- 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 |
#101
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new DAB pocket radio story
"tony sayer" wrote in message
In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead.? scribeth thus "tony sayer" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead.? scribeth thus "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message In article , DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: 4 national stations closed on the Digital One multiplex earlier this year because they couldn't afford to pay the £1 million per year transmission costs. DAB+ is 2 - 3 times cheaper to transmit per station. That's a big, big saving for a station. The costs charged for rental have little to do with actual costs. Totally wrong. It was the TRANSMISSION COSTS that caused the DAB crisis earlier this year. GCap wanted to close 4 stations (theJazz, Core, Life and Planet Rock - the latter was sold), and it wanted to sell its 67% stake in Digital One for £1 to Arqiva. Who do the actual transmission. And I reckon before long will become a large broadcaster in their own right.. Then all the commercial broadcast and transmission platforms will be Aussie controlled;(... It was the transmission costs that led to that and to Fru Hazlitt saying that DAB is "not an economically viable platform". It's common knowledge that the transmission costs are exhorbitant on DAB. Indeed couldn't be better set up for a Monopoly organisation;!... How did Arqiva taking over NGW get past the monopolies and mergers thing? They rolled over and let them tickle their tummies like the way we do so well;(... Looks like it. I expect that no one at the commission really understood it all.... Sounds like the FSA or Ofcom must have advised them if they couldn't figure out that one transmission provider taking over the only other transmission provider left a monopoly. -- 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 |
#102
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Whiskers" wrote in message
On 2008-10-17, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: "Whiskers" wrote in message Ideally, I'd want Vorbis, FLAC, and Dirac, to be accomodated; that's an opinion. That just displays your incompetence. FLAC is a lossless codec, and the chance of a lossless codec ever being used on a terrestrial digital broadcasting system are nil. I don't see why; it's still a more efficient use of resources than analogue, and would give the potential for genuinely 'as good as a CD' sound - which no lossy codec ever will, not even your beloved AAC. It would also remove the temptation to impose low bit rates to get more stations into the space - which will always tend to result in listeners getting a 'just about good enough for the uncritical masses' listening experience. FLAC is also royalty-free, unlike AAC. I see FLAConDAB Boy has disappeared. Or are you just having a break, FLAConDAB Boy? Probably best if you run along, FLAConDAB Boy, cos I'd only bring up your idiotic idea to use FLAC on DAB again. Incidentally, thinking about it, you couldn't use FLAC on DAB anyway. You see with FLAC being a lossless audio codec, you can't guarantee that teh bit rate will be below the 1184 kbps maximum capacity of a DAB multiplex. I also have to say that it's gloriously ironic that you came up with the suggestion that you could use FLAC on DAB when you'd previously claimed that "technology is easy". Technology is easy, but *only once* you've done the hard work studying the appropriate subjects, and you blatantly haven't. And when the BBC chose to adopt DAB in the 1990s, the people making the decisions were a marketing person, Simon Nelson, and Jenny Abramsky, who probably can't even programme a video recorder - harsh, but probably true. They obviously thought technology was easy as well. And the end result was that they incompetently chose to launch DAB without first upgrading it. And the people who make the technical decisions about digital radio at the BBC at the moment similarly don't understand the technologies. Their current decision making is mostly simply based on being biased against the Internet streams and being biased in favour of DAB. If I'm wrong about that, and they really are trying to provide good quailty, then they're also simply making incompetent technical decisions because they don't understand the technical aspects. It's about time the BBC employed people who understand engineering. Anthony Rose, who's in charge of the iPlayer TV streams, understands it. But no-one on the radio side understands engineering at all. -- 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 |
#103
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new DAB pocket radio story
On 2008-10-18, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote:
[...] I see FLAConDAB Boy has disappeared. Or are you just having a break, FLAConDAB Boy? Probably best if you run along, FLAConDAB Boy, cos I'd only bring up your idiotic idea to use FLAC on DAB again. [...] If you must troll and cross-post, at least try to do it with some style and without making yourself look desperate and ridiculous. Or at least stay out of 24HS.D - I'm sure we've had all the entertainment you can provide. -- -- ^^^^^^^^^^ -- Whiskers -- ~~~~~~~~~~ |
#104
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Whiskers" wrote in message ... Waiting for the next improvement or new technology is a never-ending game It WILL end if the greenies get their way, because they want us all to go back to the stone age. Bill |
#105
Posted to alt.radio.digital,sci.electronics.repair,uk.people.consumers,24hoursupport.helpdesk
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new DAB pocket radio story
It WILL end if the greenies get their way, because
they want us all to go back to the stone age. Since when? |
#106
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new DAB pocket radio story
"Whiskers" wrote in message
On 2008-10-18, DAB sounds worse than FM dab.is@dead wrote: [...] I see FLAConDAB Boy has disappeared. Or are you just having a break, FLAConDAB Boy? Probably best if you run along, FLAConDAB Boy, cos I'd only bring up your idiotic idea to use FLAC on DAB again. [...] If you must troll and cross-post, at least try to do it with some style and without making yourself look desperate and ridiculous. There was absolutely nothign desperate or ridiculous about what I said. It was you that ridiculously claimed that FLAC could be used on DAB, and I was merely taking the **** out of that suggestion. Or at least stay out of 24HS.D - I'm sure we've had all the entertainment you can provide. You've been cross-posting nonsense on alt.radio.digital throughout this thread, so don't tell me where I can or cannot cross-post to. -- 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 |
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