RE: DAB RIP?

[radiodanno]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Trying to respond to a few of these.

FWIW, I agree that 112kbps is not good enough. But it's not fidelity that sells radio sets, it's content. It is also worth noting (albeit the man in the street won't know this) that the codecs were improved and replaced last year, and the a more modern 112kbps is identical to the older 128kbps units.

Radio is not going to half the number of radio stations just to increase quality. That leaves DAB to face the same problems as FM - insufficient space for new stations and an efficient usage of spectrum. What will happen is a second national multiplex will launch, and that will hopefully take up the slack. Make no bones about it, stations don't want to be on DAB at 80kbps, but frequently that is "all that's left to them" - and all that they can afford.

The industry doesn't see DAB as a replacement for FM: radio's future is very multiplatform (from FM to DAB to Mobile to DTV to Youtube to Social Media etc).

What NOW sells DAB sets is not what us boys want. It's not fidelity, it's "ease of use" and an improvement in fidelity for AM only stations with a more robust signal (no MF fade)

Edited by radiodanno on Friday 10th January 10:06

[radiodanno]

Transmitter Man said:

So Danno,

Off subject just for a minute.

What is the 'real' reason for such narrow playlists on the vast majority of 'borg' stations.

Why do the presenters have little freedom of expression.

Is it still the sales managers that dictate to the powers that be and who are afraid of trying something new and see the sales figures go down?

One gets somewhat sick of Dianna Ross's Baby Love when she had something like 30+ number one's in her singing career.

Bring back Kenny, that's what I say;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foZujHOsuuo

Phil

Hey!

The fact is, it works. We live in a world where people wait for nothing. We don't queue in Tesco, we don't tolerate slow broadband, we love fast food and we don't like traffic. People don't wait for the songs they love: if you don't give them what they want when they want it, they go elsewhere. Once upon a time that may have been Radio 1 or Radio 2 but quickly enough the same thing would happen. Nowadays you're competing with more radio stations than ever before, more devices than ever before and more distractions than ever before. People listening to music radio stations (Heart/Magic/Capital/Smooth etc) don't forgive you for playing a dud song and think "oh it's ok - maybe he'll play something I like in 15 minutes" - they're off to another radio station or an iPod or Youtube or the TV. It's fierce.

If you take London as an example, the number 1 radio station on market share is Magic 105.4. That's a radio station that was once infamous for playing just 150 songs! Capital is now #2 and played just 185 different songs in the last month! In the same time Smooth played nearly 1200 and is nowhere to be seen. The only exception to the rule anywhere in the UK is Radio 2, and that is undeniably a behemoth. It undeniably has no adverts either.

I hope that explains it a bit better. It's not that the radio industry is frightened to 'try something different' - it doesn't need to. Stations can look at each other and see very easily what works and what doesn't. It's not a gamble that's worth taking. The days of BROADcasting are very much over in the commercial world, it's NARROWcasting now.

[TonyRPH]

radiodanno said:

<snip>
It's also worth remembering that FM never totally replaced AM or even LW.

Only because those parts of the LW/MW spectrum have little or no value compared to the FM spectrum.

Otherwise the domestic AM/LW spectrum would have been sold off long ago.

[tobinen]

WelI I've decided to have a DAB radio installed in the car. Hopefully this isn't a poor decision!

[radiodanno]

Not at all, particularly if you want to hear sport without MW fade/interference and have a wider choice of radio stations in the car.

I am a massive radio man (it's my life) but at the moment internet radio in the car isn't an option for most of us. It's not robust enough and, with current dataplans, costs a lot of money to most of us.

[SuperHangOn]

David W. said:

Studio117 said:

Why people bother with radio these days does surprise me. Even a modest sized SD card gets me thousands of decent quality tracks to listen to at my leisure. Quite why people put up with some bellend talking is anyones guess.

Some of us like to be indroduced and listen music we haven't heard before not to mention hear the news, comedy or current affaires shows.
Radio all the time for me.

Studio117 makes a good point, I find radio in general is pretty rubbish. Thing is though, I can't be bothered to faff around with SD cards and smart phones- most drives really don't need a pre-flight check procedure.

I had an Iphone but when it broke I replaced it with a £30 Nokia, didn't get the obsession with them at all.

[Clivey]

SuperHangOn said:

Studio117 makes a good point, I find radio in general is pretty rubbish. Thing is though, I can't be bothered to faff around with SD cards and smart phones- most drives really don't need a pre-flight check procedure.

I had an Iphone but when it broke I replaced it with a £30 Nokia, didn't get the obsession with them at all.

If your car audio system and smartphone are paired / set-up properly, it shouldn't be a faff to start playing music when you get in the car.

[Kentish]

Clivey said:

SuperHangOn said:

Studio117 makes a good point, I find radio in general is pretty rubbish. Thing is though, I can't be bothered to faff around with SD cards and smart phones- most drives really don't need a pre-flight check procedure.

I had an Iphone but when it broke I replaced it with a £30 Nokia, didn't get the obsession with them at all.

If your car audio system and smartphone are paired / set-up properly, it shouldn't be a faff to start playing music when you get in the car.

Thread resurrection but I agree.

I use the "bluetooth auto connect" app and it automatically connects BT and launches the music player (or any desired app) when I start the car. The app I chose to launch could also be a digital radio app if so desired.

I don't use digital radio in the car tbh because of the network data charges being too high but the technology and convenience to play my own music collection in an unlimited manner is great.

All in a 16 year old BMW (with aftermarket Pioneer headunit)

[HairbearTE]

NormalWisdom said:

Pints said:

Rumblestripe said:

As for the ludicrous idea of using tax payers money to put up mobile phone masts! Why should we subsidise an already insanely profitable sector when half of them are dodging paying any taxes with considerable verve and success. Stuff 'em.

What do you consider to be "insanely profitable"?

Indeed, most of the mobile Cos may be making profits but they still have a long way to go to recover the capital investment made in their networks! As for the rip-off that was the 3g spectrum sell-off, the mobi cos were actually fleeced by the government on that one!

Not the govts fault that the video call revolution anticipated by the suppliers never materialised. The providers made a huge error of judgement.

[IanMorewood]

3G/4G signal round here is still patchy, mind so is FM and Gsm. Also the cost of data usage not everyone has a 10gb data allowance per month for their phone, I know roaming wise I probably stay within 300mb a month.

[soad]

Three network gives me unlimited (All-you-can-eat) data.

[Craikeybaby]

HairbearTE said:

Not the govts fault that the video call revolution anticipated by the suppliers never materialised. The providers made a huge error of judgement.

I think they were just a bit ahead of their time and the interface/screen/camera technology wasn't there to back it up. I regularly use FaceTime for video calling these days.

[Dog Star]

thescamper said:

Dont agree. I have streamed music via Soundcloud, Mixcload and various internet radio stations via bluetooth to my head unit for over a year now, I have travelled all over the southwest and have done journeys from Plymouth up to the NEC in birmingham and back and without interuption, personally i dont see an issue.

I doubt you'd be making your "I'm all right, Jack" statement if every other person was streaming as well.

[Vaud]

IanMorewood said:

3G/4G signal round here is still patchy, mind so is FM and Gsm. Also the cost of data usage not everyone has a 10gb data allowance per month for their phone, I know roaming wise I probably stay within 300mb a month.

We don't have 3G or 4G, digital radio is patchy. And that's in a (fairly) affluent 5,000 people village, next to big towns (20,000+) on a main commuting line, next to main roads, 9 miles from a major city.

[F.C.]

Satellite radio is commonplace in cars in the usa.
Thousands of stations.
App based stuff I suspect is to charge subs.

[F.C.]

Satellite radio is commonplace in cars in the usa.
Thousands of stations.
App based stuff I suspect is to charge subs.

[Dog Star]

Vaud said:

We don't have 3G or 4G, digital radio is patchy. And that's in a (fairly) affluent 5,000 people village, next to big towns (20,000+) on a main commuting line, next to main roads, 9 miles from a major city.

I commute daily over the M62 Lancs <--> West Yorks. Remember that this is one of the busiest roads in the UK. There are signal free blackspots along huge stretches of it - that's just a phone signal, let alone a data signal.

And the FM reception heading up toward Saddleworth is pretty scratchy too.

[Vaud]

Dog Star said:

I commute daily over the M62 Lancs <--> West Yorks. Remember that this is one of the busiest roads in the UK. There are signal free blackspots along huge stretches of it - that's just a phone signal, let alone a data signal.

And the FM reception heading up toward Saddleworth is pretty scratchy too.

Yup, similar on the East Coast main line. Huge data black spots.

[GC8]

Craikeybaby said:

HairbearTE said:

Not the govts fault that the video call revolution anticipated by the suppliers never materialised. The providers made a huge error of judgement.

I think they were just a bit ahead of their time and the interface/screen/camera technology wasn't there to back it up. I regularly use FaceTime for video calling these days.

Ive been meaning to try to find out what sort of bandwidth FT uses. My phone is reluctant to let me try unless Im connected to a wireless network though, so I suspect that it is far higher than the current 3G network can support.

Is also like to see the bandwidth requirement (and resolution) of the original Three video calling to compare. I suspect that this lower quality video could be accommodated by the networks now.

[ds2000]

Unlimited data for me, means I've not had the radio on in my car for years. Just stream a station or spotify.