Re: DRM Extension Date's Moved Forwards

davidrobinson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Richard L wrote:
>
>> This is dreadful news. In no time at all it will be 15 years out of
>> date, just like DAB is now, and some new and even more thrilling
>> system will already be on the horizon. How will you be able to live
>> with that?
>
> I know Richard how you like teasing Steve, but surely even you must
> see that digital radio technologies are now moving to a point where
> they can deliver what was originally planned: CD quality with better
> spectral efficiency than FM for both local and national broadcasting.


That's the point though, he cannot see this. Or, more correctly, he
chooses not to see it.


> Or, to put it another way, some of the newer digital radio
> technologies look like they could be successful and profitable
> without the sweeteners that were used to start DAB in the UK.
>
> With the hindsight of 1999, never mind 2005, DAB just wasn't and isn't
> up to the job. The hope that most of the world would follow the UK
> down this blind alley was just silly.


I'd say they should have realised what was going to happen before 1999.
The BBC always intended to add new digital radio stations ever since
John Birt published his "Extending Choice" document in 1992, and the
number of analogue commercial radio stations in the UK has tripled since
1988, with a pretty linear increase since around 1991. So by around 1995
it should have been obvious that DAB would require masses of spectrum if
it was going to carry all of the analogue radio stations as well as add
more stations and provide all of these stations at a good level of audio
quality.

Development of AAC started in 1993 or 1994 as a result of impressive
results by ditching the backward compatibility requirement. It would be
ludicrous to suggest that the people in the WorldDAB Technical Committee
didn't know about AAC, so as time went by it really should have become
more and more obvious that a change of codec was the correct route to go
down. But they just stuck their heads in the sand and hoped the problem
would go away. And now we're left with crap audio quality and the BBC
trying desperately to get as many European countries to follow it over
the audio quality cliff as they can, and delaying DRM as long as they
can because it'll wipe the floor with DAB once it's extended.

And it seems that other European countries are in a similar situation to
the UK, because French cities like Paris have about 50 stations on FM,
and Italy even has 80 stations on FM. If DAB is going to provide extra
choice in places like France and Italy then it needs huge amounts of
spectrum and the more muxes required the more expensive it is.


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

Find the cheapest Freeview, DAB & MP3 Player Prices:
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http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/mp3_players_large_capacity.htm


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