Re: Digital Radio Show - day one

charles wrote:
In article <i_Wfg.39$Yi3.33@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
DAB sounds worse than FM <dab.is@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

They didn't ask me to give a presentation on why the UK DAB industry
has acted incredibly ineptly over many, many years, that the UK is
now likely to be one of only around 3 countries to be using an
out-of-date and unbelievably inefficient system that should have
been scrapped in the mid-1990s.

yet, in 1995 when I went to the Funkerstellung (sp) in Berlin, DAB as
we know it was all the rage, with many manufacturers showing off their
brand-new car radios.


Since when were car stereo manufacturers experts in mobile digital
communication systems?

Here's the facts:

MP2 audio codec, FEC coding, OFDM modulation using DQPSK had all been
finalised in the DAB spec by 1990.

MP3 on its own would have vastly improved upon the current situation, but
development work on AAC began in 1993, and AAC is twice as efficient as MP2.

Ultimately, the situation in the UK speaks volumes:

98% of stereo stations use 128 kbps, which everybody knows isn't anywhere
near a high enough bit rate.

Even after the RRC has concluded and the UK gets 4 or 5 additional Band III
channels and all these new national and local DAB multiplexes are rolled out
OFCOM (not me, this is Ofcom) said that there will be around 90 analogue
radio stations that won't be able to transmit on DAB either due to the fact
that they can't afford the exhorbitant carriage fees or there is no space on
the local DAB multiplex because it's already full.

These facts speak for themselves. If DAB was going to provide FM-quality in
the UK they'd have to remove half the bloody stations that are already
transmitting on DAB because you need to use very high bit rates on MP2 to
match FM-quality. That would result in DAB in Manchester carrying less
stations than are carried on bleeding FM.

Please tell me how it is advantageous to have a digital radio system that
CANNOT come close to meeting the obvious requirements of a digital radio
system:

* high audio quality
* good reception
* reception of lots of stations

And don't repeat the totally incorrect view that high audio quality was
never intended. Whoever says that just looks an absolute idiot.


Bear in mind that manufacturing industry isn't going to be best
pleased if a broadcast system they've invested millions in on
receiver design and production is scrapped before they can sell any
kit.


Who said anything about scrapping the system? Just look at DMB, which is now
being used for mobile TV. It carries mobile TV streams over the DAB network
in data channels. As far as the DAB system is concerned it is just a data
channel. The receivers need to be MODIFIED, but that doesn't mean the whole
system had to be scrapped. All it means is another or a different chip would
need to be added to circuit board that's already been designed.


There isn't really a UK DAB industry, in any case; multinationals are
the current flavour.


Yeah? What about Digital One, BBC Digital Radio, Pure Digital,
Frontier-Silicon, Imagination Technologies, Radioscape etc etc etc. DAB is
predominantly a UK thing, and the consumer electronics giants merely make
the radios/tuners/micro systems using DAB modules that were usually designed
in the UK. For example, Sony uses the Frontier-Silicon Chorus (or is it
Venice?) chip, designed in sunny Watford or thereabouts, and the same goes
for most of the other manufacturers. Pure Digital have a massive, massive
lead in terms of share of sales, and they're just a division of Imagination
Technologies, which is also based in sunny Watford, or nearby.


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

Find the cheapest Freeview & DAB prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/freeview/freeview_receivers.php
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/dab/dab_radios.php


.

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