Re: BBC Salary disclosures

Schrodinger wrote:
"DAB sounds worse than FM" <dab.is@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:KNw1g.41487$8o.2215@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Schrodinger wrote:

I bought a cheap freeview box for the back room and the sound keeps
dropping out - it's worse on some channels than others and doesn't
always happen.


On the channels that it happns on, do you get problems with the
video? Video is more error prone than audio, so on a given TV channel
the
video should be less robust than audio if you've got dodgy
reception. So if there's no problems with the picture and the audio
is breaking up it sounds like there's a fault with your box.

I was pretty sure that the video would be less tolerant, but didn't
know if freeview might give disproportionaely less bandwidth to audio.


It's a combination of the fact that audio streams are more tolerant to
data errors than video streams and the fact that video stream bit rates
are about 20 times higher than audio stream bit rates so on average
there's 20 times more errors on the video stream than on the audio
stream.


I think it was from Asda for £30 - no idea now though as it was a few
months ago. This might be the time to use those wireless repeaters I
bought years ago to put the sat signal in the back room instead...


To be honest, I think you're always taking a risk if you buy a cheap
Freeview box. They're cheap for a reason, which is that corners have
been cut compared to the more expensive boxes, and there's a lot of
software inside them, which gives shitloads of opportunities for them to
be buggy. But the problem is that the only ones you can be confident
about being really robust are the expensive ones such as the Sony box.


The picture quality is excellent.


Some channels are better than others. BBC4 tends to be the best
because it uses higher bit rate levels than all the other channels.


It is hooked up to an aerial on the
roof - could the sound drop outs becuase we have the wrong sort of
aerial,


If the video is okay, then the aerial is okay.


or might is be because we are in a poor signal area and the
picture has more bandwidth and tolerance to bad areas?


It's the other way round actually: video is less tolerant to errors
than audio.


The DAB signal
here is awful.


You're not missing anything. The best - and cheapest - advice for
anybody wanting better radio is to use a better FM aerial, e.g.
replace the wire aerial hanging out the back of your stereo with a
£15 FM dipole from Maplins, or better still put an aerial in the
loft, or best of all but expensive, put an aerial on your roof. The
same advice applies if you do want better DAB reception though.

I only bought a DAB radio for PlanetRock - which isn't on FM.


You say above that you've got satellite, and Planet Rock is on satellite
and at a higher quality than on DAB.

Can't you receive any DAB multiplexes okay at all? What DAB radio is it?
And what does the postcode checker on here say you should be able to
receive:

http://www.ukdigitalradio.com/coverage/search/default.asp


I
should have bitten the bullet, though, and used spare bits to make an
internet radio outlet in the kitchen over the wireless network.


I considered putting a Netgear MP101 Wi-Fi media player thing and PC
speakers into the kitchen to use instead of a radio, but someone that's
got one said it takes about a minute before the wireless network finds
it and configures it so that you can hear audio out of it, which is a
bit of a nightmare if you just want to go in and make a cup of coffee.

A simpler option you could try if you want to avoid the delay of the
wireless device configuring would be to use some powered PC speakers and
playback from an MP3 player.


I
think that will be my next project now - I've got even got a couple
of LCD tvs hanging around and could hook them up for a multi media
fest that probably won't work, will involve hours of trouble shooting
and an unfeasable amount of wiring.


There's nowt like that deflated feeling when you've just done shitloads
of work and at the end of it all you're worse off than where you
started...


Thanks for the advice!


No problem.


--
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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