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After a Decade, Digital Radio Still an Also-Ran In UK
beschra writes "Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) was developed as early as 1981. After launching in the UK 10 years ago, only 24% of listeners listen on DAB. The article credits a good part of the delay to the fact that the technology was largely developed under the Europe-wide Eureka 147 research project. How does government vs. commercial development help or hinder acceptance of new technology? From the article: '"If Nokia develops something, they'll be bringing out the handsets before you know it," [analyst Grant Goddard says]. "Because DAB was a pan-European development, you had to have agreement from all sides before you could do anything. That meant progress was extremely slow." But this alone did not account for the hold-up. The sheer complexity of introducing and regulating the system was also a major factor, Mr. Goddard adds."'
It couldn't be something to do with the fact that the cheapest DAB radio I can find right now is £35 (£60 if you want something portable), whereas you can get a portable FM receiver for under £5? Nah, it must be to do with the regulations and standards!
which is totally what she said
You've been able to buy DAB receivers cheaply for ages. Psion used to sell them, and they haven't been around for a while - I remember seeing their DAB receivers for about £20 back in 2001 and now I imagine they're even cheaper. The problem with DAB is not government development, it's that it's a solution with no corresponding problem.
FM radio is good enough for most people. DAB uses a fairly poor compression system, so doesn't give noticeably better quality than FM (unlike FM versus AM). It requires new equipment, but my father still has the FM receiver he bought in the late '70s - it still works fine and gives good audio quality, so the only reason to upgrade would be if they turned off the FM or if there were radio channels that he could only get on DAB.
I don't actually own anything that can receive broadcast radio. I listen a lot to Internet radio stations. DAB can't really compete with the available content there - there simply isn't enough bandwidth available to broadcast every Internet radio station. The only advantage DAB had over Internet radio was that it worked while mobile, but the most common place where people listen to the radio while mobile is in cars. DAB receivers in cars are not that common, and DAB reception in a moving vehicle tends to be pretty poor even if they are.
Now, with mobile phones starting to include data plans, any mobile can stream a 64Kb/s AAC Internet Radio stream from anywhere in the world and get similar sound quality to DAB. DAB uses 128Kb/s MP2, which is pretty poor quality. DAB+ (which requires another equipment upgrade if you bought a DAB receiver) uses 64KB/s AAC+. The radio station that I listen to most often provides 64 and 128KB/s AAC+ streams, so if I am at home I get better quality than DAB, if I listen on a device where bandwidth is more limited then I get the same quality (and, unlike DAB, the non-local station is actually available). Unlike radios, people upgrade their mobile phones every few years, so if a new, better audio CODEC comes out, you can deploy it immediately on the server, watch people slowly switch, and turn off the old one in a few years. When was the last time you saw an Internet Radio station using MP2?
If Nokia had introduced a digital broadcasting standard, they'd have had devices on the market, but who would have been transmitting? People who bought broadcasting equipment from Nokia? Would the BBC have bought into a single-vendor solution like that? Absolutely not. And if they'd got other companies on board, they'd have needed a similarly long standards process (see WiFi) to get them all to agree and to avoid incompatibilities between implementations.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
We were told that you got no interference, you could listen to anything anywhere, it was the wonder radio of your dreams. Load of bollocks as usual. You can't pick it up in cars, they need an external aerial fitted. You get bad reception in a building, the DAB radio has to be near a window. When reception is bad, you don't get silence, you get clunky chunky blocks of noise which makes it un-listenable.
And, I have FM radios that are over 20 years old and working fine. My new DAB radio (£30), bought in May 2009, broke on Monday. I'm not buying a replacement. It's bollocks.
The BBC news article I saw seemed to imply that Freeview had done comparatively well, where as DAB had floundered. I think the difference is in what it provides and what people want. As you said, the main benefit for DAB is the odd radio station that some people might listen to (6 Music, etc), where as Freeview gets you about 10x the channels, better teletext, and things like the "Red Button" on BBC that lets you pick various looping broadcasts of news or different views of sports events etc. Comparatively, it's a no brainer - Freeview gives you something of value extra, where as DAB costs more for a radio and doesn't gain most people very much (and radio probably isn't as important to most people as TV anyway)
The stupid thing is that DVB-T (which Freeview uses) is perfectly capable of transmitting audio at somewhat better spectrum utilization than DAB. Now they want everyone to switch to DAB+, when there are perfectly good DVB networks ALREADY OPERATING in most of Europe.
The only non-DVB-T digital radio standard worth considering is DRM+, because that makes local radio stations possible. DAB can't really broadcast a station to less than a few million people. Technically, DRM+ is probably the best digital radio standard, but it has a problem with market penetration and that may kill it. Local radio might be better served over the Internet these days anyway. DAB and DAB+ have no reason to exist and just need to die.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
It's the perfect example of a poor technical solution to an imaginary problem.
The lack of radio bandwidth isn't an imaginary problem. In fact, there is a chance that the scarcity of FM channels will affect the next election in Denmark, because politicians have decided to rearrange channel allocations and that has been angering some people.
The solutions are DVB-T, DRM+, and the Internet.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
The real problem with DAB isn't price or features. It's battery life. My FM/LW radio lasts over a month of regular use. A similarly sized portable DAB unit manages about 6-8 hours. Why would I 'upgrade'?
I find the free market plug kinda funny in that instance: if you let the free market decide, you don't get Nokia nor the Euro GSM standard, you get the US mess of incompatible operators and standards, with each company trying to push their agenda, their patent-encumbered techs... How would you like your radio to work in the UK, but not in Ireland ? Or to work on the public channels, but not with some private ones ? Or to work only with tailor-made, more expensive sets ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
As many people have already stated, DAB Digital Radio has a plethora of issues.
The radios themselves aren't that cheap, especially portable ones. There's no real benefit to owning one, you get a couple of extra stations that you probably wont listen to and the reception is terrible in most places. For years, I've wanted the technology to take off and be good, a bit like Freeview OTA Digital TV, but it never happened.
Now, for me, technology has moved on. I have a pretty decent android phone and use an app called Streamfurious. With this, I can listen to thousands of radio stations from all around the world, including just about every station you'll get on digital radio, in better quality and over 3G as well. It works surprisingly well, less cut outs than I ever did get with DAB.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Really, people value the non-interactivity, it's a benefit. Sometimes you just want to fill the background with good enough music / etc. while doing something else (I suspect also not wanting something great - not wanting to be hooked too much); with scheduled short news service every hour a nice bonus (also one you don't have to actively follow, but still be certain that important news will reach you)
This blog post covers it quite nicely:
the vast majority of the radio listeners don't listen to music. They hear music instead. There's a difference. They put the kids on the SUV, and drive them to school, and turn on the radio in the meantime. Or, they're stuck in traffic, pissed off, and need to listen to "easy" music to pass the time. Or, they're sitting on their sofa, reading a magazine, and have the radio ON as a background.
Very few people actually drive somewhere in order to turn on the radio and listen to music. Or sit on their sofa, closing their eyes, and listen to just music. Normal people instead, are so busy with their lives, their problems, the quick pace of this civilization, that simply don't have the time to discover new music. Listening to unknown kind of melodies, or new kinds of sub-genres altogether, takes them out of their comfort zone. Listening to something like Dan Deacon instead of Lady Gaga, for example, while the kids shout at each other at the back of the car, makes it difficult to level your head. Not only you have your problems, but you have this new 'annoying' music playing instead of the music (or kind of music) you already know so well.
Basically, commercial radio works as a kind of a depressant for the masses. At first, it feels like music is exactly the opposite: an excitement that is, but in reality, in the large scheme of things, as far as FM radio is concerned, it's nothing but one of the ways that helps you kept in check. No, this is not a conspiracy theory, it's just how things work. Listeners want it that way too.
That's also BTW why any possible benefits of DAB are probably irrelevant - people are happy with very few stations already. For anything more there are ways you mention.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Or - without the need to leave space for DAB. rest of the spectrum could be reshuffled so that universal cellular transmissions could have more bandwidth. There are also multicast transmissions possible via IP networks, BTW.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I agree with posters above that non-interactivity is good - it reduces cognitive loading, as Bruce Sterling would say. You just want something to tune into, that respects your style of music, stretches your boundaries slightly and gets on with the job in the background. DAB could have been good; however, they failed to move quickly enough to get the receivers out there at prices competitive with FM. It would have to be pretty dang competitive for me, since I have two excellent Home Cinema receivers with FM, a kitchen radio with FM, a bedside alarm clock with FM, a a Hacker Black Knight in the shed, one for when I do DIY and don't mind it getting paint-spattered, several vintage receivers including a bakelite Ecko, one for when I am out flying kites, one in each car ... so anyway before I digress, DAB took too long, so it itself is obsolete against Internet radio, iTunes podcast downloads Sky radio stations and a myriad of other more modern solutions. The Germans are letting it die on the vine also. Why do we not do the Capitalist thing, and let the consumers determine its fate. Oh wait, we already did. LET IT DIE.
In the UK at least, there was slow take-up of DAB because of all the issues surrounding it at the beginning that the popular press picked up on - namely poor signal coverage, lack of decent car receivers (where I believe the majority of people listen to the radio anyway), and overly compressed streams that made anything but ClassicFM sound awful. There were alternative sources of music and people just wouldn't pay the high costs for little perceived benefit - ie the initial outlay for the receiver, the running costs, and reduced portability.
Now that the costs have come down, DAB is potentially doomed by switch-off and replacement by DAB+. Many older receivers (many of them were still on sale a few months ago, probably still are) cannot be upgraded to receive this, which has been further highlighted in the press and further puts people of buying.
So relatively few people have them that the cost to society of abandoning DAB and finding something that works properly is negligible. Do it. Do it now. Don't let people buy into a failed experiment.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I don't have reliable stats to hand, but I would be willing to bet most radio listening is done in the car, certainly among younger people. I recently bought a new car (Volkswagen Golf Plus) and the DAB option was £175! To put this in perspective, the reversing camera costs £165. To put this in perspective, the carpet mats cost £75....hmmm....
I used to work as a programmer at one of the few British DAB firms, which went bust not that long ago. What really annoys me is all the myths about DAB that are propagated by various journalists.
Myth 1. FM audio quality is better than DAB at 128kbits. This just isn't true and the only FM station with any quality at all is Radio 3, because the BBC pump massive amounts of power and engineering effort into the signal. The problem is that FM signal degradation creates white noise, which the human brain filters out without even noticing (especially in a speeding car). In contrast all digital audio has to suffer unpleasant squeaks and artefacts if the signal is corrupted. However, under truly equivalent conditions of power the DAB signal trounces the FM quality. Unfortunately, in practice the DAB signal is much nearer the noise floor because: linear broadband transmitters are way more expensive to run than constant power FM transmitters; because the thermal noise in the receiver is proportional to bandwidth and the DAB wavelength doesn't penetrate buildings all that well.
Myth 2. DAB is failing, because the MPEG2-Layer II codec is old and inefficient compared to MP3 and AAC. Truth is the DAB+ codec is horrible to listen to in practice and the old DAB one is much better for the job of sending over poor signal paths. The higher the compression ratio the longer the encoded audio frames get. With the 24ms audio frame of DAB, losing a frame simply causes the classic 'bubblng mud' sound and some frame repetition can be allowed to pad the gaps in a benign fashion. With AAC+ you get 120ms superframes, which equates to massive silent pauses and repetition sounds like Max Headroom. Certainly the DAB+ standard has reed-solomon to push it even nearer to Shannon's limit of SNR, but in truth most fading that causes problem is brief total signal loss, which long frames actually aggravate. This sort of signal loss happens a lot, because most people put there radios deep indoors and actually have a much worse signal reception than they realise. The end result is with DAB+ radios people start to think the software is on the blink due to the on-off nature of getting audio out of one as you move the aerial about and it is very hard to suss out a good reception spot for the antenna as there is no feedback on signal quality.
Myth 3. The low bitrate used in DAB is in some way due inefficient coding/transmission. This is simply due to short sighted commercial decisions and basically the broadcasters will always reduce the bitrate till users complain. The commercial networks clearly intend to reduce the 128kbits channels used for DAB to 32kbits and 24kbits when using AAC in DAB+ (see Australian DAB+ tender bids), by which point any quality gains from the codec have been thrown away.
The real reasons DAB is dying are:
1. All forms of broadcast are dying due to the rise of on-demand/interactive ways of listening to media. The moment decent MP3 players started to be sold, DAB radio sales were doomed. People mostly want to listen to their own choice of music and whilst news, chat and introducing new music are important most commercial stations just act as a jukebox that you can't control.TV and satellite are going the same way, but are partly saved by the fact that the mobile device form factor cannot provide a decent viewing experience. Decent internet connected smartphones are the final nail in the coffin for the classical broadcasting model and I do wonder who on earth is going to want the TV wavelengths when they are finally freed up.
2. Digital radio is hard to make portable and low powered. The power requirements for MP3 audio decode are tiny compared to those of capturing, sampling and DSP decoding an 8MHz/s signal to the point where you can start the equivalent of MP3 audio decode. FM can be decoded to an adequate signal with a few non-linear components and provide perfectly adequate audio. The aerial size for DAB is also awkwardly large and a proper dipole is essential for coping with the poor broadcast power used in the