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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."'
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'?
DAB is around 30% efficient in transmission, whereas FM is about 90%.
Please define "efficiency in transmission".
DAB is already transmitted at far greater power than FM, yet we still have trouble with reception on receivers.
You really need some documentation for that statement. In Denmark the important FM transmitters are 60kW (a few are 100kW), whereas the main DAB transmitters are 2kW. Coverage is only marginally worse with DAB.
It's a technology that needs to die before it really takes off.
I don't disagree, but don't make it worse than it actually is. FM is obsolete even as an analog technology (radio amateurs can do better quality in less bandwidth even without going digital). Let us just hope that we replace FM with something sane.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
FM is simple, but who cares when you can have a DSP for a few cents these days
Please define "efficiency in transmission".
Signal out / power in. For example, SSB is more efficient than AM because AM (full modulation) transmits half the power in an informationless carrier and doubles the information in each sideband. I don't know much about the power efficiency of DAB's modulation methods, though.
FM isn't robust, just drive in a built-up area and the multipath interference kills reception on a regular basis.
Yes, DAB is better here as long as you're not travelling too fast ;-).
FM isn't effective, it's a horrible waste of precious bandwidth.
Why the obsession with quantity over quality? Five hundred low bitrate stations pumping out shit is a horrible waste of precious bandwidth.
Finally, you might want to see just how much more spectrum efficient DAB isn't. The capture effect wat any radio ham kno offsets even the reusability argument.
There IS a case for what DAB gives you - more radio stations - but that is not a thing specific to DAB. The real problems with the roll-out of DAB stack up as follows:
1) DAB was promoted as being superior to FM in terms of quality, but then the broadcasters started to tinker with bitrates on order to squeeze as many stations into the available bandwidth, even transmitting some music stations in mono, so that the quality was clearly inferior to FM. This has created a big credibility issue for DAB because the quality angle is still pushed towards an audience that has evidence to the contrary.
2) DAB reception is patchy in many areas, especially indoors. This may be mitigated when (if?) analogue is switched off and DAB transmissions get more power, but at the moment, for example, I can only receive about 50% of the available stations on my DAB kitchen radio - and if the weather is bad the error rate rockets so all I get is a burble.
3) DAB reception on public transport, especially trains, is crap. Well-paid city commuters would snap up a decent, working gadget but only AM and FM work well on the move.
4) The original DAB radios were expensive and also butt-ugly, looking like 'Practical Wireless' projects from the 70s. Many were also mono, with only one speaker - you paid extra for an add-on. These wooden-boxed radios appealed to early adopters and the curious, but the general public were not so enthusiastic. Recent designs are more sensible.
5) Portable DAB sets - especially the shirt-pocket sized ones - really really eat batteries. I'm lucky to get 4-6 hours out of a pair of good quality alkaline AAA cells. In fact, I have just ordered some 1300mAh AAA rechargeables because the cost to feed the radio with normal cells is stupid - you could easily spend more on cells in 3 weeks than the cost of the radio.
6) Getting a DAB radio for a car at a sensible price is pretty much impossible - and those who have them don't seem to be impressed with the reception and performance.
7) The technical spec for DAB is out of date already, but to replace it would mean admitting that the original design was not well thought out AND would force all current adopters to scrap their current kit; and no-one wants to be the one to announce that.
8) Many people take their own music with them and can pick and choose what they want to listen to. Why swap this for something that sounds worse and doesn't play what you want?
9) The number of mobile phones with DAB receivers is (I believe) 1 - and it's only available on one mobile network (Virgin). Having a mobile phone with DAB would give the service a *bit* of credibility, but would probably screw up battery life.
10) Here's the kicker: FM and AM 'just work' and very few have problems with the quality - there is no public tidal wave of protest demanding anything better and this leads to a sense that DAB is being pushed onto the public - which instantly gets people pissed off.
The current way forward for the broadcasters and politicians seems to be a defensive 'do nothing' while half-heartedly championing DAB, and no doubt there will be some form of mad scramble to do something half-assed when the analogue switch-off dates are imminent. There is an analogue trade-in promotion at the moment and it will be interesting to see what the take-up is.
Very recently, a Government source stated that the FM switch off would only happen when there was little demand for the service - which is a change from the previous 'rock solid' fixed date, but unless there is some serious push to improve DAB reception and produce a portable set with a sensible battery life, I fear we are going to bump along the 'do nothing' road for a long time.
AT&ROFLMAO
Only those with a vested interest are pushing it (which unfortunately includes the government because they see the opportunity to make money by flogging off the frequency spectrum currently used by FM).
The really funny thing is, when they come to sell the FM space, no one will want it as no doubt the pirates will take it over.
There are millions of FM receivers in this country, and at some point they will all be purposefully obsoleted at once. People will inevitably step up to fill this void, and suddenly the radio waves will be full of stations not wanting to listen to regulators.
And I can't wait. The playlist-format that dominates radio stations these days make listening to them very annoying - the same records over and over. Hell, the same stations all over the dial - the other day I was waiting for a mate in the car, and was bored, so skipped through FM 0.1MHz at a time, to see what pirate stations were around. At least 3 different frequencies were exactly the same station, all with different RDS names. And even the independent places all play the same shitty pop-music.
Fuck the commercial radio stations, bring on the pirates! DAB may well be the best thing that happens to UK radio in years, but not for the reasons the DAB crowd want it to be.