Digital radio in 6 years

[verytalldave]

The proposals for digital radio in the UK were published yesterday and one of the main points was that the UK radio would become totally digital by 2015. All analogue (FM/MW/LW) transmitters would be switched off.
So you wouldnt even have a choice.
ALL existing non-DAB radios would be scrap and worthless. This includes mains tuners, portables and of course car radios.

How many forum members currently have DAB radios in their cars?
Very, very few I would guess.
And who is expected to pay for this changeover.
Will HM government buy me a new DAB COMAND unit?
No prizes for guessing the answer to that question.
Are DAB COMAND units even available?
Yet another poorly conceived idea from this government.
Have DAB by all means, but why on earth stop ALL analogue broadcasts?
Lunacy.

 

[Chattonmill]

If you have a digital TV receiver in the car then you could get digi radio as well, it wont be an expensive upgrade, a bit like the cost of a terrestrial digi box.

 

[stevesey]

Have DAB by all means, but why on earth stop ALL analogue broadcasts?

Same as with TV, to free up the bandwidth?

Someone will of course market a DAB receiver that will plug into your current radio and control using the CD changer functions - in fact I'm off to the patent office now.

 

[kwakdonut]

Looks like a thriving market in 'set top boxes' for existing FM radios then!

Surely that will be the initial reaction I would have thought, an FM modulator with a built in DAB tuner. Only problem might be where to put the aerial! With the state of the current government, might be a few suggestions already!!

 

[bashy09]

typical goverment blurting out rubbish as per usual...they've been saying similar things for years...its cool if they do that.it'll just mean pirates have free run on the fm dial...u'll never be able to toally shut the signal down and im not sure dti would bother chasing pirate stations on those frequencies.so every cloud silver lining and all that

 

[kwakdonut]

Same as with TV, to free up the bandwidth?

Someone will of course market a DAB receiver that will plug into your current radio and control using the CD changer functions - in fact I'm off to the patent office now.

aaaawwww, beat me to it!

 

[stevesey]

Surely that will be the initial reaction I would have thought, an FM modulator with a built in DAB tuner.

That's what I was thinking initially - but why not use the CD changer interface, with an extra multipex function to switch between CD changer/ipod and DAB.

 

[bashy09]

anyway 6 years is quite along time....

 

[franey]

Short Wave is the clear answer. Top Quality innit??!!

 

[bashy09]

when i say pirates im not just refering to dance type music.things work in cycles and the very first music wasnt obviously hardcore/jungle/garage etc etc

sometimes you have to revisit your history in order to move forward

 

[Baron_Samedi]

Imagine how much money can be made by selling spectrum for digital services...

Think of the money already blown by the mobile telephone networks!

 

[AANDYY]

All my radios are DAB ( I listen to a lot of talk stations, music is rubbish on it) but the system is rubbish! It uses Early 90's tech! poor quality compression tech MP2 I think, the proposal is......... wait for it! a new technology! AAC, far better compression tech. but we haven't even got used to DAB . Laughable innit!

 

[corned]

That reminds me of a news item I heard recently, saying that a gov't report had just been released on the subject of DAB take-up among the population. Apparently it is not being taken up - not at least in anything like the required numbers, and certainly not in the numbers forecast.

They were re-thinking the whole thing, the report said...

Where now?

 

[andy_k]

The proposals for digital radio in the UK were published yesterday and one of the main points was that the UK radio would become totally digital by 2015. All analogue (FM/MW/LW) transmitters would be switched off.

not strictly true

they will only switch off the analogue systems two years after DAB accounts for 50% of all listening and 90% of the country has DAB reception (the same as current FM) - the initial target for that is 2013 and that's pretty ambitious

Now, DAB has been around a few years and it's take up has been limited (currently around 13% of radio listening is via DAB) due to numerous reasons, it sounds terrible, horrible compression and harsh, many people have old analogue systems that they have no intention of upgrading because they sound so much better, scare stories of backward compatibility with older DAB formats as new ones are introduced (manufacturers will be urged to future proof sets).

The biggest hurdle is car manufacturers, the government have also proposed that all car radios fitted by 2013 will be digital - that's just about the only way they can hope to make that 50% figure.

I'm sure they'll manage to steam roller it through but it would be a huge backward step until they get the compression/bandwidth issues solved

I wonder if we'll be paying a 'DAB tax' as well

 

[verytalldave]

not strictly true

they will only switch off the analogue systems two years after DAB accounts for 50% of all listening and 90% of the country has DAB reception (the same as current FM) - the initial target for that is 2013 and that's pretty ambitious........................

So 2013 plus the 2 year wait = 2015 - which is the date mentioned in the report for analogue switch off.
We all know governments can and do massage statistics to suit their own ends, so I see 2015 as a quite believable date for this to happen.

 

[prprandall51]

f you look at the relatively slow take up of digital TV (I had my first DVB set in 1999 and we are due to switch over in 2012 in London, I think) and then factor in that there is actually an incentive to switch to digital for video signals (better quality picture, widescreen broadcasting, increased channel range) unlike DAB (where the quality is inferior and a digital station offers no benefits over the equivalent analogue broadcast), then I would be highly surprised if the governemt ever manages to foist DAB on us to the extent that they will be able to shut down FM broadcasting.

 

[andy_k]

getting to 50% coverage by 2013 is the major hurdle - DAB has taken 10 years to reach 13%. Until there are new compression methods introduced and agreed upon manufacturers won't 'jump' to produce the hardware. Car manufacturers will continue to go with the safe easy and cheap option until they are forced to spend more money - maybe we'll go back to the old system where no radio is offered as standard? However, to achieve those figures, the government requires the car makers to fit DAB radios as standard.

This isn't the first time we've been told that we are going digital and I suspect it won't be the last

 

[st13phil]

Isn't there also a problem with DAB that, due to the multiplexing technology used in transmission and buffering in receivers, there's no way to ensure that a broadcast Time Signal (i.e. "The Pips") is heard simultaneously by every listener?

 

[corned]

I haven't heard that one personally, but I can well believe that this is perfectly true.

It depends on just how accurate you need the time signal to be. Remember, it is the same with digital satellite TV broadcasting; the signal is subject to a delay of up to 2 or 3 seconds simply due to the amount of hardware the signal has to pass through before you receive it, and the distances involved. Have you ever jumped between satellite and terrestrial broadcasts and not noticed a delay?

 

[verytalldave]

DAB radio has a real time delay of about 2 seconds.
So if you are watching a football match live, and listening via DAB, then what you are hearing and seeing will be out of sync.
Likewise, if you have a DAB radio in one room, and a FM radio in another - with the same station on - and you happen to be able to hear them both, then what you hear will be a real mess because of the DAB transmission time delay.