HD Sound for BBC online radio

[scene]

Just this seen this on the BBC: BBC launches HD Sound for online radio
BBC are hoping to incorporate this in iPlayer and Radioplayer - sounds interesting - at last decent sound quality from iPlayer [Y]
Please move if this is the wrong forum - wasn't quite sure if this is really DAB related.

 

[daveh75]

Starting with The Electric Proms....Excellent, cheers for the heads-up

 

[The_Lhc]

Interesting but kind of useless at the moment without some idea of what bitrates they'll be using.

 

[scene]

the_lhc:Interesting but kind of useless at the moment without some idea of what bitrates they'll be using.
Sorry, but it's all they've posted to date - maybe the nice people at WHFS&V can find out more for us...

 

[chebby]

the_lhc:Interesting but kind of useless at the moment without some idea of what bitrates they'll be using.

Probably 320k AAC as experimented with during the recent Proms.

 

[scene]

Actually, I've just found the BBC blog and related FAQ for the test run they did during the proms, under the name "XHQ", for this they used AAC-LC coding at 320kb/s... Here are is the BBC PromsXHQ FAQ

 

[scene]

chebby:
the_lhc:Interesting but kind of useless at the moment without some idea of what bitrates they'll be using.

Probably 320k AAC as experimented with during the recent Proms.

You beat me to it Chebby

- couldn't press post as had to answer a work question...

 

[The_Lhc]

I'm sure it'll be a great improvement, but enough to be referred to as "HD"?

 

[daveh75]

High(er) Definition

 

[chebby]

the_lhc:I'm sure it'll be a great improvement, but enough to be referred to as "HD"?

320K AAC is significantly better than DAB bitrates (AAC is better than DAB's MP2 as well) and it will probably sound better than the vast majority of FM tuners (based on what I have seen people using as 'aerials' on these forums and what I have actually seen myself in friend's stereos.)

People are happy to spend a fortune on cables but begrudge relatively modest amounts of money to get a professionally fitted rooftop FM (or DAB) aerial installed.

BBC FM radio (with a decent tuner, proper aerial and good reception) is still the 'Gold standard' but rarely achieved in reality due to the reasons above.

Freeview radio and BBC iPlayer/online radio are the next best thing and DAB is the bottom of the heap. (Even/especially for speech or 'spoken word' radio which can be more demanding than people would credit.)

 

[chebby]

I think Radio 4's PM programme is going to do a little news feature in a bit.