Is DAB dead?

[Jasonovich]

It's all Radio Ga Ga....... 🙂

DAB/DAB+ will always have a place on car audio applications and once the Government finally decide on a date when they completely shutdown analogue, it will carve out it's niche.

I don't think they will be much traction for DAB in the home scene for portable appliances, like kitchen radios, I think they'll haul in internet radio, it has much bigger presence globally.

I do feel the future of radio lies with the internet but that's just my humble opinion.

 

[DCarmi]

It is a shame the record labels crippled internet radio in the UK. Unless of course you use a VPN. Who'd have thunk that you can so easily get round such parochial restrictions! (You do have to be careful which VPN supplier you use, though.)

 

[Roger_A]

It is a shame the record labels crippled internet radio in the UK. Unless of course you use a VPN. Who'd have thunk that you can so easily get round such parochial restrictions! (You do have to be careful which VPN supplier you use, though.)

Can you explain how record companies have ruined internet radio - I don't use it at the moment but want to do so in future. Also, why you have to be careful about which VPNs to use/not use and why?

Thanks

 

[DCarmi]

Can you explain how record companies have ruined internet radio - I don't use it at the moment but want to do so in future. Also, why you have to be careful about which VPNs to use/not use and why?

Warner and Sony sued TuneIn in 2017 because they claimed TuneIn was in fact a defacto broadcaster and liable to pay licence fees to them. The UK courts agreed and also on appeal, so TuneIn and other such providers stopped non-UK stations from being "broadcast" via their platforms. TuneIn has geoblocked all foreign stations in the UK, and also removed many UK-based stations and rarely will allow new stations to be added in the UK.

If you do use a VPN and if you switch to using e.g. an EU IP address then you can access stations from pretty much anywhere. I don't know if any services allow foreign stations to be "broadcast". I just use TuneIn and pretend to be abroad.

As for VPNs. There are plenty of resources out there on the subject. The issue being if they are free, how do the support their infrastructure supplying the service, especially if that is their only role in life and not being used as a loss-leader?

 

[Roger_A]

Warner and Sony sued TuneIn in 2017 because they claimed TuneIn was in fact a defacto broadcaster and liable to pay licence fees to them. The UK courts agreed and also on appeal, so TuneIn and other such providers stopped non-UK stations from being "broadcast" via their platforms. TuneIn has geoblocked all foreign stations in the UK, and also removed many UK-based stations and rarely will allow new stations to be added in the UK.

If you do use a VPN and if you switch to using e.g. an EU IP address then you can access stations from pretty much anywhere. I don't know if any services allow foreign stations to be "broadcast". I just use TuneIn and pretend to be abroad.

As for VPNs. There are plenty of resources out there on the subject. The issue being if they are free, how do the support their infrastructure supplying the service, especially if that is their only role in life and not being used as a loss-leader?

Thanks for explaining that, very useful. Another case of UK users being barred from internet content available elsewhere it seems. I don't use a VPN at present but will probably go with Proton if or when I do install one and will use a paid for version.

 

[DCarmi]

Proton is a decent choice. Usually you can get a decent discount of you are willing to pay for 2 years upfront, from most of these services.

 

[Gray]

The state of radio

The birth of DAB soon brought rumours of FM’s demise, but decades on UK radio has become the hodge podge of services that Ofcom once warned us about. Is that a problem? asks Steve Harris Back in 2010, it was thought that analogue radio could be switched off by 2015. But here we are, 15 years...

www.hifinews.com

 

[nopiano]

The state of radio

The birth of DAB soon brought rumours of FM’s demise, but decades on UK radio has become the hodge podge of services that Ofcom once warned us about. Is that a problem? asks Steve Harris Back in 2010, it was thought that analogue radio could be switched off by 2015. But here we are, 15 years...

www.hifinews.com

Great article. I remember all the alarmist claptrap about emergency services needing the frequencies.

 

[nopiano]

TuneIn has geoblocked all foreign stations in the UK, and also removed many UK-based stations and rarely will allow new stations to be added in the UK.

That’s interesting, as I had understood it was the BBC that objected, as they wanted listener to use their own app. That was because they wanted stats to track usage, which they’d lose via a ‘consolidator’ like TuneIn.

Strange how Airable now seem to do exactly what TuneIn did, but these things are all still a bit mysterious.

 

[Sanglier]

Mostly I listen to Internet radio, but I use DAB for Six Radio - generally in the car. Even in hilly S.Devon I don't get too many dropouts. At home, a village in a little valley, the excellent Roberts DAB/Internet radio in the kitchen works perfectly well for Six on DAB, using just its built in telecopic (and somewhat bent) aerial. I'm not concerned about hi-fi quality, something I don't expect from radio.

 

[DCarmi]

That’s interesting, as I had understood it was the BBC that objected, as they wanted listener to use their own app. That was because they wanted stats to track usage, which they’d lose via a ‘consolidator’ like TuneIn.

Strange how Airable now seem to do exactly what TuneIn did, but these things are all still a bit mysterious.

This is also true. The Beeb did want stats tracking which TuneIn refused to do. However, it was the music companies that forced geoblocking.

 

[Gray]

I'm not concerned about hi-fi quality, something I don't expect from radio.

With the amount of dynamic compression some stations use, it's just as well you don't expect quality these days.
But some of us with decent tuners and roof aerials have certainly experienced hi-fi quality FM radio in the past.
Audio on FM has always been limited to a maximum of 15kHz, but that's no big deal - plenty of ears cut off earlier than that.