What do you think about the DAB switchover? Your views needed....

[Clare Newsome]

I'm speaking at a conference next week where the great and good of the digital radio industry - plus some parliamentareans - will be debatng The Future of Digital Radio.

My job is to represent YOUR views, as consumers. What would make any switch to digital compelling for you?

Would another scrappage scheme for FM radios be of interest?

How key is the quality arguement?

Is DAB the right format?

Does none of this matter as we're all going online anyway?

Any thoughts you have on any of the above - and other related issues - please fire away. I will make sure your opinions are heard....

 

[visionary]

Hi Clare

main issue for me is car radio. Wife has a DAB radio in her car and coverage is patchy around Staffordshire/Nottinghamshire (to put it politely). My car only has analogue and signal is rarely a problem. At home radio is via Sonos so not an issue.

Seems to me DAB is an answer to a problem that the end user didn't have!

In a referendum I would vote against

PS there was an interesting article about the subject in the latest "magazine" from Russ Andrews. It was not complimentary either

Ian

 

[hammill]

I am greatly looking forward to getting DAB for the car, as the only channel I listen to that is not either only on DAB (Radio 7, Radio 5 Sports Extra and very occasionally Planet Rock) or is better on DAB (Radio 5) is Radio 4. Although there are clearly problems with coverage, this can be fixed.

At home I would never dream of using up my valuable bandwidth to stream Radio when I can pick it up via broadcast and anyway a radio is easier to take around the house and garden than a computer.

Fix bandwidth and coverage issues by all means, but I am very much in favour of DAB.

 

[chebby]

DAB is low quality, and flat sounding even when optimum (expensive tuner, roof aerial, good reception).

Is anyone surveying how many DAB/FM radios spend most of the time tuned to FM? (With DAB only used for a couple of stations that are not provided on FM.)

I doubt it. I expect every DAB/FM radio sold is 'notched up' as evidence of a DAB convert rather than someone who had no choice and still prefers FM whenever possible!

DAB uses more energy (to both transmit and receive) than FM and has massive and widespread reception problems - even after all these years - despite the colossal amount of money thrown at it.

You can't even set your watch accurately to the 'pips' on a BBC DAB broadcast because of the time lag! FM is instantaneously 'there', on demand, when YOU want it, whereas DAB needs time to power-up, have a bit of a think, and find the broadcast or to change station. It's trivial but annoying.

It is insane that the Government/Ofcom/BBC still tries to sell DAB as the future - just because it's digital - when other countries have already (successfully) implemented the superior DAB+ platform, or just given up on DAB completely as a bad idea (Finland) due to lack of take up by listeners and broadcasters. (I wish that would happen here!)

With an excellent FM coverage and Freeview Radio and internet radio, DAB is redundant already. The only reason people 'want' it is because of the threat of removing the FM/AM alternatives and NOT because it is better in any conceivable way.

 

[RodhasGibson]

DAB is low quality, and flat sounding even when optimum (expensive tuner, roof aerial, good reception).

Is anyone surveying how many DAB/FM radios spend most of the time tuned to FM? (With DAB only used for a couple of stations that are not provided on FM.)

I doubt it. I expect every DAB/FM radio sold is 'notched up' as evidence of a DAB convert rather than someone who had no choice and still prefers FM whenever possible!

DAB uses more energy (to both transmit and receive) than FM and has massive and widespread reception problems - even after all these years - despite the colossal amount of money thrown at it.

You can't even set your watch accurately to the 'pips' on a BBC DAB broadcast because of the time lag! FM is instantaneously 'there', on demand, when YOU want it, whereas DAB needs time to power-up, have a bit of a think, and find the broadcast or to change station. It's trivial but annoying.

It is insane that the Government/Ofcom/BBC still tries to sell DAB as the future - just because it's digital - when other countries have already (successfully) implemented the superior DAB+ platform, or just given up on DAB completely as a bad idea (Finland) due to lack of take up by listeners and broadcasters. (I wish that would happen here!)

With an excellent FM coverage and Freeview Radio and internet radio, DAB is redundant already. The only reason people 'want' it is because of the threat of removing the FM/AM alternatives and NOT because it is better in any conceivable way.

Short and sweet for me,Chebbie you are spot on. I vote against.

 

[big1986ben]

I think the idea of DAB is good but I agree it does not sound as good as FM.

But if the signal were improved it would be fine for the car, and if we could have every major station supply a high quality Internet stream for home I think we would all be pleased.

I suppose the government could then sell of the new spare spectrum to the phone companies! (Maybe give us some tax brakes with the money made??)

 

[Anonymous]

As a big convert over the past two years to internet radio I say DAB SCHMAB, with the choice of stations on the net (you don't have to listen to all 10,000) why would you want to listen to inferior DAB

Have you heard stations like Radio Paradise (no adverts,no djs, self financing) FIP , International Rare Groove just to name a few, great music no personalities run by music lovers !

I think there is some big underlying tie-in between DAB and the BBC which is the only way it will succeed for a short while

The key thing here is broadband speed and as it gets better the more nails in the DAB coffin

 

[tommyb]

I live in the IOM.
I pay a licence fee
I can not receive DAB in my home!

I say - improve both coverage and quality, or, reduce my licence fee please.

Ho is it 'fair' that I pay as much as the next guy who can receive all services? - it's not!

 

[visionary]

I am greatly looking forward to getting DAB for the car, as the only channel I listen to that is not either only on DAB (Radio 7, Radio 5 Sports Extra and very occasionally Planet Rock) or is better on DAB (Radio 5) is Radio 4. Although there are clearly problems with coverage, this can be fixed.

At home I would never dream of using up my valuable bandwidth to stream Radio when I can pick it up via broadcast and anyway a radio is easier to take around the house and garden than a computer.

Fix bandwidth and coverage issues by all means, but I am very much in favour of DAB.

I've seen no evidence of it being fixed yet! Coverage around us is as cr*p as it was 6 years ago

 

[CnoEvil]

Hate the thought...bad idea for all the above reasons.

EDITED BY MODS - you're right, we don't.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

I'm speaking at a conference next week where the great and good of the digital radio industry - plus some parliamentareans - will be debatng The Future of Digital Radio.

My job is to represent YOUR views, as consumers. What would make any switch to digital compelling for you?

Would another scrappage scheme for FM radios be of interest?

How key is the quality arguement?

Is DAB the right format?

Does none of this matter as we're all going online anyway?

Any thoughts you have on any of the above - and other related issues - please fire away. I will make sure your opinions are heard....

I love DAB, i have two Roberts DAB Radios and they are fantastic and Planet Rock - rocks!

Cheers

 

[The_Lhc]

I live in the IOM. I pay a licence fee I can not receive DAB in my home! I say - improve both coverage and quality, or, reduce my licence fee please. Ho is it 'fair' that I pay as much as the next guy who can receive all services? - it's not!

There is no radio license fee, you're not getting short-changed.

I can't get it where I live either (DAB I mean...), you can in Barnstaple, about ten miles away but not out in the country where we are. That doesn't encourage me to go out and buy a DAB radio, digital listening at home is either via Sky or t'internet. It would be nice to get 5 Live Sports Extra in the car or to get a decent 5 Live signal in Devon (it's very warbly, cycles in and out of reception) but other than that I can't see the point.

I don't know why we don't go for satellite radio, given they're all on satellite anyway (or appear to be).

 

[CnoEvil]

Hate the thought...bad idea for all the above reasons.

EDITED BY MODS - you're right, we don't.

Apologies if stated opinion too strongly.

 

[Miggs]

We have three DAB radios in the house and for us reception is great. All the radios have FM as well but we only ever listen to DAB. For us we get a better choice of stations, some of which are not avaiable on FM. Also one for the people who want DAB in the car, do what I did, buy a Pure Highway DAB. Granted the setup is not ideal because you have to have the power source plugged into the lighter socket all the time. You also have to stick an arial onto the windscreen which has another lead which goes to the DAB unit, but overall its very good.

 

[nads]

some thoughts from outside the UK.

So what are the tourists going to listen to in their cars as they come to spend their Euros?

Why is the UK the only county in Europe looking to go down the DAB route when the rest have decided that there are better solutions.

Plus everything above.

when I am back in the UK I use internet radio wired/wireless at the parents and FM in the car.

 

[proffski]

Greetings Clare and thank you for the invite on comments regarding DAB.

Diabolical Audio Brodcasting. If or when the switchover happens we can no doubt expect more stations broadcasting yet more compressed butchered rubbish trying to pass itself off as music.

DAB as it is is totally useless for classical music, the format may apease those who are terminally deaf or with impaired auditory senses. Those who listen to pirated low quality MP3 probably do not care in the slightest.

At its best DAB was acceptable, as it is it is a farce. I'm wasting my time having one of my DAB rants as always the most profitable and hence the lowest common denominator will triumph!

Hi-Fi RIP...

 

[Xanderzdad]

I personally wouldn't want ti until it was better quality than FM and available everywhere geographically.

Nothing worse than losing a radio broadcast part way through a car journey.

I also feel it is emabarassing that we carry on with the 'poor mans' DAB instead of DAB+. At least that has a chance of meeting or even surpassing FM quality.

 

[basshead]

an issue i would like to see adressed is the waste issue.

has the government calculated how many fm radio's will become redundant and end up on the tip? how many tonnes of working technology will have to be thrown away..... and has it been worked out how many of these are likely to be replaced with DAB radio's? (i know i will have to throw away 5 or so fm radio's, and will not be buying any DAB's to replace them)

how many cars are there with fm radio only? how many people will not be able to listen to the radio on their way to and from work? what percentage of radio is listened to in cars? could it mean 10's of MILLIONs of cars not having radio's any more and the radio stations losing million of listeners?

 

[daveloc]

> Would another scrappage scheme for FM radios be of interest?

NO; no-one paid me to scrap my analogue TV, or replace my LPs with CDs or HDDs, or my VHS tapes with DVDs/Blu Rays.

> How key is the quality argument?

KEY; there should be a minimum legal bitrate (on digital TV too) and minimum level of coverage. It is not "increasing choice" to cram in so many channels they are all unwatchable/unlistenable, it is REDUCING QUALITY.

> Is DAB the right format?

No. DAB+ is, even if it has to be phased in painfully like HD on Freeview.

> Does none of this matter as we're all going online anyway?

THIS DOES MATTER, because broadcast and online use bandwidth differently. Broadcast costs bandwidth once per channel, so the broadcaster (advertising, license fee) can pay for it centrally. Online costs once per user, so the user has to. Broadcast will always make sense above some audience threshold, where that is will vary over time with technology, but a low general estimate should always be used so services don't get dumped in a temporary pricing shift.

Usage history/experience

I'm 50-odd years old, and a "rational adopter", e.g., I have an iMac but no iPad

I switched exclusively to DAB about 3.5 years ago, and haven't tuned in to FM since. I mainly listen to Planet Rock, Radio 7 (4 Extra, yadda) and TMS on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra; although I can get these channels via Freesat as well, I rarely listen that way at all.

General comment.

The UK's digital everything strategy is a mess, largely because politicians and civil servants are exclusively from the verbal/written tradition (language, History, Politics, Law degrees) and are helpless with symbolic reasoning, which is essential for making technically sound decisions.

It's no good saying "scientists should be on tap, not on top" any more, if you can't do the numbers you're reduced to making the decision on which speaker "sounds like a good chap" or "has the right tie" (or the feminine equivalents, Clare...). If you can't do the numbers you shouldn't be allowed to make the decision — or stand for office in the first place IMNSHO.

 

[Anonymous]

At home, we can't get DAB reception (FM is fine) and it's not as if central Reading is out in the sticks, so we listen to the "non-FM" stations via our Virgin cable box or via Internet. I have however looked several times over the last 3-4 years at getting a DAB tuner for the car, but it is prohibitively expensive (new aerial required as well as the tuner box) and there's been no indication of the price coming down in that period. So for me it is sadly such a non-starter I can't even comment on the sound quality of DAB, + or otherwise compared to FM...

 

[6th.replicant]

Can't receive FM at home, but can get excellent DAB; use DAB in the kitchen and bedrooms; in the living-room, I use the interweb and Airfoil for radio via the hi-fi because it sounds much better than DAB, especially BBC Radio 3 HD. But FM still sounds best overall, IMHO.

Not chuffed that I'll have to jettison the car's recently(ish) purchased 'all singing & dancing' Alpine head-unit (non-DAB)

 

[Anonymous]

"Would another scrappage scheme for FM radios be of interest?" - fascinating idea. I can't see the Govt paying for our(forcibly) retired Quads and Linns though!

"How key is the quality arguement?" Very. DAB as is just doesn't cut it.

"Is DAB the right format?" No. DAB+ might do it, though.

"Does none of this matter as we're all going online anyway?" - Yes, it does. A lot of users will have to share their bandwidth with other apps - TV on iPlayer, for example.

As low-banwidth stations leave FM for what ever digital medium emerges, expand the bandwidth for "serious" (aka audiophile) stations to give better S/N, and (perhaps) better dynamic range.

Any thoughts you have on any of the above - and other related issues - please fire away. I will make sure your opinions are heard....

 

[dfa2124]

I'm not even sure that DAB+ would improve the situation much, if at all. If you look at the bitrates used on countries where DAB+ is established they are typically between about 48-64k in order to fit as many stations as possible on to a multiplex. I think that would sound pretty similar to the quality on offer now.

However, if the BBC used DAB+ and kept the same bitrates the sound quality would improve a lot - you only have to hear the AAC streams through a hi-fi system to appreciate the improvement in sound quality over the DAB versions.

The technical standards of DAB MUST be improved. Any mainstream replacement of FM has to be better and that includes audio quality, otherwise our license fee is not giving us the quality:cost ratio we have come to expect. Any free-to-air system should be able to do that in the 21st century!

DAB was implemented poorly originally, so, to use an analogy, the foundations upon which DAB were built are weak and unstable. So far it seems that all the money has been spent propping up the foundations and papering over the cracks instead of improving and strengthening them. Do that, and there is a good chance that the system will succeed. Otherwise, there's only so much the system can take before the foundations give way and the whole thing collapses.

Until this happens then switchover is just not possible. I really wonder if it's been left to late now to save DAB's long-term future.

 

[dfa2124]

This little article has just appeared courtesy of the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12946985

It basically suggests that radio DSO is likely to happen in 2015. The reality is that it isn't.

I'd call that scaremongering.

 

[plastic penguin]

Most of digital radio, especially commercial stations, are rubbish. I've heard the argument that once the switch-over happens the quality will improve. Maybe the "suits" can give us some firm evidence?