Actually, there's worse: my local radio station (Connect FM) used to broadcast on DAB at 56kbps mono LSF (low sampling frequency) MP2! That was, until it got taken over by Smooth...
@@dlarge6502 Even that, it's MP2, the sound loses quality. I mean, 64 kbps is good enough if in AAC-HEv1 (attention, AAC-HEv2 is worse because it sounds more metalic, but it's a nice codec below 48 kbps) 48 kbps AAC-HEv1 is the answer to an extremely need to lower the bitrate but MONO and MP2 should be banned, for Nature's sake. Even BBC's Radio 4 or Radio 5 should not have their broadcasts in mono, since online it's in stereo and there are parts where stereo is very noticeable. There should be minimum standards :|
32 kbps mono isn't bad if you're using a well optimized codec for low bitrates, like Opus. 48 kbps mono would also be fine for music (as long as the downmixing uses good parameters for the encoder), with bitrates of 80+ being good in stereo.
@@kwinzman 128 for DAB would also be the maximum. 48 or above in DAB+ (AAC-HEv2) would be already a great quality broadcast. The problem is DAB with a MP2 codec. If MP3 is shitty below 128 kbps (and even at 128) imagine MP2...
@@tuggaboy Like the original report suggest 192kbps should be minimum for stereo MP2. 128kbs is the minimum for stereo MP3, and both are still pretty shit, and nowhere near FM quality.
DAB also has worse coverage than traditional FM. Seems sad that the government encouraged us all to buy inefficient, overpriced, power-hungry digital radios, just for the vague hope they'd be able to sell off the FM bands for some other nebulous purpose. What a con!
Yep, my dad bought a small DAB radio back in 2005 when all the hype was going on, damn thing still cant get a signal to this day. just as well it had FM too lol.
For me coverage is the main issue rather than which codex. I love DAB in the car, I find it so much better than FM when traveling but there are still vast parts of the country where coverage is either none existent or patchy at best.
I'm guessing the FM bandwidth would've been used to boost the DAB range, much like the VHF frequencies on analogue TV were repurposed for digital channels.
@@Raysnature The problem is that digital broadcasting suffers from what's sometimes called the "digital cliff"-you get a good signal until the errors and dropped data bits get to the point that the error correctly hardware and software can't cope. Basically, digital works great-right up to the moment it doesn't work at all. Sometimes, a better antenna (or reorienting the existing one) can help, but not always. With analog, the signal degrades gracefully-the noise gradually gets worse and worse until you don't even try and listen to that station. There are a lot of situations where the signal strength might be marginal, and you could listen on analog but not on digital. Digital has the advantage of requiring far less power to cover the same area, and it requires less bandwidth than an analog signal. I know that when the transition to digital television happened here in the US, stations that used to have only one channel usually now have four or more.
@@almostfmIndeed. I worked for about twenty years in the communications industry joining just as the company I worked for was starting to swap from analogue to digital. So yes I get the digital cliff. Personally I prefer this to the gradually weaker FM signal. Just wish the coverage was better and therefor fewer cliffs. It should be noted about the only time I listen to the radio is in the car. Guess it could be worse; we could be talking about AM.
In Portugal DAB was announced at late 90's, maybe 2000 something... It was announced and it promised a lot and suddenly it disappeared and I believe we decided on just having plane old, good FM. Honestly nobody cares for DAB
And that's nothing. Portugal transition to Digital TV was a complete disaster. Only 7 goddam SD channels with low than 95% coverage. It dosen't help that who owns the DTT transmitters network (Altice) have also a Cable/Satellite Pay-Tv service (MEO)...
Here in Norway all Nationwide radio stations are now only on DAB+ very many hates it. The reason for this is because there’s bad sound quality and the signal cuts out in several places(which FM didn’t do). There is now even a risk that the media authority will force all the local radios that still operate on FM to close.
The real problem is the government really. Here in Italy you can't buy a new car with FM radio anymore. Only DAB+ or dual mode. They want to monetize the radio spectrum by squeezing as many new channels as possible in a tighter bandwidth. Too bad for us.
I work as an office cleaner and listen to the radio while I work and DAB has terrible reception due to all the electronics and wifi. I do 9 offices buildings in a 40 mile radius and its the same wherever I go. FM is the only real choice, its pretty much always nice and clear.
You have to admit.. it is worse with TV signals, just to fit more useless stations in as it is also sending video even some basic cloud cover can make it go bad, old way you lose a bit of detail but can still watch it.
@@wobblysauce in poland terrestrial digital TV rarely has bad reception, regardless of weather really, perhaps these 3 years since your comment really made a difference
I did sound engineering at university in the mid 90s and the big selling point for the course was that with hundreds of new digital radio stations just round the corner broadcasting round the clock there was going to be lots more engineers needed. Looks like that hasn't quite come true as they predicted. Probably why I'm now a lorry driver
32 kb/s in a station that's supposed to broadcast music. Well, that's straight suicide. Because of their own greed, they made an excellent format obsolete from the beggining. In a few years, with 5g cellular networks and cheap data, no one will listen to the radio anymore. Such a shame. Here in Brazil, digital radio is still in teething stage after more than 10 years, simply because digital receivers here cost a fortune. the government saw that, and after analog tv got shut down, they got the frequencies from tv audio transmission and put them all on FM radio. FM radio in Brazil is now from 76 to 108 MHz.
@NightShade theWolf A 64-108 MHz FM band would be awesome, almost double the space. But AM is on decline, because anything from lamps to cars is now a source of interference.
30 year old vhf radio..3 weeks on 4 c cell. 2016 dab radio..4 days on 4 c cells. 30 year old vhf radio works in mid Wales 2016 dab radio..stuggles with Birmingham...northhampton..wales ..most of Scotland
2009, germany gets new stanrad with DVBT1, 2017, germany gets new standart again with dbvt2, DVBT1 receivers gets useless........ :-( We, germany try to be one of the best in sustainability... but, no, never... ^^ i could laugh and cry
@@CoockieClassiCKeks Dunno what you're talking about. DVB-T (the original, MPEG2 based standard) has been around since 2003 or so. I bought my first DVB-T receiver in late 2005. The transmissions were shut down in March 2017, to be replaced with the "new" DVB-T2 (MPEG4/h264 based), which is also subscription based with a smartcard, much like paid cable/satellite TV. So much for their old slogan "überallfernsehen" ("everywhereTV") which they coincidentally dropped when DVB-T2 came around... I wonder why /s
@@Knaeckebrotsaege Terrestic analog TV is completley off since 2009, lots of people had to buy new receivers. 2017 the same, you can watch some public channels, but for the rest you have to pay 60€ fo a year.
@@CoockieClassiCKeks Sorry, but who needs Pro7/Sat.1 but especially RTL anymore, I just watch Pro7 Maxx sometimes, because they got NFL and also eSports and oh, RTL II showed Animes the whole afternoon long in the 2000s like DBZ, Detective Conan, Naruto, One Piece etc. and today? Only script../shitted! reality like "Hilf mir", "Family Stories" and other brain-cell burners. But it could have been nice if they would send unencrypted in SD like on Digital Cable/DVB-C (around 7 years ago you could just recieve them on unencrypted analogue), seems there isn't enough bandwith.
@@kuchenblechmafiagmbh1381 I just had SF1, SF2, ORF1 ORF2 for years as a lived near konstanz. The best TV stations ever! Stey started DVBT1 also to block foreign TV in germany (swiss and austria). i got sattelite TV with 18 or 19.... RTL, Pro7 and all the others are dump (-: I miss all the indie movies from swiss at night...sometimes with subtitel or english language. Never seen something like this in germany
DAB here in Australia is a flop as well. We fortunately have DAB+. They first started test transmissions here in 2003, and take up has been extremely poor for all the reasons you stated and it is only available in our capitol cities. It never sounded better than FM, so why change ? We still have AM radio stations changing to FM in country areas. As you highlighted, most cars today don't have DAB recievers, and this is the place you would be most likely to listen to the radio. To listen to DAB in your car, you have to get a converter to re-broadcast it onto FM. How stupid and why would you bother ????? Just listen to good ol' FM in the first place and save on useless extra equipment.
not to mention the output power from the DAB+ transmitters is five eights of fuck all so the signal breaks up all the time as you drive around. the compression artifacts also sound terrible.
The main reason for FM changeover was to free up space for mobile phone and digital tv signals...future-proofing the airwaves by removing FM, but the replacement was far inferior - it is the iphone XS of smartphones, a joke!
I agree wholeheartedly with Techmoan - DAB is a huge disappointment due to too many stations being crammed in, often at 80kbps and in MONO! While mono is acceptable for talk stations, it is simply not right or proper for music, so while stations such as Absolute 90s are a good idea in principle, I will not listen to them because of the wishy-washy mono sound, and with so many better music formats available, DAB are not exactly competing well. My car has DAB radio, but 90% of the time I'm playing my own playlists from USB memory sticks - because quite simply they sound so much better!
So why would these companies in the UK want to focus on getting as many stations as possible into their allocated bandwidth, instead of making sure they were broadcast at a higher quality bit rate like what was suggested in that BBC R&D document?
Your original video inspired me to put away my DAB and use an old Technics amp/receiver from the 80s instead. I can now listen to the local BBC station without them sounding like they are pretending to use a coffee percolator, or not being heard at all (station off air).
Same here in Germany, but usually called Videotext/VT. I'm surprised it's still a thing considering how limited it is, but even my 2016 "smart" TV still supports it and almost every TV station still maintains Videotext pages... seems kind of crazy
@@Knaeckebrotsaege I'd forgotten about teletext - that's so seldom mentioned when recalling pre/proto-internet services like usenet. Obviously it's not interactive, it's more like a closed circuit web or something, but it was the 80s equivalent of browsing websites, only much worse of course. Still, you could always depend on a bit of Bamboozled. Except that one time it was a role playing dungeon crawler type game, that was fascinating to me as a kid.
I only listen to two things in my work truck (where I spend 5-10 hours a work day), which is streamed music from my phone, or my local talk radio station. Here in Atlanta, GA, we have absolutely no good music stations, but we have one really good talk radio station. They have presenters that really do skirt the boundaries of legality with their honesty, and I am surprised they haven't been shut down yet. They also talk sports, news, local stuff, and they have scripted comedy bits really reminiscent of old time radio dramas- they're just a great time to listen to. The sad part is I really don't see them being around in 5 more years. All of the stations are essentially owned by Cumulus Media (media conglomerate) and they have bought up every small station to turn it into a Top 40's type of crap radio. Radio is a dying industry, so enjoy it while it lasts.
@@vcolinc Exactly. They buy up every station that is waning in popularity even the slightest amount (because radio execs are spineless penny pinchers that will always sell) and throw them all in a pile of top 40s. I can't tell you how many times I have heard the same exact song playing on two Cumulus stations at the same time.
Looks like Talk 106.7 WYAY-FM in Atlanta is no more. WYAY Talk 106.7 Atlanta - Final Minutes of Talk 106.7 - "The Kimmer" - May 31 2019 th-cam.com/video/Zge5y4fk_-M/w-d-xo.html "Originally posted Wednesday, May 8, 2019: On February 13, Educational Media Foundation purchased several Atlanta-based Cumulus Media stations in different markets to install its syndicated Christian pop format K-Love." www.ajc.com/blog/radiotvtalk/when-talk-106-going-away/iDolqbAKeCf1KcMMflzj4O/ "Originally posted Wednesday, February 13, 2019: Say goodbye to Talk 106.7 as Christian broadcaster buys WYAY-FM" www.ajc.com/blog/radiotvtalk/say-goodbye-talk-106-christian-broadcaster-buys-wyay/DiFHTAgxVkKUoago962dfO/
Here in Chile we have only one radio station broadcasting in digital format and it's only with a "experimental license", so it can try different approaches (HD Radio, DAB+, etc). FM is quite popular here and I really much doubt it would ever die, since FM and AM radio are the only technologies resilient enough to keep broadcasting even after an 8.8 richter earthquake (yeah, we had local radio stations broadcasting in FM just minutes after the 2010 earthquake)
Progressive doesnt always mean good. There is no point in DAB. There was point in switching tv from analogue to digital, but it is pointless on radio...
Here in the Netherlands I believe it is much better. Almost all of the channels are 96kb/s (some even 128). And that is dab+. If I switch between FM and DAB the difference is quite noticeable, especially when listening with high volume.
In the USA we also had a digital radio disaster of a rollout (around the same time), but ours was IBOC (in-band on-channel) hybrid digital/analog within the existing band. The system did not catch on because it was too proprietary. The technology should’ve been made available free to receiver manufacturers.
Though audio isn't great, it is really good at other data transmissions like traffic and weather. The fact that it can display alerts and a lot more is actually impressive but unfortunately the audio quality does take a hit. It would be interesting to see an all digital FM station to see if allowing it more bandwidth would help.
Internet and 3G/4G/LTE killed digital radio. AM radio is going to die soon too. The main problem to switch to internet radio is that many stations forces to use its own website to listen.
@@MostlyPennyCat AM is pretty much completely useless if someone anywhere close to you uses those shitty powerline (ethernet over power wires) adapters. They basically turn the power wires in the entire apartment (or worse, entire house) into antennae broadcasting data-diarrhea across a huge spectrum because the whole power wiring setup is unshielded (because why would they be shielded, they're not made for data transmission). There are a few interesting videos about powerline interference here on YT, for example one that shows a powerline adapter one one circuit and the "receiving end" (laptop with the 2nd adapter ; in quotes because both are bidirectional) on another circuit (neighbours house). If the extension cords are anywhere close (couple meters), the interference is strong enough for the 2 powerline adapters to establish a connection *without a direct electrical connection* . If the interference is strong enough for *that* to work, imagine what it does to the radio bands in the vicinity. And don't get me started on interference from switchmode power supplies (more like noise generators) and the EU banning transformer based linear power supplies...
@@MostlyPennyCat AM is not really obsolete. It's pretty much the only option if you want to span huge distances without involving the internet and everything that requires.
AM Radio is alive and well in the US. Although its mostly talk and Sports radio. Its unsurpassed by the fact that it broadcasts 100 miles in one direction reguarless of terrain. In the west one station can cover half a state.
@NightShade theWolf yeah you Americans from what I have noticed your broadcasts use rather hign bandwidth, I have seen like 15kHz bandwith or so and of course listened to them and damn how good it sounds for AM if you have strong and clean enough signal.
As a teenager i remember tuning in semi-regularly to the 'Birdsong' DAB test channel while working cause it was relaxing as background noise. Was kinda sad when they took it down.
64kbp/s mono?????? Jesus. Consider that Radio 6 Music is one of these stations. The one called Music. The state of UK radio is appalling - you'd be much better off becoming a youtuber than a radio host here!
@@kevcatnip7589 Not for me - though it probably depends on which model of radio you're using. I like to think in this era that they'd design it to avoid this.
@@fiftyfuckingfeet That is reassuring! Still a bit of a kick in the face to the few people that went out and bought DAB units, but at least we have that.
I came across loads of broken DAB radios that had blackened burnt circuit boards where the voltage regulators had burnt out (amongst other things) because of the lack of heat sinks.....Early models where particular power hungry and badly designed. as for the sound quality well we all know that story. SIDE NOTE, Never understand why people think that spoken word should be regarded as only being fit for low bit rate mono nothing like listening to plays in glorious stereo via a well set up FM Aeriel and tuner.
I can remember when our radio station was playing out 224 kb/s *per channel* MP2 from the automation system. That was in 2002. HC-AAC isn't terrible if it is encoded correctly. A lot of the problem here in the US with our HD Radio scheme which uses a similar codec, is the lack of good processing that makes the encoder work better and achieve the desired results. Not too many stations take the time to process for the codec. They just process for loudness.
It's been an ongoing argument of mine since 2006 back when we were giving advice and feedback on Digital Broadcasting in the UK, sadly things have slipped further as the old Quantity > Quality mindset remained, to the point where we even have SD TV Channels broadcasting at below 2Mb/s MPEG-2 at 544x504 resolution.
Not to mention that there's loads of free to air channels that are available in HD, but those HD versions are not free to air but rather a part of Pay TV.
I quit dab years back because It was rubbish . Every six months the channel list would change . Now use Internet radio for ages . Better choice better quality
We have DAB+ here in Australia, too... I remember for my birthday back a long time ago, I was actually excited for the idea of digital radio, and managed to get a digital radio for my birthday... Several years later and it turns out I pretty much never listen to it. Fortunately, at least for now, FM/AM radio is still widely available and IMO, you're not really missing out on much with the additional digital stations.
As an amateur radio license holder, I and my fellow colleagues referred to DAB, as dead and buried, especially in the UK DAB plus is much better in Europe and as you said they have adhered to the new standard and switched off FM I don’t think we will ever get to that stage because we have a weekoff come
Actually the opus codec can have a really good quality at 64kbps, problem is that DAB doesn't use the opus codec. And since people usually prefer inferior proprietary crap over technically superior and patent-free software I don't see opus being used for digital radio anytime soon.
A few people requested that I post this segment as as a stand-alone video, it was originally part of this Hi-Fi review: th-cam.com/video/UaIFy4uvyfA/w-d-xo.html *It hasn’t been put in the subscriber feed as subscribers have already seen it.* This separate upload is for anyone who otherwise wouldn’t see this buried in the middle of a Hi-Fi review.
Feels hollow to like a video that is full of such dreary news and outlook. But as with all things Techmoan, it was beautifully crafted, and deserving of praise.
It's a good thing it never really caught on in Canada because FM sounds perfectly fine here. We transmit as FM-HD, which is receivable on a lot of normal equipment (despite the press releases saying it needs a "special radio" set) and sounds great. It's not in every region, but in my own (Vancouver etc) it's popular. Rock 101 is a good example of a station that uses it. Let me tell you when I say you can hear the difference, even if you didn't pick up one of their fancy sets to receive it. It's automatic and most radios can tune to it regardless. It uses a type of AAC+ too.
I do a lot of driving for my job in Toronto. In the car 3-4 hours a day easy. I usually listen to AM640 on FM-HD 95.3 channel 2. Even under street car wires the signal doesnt drop out. The difference between listening to the station on FM-HD and AM is night & day but only slightly better than FM as far as I can tell. I get a signal wherever I am in the city and don't have to pay for Sirius/XM for their mediocre content
I think they learned their lesson after the digital TV switch. The larger areas to cover in north America doesn't work well with digital signals. The radio stations would have to change their equipment (most of them still uses vacuum tube transmitters from 40-50 years ago) to reach a smaller market.
Here in North America there's this thing called "HD Radio" which is digital radio. I tried it, but I instantly hated it. There's waaaay too much treble on lots of stations and very uncomfortable to hear.
My initials are DAB... Now I know why no one likes me. I quite agree, DAB is inferior so rely on fm for the car, and internet radio ( including local stations) at home.
@Alan Smithee While I don't agree with the podcast statement, here's what I think is the reason radio is dying, looking aside from how it's transmitted now, mind you. Other than news and actual scheduled programs/show, what is the rest of radio usually made up of? That's right, music. And what's the "music" on the charts and on the radio, like today, in general? That's right, utter crap, basically. And the only people that likes that music is of that generation, meaning a younger crowd, that unfortunately has created this change, but actually don't have the power to support it, financially. Meaning that they are influencers, and basically the creators of this new world we're in, but they don't have the money or actually care about music enough to make any sort of impact on the situation. They just started consuming it, and the market took that as that's what the rest of us wanted in music, which is obviously not correct. The problem lies with the marketplace too, for not exercising any form of critical judgement, or discernment if this is good quality music or not. And since we as a species moved out of our hearts, and into our wallets back in the mid to late 80's, money talks, and bullshit walks. I'm generalizing greatly here, of course, but it's mostly a correct description. Meaning it doesn't matter if it IS any good, it's just gotta sell, and/or help bring in more advertising/advertisers. And don't get me started on the whole money thing, geez, that's a book and a half, lol. But suffice to say, I think E.G. White may have been right in calling her book "Towards the climax of history", that's the translation to english from my language, anyway. Not talking about her views per se, just the meaning of that title, in my opinion. You know, kinda like "What is the climax of history?" And in my opinion, it's what we're seeing happening in the world right now. We're moving forward technologically speaking, but the quality of everything is decreasing, The Orwellian 1984 is no longer just a fiction book, unemployment is at insane levels, and we're more depressed than ever? Don't tell me that that's a world doing well. And that's my whole point. We've lost something along the way, and now we can't make it right again. So I predict it's gonna keep deteriorating, until it implodes on itself, or someone decides to make a REAL change for the better, not just fancy words, in an election year. 👍😉
Like AM to FM, reason for the push for DAB is copyright. They don't want people who don't pay to listen to exclusive radio. We used to listen to AM from anywhere you wanted.
SOMETIMES..... analog is clunky and expensive for things like recording video or music. It takes hundreds or thousands of dollars of reel to reel tape equipment just to get the same sound quality as a 24bit 192Khz XLR interface for around or under $100 USD. On the other hand, digital to analog conversion for live consumption over is relatively cheap and easy.... because it has to be converted to analog at some point in the sound chain for us to be able to hear it anyway. Much cheaper overall just to have one large broadcast tower do the conversion and have a bunch of bone simple (and dirt cheap) analog only devices tuned in to listen.
@@leopold7562 VHS is only awful because of cost contstraints. But that's the thing with analog... as quality goes up, price of media and equipment increases exponentially. Film has theoretically infinite resolution and large film stock like Imax contains more detail than a Blu Ray could ever hope to....... but who wants to pay for a massive Imax projector and transfer reel just to show an image on the living room wall?
Update: Our local radio station, Connect FM, has now closed down and has been taken over by - you guessed it - Smooth FM! Which was already available in our area on AM radio. So we now have no local FM stations; all of the stations are either semi-national (e.g. Heart, Smooth etc) or national (such as Radio 1/2/3/4). I also don't know why Radio 3 has to have the lion's share of the DAB spectrum, considering that stations such as Radio 1, 2 and 6 Music outperform Radio 3 in terms of listening figures.
This confirms my doubt about my home DAB+ radio. I thought "Oh, this should be awesome quality, but why it feels not so good and why the display says 64 kbps?" I'm a huge radio fan, but I still listen to FM radio because the quality is very good and DAB reception is very poor (even it has many stations available). That's sad because I remember (as said in this video) car stereo brochures advertising DAB radio since the last 90's. There was a time some 10/15 years ago I thought DAB was dismissed standard like DCC or Laserdisc.
theskig DAB is a failed project as far as I can tell. When I cannot receive even the local stations with an 8m high excellent discone antenna while receiving an excellent signal for FM on the same antenna, then it is clear for me that I should not waste any time on DAB. I am living in Eindhoven where DAB reception should be good, but it isn’t! Another con project!
Have a DAB / Fm tuner on the hifi the FM is much better and clearer sound than DAB , I like the choice on DAB but that’s as far as it goes , DAB is hopeless in low signal areas too.
Still a huge radio fan here. As a ham too, it's fun keeping up with the latest tech. It's alive and well, and surrounds us every second of the day. There's still something nice about tuning in to a local analog FM station that makes me happy. The syndicated crap has ruined the local flavor and culture that radio can provide. I grabbed one of those RTL-SDR USB radio dongles with a pair of rabbit ear aerials and I love it. Whether I'm listening to the local fire department/EMS, getting images from weather satellites, or one of the few local music stations out there, it's still a blast and a great learning experience.
Out of curiosity, what RTL-SDR USB stick thingy do you use? I've bought a Terratec DVB-T stick based around an elonics E4000 tuner several years ago and while it works and is cool to mess around with, the results aren't that great...
@@Knaeckebrotsaege I'm currently using the regular ol' grey RTL-SDR with the Realtek RTL2832U chipset. Mind you I haven't used it for any DTV stuff, as this dongle isn't compatible with the USA's ATSC standard. I hear that it's supposed to work with other DTV services from other countries with the right decoding software. I think it all comes down to the antenna as far as your results are concerned. I'm using a pair of bunny ears that is mounted to my window outside of the house. It works great for regular analog radio, local Fire/EMS monitoring, and even receiving SSTV images from the International Space Station. Results can vary quite a bit depending on the style of antenna and placement. Sometimes it's even worth building your own antenna :-) I'd be curious to hear how you make out!
@@MarkyShaw Yeah that sounds like a common-as-dirt DVB-T (the currently-being-phased-out European equivalent to ATSC) stick, just branded differently to target the RTL-SDR folks rather than average joe wanting to watch TV. They all use the RTL2832U main chip and a tuner chip after it, the latter being what determines what frequency bands it can tune in on (as with all things, some tuner chips are better than others). The most common ones now are the Rafael Micro R820T and R820T2, with the older Elonics E4000 being sought after and demanding a price premium (since Elonics doesn't exist anymore). My antenna setup really isn't great, but there isn't much that I can do in terms of positioning since I live in an apartment block. Going to keep experimenting with it though, especially considering I apparently have one of the better tuner ICs for higher frequencies. I probably have to get another stick with the R820T(2) tuner to tap into the (comparatively) really low frequencies (down to about 10MHz). As for the tuners, I found this list here (let's hope YT doesn't butcher the formatting): RTL-SDR Tuner Type - Frequency Range --- Elonics E4000 (E4K): 54 - 2200MHz (gap at 1100MHz - 1250MHz) Rafael Micro R820T: 24 - 1766MHz (deaf above 1500 MHz and needs tuner cooling) Rafael Micro R820T2: 24 - 1766MHz (deaf above 1500 MHz and needs tuner cooling) Rafael Micro R820T2: 13 - 1864MHz (mutability's driver ; deaf above 1500MHz ; 9MHz AM radio just about possible) Fitipower FC0013: 22 - 1100MHz (FC0013B/C, FC0013G has separate L band input) Fitipower FC0012: 22 - 948 MHz FCI FC2580: 146 - 308 MHz and 438 - 924MHz edit: also.... damn you for that Deskpro 386S. That was the 2nd PC I ever owned, after a Commodore PC30 III (286-12) that somehow failed and didn't boot anymore.
@@Knaeckebrotsaege Haha!!! I loved that damn Compaq. I think our family had one of those crappy Word Processors for a while before I finally got this Compaq from a friend of mine. It was definitely my introduction to the world of computing. That's an awesome breakdown by the way of all the different RTL chipsets. I'm definitely curious to get some other ones that might be more suitable for other frequencies. I'd LOVE to be able to monitor HF frequencies and I'm still rather fond of the CB AM stations in the 27 MHz area. I tried hooking up my CB antenna to the SDR, but it didn't work. Folks say to use a HamItUp Converter. Meh!! Ain't got time for that. Either way, it's good to know there is so many options out there. It does make things difficult when there's not a lot of room for an antenna. Although living in an apartment, I can only assume that you're in an urban area that would hopefully be in line of sight of some of those DTV services :-) Best of luck my friend!
@@MarkyShaw Here in Germany, DVB-T has already been shut down in early 2017, DAB radio in 2011 and the only other "normal" thing these sticks could receive would be FM Radio, for which I'd rather use a proper radio than a USB stick ;) Newer sticks could also receive the now current DVB-T2 standard, but since that's DRM-infested and based on a subscription model (only 2 or 3 state-run stations can be received without a monthly subscription), the concept of free over-the-air TV is basically dead now. It's kind of scary actually. The whole situation went from free over-the-air analog TV to DVB-T in the early 2000s (introducing a blocky picture from the low MPEG2 bitrates used, or no picture at all when your reception wasn't top notch) and then to DVB-T2 in 2015/2016 (which introduced the subscription model and various forms of DRM not possible with the earlier standard). If the same thing happens to radio some day, things are going to be very grim. Thankfully DAB has failed completely in replacing analog FM (near zero market interest), and the "better" DAB+ standard which replaced it in 2011 has an abysmal coverage of 11% of Germany as of 2018 (compared to FM's 96%). Still... I don't even want to think about what a successor to DAB+ might add in terms of DRM and pay-to-listen crap should it ever get popular, analog (hah) to the OTA DTV disaster... PS: My Deskpro 386s was with me through most of my early teens. Got it as a hand me down also, and with 6MB RAM (2MB + a Kingston 2+2MB extension board IIRC), a 3.5 and 5.25" floppy (with those cool dual-color LEDs) and a 130MB Conner (?) HDD. Interestingly enough mine didn't have a Paradise VGA card on the mainboard, just the connectors to plug a module with it in. Later versions of the mainboard apparently had it directly on the board without a connector. Instead I used a (also hand me down) ATI EGA Wonder 800+ and a tiny little 12" Samtron EGA monitor. I still have both of those, but the Deskpro no longer exists (got stolen from our apartment block basement during a flood from a broken pipe outside while we had the doors open to get things to air out). I'm still bummed out about it and haven't been able to find this exact model (the one you have) anywhere in the 15 years since mine got stolen :( Well there was one on ebay Germany at one point, but 200eur (about 230usd) + shipping seemed way too steep for what it is. I'm still thinking about if I should've just bought it...
FM is still the way for me. My favourite local radio station is on FM as well as DAB. My car is 2004 so only has FM but my work van has DAB and FM. FM is far superior in terms of sound quality and a lot of modern radios come equipped with RDS which provides similar info to DAB. If listening to Talksport then definitely it has to be DAB over AM. But if listening to Wave 105 here on the south coast or BBC Radio 2 or even Radio 4 then FM is still my personal choice. Better coverage and superior sound.
A couple of years ago I went to an amateur radio exhibition. A proportion of the display focused on redundant ( or historical, depending on your perspective) technology. Amongst the display that included CW (Morse code) only transmitters/receivers, AM valve sets and even a crystal set. A relatively modern DAB receiver was on display. It wasn't so much that it was "old " tech' but that it was redundant due to the cellular 'phone network and public access Wi-Fi growing so much faster than DAB radio. This enabled the market to access the same or even better quality broadcasts without the physical and financial incumbency of yet another bit of hardware. In Australia we got DAB + and I'm presuming it is a fairly high bit rate as the audio is superior to FM stereo broadcasts. The problem, as I see it, is that digital radio was never promoted well enough and that consumers were not incentivised to adopt the technology before the competition ('phone companies and ISP's) beat digital radio at its own game. As noted in the video, the other major problem is the amount of power these devices consume. They are really only to be considered mains powered or 13.8v automotive devices. My Phillips unit is not rechargeable and only runs for a few hours on quality alkaline batteries. You only make that mistake once. It's a shame really because the technology's good but like TV, in Australia at least, the roll out has been terrible and the market has moved forward.
I have to say that my favorite radio device is a DAB+. At the current location and with the current antenna, it sounds better than FM to me. FM is a bit noisy in my current setup.
Scotland is the land DAB forgot only England matters to the advertises! Wales isn't much better mostly around the cost no coverage in the Brecon Becons and only one FM station! A much better System for Rural Britain is DRM30 and DRM+ For small towns DRM30 uses AM Radio to provide upto 3 FM Quality stations per frequency! DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale)
As you have probably mentioned at some time, the Fraunhofer version of MP3 that most uses today, is meant for talk, not music. Some bugger I know, being a vivid advocate for MP3, asked my if I could give him a good example where MP3 failed. I could: Listen to a girl choir singing. Use a good FM station, use a 24bit CD or use an old vinyl on a good player with a good pick-up and compare it with the best MP3 available. On even the best MP3 codex, you can not distinguish the individual voices, - it is one mess of voices due to how the MP3 compression works. Having used a substantial part of my life as an electronic engineer in the audio business listening to high volume music, I have lost some of my hearing and uses hearing aids to day, - the treble part has gone. Still I can hear the difference clearly. ---- It seems like quantity has won over quality. My fear is that people in the future will not be able to understand live music, because the have heard it all in a low quality from low quality transmissions and low quality receivers, - airborne or internet. Further, I fear that the in-ear headsets will cause many more casualties like I in the near future. People with in-ear plugs tends to turn up the volume to compensate for the bass experience they have in the body when attending a concert. I've been there in my youth, some 25 year ago. --- Everybody that cares to listen, know that, but is seems like advertising and big companies turnover is more important that the health of youth. -- No, - I'm not 'red' or left wing. I'm running my electronic development business behind the public interest. I'm a sound fanatic with a hearing problem and that is buggers. Regards from Denmark
I am a live sound engineer, and feel the same way. Digital has killed everything good and fun about music. Except for portability. But who really needs to carry a terabyte of mediocre sound? We still use analog mixers, equalizers, and amps- much to the amazement of others. Them: 'What kind of compression do you use?' Us: 'None. We don't use that crap.'
We can discuss analog vs. digital till we die. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. I've been an electronic designer since 1978 and met all the problems in both analog and digital design. A really good, true 24 bit system will satisfy most people. -- When talking digital in the audio world, using compression can be divided into two parts: Linear compression and algorithmic compression. - Linear compression do not remove information. Decompression restores al the original data. - Algorithmic compression, like MP3 in the audio world and PDF in the picture world discard data. All these algorithms are based on cheating our brain, - like 24/25 pictures / second in old movie films. Unfortunately, some brains (like your and mine) do not accept to be cheated. - If the analog to digital conversion can be accepted, no noise or distortion will be added to the data (sound) after conversion, unless you use algorithms. If you use algorithmic compression or just a digital equalizer, it will introduce loss of data. -- When talking analog in the audio world, noise and distortion are the two main culprits to fight. This fight is never ending and vinyl is the worst. - Some people love amplifiers based on radio tubes. The explanation is simple. By design, radio tubes have a considerable 2nd harmonic distortion. The human brain perceive even harmonics as soft and gentle, while uneven harmonics are perceived as hard and discomforting. As with MP3, the brain 'listens' (to some degree) to the most dominant sound/frequencies. If the even harmonics are more dominant than the uneven, the even win. Thus, a lousy music source with lot of uneven harmonic distortion can be translated into at soft and nice sound by adding some 2nd harmonic distortion. -- Yes, portable devices and internet carried entertainment control the development. A 40 minute long CD recorded in 24 bit at normal sampling rate (44.200 samples/s, as I remember) would require ~20GB of memory if not compressed. -- I hope the above make some sense :-) Regards from Denmark
I couldn’t have explained the workings of DAB any better. They’re cramming too many stations in, but at the same time it costs a lot to deploy a DAB network.
Dab in Australia has good coverage and sounds great depending on the broadcaster (government and community dab sounds great). We have a community dance music station at 48kbps and it's sounds brilliant. It only lacks signal strength in the bush and in shopping centres Edit: AM stations on dab sound amazing, having cruise/gold on digital is a godsend, plus you get Ray Hadley's in full stereo bliss 🤮
If the BBC launched DAB services in 1995, who had the equipment to receive them? I don't remember hearing anything at all about it back then , and I was an avid radio listener at the time
I have two DAB radios. One is permanently tuned to Radio 4 (for the Archers) and the other to Radio 5 Live (for sports commentaries). The sound quality on both channels is perfectly acceptable.
Until I saw this I had thought it was just me. Dab radios are expensive, power hungry, don't give better sound quality than fm, and in the last three houses I have lived in, didn't get a signal. It really shouldn't have been like this.
In Poland (at least where I live) the DAB+ stations use mostly 64kbps, but some go to around 116kbps. And most are mono 64kbps, even the ones with music. The sound quality does indeed sound a bit like listening to music through a landline telephone, but I'm glad to find out it isn't the absolute rock bottom. The coverage kinda stinks, and trying to get it to receive without breaking up feels like setting up a TV aerial more than a normal radio. The same radio receiver picks up about 40 FM stations with ease, and they sound a lot better. I think that the lack of coverage and stations, and most stations being mono is the result of people not having DAB+ radios, and is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. People who can actually be bothered to find out what DAB+ radio is like pick up a cheapest mono (hence no need for stereo or quality) DAB+ radio only to have it not receive anything or to have poor results if it does. Then they advise others against it, and the digital radio struggles to exist at all. Plus some people may have been permanently offended because of buying a not "+" DAB radio only to see the standard gotten rid of a few years later, and their expensive radio just rattles around the drawer somewhere. The whole appeal of analog radio to me is that it needs very little hardware to achieve reasonably good results, and therefore it is great for poor people or in emergency situations, picks some stations almost anywhere, and remains a fixed (or at least backwards-compatible both receiver and transmitter-wise) standard literally for decades. You can still use your grandmother's old radio after some level of maintenance, despite of it probably being old enough to have legally gone on paid retirement if it were a person. Which is why I hope that analog radio doesn't get replaced with digital anytime soon.
A good example proving a old tech(FM) is greater than new tech: as it does not add any value to user, only increase cost for every one (manufacturing, broadcasting, users,..)
I completely agree with this video. I've used DAB for years, and because the sound quality is getting lower all the time. If they want people to switch over they need to improve the sound quality to at least match FM radio. I'm all for a wider choise of stations, but you can't put that as more important than sound quality.
@@Connie_TinuityError no, I'm just saying that DAB sound is getting worse. In the early days of DAB the sound was great, but more stations are being added and the sound quality is getting worse.
Wow... I remember when I made my own video-CDs, with MP2 sound. That codec was really, really inefficient compared to more modern ones, it barely sounded ok at 192 kbps/stereo, it must sound godawful at 64 kbps/mono. By the way, aside from the fact that maybe they simply want to cram as many stations as possible within the smallest spectrum, maybe it's also possible that the record companies would not be too happy to allow radio stations to emit digital music with acceptable quality for free over the air?
So, by that thinking, the BBC and a few others would only get the crappest songs to play, given they have the lion's share of the dab bandwidth and transmit at 128kps?
I'm glad found this, I kept retuning, adjusting the aerial... Kept getting terrible sound and lots of static... Good thing my radio also does Internet radio!
In the Netherlands we have DAB +. Most channels are in AAC+ 96 kbps and real music channels such as the classical music channel work with 128 kbps. The quality is pretty good and the reception is fine but it does not make it to internet radio that often works with 320 kbps.
Why would these companies in the UK want to focus on getting as many stations as possible into their allocated bandwidth, instead of making sure they were broadcast at a higher quality bit rate like what was suggested in that BBC R&D document?
Its quantity over quality. People want more choice. Therefore, the quality must be reduced to meet the demand. You only have to look at Freeview, as another example. Low resolution and bitrate!
There must be hundreds of millions of perfectly good FM 88-108 radios in the UK alone, they are relatively very cheap to buy, they work with less RF signal than DAB technology, they run for years on batteries , thus less cost to run and so 'environmentally friendly' . My experience of using different forms of digital radio reception has informed me, that they are all less efficient in terms of receiving information, whether voice or data than 'old fashioned' analogue technology, which is well tried and tested, it works and provides much better quality reproduction. The only reason we (in UK) are being forced to dump our millions of perfectly good FM radios is to release radio spectrum for sale to the highest bidder by Ofcom and not to provide the public with a better service or reduce costs. DAB radio is a backward step for all the above reasons and the only way it can be stopped is for us all to continue to use analogue FM and not to buy DAB radios and loads of batteries. Where are all the FM radios going to end up when they have nothing to receive? You will be tempted to buy DAB by artificial low prices and 'special deals' and as soon as the FM service is switched off, guess what will happen ?
In prepare to completely switching to DAB+ , the termination of broadcasting of several FM stations in Germany has already been planned. But that was canceled shortly before got its time limit in 2018. 70% still listen FM radio while excellent DAB+ is used by about 7%. I think main reason for that is because they made unneccessarily DAB+ gadgets more expensive and FM radio still has good sound quality and many stations.
The latest & greatest Vorbis codec (opus/ogg) is better than AAC in almost every respect. It's free too (unlike AAC). DAB using MP2 is bad enough, using it at bit-rates of 80kbs is taking the piss.
Since January 2020 in Italy is forb8dden to sell car radios which do not have DAB+ tuner. The quality is always bad. From 32 to 128kb/s. Usually in stereo. Signal is terrible. Very unconsistent and going on and off all the time.
Same thing happened here in North America but it was for TV, yes it looked better than analog but we lost half the stations because transmission distance was reduced
The transmission power of many locations in UK is so low that it is almost not useful. Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden have moved to DAB+ and shut down their DAB.
Germany has also shut down DVB-T and replaced it with the "more advanced" DVB-T2 ... and threw some DRM in the form of subscriptions with smartcards into the mix while they were at it. No more free over-the-air TV here :(
The funny thing is, despite the fact all the commercial multiplexes sound awful, it almost doesn't matter to me since I predominently listen to BBC DAB stations anyway, the only FM I listen to is Radio Jackie! The BBC DAB multiplex is very high quality, although it would be nice if they switched to DAB+ keeping the same high bitrates
DAB is the European standard for digital radio. And considering that digital television is still in its infancy in most Latin American countries, you can be sure FM radio won't be gone anytime soon.
@SergioMartelli And for long distances AM radio is a good choice. I remember truck drivers some years ago here in Italy only using AM radio because you can drive from Milano to Napoli without changing frequency. Bella Sergio!
@@ant2312 So what, are you trying to start that war, all over again? Cos I remember the images on the TV as a very young child, and that was not good, to say the least. Scarred me for life, and I'd rather be right next to a nuclear bomb going off, than seeing the horrors of conventional war. But it's all bad, conventional war, as well as nuclear. So, what are you getting at, huh? Get outta here with that shit...
Many people in the comments are saying X sounds fine at 32kbps, 64 kbps, etc. but why should anyone accept what is trying to be a replacement to FM, that isn't *at* *least* as good quality as FM? For stereo stations, we should be expecting a bare *minimum* of 192kbps MP2, or 64kbps HE-AAC v2 (three times as efficient), and practically no stations meet this in the UK. The technology is not fit to replace FM, which means it serves no purpose. If you want high quality but can't use FM, internet radio is typically at a much more acceptable quality. See here www.astra2sat.com/radio/uk-digital-radio-bitrates/.
@Techmoan, Can you reacting the DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) receiver on MW and SW if that sound quality of DRM was good or bad? Thanks Here's in the Philippines, It chooses and it adapts the HD Radio (Hybrid Digital Radio) from the U.S. as "Digital Radio of the Philippines" back in 2007 til now.
HD RADIO in the Philippines also used on in Metro Manila’s 98.7 DZFE (Classical radio station of Fae East Broadcasting Company Phils.) and 98.7 HD2 for 702 DZAS AM simulcast. DWRK-FM 96.3 Easy Rock Manila as it’s subchannels: Radyo Natin Manila 96.3 HD2 and DZRH Nationwide 96.3 HD3 simulcast from 666 AM Manila.
That, and that you can greatly improve bad FM reception by switching from stereo to mono alone. DAB? You either have good enough signal or you don't get anything usable out of it. Same for DVB-T and T2 vs. analogue over-the-air TV ... Instead of a bit of static in a still watchable picture, you get nothing if the reception isn't great. Gotta love the garbage they're trying to sell us as "improvements" ...
Same for Malta, there's public announcements saying there's going to be a full changeover to DAB+ by 2020/2022 and encourages new car buyers to check their car will come with it. Unless the advantages are glaringly obvious, I'm not really going to bother
One of the few places the US has Europe beat in terms of tech infrastructure! HD radio has good coverage, always sounds noticeably better than the corresponding FM, and has come standard in most cars for years now
@@rkan2 I've recently messed about with low bit rate stuff (to try and cram an MP3 player with as much as I can) and there's a significant difference between 56kbps MP2 (used by some stations) and 56kbps MP3 (both downgraded to mono). The difference between 56kbps MP3 mono and 192kbps MP3 stereo is night and day. So yes, DAB sounds woefully inadequate!
Dab launched in the netherlands a few years ago, damn does it suck. I need to fanaggle the antenna for 5 hours to get any dutch channels. But ofcourse i can recieve german channels more than 60k km away from me just fine. And then switching to fm i get clear audio immediately
Aside from the signal transmission, there's another huge issue with radio. They're designed to be heard everywhere on every kind of device. Shopping malls, workshops, vehicles and most of these places use mediocre quality speakers that often can't reproduce the audible frequency range very well in an already noisy environment. So to combat these factors they compress the living hell out of the signal. I think often they use even more complex processing like equalization to emphasize vocals. I think radio can definitely sound clean but not good.
IDK that DAB had DAB+ as in upgraded. It always amazes me how there is always a lack of forethought to updating hardware capability and make a DAB radio that you can have updated through the radio station you listen to and next time you switch on, your radio is then able to use the new codecs or features. That is how you would justify the high prices that DAB demands. I was lucky, I got mine for £12.95 as it had the power supply missing. It would normally be about the £60 as its DAB/DAB+/FM and RDS, portable radio that takes 6 AA cells that do last a very long time compared to my previous DAB that decided to eat itself one day and went all disco light on me with the display flashing on and off.
Shouldn't DAB ailments be avoided by quality standards, like mandating that music station broadcast with 96kbps+ and that mostly spoken content radio be for less, say 48~64kbps? Less than these bit rates are for DRM and are justifiable for its particular purpose of replacing SW's unlistenable sound and very far reception.
It'll never happen. No one is going to buy another broadcast digital audio receiver. Everyone has phones, and they listen there. Maybe there's room for an OPUS only version of something like TuneIn?
Because all of the hardware would need to be changed out to support it. The CODEC in DAB is in a chip - if it's MP2 that's all you will ever be able to hear, even though MP3 chips are cheap as chips these days. That's really the achilles heel of digital radio - until some smart guy invents pluggable codec sub-boards that allow field upgrades....
3:52 - 64 KBit/s mono equals to 128 KBit/s stereo (duh). So the "crappy" part is basically just from the mixdown (stereo > mono) but not the bitrate itself. Also, a 60s radio station in mono is absolutely logical as many records were mono anways, and a vinyl does not have a high sample rate.
Could you make a video about Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)? There are some transmissions aimed specifically at Europe that do make it across to the UK via skywave propagation and provided reception and transmission parameters are right, and directional / omnidirectional antennas are used with good tx power, it can sound good.
Wow, I didn't know digital radio was actually that bad in regards to audio quality. I mainly listen to Magic, Smooth, Absolute 80s and Heart and going into rural locations a fair bit during traveling it drops out so normally listen via an app on my iphone but always noticed a bump in quality so much so I don't even bother with DAB anymore - now you've proved why!
I work for a small Radiostation in south Germany. We couldn’t broadcast without dab+ because we are a private station and can’t pay for FM frequencies. The licence for dab+ costs us about a half million euro per year... Think about what we be to pay for if we would use FM in whole Germany. In our broadcast van we ve a DAB radio to listen to what we are broadcast during live show and it’s not that bad as some people say. For me as an radiotechnician, it’s no high end sound, but acceptable. (Signal Route: Console>Uplink>Satellite>Groundstation>DAB Network>Our Radio in the Van> Console> InEarPhones>My Ear)
Live in Russia. Analog FM-radio more than alive. But AM-radio they strangled (full depreciation of equipment and economic inexpediency), it remained 3 AM-stations (if a about MW speak). Digital radio plan to launch in 2019 as test.
I dread when they do one of those Radio 2 'pop up' stations for a weekend, robbing bandwidth from 6 Music and thus making it almost unlistenable on DAB!
Here in Finland we had DAB test network between 1997 and 2005 after it was closed. At the moment all radio stations use FM. MP2 is used in DVB-T SD channels and it's good at 224 kbps.
You still have DVB-T up there? DVB-T was shut down here in Germany in early 2017, replaced with DVB-T2 (MP4/h264 codec) which only works on a subscription basis with smartcards (no more free over-the-air TV, except for 2 1/2 state-run stations) and therefore it's pretty much completely useless.
Yes. Atm DVD-T is planned to shutdown in 2020 but might be delayed. We have three DVD-T2 multiplexes in VHFIII. Five free channels and 12 pay-TV channels. In UHF we have two DVB-T2 multiplexes and all 33 channels are pay-TV. Not all channels are broadcasting simultaneosly. We have three DVD-T multiplexes with 19 free channels. All DVB-T2 multiplexes in VHF are HD and use MPEG-4. Some DVB-T2 channels in UHF are HD and some SD and use MPEG-4. All DVB-T multiplexes are SD and use MPEG-2.
I live in an odd older house in an odd part of the UK. Can't get an FM signal in the kitchen, but get a strong DAB one. So we use a DAB radio there, but I ve been noticing a slow decline in the numvber of DAB stations and the sound quality of the remaining ones.
Hey @Techmoan Long time listener / viewer of your channel. As someone from Australia, where we DO have AAC+ dab radio, it honestly has pretty poor reception, at least here in Sydney. The only reliable way to get a good signal is to have a static player (eg in your house) and preferably connected to your UHF antenna on the roof of your property. It sounds amazing if you follow those steps but it's a basket case in a car. FM and even AM radio are very strong for signal here, and they aren't going anywhere. Dab can't replace FM or AM unless it has as good or better reception ...it doesn't. Channels come and go on the dab+ bandwidth and get rebranded frequently as they have limited appeal. In Australia, the best way to listen to digital radio is via 4G cellular internet when on the go (in the car for eg) and via home wifi if at home. Mobile data allowances have ballooned in recent years, so the idea of DAB is rather redundant here anyway. The aac+ codec is used for Australian radio streaming so it sounds as good as the transmitted broadcasts, as it's the same codec and bitrates, generally. Additionally, our regional radio stations are facing similar fates. I actually worked in regional radio for a time, and it was when media companies started to homogenise and rebrand acquired networks to match branding in the big cities (Triple M and the Hit Network, are the two main players). While many of these have kept local announcers, it's surely only a matter of time before most of these announcers and local content pieces are completely removed from the landscape of Australian radio. It's quite an upsetting outlook, but one that is somewhat expected. Keep up the fantastic work!
64kb/s mono - there's a special place in hell for the person who came up with this.
Actually 64kbps in mono would be good enough (for mono, certainly speech). Its the 64Kbps joint stereo stations that you'd find really infuriating!
what a bunch of wankers,sell us shit and say thats better mooo mooo off with there heads ..jeff
I getting out the the pitchfork and the onions as we speak, DOWN WITH THE ROTTERS ..jeff
Actually, there's worse: my local radio station (Connect FM) used to broadcast on DAB at 56kbps mono LSF (low sampling frequency) MP2! That was, until it got taken over by Smooth...
@@dlarge6502 Even that, it's MP2, the sound loses quality. I mean, 64 kbps is good enough if in AAC-HEv1 (attention, AAC-HEv2 is worse because it sounds more metalic, but it's a nice codec below 48 kbps)
48 kbps AAC-HEv1 is the answer to an extremely need to lower the bitrate but MONO and MP2 should be banned, for Nature's sake. Even BBC's Radio 4 or Radio 5 should not have their broadcasts in mono, since online it's in stereo and there are parts where stereo is very noticeable. There should be minimum standards :|
32 kbps.
In mono.
That makes 2007 TH-cam look alright
32 kbps mono isn't bad if you're using a well optimized codec for low bitrates, like Opus. 48 kbps mono would also be fine for music (as long as the downmixing uses good parameters for the encoder), with bitrates of 80+ being good in stereo.
@@kwinzman 128 for DAB would also be the maximum. 48 or above in DAB+ (AAC-HEv2) would be already a great quality broadcast. The problem is DAB with a MP2 codec. If MP3 is shitty below 128 kbps (and even at 128) imagine MP2...
It makes AM radio look alright ... at least that has some nostalgia attached. :)
@@tuggaboy Like the original report suggest 192kbps should be minimum for stereo MP2. 128kbs is the minimum for stereo MP3, and both are still pretty shit, and nowhere near FM quality.
@@kwinzman they can also transmit fake 128kbps but the real quality is 64kbps
DAB also has worse coverage than traditional FM. Seems sad that the government encouraged us all to buy inefficient, overpriced, power-hungry digital radios, just for the vague hope they'd be able to sell off the FM bands for some other nebulous purpose. What a con!
Yep, my dad bought a small DAB radio back in 2005 when all the hype was going on, damn thing still cant get a signal to this day. just as well it had FM too lol.
For me coverage is the main issue rather than which codex. I love DAB in the car, I find it so much better than FM when traveling but there are still vast parts of the country where coverage is either none existent or patchy at best.
I'm guessing the FM bandwidth would've been used to boost the DAB range, much like the VHF frequencies on analogue TV were repurposed for digital channels.
@@Raysnature The problem is that digital broadcasting suffers from what's sometimes called the "digital cliff"-you get a good signal until the errors and dropped data bits get to the point that the error correctly hardware and software can't cope. Basically, digital works great-right up to the moment it doesn't work at all. Sometimes, a better antenna (or reorienting the existing one) can help, but not always.
With analog, the signal degrades gracefully-the noise gradually gets worse and worse until you don't even try and listen to that station. There are a lot of situations where the signal strength might be marginal, and you could listen on analog but not on digital.
Digital has the advantage of requiring far less power to cover the same area, and it requires less bandwidth than an analog signal. I know that when the transition to digital television happened here in the US, stations that used to have only one channel usually now have four or more.
@@almostfmIndeed. I worked for about twenty years in the communications industry joining just as the company I worked for was starting to swap from analogue to digital. So yes I get the digital cliff. Personally I prefer this to the gradually weaker FM signal. Just wish the coverage was better and therefor fewer cliffs. It should be noted about the only time I listen to the radio is in the car. Guess it could be worse; we could be talking about AM.
In Portugal DAB was announced at late 90's, maybe 2000 something... It was announced and it promised a lot and suddenly it disappeared and I believe we decided on just having plane old, good FM.
Honestly nobody cares for DAB
@Grompf Grouik receivers were and are too expensive,
Same for Italy. It was launched in early '00s and I NEVER heard ANYONE EVER TALKING ABOUT IT.A
@@gabrieleriva651 except for ads on RTL 102.5...
And that's nothing. Portugal transition to Digital TV was a complete disaster. Only 7 goddam SD channels with low than 95% coverage.
It dosen't help that who owns the DTT transmitters network (Altice) have also a Cable/Satellite Pay-Tv service (MEO)...
Daniel Peixoto Martins Yeah, actually I never had DAB radio in Portugal or even heard about it x)
Here in Norway all Nationwide radio stations are now only on DAB+ very many hates it. The reason for this is because there’s bad sound quality and the signal cuts out in several places(which FM didn’t do).
There is now even a risk that the media authority will force all the local radios that still operate on FM to close.
Not to mention make it far too expensive or complicated burocratically to get onto DAB+ I'd imagine?
GlamTelevision for many of the local radio stations, yes.
That's the point. FM transmission can handle varying reception conditions. More acceptable to get a bit noisy than drop out.
The real problem is the government really. Here in Italy you can't buy a new car with FM radio anymore. Only DAB+ or dual mode. They want to monetize the radio spectrum by squeezing as many new channels as possible in a tighter bandwidth. Too bad for us.
@@iz8dwf Se il servizio fosse decente non sarebbe un così grosso problema imporre il "nuovo" standard. Ciao bello!
I work as an office cleaner and listen to the radio while I work and DAB has terrible reception due to all the electronics and wifi. I do 9 offices buildings in a 40 mile radius and its the same wherever I go. FM is the only real choice, its pretty much always nice and clear.
That Analogue life.
@@wobblysauce
4qqqqqq
You have to admit.. it is worse with TV signals, just to fit more useless stations in as it is also sending video even some basic cloud cover can make it go bad, old way you lose a bit of detail but can still watch it.
@@wobblysauce in poland terrestrial digital TV rarely has bad reception, regardless of weather really, perhaps these 3 years since your comment really made a difference
@@kreuner11 True tech has changed, but this would be a territorial difference, in Australia.
I did sound engineering at university in the mid 90s and the big selling point for the course was that with hundreds of new digital radio stations just round the corner broadcasting round the clock there was going to be lots more engineers needed. Looks like that hasn't quite come true as they predicted. Probably why I'm now a lorry driver
32 kb/s in a station that's supposed to broadcast music. Well, that's straight suicide. Because of their own greed, they made an excellent format obsolete from the beggining. In a few years, with 5g cellular networks and cheap data, no one will listen to the radio anymore. Such a shame.
Here in Brazil, digital radio is still in teething stage after more than 10 years, simply because digital receivers here cost a fortune. the government saw that, and after analog tv got shut down, they got the frequencies from tv audio transmission and put them all on FM radio. FM radio in Brazil is now from 76 to 108 MHz.
@NightShade theWolf A 64-108 MHz FM band would be awesome, almost double the space. But AM is on decline, because anything from lamps to cars is now a source of interference.
DAB has been switched off in Ireland due mainly to lack of buy-in from the commercial sector.
Also Iceland doesn’t have DAB broadcasts. Only LW and FM.
30 year old vhf radio..3 weeks on 4 c cell.
2016 dab radio..4 days on 4 c cells.
30 year old vhf radio works in mid Wales
2016 dab radio..stuggles with Birmingham...northhampton..wales ..most of Scotland
2009, germany gets new stanrad with DVBT1, 2017, germany gets new standart again with dbvt2, DVBT1 receivers gets useless........ :-(
We, germany try to be one of the best in sustainability... but, no, never... ^^ i could laugh and cry
@@CoockieClassiCKeks Dunno what you're talking about. DVB-T (the original, MPEG2 based standard) has been around since 2003 or so. I bought my first DVB-T receiver in late 2005. The transmissions were shut down in March 2017, to be replaced with the "new" DVB-T2 (MPEG4/h264 based), which is also subscription based with a smartcard, much like paid cable/satellite TV. So much for their old slogan "überallfernsehen" ("everywhereTV") which they coincidentally dropped when DVB-T2 came around... I wonder why /s
@@Knaeckebrotsaege Terrestic analog TV is completley off since 2009, lots of people had to buy new receivers. 2017 the same, you can watch some public channels, but for the rest you have to pay 60€ fo a year.
@@CoockieClassiCKeks Sorry, but who needs Pro7/Sat.1 but especially RTL anymore, I just watch Pro7 Maxx sometimes, because they got NFL and also eSports and oh, RTL II showed Animes the whole afternoon long in the 2000s like DBZ, Detective Conan, Naruto, One Piece etc. and today? Only script../shitted! reality like "Hilf mir", "Family Stories" and other brain-cell burners.
But it could have been nice if they would send unencrypted in SD like on Digital Cable/DVB-C (around 7 years ago you could just recieve them on unencrypted analogue), seems there isn't enough bandwith.
@@kuchenblechmafiagmbh1381 I just had SF1, SF2, ORF1 ORF2 for years as a lived near konstanz. The best TV stations ever! Stey started DVBT1 also to block foreign TV in germany (swiss and austria). i got sattelite TV with 18 or 19.... RTL, Pro7 and all the others are dump (-:
I miss all the indie movies from swiss at night...sometimes with subtitel or english language. Never seen something like this in germany
DAB here in Australia is a flop as well. We fortunately have DAB+. They first started test transmissions here in 2003, and take up has been extremely poor for all the reasons you stated and it is only available in our capitol cities. It never sounded better than FM, so why change ? We still have AM radio stations changing to FM in country areas.
As you highlighted, most cars today don't have DAB recievers, and this is the place you would be most likely to listen to the radio. To listen to DAB in your car, you have to get a converter to re-broadcast it onto FM. How stupid and why would you bother ????? Just listen to good ol' FM in the first place and save on useless extra equipment.
not to mention the output power from the DAB+ transmitters is five eights of fuck all so the signal breaks up all the time as you drive around. the compression artifacts also sound terrible.
Only up side of dab is bugger all ads and other radio stations
Considering the distances in Australia I'm surprised you still don't use only AM radio :)
The main reason for FM changeover was to free up space for mobile phone and digital tv signals...future-proofing the airwaves by removing FM, but the replacement was far inferior - it is the iphone XS of smartphones, a joke!
I use DAB in my car and sounds way better then fm.
I agree wholeheartedly with Techmoan - DAB is a huge disappointment due to too many stations being crammed in, often at 80kbps and in MONO! While mono is acceptable for talk stations, it is simply not right or proper for music, so while stations such as Absolute 90s are a good idea in principle, I will not listen to them because of the wishy-washy mono sound, and with so many better music formats available, DAB are not exactly competing well. My car has DAB radio, but 90% of the time I'm playing my own playlists from USB memory sticks - because quite simply they sound so much better!
So why would these companies in the UK want to focus on getting as many stations as possible into their allocated bandwidth, instead of making sure they were broadcast at a higher quality bit rate like what was suggested in that BBC R&D document?
Your original video inspired me to put away my DAB and use an old Technics amp/receiver from the 80s instead. I can now listen to the local BBC station without them sounding like they are pretending to use a coffee percolator, or not being heard at all (station off air).
Meanwhile, here in Italy Teletext still rocks on.
Same here in Germany, but usually called Videotext/VT. I'm surprised it's still a thing considering how limited it is, but even my 2016 "smart" TV still supports it and almost every TV station still maintains Videotext pages... seems kind of crazy
@@Knaeckebrotsaege I'd forgotten about teletext - that's so seldom mentioned when recalling pre/proto-internet services like usenet. Obviously it's not interactive, it's more like a closed circuit web or something, but it was the 80s equivalent of browsing websites, only much worse of course.
Still, you could always depend on a bit of Bamboozled. Except that one time it was a role playing dungeon crawler type game, that was fascinating to me as a kid.
Hmm there a wiki article on this?
@@MoonlitVibe what's Bamboozled
TELEVIDEO E MEDIAVIDEO 🔥🔥🔥🔥
When the apocalypse hits, 3G/4G and internet are down and we need to know what's going on around us, we'll regret letting local radio die.
Have already experienced something like this when a local power outage took out mobile phone coverage. No internet radio or internet.
I only listen to two things in my work truck (where I spend 5-10 hours a work day), which is streamed music from my phone, or my local talk radio station. Here in Atlanta, GA, we have absolutely no good music stations, but we have one really good talk radio station. They have presenters that really do skirt the boundaries of legality with their honesty, and I am surprised they haven't been shut down yet. They also talk sports, news, local stuff, and they have scripted comedy bits really reminiscent of old time radio dramas- they're just a great time to listen to. The sad part is I really don't see them being around in 5 more years. All of the stations are essentially owned by Cumulus Media (media conglomerate) and they have bought up every small station to turn it into a Top 40's type of crap radio. Radio is a dying industry, so enjoy it while it lasts.
what is the station?
@@carlosmante Talk 106.7
@@Blueshirt38 Thank You Sir.
@@vcolinc Exactly. They buy up every station that is waning in popularity even the slightest amount (because radio execs are spineless penny pinchers that will always sell) and throw them all in a pile of top 40s. I can't tell you how many times I have heard the same exact song playing on two Cumulus stations at the same time.
Looks like Talk 106.7 WYAY-FM in Atlanta is no more.
WYAY Talk 106.7 Atlanta - Final Minutes of Talk 106.7 - "The Kimmer" - May 31 2019
th-cam.com/video/Zge5y4fk_-M/w-d-xo.html
"Originally posted Wednesday, May 8, 2019: On February 13, Educational Media Foundation purchased several Atlanta-based Cumulus Media stations in different markets to install its syndicated Christian pop format K-Love."
www.ajc.com/blog/radiotvtalk/when-talk-106-going-away/iDolqbAKeCf1KcMMflzj4O/
"Originally posted Wednesday, February 13, 2019: Say goodbye to Talk 106.7 as Christian broadcaster buys WYAY-FM"
www.ajc.com/blog/radiotvtalk/say-goodbye-talk-106-christian-broadcaster-buys-wyay/DiFHTAgxVkKUoago962dfO/
Here in Chile we have only one radio station broadcasting in digital format and it's only with a "experimental license", so it can try different approaches (HD Radio, DAB+, etc). FM is quite popular here and I really much doubt it would ever die, since FM and AM radio are the only technologies resilient enough to keep broadcasting even after an 8.8 richter earthquake (yeah, we had local radio stations broadcasting in FM just minutes after the 2010 earthquake)
I often struggle to get DAB reception but FM seems to work almost anywhere
Progressive doesnt always mean good. There is no point in DAB. There was point in switching tv from analogue to digital, but it is pointless on radio...
Same here in Germany 🙁
I don't have any DAB reception at all... Sticking to good old FM stereo with RDS
DAB could be far better. Cramming in far too many radio stations with abysmally low bit rates negates the the reason for DAB
Here in the Netherlands I believe it is much better.
Almost all of the channels are 96kb/s (some even 128). And that is dab+.
If I switch between FM and DAB the difference is quite noticeable, especially when listening with high volume.
In the USA we also had a digital radio disaster of a rollout (around the same time), but ours was IBOC (in-band on-channel) hybrid digital/analog within the existing band. The system did not catch on because it was too proprietary. The technology should’ve been made available free to receiver manufacturers.
FM still takes some beating.
USA had stereo AM broadcast. It was pretty good.
Though audio isn't great, it is really good at other data transmissions like traffic and weather. The fact that it can display alerts and a lot more is actually impressive but unfortunately the audio quality does take a hit. It would be interesting to see an all digital FM station to see if allowing it more bandwidth would help.
Internet and 3G/4G/LTE killed digital radio. AM radio is going to die soon too. The main problem to switch to internet radio is that many stations forces to use its own website to listen.
@@MostlyPennyCat AM is pretty much completely useless if someone anywhere close to you uses those shitty powerline (ethernet over power wires) adapters. They basically turn the power wires in the entire apartment (or worse, entire house) into antennae broadcasting data-diarrhea across a huge spectrum because the whole power wiring setup is unshielded (because why would they be shielded, they're not made for data transmission). There are a few interesting videos about powerline interference here on YT, for example one that shows a powerline adapter one one circuit and the "receiving end" (laptop with the 2nd adapter ; in quotes because both are bidirectional) on another circuit (neighbours house). If the extension cords are anywhere close (couple meters), the interference is strong enough for the 2 powerline adapters to establish a connection *without a direct electrical connection* . If the interference is strong enough for *that* to work, imagine what it does to the radio bands in the vicinity.
And don't get me started on interference from switchmode power supplies (more like noise generators) and the EU banning transformer based linear power supplies...
@@MostlyPennyCat AM is not really obsolete. It's pretty much the only option if you want to span huge distances without involving the internet and everything that requires.
AM Radio is alive and well in the US. Although its mostly talk and Sports radio. Its unsurpassed by the fact that it broadcasts 100 miles in one direction reguarless of terrain. In the west one station can cover half a state.
@NightShade theWolf yeah you Americans from what I have noticed your broadcasts use rather hign bandwidth, I have seen like 15kHz bandwith or so and of course listened to them and damn how good it sounds for AM if you have strong and clean enough signal.
As a teenager i remember tuning in semi-regularly to the 'Birdsong' DAB test channel while working cause it was relaxing as background noise. Was kinda sad when they took it down.
64kbp/s mono?????? Jesus.
Consider that Radio 6 Music is one of these stations. The one called Music.
The state of UK radio is appalling - you'd be much better off becoming a youtuber than a radio host here!
dOES wifi interfere with the signals????
@@kevcatnip7589 Not for me - though it probably depends on which model of radio you're using. I like to think in this era that they'd design it to avoid this.
The BBC's UK only AAC internet streams are great though. They're 320k stereo.
@@fiftyfuckingfeet That is reassuring! Still a bit of a kick in the face to the few people that went out and bought DAB units, but at least we have that.
@@justanotheryoutubechannel oh sure I'd be happy with a higher bitrate at mono if I had that option
I came across loads of broken DAB radios that had blackened burnt circuit boards where the voltage regulators had burnt out (amongst other things) because of the lack of heat sinks.....Early models where particular power hungry and badly designed. as for the sound quality well we all know that story. SIDE NOTE, Never understand why people think that spoken word should be regarded as only being fit for low bit rate mono nothing like listening to plays in glorious stereo via a well set up FM Aeriel and tuner.
*Aerial, we're not talking about the little mermaid here... 👍😛
I can remember when our radio station was playing out 224 kb/s *per channel* MP2 from the automation system. That was in 2002.
HC-AAC isn't terrible if it is encoded correctly. A lot of the problem here in the US with our HD Radio scheme which uses a similar codec, is the lack of good processing that makes the encoder work better and achieve the desired results. Not too many stations take the time to process for the codec. They just process for loudness.
oh ho, im so glad radio is still prominently analog here in the states.
Now if only analog television was still around...
I miss analog television 😢
It's been an ongoing argument of mine since 2006 back when we were giving advice and feedback on Digital Broadcasting in the UK, sadly things have slipped further as the old Quantity > Quality mindset remained, to the point where we even have SD TV Channels broadcasting at below 2Mb/s MPEG-2 at 544x504 resolution.
Not to mention that there's loads of free to air channels that are available in HD, but those HD versions are not free to air but rather a part of Pay TV.
I quit dab years back because It was rubbish . Every six months the channel list would change . Now use Internet radio for ages . Better choice better quality
My DAB radio is one of my worst, most useless purchases of the last 15 years, Only useful for talk radio stations.
That's better than mine.. DAB constantly blibs out, not even useful for talk radio.
We have DAB+ here in Australia, too... I remember for my birthday back a long time ago, I was actually excited for the idea of digital radio, and managed to get a digital radio for my birthday... Several years later and it turns out I pretty much never listen to it. Fortunately, at least for now, FM/AM radio is still widely available and IMO, you're not really missing out on much with the additional digital stations.
As an amateur radio license holder, I and my fellow colleagues referred to DAB, as dead and buried, especially in the UK DAB plus is much better in Europe and as you said they have adhered to the new standard and switched off FM I don’t think we will ever get to that stage because we have a weekoff come
RTE, the Irish public broadcaster, ceased DAB March 31. In Norway, the government turned off FM last year. Only DAB there.
3:58
Lol, who would listen to jazz in 64 kbps mono in the 21st century?
Actually the opus codec can have a really good quality at 64kbps, problem is that DAB doesn't use the opus codec.
And since people usually prefer inferior proprietary crap over technically superior and patent-free software I don't see opus being used for digital radio anytime soon.
Jazz FM moved to DAB+ and is now 32kbps stereo. Sounds good imo, probably as DAB+ uses HE AAC v2 and has robust error correction.
Haha! It's MP2 for god's sake at 64kbps in mono! That's appalling!
A few people requested that I post this segment as as a stand-alone video, it was originally part of this Hi-Fi review: th-cam.com/video/UaIFy4uvyfA/w-d-xo.html
*It hasn’t been put in the subscriber feed as subscribers have already seen it.* This separate upload is for anyone who otherwise wouldn’t see this buried in the middle of a Hi-Fi review.
Feels hollow to like a video that is full of such dreary news and outlook.
But as with all things Techmoan, it was beautifully crafted, and deserving of praise.
Well, this is a long moan about tech, you can't say you weren't warned ;)
It's a good thing it never really caught on in Canada because FM sounds perfectly fine here. We transmit as FM-HD, which is receivable on a lot of normal equipment (despite the press releases saying it needs a "special radio" set) and sounds great. It's not in every region, but in my own (Vancouver etc) it's popular. Rock 101 is a good example of a station that uses it. Let me tell you when I say you can hear the difference, even if you didn't pick up one of their fancy sets to receive it. It's automatic and most radios can tune to it regardless. It uses a type of AAC+ too.
I do a lot of driving for my job in Toronto. In the car 3-4 hours a day easy.
I usually listen to AM640 on FM-HD 95.3 channel 2. Even under street car wires the signal doesnt drop out. The difference between listening to the station on FM-HD and AM is night & day but only slightly better than FM as far as I can tell. I get a signal wherever I am in the city and don't have to pay for Sirius/XM for their mediocre content
I think they learned their lesson after the digital TV switch. The larger areas to cover in north America doesn't work well with digital signals. The radio stations would have to change their equipment (most of them still uses vacuum tube transmitters from 40-50 years ago) to reach a smaller market.
Here in North America there's this thing called "HD Radio" which is digital radio. I tried it, but I instantly hated it. There's waaaay too much treble on lots of stations and very uncomfortable to hear.
My initials are DAB... Now I know why no one likes me.
I quite agree, DAB is inferior so rely on fm for the car, and internet radio ( including local stations) at home.
corporate nonsense, FM radio stations were and are still the most versatile form of communication out there, Edwin made the better mousetrap.
@Alan Smithee While I don't agree with the podcast statement, here's what I think is the reason radio is dying, looking aside from how it's transmitted now, mind you.
Other than news and actual scheduled programs/show, what is the rest of radio usually made up of? That's right, music. And what's the "music" on the charts and on the radio, like today, in general? That's right, utter crap, basically. And the only people that likes that music is of that generation, meaning a younger crowd, that unfortunately has created this change, but actually don't have the power to support it, financially.
Meaning that they are influencers, and basically the creators of this new world we're in, but they don't have the money or actually care about music enough to make any sort of impact on the situation. They just started consuming it, and the market took that as that's what the rest of us wanted in music, which is obviously not correct.
The problem lies with the marketplace too, for not exercising any form of critical judgement, or discernment if this is good quality music or not. And since we as a species moved out of our hearts, and into our wallets back in the mid to late 80's, money talks, and bullshit walks. I'm generalizing greatly here, of course, but it's mostly a correct description.
Meaning it doesn't matter if it IS any good, it's just gotta sell, and/or help bring in more advertising/advertisers. And don't get me started on the whole money thing, geez, that's a book and a half, lol. But suffice to say, I think E.G. White may have been right in calling her book "Towards the climax of history", that's the translation to english from my language, anyway. Not talking about her views per se, just the meaning of that title, in my opinion. You know, kinda like "What is the climax of history?"
And in my opinion, it's what we're seeing happening in the world right now. We're moving forward technologically speaking, but the quality of everything is decreasing, The Orwellian 1984 is no longer just a fiction book, unemployment is at insane levels, and we're more depressed than ever? Don't tell me that that's a world doing well.
And that's my whole point. We've lost something along the way, and now we can't make it right again. So I predict it's gonna keep deteriorating, until it implodes on itself, or someone decides to make a REAL change for the better, not just fancy words, in an election year. 👍😉
Like AM to FM, reason for the push for DAB is copyright. They don't want people who don't pay to listen to exclusive radio. We used to listen to AM from anywhere you wanted.
“Absolute C Rock” haha
At the end, Analogue always wins 🤙🏻
Not true. I don't see anyone looking wistfully at VHS.
SOMETIMES..... analog is clunky and expensive for things like recording video or music. It takes hundreds or thousands of dollars of reel to reel tape equipment just to get the same sound quality as a 24bit 192Khz XLR interface for around or under $100 USD. On the other hand, digital to analog conversion for live consumption over is relatively cheap and easy.... because it has to be converted to analog at some point in the sound chain for us to be able to hear it anyway. Much cheaper overall just to have one large broadcast tower do the conversion and have a bunch of bone simple (and dirt cheap) analog only devices tuned in to listen.
@@leopold7562 VHS is only awful because of cost contstraints. But that's the thing with analog... as quality goes up, price of media and equipment increases exponentially. Film has theoretically infinite resolution and large film stock like Imax contains more detail than a Blu Ray could ever hope to....... but who wants to pay for a massive Imax projector and transfer reel just to show an image on the living room wall?
@@marcuscook5145 You do realise you’ve proved my point, right?
Update:
Our local radio station, Connect FM, has now closed down and has been taken over by - you guessed it - Smooth FM! Which was already available in our area on AM radio.
So we now have no local FM stations; all of the stations are either semi-national (e.g. Heart, Smooth etc) or national (such as Radio 1/2/3/4).
I also don't know why Radio 3 has to have the lion's share of the DAB spectrum, considering that stations such as Radio 1, 2 and 6 Music outperform Radio 3 in terms of listening figures.
You should make a video about brickwalling and clipping
This confirms my doubt about my home DAB+ radio. I thought "Oh, this should be awesome quality, but why it feels not so good and why the display says 64 kbps?"
I'm a huge radio fan, but I still listen to FM radio because the quality is very good and DAB reception is very poor (even it has many stations available). That's sad because I remember (as said in this video) car stereo brochures advertising DAB radio since the last 90's. There was a time some 10/15 years ago I thought DAB was dismissed standard like DCC or Laserdisc.
theskig DAB is a failed project as far as I can tell. When I cannot receive even the local stations with an 8m high excellent discone antenna while receiving an excellent signal for FM on the same antenna, then it is clear for me that I should not waste any time on DAB. I am living in Eindhoven where DAB reception should be good, but it isn’t! Another con project!
Have a DAB / Fm tuner on the hifi the FM is much better and clearer sound than DAB , I like the choice on DAB but that’s as far as it goes , DAB is hopeless in low signal areas too.
Still a huge radio fan here. As a ham too, it's fun keeping up with the latest tech. It's alive and well, and surrounds us every second of the day. There's still something nice about tuning in to a local analog FM station that makes me happy. The syndicated crap has ruined the local flavor and culture that radio can provide. I grabbed one of those RTL-SDR USB radio dongles with a pair of rabbit ear aerials and I love it. Whether I'm listening to the local fire department/EMS, getting images from weather satellites, or one of the few local music stations out there, it's still a blast and a great learning experience.
Out of curiosity, what RTL-SDR USB stick thingy do you use? I've bought a Terratec DVB-T stick based around an elonics E4000 tuner several years ago and while it works and is cool to mess around with, the results aren't that great...
@@Knaeckebrotsaege I'm currently using the regular ol' grey RTL-SDR with the Realtek RTL2832U chipset. Mind you I haven't used it for any DTV stuff, as this dongle isn't compatible with the USA's ATSC standard. I hear that it's supposed to work with other DTV services from other countries with the right decoding software. I think it all comes down to the antenna as far as your results are concerned. I'm using a pair of bunny ears that is mounted to my window outside of the house. It works great for regular analog radio, local Fire/EMS monitoring, and even receiving SSTV images from the International Space Station. Results can vary quite a bit depending on the style of antenna and placement. Sometimes it's even worth building your own antenna :-) I'd be curious to hear how you make out!
@@MarkyShaw Yeah that sounds like a common-as-dirt DVB-T (the currently-being-phased-out European equivalent to ATSC) stick, just branded differently to target the RTL-SDR folks rather than average joe wanting to watch TV. They all use the RTL2832U main chip and a tuner chip after it, the latter being what determines what frequency bands it can tune in on (as with all things, some tuner chips are better than others). The most common ones now are the Rafael Micro R820T and R820T2, with the older Elonics E4000 being sought after and demanding a price premium (since Elonics doesn't exist anymore). My antenna setup really isn't great, but there isn't much that I can do in terms of positioning since I live in an apartment block. Going to keep experimenting with it though, especially considering I apparently have one of the better tuner ICs for higher frequencies. I probably have to get another stick with the R820T(2) tuner to tap into the (comparatively) really low frequencies (down to about 10MHz). As for the tuners, I found this list here (let's hope YT doesn't butcher the formatting):
RTL-SDR Tuner Type - Frequency Range
---
Elonics E4000 (E4K): 54 - 2200MHz (gap at 1100MHz - 1250MHz)
Rafael Micro R820T: 24 - 1766MHz (deaf above 1500 MHz and needs tuner cooling)
Rafael Micro R820T2: 24 - 1766MHz (deaf above 1500 MHz and needs tuner cooling)
Rafael Micro R820T2: 13 - 1864MHz (mutability's driver ; deaf above 1500MHz ; 9MHz AM radio just about possible)
Fitipower FC0013: 22 - 1100MHz (FC0013B/C, FC0013G has separate L band input)
Fitipower FC0012: 22 - 948 MHz
FCI FC2580: 146 - 308 MHz and 438 - 924MHz
edit: also.... damn you for that Deskpro 386S. That was the 2nd PC I ever owned, after a Commodore PC30 III (286-12) that somehow failed and didn't boot anymore.
@@Knaeckebrotsaege Haha!!! I loved that damn Compaq. I think our family had one of those crappy Word Processors for a while before I finally got this Compaq from a friend of mine. It was definitely my introduction to the world of computing.
That's an awesome breakdown by the way of all the different RTL chipsets. I'm definitely curious to get some other ones that might be more suitable for other frequencies. I'd LOVE to be able to monitor HF frequencies and I'm still rather fond of the CB AM stations in the 27 MHz area. I tried hooking up my CB antenna to the SDR, but it didn't work. Folks say to use a HamItUp Converter. Meh!! Ain't got time for that.
Either way, it's good to know there is so many options out there. It does make things difficult when there's not a lot of room for an antenna. Although living in an apartment, I can only assume that you're in an urban area that would hopefully be in line of sight of some of those DTV services :-)
Best of luck my friend!
@@MarkyShaw Here in Germany, DVB-T has already been shut down in early 2017, DAB radio in 2011 and the only other "normal" thing these sticks could receive would be FM Radio, for which I'd rather use a proper radio than a USB stick ;)
Newer sticks could also receive the now current DVB-T2 standard, but since that's DRM-infested and based on a subscription model (only 2 or 3 state-run stations can be received without a monthly subscription), the concept of free over-the-air TV is basically dead now. It's kind of scary actually. The whole situation went from free over-the-air analog TV to DVB-T in the early 2000s (introducing a blocky picture from the low MPEG2 bitrates used, or no picture at all when your reception wasn't top notch) and then to DVB-T2 in 2015/2016 (which introduced the subscription model and various forms of DRM not possible with the earlier standard).
If the same thing happens to radio some day, things are going to be very grim. Thankfully DAB has failed completely in replacing analog FM (near zero market interest), and the "better" DAB+ standard which replaced it in 2011 has an abysmal coverage of 11% of Germany as of 2018 (compared to FM's 96%). Still... I don't even want to think about what a successor to DAB+ might add in terms of DRM and pay-to-listen crap should it ever get popular, analog (hah) to the OTA DTV disaster...
PS: My Deskpro 386s was with me through most of my early teens. Got it as a hand me down also, and with 6MB RAM (2MB + a Kingston 2+2MB extension board IIRC), a 3.5 and 5.25" floppy (with those cool dual-color LEDs) and a 130MB Conner (?) HDD. Interestingly enough mine didn't have a Paradise VGA card on the mainboard, just the connectors to plug a module with it in. Later versions of the mainboard apparently had it directly on the board without a connector. Instead I used a (also hand me down) ATI EGA Wonder 800+ and a tiny little 12" Samtron EGA monitor. I still have both of those, but the Deskpro no longer exists (got stolen from our apartment block basement during a flood from a broken pipe outside while we had the doors open to get things to air out). I'm still bummed out about it and haven't been able to find this exact model (the one you have) anywhere in the 15 years since mine got stolen :( Well there was one on ebay Germany at one point, but 200eur (about 230usd) + shipping seemed way too steep for what it is. I'm still thinking about if I should've just bought it...
FM is still the way for me. My favourite local radio station is on FM as well as DAB. My car is 2004 so only has FM but my work van has DAB and FM. FM is far superior in terms of sound quality and a lot of modern radios come equipped with RDS which provides similar info to DAB. If listening to Talksport then definitely it has to be DAB over AM. But if listening to Wave 105 here on the south coast or BBC Radio 2 or even Radio 4 then FM is still my personal choice. Better coverage and superior sound.
A couple of years ago I went to an amateur radio exhibition. A proportion of the display focused on redundant ( or historical, depending on your perspective) technology. Amongst the display that included CW (Morse code) only transmitters/receivers, AM valve sets and even a crystal set. A relatively modern DAB receiver was on display. It wasn't so much that it was "old " tech' but that it was redundant due to the cellular 'phone network and public access Wi-Fi growing so much faster than DAB radio. This enabled the market to access the same or even better quality broadcasts without the physical and financial incumbency of yet another bit of hardware.
In Australia we got DAB + and I'm presuming it is a fairly high bit rate as the audio is superior to FM stereo broadcasts. The problem, as I see it, is that digital radio was never promoted well enough and that consumers were not incentivised to adopt the technology before the competition ('phone companies and ISP's) beat digital radio at its own game. As noted in the video, the other major problem is the amount of power these devices consume. They are really only to be considered mains powered or 13.8v automotive devices. My Phillips unit is not rechargeable and only runs for a few hours on quality alkaline batteries. You only make that mistake once.
It's a shame really because the technology's good but like TV, in Australia at least, the roll out has been terrible and the market has moved forward.
I have to say that my favorite radio device is a DAB+. At the current location and with the current antenna, it sounds better than FM to me. FM is a bit noisy in my current setup.
Never even heard of DAB to be honest. Still get great AM coverage and FM wherever i am in Scotland
Scotland is the land DAB forgot only England matters to the advertises! Wales isn't much better mostly around the cost no coverage in the Brecon Becons and only one FM station! A much better System for Rural Britain is DRM30 and DRM+ For small towns DRM30 uses AM Radio to provide upto 3 FM Quality stations per frequency! DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale)
As you have probably mentioned at some time, the Fraunhofer version of MP3 that most uses today, is meant for talk, not music.
Some bugger I know, being a vivid advocate for MP3, asked my if I could give him a good example where MP3 failed.
I could:
Listen to a girl choir singing.
Use a good FM station, use a 24bit CD or use an old vinyl on a good player with a good pick-up and compare it with the best MP3 available.
On even the best MP3 codex, you can not distinguish the individual voices, - it is one mess of voices due to how the MP3 compression works.
Having used a substantial part of my life as an electronic engineer in the audio business listening to high volume music, I have lost some of my hearing and uses hearing aids to day, - the treble part has gone.
Still I can hear the difference clearly.
----
It seems like quantity has won over quality.
My fear is that people in the future will not be able to understand live music, because the have heard it all in a low quality from low quality transmissions and low quality receivers, - airborne or internet.
Further, I fear that the in-ear headsets will cause many more casualties like I in the near future. People with in-ear plugs tends to turn up the volume to compensate for the bass experience they have in the body when attending a concert.
I've been there in my youth, some 25 year ago.
---
Everybody that cares to listen, know that, but is seems like advertising and big companies turnover is more important that the health of youth.
--
No, - I'm not 'red' or left wing. I'm running my electronic development business behind the public interest.
I'm a sound fanatic with a hearing problem and that is buggers.
Regards from Denmark
I am a live sound engineer, and feel the same way.
Digital has killed everything good and fun about music. Except for portability. But who really needs to carry a terabyte of mediocre sound?
We still use analog mixers, equalizers, and amps- much to the amazement of others.
Them: 'What kind of compression do you use?'
Us: 'None. We don't use that crap.'
We can discuss analog vs. digital till we die.
They both have their advantages and disadvantages.
I've been an electronic designer since 1978 and met all the problems in both analog and digital design.
A really good, true 24 bit system will satisfy most people.
--
When talking digital in the audio world, using compression can be divided into two parts:
Linear compression and algorithmic compression.
- Linear compression do not remove information.
Decompression restores al the original data.
- Algorithmic compression, like MP3 in the audio world and PDF in the picture world discard data.
All these algorithms are based on cheating our brain, - like 24/25 pictures / second in old movie films.
Unfortunately, some brains (like your and mine) do not accept to be cheated.
-
If the analog to digital conversion can be accepted, no noise or distortion will be added to the data (sound) after conversion, unless you use algorithms.
If you use algorithmic compression or just a digital equalizer, it will introduce loss of data.
--
When talking analog in the audio world, noise and distortion are the two main culprits to fight.
This fight is never ending and vinyl is the worst.
-
Some people love amplifiers based on radio tubes.
The explanation is simple. By design, radio tubes have a considerable 2nd harmonic distortion.
The human brain perceive even harmonics as soft and gentle, while uneven harmonics are perceived as hard and discomforting.
As with MP3, the brain 'listens' (to some degree) to the most dominant sound/frequencies.
If the even harmonics are more dominant than the uneven, the even win.
Thus, a lousy music source with lot of uneven harmonic distortion can be translated into at soft and nice sound by adding some 2nd harmonic distortion.
--
Yes, portable devices and internet carried entertainment control the development.
A 40 minute long CD recorded in 24 bit at normal sampling rate (44.200 samples/s, as I remember) would require ~20GB of memory if not compressed.
--
I hope the above make some sense :-)
Regards from Denmark
I couldn’t have explained the workings of DAB any better. They’re cramming too many stations in, but at the same time it costs a lot to deploy a DAB network.
Dab in Australia has good coverage and sounds great depending on the broadcaster (government and community dab sounds great). We have a community dance music station at 48kbps and it's sounds brilliant.
It only lacks signal strength in the bush and in shopping centres
Edit: AM stations on dab sound amazing, having cruise/gold on digital is a godsend, plus you get Ray Hadley's in full stereo bliss 🤮
If the BBC launched DAB services in 1995, who had the equipment to receive them? I don't remember hearing anything at all about it back then , and I was an avid radio listener at the time
I have two DAB radios. One is permanently tuned to Radio 4 (for the Archers) and the other to Radio 5 Live (for sports commentaries). The sound quality on both channels is perfectly acceptable.
If the crappy state of DAB is killing inane local radio, that's the one huge positive.
Until I saw this I had thought it was just me. Dab radios are expensive, power hungry, don't give better sound quality than fm, and in the last three houses I have lived in, didn't get a signal. It really shouldn't have been like this.
I've had DAB radios for several years but use FM in preference even for speech. As for local radio I have never listened to it.
The 2 or 3 times I've came across DAB radio in the wild it's never been able to find any stations, it always just ends up being an expensive FM
In Poland (at least where I live) the DAB+ stations use mostly 64kbps, but some go to around 116kbps. And most are mono 64kbps, even the ones with music. The sound quality does indeed sound a bit like listening to music through a landline telephone, but I'm glad to find out it isn't the absolute rock bottom. The coverage kinda stinks, and trying to get it to receive without breaking up feels like setting up a TV aerial more than a normal radio. The same radio receiver picks up about 40 FM stations with ease, and they sound a lot better. I think that the lack of coverage and stations, and most stations being mono is the result of people not having DAB+ radios, and is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. People who can actually be bothered to find out what DAB+ radio is like pick up a cheapest mono (hence no need for stereo or quality) DAB+ radio only to have it not receive anything or to have poor results if it does. Then they advise others against it, and the digital radio struggles to exist at all. Plus some people may have been permanently offended because of buying a not "+" DAB radio only to see the standard gotten rid of a few years later, and their expensive radio just rattles around the drawer somewhere. The whole appeal of analog radio to me is that it needs very little hardware to achieve reasonably good results, and therefore it is great for poor people or in emergency situations, picks some stations almost anywhere, and remains a fixed (or at least backwards-compatible both receiver and transmitter-wise) standard literally for decades. You can still use your grandmother's old radio after some level of maintenance, despite of it probably being old enough to have legally gone on paid retirement if it were a person. Which is why I hope that analog radio doesn't get replaced with digital anytime soon.
A good example proving a old tech(FM) is greater than new tech: as it does not add any value to user, only increase cost for every one (manufacturing, broadcasting, users,..)
I completely agree with this video. I've used DAB for years, and because the sound quality is getting lower all the time. If they want people to switch over they need to improve the sound quality to at least match FM radio. I'm all for a wider choise of stations, but you can't put that as more important than sound quality.
Wait, so _the very reason_ why you've used DAB for years is because the sound quality is getting lower? Am I getting that right?
@@Connie_TinuityError no, I'm just saying that DAB sound is getting worse. In the early days of DAB the sound was great, but more stations are being added and the sound quality is getting worse.
Wow... I remember when I made my own video-CDs, with MP2 sound. That codec was really, really inefficient compared to more modern ones, it barely sounded ok at 192 kbps/stereo, it must sound godawful at 64 kbps/mono.
By the way, aside from the fact that maybe they simply want to cram as many stations as possible within the smallest spectrum, maybe it's also possible that the record companies would not be too happy to allow radio stations to emit digital music with acceptable quality for free over the air?
I don't think it's a problem. Who's recording radio broadcast in these days? (I mean, exept for Techmoan :))
So, by that thinking, the BBC and a few others would only get the crappest songs to play, given they have the lion's share of the dab bandwidth and transmit at 128kps?
I'm glad found this, I kept retuning, adjusting the aerial... Kept getting terrible sound and lots of static... Good thing my radio also does Internet radio!
In the Netherlands we have DAB +.
Most channels are in AAC+ 96 kbps and real music channels such as the classical music channel work with 128 kbps.
The quality is pretty good and the reception is fine but it does not make it to internet radio that often works with 320 kbps.
3 years later and nothings changed. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Why would these companies in the UK want to focus on getting as many stations as possible into their allocated bandwidth, instead of making sure they were broadcast at a higher quality bit rate like what was suggested in that BBC R&D document?
Its quantity over quality. People want more choice. Therefore, the quality must be reduced to meet the demand. You only have to look at Freeview, as another example. Low resolution and bitrate!
I'm only 60km from the city (Melbourne Australia) and I cant even pick up the stations
There must be hundreds of millions of perfectly good FM 88-108 radios in the UK alone, they are relatively very cheap to buy, they work with less RF signal than DAB technology, they run for years on batteries , thus less cost to run and so 'environmentally friendly' . My experience of using different forms of digital radio reception has informed me, that they are all less efficient in terms of receiving information, whether voice or data than 'old fashioned' analogue technology, which is well tried and tested, it works and provides much better quality reproduction.
The only reason we (in UK) are being forced to dump our millions of perfectly good FM radios is to release radio spectrum for sale to the highest bidder by Ofcom and not to provide the public with a better service or reduce costs. DAB radio is a backward step for all the above reasons and the only way it can be stopped is for us all to continue to use analogue FM and not to buy DAB radios and loads of batteries. Where are all the FM radios going to end up when they have nothing to receive?
You will be tempted to buy DAB by artificial low prices and 'special deals' and as soon as the FM service is switched off, guess what will happen ?
In prepare to completely switching to DAB+ , the termination of broadcasting of several FM stations in Germany has already been planned. But that was canceled shortly before got its time limit in 2018. 70% still listen FM radio while excellent DAB+ is used by about 7%. I think main reason for that is because they made unneccessarily DAB+ gadgets more expensive and FM radio still has good sound quality and many stations.
The latest & greatest Vorbis codec (opus/ogg) is better than AAC in almost every respect. It's free too (unlike AAC). DAB using MP2 is bad enough, using it at bit-rates of 80kbs is taking the piss.
.ogg isn't superior to aac+
Since January 2020 in Italy is forb8dden to sell car radios which do not have DAB+ tuner. The quality is always bad. From 32 to 128kb/s. Usually in stereo. Signal is terrible. Very unconsistent and going on and off all the time.
Same thing happened here in North America but it was for TV, yes it looked better than analog but we lost half the stations because transmission distance was reduced
The transmission power of many locations in UK is so low that it is almost not useful. Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden have moved to DAB+ and shut down their DAB.
Germany has also shut down DVB-T and replaced it with the "more advanced" DVB-T2 ... and threw some DRM in the form of subscriptions with smartcards into the mix while they were at it. No more free over-the-air TV here :(
The funny thing is, despite the fact all the commercial multiplexes sound awful, it almost doesn't matter to me since I predominently listen to BBC DAB stations anyway, the only FM I listen to is Radio Jackie! The BBC DAB multiplex is very high quality, although it would be nice if they switched to DAB+ keeping the same high bitrates
In Argentina we don't know what is DAB. I hope it continues like this LOL...
DAB is the European standard for digital radio. And considering that digital television is still in its infancy in most Latin American countries, you can be sure FM radio won't be gone anytime soon.
@SergioMartelli And for long distances AM radio is a good choice. I remember truck drivers some years ago here in Italy only using AM radio because you can drive from Milano to Napoli without changing frequency. Bella Sergio!
The Falklands are British
@@ant2312 So what, are you trying to start that war, all over again? Cos I remember the images on the TV as a very young child, and that was not good, to say the least. Scarred me for life, and I'd rather be right next to a nuclear bomb going off, than seeing the horrors of conventional war. But it's all bad, conventional war, as well as nuclear. So, what are you getting at, huh? Get outta here with that shit...
Many people in the comments are saying X sounds fine at 32kbps, 64 kbps, etc. but why should anyone accept what is trying to be a replacement to FM, that isn't *at* *least* as good quality as FM? For stereo stations, we should be expecting a bare *minimum* of 192kbps MP2, or 64kbps HE-AAC v2 (three times as efficient), and practically no stations meet this in the UK.
The technology is not fit to replace FM, which means it serves no purpose. If you want high quality but can't use FM, internet radio is typically at a much more acceptable quality. See here www.astra2sat.com/radio/uk-digital-radio-bitrates/.
@Techmoan, Can you reacting the DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) receiver on MW and SW if that sound quality of DRM was good or bad? Thanks
Here's in the Philippines, It chooses and it adapts the HD Radio (Hybrid Digital Radio) from the U.S. as "Digital Radio of the Philippines" back in 2007 til now.
HD RADIO in the Philippines also used on in Metro Manila’s 98.7 DZFE (Classical radio station of Fae East Broadcasting Company Phils.) and 98.7 HD2 for 702 DZAS AM simulcast. DWRK-FM 96.3 Easy Rock Manila as it’s subchannels: Radyo Natin Manila 96.3 HD2 and DZRH Nationwide 96.3 HD3 simulcast from 666 AM Manila.
The garbling sound when DAB loses signal is stunningly annoying. FM white noise fuzzy sound if off signal = much more bearable.
That, and that you can greatly improve bad FM reception by switching from stereo to mono alone. DAB? You either have good enough signal or you don't get anything usable out of it. Same for DVB-T and T2 vs. analogue over-the-air TV ... Instead of a bit of static in a still watchable picture, you get nothing if the reception isn't great. Gotta love the garbage they're trying to sell us as "improvements" ...
@@Knaeckebrotsaege mmm...it's the same with freeview- good signal or stuttering signal. I play the guitar then.
Same for Malta, there's public announcements saying there's going to be a full changeover to DAB+ by 2020/2022 and encourages new car buyers to check their car will come with it. Unless the advantages are glaringly obvious, I'm not really going to bother
One of the few places the US has Europe beat in terms of tech infrastructure! HD radio has good coverage, always sounds noticeably better than the corresponding FM, and has come standard in most cars for years now
I'm really stunned, 64 kbps is laughable, and mono!!
64kbps mono is higher quality than 64kbps stereo... but still quite bad of course
64kbps MP2 ! probably like 40kbps mp3 by comparison!
@@rkan2 I've recently messed about with low bit rate stuff (to try and cram an MP3 player with as much as I can) and there's a significant difference between 56kbps MP2 (used by some stations) and 56kbps MP3 (both downgraded to mono). The difference between 56kbps MP3 mono and 192kbps MP3 stereo is night and day.
So yes, DAB sounds woefully inadequate!
Dab launched in the netherlands a few years ago, damn does it suck. I need to fanaggle the antenna for 5 hours to get any dutch channels. But ofcourse i can recieve german channels more than 60k km away from me just fine. And then switching to fm i get clear audio immediately
Aside from the signal transmission, there's another huge issue with radio. They're designed to be heard everywhere on every kind of device. Shopping malls, workshops, vehicles and most of these places use mediocre quality speakers that often can't reproduce the audible frequency range very well in an already noisy environment. So to combat these factors they compress the living hell out of the signal. I think often they use even more complex processing like equalization to emphasize vocals. I think radio can definitely sound clean but not good.
IDK that DAB had DAB+ as in upgraded.
It always amazes me how there is always a lack of forethought to updating hardware capability and make a DAB radio that you can have updated through the radio station you listen to and next time you switch on, your radio is then able to use the new codecs or features.
That is how you would justify the high prices that DAB demands.
I was lucky, I got mine for £12.95 as it had the power supply missing. It would normally be about the £60 as its DAB/DAB+/FM and RDS, portable radio that takes 6 AA cells that do last a very long time compared to my previous DAB that decided to eat itself one day and went all disco light on me with the display flashing on and off.
Shouldn't DAB ailments be avoided by quality standards, like mandating that music station broadcast with 96kbps+ and that mostly spoken content radio be for less, say 48~64kbps? Less than these bit rates are for DRM and are justifiable for its particular purpose of replacing SW's unlistenable sound and very far reception.
Why can't they use open source OPUS? It's amazing for voice as low as 16kbps mono and very good for music at 32kbps stereo and no royalties.
Because Opus is a codec that DAB radios don't support
Theoretically you could make a DAB++ with Opus support, but it wouldn't be backwards compatible
@@rebane2001 Same applies to DAB+, though. It's not backwards-compatible with DAB-only receivers.
It'll never happen. No one is going to buy another broadcast digital audio receiver. Everyone has phones, and they listen there. Maybe there's room for an OPUS only version of something like TuneIn?
Because all of the hardware would need to be changed out to support it.
The CODEC in DAB is in a chip - if it's MP2 that's all you will ever be able to hear, even though MP3 chips are cheap as chips these days.
That's really the achilles heel of digital radio - until some smart guy invents pluggable codec sub-boards that allow field upgrades....
3:52 - 64 KBit/s mono equals to 128 KBit/s stereo (duh). So the "crappy" part is basically just from the mixdown (stereo > mono) but not the bitrate itself. Also, a 60s radio station in mono is absolutely logical as many records were mono anways, and a vinyl does not have a high sample rate.
It seems to be doing pretty good in the US. HD Radio receivers have been standard in most cars for like 10 years
Could you make a video about Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)? There are some transmissions aimed specifically at Europe that do make it across to the UK via skywave propagation and provided reception and transmission parameters are right, and directional / omnidirectional antennas are used with good tx power, it can sound good.
Wow, I didn't know digital radio was actually that bad in regards to audio quality. I mainly listen to Magic, Smooth, Absolute 80s and Heart and going into rural locations a fair bit during traveling it drops out so normally listen via an app on my iphone but always noticed a bump in quality so much so I don't even bother with DAB anymore - now you've proved why!
Why the hell they are promoting DAB over traditional FM, MW, and LW which are still quite good.
Clear MP3 quality sound, multiple subchannels on single digital DAB frequencies, etc..
I work for a small Radiostation in south Germany. We couldn’t broadcast without dab+ because we are a private station and can’t pay for FM frequencies. The licence for dab+ costs us about a half million euro per year... Think about what we be to pay for if we would use FM in whole Germany.
In our broadcast van we ve a DAB radio to listen to what we are broadcast during live show and it’s not that bad as some people say. For me as an radiotechnician, it’s no high end sound, but acceptable. (Signal Route: Console>Uplink>Satellite>Groundstation>DAB Network>Our Radio in the Van> Console> InEarPhones>My Ear)
Live in Russia. Analog FM-radio more than alive. But AM-radio they strangled (full depreciation of equipment and economic inexpediency), it remained 3 AM-stations (if a about MW speak). Digital radio plan to launch in 2019 as test.
I dread when they do one of those Radio 2 'pop up' stations for a weekend, robbing bandwidth from 6 Music and thus making it almost unlistenable on DAB!
Here in Finland we had DAB test network between 1997 and 2005 after it was closed. At the moment all radio stations use FM. MP2 is used in DVB-T SD channels and it's good at 224 kbps.
You still have DVB-T up there? DVB-T was shut down here in Germany in early 2017, replaced with DVB-T2 (MP4/h264 codec) which only works on a subscription basis with smartcards (no more free over-the-air TV, except for 2 1/2 state-run stations) and therefore it's pretty much completely useless.
Yes. Atm DVD-T is planned to shutdown in 2020 but might be delayed. We have three DVD-T2 multiplexes in VHFIII. Five free channels and 12 pay-TV channels. In UHF we have two DVB-T2 multiplexes and all 33 channels are pay-TV. Not all channels are broadcasting simultaneosly. We have three DVD-T multiplexes with 19 free channels. All DVB-T2 multiplexes in VHF are HD and use MPEG-4. Some DVB-T2 channels in UHF are HD and some SD and use MPEG-4. All DVB-T multiplexes are SD and use MPEG-2.
I live in an odd older house in an odd part of the UK. Can't get an FM signal in the kitchen, but get a strong DAB one. So we use a DAB radio there, but I ve been noticing a slow decline in the numvber of DAB stations and the sound quality of the remaining ones.
DAB - the answer to a question that no one asked.
Digital Radio is dumb if they uses to decrease audio quality while FM has the full quality.
Hey @Techmoan
Long time listener / viewer of your channel.
As someone from Australia, where we DO have AAC+ dab radio, it honestly has pretty poor reception, at least here in Sydney.
The only reliable way to get a good signal is to have a static player (eg in your house) and preferably connected to your UHF antenna on the roof of your property. It sounds amazing if you follow those steps but it's a basket case in a car.
FM and even AM radio are very strong for signal here, and they aren't going anywhere. Dab can't replace FM or AM unless it has as good or better reception
...it doesn't.
Channels come and go on the dab+ bandwidth and get rebranded frequently as they have limited appeal.
In Australia, the best way to listen to digital radio is via 4G cellular internet when on the go (in the car for eg) and via home wifi if at home. Mobile data allowances have ballooned in recent years, so the idea of DAB is rather redundant here anyway.
The aac+ codec is used for Australian radio streaming so it sounds as good as the transmitted broadcasts, as it's the same codec and bitrates, generally.
Additionally, our regional radio stations are facing similar fates. I actually worked in regional radio for a time, and it was when media companies started to homogenise and rebrand acquired networks to match branding in the big cities (Triple M and the Hit Network, are the two main players).
While many of these have kept local announcers, it's surely only a matter of time before most of these announcers and local content pieces are completely removed from the landscape of Australian radio.
It's quite an upsetting outlook, but one that is somewhat expected.
Keep up the fantastic work!