A story reported by the BBC News Website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7238768.stm 

Being obsessed with 'retro' technology, I will be raising a glass of good whisky to this news

Very sad to see that Planet Rock is going off the air. Just hope it is still available via the internet. As it is one of my favourite stations.

 

 

Craig

Heard this today and pondered on it too...

I think the huge lack of the Automotive Industry not embracing DAB has had a huge impact. Most people listen to radio in their cars for the main...

Lee 

Well, try listening to DAB in a moving vehicle and you'll understand why. The technology was inferior from the beginning, and was implemented below its potential for true sound. The new DVB-H standard allows both audio and video streaming to mobile digital devices, has higher through-speeds and greater stability -- all the mobile phone companies are embracing it, which means that DAB is gone, since the bandwidth will be given to the new format.

Thank goodness we have Soundproof to tell us how it is!!

I'm currently 'watching' a DAB module for my E60 (5 Series) on ebay... ummm, i think i'll leave the bidding for now!  Not sure how much the BBC have invested in DAB, but shouldn't they have known it was flawed then?

Lee

 

Craig:

Very sad to see that Planet Rock is going off the air. Just hope it is still available via the internet. As it is one of my favourite stations.

 

 

Craig

Just had a look at the Planet Rock website, and found THIS. Does not look good. Would not mind if it was just on DAB radio it was finishing as I listen to it on the Net mainly and also via Cable TV.

 

Craig

P.S. Don't think I would bid on that DAB module if I you were you either Lee.

Well - what's flawed? I have a first generation Berry iMac with DVD-drive in my office. When I bought the iMac it was brilliant, it's still a great computer, but it's been retired because there are greater computers.

The broadcasters of Europe got together and wanted to go digital with radio - DAB was the solution then, and potentially it could have been great. But there were too many radio stations for too little bandwidth, and the stations ended up with resolutions far below that "advertised." Instead of CD-quality music, we got below a good FM-signal, if we were lucky.

And then they underestimated how sensitive DAB was to movement and to  signal obstructions. You can easily move an FM radio around in the home, and usually get a good signal; DAB was more picky.

The biggest motivator is that the new formats will deliver the punch of a modern iMac to your future mobile phones -- DVB-H is similar to the DVB-T technology now delivering digital terrestrial to your television.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-H 

I do not fully understand,
will DAB be replaced by DVB-H ?

DAB never really took off in The Netherlands,
i guess main reason is that FM radio is of very good quality /
good reception because the country is so flat

People were not convinced why they should invest in a technology
that doesn't show significant obvious improvements to FM.

The original post is about the end of DAB, in the U.K.
Does that apply for the rest of Europe as well ?
 

Sweden decided to skip the transition. Germany likewise has pulled support, due to the extremely low percentage of DAB radios sold. Norway is reconsidering, and extending the deadline for the transition to all-DAB. The UK is giving it a long and hard look.

But the crux is that the mobile phone companies and service providers want DVB-H, digital streaming to handheld and mobile devices, which will be able to stream audio and video everywhere, and therefore DAB is losing adherents. I don't know what the number is for the UK, but once Swedish politicians realized Swedes would have to scrap 30 million FM-radios, the transition to all-DAB was cancelled.

soundproof:

Sweden decided to skip the transition. Germany likewise has pulled support, due to the extremely low percentage of DAB radios sold. Norway is reconsidering, and extending the deadline for the transition to all-DAB. The UK is giving it a long and hard look.

But the crux is that the mobile phone companies and service providers want DVB-H, digital streaming to handheld and mobile devices, which will be able to stream audio and video everywhere, and therefore DAB is losing adherents. I don't know what the number is for the UK, but once Swedish politicians realized Swedes would have to scrap 30 million FM-radios, the transition to all-DAB was cancelled.

Thanks.

if i understand correctly, the future will be streaming audio.
How can that be realised for f.e. the car-industry ?
Does it work similar to DVB-T or FM, where one can "pull" the signal of the air ?

In a recent article in a german car-magazine,
the end of FM within the next few years was anounced.

Will FM really come to an end this soon ?

 

Based on the BBC news items yesterday 6% of radios in the UK are DAB and 72% are FM.

The BBC has 5 DAB stations and has been the main driver since launch.

Where I live, we get 32 DAB stations and putting aside transmission quality, the key factor, like digital TV is the ability to add a large number of radio stations, the problem is that most are not commercially viable.

Many had projected shutting down FM by 2010, but the slow adoption of DAB has moved or removed that deadline. DVB-T has radio stations, as well, and many consumers are beginning to listen to those. Not so good for the industry, as the number of channels is limited to about 20. And DVB-H will offer internet radio to handheld devices in the home, car, train, beach, café - many consider that this format will be what DVD-players were to VHS.

I'm not so worried about FM disappearing right away. The people behind DAB did a lot of lobbying (BBC and other national broadcasters in particular) but somehow they missed the fact that people would have to bin millions and millions of perfectly good radios - when most people don't feel the new ones give them much of an improvement. And throwing away hundreds of millions of radios, all across Europe, doesn't really play that well today, when we're all talking of carbon footprints.

I bought a Beomaster 5000 not that long ago, and expect to be using the FM on that for quite a few more years. (Though lobbyists for DAB are begging the authorities where I live to shut down FM in order to force people to buy DAB! They're losing the argument.) 

I suspect the reason Planet Rock is closing has as much to do with audience fragmentation and the subsequent  lack of commercial viability for individual stations as it does with the technical merits of DAB as Planet Rock is also available on the Web and via Satellte TV.

Planet Rock has invested heavily in celebrity presenters etc. but the revenue opportunities simply aren't there. Web Radio is going to have the same problems to an even greater extent, regardless of the transmission medium small audiences/revenues for individual stations are going to mean a bumpy ride for commercial radio in the next few years. Ironically enough the audience share for the BBC's mainstream stations may well increase as they will still be able to invest in programming.

Simon

 

Simon

I have posted on this subject before, and for one am glad to hear of the apparent decline and hopeful demise of DAB. I wouldn't mind if we'd been offered a choice, but when state broadcasters such as the BBC relentlessly push the technology and shift some of their programming to stations on the DAB platform, I automatically want to rail against it! An FM or AM signal received on a decent set (I have 4 Beolits dotted around the house) is better than a DAB signal on a cheapo DAB set from ASDA with a 2 inch speaker. Interesting to see that DAB hasn't taken off commercially in Europe. Could this be because without the support of a generously funded state broadcaster the platform is unviable commercially? Also, in an era of environmental concerns, can someone tell me why rendering millions of pieces of electrical equipment obsolete serves any sensible purpose at all???

RIP DAB :)

UK DAB is MP2 and was outdated before they started implementing it and then squeezing the bandwidth. There were a significant number of complaints to the BBC when they dropped the quality of Radio3, which resulted in them having to increse the bit rate to its origonal level.

I understand that if a quality FM signal was expressed as a bit rate it would equate to around 850kbs, I am willing to be corrected on this, maybe our friend at HiFi World could comment?

The other thing with DAB is that as set requires 20 times more energy than an FM set! So much for reducing carbon emmisions!

The good news is that there is no set cut off date for FM, hopefully this will be another nail in the coffin of DAB.

I have found that internet radio can provide excellent quallity if the bit rate is high enough. I have recentley bought a Pinnacle (ROKU) sound bridge and this is excellent (only £43!) and looks great with B&O, it will also stream from iTunes in addition to providing thousands of radio stations. The menues are increadibly comprehensive and fairly intuitive, I would highly reccomend one. (It also takes a SD data card). There was an article in HiFI world about upgrading the internal componants, but I am still searching for this.

 

Kind regards

Dave