Turning off the FM signal

[ardcarp]

Someone is probably going to inform me of Queen Anne's death, but I had not realised that FM radio is going to be discontinued. The subject was aired on The World at One today (squeezed in amazingly somewhere between child abuse and US elections) and the interviewer was pondering on the very low percentage of R4 listeners using DAB radios. The interviewee was a typical pro-digital apologist whose only argument in its favour seemed to be that it was 'the way forward' despite the inevitable patchy coverage and the fact that most houses and cars are fully furnished with analogue....and happily so.

Sorry if this is old news to everyone else on the planet, but is there some pressure group we can sign up to? This really isn't the same as TV switch-over, as most houses had maybe a couple of tellies which could continue to be made usable (as ours still are) via a digi-box. The latter option is not available for all our trannies and car radios, not to mention hallowed hi-fi systems.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

"The way foward" would be to have in place a better digital radio system than DAB. Instead, they pump out this empty propaganda about it being "the way forward". The mean and nasty part of it this the way FM has been degraded since DAB became a pet project, with much higher levels of compression. I have some 1970s open reel tapes to back up this statement.

[teamsaint]

More here

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?6114-FM-Switchover-response-deadline-looming

This subject

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/14/bbc-hd-drm

is connected too, I suspect.
The powers that be have very good reasons for this switchover..they just don't want to tell us the whole truth.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?3770-BBC-Digital-rights-Management&highlight=Digital+rights+management

[mangerton]

"The way foward" would be to have in place a better digital radio system than DAB. Instead, they pump out this empty propaganda about it being "the way forward". The mean and nasty part of it this the way FM has been degraded since DAB became a pet project, with much higher levels of compression. I have some 1970s open reel tapes to back up this statement.

Absolutely, EA. As has oft been said, on these boards and elsewhere, good BBC engineering practice and good BBC engineers have been abandoned and the bean counters rule.

[Dave2002]

Ardcarp

There was indeed an interview with Ford Ennals today, can't remember when exactly, could have been lunch time.

Came out with the usual clap trap.
Amusing, since we were listening to him on a now very old FM portable. Perfectly serviceable, and very clear sound, so why would we need to change that for R4! Again tried to assert the pencilled in date of 2015 was "aspirational".

The interviewer wasn't too impressed I felt, and neither was I.

[jayne lee wilson]

Those who should, never take any notice of what listeners actually do, the sheer unpredictable diversity of it. Now we have the R3 "HD" stream at 320kbps AAC, I listen to nothing else for live concerts because of the lack of dynamic compression. But the rest of the time, for R3, R4 or Classic FM (Music While You Cook) it's always FM on a variety of receivers from Tivolis to Panasonics. But suppose I didn't have good broadband for concerts...? I don't think I'd go for DAB... DAB+ of course would be similar or close to the AAC, but we're not getting it in UK are we?

[Resurrection Man]

Ardcarp...they have said that they will switch off FM only if certain criteria have been met. Currently those criteria are a long way off, fortunately. Of course, they could move the goalposts again as they did when the final report by the DRWG (Digital Radio Working Group) was produced back in 2009 (approx). The Interim report they published decreed that one of the criteria would be that DAB listening accounted for 50% of listening hours. Some bright spark then pointed out to the DRWG (poodles of the Govt at the time) that this criteria would probably never be met and so it was changed between the Interim Report and the Final Report to say 'listening via digital platforms' thus including things like listening via the internet. When you read the outpourings of the DRWG you realise just how biased they were in favour of DAB (because they had been told to be). There was one lone dissenting voice ...the Consumer Expert Group (CEG), who in their report to the DRWG highlighted many of the concerns, fibs and general hype and lies in the DRWG/Govt/Ofcom proposals. The Chair of the CEG was then replaced by a tame poodle and so the lone dissenting voice stifled. Such is politics.

Jayne Lee Wilson...DAB = MP3 performance. And no, you;re not going to get DAB+. The DRWG kicked that idea into touch and never even bothered to consider it. Early adopter UK went for DAB. Big mistake. The DRWG reasoned that because there were 11 million DAB radios sold (not that there are any figures as to whether these are actually used to listen via DAB or whether they are used in FM mode because DAB reception is so bad) then they saw no reason why these owners should be disenfranchised and told to buy DAB+ radios. So it's OK for an estimated 100 million FM radios to be scrapped then. Barry Cox is/was the chair of the DRWG. Pitching for a knighthood were we, Barry?

Ennals was on at lunchtime today and lied again. He claimed that digital radio sales are continually increasing. They are not. They have remained stagnant for the last two years. On Ofcom's last report in Oct this year, even they admitted that well over 50% of those without DAB said that they had no intention of buying one. Ennals latest campaign has been to launch some singer (no, no idea and never heard of him) saying how cool DAB is. I am delighted to say that Ennals is pitching at the wrong audience. His singer is aimed at teenagers and younger people...the very people who are listening much much less to radio....be it FM or digital.

I am still waiting for the reply to my question from Ed Vaizey MP. I think that I will have a very long waiting as he simply has no answer.

[jayne lee wilson]

Hate to point out the obvious, but DAB Radio is "MP2" of course (MPEG1 LAYER 2) and the BBC R&D document originally recommended 256 kbps for high-quality stereo (224 acceptable), but pressure from ofcom ( govt. pressure for "programming diversity") reduced this to 192, never enough for classical hi-fidelity... The rest is sad history.

[Bryn]

Hate to point out the obvious, but DAB Radio is "MP2" of course (MPEG1 LAYER 2) and the BBC R&D document originally recommended 256 kbps for high-quality stereo (224 acceptable), but pressure from ofcom ( govt. pressure for "programming diversity") reduced this to 192, never enough for classical hi-fidelity... The rest is sad history.

192kbps stereo (or some times 160 kbps panned mono frequency bands - so called 'joint stereo') mp2 for Radio 3 only. The other BBC radio channels (stations) have to make so with 128kbps 'joint stereo' or worse.

[Bryn]

... DAB = MP3 performance ...

RM, mp3 is unsuitable for broadcast use. My understanding is that it has too little data redundancy/insufficiently effective error correction for the job, thus the less data efficient mp2 is used. As a rule of thumb, mp2 is considered to need around 50% more data to offer similar audio quality to mp3. i.e. Radio 3 at 192kbps mp2 is roughly equivalent on audio quality to 128kbps mp3. However, it's a bit more complicated than that since they have different 'joint stereo' algorithms, that for mp3 giving rather more accurate spacial approximations than that employed by mp2, and a more sophisticated approach to frequency banding is used for mp3, with more data being devoted to the ranges within which the human ear is most sensitive, whereas mp2 uses frequency bands of equal increments. I am advised that the BBC has tweaked the encoders used for mp2, but I have no information on just what they have done to improve the audio quality at different data rates.

[David-G]

Thanks Bryn, that is very interesting.

[MrGongGong]

Thanks Bryn, that is very interesting.

I really think you should thank Bryn you know
as it's all very interesting

sticky keys ?

[french frank]

sticky keys ?

I have assumed so.

[ardcarp]

Resurrection Man and others, thanks for your insights. All unbelievably Machiavellian. How worrying. I hope they don't muck about with Long Wave. Whilst it's no good for music, you can get the Shipping Forecast and cricket in any country bordering the English Channel courtesy of just 2 aerials (I think) the main one being at Droitwich.

[Resurrection Man]

Not sure on what the future is for Long Wave.

I did forget to mention that Ofcom commissioned PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to carry out a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA). It wasn't very positive. In fact, it highlighted an awful lot of dependencies that seemed doomed to failure. So Ofcom buried it. Then the House of Lords Select Committee got wind of it but were only given a redacted version by Ofcom.

Spool forward to today and recently the Department for Culture , Media and Sport came out with another CBA. Trouble is they based it on loaded questions. Such as 'Would you prefer reception with brilliant audio quality (DAB) compared to that nasty poor quality FM stuff' and ' Would you prefer an interference free signal (DAB) to one that had lots of interference (FM).?' Both lies. Both loaded.

So let's cut to the chase. Why is the Govt so keen to do this? Could it be because they are being/have been successfully lobbied by the commercial radio sector who are nearly all in dire financial straits and have publicly stated that if they didn't have to broadcast on both FM and DAB then they would be in the black? I think so.

Well, perhaps if they (the commercial radio stations) offered something that the public wanted to listen to which in turn would mean that the commercial radio companies could then increase their advertising rates and attract more advertising because they were offering a larger audience then they would be in a better financial position. Instead they want to force many tens of millions of people to spend unnecessary money on DrAB radios for home and the car. I say let them go hang. If their value-proposition is that poor then they should go to the wall. Market forces.

I really would love the opportunity to debate this on air with Ford Ennals.