Radio 3 being broadcast in FLAC

[jayne lee wilson]

In the 2015 Prom repeat on TTN last night, Igor Levit was playing a passage from the Mozart k.595 Concerto where the main theme returns in the development extremely quietly. I was lucky with my switching back from AAC 320 to 16/48 and could easily appreciate the gains in presence and clarity at very low levels. With that openness, scale and space allowing climaxes to expand more effortlessly the music simply sounds more realistic and enjoyable. The comparative gains have sounded very consistent to these ears - you hear the upgraded quality without needing the comparison really.
(And being able to hear more clearly what's wrong as well as what's right with a given performance is the essence of critical listening, of course!)

There's some Romanian Radio CO Beethoven/Haydn on TTN tonight, and Monday evening gives a rare chance to hear Roussel's Evocations, BBCPO/Tortelier in Symphony Hall Birmingham...

I never thought I'd be scouring the schedules this keenly again....!

[Dave2002]

(And being able to hear more clearly what's wrong as well as what's right with a given performance is the essence of critical listening, of course!)

There's some Romanian Radio CO Beethoven/Haydn on TTN tonight, and Monday evening gives a rare chance to hear Roussel's Evocations, BBCPO/Tortelier in Symphony Hall Birmingham...

I never thought I'd be scouring the schedules this keenly again....!

Unless (no comment) you have some high quality recording equipment, you may have to stay awake for these TTN broadcasts to get the benefit. Now I think about it ....

[Beresford]

Just installed Firefox & Flac test on a Windows 10 PC without problems.
Immediate sense of spaciousness and richness compared to 320k feed, for all programmes on R3. Best radio yet. (for sound quality).

[OldTechie]

I've been using the shoutcast 320kbs stream from http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediasele...adio_three.pls via foobar2000. It seems marginally more reliable than the web iplayer radio version. I found it just about acceptable, but I needed to listen for 15 minutes or so to get my ears tuned in to put up with it. I would quite often prefer my local FM transmitter and put up with the dynamic range compression, the hum and the frequency response variations with weather. (My local transmitter seems to be fed by the only analogue line left in the country. It was provided by BT. I think it was part of some legal deal with the BBC who were unable to receive radio 3 satisfactorily from the London transmitters for re-broadcast because of interference generated by BT systems co-sited at our local transmitter.)

This new feed fixes all my sound quality problems. I turn it on and it just sounds really nice. However, it's not quite perfect.

It does have the same network issues as the iPlayer radio feed - I get occasional very short audio glitches, perhaps a twentieth of a second each. There may be the odd longer one.

The Delay
On start up the delay relative to FM radio is 1 minute 41 seconds. Oddly the delay measured by observing the time inserted on the web page with received time is 1 minute 43 seconds. Maybe there is a 2 second delay in encoding the image at the transmit end. The delay increases with time, probably by the length of the glitches. The two second difference between my two measurement methods is constant. Typically the delay will increase by about 1 second per hour. There may be the odd longer hiccup for a second or so - something that never happens on the shoutcast feed. I get less reliable performance on an older machine (which has no problem with the shoutcast feed.) I suspect these glitches are a deficiency in the stream handling in Firefox. If the glitches could be fixed by increasing the local buffering (and thus increasing the delay by a few more seconds) I'd find that very acceptable.

The Network Bandwidth
The Windows Resource Monitor displays the data rate on a connection in bytes/second averaged over about a minute. On the 320kbps feed it shows a steady 40,000. On the new feed it varies with content from just over 50,000 up to nearly 80,000. It's far from an extravagant increase especially compared with the TV iPlayer at 650,000.

Just as it Left The Studio
They are claiming this, but I doubt it. Almost certainly the new radio installations will be 48KHz sampling and 24 bit resolution. In broadcasting line-up tone is generally set at -18db relative to the full digital maximum. In the UK the peak level is generally set at +8dB relative to line-up level (+9dB in the rest of Europe). This allows for occasional mishaps without distortion. That means the design peak is -10db relative to the absolute maximum. CDs are recorded at a higher level. There are good reasons to keep away from the absolute maximum, but CDs are often less than 2dB below full scale. When they play a CD in a radio 3 studio, they reduce the level to match everything else, so at least by 8dB, maybe a little more. At this reduced level, the original least significant bit or two of resolution cannot be retained in a 16 bit system. So we need the 24 bit system to keep the fidelity of a CD. (Of course, upsampling from 44.1 to 48 kHz may not be transparent either.) I think the FLAC data rate would be higher if it was at 24 bit resolution, so I suspect it is only 16 bit. (Looking at some FLAC encoded 24bit 48kHz download I see rates up to 1600kbps which would be 200,000 byte/second.) Because it is at the original in-house level, that is effectively only a 14 or 15 bit system, but with the ability to handle unintended high levels without distortion.

So, I think it may be just a touch better when it leaves the studio (especially on BBC live recordings) but it's a great improvement on anything else we have had before. Let hope it will become permanent. The shoutcast feed I've been using was a temporary measure to the end of the proms two or three years ago. If they decided to offer only one of the temporary feeds as a permanent feature, I'd vote for this new one!

[Gweefry]

I see that the period of the trial has been amended to a further 20 days only. I wonder why the original period for the trial was considerably shortened.

In passing I noticed that after some time of playing the stream, Firefox becomes very laggy - possibly some sort of memory leak. However, the latest nightly build of Videolan (Version 3) will both play and record the Dash feed.

The source for the feed is here: https://vs-dash-ww-rd-live.bbcfmt.hs...t_manifest.mpd

[Dave2002]

I see that the period of the trial has been amended to a further 20 days only. I wonder why the original period for the trial was considerably shortened.

In passing I noticed that after some time of playing the stream, Firefox becomes very laggy - possibly some sort of memory leak. However, the latest nightly build of Videolan (Version 3) will both play and record the Dash feed.

That's a great shame. Perhaps this is something which For3 can now push for - though we do need to be reasonably certan that enough of us think it's an improvement over the HD stream. I think it is, and a few others here seem to think so too. The reasons for this may not be completely obvious though - see the debate re Hi-Res being worthwhile. It could be that more care is taken upstream, or that the processes introduce fewer artefacts to interact with other digital processes downstream.

[Gweefry]

That's a great shame. Perhaps this is something which For3 can now push for - though we do need to be reasonably certan that enough of us think it's an improvement over the HD stream. I think it is, and a few others here seem to think so too. The reasons for this may not be completely obvious though - see the debate re Hi-Res being worthwhile. It could be that more care is taken upstream, or that the processes introduce fewer artefacts to interact with other digital processes downstream.

I would concur that there is an appreciable improvement in the flac feed. While the adoption of true high-resolution (96/24) formats forges ahead, it seems curious that we still argue about getting to the first rung of lossless. I suppose that in many cases the system on which the broadcasts are played must be a decider. Without decent speakers and amp it's probable that the differences may be insufficient to warrant a change in listening habits.

[Beresford]

Only 20 days. What a pity. Maybe it is a Performing Rights issue. Once someone has worked out how to save the Flac stream, there is no reason to buy CD (apart from the 44.1/48 conversions).

[Dave2002]

Only 20 days. What a pity. Maybe it is a Performing Rights issue. Once someone has worked out how to save the Flac stream, there is no reason to buy CD (apart from the 44.1/48 conversions).

That's opening up other things though. It should be possible to put some sort of block on access, or encryption in the stream to preven copying, or only permit access to those who have specific rights. However what rights would they be? If the BBC wanted to introduce differentiated service levels - i.e. you get radio access at standard quality for free, but have to pay extra to get high quality streams, or pay the full commercial rate for high quality downloads - what then? Opens up the whole issue of funding models yet again - what we're paying for with the licence fee, and what we get for that payment, plus issues of competition with other providers.

[Stunsworth]

I've had a message from BBC Taster, and the problem is the rights agreement that's in place. Sad really as I'd have liked the trial to continue - as would the BBC.

[Dave2002]

I've had a message from BBC Taster, and the problem is the rights agreement that's in place. Sad really as I'd have liked the trial to continue - as would the BBC.

So what's the difference between R3 and the BBC TV channels which are made available via iPlayer in either SD or HD? T&Cs? Limitations on how long programs are available after broadcast? Something else? Just different rights holders perhaps?

[french frank]

I've had a message from BBC Taster, and the problem is the rights agreement that's in place. Sad really as I'd have liked the trial to continue - as would the BBC.

I don't know why the survey asked us to say whether we'd like it to be permanent. I suppose it'll be like On Demand* - when they've hammered out an agreement it might happen.

* When On Demand first started none of the live music programmes were available because of the rights issues - only programmes that played CDs.

[Stunsworth]

So what's the difference between R3 and the BBC TV channels which are made available via iPlayer in either SD or HD? T&Cs?

Most programmes on iPlayer are only available for 30 days. That's more or less the length of this trial.

[Dave2002]

Most programmes on iPlayer are only available for 30 days. That's more or less the length of this trial.

Indeed, but the iPlayer programmes are on-going, which the trial is now not.

[jayne lee wilson]

Well what a terrible disappointment! I was already feeling excited about hearing some of the Proms this way, now I feel like Tantalus only worse - given a taste of food and water then it's taken away!

The 320/lossless difference was very obvious and enjoyable. With 24/96 recordings there'll always be far greater variation in the audibility of the benefit over 16/44.1 for obvious reasons - the hugely variable process of the specific recording itself. But with "R3 Concert Sound" the leap in quality is of course a consistent upgrade to all the webcasts - and it sounds like it - at least in all those I heard.
The Dvorak Requiem sounded really lovely from the Barbican tonight, far from my usual tastes and tolerances as it is.... easier on the ears at higher levels, not just better resolved and balanced.

After optimodded FM, after the débacle of DAB, streams and web radio using lossy codecs have lulled too many listeners into accepting degraded sound and with broadband improvements it's well past high-time to have the whole of the music at least on offer somewhere for those who want it - or rather need it for their consistent musical pleasure. It shouldn't only be about how many express an interest...

As Richard II said "better far off than near, be ne'er the near" .... beautiful classical radio came and stayed so briefly, and now it's going away, and we don't know when it will return...