Who listens to DAB?

brjansson

I couldn't find a recent thread on DAB in Ireland so I was just wondering; do any of you listen to digital radio in Ireland? What are your thoughts on it?

Corsendonk

I do, it use to be better when the commercial Irish stations use to broadcast on it and I am still pissed off I can't get the BBC channels on it. I would mainly listen to the RTE Choice channel for the round the world news reports.

Kensington

Nope. Used to listen to Pulse when they'd wall-to-wall music all day, now it's just repeats of live or as-live programming with far too many links full of waffling.
Listen to internet radio now, I find Spanish station Loca FM is excellent for electronica and house music during the day. BBC stations also have high quality streaming which I occasionally listen to.

Kevin joyce

Dab is not needed in this country, sure fm is good enough. Joe bloggs doesnt have a clue whats the difference between dab internet radio shortwave ect

brjansson

Kevin joyce wrote: »

Dab is not needed in this country, sure fm is good enough.

It won't be soon; the EU is making all radio go digital in a few years.

Trick of the Tail

And its a good medium for increasing listener choice.

Or it would be if the BAI would get their finger out and allow it to develop.

A.

Fuzzy Clam

alinton wrote: »

And its a good medium for increasing listener choice.

Or it would be if the BAI would get their finger out and allow it to develop.

A.

Ah yeah, listener choice! Pity that doesn't mean better quality.

Kevin joyce

brjansson wrote: »

It won't be soon; the EU is making all radio go digital in a few years.

The eu is planning no such thing.

real rocker

If I require some alternative oldies RTE Gold delivers with non-stop music.
RTE 2XFM also has interesting shows - John Kelly Sat.7PM as an example.
DAB should be delivering more choice especially when you consider that RTE 1 Extra seems to only be an alternative to RTE 1 come evening time.

Thomas828

I live in the North and I can get a good selection of stations, including all the BBC stations, Downtown Radio and Q102.9. I can get the RTÉ stations too, but only if I climb to the top of Sliabh Pádraig.

I'm just glad I can get the RTÉ stations on FM and Today FM with some twisting of the aerial.

Big Tone

I would listen to the digital channels occasionally but not through a conventional DAB tuner but through the RTE Pocket player for iPhone.

I can't see DAB surviving in this country, it's already been superceded by an unforseen challenger back when DAB was created...the Internet... and more specifically Apps for smartphones. Of course cost is a factor but I see this not being an obstacle in the near to medium future.

el pasco

If you are in the Greater Dublin Area, the eastern Midlands, in the North East Cork City Area or Limerick Area you should be able to receive 10 RTE DAB stations

If you are in the South East you will be able to receive 12 DAB/DAB+ stations (1 RTE DAB station)

If you are in the North East Coast and near to the border you should be able to pick up the RTE DAB stations 100%, BBC digital stations very clearly too, (around 40% but it is acceptable quality) broadcasting from Armagh and if you live near the Irish Sea Coast you can pick you over 20 DAB stations from Lancaster in England (~10 National & ~ 10 Local) though you will need a booster on your radio or a roof aerial to receive this signal.
This could be the case in Dublin and East coast from Wales but I'm not a 100% sure of this one.

If you live near Enniskillen there is a low powered DAB mast broadcasting from there though the surround area is very hilly so reception is not guaranteed

Other areas like around Derry etc should be able to get BBC DAB

If you are in the South East you might be able to pick up stations from Wales too though you might need an aerial or booster.

When the analogue TV is shut down both here and the north there will be more "room" for DAB radio and the stations in the North will broadcast more stations and with more power so more people near the border should be able to pick DAB stations (around 20) from the North post-2012 DSO

The reason why RTE did not roll out DAB across the country was because the private sector didn't come up with the money for the there DAB roll out because of the down turn and it was felt that this was "unfair" to the private sector and that RTE would be too dominated in the DAB sector and because of RTE cutbacks and the cost of saorview roll out.

This is the same reason why saorview doesn't have as many channels as in Britain

Since they have waited so late they probably and just go for DAB+ as it is far better than DAB

DAB radio apart from the FM stations on DAB don't really make much sense it's like Digital television the more stations the more c**p
Most DAB stations are just an ipod shuffle basically so they don't make much sense.
Not sure what the whole "excitement" is about. Like who really cares

In London you have over 50 DAB stations but most of them are useless the same with having 50+ Freeview channels most of them you will never watch so whats the point?
Though the traffic station is helpful

I know it frees up the FM bandwidth for other uses, but apart from that it's pointless

Since the downturn and the cost to switchover is alot this switchover will most likely take sometime around 2020 maybe??
Hope that this helps

Here is a link to DAB in Ireland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAB_in_Ireland
http://www.digitalradioltd.com/rte-expand-dab/
http://www.digitalradioltd.com/rte-expand-dab/

MadsL

Kevin joyce wrote: »

Dab is not needed in this country, sure fm is good enough. Joe bloggs doesnt have a clue whats the difference between dab internet radio shortwave ect

Sure, we should all be listening on these. Light the gas there's a dear chap.

barakus

rte choice is really good, lots of broadcasts from bbc and around the world

MadsL

Big Tone wrote: »

I would listen to the digital channels occasionally but not through a conventional DAB tuner but through the RTE Pocket player for iPhone.

I can't see DAB surviving in this country, it's already been superceded by an unforseen challenger back when DAB was created...the Internet... and more specifically Apps for smartphones. Of course cost is a factor but I see this not being an obstacle in the near to medium future.

Hopefully we see some pirate radio - there is already a DAB open source solution;
http://www.opendigitalradio.org/index.php/Main_Page

FGR

I think there's one market where DAB still has a chance and that's in car headunits. Personally I'd prefer if we went down the road of satellite radio or possibly even 3G connections to headunits to allow us to listen to radio over the net in our vehicles.

Mmm..BBC Radio 1 in the car..

easychair

I have a DAB and can honestly say I have never listened to it. I also have a wifi radio, and love it, but its like most computers in that its rempremental and the signal occasionally drops and we have no reception. I din't understand the point of DAB as, to the listener, it's just like FM.

tbh

ForegoneReality wrote: »

I think there's one market where DAB still has a chance and that's in car headunits. Personally I'd prefer if we went down the road of satellite radio or possibly even 3G connections to headunits to allow us to listen to radio over the net in our vehicles.

Mmm..BBC Radio 1 in the car..

I used the iphone and tunein radio in the car - last week went Dublin to Donegal listening to Adam and Joe - signal never dropped, not once, and total data usage: 45 MB. happy days!

easychair

tbh wrote: »

I used the iphone and tunein radio in the car - last week went Dublin to Donegal listening to Adam and Joe - signal never dropped, not once, and total data usage: 45 MB. happy days!

Thata wonderful, but many choose not to have an iPhone because of the sinister tracking devices which report your every move to the secret directive at apple computing! But, serioiusly, what about your carbon footprint? You drove to Donegal and back in a car with a combutstion engine? :-)

Elmo

I set my TV to turn to 2XM in the mornings. I find Morning Ireland to serious, Hector and Marty to dumb. I just want music. Technically not listening to DAB but DAB stations on DTT.

Trick of the Tail

I listen to it, because in my area there are stations on it I can't get on FM, so I can listen to them while driving.

A.

griffith_s

Can anyone recommend a handheld DAB player.
All I want it for really is to be able to listen to 2XM when commuting into Dublin, and sitting at my desk in Work.

S

shockwave

griffith_s wrote: »

Can anyone recommend a handheld DAB player.
All I want it for really is to be able to listen to 2XM when commuting into Dublin, and sitting at my desk in Work.S

Tesco sell them, ive seen small walkman type ones in there too.

Not sure how good they are but I presume they sound ok.

Technocentral

Reception in my apartment in Dublin 6 on DAB for Radio 1 is much better than on FM thats why I listen to DAB.

coylemj

griffith_s wrote: »

Can anyone recommend a handheld DAB player.
All I want it for really is to be able to listen to 2XM when commuting into Dublin, and sitting at my desk in Work.

S

Pure do a few portables, they're all available from Amazon...

http://www.pure.com/digitalradio/

Also consider the RTE player on iOS or Android, they're rolling out Wi-Fi on the buses soon.

Mr Williams

Kevin joyce wrote: »

Dab is not needed in this country, sure fm is good enough. Joe bloggs doesnt have a clue whats the difference between dab internet radio shortwave ect

From a sound quality point of view FM is far superior to DAB.

L1011

Mr Williams wrote: »

From a sound quality point of view FM is far superior to DAB.

Only when DAB is implemented badly, e.g. the entire UK deployment pretty much. And linking to that insane zealot website doesn't prove a point either.

Trick of the Tail

"DAB is not needed"? Maybe not as a replacement to FM, but as an add-on? To allow more stations come on air and provide more listener choice?

Perfect for it.

And MYOB's right. DAB done properly sounds great, it's just when too low bitrates are used it sounds bad.

July Rain

Trick of the Tail wrote: »

"DAB is not needed"?

If 4fm, Sunshine, Phantom and spirit can't make any headway, what chance have a bunch of new stations on dab ? Newstalk would have closed down after 6 months, if it didn't have Dennis O'brien's money

Elmo

July Rain wrote: »

If 4fm, Sunshine, Phantom and spirit

The above stations should be given national genre licence. IMO

Mr Williams

MYOB wrote: »

Only when DAB is implemented badly, e.g. the entire UK deployment pretty much. And linking to that insane zealot website doesn't prove a point either.

DAB by its very nature is a "lossy" audio format which means data is thrown away to compress the sound. FM is not compressed its comparable to CD quailty. Also the fact that its analogue means you got a much more natural sound, digital audio can sound very artificial.

Trick of the Tail

Strictly speaking, FM isn't like CD quality because the upper frequency limit is 15kHz and the audio is pre-emphasised. Add to that the audio processing that FM stations use, some good, some not-so, and you get a quality NOT comparable to CD quality.

DAB does indeed use lossy codecs to bit-rate compress the audio, but if sone well and not too much - and if it's DAB+ which uses AAC coding, the quality can be very nice.

Upper frequencies are not limited to 15kHz (usually 20) and there's no pre-emphasis.

Badly-done DAB sounds bad, nicely-done DAB sounds good. Same badly done FM/nicely done FM!

I'm listening to Nova, Beat and Zenith on DAB a lot lately, all sound at least as nice as FM.

L1011

Mr Williams wrote: »

DAB by its very nature is a "lossy" audio format which means data is thrown away to compress the sound. FM is not compressed its comparable to CD quailty. Also the fact that its analogue means you got a much more natural sound, digital audio can sound very artificial.

I'm (very) aware how DAB and FM work. DAB done properly has no inherent sound problems, despite the incredible FUD about it.

In a huge amount of cases the audio being played out isn't at the capabilities of DAB to begin with - pretty much any voice clip, ISDN interview or LAN playout music (which is basically everything these days) will be below what properly configured DAB can offer anyway.

Antenna

Trick of the Tail wrote: »

Strictly speaking, FM isn't like CD quality because the upper frequency limit is 15kHz

But very few people can actually hear 15kHz and above.

I can hear the 15.625 kHz line whistle from a CRT TV set, but I have asked several others and they can't.

Surely DAB stations (or any other digital broadcast audio with lossy compression) aren't generally transmitting audio above 15kHz (even if its technically possible)? - doing so (for a given bitrate) would mean 'less representation' of the lower audio frequencies which people do actually hear and take notice of.

Can anyone list examples of the upper audio frequency limits in use on various DAB services here (and/or in the UK)?

L1011

Generally 24kHz (48kHz MP2, joint stereo).

Fuzzy Clam

MYOB wrote: »

Generally 24kHz (48kHz MP2, joint stereo).

Audio frequency

Fuzzy Clam

MYOB wrote: »

Generally 24kHz (48kHz MP2, joint stereo).

Audio frequency

vinnielo

Back in 2009, I did a few tests of London.
Gonna have to link to another forum, if that's OK.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1157076
Ranging between 12kHz and 15kHz for stereo stations and 8kHz and 11.5kHz for mono stations.

L1011

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Audio frequency

???

24kHz is the audio frequency upper limit, as the codec doesn't support any more.

Unless they're operating at 24kHz in which case its 12kHz; there are no other limits.

In general most music content on any radio station is going to be 44.1kHz CD captures which can only give about 20kHz due to transition bands in the codec. And in most cases, it's stored using lossy compression anyway.

Trick of the Tail

Indeed, the Nyquist frequency is a little less than half the sample rate.

But the point was made that DAB isn't as good quality as FM. My point was that it can be better - depending on the bitrate used for the stream and the coding technique; and depending on how 'good' the FM is you're comparing it to.

However, the salient issue is that when we're talking about relatively subjective quality differences, the public don't care. But what they do care about is the programming.

I utterly disagree with the assertion that DAB is a viable replacement for FM. That should not happen. But DAB is a good increment to the FM band; managed and regulated properly (i.e. light touch regulation), DAB could become an excellent medium for more specialist output stations.

Leave the big boys on FM, to do what they do best. Licence DAB properly NOW, such than a myriad of smaller organisations can produce diverse content on DAB - available there for anyone who wants to take the trouble to listen.