You are dead right about DAB using the 30 year old, and dated, MP2 codec. At the bit rates being used in the UK and Ireland, even I will accede, the quality could be better.

But here’s the bit that amazes me … regular listeners come back time and time again saying they’re happy with the quality of their DAB radio.

Whatever they think, or however happy they are, I’m not 100% behind the quality of MP2 on DAB. That’s why I’m happy that Ireland will proceed with DAB+ if and when digital terrestrial radio is fully launched here.

Cheers,
Dusty

Obviously I can’t comment on RTÉ as I don’t work for them.

However, I have dipped into RTE Lyric from time to time, and in my car – on my DAB radio – it sounds fantastic! That’s just my opinion as an occasional listener to classical music.

As for DAB transmitters having a shorter range, this is true, but DAB has one major advantage over FM. With DAB when signals collide from nearby transmitters they actually combine to make a stronger signal. The opposite is true of FM. A great example of this is Norway where they normally need 1,200 FM transmitters to cover the country. With DAB they only need 700!

Cheers
Dusty

Regards, Paul

I certainly think DAB is the future, and it seems to me that most european countries agrees!

I just got DAB in the car recently (JVC KD-DB101) and, though I was expecting it to be good, it actually blew me away with the quality of sound on DAB and robustness of reception.

That said I really don’t think most people will notice or care.

The real draws of DAB(+) will be more choice, especially for listeners outside Dublin, and data delivery such as DLS, EPG, Slideshow and on-demand programming. Those are the areas we’ll be concentrating most on.

With regard to cars, even if manufacturers were to start fitting DAB radios in 2014, it would take until at least 2020 to get to a point where 50% of the cars on the road were DAB equipped. Will the other 50% really be exterminated?

Ireland is using the same bit rate levels as the UK is using:

http://www.wohnort.org/DAB/ireland.html

The audio quality in Ireland is therefore not “much better” than on DAB in the UK, because some UK broadcasters use modern audio encoders as well. I consider the audio quality at the bit rate levels used in the UK and Ireland with the most recent MP2 audio encoders available is extremely poor.

“To my ears, DAB as it is right now beats the pants of FM. Much cleaner, not as compressed sounding, no hiss.”

I’m sorry, it’s impossible for the audio quality on DAB to be as good as on FM, and at the bit rate levels used on DAB in the UK and Ireland FM delivers far higher audio quality.

Furthermore, your description confuses reception quality with audio quality. Terms such as “cleaner” and “no hiss” are purely reception quality issues, so anybody who already receives FM with reasonably good reception quality (i.e. the vast majority of the population) doesn’t experience these reception quality problems, so for all of those people the audio quality on DAB is much lower than it is on FM.

The audio quality on FM for anybody who has good FM reception quality is only limited by the digital distribution format used to deliver the audio to the transmitter sites. As an example, the BBC uses NICAM to deliver the FM audio to the transmitters, and NICAM uses a bit rate of 728 kbps. There’s simply no chance of DAB, especially at bit rate levels as ridiculously low as 128 kbps, could ever hope to match the audio quality delivered via FM. It’s as simple as that.

Re RTE choosing to launch DAB *after* the DAB+ standard had been released, I have to say that that’s one of the most ridiculous decisions I’ve ever come across. You say that they did so because of the availability of DAB+ receivers, but as only 20,000 DAB receivers have been sold that clearly makes a nonsense of that justification to use DAB. Ireland should have waited to launch DAB+ at the same time as when Australia launched it earlier this year. And as for people in Northern Ireland wanting to listen, then they should simply go out and buy a DAB+ radio.

The end result is that listeners will have to endure very poor audio quality for however long RTE chooses to continue broadcasting using the obsolete DAB format. And it will be interesting to see how long that goes on for – if it’s only a shortish period of time then why on earth did they do it in the first place. If it’s for a long period of time then RTE clearly doesn’t care about the service it delivers to its listeners.

Re DAB in cars, you started your article by saying this:

“Another key milestone in the roll-out of digital radio is the agreement today from motor manufacturers to install DAB receivers in cars from 2014.”

which is the same claim that Tony Moretta from the DRDB in the UK made in an interview on BBC Radio 2. The implication of that statement is clearly that DAB will be fitted as standard in all cars by 2014, but as you’ve admitted in your comment that isn’t actually the case. Furthermore, Tony Moretta has usually referred to Vauxhall as being one of the main car manufacturers that is supportive of DAB, so if they won’t even commit to fitting it as standard I have to say that I’m sceptical of your claim that other manufacturers doing so will lead Vauxhall to as well. At the end of the day, whether a new car comes with DAB as standard or not is irrelevant to people when they’re buying a new car, especially when they can purchase DAB as an optional extra.

Also, I personally think that a “European digital radio standard”, which WorldDMB has promoted but only happens to include the WorldDMB standards DAB, DAB+ and DMB, is suitable to be called a “European digital radio standard”, because it excludes DRM/DRM+ and DVB-T2.

Steve

The quality of basic DAB is much much better here in Ireland because RTE are using more modern equipment and higher bit rates than the UK. However, we consistently find over and over and over again that regular listeners a very happy with the sound quality of DAB – even in the UK. To my ears, DAB as it is right now beats the pants of FM. Much cleaner, not as compressed sounding, no hiss.

With DAB+ the quality will only improve. The reason RTE have gone with DAB for the time being is two-fold. 1) Availabilty of receivers. 2) Listeners in N.Ireland will be able to listen also.

With the introduction of Profile 1 – all radios from here on in will receive DAB and DAB+. With regard to actually switching to DAB+, from a transmission point of few it’s no problem. New encoder at the Mux and it’s done. Receiver wise we’re in a more fortunate situation than the UK where there are nearly 10m receivers in the market. Ireland has around 20,000 so switching will no impact too many people overall.

In my video, you are right, the radio used is Wi-Fi/DAB/FM. It’s a great mix and I think perhaps the future. As for the RTE stations I said are only available on DAB, my real meaning was that they are not on FM.

Finally, with regard to DAB in cars, yes Vauxhall said DAB will be an option but I believe as other manafacturers include it as standard, Vauxhall will follow.

Cheers
Dusty

One thing you didn’t mention in your video is that DAB delivers lower audio quality than FM. RTE is using a bit rate of 128 kbps MP2 for its radio stations on DAB, and it is widely known that MP2 at such low bit rate levels delivers much lower audio quality than FM.

You also made no mention of the fact that the person in charge of digital radio at RTE said recently that Ireland will switch to using DAB+ (it’s beyond comprehension why Ireland didn’t start using DAB+ from the outset rather than the obsolete DAB standard). As most DAB radios in the shops cannot receive DAB+, you’re recommending that people go out and buy to-be-obsolete DAB radios.

You also said that certain stations were only available via DAB, but considering that virtually every radio station also has an Internet stream, it’s presumably incorrect to claim that those stations are only available via DAB. Similarly, you said that the radio you were using in the demonstration is a DAB radio, when in fact the Roberts WM202 is a Wi-Fi Internet radio which can also receive DAB.

And with regards to the supposed announcement that all car manufacturers will fit DAB as standard by 2014, according to the person from Vauxhall DAB will still only be an option in all cars by 2014, not fitted as standard in all cars.