Consumer Products Blog
Not anti-DAB, but anti analogue switch-off
By Duncan Smith - Last updated: Friday, April 16, 2010I’ve been misrepresented in the printed media. It’s better than being badly dressed in the media, as I’ve been reminded many times, or not being represented at all, but I feel the need to set the record straight.
I am NOT anti-DAB radio. I like DAB! I own a DAB radio, in fact I’ve designed DAB radios. Now that the UK Digital Economy Bill has been successfully rushed through, we are on a path towards the switch-off of analogue radio in the UK. My concerns about this are not a symptom of anti-DABness.
My company develops some very high-tech products, and I’m personally a gadget-geek, so you might think that I’d embrace any initiative like this with open arms. But I’m just not sure that this is a good thing for consumers. Why? Because, in my view, as far as most consumers are concerned there is nothing wrong with analogue radio. For example I wake up to an alarm clock radio that I was given in 1980. It works perfectly well and is entirely well suited to its function in my life (it has a “Made in Hong Kong” sticker on the bottom, remember those?). In an age of eco-innovation, where both the government and consumers are pushing for more sustainable product development, am I going to be forced to put my radio in landfill in 2015, along with 100 million other analogue radios?
My DAB related comments were based on the observation that most radio content is consumed while the listener is doing something else. Noone stares at their radio, at least not since John Peel died. Radio listening is a background activity. Hence the much-used comparison with the digital TV switchover is not directly appropriate.
The extra features offered by DAB compared to FM are quality (slightly better), choice (slightly greater) and extra data services (marginally more than FM RDS). Are these worth the enormous impact of the switchover? As a keen radio consumer – and 90% of us in the UK listen to an average of 20 hours per week – I’m quite happy to listen to FM most of the time, when I’m on the move or doing something else. When I want higher quality, more choice or more data it is when I’m somewhere near an internet connection, where I can get an abundant choice, much higher quality and proper integration with internet services.
If people choose to buy a DAB radio that’s fine, but effectively mandating it doesn’t seem like a good thing to me. I’d be happy with a future that includes analogue and migrates to IP based services as they become increasingly mobile. Steve Bush at Electronics Weekly got this across as I intended it.
Anyway what are we going to do with the spectrum that is freed up? Have my wireless colleagues got any whitespace suggestions? Any chance that we can use that band for IP connections for radio?
Time to tune in to the Chelsea game on AM…..
Comments:
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May 19, 2010 @ 10:43 am
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July 9, 2010 @ 4:34 pm
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Brian Gregory Said,
July 28, 2010 @ 10:29 pm
You said: “The extra features offered by DAB compared to FM are quality (slightly better), choice (slightly greater) and extra data services (marginally more than FM RDS)”.
Where did the idea that the quality of DAB is slightly better than FM come from? This is, at best, a gross over simplification. DAB as implemented in the UK with typical bit rates for music of only 128kb/s and the old MP2 codec is incapable of matching good FM reception. I admit they have got good at making it so there is nothing immediately obviously wrong with DAB sound if you just switch on and listen but if you do an A/B comparison on headphones of DAB with FM you find the DAB is terribly flat and lacking in atmosphere.
I also disagree that choice is only slightly better. There are programs on DAB, even here in Reading (outside of any major city) that are completely different from anything available on analogue radio. (Radio 7, and the religious stations for example).
Dezza Said,
April 20, 2010 @ 2:41 pm
I used to be ambivalent about DAB…but now, I hate it. Sorry Duncan.
If you really want to have aurally offensive compression artefacts in preference to some well-mannered white noise and some slightly cheeky HF colouration (inter-modulation distortion), then be my guest – that’s not why I’ve grown to despise DAB.
My loathing of DAB has been nurtured by the government, and the way it is pedalling the ‘non-benefits’ of DAB in order to justify its making of a ‘quick buck’ in selling off the paltry 20MHz of spectrum that FM radio occupies. Clearly, Offcom knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. Hey, Mr. Brown, why not go the whole hog and double the VAT on DAB radios whilst you’re at it. Still, I don’t suppose that, if Mr. Macaroon were in charge, he’d be doing anything different.
‘Non-benefits’ you say, but what about all those stations you have to choose from? So what, I say. Would you enjoy going to a restaurant with 10,000 dishes on the menu? No, I didn’t think so. A couple of starters, a few lobster entrees and a selection of decent cheeses for afters will be just FM radio-tastic, thank you. Too much choice is tedious.
So, back to Duncan’s post: “…extra features offered by DAB compared to FM are quality (slightly better)…”?
I don’t think so matey. The distortion induced by the artefacts from the ~96kbps compression far exceeds that obtainable from a decent FM set-up (typically <0.5% THD in stereo and <0.1% THD in mono), and much of the measured THD from FM radio is just white noise anyway (because THD + Noise is easy to measure, and THD by itself is very hard to measure).
But, I hear you say, hi-fi is not just about numbers, and science, and engineering…what about the ‘sound’? Ok, so let’s put on our psycho-acoustic ‘these capacitors sound better than those capacitors’ hats, shall we? The DAB compression artefacts are clearly audible, and just sound 'nasty'. The SNR might be slightly worse for FM but, as you well know, your brain is very good at filtering out white noise (yours has probably started filtering me out already!).
…and, whilst we’re having a ‘digital audio rant’, I particularly dislike the totally meaningless term 'digital sound quality'. I give you one bit/sample, 1 sample/sec digital audio – how do you like that then? What really gets up my nose is when compressed digital audio streams are described as 'FM quality' and 'CD quality'. If only the 320kbps, joint stereo MP3 files on my iPod were FM radio quality, I'd be much happier…
So, Mr. Offcom, go ahead and switch off FM radio if you must, but I won’t be buying any DAB radios anytime soon…
…now, where’s my cassette player?