Digital radio

eliraud

What will happen to my radios when we go fully digital? Is there some sort of box that can convert? I can only wake up to the sound of Radio 4!!
Cheers

penrhyn

They will cease to function.

There are no dates for switching off the analogue radio transmitters at present.
You can buy a DAB radio for £25 or so, adaptors are around but mostly for in car applications.
I always wake up to 5 Live, much better on DAB.

Fifer

penrhyn wrote: »

I always wake up to 5 Live, much better on DAB.

Better in what sense? The massively lossy compression used for most digital radio has resulted in sound quality much worse than most FM broadcasts.

penrhyn

Better than medium wave, which unless you want to get it off the TV/Tinternet is what you are left with.
80kbps and in glorious mono, it is a talk radio station after all!

Marty_J

Fifer wrote: »

Better in what sense? The massively lossy compression used for most digital radio has resulted in sound quality much worse than most FM broadcasts.

Radio has always sounded awful anyway. The whole thing is compressed to within an inch of its life, and then turned up as loud as it'll go.

Fifer

Marty_J wrote: »

Radio has always sounded awful anyway. The whole thing is compressed to within an inch of its life, and then turned up as loud as it'll go.

Some broadcasts and stations are better than others. However, there's no excuse for making it worse. DAB could have been used to introduce a service with much better quality sound. But it wasn't.

eddidaz

I've not used DAB radios with long or medium wave, but listening to FM stations has always been lower quality for me with more snapping, crackling and popping than a bowl of rice krispies! It's even worse when it's raining - I thought digital wasn't supposed to bounce off buildings and rain and stuff?

Maybe the quality will improve when analogue broadcasters switch over to boost the digital signal, but for now I'm not convinced it's a good idea.

superscaper

eddidaz wrote: »

I thought digital wasn't supposed to bounce off buildings and rain and stuff?

Why did you think that? It's still an electromagnetic radio signal that obeys exactly the same laws of physics whether the signals being transmitted are interpreted as analogue or digital. If something reflects or absorbs a radio wave then that's what it'll do no matter what the "information" in the radio wave is.

Marty_J

Fifer wrote: »

Some broadcasts and stations are better than others. However, there's no excuse for making it worse. DAB could have been used to introduce a service with much better quality sound. But it wasn't.

The same goes for Digital TV. If they had used mpeg4, the picture quality would have been fantastic, and they probably could have squeezed more channels in.

Instead, it uses an old mpeg format which looks pretty bad, and by the time the digital switchover happens, will be technologically obsolete (if it isn't already).

tr3mor

Fifer wrote: »

Better in what sense? The massively lossy compression used for most digital radio has resulted in sound quality much worse than most FM broadcasts.

5 live isn't on FM though.

:money:

DCFC79

Marty_J wrote: »

The same goes for Digital TV. If they had used mpeg4, the picture quality would have been fantastic, and they probably could have squeezed more channels in.

Instead, it uses an old mpeg format which looks pretty bad, and by the time the digital switchover happens, will be technologically obsolete (if it isn't already).

so virgin media uses an old format, why not just use a newer format