29th June 2004

The BBC have released a 136 page document laying out their plans for the BBC in their bid to ensure the Royal Charter is renewed in 2006.

Get ready for lots of adverts telling us that "It's Your BBC" over the next 2 years. I'm afraid that phrase leaves a rather bitter taste in the mouth given that the BBC have unapologetically degraded the audio quality of their stations on DAB from high to low audio quality and that they may never be able to increase the bit rates back to their 2001-levels if Ofcom don't allow them to get any more national DAB capacity. more

28th June 2004

Now Samsung have released a DAB micro system. Exactly the same applies as for the entry on the 24th June titled Another DAB Micro System to Avoid at All Costs. more

27th June 2004

With all due respect to Premier Christian Radio, this begs the question 'why on earth aren't the big commercial radio stations joining Freeview'?? 

Clearly if Premier Christian Radio can afford to go on Freeview then carriage on the platform is not as expensive the commercial radio groups would have use believe. more

24th June 2004

LG have now released a DAB micro system which costs an outrageous £200. You can get a Sony micro system with MP3 playback capability for just £97, so paying more than double for one with a DAB tuner on it which provides lower audio quality than FM is simply a rip-off. more

23rd June 2004

In case any of you are wondering why the audio quality of Radio 3 is reduced in the daytime, or Radio 4 is reduced to mono in the evenings, then there's a simple answer: Radio 5 Sports Extra is on-air a lot at the moment carrying commentaries of both the football European Championships and Wimbledon. Due to the excessive number of services carried on the BBC DAB multiplex then whenever Radio 5 Sports Extra is on-air then either Radio 3 or Radio 4 have to reduce their bit rate in order to accommodate it. more

19th June 2004

Just 2 weeks after Ofcom released figures (see entry for June 3rd below) showing that the number of homes with Freeview had reached 3.5 million by the end of March this year, the BBC have released more up-to-date figures showing that Freeview is now in 4 million homes. more

18th June 2004

Panasonic are to bring out their first DAB/FM portable radio in July for £130. For those with more sense than money then I can personally recommend the Sony ICF703 FM/MW/LW portable radio which costs just £25 from simplyradios.com but sounds excellent for the money. more

16th June 2004

The table at the bottom of this page that lists the digital radio stations on the various digital platforms has been updated more

16th June 2004

The country music station, 3C Cool Country, that is currently on a few local DAB multiplexes will start transmitting nationally on Freeview in the Autumn. more

9th June 2004

Sky have said they will start transmitting HDTV (high-definition TV) to pay-customers in 2006. more

9th June 2004

Sky are going to re-launch their non-subscription digital satellite package later this year which will include ITV1, Channel 4 and five in order to compete with Freeview more

4th June 2004

The BBC's new interactive media player (iMP) will use 128 kbps Windows Media Audio 9 (WMA9) for radio downloads. WMA9 is one of the new high quality audio codecs available and has performance very similar to the AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) codec at a bit rate of 128 kbps.  more

3rd June 2004

Although a little pricey at £227, it's good to see another twin-tuner Freeview PVR on the market. more

3rd June 2004

Can't really think why anybody would want one of these at this price when you could get a micro system that allows you to play MP3s for £96? more

3rd June 2004

According to new toothless regulator Ofcom, the number of homes that have Freeview increased by 18.6% to 3.5 million homes in the first 3 months of 2004. more

2nd June 2004

Pure Dance is launching on digital satellite from 12pm today. As its name suggests, the station will only play dance music, and is only available on digital satellite and on a web stream at the present time. more

25th May 2004

The above link is to an article about DVB-H, the new DVB Project specification that will deliver digital TV and radio to mobile phones. more

24th May 2004

As the MediaGuardian article linked-to above says, the BBC fear that if very large numbers of people simultaneously access the BBC broadband video coverage of the Olympics this Summer then the UK internet could ground to a halt, and to overcome this the BBC are trialing multicasting.  more

17th May 2004

I have updated the bit rate table at the bottom of this page to include some of the more recent digital radio stations that have launched on digital satellite (DSat). There are now 83 digital radio stations on free-to-air (FTA) DSat more

16th May 2004

Those were the first words that sprung to mind when I saw The Bug for the first time today.

What on earth do Pure Digital think they're doing selling that monstrosity? Words fail me. more

16th May 2004

I can't even remember when Goodmans said this receiver was supposed to have come out it's that long ago, but it's finally available for £100 from Argos. more

6th May 2004

I've received my new VisionDTV PCI card and have written a full review on its performance, including how it compares to my DEC2000t Freeview receiver. more

1st May 2004

There's 2 new, reasonably-priced, Freeview PC products; a USB receiver and a PCI card, both are under the brand-name of VisionPlus, and manufactured by a company called TwinHan, who are a Taiwanese manufacturer that make a number of digital TV receivers and PC cards. more

1st May 2004

A new version of the Netgem i-Player, the i-Player AD, is available that supports the new audio description service that provides a commentary of what's going on on-screen primarily for visually-impaired people. more

30th April 2004

Most of you will know that DAB sounds very poor when low bit rates such as 128 kbps are used for stereo stations, but what about stations that use what most people think is a sufficient bit rate, like 192 kbps on DAB? more

21st April 2004

The BBC have been doing quite a bit of work recently with regards to their DAB transmitter network. more

21st April 2004

Reports are that the above multiplexes are now testing. more

21st April 2004

The above link is to a pdf file (569 KB) of lecture notes on the subject of Audio Coding by Dr David Robinson, which he taught at the University of Essex in 2002. more

13th April 2004

The BBC are planning to get in on "the iPod effect" by making some of their radio shows available as MP3 downloads. more

9th April 2004

Go to www.dixons.co.uk and on the home page the Grundig Opus should be there. more

8th April 2004

The DAB around the world page has been updated, and DAB in the UK is still far worse than every other country that is adopting DAB in terms of the bit rates -- and hence the audio quality -- used for stereo radio stations. more

4th April 2004

Due to a problem with a web hoster who was providing space free-of-charge, but provided an extremely unreliable service, I've moved the DAB, Freeview and FM audio samples more

1st April 2004

This is blatant mis-selling of DAB, although with Ofcom's relaxation of advertisers to be more self-regulatory then it's hardly surprising that you get rubbish like this on the radio. more

21st March 2004

I kid you not, but this isn't about the present day, this is about 1999-2001 time. Here's some quotes made by someone (I've not included his name for reasons of privacy) on a digital radio-related internet forum:
"I was having meetings with senior BBC staff around eighteen months ago, and also just after Christmas 2002, when, on Christmas Eve, Radio 4 went into mono on DAB, and the BBC hoped no-one would notice.
It was a BBC error which caused them to fail to apply for the second multiplex when the go-ahead for the new stations was given. Originally, DAB was to have everything in high quality as regards BBC services, but, because they forgot to apply for the second multiplex, they had to compromise and put everything where it is now.
more

21st March 2004

The Doors section in the News Review section of the Sunday Times has a full page article about digital radio under the headline "Grand illusion of digital radio", and DAB gets slammed due to its "triumph of quantity over quality" approach, and its poor audio quality that has resulted from this approach. more

11th March 2004

The new DVB-H specification that is intended to allow broadcast TV and radio to be received on mobile phones and PDAs (the 'H' stands for handheld) will begin field trials in Berlin this Summer. more

8th March 2004

How on earth Sony can charge £200 for a mains-only radio when you can get a Sony CD/cassette/RDS tuner micro system for £100 (and this micro system sounds very good for the price, because I've had a listen at a relative's house)? more

8th March 2004

If you buy this, make sure you ask whether you can take it back if the reception you get isn't as good as you hoped it would be, because DAB personal radios are notorious for the reception problems. more

4th March 2004

Together with Jazz FM changing to Smooth FM on FM, Jazz FM has ceased transmitting on the MXR North West DAB multiplex. more

4th March 2004

The 192 kbps stereo version of the World Service is on a Czech multiplex, and changes to Czech programming for 3 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the early evening, but the remaining 19 hours are in English. more

28th February 2004

Yep, after putting all their stations on the cheapest digital platform to transmit across (digital satellite) at the dreadful-sounding 128kbps, and reducing The Hits Radio and Magic from stereo to mono on 8 Emap multiplexes in order to fit Heat on these multiplexes at 64kbps mono, Emap have increased the bit rate of Key 103!  more

25th February 2004

The Audio Advice page has been re-written to include a section about using S/PDIF digital audio outputs to connect digital receivers to hi-fi or home cinema systems, and the soundcards listed have been brought up-to-date. more

20th February 2004

Pure Digital have announced that they're bringing out a micro system with DAB on it in the Summer for about £350.  more

19th February 2004

The best-specified Freeview receiver available. Bargain. more