John Howell
Eighteen months ago, it was announced that Norway will switch off its FM transmitters in January 2017.
I’m amazed that one moment we are being encouraged to buy ever better performing home equipment, (cinema systems, surround sound, etc) then we are asked to "enjoy" transmissions with falling standards, I mean DAB of course.
To give one example: I happen to like ‘Chill’, a station that plays modern electronic and generally soothing music with no commercials. A feature of this material is the generally high quality of the recordings. And what does DAB offer? 64KBits/second MONO! Jazz FM (on DAB!) is 80KBits/sec mono. To be fair all the major stations are 128KB/sec Stereo, with BBC Radio 3 leading the way at 192KB/sec.
There is much ruminating about all this on the ‘net, let’s see if the topic is re-ignited here in the UK when Norway pulls the plug on FM!
Dave Plowman
But do they have the same DAB as us? Some, if I recall correctly, have much better CODECs than ours – a problem with early adoption. And do they drop the rate down to as far as some here?
DAB at its best can be good. I use it exclusively in one car – although it’s an aftermarket radio with a decent aerial. The other car with only FM shows just why I prefer DAB around here. But I don’t used DAB at home. Radio here comes via FreeView.
Re: …better performing home equipment, (… surround sound)
And much needed given the appalling speakers fitted to most modern TVs, regardless of cost.
DAB, as such, can be OK, and FM is anything but perfect. The snag is like all digital systems it is all too easy to alter the data rate and reduce the quality. I am not sure what Norway does.
I thought there was no date given for an FM switch off in the UK, after the rumpus when it was last mooted?
For what it’s worth, I hardly use FM these days. It’s DAB in the car, where the superior reception (on the roads I use) makes it sound better than average FM multi-path distortion. At home, I have a ring system with four FreeView tuners to give me the radio stations I listen to most. Although I do have FM, AM and DAB tuners as part of the main sound system in the living room.
John Howell
I think the conclusion was "…the situation will be re-considered some time after 2020…"
I am not anti DAB provided enough bandwidth is dealt out. I doubt I will be able to hear the difference between Medium Wave and a live performance in 2020!
Bernie Newnham
"Alexa, play Radio 2"
One of my Christmas presents (2016) was an Amazon Echo Dot – everyone seems to have bought everyone else in the family one of these this year. It’s the little puck version without the nice speaker, though soon it will work with my Sonos gear. It’s a bit of a novelty gimmick at the moment, though you can set timers, turn lights on, get the weather, and more. What it also does is show the way that in a few years a command like "House, increase temperature to 20oC and turn on the kitchen lights" will be completely unremarkable.
In the meantime –
"Alexa, tea, Earl grey, hot."
"I am not a replicator."
Nick Ware
I’ve been intrigued to read how, in the US (of course), police murder investigations have already led to legal challenges with Amazon to release voice info stored on their servers from these devices. Seemingly, they can mistake trigger-words such as "Alexa", "tea", "murder", kill you" etc., to start recording what you say, and it all ends up stored on the server. Challenges similar to Apple’s iCloud phone data are allegedly now not uncommon.
Just be careful what you say within earshot of these devices! And just imagine all those wide open hackable insecure ways into your WiFi network.
