Dinosaur Technology - DAB Radio -- Dead And Buried

jimbo45 · 05 Dec 2011

Hi all
One piece of technology that IMO is GOING nowhere is DAB Radio -- now known as Dead And Buried.

1) Reception is often poorer than bog standard FM.
2) not "Vehicle Friendly"
3) Quality poorer often than FM due to more and more compression on available frequencies.
4) Only National reception.

IMO the Internet works A LOT BETTER for radio these days -- and with decent wifi speed it's nice to see proper portable Internet Radios appearing -- I have a nice SQUEEZEBOX Internet radio but PURE also do them.

Zillions of radio stations are available PLANET WIDE covering every sort of genre you could possibly want --and more -- and often the compression ratio is not bad at all such as WGBH Boston HD2 - Classical music -- in High Definition Audio Stream -- reception clearer than my local FM classical station !!.

I would suggest orgainsations like the BBC and others trying to save money just kill of the useless DAB RADIO and concentrate in providing decent Internet streams and keep FM going for local areas for use in places where wifi not readily available or for use in vehicles (although I have no doubt soon that Internet radio will be available in vehicles too).

Don't forget D.A.B radio means Dead And Buried.

Cheers

jimbo

kado897 · 05 Dec 2011

I got a really expensive DAB radio as a retirement present 4 years ago and quite frankly I use the FM tuner far more than DAB.

seavixen32 · 05 Dec 2011

I couldn't agree more.

I have a Pure Avanti DAB/FM/Internet radio receiver and I mostly use the Internet stations or FM, which I agree gives a better listening experience than the digital signal.

I can see the Blu-Ray format going the same way as well. I read an article this week that hinted at a rethink on Blu-Ray because nobody is buying Blu-Ray DVD Players or Blu-Ray discs.

DustSailor · 05 Dec 2011

seavixen32 said:

I can see the Blu-Ray format going the same way as well. I read an article this week that hinted at a rethink on Blu-Ray because nobody is buying Blu-Ray DVD Players or Blu-Ray discs.

I don't because the jerks updated their disks or something (Security?) that won't let my computer read newer disks. I need a software update, but the software costs 100 or more USD. H3llz no. They can kiss my perkey. Dvds aren't all that bad, and its better than getting tossed in the blu-ray loop (buy this, update that).

jimbo45 · 05 Dec 2011

Hi there
Blu Ray -- also another piece of "Orphan Technology going nowhere.

"Bog standard" DVD's can be upscaled to very nearly proper 1080p with a decent DVD player -- and a computer can do this too.

Also with such things as On Demand Video services from SKY / Virgin and others you can download video content in full HD quality and play them anywhere without having to go through complex "dubious systems" to get a Blu ray disc to play on anything other than a "Bog standard" blue ray domestic player.

The downfall of things like Blu Ray was due in part to the movie industry itself not allowing the use of digital technology but would have happened anyway with decent Internet speeds -- even 2 years ago downloading around 10 GB for a 2 hr movie in HD quality just wasn't practicable. Now with decent speeds you can download this stuff really quickly so why take all the trouble to go to a store and get a physical disk.

Why would people waste money on a 25 GB or even 50 GB - if you can find them read-write BD disk when even in the present circumstances (after floods in Asia) external HDD's with smaller footprints than a BD disk and are self powered via USB connections and can have capacities of up to 1TB are much much cheaper for storage costs per MB.

Also these devices can also be used for (in ?) netbooks that don't have separate DVD devices, tablets, and modern TV sets too.

Virtual DVD emulation also allows playing of Blu Ray DVD's without having to worry about real hardware.

Honestly buying BD movies is a 100% waste of money --no wonder the public aren't swallowing the bait and buying.

The same IMO will happen with 3-D -- currently very disappointing --even at Sport you get a much narrower action of the field than in traditional 2-D transmission and as for movies --the worst movies only seem to be filmed in 3-D which to me says something.

The next generation will either be proper VR (Virtual Reality) or a full Holographic projection or a combination of both -- will take possibly a few years and a MASSIVE increase in compute power but that's where we are heading.

Cheers
jimbo