DAB in Ireland: RTE multiplex closed

watty

Apparently they are planing to test Mobile TV with the DAB rather than DVB-h.

Dunno why.

byrnefm

I notice that on http://www.wohnort.demon.co.uk/DAB/ that the RRC06 conference on the allocation of additional DAB channels to different countries has finished - haven't found any further details yet but does anyone know if Ireland had applied for additional channels, besides the two (12A & 12C) that we already have?

byrnefm

From RTÉ news today:

http://www.rte.ie/arts/2006/0621/rte.html

RTÉ to seek digital radio licence
RTÉ has today announced that it will seek a licence to begin a DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) radio service on the east coast from Dublin to Louth later this year.

The announcement follows a successful six-month trial of DAB along the east coast involving RTÉ Radio 1, RTÉ 2fm, RTÉ Radió na Gaeltachta, RTÉ lyric fm, Today fm and WRN.

The new digital radio service will mean that RTÉ can provide listeners with a greater choice of programming.

RTÉ plans to engage with the wider radio industry for nationwide DAB rollout once the new service is fully operational.

Commenting, Adrian Moynes, Managing Director of RTÉ Radio, said: "There is an opportunity for the radio industry as a whole to bring the benefits of digital radio to listeners. RTÉ will be working to involve all stakeholders - policy makers, regulators, commercial broadcasters and retailers - in the development of the future of radio on this island."

DMC

/me tips hat to a positive development.

byte

I wonder how long it'll take for them to roll out DAB nationwide.

Particularly Holywell Hill, or Truskmore.

SPDUB

BBC2 on NTL has been clear of interference this evening so I'm guessing they have switched off the DAB tests from Three Rock

byrnefm

I did a full scan (Band-III and L-Band) scan just now .. no stations at all from Three Rock and I can't get a signal from Claremont Carn, either

Hopefully we won't have to wait another six years for the next 'test'!

DMC

I doubt it somehow, things are progressing....

From yesterday's Sunday Business Post

Stations still sceptical on digital radio
http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=MEDIA%20AND%20MARKETING-qqqs=mediaandmarketing-qqqid=15714-qqqx=1.asp
16 July 2006 By Catherine O’Mahony

A couple of years ago a digital radio receiver would have set you back as much as €500.

A couple of years ago a digital radio receiver would have set you back as much as €500. But key in the search term ‘‘digital radio’’ on eBay these days and you can order a new one by a well-known brand for as little as €38.

Due to a lack of digital radio services, no reasonable Irish person would have bothered buying a digital radio until now, but this might change.

RTE is set to start a digital audio broadcasting (DAB) service in the greater Dublin area this autumn. Listeners across Ireland could theoretically be receiving digital transmissions of their favourite stations within two years.

The key point about digital radios is that they may look much like regular radios, but they can carry far more channels.

The sound quality is technically not quite as good as an FM signal, but this is not generally perceptible to most listeners, and supporters of the DAB standard argue that digital radio eliminates the hiss and buzz that can occur on an analogue frequency when the airwaves are crowded.

A further advantage is that all digital radios have a digital screen with information about the programme, including - information on the music, lyrics, links to websites - or even commercials. In the future, it’s expected that radio sets will have electronic programming guides, rather like televisions.

‘‘We need to move the whole radio industry forward,” said JP Coakley, RTE’s head of operations and the person spearheading RTE’s DAB efforts.

‘‘People expect so much variety from their media now and radio is starting to feel a bit old-fashioned. People need to wake up to the fact that it’s going to change.

‘‘Fair enough, FM is going to be around for the next five years at least, maybe even ten.

“But we’ve seen it in Britain, people do like their DAB radios.”

DAB has been developed in Britain over the past ten years.

The BBC added five specialist digital radio channels to its service in 2002 covering areas such as sport and music and targeting Asian and African communities. The concept was a slow burn but it has taken off rapidly in recent months.

A spokesman for the BBC said that 3.25 million digital radio sets had been sold in Britain.

He said 13.6 per cent of adults now lived in households with one or more DAB sets.

That the Digital Radio Development Bureau envisages the cumulative total will grow to 13million by 2008 (29 per cent of households) and to nearly 20 million sets by 2009.

32 out of 46 BBC’s local radio services are now available locally on DAB. There are 427,000 listeners to the Asian Network and 613,000 to Sports Extra, a new digital channel.

The service is currently being extended across the North.

The spokesman also said that most people were very satisfied with DAB’s sound quality, with around 95 per cent of digital radio listeners saying it was excellent, good or satisfactory.

He added that a steady stream of repeat purchases also indicated listeners’ satisfaction.

Around 10 per cent of current sales were by listeners who already own a DAB radio.

Whether this success can be translated into an Irish context remains unproven, and the commercial radio sector is sceptical.

Irish people are not used to paying much for their radios, runs one core argument against DAB. The average Irish household already has six FM radios, including the car, the phone and the MP3 player.

Even iPods now have FM radio. People may spend a small amount on a kitchen radio or bedside radio, but they are unlikely to want to upgrade it unless it actually breaks.

Today FM was involved in the initial DAB trial and is expected to involve itself in the further roll-out of RTE’s experiment, but even its chief executive, Willie O’Reilly, is not convinced by the format. He said that commercial players might be slow to come on board.

‘‘Japan hasn’t adopted DAB, nor has America,” he said ‘‘FM radio has served us well and I expect it will be the primary way we listen to radio for another 15 years. FM reception is actually brilliant in Ireland and it’s nowhere as good in the UK. We need to tread very slowly and carefully on this one.”

O’Reilly is keen on alternative digital transmission options and said that internet radio was another major development for the industry. ‘‘We need to be very careful, given that, even more exciting technologies based around the internet are emerging that will undermine the business proposition for DAB.”

RTE is, however, examining the possibility of creating new content for a digital service, as the BBC has done.

In the shorter term, Coakley said there would be many options to bundle existing content into a new format to be played at a different time.

Evening radio content, the programmes that are played when most people are watching television, could be switched to a daytime radio format, for instance. News content could be reformatted. In Denmark, one digital radio station simply runs five-minute news bulletins on a continuous loop. Or content could be created to appeal to Ireland’s growing ethnic communities.

‘‘You can really start to move more towards community radio on a digital platform,” said Coakley.

So when will Ireland actually have a full digital radio service?

The answer is unknown. The service can’t be launched until there have been considerably more discussions between RTE, the government, the commercial radio sector and the relevant regulatory authorities.

One key aspect will be incentivising the whole concept for the commercial sector. In Britain, regulators agreed to roll over analogue contracts to ease the blow for existing players.

The Irish industry will have to negotiate with the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) over whether such incentives would be provided here. A BCI spokesman said it was too early to tell what its thinking would be on this issue but it would welcome a start to discussions.

‘‘Financially, this is a big commitment and it doesn’t make sense for us to proceed without the input of the commercial radio sector,” said Coakley. ‘‘We’re moving forward but it’s a risk. I suppose we see it as part of our public duty.”

If the commercial sector were to come on board, Coakley believes it would be possible to have Ireland covered in the next two years.

ComReg, the body that grants licences to operate digital radio, is expected to move fast on issuing RTE’s transmission unit with its first licence to operate a digital broadcast signal.

The application filed by RTE’s transmission unit, RTE NL, is for the right to operate a comprehensive digital trial for one year, with potential to extend.

It will cover the area from Dublin to Dundalk and would allow the trial of six to seven high quality channels. The transmission unit, RTE NL, will negotiate with clients including RTE itself, over which channels will be broadcast.

The initial DAB trial included six stations: RTE Radio 1, 2FM, Radio na Gaeltachta, Lyric FM, Today FM, and WRN, on a single DAB multiplex (broadcast signal).

Throughout the trial, homes in this area received a clear, clean signal, according to RTE.

RTE has said it is confident that the same quality reception will be achieved when the service is rolled out nationally.

david23

The BBC & Digital One multiplexes are now available from two sites in North West Wales. I don't know what power they are though.

www.ukdigitalradio.com/news/display.asp?id=255

byrnefm

It seems that DAB might be back for yet another trial, according to a document from Comreg released yesterday, COMREG0648.PDF -

Comreg document 06/48, part 3.2, page 10:

ComReg notes that a trial of DAB including DAB-IP took place in the eastern region earlier this year and that a further year long trial on a wider geographic scale is proposed, commencing in September.

I wonder what they mean by a 'wider geographic scale'?

DMC

Oh. Spendid. More transmitters, I'd suggest..

lawhec

I'd hazard a guess that it will probably involve transmitters at the main TV & Radio sites. If it says to start in September, it can't be too long then. Me thinks that they're looking to "soft launch" DAB with an RTÉ multiplex first before deciding what else to do.

watty

If they call it Trials they can let public have it before they actually get a full licence. See Tests, Trials & Licences on Comreg site

byte

Oooh, I wonder if that'll include Truskmore and/or Holywell Hill!?

Mossy Monk

good to see more may be able to take part

DMC

Just to update, there is no update; all is still quiet on the DAB front.

byrnefm

DMC wrote:

Just to update, there is no update; all is still quiet on the DAB front.

There are rumours that the WorldDAB group are going to announce a DAB v2 where DAB would support both MP2 and AAC+ decoding, I wonder if RTÉ are waiting to hear the results of that first, before doing another trial? Probably not but I am a bit surprised there has been no further word from RTÉ on DAB, after getting our hopes up earlier this year

david23

There's a lot of talk about the new AAC+ version of DAB (provisionally titled DAB+) in various European countries, including France, Germany & Sweden. This new DAB standard is expected to get the official seal of approval at the WorldDAB conference next Monday/Tuesday.

It would make sense for RTÉ to adopt the new standard from the start rather than go with out-of-date technology and be left with the same legacy problems as the UK where radios cannot be upgraded. Using AAC+ about 25 good audio quality stations can be fitted on to a multiplex as opposed to 6 using MP2, so it's much more efficient.

watty

It would make sense if RTE only supplied content and someone else ran it. Then we would get 9 or 10 BBC stations on it too.

muincav

Well said Watty! its a pity the suits at RTE didnt employ someone as intelligent as you, instead of a lot of highly paid has beens..:cool:

lawhec

RTÉ are caught between a rock and a hard place. Start now with using MP2 streams and you have the advantage of reasonably-ish priced radios available for a standard that is heading towards obseletence and has the disadvantage of being of little use in the long term, or use a new standard that to the best of my knowledge is not fully in place outside of tests anywhere else and which may not be a future universal standard. DAB2/DAB+ is an improvement over the current DAB1 standard but it still has the disadvantages of wide bandwidth multiplexes, reception issues for portable use, relying on a gatekeeper for transmission etc.

BTW Damo, your post two days ago got my hopes up before I opened it - I thought there was a big announcement.

SPDUB

Northern Correspondent wrote:

BTW Damo, your post two days ago got my hopes up before I opened it - I thought there was a big announcement.

Well according to an electical trade publication i saw about a month ago the service is supposed to return in November ( no exact date given)

byrnefm

I've noticed that at least two of the more recently released DAB radios (eg. the Evoke 1XT and the new Morphy Richards radio that does DRM AM decoding) both allow firmware upgrades - maybe they're positioning themselves for a DAB v2? If a radio can handle AAC+ decoding for DRM transmissions, surely it'll be able to handle DAB using AAC+?

The debate (if it's even being discussed at RTÉ) between MPEG-2 and AAC+ seems to mirror the discussions held here back around 1960 before Irish TV broadcasting started - 'should we go with the current and cheap(ish) 405-line standard or do we go with the expensive 625-line system?'. I guess the same discussion *is* happening regarding DTT (MPEG-2 vs MPEG-4)...

By the way, SPDUB - in case I mis-interpreted your post, does the article imply that DAB tests are returning to Dublin next month or were you referring to something else? Just wondering!

netman

Folks, please excuse my ignorance, I've been looking at purchasing a DAB radio and from looking at this thread it looks like a lot of you have gone down that route already.

It sounds to me like RTE aren't doing the DAB trial anymore but might start again soon.

If RTE aren't on DAB, are there any other stations I could pick up in Skerries?
It could save me purchasing an expensive paperweight

Thanks!

byrnefm

netman wrote:

It sounds to me like RTE aren't doing the DAB trial anymore but might start again soon.

If RTE aren't on DAB, are there any other stations I could pick up in Skerries?
It could save me purchasing an expensive paperweight

Despite having one myself, I would say to hold off a purchase until it's know what RTÉ are going to do next. I don't think you'll pick anything up from Skerries from the UK. There's always the possibility that RTÉ might try DAB with AAC+ next (pure speculation on my part), in which case no current DAB radios would be able to pick up those signals.

I thought they were supposed to do another trial in September and now I hear November but nothing official

watty

You want one that has DRM and AAC+. RTE and Mannan LW will both be DRM soon.

DMC

An article in the tech section of the Guardian today... worth reading through about the recent WorldDAB announcements....

The BBC is shortchanging consumers on digital radio
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1948256,00.html
Jack Schofield
Thursday November 16, 2006
The Guardian

I am not an elitist. Recently I've been pointing out that the technology used in the UK for DAB (digital audio broadcasting) is obsolete, that the sound quality is inferior to FM radio and that we should be preparing to move to a new DAB2 standard.

To recap, DAB in the UK uses MP2 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II) compression, which performs badly at the low bitrates used by almost all the UK's DAB radio stations. The BBC's own research says MP2 needs 256kbps to sound good, while 224kbps is "often adequate". The best you get now, outside Radio 3, is 128kbps. It's not good enough.

The new standard codec for DAB2 is AAC+, which does sound good at 128kbps. Switching to AAC+ would therefore make all the current stations sound better if they used the same bitrates. The more likely result is that many stations aimed at less critical audiences would reduce their bitrates (saving them lots of money) - and this would free up space on the DAB multiplexes for even more new stations.

The only people who lose are the ones who have already bought DAB radios, which are incompatible with AAC+. This is hard cheese, but most or all of the current stations could keep transmitting MP2 for, say, five years.

Between 3m and 4m DAB radios have been sold here in the past decade, but that isn't a reason for selling another 20m of the same. In fact, smart consumers may want to wait until dual-standard radios appear, as I'm told they will.

However, British consumers are being short-changed by the BBC's support for low-quality audio. The BBC has been the foundation for some of the best of the British hi-fi industry, particularly through its FM broadcasts and reference loudspeaker designs, such as the LS3/5a.

With that heritage, BBC radio should not now be falling short of 1982 CD quality. It should be aspiring to the sound quality of HD-DVD and Blu-ray. It would cost very little to do.

The BBC could, for example, broadcast better-than-DAB audio using its satellite feeds, according to a paper I've been emailed by Steven Green. He has an MSc in communications and signal processing from Imperial College London, is a columnist for Hi-Fi World magazine and runs the digitalradiotech.co.uk website; his co-author, David Robinson, has a PhD in psychoacoustic modelling and digital audio coding.

The core of this bit of the argument is that the BBC has massive amounts of bandwidth available on its digital TV platforms, including 36.2Mbps on Freeview. Apparently the BBC uses 256kbps just to transmit the audio with BBC1. Why can't it find 256kbps for a standalone radio station?

For comparison, the BBC is transmitting radio via satellite at between 128kbps and 190kbps, whereas ARD in German is using 320kbps for stereo radio and 448kbps for surround sound. Green and Robinson argue that, if the BBC can't broadcast decent audio via DAB, it could use its other digital platforms. And this could be done by devoting 1% of the BBC's available DTV bandwidth to radio instead of the current 0.7%.

According to Rajar's audience research published in August, more people listened to digital radio via the DTV platforms (38.9%) or the internet (22.8%) than had DAB sets (15.3%). This is in spite of the fact that the BBC has spent vast sums (if they were in the form of paid advertisements) promoting DAB, and nothing at all to say: just connect your Freeview/satellite/cable box to your hi-fi and your radio will sound even better.

So why doesn't the BBC deliver really high-quality radio via Freeview/satellite instead of flogging the dead horse that is DAB?

SPDUB

It seems RTE may have put the 3 Rock DAB transmitter back on air for some reason as the interference on my BBC2 reception re-appeared shortly after noon today

L1011

I saw this 5 minutes before I had to leave this morning and had no antenna on my Evoke 1XT, so I didn't try testing - any checked to see if its carrying anything?

DMC

Why didnt I see this yesterday? Its back on.

A new scan of the band is needed. The mux is now called "RTÉ DAB Mux 1"

The channel names on my Robert RD5 have all got that theta greek symbol for an É on the display, but there are 6 channels being broadcast, which are the usual RTÉ 4 stations, plus "RTÉ Test", at 96kbps stereo. There is also a sub channel on RTE Radio 1... called "AMsimcst", which has to be for sports/mass differences on Radio 1. Its in mono at 64kpbs.
RTÉ Radio 1 and 2FM is 128k stereo, Lyric FM is 160k stereo and RnaG is 112 stereo.

The time is spot on as well.