I've come across another of theses adverts for DAB radio, claiming that it's "crystal clear CD quality sound", more like muddy shite MPEG-2 garbage. How the hell can they get away with advertising it as CD quality?
Most stations in the UK are broadcast @ 128kbps in MPEG-2 (hardly a decent codec). The truth of the matter is that old FM sounds better, I actually did some tests today. Digital Radio in the UK sounds worse then FM. FACT.
Everyone was so keen to roll this out so they could brag about it being digital and also squeeze down the bandwidth used and then make up some rubbish about it being better quality, just so they could try and make a little bit more cash.
The UK, as per usual is lagging way too far behind.
WHAT THE F*CK!!!! It's bad enough many are hovering around the 200kbps mark - which still sounds pretty awful compared to modern codecs like WMA9 at 128kbps. What are people playing at? If you want to go the cheap route and use that old awful codec like MPEG-2 you need to give it bucket loads of bandwidth - you can't starve it of bandwidth and expect people to support it.
Roll on Digital radio that is AT LEAST encoded with WMA9 @ 256kbps.
We seriously need to drop that MPEG-2 rubbish and move up to MPEG-4 or better yet Windows Media. That goes for digital TV too, which is just plain awful for anything where's there is a lot of movement on screen like sports etc.
Wake up broadcasters, people are going to go abroad, hear and see the difference between their digital broadcasts and ours, and they will feel ripped off.