There is already a National mux for ABC & SBS. The only thing it doesn’t have is live coverage of parliament, as it carries continued coverage of News Radio while the AM&FM stations carry parliament. Unlike the UK, it’s not a nationwide single frequency, but different frequencies in cities where DAB+ has been rolled out.
I’m not really sure how else to put it as you don’t seem to be understanding the situation, lack of spectrum isn’t an issue, it’s beyond highly unlikely DAB will be rolled out any further than it already has been, Newcastle might be a remote possibility as maybe Geelong, (if they can get it to go into Melbourne also), anywhere else, nope, not worth it, so that leaves currently 4 more DAB channels in each metro area, plus another 4 if you take away the in-reserve DTV channel.
The issue to put another 2 commercial or otherwise DAB multiplexes on air is, you have to fully duplicate what’s already there, from studio DAB equipment right through to the final antenna system to transmit the signals, plus then also duplicate another transmission system at all the DAB infill/translator sites.
To do that you’re looking easily up around, but probably over $500 million dollars for initial install, plus on going operation costs just over the next couple of years.
Who’s going to pay for that, there’s very little or no revenue in the current DAB, with very few listeners in the grand scheme of things, double that & you’ll very quickly send all the commercial broadcasters broke & out of business, should they even take up that idea, ARN & SCA are struggling to stay in business as it is, so are the TV networks, so they won’t invest in further expansion of DAB that no one listens to & has no revenue to keep operating, & why should the Government/taxpayers who will have no benefit from or interest in another 2 commercial DAB multiplexes in metro areas fund it? Probably everything they’d put on the extra multiplexes you could already listen to by streaming it anyway.
I think you’re just going to have to face the fact that the fantasy world you’re living in regarding DAB in Australia & reality are literally universes apart.
And just going back to your initial comment/suggestion, just changing all DTV to MPEG-4 won’t free up any spectrum for DAB or anything else, it’ll just allow the current offering to be all HD & still fit in the current spectrum. All DTV will have to move to DVB-T2 & each give up some space & number of channels & share a multiplex or 2 before any more spectrum space will be created for other use.
Ditto DRM
Yes, unfortunately I don’t see DRM progressing anywhere, AM Stereo probably has more chance of a comeback.
Digitising Radio doesn’t really have any major great benefits over analogue (particularly FM), where as digitising TV had a huge positive change as to what could be done & the end user viewing quality.
As many of you are finding out, even now TV has digitised, changing formats to MPEG-4 or DVB-T2 is slow & not a huge benefit to viewers, be honest, how many want to watch big brother or a current affair in 4K?
I’ve recently heard there’s places in Europe now trying to push people back onto over the air broadcast transmitted radio & TV particularly FM for radio because internet/data transfer is becoming so huge with capacity needing to be increased so much, costs are going up, making it not worthwhile or cost effective.
I’m sure everyone here has been affected by the NBN 6 monthly price increases that your internet provider passes on & also the mobile phone networks putting up prices, though they give you bonus data for the added price hike, knowing 90% plus of the customers don’t use what they have available each month so certainly won’t be using more data each month.
I’ve also recently read in the USA, even though many TV stations have recently upgraded to ATSC 3.0, despite the advances this could bring for TV, it probably won’t develop any further use or rollout due to being non open source (in other words the broadcasters & TV receiver makers have to pay licencing fees to use it) & associated DRM (not as in the DRM initially spoken about) ongoing costs, much the same as HD Radio & it’s lack of progression, or even reduction.
Oh really, have you got a source for this? What country? I’m calling BS on this. I’m not saying there’s not internet traffic optimisation but if you’re trying to tell us that the internet is not an effective transmission method I’m calling that a delusional thought.
No certainly not me or my provider. I’ve got a very generous mobile data allowance at a great rate and my NBN is unlimited.
I feel you are the one who can’t accept the fact that the world is moving on from traditional terrestrial broadcast transmission. Understandable considering you are employed in that sector but you only have to look around to see the winds of change despite what obvious groupthink effect and self interest is being pervaded here.
I’ll never understand how IP multicast has seemingly never been part of the solution. Tiny trials of IPTV happened, but it never seemingly became the norm.
Everyone streaming radio, or even watching a 4K stream of a live sporting event - huge amounts of duplication of network traffic.
There’s still new attempts here - 5G MBS is a set of extensions to try and make broadcast/multicast a part of the base standard, but it just never seems to make it to consumer devices and common usage, despite that you’d need a fraction of the current spectrum used for DAB or DVB-T to deliver those same services as IP muilticast.
It seems like the next evolution of the ATSC/DVB standards will be in this direction, with the idea of convergence with those 5G standards changes, with DAB already essentially a dead end technology.
Can’t remember the country, was in a chat at work with a manager a few weeks ago, who just so happens to be in Europe for work at the moment.
No I’m not saying that the internet is not an effective transmission method, I’m saying that capacity needs to be increased at such fast rates & that costs associated are increasing at fast rates it’s pushing economical viability.
Your mobile & internet provider may have given you a temporary reprieve from a price hike, but if you think you’re so special you won’t get one or be affected by them you’re the delusional one, you won’t escape it, doesn’t matter if your internet is unlimited, NBN will put up the price for that twice a yearly, eventually you’ll be hit with it. The mobile providers are the ones giving extra data for increased prices, again, you’ll be hit with this, they are all putting prices up now or in the next couple of months & removing old plans forcing customers to move to current plans, grandfathering plans & the days of cheap small data allowance plans are over, the very few huge data consumers may benefit for a while, but most won’t.
As for not accepting the world moving on from traditional terrestrial transmission, I’m not & it’s not, what’s talked about in here & believed by many, including you to be the norm for the vast majority of the population is not reality, there’s still lots of people (granted not 50% or more though) don’t have internet or a smart mobile phone or even a mobile phone, because they can’t afford it, don’t need it or just don’t want it or can’t get anything better than standing on your head with a finger between you toes to get any mobile phone reception or any internet speed faster than dial-up from 30 years ago.
Because the telcos & those that own the networks & spectrum will become the providers & will charge for it with the program creators TV & radio networks not really benefiting.
You don’t think the telcos are going to invest in building & operating their networks to have all that potential chargeable data removed from it, they can charge 10 million people now using the network to transfer the data over it, make the network multicast, everyone will still be using & relying on the network for the data transfer, so operationally it’ll still be costly, but theoretically the telcos won’t be able to charge everyone for it. The network’s still have to be built, maintained/repaired & operated at a cost, but who’s going to pay for all that if they can’t charge the end consumer directly, only put it back on the content creators, who’ll then charge the customers (end uses) high subscription fees to watch/listen to it.
The technology is great & it’s pretty much a no brainier, but the world revolves around money & there’s a lot of greed by a lot of people, if huge money can’t be made simply that the masses won’t question, then it won’t happen, I guess you can choose to live in a commercial country & be willing to pay through the nose at times for everything or live somewhere like China & get everything you want or need from the Government, but go against what they tell you & have nothing.
You’re way off, by like a lot and here’s the latest available stats to prove otherwise…
ABS - Household use of information technology
We are talking about a very small percentage despite what you are claiming.
So for both of your examples we’re talking roughly 1 in 6 or maybe 7 if you really want to water it down, don’t have access to the internet at home or have a smart phone. So if you live in a small street with 12 houses, 2 of those don’t have internet or a smart phone right?
Statistics can be made to say anything you want & they depend which way you look at them as to what story gets told, 1 in 6 not having a smart phone or internet at home is still a lot of people & a pretty big number, when taken from the number of people/households in Australia.
I wouldn’t mind gambling a large amount with those odds, 1 in 6 chance of winning, happy days.
Yeah besides we could always kit them out with one of those DRM radios you keep promoting….oh wait….
I’d like to run a DAB web server, similar to the FM web servers I currently host. Any ideas as to whether there’s any software solution out there?
I note that DABPlayer can record the whole mux (baseband) with an RTL2832 stick so, theoretically, with three RTL2832 sticks, you should be able to capture every channel that’s being broadcast over the three muxes. We just need some sort of software solution that provides a web interface, demuxes the individual audio streams (+ associated metadata) and forwards the various audio streams out via the web.
And since the services are muxed, it won’t be a shared tuner like the TEFs and everyone can listen to every stream at the same time (assuming enough upstream bandwidth on the server).