Yeah, I don't know why people are holding DAB+ up as the be all and end all, I think if we think that we're all wearing those rose-tinted specs again. That said, it would be a nice upgrade to receive, but they'd just think "better quality at same bandwidths... OH WAIT, same quality at lower! More channels! Maybe we can get the audio channel from QVC on there too!"
I do wonder if maybe improved codecs such as used in the DAB+ spec might decrease the inherent latency of DAB though, I have one of those funky radio-controlled watches and it amuses me to see just how out of sync everything is on the hour (analogue TV still rules... Then FM, then DVB-T, satellite, DAB, LiveStation, then BBC.co.uk streams) > The drivers stopped working when XP SP2 was released and > Psion terminated support at this point rather than rewrite > the drivers - so if you did keep your PC up to date it became > useless then. But the old drivers did start working again > under Vista, which was a bit if a surprise to me. It was XP's USB drivers wot broke it. Some reported using Windows 2000's USB drivers solved the problem. Also, the older your motherboard, the more likely it is to work without incident because of the insane amount of current it draws (because newer mobos actually have more compliant USB controller chips which WILL shut down the port if the device tries to draw more than the 500mV spec). Some also reported powered USB hubs helped, but they just gave me issues. I use my Wavefinder on my Windows 2003 server (on an older mobo) and it just works. Of course, if you do hacks to the power supply and USB cable then you can solve all of this(the amount of times I've lost signal because the little 5v wall wart has come unplugged from the USB cable!... Cable ties are your best friend. The "wflights" application to turn the Wavefinder's lights off also saves on precious current and I've had no problems except for the occasional dropout in DABBar for about 3 years now. :) I've found that when I've been in borderline signal areas with my Wavefinder, just angling the power and USB cables in different directions can make the difference between 90% and 100% signal... Make of that what you will! Maybe the protective braiding isn't too good ;) CRT monitors also wreaked havoc with it most likely due to the RF or EM (or both?) they chuck out I guess. But hey, if it ain't broke?... That, and I've not found a really good DAB receiver which I can plug into my PC, do scheduled recordings by just saving the MP2 stream - and generally control it via a PC application (which also streams over my LAN or optionally the WAN) (I know there's more than one DAB app that can achieve this.) However, I am not normal. What concerns me is the pronounced slowdown in consumer investment in digital radio technology. I know there's a saturation point but we're nowhere near that - and although there's no proposed DSO for radio (yet), how are we supposed to even contemplate one when FM is far superior both in terms of real-world quality and market saturation? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
