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A comment on Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio.

Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by xysg on Sunday June 30, 2024 @03:45AM (#40835713)
The reverse scenario happened here in Singapore. It was the first in Asia to introduce DAB in 1999. The national broadcaster MediaCorp then decided to cease DAB transmission in 2011, forcing those who've invested in new DAB equipment to throw them out the window (while many are dual-FM/DAB sets, some more affordable ones are exclusively DAB-only). Interesting that the decision was made to go backwards in technology, likely motivated by economics.
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Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by hulitu on Sunday June 30, 2024 @01:49PM (#40838681)
> the decision was made to go backwards in technology

What is so forward about DAB ?

In theory it sounds excelent. In practice it sounds like crap due to using the lowest bitrate possible.

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Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by coretx on Sunday June 30, 2024 @02:15PM (#40838868)
DAB is optimized for "rights holders". Not for radio stations, not for end users, not for the state. It's designed against everyone but the rights holder / copyrights industry interests.
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Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by gpvos on Sunday June 30, 2024 @05:16PM (#40840446)
How so? It's not encrypted or anything similar.
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Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by coretx on Sunday June 30, 2024 @06:25PM (#40840883)
https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/102300_102399/102367/01...
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Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by teractiveodular on Sunday June 30, 2024 @10:45PM (#40842130)
Is this actually used anywhere? To me it feels like DAB and any putative DRM mechanisms have already been basically obsoleted by streaming systems like Spotify.
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Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by pjc50 on Monday July 01, 2024 @10:33AM (#40846200)
That's not the real rightsholder thing, as hardly anyone bothers with scrambled broadcasts; no, the real rightsholder handicap was limiting the bitrate of original DAB so it sounds worse than CDs.
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Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by mrguyorama on Wednesday July 03, 2024 @03:51PM (#40869417)
It never mattered what the max bitrate was going to be, because as long as there was a lower bitrate option that allowed you to broadcast more channels, that was the option station owners were going to use. Because selling X ads makes less money than selling 2X ads.

Digital TV and radio were simply the first casualties of the modern advertising economy.

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Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by rsynnott on Monday July 01, 2024 @09:41AM (#40845784)
While DAB is very rough (mp2 at usually under 128kbits) DAB+ is HE-ACC and will sound better than FM even at quite low data rates.
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Re:Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio by userabchn on Monday July 01, 2024 @01:28PM (#40848050)
DAB has also effectively been abandoned in Ireland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Radio_in_the_Republic_...)
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