Digital Radio DAB+

[nate]

Hey I'm wondering if anyone has much knowledge on DAB+ for in car?
Has anyone installed a system with DAB+? What are your thoughts? Is it as revolutionary as they say?

A little research has lead me to products like this, which is designed to plug into Sony head units to receive DAB+ although this is an American product, I assume it will be compatible here?
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665101575#specifications

Is there similar products available in Australia? Or Head units that have DAB+ integrated?

[loweart]

I think you may have to look far and wide because Australia is currently the only country that is DAB+, the Yanks are still mainly FM , Sirrius Satellite Radio and Internet Radio whilst UK & Europe are well established on the original 2 bands of DAB..... I'm told by reliable sources that the UK will eventually go DAB+ but that's projected into 2010-2013. Guess time will tell seeing it's still early days. Personally, I think Australia should have stuck with the previous version of DAB that was being trialed for the last 3yrs, at least then we can share the same product market range as the UK & Europe which would mean more choice and support.

As it stands at the moment, there are only 2 Hi Fi component type tuners that offer DAB+ and the only other tuners I've seen that offer DAB+ are small portable radios in Dick Smith and Harvey Norman that are single speaker tabletop sort of device.

It's really still early days and until a country other Australia adopt this broadcast standard, manufacturers aren't going to be jumping aboard to make a product aimed at one country.

[CheesyMong]

Take a look at this forum, I'm thinking on getting 1 for the car pc.

http://forums.fluxmedia.net/plug-develo ... lugin.html

Cheers

Joel

[loweart]

Thanks for the link Joel !

[nate]

Thanks for the information guys, Cheesy if you do end up getting it tell us how it goes, I would be very interested.
Damn trust Australia to try something that is incompatible with the rest of the world do they really think China and Japan are really going to care to manufacture crap that will only be sold to a country of only 20million people.

[loweart]

Well Nate, that's one way of looking at it The other is that we Ozzies are BLEEDING edge for once and ahead of everyone else at this point in time......... It's reasonable to assume that the Brits will at some stage follow suit to DAB+, but as you can imagine as they have previously invested in DAB & DAB II, the introduction and following take up rate in DAB+ may not be all that quick ??? Really a case of watch the DAB+ space as it were.

[cpitts]

Hey I'm wondering if anyone has much knowledge on DAB+ for in car?
Has anyone installed a system with DAB+? What are your thoughts? Is it as revolutionary as they say?

About as revolutinoary as MP3.

It's just AAC encoded music (like MP3 280kbps+) rather than FM encoded. Compared to FM, hell yeah, it's a lot better. Much wider frequency band, higher quality, etc. But as with all digital transmisssions, if you drop out, you'll get blocking/bit rot in your audio, so it'll be all or nothing. Unlike AM/FM which you get degraded sound/quality, but still get signal.

I've been on the hunt for a SQ HU that does DAB+ but they just don't exist yet. Part of the reason I'm holding back on my HU swap scenario and pushing more into the amp stage for the moment. It's really gonna take another 2 years until all the major players get their high end HU's onto a good DAB+ chipset and iron out the issues, which is kind of a shame.

[wassell2381]

the UK have been using Digital for a while now. All the head units in their car have traffic guide that cuts in at anytime to inform you of updates and then just changes back to the music before. Pretty cool actually

[cpitts]

You're not thinking of RDS with TP feature? My Audi has that in the std headunit. From the sales pitch on Nova this morning about DAB+, the only upgrade feature is what's offered by RDS and that's a pretty shameful upsell.

What was more funny was the Harvey Norman ad for DAB+ tuners. Gerry Hervey was espousing the virtues of the sound quality and audio improvements, and the recording of his voice sounded like it was done via a mobile phone. Oh the irony.

[tehx]

It's quite a good thing we went for DAB+ as we have a single standard with the latest features. Going DAB, then DAB+, would only result in people buying DAB receivers and having to bin them later. In our case of digital television (DVB-T) we use MPEG2 encoding. Having used the latest standard we would have MPEG4 AVC which would increase the number of channels broadcasters could offer. There is no way broadcasters will take on MPEG4 now as all the set-top boxes in homes would be useless. That said it might be phased in over time but the industry is finding it hard enough to get people on to digital TV as-is and the cut off date for analogue is only a year away for some markets.

Australia is pioneering DAB+ for the rest of the world with respect to standards for data & audio transmission as none or very few exist in many areas.

DAB+ offers the ability for broadcasters to create on-the-fly channels. Austereo currently have a channel dedicated to the PINK concert's and you will see more pop up for events like the Olympics, sports / racing etc. Once the event is over they are switched off. You will also start to see innovative data services such as still images (album covers, traffic cam shots & updates, warnings, maps, advertising etc). Currently the laws prevent radio broadcasters from streaming video (then it would be TV) so they are limited to still images.

Like digital television the quality is much better however it suffers the same 'either you have signal or you don't - no in between' reception problems.

I would be looking for a DAB+ receiver that could be updated via software / re-flash. As standards are finalised & more services offered you are in a position to take advantage of them without having to purchase a new receiver.