Szerkesztő:Jzana/Digital Audio Broadcasting

Előkészítve fordításra

  Folyamatos műsorszolgáltatás

  Kísérleti adások

  Tervezési stádiumban

  nincs DAB sugárzás (2012. évi adatok)

Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) digitális rádióműsorszórási technika. 2006-tól a világon kb. 1002 rádióállomás szolgáltatott digitális műsorjelet, főként Európában.

Az első DAB szabványt Európában fejlsztették ki az 1980-as években, és a Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) norvég rádiótársaság indította el a világ első digitális adását 1995 június elsején (NRK Klassisk). A BBC és a Svéd Rádió ugyanebben az évben indyította el a digitális műsorsugárzást. A DAB rendszerű rádióvevők a kilencvenes évek végén jelentek meg a kereskedelemben.

A digitális sugárzás előnyösebb a rendelkezésre álló frekvenciatartomány kihasználása tekintetében, mint az analóg FM; előnyösebb a vételi zaj és a fading (vételi elhalkulás) szempontjából, főként a mobil rádióvétel vonatkozásában. A DAB vétel a térerő gyengülésére érzékenyebben reagál, szemben az FM vétellel, amelynél as minőség fokozatosan romlik.

A hangminőség függ a bitráta, azaz, a mintavétel sebességétől. Ez leginkább 128 kbit/s, esetleg alacsonyabb. A kódolás az MPEG-1 szerint történik, amely gyengébb, mint az FM minőséget jelentő 160 kbit/s. Ugyanakkor jobb a jel–zaj viszonya és a műsorhang dinamikája (a leghangosabb és a leghalkabb hang aránya). A sztereó hangtér némileg bizonytalanabb, mint az analóg sugárzásnál. A vágási határfrekvencia 14 kHz, szemben az analóg szterónál alkalmazott 15 kHz értékkel. Természetesen az MPEG kódolás lehetővé teszi az ú.n. CD-minőség átvitelét is.

2007-ben jelent meg a továbbfejlesztett DAB+ változat. Ez azonban – sajnálatosan – nem felülről kompatibilis az előző szabvánnyal: a korábban megvásárol DAB készülékekkel nem lehet hallgatni a DAB+ adásokat. Vannak adóállomások, amelyek kevert műsort sugároznak, hogy mindkét szabvány vevőivel lehessen hallgatni ugyanazt a műsort. A DAB+ kétszer hatékonyabb a korábbi verziónál, mivel az AAC+ audio kódolást alkalmazza akár 64 kbit/s jelsebeséggel is. A dekódolás robusztusságát a Reed-Solomon hibajavító rendszerrel javították.

Az alkalmazott frekvenciatartomány jele a T-DAB, ahol a T betű jeletése terrestrial, azaz: földfelszíni.

Jelenleg (2012) húsznál több ország alkalmazza a digitális műsorsugárzást, például Olaszország, Málta, Svájc, Németország, Ausztrália, bár ezek az adások nem lépték még túl az FM műsorszórás népszerűségét.

Története

A DAB szabványt az Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT) kezdte fejleszteni 1985-ben. Még ebben az évben nyilvánosan is bemutatták Genfben a WARC-ORB konferencián. Az első műsorszolgáltatás 1988-ban Németországban indult el. Maga a DAB rendszer az Európai Unió EUREKA programjában szerpelt. Ehhez az MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2) kódolást tervezték meg. Modulációja az ortogonális frekvenciaosztásos multiplex rendszer lett.

Nyilvánosan 1993 óta érhető el az Egyesült Királyságban. Az ekkorra kifejlesztett szabványt 1994-ben fogadta el a Nemzetközi Távközlési Egyesület ITU-R (Radiocommucation) és az Európai Unió ESTI azonosítóval 1997-ben. A brit kereskedelmi rádiózás 1999-benjelent meg a piacon. 2001-re már ötven kereskedelmi és BBC program vált elérhetővé. 2006-ra az ellátottsági területen élők lélekszáma elérte az 500 milliót, és kb. ezer rádióadó működött.

1997-ben az európai DAB fórumon 30 ország képviseltette magát. Ekkortól beszélhetünk a DMB szabványról is. 2005 októberében a World DBM Forum (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) javasolta az AAC+ és az erősebb hibajavító, például FEC kódolás bevezetését. Ebből jött létre a DAB+ rendszer.

A névváltozás jelentése, hogy a továbbfejlesztett hálózat mobil vevőkészülékeknél képátvitelre is alkalmas.

Műszaki háttere

Műsorszóró sávok és üzemmódok

A DAB szélessávú távközlési eljárást használ, főként a VHF III (174–240 MHz) és az L (1452–1492 MHz) sávban, habár minden további nélkül alkalmazható volna 30 MHz fölött akármilyen frekvencián. Az Amerikai Egyesült Államokban lefoglalták katonai célokra az L sávot, valamint megállapodott Kanadával is ugyanerről az interferenciás zavarom elkerülése érdekében.

A rádióvevőknek kezelniük kell az alábbi sugárzási módokat:

• Mode I VHF III, földfelszíni
• Mode II L-sáv, földfelszíni és távközlési műholdas
• Mode III 3 GHz, alatt földfelszni és műholdas
• Mode IV L-Band, földfelszyíni és műholdas kommunikációra

Protokol

Az OSI modell szempontjából a DAB audio codec a következő szinteket (layer) kezeli: a protocol stack viewpoint, the technologies used on DAB inhabit the following layers: the audio codec inhabits the megjelenítési réteg. Below that is the data link layer, in charge of csomagkapcsolt mód statisztikus időosztásos multiplex adatátvitel and köteg (keret) szinkronizálás. Finally, the fizikai réteg, amely felhasznónál megjelenik, contains the error-correction coding, OFDM modulation, and dealing with the over-the-air transmission and reception of data. Some aspects of these are described below.

Audio kódolás

The older version of DAB that is being used in Denmark, Ireland*, Norway, Switzerland* and the UK, uses the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 2 audio codec, which is also known as MP2 due to computer files using those characters for their file extension. (*Both Ireland and Switzerland also use DAB+).

The new DAB+ standard has adopted the HE-AAC version 2 audio codec, commonly known as AAC+ or aacPlus. AAC+ is approximately three-times more efficient than MP2, which means that broadcasters using DAB+ will be able to provide far higher audio quality or far more stations than they can on DAB, or, as is most likely, a combination of both higher audio quality and more stations will be provided.

One of the most important decisions regarding the design of a digital radio system is the choice of which audio codec to use, because the efficiency of the audio codec determines how many radio stations can be carried on a multiplex at a given level of audio quality. The capacity of a DAB multiplex is fixed, so the more efficient the audio codec is, the more stations can be carried, and vice versa. Similarly, for a fixed bit-rate level, the more efficient the audio codec is the higher the audio quality will be.

Hibajavító eljárások

Error-correction coding (ECC) is an important technology for a digital communication system because it determines how robust the reception will be for a given signal strength - stronger ECC will provide more robust reception than a weaker form.

The old version of DAB uses punctured convolutional coding for its ECC. The coding scheme uses unequal error protection (UEP), which means that parts of the audio bit-stream that are more susceptible to errors causing audible disturbances are provided with more protection (i.e. a lower code rate) and vice versa. However, the UEP scheme used on DAB results in there being a grey area in between the user experiencing good reception quality and no reception at all, as opposed to the situation with most other wireless digital communication systems that have a sharp "digital cliff", where the signal rapidly becomes unusable if the signal strength drops below a certain threshold. When DAB listeners receive a signal in this intermediate strength area they experience a "burbling" sound which interrupts the playback of the audio.

The new DAB+ standard has incorporated Reed-Solomon ECC as an "inner layer" of coding that is placed around the byte interleaved audio frame but inside the "outer layer" of convolutional coding used by the older DAB system, although on DAB+ the convolutional coding uses equal error protection (EEP) rather than UEP since each bit is equally important in DAB+. This combination of Reed-Solomon coding as the inner layer of coding, followed by an outer layer of convolutional coding - so-called "concatenated coding" - became a popular ECC scheme in the 1990s, and NASA adopted it for its deep-space missions. One slight difference between the concatenated coding used by the DAB+ system and that used on most other systems is that it uses a rectangular byte interleaver rather than Forney interleaving in order to provide a greater interleaver depth, which increases the distance over which error bursts will be spread out in the bit-stream, which in turn will allow the Reed-Solomon error decoder to correct a higher proportion of errors.

The ECC used on DAB+ is far stronger than is used on DAB, which, with all else being equal (i.e. if the transmission powers remained the same), would translate into people who currently experience reception difficulties on DAB receiving a much more robust signal with DAB+ transmissions. It also has a far steeper "digital cliff", and listening tests have shown that people prefer this when the signal strength is low compared to the shallower digital cliff on DAB.

Moduláció

Immunity to fading and inter-symbol interference (caused by multipath propagation) is achieved without equalization by means of the OFDM and DQPSK modulation techniques. For details, see the OFDM system comparison table.

Using values for the most commonly used transmission mode on DAB, Transmission Mode I (TM I), the OFDM modulation consists of 1,536 subcarriers that are transmitted in parallel. The useful part of the OFDM symbol period is 1 millisecond, which results in the OFDM subcarriers each having a bandwidth of 1 kHz due to the inverse relationship between these two parameters, and the overall OFDM channel bandwidth is 1,537 kHz. The OFDM guard interval for TM I is 246 microseconds, which means that the overall OFDM symbol duration is 1.246 milliseconds. The guard interval duration also determines the maximum separation between transmitters that are part of the same single-frequency network (SFN), which is approximately 74 km for TM I.

Single-frequency networks

(Azonos frekvenciájú (szinkron) rádiósugárzás)

OFDM allows the use of single-frequency networks (SFN), which means that a network of transmitters can provide coverage to a large area - up to the size of a country - where all transmitters use the same transmission frequency. Transmitters that are part of an SFN need to be very accurately synchronised with other transmitters in the network, which requires the transmitters to use very accurate clocks.

When a receiver receives a signal that has been transmitted from the different transmitters that are part of an SFN, the signals from the different transmitters will typically have different delays, but to OFDM they will appear to simply be different multipaths of the same signal. Reception difficulties can arise, however, when the relative delay of multipaths exceeds the OFDM guard interval duration, and there are frequent reports of reception difficulties due to this issue when there is a lift, such as when there's high pressure, due to signals travelling farther than usual, and thus the signals are likely to arrive with a relative delay that is greater than the OFDM guard interval.

Low power gap-filler transmitters can be added to an SFN as and when desired in order to improve reception quality, although the way SFNs have been implemented in the UK up to now they have tended to consist of higher power transmitters being installed at main transmitter sites in order to keep costs down.

Bitsebesség

An ensemble has a maximum bit rate that can be carried, but this depends on which error protection level is used. However, all DAB multiplexes can carry a total of 864 "capacity units". The number of capacity units, or CU, that a certain bit-rate level requires depends on the amount of error correction added to the transmission, as described above. In the UK, most services transmit using 'protection level three', which provides an average ECC code rate of approximately ½, equating to a maximum bit rate per multiplex of 1184 kbit/s.

Services and ensembles

Various different services are embedded into one ensemble (which is also typically called a multiplex). These services can include:

• Primary services, like main radio stations
• Secondary services, like additional sports commentaries
• Data services
  • Electronic Programme Guide (EPG)
  • Collections of HTML pages and digital images (Known as 'Broadcast Web Sites')
  • Slideshows, which may be synchronised with audio broadcasts. For example, a police appeal could be broadcast with the e-fit of a suspect or CCTV footage.
  • Video
  • Java Platform Applications
  • IP tunnelling
  • Other raw data

DAB⁺ and DMB

The term DAB most commonly refers both to a specific DAB standard using the MP2 audio codec, but can sometimes refer to a whole family of DAB related standards, such as DAB+, DMB and DAB-IP.

DAB⁺

WorldDMB, the organisation in charge of the DAB standards, announced DAB+, a major upgrade to the DAB standard in 2006, when the HE-AAC v2 audio codec (also known as eAAC+) was adopted. The new standard, which is called DAB+, has also adopted the MPEG Surround audio format and stronger error correction coding in the form of Reed-Solomon coding. DAB+ has been standardised as ETSI TS 102 563.

As DAB is not forward compatible with DAB+, older DAB receivers can not receive DAB+ broadcasts. However, DAB receivers that will be able to receive the new DAB+ standard via a firmware upgrade went on sale in July 2007. If a receiver is DAB+ compatible, there will be a sign on the product packaging.

DAB+ broadcasts have launched in several countries like Switzerland, Malta, Ireland, Italy, Australia, the Netherlands and Germany. Malta was the first country to launch DAB+ in Europe. Several other countries are also expected to launch DAB+ broadcasts over the next few years, such as Hungary and Asian countries, such as China, Vietnam and Japan, and the U.S. If DAB+ stations launch in established DAB countries, they can transmit alongside existing DAB stations that use the older MPEG-1 Audio Layer II audio format, and most existing DAB stations are expected to continue broadcasting until the vast majority of receivers support DAB+.

DMB

Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) and DAB-IP are suitable for mobile radio and TV both because they support MPEG 4 AVC and WMV9 respectively as video codecs. However, a DMB video subchannel can easily be added to any DAB transmission, as it was designed to be carried on a DAB subchannel. DMB broadcasts in Korea carry conventional MPEG 1 Layer II DAB audio services alongside their DMB video services.

Norway, South Korea and France are countries currently broadcasting DMB.

Countries using DAB

More than 30 countries provide DAB, DAB+ and/or DMB broadcasts, either as a permanent technology or as test transmissions.

DAB and FM/AM compared

Traditionally radio programmes were broadcast on different frequencies via FM and AM, and the radio had to be tuned into each frequency, as needed. This used up a comparatively large amount of spectrum for a relatively small number of stations, limiting listening choice. DAB is a digital radio broadcasting system that through the application of multiplexing and compression combines multiple audio streams onto a relatively narrow band centred on a single broadcast frequency called a DAB ensemble.

Within an overall target bit rate for the DAB ensemble, individual stations can be allocated different bit rates. The number of channels within a DAB ensemble can be increased by lowering average bit rates, but at the expense of the quality of streams. Error correction under the DAB standard makes the signal more robust but reduces the total bit rate available for streams.

FM HD Radio versus DAB

Some countries have implemented Eureka-147 Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB). DAB broadcasts a single station that is approximately 1500 kilohertz wide (~1000 kilobits per second). That station is then subdivided into multiple digital streams of between 9 and 12 programs. In contrast FM HD Radio shares its digital broadcast with the traditional 200 kilohertz-wide channels, with capability of 300 kbit/s per station (pure digital mode).

The first generation DAB uses the MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2) audio codec which has less efficient compression than newer codecs. The typical bitrate for DAB programs is only 128 kbit/s and as a result most radio stations on DAB have a lower sound quality than FM, prompting a number of complaints among the audiophile community. As with DAB+ or T-DMB in Europe, FM HD Radio uses a codec based upon the MPEG-4 HE-AAC standard.

HD Radio is proprietary system from the company Ibiquity. DAB is an open standard deposited at ETSI.

Use of frequency spectrum and transmitter sites

DAB gives substantially higher spectral efficiency, measured in programmes per MHz and per transmitter site, than analogue communication. This has led to an increase in the number of stations available to listeners, especially outside of the major urban areas.

Numerical example: Analog FM requires 0.2 MHz per programme. The frequency reuse factor in most countries is approximately 15, meaning that only one out of 15 transmitter sites can use the same channel frequency without problems with co-channel interference, i.e. cross-talk. Assuming a total availability of 102 FM channels at a bandwidth of 0.2MHz over the Band II spectrum of 87.5 to 108.0 MHz, an average of 102/15 = 6.8 radio channels are possible on each transmitter site (plus lower-power local transmitters causing less interference). This results in a system spectral efficiency of 1 / 15 / (0.2 MHz) = 0.30 programmes/transmitter/MHz. DAB with 192 kbit/s codec requires 1.536 MHz * 192 kbit/s / 1136 kbit/s = 0.26 MHz per audio programme. The frequency reuse factor for local programmes and multi-frequency broadcasting networks (MFN) is typically 4 or 5, resulting in 1 / 4 / (0.26 MHz) = 0.96 programmes/transmitter/MHz. This is 3.2 times as efficient as analog FM for local stations. For single frequency network (SFN) transmission, for example of national programmes, the channel re-use factor is 1, resulting in 1/1/0.25 MHz = 3.85 programmes/transmitter/MHz, which is 12.7 times as efficient as FM for national and regional networks.

Note the above capacity improvement may not always be achieved at the L-band frequencies, since these are more sensitive to obstacles than the FM band frequencies, and may cause shadow fading for hilly terrain and for indoor communication. The number of transmitter sites or the transmission power required for full coverage of a country may be rather high at these frequencies, to avoid that the system becomes noise limited rather than limited by co-channel interference. .

Sound quality

{{See also2|MP2 Quality}} The original objectives of converting to digital transmission were to enable higher fidelity, more stations and more resistance to noise, co-channel interference and multipath than in analogue FM radio. However, the leading countries in implementing DAB on stereo radio stations use compression to such a degree that it produces lower sound quality than that received from non-mobile FM broadcasts.^[forrás?] This is because of the bit rate levels being too low for the MPEG Layer 2 audio codec to provide high fidelity audio quality.

The BBC Research & Development department states that at least 192 kbit/s is necessary for a high fidelity stereo broadcast :

{{cquote2|A value of 256 kbit/s has been judged to provide a high quality stereo broadcast signal. However, a small reduction, to 224 kbit/s is often adequate, and in some cases it may be possible to accept a further reduction to 192 kbit/s, especially if redundancy in the stereo signal is exploited by a process of 'joint stereo' encoding (i.e. some sounds appearing at the centre of the stereo image need not be sent twice). At 192 kbit/s, it is relatively easy to hear imperfections in critical audio material.|BBC R&D White Paper WHP 061 June 2003}}

When BBC in July 2006 reduced the bit-rate of transmission of Radio 3 from 192 kbit/s to 160 kbit/s, the resulting degradation of audio quality prompted a number of complaints to the Corporation. BBC later announced that following this testing of new equipment, it would resume the previous practice of transmitting Radio 3 at 192 kbit/s whenever there were no other demands on bandwidth.

Despite the above a survey of DAB listeners (including mobile) has shown most find DAB to have equal or better sound quality than FM.

Notwithstanding the above, BBC Radio 4 has extended the periods it broadcasts programmes with a lower bit rate (80kbit/s) and in mono in 2012, such as the Today programme, rather than 128kbit/s and in stereo. Programmes which had traditionally been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 DAB in stereo (from 1999 to 2011), can now only be heard in the evenings in mono, even though the same programmes still go out in stereo on Radio 4 FM, Digital TV and On-Line. The BBC have issued a statement stating that stereo is still their default for BBC Radio 4 DAB, however post the Olympics, this does not appear to be the case in the evenings, making FM broadcasts (in good reception areas) superior. As very few car radios are currently fitted with DAB if the BBC switch FM off as indicated later in the decade, some listeners may be forced to receive mono broadcasts in the future, a somewhat backward step.

Benefits of DAB

Current AM and FM terrestrial broadcast technology is well established, compatible, and cheap to manufacture. Benefits of DAB over analogue systems are explained below.

Improved features for users

DAB radios automatically tune to all the available stations, offering a list for the user to select from.

DAB can carry "radiotext" (in DAB terminology, Dynamic Label Segment, or DLS) from the station giving real-time information such as song titles, music type and news or traffic updates. Advance programme guides can also be transmitted. A similar feature also exists on FM in the form of the RDS. (However, not all FM receivers allow radio stations to be stored by name.)

DAB receivers can display time of day as encoded into transmissions, so is automatically corrected when travelling between time zones and when changing to or from Daylight Saving. This is not implemented on all receivers, and some display time only when in "Standby" mode.

Some radios offer a pause facility on live broadcasts, caching the broadcast stream on local flash memory, although this function is limited.

More stations

DAB is not more bandwidth efficient than analogue measured in programmes per MHz of a specific transmitter (the so-called link spectral efficiency). However, it is less susceptible to co-channel interference (cross talk), which makes it possible to reduce the reuse distance, i.e. use the same radio frequency channel more densely. The system spectral efficiency (the average number of radio programmes per MHz and transmitter) is a factor three more efficient than analogue FM for local radio stations, as can be seen in the above numerical example. For national and regional radio networks, the efficiency is improved by more than an order of magnitude due to the use of SFNs. In that case, adjacent transmitters use the same frequency.

In certain areas – particularly rural areas – the introduction of DAB gives radio listeners a greater choice of radio stations. For instance, in South Norway, radio listeners experienced an increase in available stations from 6 to 21 when DAB was introduced in November 2006.

Reception quality

The DAB standard integrates features to reduce the negative consequences of multipath fading and signal noise, which afflict existing analogue systems.

Also, as DAB transmits digital audio, there is no hiss with a weak signal, which can happen on FM. However, radios in the fringe of a DAB signal, can experience a "bubbling mud" sound interrupting the audio and/or the audio cutting out altogether.

Due to sensitivity to doppler shift in combination with multipath propagation, DAB reception range (but not audio quality) is reduced when travelling speeds of more than 120 to 200 km/h, depending on carrier frequency.

Less undocumented station interference

The specialised nature and cost of DAB broadcasting equipment provide barriers to undocumented stations broadcasting on DAB. In cities such as London with large numbers of undocumented radio stations broadcasting on FM, this means that some stations can be reliably received via DAB in areas where they are regularly difficult or impossible to receive on FM due to undocumented radio interference.

Variable bandwidth

Mono talk radio, news and weather channels and other non-music programs need significantly less bandwidth than a typical music radio station, which allows DAB to carry these programmes at lower bit rates, leaving more bandwidth to be used for other programs.

However, this had led to the situation where some stations are being broadcast in mono, see music radio stations broadcasting in mono for more details.

Transmission costs

It is common belief that DAB is more expensive to transmit than FM. It is true that DAB uses higher frequencies than FM and therefore there is a need to compensate with more transmitters, higher radiated powers, or a combination, to achieve the same coverage. However, the last couple of years has seen significant improvement in power efficiency for DAB-transmitters.

This efficiency originates from the ability a DAB network has in broadcasting more channels per network. One network can broadcast 6-10 channels (with MPEG audio codec) or 10-16 channels (with HE AAC codec). Hence, it is thought that the replacement of FM-radios and FM-transmitters with new DAB-radios and DAB-transmitters will not cost any more as opposed to newer FM facilities.

Lower transmission costs are supported by independent network studies from Teracom (Sweden) and SSR/SRG (Switzerland).^[forrás?] Among other things they show that DAB is as low as one-sixth of the cost of FM transmission.

Disadvantages of DAB

Reception quality

The reception quality on DAB can be poor even for people who live well within the coverage area. The reason for this is that the old version of DAB uses weak error correction coding, so that when there are a lot of errors with the received data not enough of the errors can be corrected and a "bubbling mud" sound occurs. In some cases a complete loss of signal can happen. This situation will be improved upon in the new DAB standard (DAB+, discussed below) that uses stronger error correction coding and as additional transmitters are built.

Audio Quality

Broadcasters have been criticized for ‘squeezing in’ more stations per ensemble than recommended,^[forrás?] by:

• Minimizing the bit-rate, to the lowest level of sound-quality that listeners are willing to tolerate, such as 112 kbit/s for stereo and even 48 kbit/s for mono speech radio such as LBC 1152 and the Voice of Russia.
• Having few digital channels broadcasting in stereo.

Signal delay

The nature of a SFN is such that the transmitters in a network must broadcast the same signal at the same time. To achieve synchronization, the broadcaster must counter any differences in propagation time incurred by the different methods and distances involved in carrying the signal from the multiplexer to the different transmitters. This is done by applying a delay to the incoming signal at the transmitter based on a timestamp generated at the multiplexer, created taking into account the maximum likely propagation time, with a generous added margin for safety. Delays in the receiver due to digital processing (e.g. deinterleaving) add to the overall delay perceived by the listener. The signal is delayed by 2–4 seconds depending on the decoding circuitry used. This has disadvantages:

• DAB radios are out of step with live events, so the experience of listening to live commentaries on events being watched is impaired;
• Listeners using a combination of analogue (AM or FM) and DAB radios (e.g. in different rooms of a house) will hear a confusing mixture when both receivers are within earshot.

Time signals, on the contrary, are not a problem in a well-defined network with a fixed delay. The DAB multiplexer adds the proper offset to the distributed time information. The time information is also independent from the (possibly varying) audio decoding delay in receivers since the time is not embedded inside the audio frames. This means that built in clocks in receivers will be spot on.

Coverage

As DAB is at a relatively early stage of deployment, DAB coverage is poor in nearly all countries in comparison to the high population coverage provided by FM.

Compatibility

In 2006 tests began using the much improved HE-AAC codec for DAB+. Virtually none of the receivers made before 2008 support the new codec, however, thus making them partially obsolete once DAB+ broadcasts begin and completely obsolete once the old MPEG-1 Layer 2 stations are switched off. New receivers are both DAB and DAB+ compatible; however, the issue is exacerbated by some manufacturers disabling the DAB+ features on otherwise compatible radios to save on licensing fees when sold in countries without current DAB+ broadcasts.

Power requirements

As DAB requires digital signal processing techniques to convert from the received digitally encoded signal to the analogue audio content, the complexity of the electronic circuitry required to do this is high. This translates into needing more power to effect this conversion than compared to an analogue FM to audio conversion, meaning that portable receiving equipment will tend to have a shorter battery life, or require higher power (and hence more bulk). This means that they use more energy than analogue Band II VHF receivers.

As an indicator of this increased power consumption, some radio manufacturers quote the length of time their receivers can play on a single charge. For a commonly used FM/DAB-receiver from manufacturer PURE, this is stated as: DAB 10 hours, FM 22 hours.^[forrás?]

Use of Licensed Codecs

The use of MPEG previously and later AAC has prompted criticism{{by whom}} of the fact that a (large) public system is financially supporting a private company.^[forrás?] In general, an open system will permit equipment to be bought from various sources in competition with each other but by selecting a single vendor of codec, with which all equipment must be compatible, this is not possible.^[forrás?]

FM radio switch-off

No country has done a complete switch-off of FM radio stations yet.

At the "WorldDBM semiar" held in Riva del Garda - Italy, 14 April 2013 it was announced that in Norway there will be a 99.5% coverage in 2014, and that Norway is planning a switch-off of FM radio in 2017.

See also

• ATSC Standards
• Digital Audio Radio Service
• Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB)
• Digital radio
• Digital television
• Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)
• ETSI Satellite Digital Radio (SDR)
• FMeXtra
• HD Radio
• Internet radio device
• ISDB
• OpenCable
• Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
• Satellite Radio
• Sirius Satellite Radio
• Spectral efficiency comparison table
• T-DMB
• Teletext
• XM Satellite Radio

References

• ETSI Specifications available at ETSI Publications Download Area, pda.etsi.org (this will open ETSI document search engine, to find the latest version of the document enter a search string; free registration is required to download PDF)
• Stott, J. H.; The How and Why of COFDM, BBC Research Development

External links

• ETSI EN 300 401 v1.4.1 - Original DAB specification, etsi.org
• ETSI TS 102 563 v1.1.1 - DAB+ enhancement specification, etsi.org
• World DAB Forum, wordlddab.org
• DAB Ensembles Worldwide (also known as "Wohnort", the main part of the site is a list of services currently transmitting), wohnort.org