Author Archives: Nicky

Then and Now.

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Last week Pure held an event to celebrate 10 years of making beautiful functional DAB radios. Matt, Greg and I attended and enjoyed seeing the display of Pure Evokes from across the last decade, from the first blue nylon-fronted limited run to the smart 2012 union flag issue. We were pleased to celebrate the distance covered with the team from Pure and toast their successes.

It was appropriate timing for us, looking back and forward – not least because earlier the same day I’d had our kick off meeting with our transmission subcontractor, lining things up for the launch of Muxco WCL later this year.

At GCAP (as was) between 2001 and 2007 Greg Matt and I operated over 20 DAB multiplexes and oversaw the launches for a large amount of those.

I became pretty used to launches and multiplexes but that was then. All sorts of things have changed, not always the obvious stuff.  Here’s an example.

The more multiplexes you launch the more transmitters there are to inexplicably go on the blink at odd times, like, say 3am.

Back then in 2002 or 2003, as now, I’d always have the phone to hand, and after waking with a jolt to hear what had gone wrong, I would notify station engineers instantly, them similarly half asleep. I think it is fair to say they didn’t always give a flying toss that a DAB transmitter that covered 6 sheep in a field had gone down 3db for four minutes. The sheep could still tune in on FM if they so chose and that was the engineers priority. And could I please get off the phone because did I know it was 3am? Consequently we got better at managing that information in a way that suited the radio stations who are our clients, and the ones who pay the bills.

However in this new landscape here in 2012 a station engineer might actually care very much that his DAB feed is affected, even a small amount. DAB is of greater importance than ever and so I can’t approach things the same way as we used to. We will be using new telemetry, which will be customised to our new requirements – so what requirements would we like?

The radio stations, our clients will be the ones at the centre of this process.  Whilst our transmission team crack on with the big pointy mast side of the build, I’ll be getting in touch with the radio station’s tech teams over the coming weeks to work through some practical stuff, and to get a feel for what they need from us.

MuxCo Welcomes Digital Britain

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digitalbritain

The UK Government published its Digital Britain White Paper on 16 June. The key points of the report in relation to radio are:

Digital migration

• Confirmation of a digital radio “upgrade” by the end of 2015 (and which will be confirmed at least two years in advance).
• All national and local services currently on DAB to migrate from analogue.
• Small ultra-local stations and community radio to upgrade from MW to FM, or remain on FM.
• Target for criteria (i.e. 50% of listening to be digital; national DAB coverage comparable to FM; and local DAB to reach 90% of population) to be met by 2013.
• Five point plan for DAB in vehicles, supported by major car manufacturers including Ford and Vauxhall.

DAB coverage

• BBC to achieve comparable coverage to FM for its national multiplex by the end of 2014.
• BBC to bear significant proportion of the costs of local DAB coverage roll-out.
• Some cost savings delivered by Digital Britain to be re-invested to support transmitter investment.
• Government will support a re-plan of local and regional DAB (merging multiplexes where agreed, and creating a second national multiplex).

The White Paper is very positive and is supported cross party.

In overall terms, we at Folder Media / MuxCo support the proposals in the White Paper, which we believe will help underpin DAB.
In summary:

• We support a set date for switch over, rather than a rolling set of criteria. This gives a clear flag to achieve, and we feel confident that the radio industry will be able to achieve the criteria by 2013.

• We have always advocated that DAB is one of several digital radio platforms, and is likely to continue to be the primary terrestrial platform in the short to medium term, and hopefully longer.

• We support the proposal for clear labelling of the DAB technology.

• We have been involved in the initial industry discussions about converting the regional DAB layer into the basis of a second national layer and in principle support the proposal.

• We have been involved in the initial industry discussions about ‘merging’ multiplex areas. We support the view that where such mergers make economic and efficiency sense for both multiplex operators and service providers, then the multiplex operator should have the right to approach Ofcom to merge, but that merging should not be artificially forced upon multiplexes. In addition, any re-plan needs to take account of potential long term interest rather than a short term view.

• We have always stated that functionality and interactivity will be the bedrock of DAB, hence our intention to hold capacity for the provision of data rather than audio services. We currently maintain a watching brief on this aspect of the opportunity, as whilst we can create services, we need devices on which they can operate. To that end, we have good relationships with a number of manufacturers.

Through the MuxCo application process we interviewed thousands of people who are current DAB listeners as well as those who had not yet taken the plunge. Current listeners are nearly all huge advocates for the technology and how it has improved their radio listening. We’re keen to work hard to make digital radio an even better proposition – coverage, content and features – and we’ll work strongly with all radio operators and the Government to provide a service that betters listeners’ analogue radio experience and keeps radio a vibrant medium.

Listening Tests

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We recently attended some listening tests hosted by NGW to demonstrate a new codec for producing MPEG-2 audio for DAB, We also had the chance to listen to some DAB+ audio.

It was a very enjoyable experience although I admit I have never been very good at listening tests. I can’t always distinguish subtle difference in audio as easily as the eagle eared engineers, in part due to the fact that my hearing isn’t very sharp. In any case we have to be very careful when discussing subjective opinions about audio.

Listening to the audio from the different codecs, however, I could tell the difference – just. One was more lean and rangy – more treble, basically.

Now here is why subjective listening tests are to be viewed with caution. If you’re turning out jangly guitar rock you might quite like the sound quite lean and rangy. If however you’re running a talk service or playing a lot of acoustic numbers then that lean and rangy treble might be less welcome.

In addition, whatever we provide in terms of baseline parameters can be totally masked by a station’s processing – or lack of, and the quality of the same. There is excellent and disastrous unprocessed audio and the same goes for various types of processing. How a radio station presents its audio is very much up to them. So for us as multiplex operators, just picking one codec over another alone does not guarantee a subjective improvement for you the listener.

Luckily there is hard data we can refer to – data that demonstrates the actual frequency range that each codec achieves. A greater range gives services a broader platform to stand on. So subjective listening is valuable but is only part of the decision making process.

Launching DAB Multiplexes

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I am excited to have joined the team at Muxco and have spent some time over the last couple of weeks getting up to speed with the forthcoming launches, which I will be overseeing. Matt has suggested I post on here periodically to keep those who are interested up to speed with the process.

As a priority I shall be getting to know the service providers on our planned multiplexes and ensuring they are informed and happy about the process to launch. There are some regulatory loose ends being tied up too, to ensure we are making the best use of the available spectrum.

I have overseen lots of DAB multiplex launches but the regulatory and industry landscape changes every year (or every month at the moment), and no two multiplexes are exactly the same. Having said that, if these launches are anything like the ones that have gone before, I am fully expecting the following – speaking generally:

  • The first wave of work will be a flurry of requests for maps, contact details and contracts.
  • There will be an agonising wait to build a key transmitter, as local councillors argue whether its marginally more pointy tip significantly bespoils the local landscape.
  • There will be some sort of wait on International Clearance on a transmitter which mildly oversteps the boundaries of the Reserved Assignment List as our European chums decide to sit on our request in return for the fact they didn’t get as many complimentary pens as the British at RRC06.
  • Just as the radio stations are all hooked up there will be a last minute change of address for one of our services meaning a wheelbarrowful of equipment will need to be run around the corner and reinstalled at midnight.
  • There will be anxious posts on forums wondering why test transmissions haven’t started. The minute they do, the fact that the services are not in alphabetical order on the ensemble will be noted.
  • There will be a typo on the configuration documents which will be spotted before it goes live, saving a Country Music service from having a contracted 8 character name which breaks the broadcasting code and offends my mother.

You are welcome to email me with any queries and I will do my best to respond as we go along.