Christopher Woods wrote:
Three years after the BBC's digital radio rollout was first started with 6Music, the WorldDMB decided to specify the inclusion of HE-AAC in the spec - yet, AAC had been standardised in 1997. Foresight never came into the equation? BBC R&D were testing AAC too back in the 90s, yet MP2 was still used even though it would've been early enough to adopt AAC wholesale at that point (only pissing off the early adopters) but once one your mum gets a digital radio the situation gets a lot trickier.
Just 'cos a technology's standardised doesn't mean that it's cost-effective to deploy it. AAC support in "MP3" players didn't become common until the iPod launched in 2001, despite the fact that late '90s MP3 players were desperately short of storage, and would have been prime candidates for implementing a more efficient codec. MP3 itself could have been a candidate codec for DAB, but it's more sensitive to bit errors than MP2, so it needs a more robust FEC scheme - an expert colleague once told me that the overall bitrate savings from such a change would only amount to about 10%, which at the time probably wouldn't have justified the extra receiver cost.
The parents still don't have a digital radio, exactly because they know that the spec will change at some point in the future. Plus my Dad prefers Radio 4 on FM because it doesn't drop to a lower bitrate at peak time (why?!), call him an old cynic if you like. ;)
Well, the spec for every broadcasting platform will change at some point in the future. :-) I guess the salient point is probably that your parents are satisfied with the existing FM service though.
What worries me is that digital radio is almost still in a state of flux; in the space of three years, an industry-changing redefinition of the DAB standard is released and it causes all sorts of headaches and potential problems for manufacturers and broadcasters. FM stereo was standardised in the early 60s and it's not really changed since, yet I still feel like my DAB receiver (my venerable Wavefinder) is nothing more than 'sandbox kit', yet I've had it for years. I think half the problem is people just can't trust hardware they buy today to work in three/four years' time, whatever the assurances given.
Freeview has exactly the same issue (cf discussions about Ofcom's plans to push broadcasters towards a particular Freeview HD solution), but takeup there has been much faster. It's interesting. :-)
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