The Virtual Gigolo

Digital Radio, a concept that should thrill the ears, provide quality, error free, radio listening to the masses, along with a wide range of channels and modern extra features. However, here in the UK, we find this to not be the case. Here we have adopted the DAB standard, which is based on MP2 compression. This in itself is fine, not necessarily the best, but there are always compromises with everything. More importantly, MP2 needs a MINIMUM of 128kbps to broadcast listenable stereo audio. How often do people encode MP3s at lower than 128? Very rarely because lower bit rates offer noticably poor audio quality. MP2′s compression is a level worse than MP3, it needs considerably higher bitrates to give sound that doesn’t annoy the ears of all but the least careful listener.

Around the world bitrates well over 128k are the norm. The average bitrate for UK music stations is 129k, the average in canada is 209k and the international average is 181k.

Of course, the reason for this, is that it was decided that here in the UK we want more channels, rather than higher quality ones. A concept I dispute completely, apart from anything else more channels just result in lower advertising revenue for each, making it much harder to support them with anything resembling quality at all. More importantly, why is digital radio takeup so low in this country? I would suggest that this is because the people who would be willing to pay the high prices for digital receivers would be the same people who buy expensive FM kit, generally. The problem here though is that to buy an expensive digital receiver would be a huge quality reduction over listening to FM on their previous equipment, so why would you bother? Until sales increase considerably, cost will not reduce, so those people who don’t see great advantages in digital (and as it stands, there aren’t any, afterall) also will not buy them. Destination failure.

What makes all this worse is that Ofcom wants to switch off analogue radio broadcasting soon after switching off analogue television. In principle that would be a good idea, but with tha appalling quality of digital radio, all you’re doing is giving the public a large number of pointless and low quality channels instead of a few dozen better, higher bitrate ones. They will have a fight on their hands from anyone who listens to FM on a good receiver… possibly enough that will mean the changeover will not happen. Such a shame, there is such potential there, if only they would see the reasons for giving people quality rather than quantity.

Why is technology rollout in this country managed by such fools??

I want it down on record that Odeon, the cinema chain, has one of the worst websites it has fallen upon me to visit. Due to apparent extreme incompetance, or laziness, take it as you will, their site still falls foul of accessibility guidelines, and simultaneously is unusable in web browsers other than Internet Explorer. Now, if IE provided something for their site that other browsers could not do, I could understand that, but as it does not, and an (I’ll qualify with almost) identical site could be produced with cross browser support, would it not be productive of them to do so? I realise they may be in production of a replacement, but as they have been doing so for so long, I have my doubts.

This subject has come up because of the recent closure of the “Accessible Odeon website”, a production by Matthew Somerville. While I agree that the site was illegal in the ways Odeon described, and in principle could be a problem, and that Odeon had no way to know for sure that the site was not storing user data, the useful service that the site provided has reminded me, and apparently many others, just how bad Odeon’s own in house web team is and how short sighted their management is.

On that subject may I take this moment to commend Odeon’s Marketing Director, Luke Vetere, for his public relations work and drawing of the online public’s attention to the issue of how many people hate Odeon’s site. Three cheers.