If you jumped on the DAB+ digital radio bandwagon when the service officially launched earlier this month, you may have noticed that there’s about a five second delay between it and the old analogue transmission. Jez Ford over at AVHub managed to find out exactly what causes the delay, and it’s quite interesting…
Tomorrow is August 6, and you know what that means? The often delayed DAB+ digital radio is being officially launched across the country. And to celebrate, all the breakfast radio personalities* from all the radio stations will be having one great big love-fest where they broadcast together and talk about how good digital radio is. Huzzah!
Nothing about the upcoming launch of digital radio in Australia has really excited me beyond the ‘meh’ level so far, although Yamaha’s new iPod docks with DAB+ tuners might just do it. Maybe.
One of the benefits of the upcoming digital radio service set to launch next month is that traditional broadcasters will get to launch new stations. We’ve already seen Austereo (2DayFM and Triple M) launch their new digital-only station, Radar, and now DMG (Nova and Vega) have announced their new digital stations: Novanation and Koffee.
You have to wonder at what point we call bullshit on digital radio and decide to leave it to die in peace. According to the perennially jolly Pete Blasina, digital radio has suffered yet another launch setback, this time because the ABC and SBS weren’t ready. I mean, come on… it’s only been planned for what – five years now?
Designed with greasy hands, soapy gloves, and cookie-dough-covered fingers in mind, the minimalistic DAB Digital Radio was created for a nitty, gritty kitchen environment.
Don’t forget kids: Digital radio is coming this year! And it’s exciting! It’s like digital TV, except for radio! Of course, you’ll need to buy yourself an all-new radio that has a DAB+ tuner inside it to be able to listen to it, and that’s where the OXX Digital radio comes in. Not only will it play the new DAB+ standard that’s launching in May this year, it also doubles as an Internet radio device, while an FM tuner lets you listen to the static transmissions of radio ages past. Apparently it will also stream tunes from your PC wirelessly. Of course, the hiccup to this plan of world domination is price: $299, and you don’t even get an AM tuner. I mean, is it really a radio if you can’t enjoy the 2GB DJs insulting their listeners every day?
[Anyware]
Chances are, digital radio hasn’t exactly got you worked up under the collar. I mean, it’s radio, and in today’s world of podcasts and IPTV, radio doesn’t quite have the same kind of allure. Well, anyway, Austereo has announced the first of their digital channels today, ahead of the official digital radio launch in May next year. The new station, Radar Radio, focuses on undiscovered Australian artists, and rather than featuring proper DJs and shows, will instead feature pre-recorded announcements announcing each track, according to Michael Bodey over at the Australian.
Intelematics, those traffic-lovin’ Victorians who created the SUNA traffic channel for your satnav, are bringing their traffic updates to digital radio when it launches in May next year.
While the service won’t be anywhere near as comprehensive or practical as the navigation built-in to your satnav (which lets you reroute to avoid congestion), this service will instead act more like the traffic updates you get from the radio already, except in text form on new DAB+ radios.
It won’t cost anything to the user, so long as they have one of these new radio receivers in their car. And while most people aren’t going to head to the local auto shop and buy a new radio for their car, within a few years pretty much all the new cars will come standard with these new radios, meaning traffic information will be readily available for people who own shiny new cars.
Actually, even though this is a pretty cool service for digital radio (which is almost certainly going to struggle to gain traction here), it’d still be cheaper to just buy a traffic-enabled satnav…
