Re: [Swprograms] Fwd: [uk-radio-listeners] BBC internet streams: improvements in sound quality

[Mike Barraclough <softbulletin1@xxxxxxxxx>]

Rich, 

I am not sure either. You may be offered something else entirely different. 

Test it and see, here's the direct radio link to the beta:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayerbeta/radio

Mike


--- On Thu, 3/7/08, Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Swprograms] Fwd: [uk-radio-listeners] BBC internet streams: improvements in sound quality
> To: "Shortwave programming discussion" <swprograms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, odxa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Thursday, 3 July, 2008, 3:41 PM
> I know some folks here are BBCR4 and R3 fans, and might
> appreciate the
> information shown below.
> 
> I am not sure how the BBC's capabilities of managing
> what content is
> displayed for non-UK IP addresses plays into this.
> 
> Richard Cuff
> Allentown, PA  USA
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Mike Barraclough <mikewb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 6:52 AM
> Subject: [uk-radio-listeners] BBC internet streams:
> improvements in
> sound quality
> To: uk-radio-listeners@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> 
> Pasted below is from the BBC Radio Labs blog. I am very
> pleased indeed
> with the iplayerbeta and more improvements are planned:
> 
> People have been asking about the bitrates and codecs that
> we're using
> on national radio within the new iPlayer beta.
> 
> The quick answer is "they're different per
> station, they're different
> whether live or on-demand, and they'll change at least
> another two
> times this year". If that satisfies you, you have no
> requirement to
> read on. If you want more information, however, I'm
> happy to help.
> Note that I'm only talking about national radio, and
> only for
> listeners in the UK.
> 
> First, you'll notice that for "live"
> we're currently using Windows
> Media Player rather than Real Player (for most of you - we
> still give
> Real to some operating systems). We're doing this
> because we know
> online radio is particularly useful in the office, and
> chances are
> that Windows Media is automatically installed on most
> computers, and
> most corporates won't let you install other software.
> It should,
> therefore, 'just work'. I should though say that if
> you need
> RealPlayer for your internet radio or your fridge, those
> streams
> continue; we've no plans to remove them. (Note, there
> is such a thing
> as an internet fridge! Mike)
> 
> The future for "live" is firstly to significantly
> improve the bitrate
> (which we'll do in July). In parallel with that
> we're working on a way
> of delivering higher-quality still, using a Flash-based
> player and an
> AAC-family stream. We're working with our distribution
> partners to
> enable this; the upshot is that it should sound even better
> but use
> less bandwidth.
> 
> For "on-demand", you'll have spotted that
> we're using Flash, within
> the lovely embedded media player that you're familiar
> with for TV in
> the iPlayer. Under the hood is a protected MP3 stream for
> now: again,
> we're shifting over to AAC-family later in the year.
> The real
> difference here is the quality - we've significantly
> improved the
> bitrates we can offer.
> 
> For on-demand content, we're launching iPlayer with
> four MP3 profiles
> based on the content of the programme: and we're using
> four different
> bitrates for these profiles.
> 
> Pop music (eg Radio 1 or Asian Network) is 128k stereo.
> Classical music (Radio 3) is 192k stereo.
> Stereo speech (Radio 4) is 128k stereo.
> Mono speech (Radio 5live) is 80k mono.
> 
> These are the launch bitrates; we'll tweak things, and
> moving to the
> AAC family will reduce the bitrates we use (to make your
> listening
> more reliable, whilst maintaining audio quality). Again,
> the Real
> listen-again streams that your internet radio uses will
> still work.
> 
> Finally, perhaps I might be able to let you into a bit of a
> dirty
> secret. For the last six years, the online streams from BBC
> national
> radio have been taken from satellite: the same feeds you
> get on
> Freesat or Sky. So we've been taking a lossy MP2 audio
> feed, and then
> encoding it further into even lower bitrates. As we move
> into higher
> quality audio online, clearly this has to stop. So, from
> July, it will
> - we'll be encoding everything within Broadcasting
> House, plugged in
> to the studio feeds. So better bitrate is only part of the
> story -
> it's also better sound.
> 
> If you've got feedback about radio within iPlayer beta,
> we're watching
> your blogs; or if you're blogless, please do comment
> here.
> 
> Comments are beneath the item, you need to be registered
> with BBC
> message boards:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2008/06/under_the_iplayer_hood_for_rad.shtml
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA USA
> 
> International broadcasting / shortwave blog:
> http://www.intlradio.blogspot.com
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