BBC Local Radio bitrates
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Ian Beaumont posted on Wednesday 18th July 2012 at 02:23A friend of mine alerted me tothe fact that BBC Radio Cornwall is now broadcasting on DAB at 80 kbps mono. It used to be 128 kbps joint stereo.
He asked me if other BBC Local Radio stations on DAB have also dropped from 128 kbps joint stereo to 80 kbps mono. I don’t know the answer to that one, but some investigations have dug up that the online streams for BBC local radio stations are only 48 kbps, so the DAB stream, even at 80 kbps, would still be higher quality, or would it?
Well on my DAB radio, BBC Radio Cornwall comes up as 80 kbps mono.
On the TuneIn app on my iPod touch, the BBC local radio streams are all 48 kbps. Does that mean the TuneIn streams are different to iPlayer and RadioPlayer?
Well on my DAB radio, BBC Radio Cornwall comes up as 80 kbps mono.
Interesting. Thank you for that. I wonder where else that’s happening?
Does that mean the TuneIn streams are different to iPlayer and RadioPlayer?
Yes. TuneIn uses different feeds. For national networks at least, only the 48kbps version (AAC HE v2) is available outside of the UK.
BBC Tees is at 80 Kbps mono now as well. Now, I am only guessing, could this be in preparation for Olympic coverage and is only a short term thing, or, could it be that BBC locals are going to do ‘split’ coverage for sport and rgular programmes on DAB and are testing to see if listeners really notice.
Brian, I think you might have nailed it. Until recently, the only way to get the split coverage of sport was on AM. It could be that a “Sports Extra” service could be added at 48 kbps mono.
James, it makes perfect sense to me. Until recently, BBC Radio Cornwall would have had no need for split transmissions. But with the Cornish Pirates playing in Rugby Union’s Championship, and Truro City now in football’s Conference South, there has been many scheduling conflicts. Several occasions last season, the Sunday afternoon programme Cornwall Connected with Rachel Schofield has been almost totally taken over by sports coverage, much to the chagrin of some of their regular listeners. By being able to split the 128 kbps stream into an 80 kbps and a 48 kbps stream, they can offer split service on DAB, as well as an AM/FM split. 80 kbps carrying the FM programme, 48 kbps carrying the AM split.
I’d be very surprised if something similar hasn’t happened already at other BBC local stations.
Just to report, BBC Radio Cornwall is back to 128 kbps Stereo.
Yup BBC Tees is back at 128 stereo as well. They must have been testing for something in the future. Maybe it is for when the night time national programme starts so people can continue listening to that on DAB while the local output is on for sport.
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The DAB ensemble snapshot at wohnort still says 128kbps.
Streaming for BBC Radio Devon (I can’t get BBC Radio Cornwall to work this morning) is at 128kbps too. Here’s how to tell – go and listen, right-click on the play button, and you’ll see the data. BBC Radio Devon’s 128kbps in AAC, and I’m currently getting it through Akamai’s network (AK). The right-click trick works on all BBC embedded media players like Radioplayer and the iPlayer, incidentally.
Since AAC is considerably more efficient than MP2, Radioplayer’s audio is better quality than DAB. If you’re listening somewhere where audio quality matters – like in a quiet, stationary room with proper stereo separation – then you’ll always get the best quality from the Radioplayer. (If I sound proud, that’s because I worked on the team that did this work originally).