Re: FN-FORUM: OT Digital radio lag

date posted 29th July 2004 21:45

Tony Crockford wrote:

> and a bit on "the pips":
>
> "Newer digital broadcasting methods have introduced even greater
> problems for the accuracy of the pips: on platforms which use digital
> compression such as DAB the pips are no longer exactly on the hour. The
> encoding and decoding of the digital signal causes a delay, usually a
> few seconds."
>

That came up in the pub the other night actually. Shouldn't they do 4
pips instead to make setting the time accurate!?

Actually, I've used this for years, sets your PC time to an atomic clock:
http://www.arachnoid.com/abouttime/index.html

Thanks for all the replies anyway, I'll digest the good sense in the
morning, when the G&T wears off ;-)

I did read that the sound quality (other than bg noise) is inferior to
FM due to the way they've crammed hundreds of stations into a pretty
narrow bandwidth. I'd say that's true from experience, but you do get
a heck of of a lot of choice - and 5Live is miles better than on AM,
so for news and sport it's worth it for me.

Until tomorrow, Paul.