Comments for Blogging Nick Piggott

Comment on Is UK DAB Radio “like Betamax”? by iqradio » Blog Archive » Probleme pentru DAB in UK

iqradio » Blog Archive » Probleme pentru DAB in UK — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:27:26 +0000

[...] (Has the Dab Radio dream turned sour) pe unul din blogurile Media Guardian Si un punct de vedere care contrazice titlul. Nick Piggot este "Head of Creative Technology" la GCap [...]

Comment on DAB – Doing It Properly by Flogging a DAB horse… @ Technology News

Flogging a DAB horse… @ Technology News — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:15:18 +0000

[...] years banging on about option (2), and several countries are now adopting it. What I want is “DAB done right“. I gather the UK radio industry doesn’t like it because it makes a few million current [...]

Comment on Is the money in the meta-data? by Phill Clark

Phill Clark — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:31:53 +0000

I’d agree totally with the concept of ‘Control’. We have no issues as a business with this content being used, however it would be nice to be able to control a clean feed for this data rather that it rely on scraping pages or scripts which weren’t designed to have this done to them.

Personally, I believe that if it remains a free service with no adverts or ecommerce options then why not, in fact I’d love to see and API from the service soon so more mashup concepts can be created from all the data and analysis.

Comment on Is the money in the meta-data? by Paul Webster

Paul Webster — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:02:39 +0000

The reason stated by Bauer could be read to suggest that once they have fixed their meta-data so that it accurately reflects their content then it would become available for such mash-ups again. Will be interesting to see.

I had not realised that last.fm was being used as the repository for the data. Were they aware that they are holding potentially contentious data?
I know that a few stations do submit their own tracklistings there – so maybe OGS could open up their comparison to all such stations – and also allow last.fm users to compare their own profile with stations – then it starts to be a more useful service.

Comment on Apple iPod Nano – now with FM and Tagging. Is that good? by Dietmar Kopitz

Dietmar Kopitz — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:17:26 +0000

Music tagging with title and artist information is now easy to implement by broadcasters. iTune tagging using the RDS-ODA feature is just one method promoted by Apple and RadioText/RT+ is another RDS-ODA feature method promoted by the RDS Forum and standardised just now since August 2009.
The latter is an open standard that can since three years at least be freely used by broadcasters and manufacturers.
Now what is great with this Apple nano is that it implemented both technologies. We have tested this already.
The RDS features used in the iPod nano need to be slightly fine tuned on the software design level, as Apple does not seem to have a good understanding yet of what RDS really offers to FM radio as an added value.
This is only a matter now of few very little additional development steps.
Otherwise this is a great implementation that works wonderfully on FM radio.
Hope that other iPod products will use FM radio in this kind of way as well.

Comment on Is the money in the meta-data? by Richard

Richard — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:11:29 +0000

A recent courtcase in Australia ruled that future TV programme listings are not protected by copyright.
( http://bit.ly/obs0Z )

It would be interesting to see what the verdict would be in the UK if Radio stations tested whether past track listings are protectable by copyright.

Comment on Apple iPod Nano – now with FM and Tagging. Is that good? by MC

MC — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:08:43 +0000

I wonder if Rockbox can be installed on this one.

This could be a hack to try nice dev, independently from Apple.

Comment on Apple iPod Nano – now with FM and Tagging. Is that good? by Allen Hartle

Allen Hartle — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:25:17 +0000

Hi we (Jump2Go) designed the RDS Tagging system in question.

The contractual arrangement between the broadcaster and Apple, is primarily to get the commitment from the broadcaster to Tag, and so the sales commissions can find their way back to the broadcaster.

The meta-data we encrypt *before* we send it into the RDS system, so only Apple (or others we provide the keys to) can decrypt it.

In this case its the intangibles that really matter, that “Radio” is fun/cool for the iPod generation.

Seems to be striking that very chord with a lot of people so far. Mission accomplished.

Allen Hartle
Jump2Go

Comment on We’re not done talking about platforms for radio by Richard

Richard — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 06:02:05 +0000

James is right – nobody cares how they get their content – the consumer just wants a cheap, easy to use device which delivers content to them. The internet is part of this picture – but I see terrestrial broadcast in some form as an essential part of the mix.
Nick is also right – the platform is also important. Currently the internet fills the needs for some listeners – but not all. Internet radio is cheap if you have laread invested in a PC and a broadband connection. The iPhone is a great solution for mobile radio – but would it work reliably in any city of the world if 10% or more of the population all decided to listen to a radio station at the same time?
I beleive that radio does need a terrestrial broadcast delivery method to survive – and this platform needs to be digital in order to allow radio to evolve. We can’t just rely on the traditional analogue platforms.
The choice of platform may not seem important to consumers – but it is important to the broadcast industry. If we want the cheap, ubiquitous consumer devices that free to air radio requires – we need devices that can be manufactured for a world market. If more broadcasters in more countries back a particular platform – this means more choice of receivers at lower costs in all these countries – and less confusion for consumers.

I also agree that multiplexing need not be a big problem for broadcasters.
In Australia the commercial radio broadcasters all have an equal share in the owner ship of the DAB+ multiplexing and transmission equipment. We don’t have a multiplex operator chargiing us for services and limiting the broadcasters flexibility to change their service offering when they wish. We also bought the multiplexing equipment ourselves up front – avoiding the finance costs hidden within a service contract. If broadcasters “collaborate on technology and [only] compete on content” these issues are not a huge problem.

Comment on Apple iPod Nano – now with FM and Tagging. Is that good? by Des deCean

Des deCean — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:17:48 +0000

This is great news. Whilst it might not represent the perfect business model – particulatrly for broadcasters – it is a huge step in realising that radio is still relevant. In fact radio has just hit the cool school big time! As Nick says the ulitimate will be DAB and HD radio on nano, but baby steps might just take us there. Lets hope the sales of the new nano’s are encouragement enough for Apple to consider digital platforms in the next generation.

Comment on Apple iPod Nano – now with FM and Tagging. Is that good? by JM

JM — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:44:21 +0000

>to support Microsoft’s new Zune HD

Gee there’s a punt and a half. Not where I’d invest and time and effort right now.

Comment on Live radio on the iPhone and iPod Touch by Dimitri Frederickx

Dimitri Frederickx — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:54:02 +0000

With the following application you can listen to audio streams while still working on your iPhone. It’s a background player: http://www.apple.com/webapps/entertainment/bplayer.html

Comment on The iPhone helps revolutionise DAB Digital Radio by Felonius

Felonius — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:56:12 +0000

Lol! That’s a photoshop mockup, not a screen shot!

Comment on We’re not done talking about platforms for radio by Nick Piggott

Nick Piggott — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:32:21 +0000

It’s a complex question, and thanks for your observations Bev. I see multiplexing as less of a disadvantage as it might seem. Multiplexing allows capacity to be moved around as requirements change, and having bandwidth for future (non-audio) applications seems like a prudent things to do. Multiplexing also allows infrastructure to be shared between operators, reducing the per-station cost. I suspect, now that multiplexers run (as software) comfortably on a mid-range laptop, the small cost of multiplexing is worth paying in order to dramatically reduce the number of transmitters required in the network.

What I think we’re struggling with is the choice of “ubiquitous” platform. DVB-S, DVB-C, DVB-T, IP are all capable of carrying radio, and probably will continue to do so (assuming the economics make sense – in the UK, the economics of DVB-T don’t make sense for radio IMHO). But none of those do well against all 4 check points, because none of then are *designed* for radio from the ground up.

Comment on We’re not done talking about platforms for radio by Bev MARKS

Bev MARKS — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 07:37:30 +0000

For the eagle-eyed, obviously in last but one paragraph of my first comment, I should have typed “ubiquitously”!

But now to James comment: simple logic says we have to know what platform is the choice, so that peripheral matters that may well affect content possibilities have previously been fixed. The trouble is the choice is too wide at present..