INTERACT FORUM

Devices => Sound Cards, DAC's, Receivers, Speakers, and Headphones => Topic started by: davros on February 03, 2012, 05:35:45 am

Title: DAB radio USB dongle
Post by: davros on February 03, 2012, 05:35:45 am

Guys, I bought a USB DAB-T stick that does digital TV, FM Radio and DAB radio, and it's working perfectly (incl DAB radio) with the included software (http://uk.newsoft.eu.com/).

JRiver can scan for (and find/play) TV stations, but I can not see where I can get it to scan for DAB Radio stations?

Where is this function?

Title: Re: DAB radio USB dongle
Post by: Sandy B Ridge on February 03, 2012, 06:23:34 am

Are you sure it does DAB? DVB-T carries digital radio channels too. Maybe the stick maker got confused?

Have you any DAB radio stations in your area that aren't carried on DVB-T? And can you tune those DAB only channels in the program that came with it?

JRiver MC will tune the radio channels from DVB-T fine. Playing the radio channels is a bit flakey at times because the 'timeshifting' TV mode (the default one) assumes a video signal and so sometimes (bizarrely not always) fails. Manually stopping timeshifting mode (right click menu) works OK for radio.

I'm not sure this is a high priority for jriver at the moment, they seem to be working hard on supporting different TV standards at the moment - DVB-S has just been announced and who knows what next.

Maybe later in the year, when the new supported standards are bug free we'll see some 'radio-love'.

To make things easier for myself, I have renamed my Radio channels with the prefix 'z' so that the all accumulate after the TV channels. Makes it neater from my perspective. YMMV.

SBR

Title: Re: DAB radio USB dongle
Post by: davros on February 03, 2012, 09:26:04 pm

Thanks for the post Sandy.

yes, it does TV, FM and DAB radio on this stick.

I know the tv has some music stations, but I am talking about DAB radio.

I can see and play the 40+ DAB radio station (many of which are also available on FM), using the supplied software.

it seems odd that j.river ignores radio tuners. There have been usb FM dongles around for a gazillion years and DAB has also been here for some time. With the mucic heritage of j.river I expect it to be there so will be very surprised if it's not.

Any j.river people on here able to comment?

Title: Re: DAB radio USB dongle
Post by: Sandy B Ridge on February 04, 2012, 01:45:58 am

Ah OK.

You do realise that (according to Wikipedia) that the bitrate on DVB-T radio stations is greater than that on DAB, so you'll get better quality sound?

You won't get the stations exclusive to DAB or FM though, but you may be able to get an Internet stream of those (which will play in JRiver).

Maybe it would be something useful to support?


SBR