Books & Audiobooks (was [JOB] Perl Software Developer and Database programmer)

[Peter Corlett]

Daniel Barlow <dan at telent.net> wrote:
[...]
> So I started thinking about DAB until I heard about the quality. DVB-T,
> you say?

Yes.

My main gripe with DAB is not so much the bitrate, since I'm a cloth-eared
sod and listen mainly to speech, but that they're doing a lot of monaural
broadcasts which just sound flat. BBC7 is always broadcast monaurally, and
Radio 4 is sometimes.

DVB-T broadcasts at a higher bitrate with a better codec, and in stereo.

> Am I going to get hassled for not paying a TV licence fee? Assume that I
> don't own or watch a TV, and don't intend to be viewing anything, er,
> televisual, on DVB either. The pictures are better on radio anyway

I don't know whether you technically require a TV Licence, but it might be
hard to defend a prosecution even if you happen to be within the letter of
the law. TV Licensing aren't really known for being fair and honest when
pursuing cases.

It probably comes down to whether you think it's worth paying 120+ quid for
higher quality reception. Me, I tend to use a Freeview box over the DAB
receiver because the landlord paid for a TV Licence when he got scared by
the letters, so I might as well. (Normally I'd just write back and tell them
to piss off and stop bothering me.)

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