[afnog] DSTV HD Model 45 Decoder not displaying DMX text on what is playing

[Mark Tinka]

On 16/Sep/15 14:15, Dr Paulos Nyirenda wrote:

> While online audio streaming is growing to be a viable option and my undergrad duaghter 
> packs our home DSL connection with it day and night, what we are missing even at these 
> streaming  data rates is not just some audio quality but content in terms of a good quality text 
> display for what is playing and some video as is the case on DMX as I have already 
> highlighted.

This is purely a function of which service you use.

Some radio stations have online streaming of their network, and would
include content information. Some don't.

Almost all subscription-based online radio stations will include content
information, but the question is whether you want to fork out cash for
that (in addition to your monthly pay-tv subscription).

>
> I know that FM stations have a section of the radio spectrum which they can use for text but 
> the feasible data rates are very limited and corresponding displays can only drive seven 
> segment quality of video, at best. I spent quite a bit of time on this in graduate level 
> communications theory on modulation formats, I know that you cannot drive data for a high 
> quality display and transmit good quality sound in one frequency band allocated to an FM 
> station, unless things have changed drastically even for streaming.

You're talking about RDS.

RDS is not widely-implemented in Africa, unfortunately. I haven't
traveled the whole of Africa, but the only country I've been to and
spent enough time listening to radio that supports RDS on a lot of their
stations is South Africa. If other countries in Africa support RDS, I'd
be happy to know which those are.

But yes, RDS only supports up to 64 characters of text when used for the
RT (radio text) application. Most folk listen to radio in their cars, so
perhaps not having to read too much content information while you're
driving is safe :-).

Having said that, online audio streaming services do not suffer from
bandwidth restrictions to pass content information along with audio. In
most cases, you're either listening to the content through a web browser
or an app.

I subscribe to a well-known satellite radio service based in North
America (that have an online service as well), and can't complain about
embedded information with their content.

>
> On the other hand, choice is coming for digital TV such as terestrial digital TV based on ITU 
> digital TV broadcast migration that is now a requirement for every country. In Malawi this is 
> still new and still big news as the Malawi Digiatl Broadcast Network Limited has recently 
> launched its network as a signal distributor, see: http://www.malawidigital.mw/ and am heavily 
> involved in this in Malawi - and - I know that this is happening in many other countries. 

Choice starts with but one step :-).

> Whether these will rise to run services such as DMX of HD quality as is currently available on 
> DSTV is still on the far horrizon, it could happen. 

DStv's DMX is not HD quality. It's pretty good, but certainly not HD (or
rather, High-Res Audio, to be exact). That's a whole other kettle of fish.

>
> So, we do still need to chase things like Multichoice if they provide bad quality services such 
> as on DSTV and DMX, which we pay for, while we await these new services and networks to 
> come and come up to scratch.

I realized some of these things weren't going to change, so I made the
shift myself.

A lot of content is now moving online, and end-user patterns are
following suit (simple things like Youtube to more complex ones like
subscription-based online VoD streaming). I'm not sure linear TV is
going to be major area of growth re: personal entertainment, even though
it will be around for a very long time.

Mark.