Following up on this earlier BoingBoing post about the curious tale of Rodeohead MP3s, BoingBoing, and the BBC — reader and geek sleuth Rupert Goodwins says, "I asked Mike Todd, one of BBC Radio's Broadcast Duty Managers, what was with that MP3 ban on the wireless. He said:
"A lot depends on the amount of compression in the original MP3, but the CD-R request would be either to allow a linear version to be supplied, or a very much less compressed version. Every time lossy-compressed audio goes via a lossy part of the chain it gets worse (depending, of course, on the original level of compression and the type of audio)."
A BH studio to the FM transmitter network is not a problem, but it is when it goes to DAB/Freeview/Dsat … and then the studio itself may be being sourced via a lossy ISDN (as indeed Peel is). Add these together and the results could be dreadful … therefore there's a policy to (a) not use MP3s unless editorial imperatives demand it and there is absolutely no other way, (b) not us Minidiscs except in certain circumstances and (c) have computer playout systems working with linear audio.
BoingBoing reader Rupert continues:
"There we have it. DAB is the European terrestrial digital radio system, Freeview is the UK's digital terrestrial TV system which has multiple radio channels too, and DSat is the digital satellite system.
There's one heck of a lot of digital broadcasting round these parts, each with its own compression system, and that's before you start to worry about the streaming stuff on the Net."
[Xeni speaking again here]. I'm still not sure that explains it. The BoingBoing reader who pointed John Peel to the Rodeohead MP3s says that when he learned Peel couldn't play the MP3s, he burned them to CD, sent them to Peel at the BBC, and they aired on Peel's show shortly thereafter. So, either (a) the issue was that Peel's show was simply unable to deal with downloading, storing, and playing digital files (but popping a CD in a player was no prob), or (b) the above theory is true, and Peel's show obtained and then aired a non-lossy version of the material, from someone other than this BoingBoing reader.
