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Topic: Why do? Radio Stations still use MP2? (Read 1804 times) previous topic - next topic
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Why do? Radio Stations still use MP2?

Maybe someone who works in the radio industry here will know the answer to my question?
Why do? Radio stations still use MP2.
I work for a small radio station In Ireland, We being told we only archive programmes in MP2 or .wav by the BCI (Broadcast Authority of Ireland)
We had someone over from the BBC at meeting on archiving, and he said MP2 has much better quality than MP3 and will stil be here in 20 years, unlike MP3. Nearly all radio stations in Ireland, will be archiving old shows in MP2.
Does any know why in 2017, mp2 is still so popular in Radio stations or is just in Ireland.

Re: Why do? Radio Stations still use MP2?

Reply #1 –
Quote
MP2 has much better quality than MP3 and will stil be here in 20 years, unlike MP3.

What? perhaps he believes in some sort of data rot that affects MP3 files?

But my question, whether I could tell the difference or not, is why would anybody be archiving in a lossy compression format?
The most important audio cables are the ones in the brain

Re: Why do? Radio Stations still use MP2?

Reply #2 –
Are there? any Listening Tests on the mp2 codec out there.
 

Re: Why do? Radio Stations still use MP2?

Reply #3 –
Various hand waving answers could be given that would fail TOS8 here.

On a purely factual note, DAB in the UK and Ireland uses mp2, so it's likely that we are stuck with it for 20 years :-(

Given that so many "radio" broadcasts use mp2 (not only DAB, but Freeview and Satellite TV), it has been argued that transcoding within the same format is better than transcoding between formats. That's argument doesn't completely stand up to scrutiny and testing.

Lossy mp2 is not an archive format. BBC archives to LPCM and worked to avoid lossy codecs in production and distribution from the early 2000s. They made use of MiniDisc a bit before that.

As well as archiving programmes for possible re-use and re-broadcast, they do have a legal obligation to record everything that's broadcast (a "log tape"). It could well be they're using mp2 for that, though for a long time they used something far worse.

Cheers,
David.