Home
Sound
Car Audio
Cabling
Amplifiers
Valves
Speakers
CD Players
Recording
Surround Sound
Radio Tuners
Vinyl Records
Guitars
Drums
Microphones
Mixing
Computers
Synthesisers
Tape Recorders
Headphones
Transformers
Other

France Musique/Vivace back at 256kb/s?



A few months ago Richard L reported here that France Musique and France
Vivace on Hot Bird had dropped their bitrate to 192 and 128 kb/s
respectively. Now I've looked at
back to 256 kb/s. Can someone confirm this?
I confirmed it here myself a few weeks ago, Giuseppe. And BBC World
I searched for "france musique" on groups before posting, but it
only found the posts where you said that the bit rates had dropped. I
thought that posts containing the old station name "france musiques"
(including the one you mention) would also appear, but apparently they
do not.
The old name was France Musique, and I hadn't spotted that they'd
reverted to it. It's hard to tell just by listening ;-) But I wonder
why they did so. I'd assumed that the plural was for reasons of
inclusivity and political correctness.

Oh well, glad to hear that bitrates have gone up for once.

Service is back to 192 kbit/s on HotBird, too.

BTW, if you're interested in surround sound too, you might find this
page useful, though some of it could do with updating:
click the channels for details of forthcoming transmissions.

I planned on mounting a dual feed system to get a better quality feed
of France Musique than the one I get now on Astra (the radio stations
on Canal Sat's transponder don't sound that good), and also their
new&improved classical station, but if they're still using low bitrates
it's not worth it.