An upheaval in German public radio on 19.2E is taking place this month, with a move from mp2 and AC3 encoding to a new transponder with AAC-HE encoding (although the relevant web pages call it AAC-LC). With the accompanying reduction in bit rates (from 320 Kbit/s to 160 or 256 kbit/s for stereo, and -- by the look of it -- 448 kbit/s to 320 kbit/s for surround), the change will free a transponder for other uses. The old services are to be discontinued on July 20.

However, I'm wondering what's going to happen to the surround sound (5.0 and 5.1) broadcasts from these stations. Because of Covid, there aren't many of them just at the moment, but one was carried yesterday afternoon by BR-Klassik -- a station which for some years has provided AC3 and mp2 streams in parallel, even when in plain stereo. However, when I checked its new transponder, I found that both audio streams were in stereo only -- though one was at 160 kbit/s and the other at 320 kbit/s.

Could this be because the engineers hadn't finished plugging up the network? Or is it more likely that not all DVB receivers can process multichannel AAC? Since the only surround transmissions I've met up to now have been in AC3 or AC-3+, I've no way of telling. But the surround-sound broadcasts from Germany are a stunning experience, and I would rather not lose them.