Close

What are you looking for?

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Radio app on Samsung XCover 4s - Radio text is displayed with � characters

(Topic created on: 06-01-2021 10:15 PM)
1729 Views
jorgk3
Explorer
Options

I'm in Spain where they use accented characters. The radio text shown by the FM radio app shows texts with �, for example: Caf� instead of Café, see another example here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIHaekSD4PF/

 

The encoding issue could be in the transmitted data or it could be an issue with the app itself.

 

Anyone knows more?

17 REPLIES 17
CrazyTom2k2
Helping Hand
Options
Hey there Jorgk3!

I'm gonna be 100% honest - I'm not too sure why the radio app's behaving like that - it's an interesting problem nonetheless.

I'm gonna suggest that FM Radio text (like Radio Station Names, Now Playing etc) is limited to the ASCII character set - ASCII doesn't include accented characters, but I think Extended ASCII does.

It might be a limitation of the Samsung Radio app, but I'm not sure where that limitation lies.

All the best,
Tom 🙂
0 Likes
jorgk3
Explorer
Options

Thanks for the reply. Here is my research on the matter:

 

Since RDS2 from 2015, text can be encoded in UTF-8: Radio Data System - Wikipedia

 

Even before that, the encoding wasn't limited to ASCII as the EBU Latin (see below) code table was similar to ISO-8859-1 and did contain accented and other characters used in Western European languages.

 

References: ts_101756v010601p.pdf

Page 9, section 5.2, Charsets. Old EBU Latin, UCS-2 and UTF-8 can be used.

Page 42, Annex C, see the EBU Latin table.

 

So the problem is this: The Samsung Radio app almost certainly expects UTF-8. The broadcaster may correctly send EBU Latin, but without the indicator as per section 5.2. Note that any highbit characters (>0x80) are invalid code points in UTF-8 and replaced with the UFT-8 replacement character � (0xEF 0xBF 0xBD).

 

I'm actually a software engineer with a good understanding of charset encodings. So the only way to solve this would be to get into touch with the app developers at Samsung.

 

I was in Germany recently where they also use RDS. Foolishly I didn't turn the radio on there ☹️ - Anyway, perhaps someone from a "non-ASCII" country could tell us whether the Samsung Radio app works in their country and displays non-ASCII text there. Someone from Germany, France, some Eastern-European country or Latin America. Surely the Europe-centric EBU charset doesn't allow to encode Korean, Japanese or Chinese text, so maybe someone in those countries can add their experiences here.

 

I'm also trying to get in contact with the Spanish state broadcaster, but so far after two months of trying, they've just ignored the issue.

 

EDIT: BTW, my old Nokia 1 leaves out the non-ASCII characters instead of displaying a � - So unless the Nokia radio app has a similar bug, that hints at the broadcaster not transmitting correct data.

jorgk3
Explorer
Options

(deleted, was repost of previous post)

0 Likes
CrazyTom2k2
Helping Hand
Options
Wow! I've learnt something new today. Thank you for going in-depth and researching that one, that's some really interesting info you came up with there!! 😀
0 Likes
jorgk3
Explorer
Options

Yes, but the next step would be:

1) Talk to the engineers at Samsung

2) Talk to the broadcaster

3)  Have some input from people how can or also cannot see the text correctly in other countries.

 

Is there a way to escalate the issue? I've also posted

https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/mobile-apps-services/radio-app-on-samsung-xcover-4s-can-t-adjust...

about missing volume control in that app. Another issue for escalation. And, BTW, were do the error reports go that I sent via the app itself?

 

0 Likes
CrazyTom2k2
Helping Hand
Options

Okay, no worries! Because you've raised that issue on Members, mods should be able to look at your issue and raise it with the right people. Software engineers from Samsung also use this forum for "bug-bashing".

 

In terms of escalating the issue, your best bet is to use the Error Reporting tool - this sends your bug/error reports directly to Samsung reps who should be able to raise the issue with the programming team.

 

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but hopefully there'll be an update for the app soon. Keep checking your Galaxy Store for updates to System Apps (like the Radio) :smiling-face:

0 Likes
jorgk3
Explorer
Options

@CrazyTom2k2 wrote:

In terms of escalating the issue, your best bet is to use the Error Reporting tool - this sends your bug/error reports directly to Samsung reps who should be able to raise the issue with the programming team.


OK, but those reports go into nirvana, no way to check progress. I'm working on various open source projects, and they all have bug tracker, via GitHub, some Bugzilla or the like. Reporting the RDS issue directly in the app without all the necessary context which I've posted here is impossible. So how do you get the moderators' attention?

 

0 Likes
CrazyTom2k2
Helping Hand
Options

I've highlighted your thread and I've also marked it as new, AFAIK that's the way to get the mod's attention :smiling-face:

0 Likes
jorgk3
Explorer
Options
0 Likes