High Definition Radio and New Content Alternatives 305
An anonymous reader writes "Many people are aware that satellite radio is a viable consumer option thanks to massive marketing campaigns. What many people do not know is that an alternative, High Definition Radio, exists in most major US markets. IBM DeveloperWorks explains how HD Radio works and why the masses may soon be scrambling to adopt this technology and expand it to alternative content as fast as possible."
In conclusion (Score:1, Interesting)
There is no way possible that Satellite radio can be beaten by HD radios
Does this really beat Satellite? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:In conclusion (Score:2, Interesting)
HD on the other hand is (to me) just an extension of traditional radio. It's a general replacement, not a niche. It's like replacing my 8x CDROM with a 32x CDROM. Heck, all HD has to do to market itself is say "Better quality than satelite and traditional radio and no messy contracts!" Sold. And I bet I could sell all my friends and family, too. If I said "satelite radio" to them, their eyes would glaze over.
These guys don't get it (Score:2, Interesting)
What they care about is that:
1. Music is commercial free
2. The content is very well grouped and partitioned by genre and not TOP 40.
3. The audio is uncensored.
The end quote was such a load, "Who will be the HD radio Howard Stern?", no one thats who. Because HD Radio is the same station broadcast on the same frequency, only digitally. Who cares. This is BS hype over a technology that is not really important to anyone. No one is clamering for better sounding radio.
What about 'em? (Score:3, Interesting)
2) Lower cost. You pay for radio either way. With terrestial radio, you pay with your time -- often 20 minutes or more of ads per hour. That's 33% of your listening time. And for someone like me who hates morning DJ chatter (filling up at least another 33% of the airtime) and has only a 15-20 minute drive to work, that makes terrestrial radio all but useless in the morning, since the odds are stacked against me ever hearing music.
3) Embedding. An XM receiver is built into over 140 cars in the 2006 model year, from Honda to Lexus to Harley Davidson. Sirius is built into many of the same cars, as well as some different ones. Home receivers from Yamaha (and possibly others by now) have XM receivers built in, though they require a $50 antenna.
4) Standardization. Of course the radios don't inter-operate, both XM and Sirius want to lock you into their own service. Fortunately, there are only two providers, they are well known and often reviewed, and will refund you fully if you cancel within a certain time (either 14 or 30 days, I'm not sure).
5) Independent operation. Not sure what you're getting at here. You say that every station handling their own distribution is a good thing, and for terrestrial radio, it may be. But on satellite stations, they aren't competing against each other for your attention. The rock station on 46 really doesn't care if you start listening to the rock station on 47 instead. And that means each station can focus on their specific genre, instead of having to water it down to appeal to a wider audience. It's the reason why, on satellite radio, you can find things like a station that plays nothing but music from Africa 24/7.
They aren't "passing off" the production to a satellite company -- they're *run by* the satellite company. That gives them a lot more freedom than a terrestrial station, whose programming is essentially "passed off" to the advertisers.
Look at it this way: for every bit of business, generally speaking, there's a product (or service) being sold, someone selling it, and someone buying, right?
With terrestrial radio, a lot of people think the radio station is offering music to you, but they're not. A radio station is in the business of selling *you* -- their product -- to their advertisers -- their consumers. The music and the DJs are only there to keep to product on the shelves, as it were.
With satellite radio, you get what you expect. You are the consumer, you are buying music, and you are buying it from the broadcaster. This means that, instead of living to serve the almighty advertiser, the satellite radio station are around to serve *you*.
For me, that's worth the price they're asking.
Re:In conclusion (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No Thanks to Sirius (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it perfect? Nah. Is it good enough for $100 every year? Yeah, probably. Being able to listen to commercial free stand-up comedy (channel 153) or NPR (although XM's NPR station is pretty crappy content-wise so far, but improving) on unplanned long boring trips from Austin to Dallas is worth the price.
Re:Free beats non-free every time (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to work well for them, too.
There, I fixed that for ya. It's called primitive accumulation of capital: you take what was free and charge people for it. Marx got a lot of things wrong, and Bakunin was certainly right about where communism leads, but let's not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Re:It works and we're making better every day (Score:2, Interesting)
on the other hand... all the XM/ [xmradio.com] Sirius [sirius.com] formats work everywhere. If you like classic country, to get it over WSM-HD you'd better live in the Nashville metro area. Get more than 120km from Music Row, and it'll be gone. The classic country channels on Sirius/XM work everywhere in North America.
120km is probably rather optimistic. With my $300 HD radio [bostonacoustics.com], I have to have a 80m outdoor antenna to get the HD signal of a 50kw station 30km away. That'd improve once we drop hybrid mode for all-digital & increase the digital power -- but I don't expect to live long enough to see that happen. Too many analog radios out there.
Right now, AM (MW) stations are not allowed to run HD at night. The HD signal is carried in the two adjacent channels. (for a station on 1510KHz, the HD signals are carried in 1495-1505 and 1515-1525KHz) This results in severe interference to, in this case, 1490, 1500, 1520, and 1530. The first-adjacents (1500 & 1520) are not assigned for use within the coverage area of a 1510 station. 1490, on the other hand, is a problem. I've heard interference from a 1510 HD station within the city officially served by a 1490 station, about 60km from the 1510 transmitter -- and less than 6km from the 1490 transmitter. (I may have heard the interference in places where I could see the 1490 transmitting antenna!)
If HD AM is allowed at night, definitely distant reception will end; if you don't live in a large city you may lose most of your nighttime AM service. (at my home ~50km from Nashville, WSM [wsmonline.com] is probably the only AM station I'll get at night in a fully-deployed HD world) That aside, it looks like a lot of local service will also be impacted.
The story isn't quite as bad on FM. The HD signals are carried only in the first adjacent channels. (95.3 & 95.7 for a HD station on 95.5) In some cases this will still be a problem, especially in deep-suburban areas or on cheap radios.
I am not particularly impressed by the HD coverage either. I have to search for a "sweet spot" to get the HD of an 80kw station 50km away with an indoor antenna. That's not necessary with analog. (worth doing, for the excellent digital-only programs on WPLN-HD2 [wpln.org]) Again the coverage will probably improve in all-digital mode, if we ever get there...
This system was designed first & foremost to protect local stations from competition, It's got a long way to go before it provides reliable replacement service for analog.
Doug S.
(TV engineer & follower of radio tech trends)