High Definition Radio is Here 389
nfranzen submits this story/advertisement: "Yesterday, I had the opportunity to buy the first High Definition (HD) Radio in the United States. HD Radio, invented by iBiquity Digital, adds a digital channel to the sidebands of an existing analog FM signal. The technology is still pretty new, but I can tell you first-hand that listening to my favorite local FM station in HD sounds just like I am listening to a CD. Well, except for the commercials (grin). Here are some links to local TV news coverage and a news release for more info. HD receivers will hit the open market following the Consumer Electronics Show next week in Vegas." We had an old story about the FCC approving these digital broadcasts in the FM radio bands.
Too Little, too late. (Score:4, Interesting)
Worth it? Yeah, I spend an average of an hour a day driving. It's definitely worth it.
All digital? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Solution looking for a problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh Great...Howard Stern in Digital Fidelity (Score:3, Interesting)
Which brings me to a second point: nearly all radio today is utter crap. The sort of early adapter who would be willing to shell out $400 extra for digital FM is exactly the kind of person who already shelled out $400 for satellite radio. And why would anyone with that kind of discretionary income want to listen to anything on the FM dial? At the risk of sounding terribly elitist, if you're smart enough to have earned gobs of money, your tastes are likely discriminating enough to want to want nothing to do with what's on the FM band.
The one kind of station that might benefit from high fidelity is NPR, but considering that they're bellyaching for cash every twelve weeks or whatever during pledge drives, this is probably the last type of organization who could cough up the extra dough.
Hardly useful. (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this the same as the BBC offering? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This will sound great in my car (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't understand, this is a simple upgrade for local radio stations to add digital. Sirius and XM radio are already an option or standard on new cars. Expect to see HD radio included in car radios also.
This is like tv's going from Black and white to color, its a simple, its better, its about time.
BTW, I listen to talk radio and Howard Stern, this will be a great improvement over sound quality.
Re:This will sound great in my car (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:All digital? (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, digital cellular is popular with the carriers not only because of spectrum efficiency, but because of superior link budgeting with lower output power. The range is actually better on digital cellular protocols (whether TDMA or CDMA) than FDMA/AMPS. The reason why your user experience is better with analog is that there is so much more analog stuff deployed. This is likely to change (not exactly a ton of AMPS equipment is still getting deployed).
Data compression reduces signal bandwidth. And reduced bandwidth means less noise in the band where the signal is, and also means that the signal, since it is less wide, is stronger. This translates to better S/N and thus better link budget. Also, there are things like coding gain which you can't make use of with analog transmissions.
I don't know how the HD FM divides output power/spectrum to the subcarriers. But it is likely that you can still get a perfectly clear digital signal when the analog FM station would be unlistenable.
Forget IBOC - The rest of the world has DAB (Score:5, Interesting)
One reviewer above described IBOC thus: "Let's start with audio quality. It's my opinion that the current 96kb/s codec is incapable of reproducing even a simple male voice without generating objectionable artifacts. It gets worse with music. On the classical cut the strings were thin and harsh. For those of you who are broadcasting contemporary formats, the codec removes sibilance unnaturally, changes the timber of symbols and makes back up vocals strident. This is not CD-quality by a long shot. In fact, during my listening test I found that our station's plain old analog signal sounded better than the 96kb/s codec."
At the same time that the U.S. has locked themselves into IBOC, the rest of the world has been moving ahead with Eureka 147 DAB [worlddab.org], a purely Digital technology without the legacy concerns. Fifty countries and counting, with DAB building steadily, especially in Europe [rwonline.com].
The USA Stands Alone (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had a DAB radio for six months now and have been really impressed with the sound quality, ease of tuning and extra information that's displayed with each broadcast. No more trying to guess the band playing a particular song - it scrolls automatically along the LCD display. Want to see what stations are available? Just scroll through the list, rather than speculatively twiddling a knob and trying to identify something through the white noise. There's a whole world out there that the US is missing out on...
Instead of more bandwidth (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, since it's so easy and cheap to do, why not a car radio with Tivo like functions:
a) Recording multiple stations at once, letting me switch among the recordings, FF, pause and rewind among them. Heck, with software radio record _all_ the stations, all the time.
b) Know the local traffic stations (ie. traffic every 10 minutes on the 8s) and record that slot and give it to me at the touch of a button, or better still just tune in some digital traffic service that will tell me only of my route.
Ditto the news, always record the latest newscast, let me hear it any time I want.
c) Of course let me pause and resume. Also record my favourite talk shows (NPR for example) like Tivo, and let me play them.
d) Have a speech interface so I don't have to look at the radio to select programs or tune it or otherwise control it! Just give me a little wheel or 4-way control on the wheel similar to what MP3 players have.
e) And of course, what I am now playing with is using an MP3 jukebox to forget about radio entirely, exept for news, traffic and weather.
I download NPR programs into the jukebox to listen to them. I can even record Morning Edition in the early morning and listen to it in the morning commute, except with FF and pause etc.
Plus of course, music, which Mp3 jukeboxes do just great.
f) Speaking of radio, put 802.11 in the car MP3 player so when it notices it is parked in the driveway, it syncs up my latest music and audio.
More bandwidth is of course nice, but boring.
Think about cool features.
Re:analog vs. digital (Score:3, Interesting)
High Fidelity Crap (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody here seems to care (Score:3, Interesting)
My morning commute is 20 minutes long, and I don't want to spend 12 of those minutes listening to advertisements. I don't care what American media says, I don't need to purchase products to be happy. I don't need a new SUV (or a used one, for that matter) and tonight I won't be tuning into the latest episode of Fox's newest, most outrageous reality series that everyone will be talking about tomorrow. My morning commute is where I clear my head and prepare to deal with the onslaught of crap that I'll face at work. For that, the Dodge Durango jingle just won't work - sorry, but I need <insert your favorite band here>.*
This is a solution to the wrong problem. We're not concerned with the quality of the FM radio feed, we're concerned with the idiots sending out the signal! This move is just a diversionary tactic that will result in crisp, clear crap. If I ever get tired of listening to my own albums, I'll be looking towards XM or Sirius.
*I hate when people name-drop their favorite obscure band in an attempt to show off how cool they are. Just pretend I mentioned your favorite musician. And I'll pretend that your favorite musician is as cool as mine.
It's the programming, stupid! (Score:2, Interesting)
Schlock is schlock, whether it be analog or digital.
Give the masses what they want: Better programming! There's a ton of good stuff to listen to out there, but the powers that be (Clear Channel, et al) keep broadcasting the same tired trash. And then the recording industry wonders why CD sales are down.
Sheesh.
Radio.. only a data medium for me now. (Score:1, Interesting)