The original premise of HD was to challenge Satellite Radio. The idea was "Hey we have all this great FREE content over here". "No need to pay XM or Sirius". Radio stations put minimal effort into programming anything unique or worthwhile on HD. Very few people bought HD radios (if they could even find one). Most people still aren't aware of HD and some stations have just shut it down...
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Buffalo-Toronto Public Media has launched AAA “The Bridge” in Buffalo
- Thread starter DavidZ
- Start date
Not exactly true. NPR has been an active proponent of HD radio since the beginning, and most NPR stations offer lots of unique and worthwhile programs. Including The Bridge on WBFO-HD2 in Buffalo, the topic of this thread. Of course just having unique and worthwhile programming doesn't guarantee that people will actually buy an HD radio. There's unique and worthwhile programming on Sirius and about 90% of the country doesn't subscribe.
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Of course everybody else is wrong and the person responding is right. This is such a productive forum. HD radio only has approximately 20% of the total signal strength of it's FM power. Go ahead.... tell me I'm wrong.
HD is only allowed 10% of the analog power at most, and very few run this much power. Most run 4%. When HD was first introduced, it used 1% of the analog power and coverage wasn't very good. HD signals are low power because they are digital and do not need much power for radios to decode, similar to how digital TV is only allowed 1 megawatt, while analog had a maximum of 5 megawatts. Most HD signals I've heard have about the same or better coverage than the analog stereo signal.
The difference between high definition and analog is the complete loss of sound on HD when the signal drops below a certain threshold whereas analog will still produce a sound but with interference. Summation of it all, HD radio is garbage.
You have a better idea?
No, it was not.
HD radio began its development much more than a decade before satellite radio launched or was even a near-future reality. The HD technology was developed by the old Bell Laboratories where there was considerable interest in digital because of the ability to use one "channel" for multiple independent streams... also a boon for the telco operator.
In fact, several of the largest radio companies like Clear Channel, HBC and Radio One, were involved with both satellite and HD at the start.
HD was launched with its near-total focus on vehicles. Like many non-radio people, Bell and the startup that took over the technology thought all radio listening was in vehicles. In around 2002 I asked the head of iBiquity about portable radios (a challenge due to battery consumption of DAC devices) and he swept away the question with a response about getting car manufacturers to add HD to all models.
Glad to. You are wrong.
Digital is not the same as analog. Were stations pure digital, they would need less power to cover the same area than pure analog signals do.
I can point out empirical evidence by Scott Fybush on the signal of the pure AM digital signal from Frederick, MD, now in operation.
Arguing digital radio vs. analog radio is like arguing CDs vs. vinyl. A lot of people will tell you that "vinyl sounds better" and that it's "warmer." Why? Because mastering vinyl required that you adhere to a relatively narrow dynamic range or the original cutters wouldn't give you enough signal to overcome background noise, or too much signal could actually cut through the side of the vinyl groove unless you shortened the recording by creating fewer grooves with thicker walls. When CDs first came out, they had much more dynamic range, much greater frequency range, and much better stereo separation than vinyl. The response? From some people (notably classical music listeners) it was "WOW, that sounds just like the orchestra." From some rock listeners the adventure of listening through good headphones or a great stereo system was "WOW, it's like I'm in the studio with the band." From a lot of radio listeners (and programmers) it was "Wow, that sounds a lot thinner and is a lot less predictable than vinyl. We need new multi-band processing to bring up the low passages and keep the loud passages from overmodulating. WTH, we never had that problem with vinyl." The limitations of vinyl fit the limitations of broadcast better than the new, "better" technology.
What eventually happened? Artists started saying that they wanted their CDs to "Sound like it does on the radio." So techs who mastered the CDs started reducing the dynamic range, limiting the frequency response, and even reducing the stereo separation to what FM radio signals could reliably process. They filtered out any sound below the noise floor of FM, limited the loudest sounds to the modulation limit of FM, and cut down frequencies beyond the range of FM.
Purely digital radio is capable of producing better quality audio than analog radio on both AM and FM. It would require a wholesale change in technology for listeners. At this point, there's no point in doing that when the same music is already available in digital format on an internet stream - and the listener already pays for the delivery technology.
So what's the point of HD radio? At this point, it's mostly to get a break on the compensation to artists required for streamers. Radio station pay a lower fee than pure streaming services. The other reason is that you can get an FM translator for an AM HD2, effectively giving yourself another FM station in many markets. That's not much of an issue in the over-radioed Northeast, but it's a big issue in the under-radioed South, Southwest, and far West.
Bottom line is that listeners have plenty of choices for pure-play music, including selecting their own music if they have the time and inclination. Radio as we know it will stay relevant not so much because of the delivery method by because they will continue to be curators of content and offer "value-added" content to the pure music stream. If you're doing that, the delivery system doesn't matter. If you're not, you're already losing audience and TSL to other music services.
What eventually happened? Artists started saying that they wanted their CDs to "Sound like it does on the radio." So techs who mastered the CDs started reducing the dynamic range, limiting the frequency response, and even reducing the stereo separation to what FM radio signals could reliably process. They filtered out any sound below the noise floor of FM, limited the loudest sounds to the modulation limit of FM, and cut down frequencies beyond the range of FM.
Purely digital radio is capable of producing better quality audio than analog radio on both AM and FM. It would require a wholesale change in technology for listeners. At this point, there's no point in doing that when the same music is already available in digital format on an internet stream - and the listener already pays for the delivery technology.
So what's the point of HD radio? At this point, it's mostly to get a break on the compensation to artists required for streamers. Radio station pay a lower fee than pure streaming services. The other reason is that you can get an FM translator for an AM HD2, effectively giving yourself another FM station in many markets. That's not much of an issue in the over-radioed Northeast, but it's a big issue in the under-radioed South, Southwest, and far West.
Bottom line is that listeners have plenty of choices for pure-play music, including selecting their own music if they have the time and inclination. Radio as we know it will stay relevant not so much because of the delivery method by because they will continue to be curators of content and offer "value-added" content to the pure music stream. If you're doing that, the delivery system doesn't matter. If you're not, you're already losing audience and TSL to other music services.
Essentially ↑ true.
As I have read and been told, as a technical note, even in the vinyl and reel to reel tape days, FM employed (high frequency) pre-emphasis (increase) in the transmission process and de-emphasis (attenuation) in the receiver.
CDs did in fact sound "different" to the ears of discerning engineers, air talent and listeners, especially in the early days when stations played a few select cuts ("now playing from Compact Disc") from the few available CDs mixed with the mostly vinyl tracks from their existing libraries.
In some cases, the difference was made noticeable because the characteristics in the CD mastering process were "different" as well as "new." Some earlier CDs were mastered at zero dB maximum, while later CDs were mastered at -4 dB maximum. And because some of the early CD players were not as good as were models that came out as little as six months later, radio stations first used consumer CD players (with outboard Digital-Analog Converters and high-to-low impedance matching boxes) just to get on the CD bandwagon. Most stations later upgraded to professional models manufactured by Denon, Tascam, Studer or SONY, among others.
There also were a few AM devotees that believed CD would make their AMs sound markedly better, but in fact created unique issues with audio processing that required engineers to constantly assess their station's audio chain, especially if their station employed a (critical) directional pattern with sensitive antenna tuning networks.
As I have read and been told, as a technical note, even in the vinyl and reel to reel tape days, FM employed (high frequency) pre-emphasis (increase) in the transmission process and de-emphasis (attenuation) in the receiver.
CDs did in fact sound "different" to the ears of discerning engineers, air talent and listeners, especially in the early days when stations played a few select cuts ("now playing from Compact Disc") from the few available CDs mixed with the mostly vinyl tracks from their existing libraries.
In some cases, the difference was made noticeable because the characteristics in the CD mastering process were "different" as well as "new." Some earlier CDs were mastered at zero dB maximum, while later CDs were mastered at -4 dB maximum. And because some of the early CD players were not as good as were models that came out as little as six months later, radio stations first used consumer CD players (with outboard Digital-Analog Converters and high-to-low impedance matching boxes) just to get on the CD bandwagon. Most stations later upgraded to professional models manufactured by Denon, Tascam, Studer or SONY, among others.
There also were a few AM devotees that believed CD would make their AMs sound markedly better, but in fact created unique issues with audio processing that required engineers to constantly assess their station's audio chain, especially if their station employed a (critical) directional pattern with sensitive antenna tuning networks.
In most cases the digital signal goes quite far. I have worked with 2 way communication systems and the results are impressive. An HD signal with 10% of the analog signal still does well in most cases. Look up the lower power needed for a digital UHF station compared to an analog UHF station. The digital station requires much less power to cover the same area.
I'm sure back in the day some prefered AM to FM.
Hey look! It's Ten Questions with Buffalo's own Tom Calderone:
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10 Questions with ... Tom Calderone
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS: College Radio: WBNY/Buffalo 80’s WGR: 80’s WRCN: 90’s WHFS: 90’s Jacobs Media (The Edge): 90’s MTV/Vh1: 90’s-2000’s Spotify: 2000’s 1. What was your favorite station to listen to when you were a kid? WABC (Musicradio), WPIX (PIX 102) (NYC’s first Alt...
The problem with HD is
1. People do even know they have HD in the car
2. Even if people did know they have HD, they have no idea about HD-2
3. Radio spent about a billion dollars promoting HD, and STILL, no one knows what the hell it is
4. It's sad . most cars have HD standard and car owners do not even realize it. It would take king's ransom to teach the market about this
1. People do even know they have HD in the car
2. Even if people did know they have HD, they have no idea about HD-2
3. Radio spent about a billion dollars promoting HD, and STILL, no one knows what the hell it is
4. It's sad . most cars have HD standard and car owners do not even realize it. It would take king's ransom to teach the market about this
And the ill-conceived "stations between the stations" did nothing to develop a need or desire to use HD.
"Lots more variety, lots more choices" along with "always free" and "always available" were the points that should have been made. Unfortunately, that idea was nixed by the HD committee when I presented it as the HBC delegate... and because of that awful campaign, HBC dropped out of the committee.
The issue was that the biggest broadcasters had the same attitude about HD that big operators had about FM back in the 40's: keep it in a niche position or it will hurt our cash cows. It took FM nearly 25 years to right the ship from that policy, but we don't have a quarter of a century today to "rescue" HD:
There is an HD-2 I could LMA right now in Buffalo. A 50KW HD-2.
I refuse to get involved, as nobody gives a rats ass anymore. I would have to spend a million promoting the thing.
I passed .
I refuse to get involved, as nobody gives a rats ass anymore. I would have to spend a million promoting the thing.
I passed .
Probably a good call. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of any HD2 channel in the U.S. pulling a 1 share or higher without an FM translator to attract most of the tuning.
But on the other hand, if your revenue doesn't depend strictly on ratings, and you own other stations that are performing well, putting a niche musical genre on a broadcast frequency might not be a bad idea. WERS is doing a similar thing in Boston.
If your not depending on revenue for it, then it should be used for something for sure.
I know of none.
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