Another Reason Dropping HD Transmission May Be A Good Thing?

[RadioMan203]

And no, while this may be another excellent opportunity to bash the garbage iBiquity is trying to shovel onto the public as "HD Radio" there's a better reason to pull the plug and call it a day.

Ever bother to read the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? This about how this act places jurisdiction over the digital transmission of programming. How long do you think it's going to take the RIAA, ClownExchange (oops, SoundExchange) and musicFIRST to pressure lawmakers to adopt the same or a similar act toward digital radio transmission? Dropping HD and reverting to an analog-only broadcast may be the smartest move savvy broadcasters can make.

Don't think it can't happen. After reading the Friday commentary in Radio Business Report about SoundExchange and musicFIRST being the biggest scam ever I wouldn't bet the farm this won't happen. Maybe not today, perhaps not tomorrow but I'll bet it's coming down the pike.

So the next time you think about rebooting the HD gear after it craps out yet again it may be better to say "lights out" and lessen yet another potential headache.

 

[DaveBayArea]

Sound Exchange has taken the DMCA to a whole new level with their interpretations. Originally the idea was to charge a royalty for the distribution of digital music because people could make "exact digital copies" of a performance. Subsequently, people realized that an "exact digital copy" of most audio streams is really a "mediocre analog copy". So the record companies have slowly moved toward the concept of attempting to charge royalties for any kind of distribution. Analog or digital.

Think about it. Putting legalities aside, the technology is available to easily convert an analog FM signal to a high-quality digital format. If I capture that audio, encode it and make a CD there's no payment to the artists, producers, record labels, or anyone else. That CD has much better quality than a web stream from the same station, let alone an HD radio signal. If I rip the station's web stream to an exact digital copy the result is a lower quality recording, but Sound Exchange receives a small royalty as a result of that act. The CRB is well aware of that and has been putting pressure on the NAB for some time, as we all know too well.

Dave B.

 

[KeithE4]

Think about it. Putting legalities aside, the technology is available to easily convert an analog FM signal to a high-quality digital format. If I capture that audio, encode it and make a CD there's no payment to the artists, producers, record labels, or anyone else. That CD has much better quality than a web stream from the same station, let alone an HD radio signal. If I rip the station's web stream to an exact digital copy the result is a lower quality recording, but Sound Exchange receives a small royalty as a result of that act. The CRB is well aware of that and has been putting pressure on the NAB for some time, as we all know too well.

What, in reality, is the difference between ripping a station's FM stream (or copying a CD, for that matter) to a PC and the way we used to do it decades ago: Feeding a station's sound off the radio or a phonograph record into a reel-to-reel or cassette tape recorder of decent-enough quality so that the audio isn't noticeably degraded? And then giving the tapes to your frends? Technically illegal, but not enforced and not enforceable, at least in the case of radio over the publicly-owned airwaves.

Either way, the record companies and artists/writers are not compensated for these copies. I don't remember the record companies going after people who did that unless it was on a very large scale. Professional bootleggers making thousands of tapes would be targeted, but not Joe Teen and his buddies making a few copies of the latest Led Zeppelin album for personal use (and the album had to have been purchased by somebody, right?). They still made plenty of money.

 

[TheBigA]

How long do you think it's going to take the RIAA, ClownExchange (oops, SoundExchange) and musicFIRST to pressure lawmakers to adopt the same or a similar act toward digital radio transmission? Dropping HD and reverting to an analog-only broadcast may be the smartest move savvy broadcasters can make.

The discussion already took place about six years ago, and it was determined that HD radio isn't digital radio, because it uses the analog signal for transmission, and therefore the DMCA doesn't apply. In fact, that's one reason why broadcasters prefer HD Radio over true digital. However, most broadcasters are streaming their HD channels, since few people have HD Radio receivers. In that case, the digital royalty applies.

 

[tomservo]

Either way, the record companies and artists/writers are not compensated for these copies. I don't remember the record companies going after people who did that unless it was on a very large scale. Professional bootleggers making thousands of tapes would be targeted, but not Joe Teen and his buddies making a few copies of the latest Led Zeppelin album for personal use (and the album had to have been purchased by somebody, right?). They still made plenty of money.

I believe the reason they're on the tail of every Joe who copies a CD these days is because of how easy it is to transport (illegally copied) music over the net. MP3 files are a lot more portable than a stack of cassette tapes. It's entirely possible your duped tape of Zeppelin made to it through your circle of friends, but a single track of The Lemon Song could be distributed to literally thousands with no degradation from the first encode. Plus it's easier to track these files online than physically hunt down the person making tapes.

At lot of the hand wringing has been over making "exact digital copies". I would say that mp3s are inexact digital copies, much like HD radio and web feeds. There is some dissimilarity between the end result and the exact original copy. Much like a cassette tape isn't going to be an exact copy of a record, or a VHS of the original TV show feed.

Therefore, we should be allowed to make personal use copies of any music we acquire if it's re-encoded to a different format without meddling from the RIAA or their cronies.

 

[TheBigA]

Therefore, we should be allowed to make personal use copies of any music we acquire if it's re-encoded to a different format without meddling from the RIAA or their cronies.

Part of personal use today is file sharing. That didn't happen to this degree with tapes. File sharing of music is a huge problem, partly encouraged by the industry itself. They want people to have free samples, and then buy it. But file sharing creates a habit that is hard to break. That's how single moms and college students have found themselves in trouble.

 

[nd2023]

A tape can be copied only a certain amount of times before its audio is unrecognizable. After just 3 times it sounds muddy and its nearly all hiss after 10 times. But an MP3 can be copied an infinite amount of times and will sound just as good as the first copy (assuming it's not re-encoded at all)

 

[DaveBayArea]

A tape can be copied only a certain amount of times before its audio is unrecognizable. After just 3 times it sounds muddy and its nearly all hiss after 10 times. But an MP3 can be copied an infinite amount of times and will sound just as good as the first copy (assuming it's not re-encoded at all)

I assume you're referring to copies of analog tapes (not DAT's) and the concept of a "copy of a copy of a copy". Not multiple copies of the master, right? Even so, I would beg to differ with you in terms of quality. Back in the '80s I was involved in many tape trees done by mail to distribute recordings of live shows done by "bands that allow taping" (a tradition started by the Grateful Dead but carried forward by many artists). I have lots of 4th and 5th generation analog cassettes that sound amazingly good compared to - for example - HD radio.

Dave B.

 

[Tom Wells]

A tape can be copied only a certain amount of times before its audio is unrecognizable. After just 3 times it sounds muddy and its nearly all hiss after 10 times. But an MP3 can be copied an infinite amount of times and will sound just as good as the first copy (assuming it's not re-encoded at all)

I assume you're referring to copies of analog tapes (not DAT's) and the concept of a "copy of a copy of a copy". Not multiple copies of the master, right? Even so, I would beg to differ with you in terms of quality. Back in the '80s I was involved in many tape trees done by mail to distribute recordings of live shows done by "bands that allow taping" (a tradition started by the Grateful Dead but carried forward by many artists). I have lots of 4th and 5th generation analog cassettes that sound amazingly good compared to - for example - HD radio.

Dave B.

Same here. It depends on, like all things analog, everything that happens. If every step is carefully done and the tape is good,
it should be many dupes before someone notices degradation.

But back then one bad step, and there was seldom much could be done to "go back"....
Now with digital editing, there's a LOT of restoration that can be done easily.

 

[RadioMan203]

How long do you think it's going to take the RIAA, ClownExchange (oops, SoundExchange) and musicFIRST to pressure lawmakers to adopt the same or a similar act toward digital radio transmission? Dropping HD and reverting to an analog-only broadcast may be the smartest move savvy broadcasters can make.

The discussion already took place about six years ago, and it was determined that HD radio isn't digital radio, because it uses the analog signal for transmission, and therefore the DMCA doesn't apply. In fact, that's one reason why broadcasters prefer HD Radio over true digital. However, most broadcasters are streaming their HD channels, since few people have HD Radio receivers. In that case, the digital royalty applies.

I do remember portions of that being discussed but seeing the track record of how the RIAA and cronies are still scratchin' to rape as many people as possible I still think this is a strong possibility. Think about the fact that dial-up modems transmit digital communications over analog technology.

Regardless of streaming I really believe that there will be another money-grab made due to having a service defined as "digital" although it may not be 100% digital. I could be wrong but I bet it's still a possible scenario to look out for.

 

[TheBigA]

Regardless of streaming I really believe that there will be another money-grab made due to having a service defined as "digital" although it may not be 100% digital. I could be wrong but I bet it's still a possible scenario to look out for.

Streaming IS digital, and therefore the royalty applies. CBS and Clear Channel are among the biggest payers to SoundExchange.

 

[musichead1029]

Sound Exchange has taken the DMCA to a whole new level with their interpretations. Originally the idea was to charge a royalty for the distribution of digital music because people could make "exact digital copies" of a performance. Subsequently, people realized that an "exact digital copy" of most audio streams is really a "mediocre analog copy". So the record companies have slowly moved toward the concept of attempting to charge royalties for any kind of distribution. Analog or digital.

technology is available to easily convert an analog FM signal to a high-quality digital format... That CD has much better quality than a web stream from the same station, let alone an HD radio signal.

Exactly. Assigning royalty liability by audio or transmission format is a political distinction rather than a practical one.

I have an MP3 recorder coupled with a portable radio that captures any analog audio I route to it as a mid-fi (192 kbps) MP3 file. The sound quality of an over the air analog broadcast beats lossy HD and webstreams every time, and has no licensing fee attached to it. (This explains why media companies have always attempted to make digital conversions and copying as inconvenient as possible. DAT, Minidisc and standalone CD recorders were saddled with with copycodes that effectively killed those platforms in the marketplace. My radio with MP3 recorder is a niche product. Then the computer delivered convenience on a platform that was mostly beyond the control of media suppliers.)

So SoundScam Inc. used the buzzword 'digital' to gain a foothold where they were unable to do so in the past. But it's convenience that dictates what technologies are most widely used in personal music distribution. I can convert any good sounding original content source to a universally accessible digital format (MP3). But the source gets the tax based on its transmission format.

Convenience - had the record companies understood this early on, they would never have gone down the DRM road that ended up making pirated copies more convenient (and better sounding) than the legitimate product. Once consumers found that pirated media was more convenient than the real thing, and free to boot, the barn door was opened. It won't close again until the authorized product becomes easier to procure and use than the pirate copy.

Services like Pandora and licensed online storage locker concepts sell added convenience at the expense of unlimited access. This is a step in the right direction for media suppliers, though the jury's still out as to whether U.S. consumers will switch from unfettered access via a hard drive.

Meanwhile, online media companies are stuck with excessive licensing fees for mid-fi streams, and terrestrial radio has to come up with hollow sounding excuses as to why they should remain exempt from the fees everyone else is paying based on an artificial distinction.

 

[RadioMan203]

Regardless of streaming I really believe that there will be another money-grab made due to having a service defined as "digital" although it may not be 100% digital. I could be wrong but I bet it's still a possible scenario to look out for.

Streaming IS digital, and therefore the royalty applies. CBS and Clear Channel are among the biggest payers to SoundExchange.

I'm not speaking of streaming, as having operated an online station for 8 years I am quite familiar with what is required. I was referencing the original topic of this thread.

 

[JeeperOne]

Ever bother to read the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? This about how this act places jurisdiction over the digital transmission of programming. How long do you think it's going to take the RIAA, ClownExchange (oops, SoundExchange) and musicFIRST to pressure lawmakers to adopt the same or a similar act toward digital radio transmission?

Umm.....What do you think Internet Radio is? Chop Suey?

It's digitized & it's radio. Always has been. You can even get it on cell phones. Look at what the aforementioned clowns did to the industry

Just sayin'.....

Cheers

 

[RadioMan203]

Umm.....What do you think Internet Radio is? Chop Suey?

It's digitized & it's radio. Always has been. You can even get it on cell phones. Look at what the aforementioned clowns did to the industry

Just sayin'.....

I would think if you look at it technically, internet streaming isn't exactly radio! While you may be able to receive it on mobile devices there isn't an actual radio RF band that internet "radio" appears on. For sake of argument internet video streaming can't really be considered television in the traditional sense for much of the same reason.

All in all, when all is said and done the industry is in a mess!

 

[Savage]

Back to the original purport of this thread....I today encountered another sign of the impending HD demise, however slow its arrival. You know? I mean, other than the fact that station conversions have essentially stopped, that AM operators continue to ditch HD, that the only really new HD Radio receiver in the past 180 days is an obscenely-overpriced store-brand boombox at Best Buy, that there are essentially very few other receivers available, etc., etc.

Got a bulk e-mail today from a surplus/used equipment dealer from whom we've bought the occasional monitor or remote box in the past. For sale at a deep discount: New-In-Box factory-fresh Day-Sequerra HD Radio AM-FM modulation monitors. "SEVERAL AVAILABLE" is the notation.

Yeah. Now THERE'S the sign of a succeeding broadcast technology. Pieces of brand-new transmitting gear being sold on surplus sites. :

 

[RadioMan203]

Got a bulk e-mail today from a surplus/used equipment dealer from whom we've bought the occasional monitor or remote box in the past. For sale at a deep discount: New-In-Box factory-fresh Day-Sequerra HD Radio AM-FM modulation monitors. "SEVERAL AVAILABLE" is the notation.

I know the dealer you're speaking about. I had seen them blowing out on ebay and had acquired one new for about a third of the price the dealer. I'm quite leery of anything from DaySequerra, as it took two months to get the unit back from them for a simple firmware update and general checkout. After all that I think there were still some idiosyncrasies with the unit when I got rid of it. I'm honestly surprised anybody purchases any of their gear! I'll stick with the trusty Belar monitors any day!

You are right though. Equipment sites and even ebay blowing these things out just goes to show HD Radiu will end up same museum with the Kahn AM stereo exciters!