Dan Mason's New View on HD

[TheBigA]

I think it has more to do with the fact that the FCC makes decisions based on politics, not science and engineering.

I don't see how it has anything to do with politics either. It has to do with regulators choosing not to regulate.

 

[DaveBayArea]

I don't see how it has anything to do with politics either. It has to do with regulators choosing not to regulate.

Yeah, true. But I was thinking more along the lines that the regulators got where they are not because of their technical proficiency but because of their business/political connections.

Dave B.

 

[TheBigA]

But I was thinking more along the lines that the regulators got where they are not because of their technical proficiency but because of their business/political connections.

Hmmm. I don't know of anyone in the Media Bureau who got there because of political or business connections. Did anyone from the FCC attend the NAB last week?

 

[SirRoxalot]

I'd be willing to bet that almost EVERYBODY who works at the FCC has political and/or business connections. The only other option would be civil service - and even that isn't politics-free.

 

[TheBigA]

I'd be willing to bet that almost EVERYBODY who works at the FCC has political and/or business connections. The only other option would be civil service - and even that isn't politics-free.

The only political appointees are the Commissioners. The rest is civil service.

 

[Tom Wells]

I'd be willing to bet that almost EVERYBODY who works at the FCC has political and/or business connections. The only other option would be civil service - and even that isn't politics-free.

The only political appointees are the Commissioners. The rest is civil service.

What is the percentage of engineers?
If there aren't any engineers, the agancy is an operational fraud, and should be disbanded.

 

[RadeoEngineer]

I'd be willing to bet that almost EVERYBODY who works at the FCC has political and/or business connections. The only other option would be civil service - and even that isn't politics-free.

The only political appointees are the Commissioners. The rest is civil service.

What is the percentage of engineers?
If there aren't any engineers, the agancy is an operational fraud, and should be disbanded.

I believe that most if not all of the former engineers at the FCC have retired in disgust and are now doing AM directional array maintenance in the great midwest of our beautiful country. ;D

 

[DaveBayArea]

I believe that most if not all of the former engineers at the FCC have retired in disgust and are now doing AM directional array maintenance in the great midwest of our beautiful country. ;D

I'm not quite sure that it's that bad, but I do recall that HD Radio was approved during an era when the main FCC-related news story was Janet Jackson's breast. That's hardly engineering-related.

Dave B.

 

[Carmine5]

I was just reading in RW about Ibiquity's "Artist Experience" (frankly, when all you're talking about here is listening to a song while viewing an album cover postage stamp sized, calling it an 'experience' is a bit of an overstatement).

The article by Leslie Stimson pointed out that for the album art to be used in this way, it has to be licensed. A company called Jump2Go is offering itself as a clearing house for licensing this art to stations for a $50.00 a month fee (plus the cost of something called a JumpGate HD data processor which "pushes" this art to the station). Give me a freakin' break. Yet another example of HD Radio's MO of more costly complexity for so little a return.

 

[SirRoxalot]

I believe that most if not all of the former engineers at the FCC have retired in disgust and are now doing AM directional array maintenance in the great midwest of our beautiful country. ;D

I'm not quite sure that it's that bad, but I do recall that HD Radio was approved during an era when the main FCC-related news story was Janet Jackson's breast. That's hardly engineering-related.

Dave B.

Well, maybe not broadcast engineering related...

 

[diymedia]

If no one buying HD Radio's, it would be dead..FCC would have pulled the plug..

But HD is still here in 2011, So people are buying it..If HD is on Low Demand..why is it still here??

Because the FCC has not made HD adoption mandatory, in acknowledgement of the technology's proprietary nature and trusting in "market forces" to guide the rollout. Those forces aren't working (three million receivers sold over ten years is but one example). Effectively privatizing the digital transition has left the FCC with no realistic alternatives to the status quo, and is very unlikely to mandate adoption.

I think it highly unlikely that the industry will push for an all-digital transition, especially since that aspect of iBiquity's system is the least-developed.

Artist experience is the new "killer application." How many killer apps will it take...?

 

[TheBigA]

Artist experience is the new "killer application." How many killer apps will it take...?

Answer: How many artists are there?

That's the problem. In the new media world, anyone can have their own radio station. So no one will be able to get critical mass. And since advertising requires a certain amount of critical mass, it will be extremely hard to support.

 

[DaveBayArea]

If no one buying HD Radio's, it would be dead..FCC would have pulled the plug..
But HD is still here in 2011, So people are buying it..If HD is on Low Demand..why is it still here??

The FCC also allows AM stereo and discrete quadraphonic FM (with front/rear matrix information in the FM subcarrier band) to be broadcast. They haven't pulled the plug on either one of them. But AM stereo stations are few in number and there still arguably more AM stereo receivers in use than there are HD receivers. Yet for the most part the radio industry considers AM Stereo to be defunct, and I know of nobody broadcasting discrete quad FM.

The big difference (and why radio people are so passionate) is that neither AM stereo or discrete quad cause objectionable interference to established services.

Dave B.

 

[Carmine5]

Okay, let me understand this. Our industry geniuses have concluded that (a) the wonderful new digital quality of HD Radio isn't all that wonderfully better than analog after all, (b) that channels-between-the-channels is apparently underwhelming, and (tympani roll) NOWWW...our latest rationale to get consumers to plunk down $50 to $100 for a new radio ISSSSS....

(Cymbal clash)

A little dashboard display of a station logo, a CD cover or some low-tech TV ads?? ???

The digital signage feature is the only thing I see that makes sense economically about HD Radio and could entice a station to go digital. ITunes tagging is pennies per month and side channels is more of a burden then a blessing (although it might be profitable if the channel could be leased) and forget album art, it's too small and is an extra cost.

But for digital signage to work effectively, I would think it needs a full-time person who can set up ads and integrate that with traffic and weather info. And, of course, if it does take a full-time staff person, that may negate any monetary potential for digital signage.

Although it's way late in the game, HD Radio might have a future in the dash if trends in automaker adoption continue as they are.

 

[TheBigA]

But for digital signage to work effectively, I would think it needs a full-time person who can set up ads and integrate that with traffic and weather info. And, of course, if it does take a full-time staff person, that may negate any monetary potential for digital signage.

Most of these stations have a digital person who is handles the various digital platforms. Anything that goes on HD should also go on the web site, and vice versa.

 

[RadeoEngineer]

OK cool. Digital signage. You're driving along and you get a scrolling digital sign that says "Cowboy boots 50% off for the next ten customers." You always wanted a pair of green lizard skin kickers, so you drive as fast as you can to get to the kickers store but on the way run over an old lady in a wheelchair, T-bone a turning motorcycle and run up the curb and mow down Mrs. Smith's second grade class on the way to the playground, plus bust a water hydrant. How many lawsuits are there and who is the respondent?

 

[SirRoxalot]

Let's not get out of control here. What's one of the biggest complaints about radio from LISTENERS? "You never tell me the artist, or the title of the song." If everybody had RDS delivering that information quickly and succinctly, along with frequency and call letters and/or station name, that would be plenty.

For AM, simply bring back AM stereo, and widen out the bandwidth again. That would be a major improvement over the buzz-kill of IBOC.

 

[Chuck]

If everybody had RDS delivering that information quickly and succinctly, along with frequency and call letters and/or station name, that would be plenty.

It would help if there were more RDS capable radios out there. Most Asian car makers seem to leave that feature out, even if the car is built in Ohio or Alabama. As for home RDS capable radios, they are few and far between. I'm a fan of the Sangean WR-2, but it isn't exactly a mainstream table radio. Come to think of it, there aren't many home table radios on the market, period.

 

[TheBigA]

Come to think of it, there aren't many home table radios on the market, period.

Because no one buys them. That's why it was foolish for iBiquity to put so much effort in HD table radios. It's not the 1930s. People don't buy table radios, and truthfully haven't bought them for over 25 years. It's strictly for the audiophile market, and even then it's pretty limited.

Radio is a feature in something else. Radios come with a car, home entertainment system, clock radio, or portable music system. They're not enough by themselves. Combine it with RDS or something like that, and you're 60% there. Add one more element and you might have a product for the marketplace.

 

[Tom Wells]

Why is it that radios that are built into, and "contained as part of something else" are such poor performers?
Even those that are standalone are so worthless as to defy attempts mto listen to them.
I've tried using 4 different radios that I have encountered in the past few days.
One at work, and three in the homes of friends nearby.
The level of performance is fairly close to that of the receivers of the early 1930s.
Medium strength signals across 50 to 60 kilohertz? ANd then it's MUDDY on the "correct" one,
but wideband hi-fi on the adjacents?

It is almost as though the concept of superheterodyne conversion is not really understood by engineering any longer.

These new radios do not behave as a superhet, but more like 3 stage TRF or simple autodyne circuits.

The one MAJOR superiority of the superhet design is the ability to downconvert the signal to a lower frequency where it is easier to not only amplify the signal without osciallation, but to make IF circuits with sharper selectivity.

If you can't hear just one frequency at a time, it is failure of concept or practice.

If there is no specific bandwidth IF coupling to the radio, then 80 years of proven experience is for naught,
and we might as well just the transmittters off.

There was a LOT of competition in the 1920s to get to the point of useful selectivity while having fidelity.

Then there's square wave detection in AM, which "works" but creates amplitude distortion.
Of course, you can always add digital audio enhancement processing try to restore the "life" to the audio,
This sounds pretty awful on the AM in my wife's JVC in the car.

If medicine were like radio, we'd be prescribing mustard plasters, and wondering why we keep getting sick.

Name ONE other technologically-based product that has become so ignorant of the physical laws it operates within?
What if we suddenly decided computers just simply "had to" go back to sequential tape RAM?
No more spinning hard drive or instant access semiconductor RAM, nope, back to the OLD way.
Why not?
It's is no different from modern radios being built with a 1931 autodyne-style detector.

So just why is stupidity in radios permitted? It's just OK to sell radios to people that are essentially broken when new?

"We're going to ignore the method that works well and sell something that works poorly because we can."
The manufacturers must be so proud.
All products should be so poorly made.