What real BMW owners think of their HD radio experience..
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6457376
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6457376
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Dealer could not fix No fluff here.. just the real deal..
- Thread starter pocket-radio
- Start date
And as would be expected of the average consumer, these BMW owners have no idea, no clue, as to why their HD Radios are not working reliably. It's a "dead zone thing", says one, it's a changed "HD protocol" says another. More often then not the question is, "why is my radio not working?"
Apparently one owner has repeatedly taken his car to the dealer to get the radio fixed but without success.
Now multiply that by all the new Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Lincoln, Volkswagen, Volvo, Mini and Jaguar owners who bought HD Radio-equipped cars and, Oy Vey!, what a mess!
Apparently one owner has repeatedly taken his car to the dealer to get the radio fixed but without success.
Now multiply that by all the new Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Lincoln, Volkswagen, Volvo, Mini and Jaguar owners who bought HD Radio-equipped cars and, Oy Vey!, what a mess!
Go back to the well-worn marketing truism: "the fastest way to kill a bad product is to promote it heavily."
If there is a mini-proliferation of HD in Kia and Hyundai cars - the world's fastest-growing marques, BTW - all this will accomplish is multiply the number of consumers who have had bad HD experiences. It's still the same lousy semi-functional no-customer-benefit product.
Ditto the sentiment on the much-touted new radio promo campaign for HD.
Keep on pushing and hyping, HD Alliance. Oh, and I would counsel against leaning too heavily on the 'slender reed' of the digital power increase. It's not going to make the coverage difference HD fan(s) think it will, and the interference is going to be a real problem. (See: 6,792 posts on the subject "HD-AM Radio.")
If there is a mini-proliferation of HD in Kia and Hyundai cars - the world's fastest-growing marques, BTW - all this will accomplish is multiply the number of consumers who have had bad HD experiences. It's still the same lousy semi-functional no-customer-benefit product.
Ditto the sentiment on the much-touted new radio promo campaign for HD.
Keep on pushing and hyping, HD Alliance. Oh, and I would counsel against leaning too heavily on the 'slender reed' of the digital power increase. It's not going to make the coverage difference HD fan(s) think it will, and the interference is going to be a real problem. (See: 6,792 posts on the subject "HD-AM Radio.")
pocket-radio said:
Oh come on now.. A discussion forum with two owners, one in particular who's having a problem with their radio? Hardly what I would call a typical representation of BMW owners carrying your cause. The other posters weren't even aware they had HD radio. Or are you lumping them into the batch of those who don't like HD radio too?
Talk about reaching. Maybe they've just got a bad radio. I imagine it happens with any marque.
As I said before, I'm not a HD fan either way. Neither of my FM stations are broadcasting IBOC, but that's mainly because there is no cost-benefit model for me as an owner yet. Maybe someday there will be, maybe not. I can decide further down that road..
As also mentioned, I'm a 'real' BMW owner (2009 M5), and the HD radio seems to work fine. I don't really pay that much attention unless listening to 'Real Bluegrass' on WAMU-FM HD-2.
Howard, you have an ideal listening situation there: flat terrain and a relatively interference-free frequency allocation, high power and a station which is arguably one of HD's biggest success stories, WAMU-FM.
There are far more BMW problems than "two owners." HD performance problems were the subject to a BMW service bulletin. The company doesn't issue field service reports over two cases.
There are far more BMW problems than "two owners." HD performance problems were the subject to a BMW service bulletin. The company doesn't issue field service reports over two cases.
My point was really, as an example; I have a Jeep Wrangler which had a bad CD player in it which was part of a factory TSB as well. Does that mean all CD players are bad? Hardly.
Just because someone posts a problem with their particular entertainment system on some discussion board is not indicative of all in-car radios of the marque.
Come on, haven't you ever had some piece of electronic equipment that acted up, you took it back for repair or replacement and everything was fine? Or maybe had a bad customer experience and bought another brand of the same type or function?
Just doing my part to balance out the drama with reason! ;D
Just because someone posts a problem with their particular entertainment system on some discussion board is not indicative of all in-car radios of the marque.
Come on, haven't you ever had some piece of electronic equipment that acted up, you took it back for repair or replacement and everything was fine? Or maybe had a bad customer experience and bought another brand of the same type or function?
Just doing my part to balance out the drama with reason! ;D
HD proponents don't hold a monopoly on "reason." Neither are HD critics, who ask hard questions, being "unreasonable."
You're engaging in a little rhetorical trickery in suggesting that the HD performance issues represented by BWM are either (a) isolated cases of malfunctioning or defective radios or (b) due to slightly loony car owners. It is obvious from the record that neither is the case.
There is a problem with HD Radio performance in BMW radios, Howard. The factory knows about it and so do a number of owners. That's why there is a discussion thread on the BMW owners' board. Note that they're trying to zero in on the cause, which as we radio professionals know is neither a case of defective receivers or transmitting problems, which the car owners are in the process of ruling out.
It may be true that a BMW owners' discussion board which deals with reception issues in HD Radio doesn't prove there's a problem. Neither does your positive experience with your Series 5 and WAMU prove the opposite.
You're engaging in a little rhetorical trickery in suggesting that the HD performance issues represented by BWM are either (a) isolated cases of malfunctioning or defective radios or (b) due to slightly loony car owners. It is obvious from the record that neither is the case.
There is a problem with HD Radio performance in BMW radios, Howard. The factory knows about it and so do a number of owners. That's why there is a discussion thread on the BMW owners' board. Note that they're trying to zero in on the cause, which as we radio professionals know is neither a case of defective receivers or transmitting problems, which the car owners are in the process of ruling out.
It may be true that a BMW owners' discussion board which deals with reception issues in HD Radio doesn't prove there's a problem. Neither does your positive experience with your Series 5 and WAMU prove the opposite.
Howard, its easy enough replace your broken CD player and the problem is fixed.
When your HD radio stops playing, as in no sound, because the signal from the transmitter is less than perfect because of geographical conditions, that can't be fixed! HD is all or nothing! When the sound isn't as advertised, as in CD quality, that can't be fixed. CD player technology works as advertised. period. The same can't be said for HD radio. That's just reality..
I like the echo effect with HD. When the hybrid HD and analog signal collides. That can't be fixed by replacing the radio either. It just doesn't work as advertised
When your HD radio stops playing, as in no sound, because the signal from the transmitter is less than perfect because of geographical conditions, that can't be fixed! HD is all or nothing! When the sound isn't as advertised, as in CD quality, that can't be fixed. CD player technology works as advertised. period. The same can't be said for HD radio. That's just reality..
I like the echo effect with HD. When the hybrid HD and analog signal collides. That can't be fixed by replacing the radio either. It just doesn't work as advertised
pocket-radio said:
In my example, the dealer replaced the entire radio/CD as part of the TSB on my Jeep. Apparently there was some sort of firmware issue with the CD player which couldn't be updated external of the system, so replacing the entire radio with new CD firmware was chosen by the factory.
Because unlike you're trying to infer, all HD radios apparently don't have this particular problem, so it wouldn't surprise me if BMW did the same as Chrysler did with my Jeep and just swap the whole radio out. As Chrysler did with my Jeep, it took almost nine months for the TSB to be issued identifying a particular serial number run as having a problem with the CD.
Of note in my example; there were many more angry posts on the AlPar discussion board about the CD player issue than was on the BMW link.
When you speak of "analog and digital collides", or the "echo effect" ; I have no idea what that means. I'm not sure how sources would collide, nor any echo since my radio doesn't seem to exhibit that particular issue. Care to elaborate?
It's a situation where the analog time delay doesn't match the digital coding time. As the radio switches from digital to analog & vice-versa it blends, so there's a time when both sources are present. Some transmitter plants seem to be able to keep the time sync better than others. Obviously you haven't experienced a bad one. If you did, you'd know it.HowardMBurgers said:
Dave B.
HowardMBurgers said:
BMW's don't have radios. They have a computer with a peripheral bus, and the HD module or card, like the satellite one, is just a plug in option. If the BMW system has a problem, they take out the particular module and replace it.
Dealers love to replace modules as the time required is minimal, but they make nice factory dollars for the job.
I've got a Jeep, too. The sophistication of the electronics is, at best, primitive. Of course, simplicity and conventional technology is part of what a Jeep is... I can see that the CD and radio would be a single unit. I have never had a single issue other than routine maintenance in my 2002 Wrangler... pretty cool!!
No surprise. I was at my dealer today for the "regular" 13 to 15,000 mile service, and I asked my service rep about problems with the HD radio. He said he had never heard one... so I think some of the complaints must come from people in places where HD reception is not as good as in LA.
Savage said:
BMW owners tend to be demanding, and any time I am in the dealer, there are owners defending "adamently" their positions on performance and service. On my other car, a Jeep, I find nice folks who you feel would like to be together at a ball game...
Part of this issue is the very nature of BMW owners.
DaveBayArea said:
That's what I thought they were trying to convey, I just never considered it as an echo.
Agreed, that's an isse with the radio station not having their analog delay set to match the digital side. Really that's just lack of attention to detail by the station engineer.
But the problem is it isn't a simple set-it-and-forget-it situation. Essentially the stations running IBOC use profanity delay units to match the analog to the encoding delay imposed by the HD exciter. For various reasons, including processor clock variations and line frequency changes, subtle changes in the delay sync start to build up over the passage of time. If enough time passes, the discrepancy isn't subtle. It becomes obvious and very annoying.
Setting up the delay isn't an intuitive series of keystrokes. It's a PITA cut-and-try approach tinkering to get one unit to match the other.
If you don't stay on top of the delay match, the analog and digital can - and will - drift out of sync. Think about the maintenance hassle this poses, especially for an overworked and stressed engineer with several sites and studios to maintain. That's why the HD time-sync problem is a persistent issue across the industry.
It's a Rube Goldberg approach to an engineering problem - not unlike, in noting that one of your tires has low air pressure, letting air out of the other three so they all match.
Setting up the delay isn't an intuitive series of keystrokes. It's a PITA cut-and-try approach tinkering to get one unit to match the other.
If you don't stay on top of the delay match, the analog and digital can - and will - drift out of sync. Think about the maintenance hassle this poses, especially for an overworked and stressed engineer with several sites and studios to maintain. That's why the HD time-sync problem is a persistent issue across the industry.
It's a Rube Goldberg approach to an engineering problem - not unlike, in noting that one of your tires has low air pressure, letting air out of the other three so they all match.
A "band-aid" fix is now available from Day Sequerra; an HD tuner that attempts to measure the delay drift (using a "new digital audio correlation methodology" co-developed by Harris) and generates a correction message which is sent back to the HD Exporter.
http://www.daysequerra.com/ViewProd...Tab=MODULATION MONITORS&CurPage=AM/FM HDRadio
I don't know the price and can't say how well it works, but I'm sure iBiquity and Harris enjoy the revenue they derive from all this extra gear which is necessary to fix problems and limitations that shouldn't have been designed into the system in the first place.
It's looking like it will always be "time to upgrade". Smart station owners should Google the term "sunk cost fallacy" and give this some thought.
http://www.daysequerra.com/ViewProd...Tab=MODULATION MONITORS&CurPage=AM/FM HDRadio
I don't know the price and can't say how well it works, but I'm sure iBiquity and Harris enjoy the revenue they derive from all this extra gear which is necessary to fix problems and limitations that shouldn't have been designed into the system in the first place.
It's looking like it will always be "time to upgrade". Smart station owners should Google the term "sunk cost fallacy" and give this some thought.
Play Freebird said:
Even if the FCC grants the ability to increase FM IBOC power across the board, I doubt given this economy that most groups will jump on buying a whole bunch of new HD radio-related transmission gear. Nor do I believe that Harris or whomever, is making a killing on ancillary equipment developed since the HD radio thing started.
No poor engineer is so overworked that they can't check once a week and see if the delay is out and adjust it accordingly. It's just a maintenance list item.
If it's like any other drift issue, once a week is not enough. Daily touch-ups would be necessary, as I do to keep my rock on
1620 khz +/- 10 hz. Would I rather have a digital-time based source? No, I'd rather build an oven for the rock.
Good thing on-staff engineers aren't required anymore, sure makes things cheaper for stations, so they can have better cash flow.
1620 khz +/- 10 hz. Would I rather have a digital-time based source? No, I'd rather build an oven for the rock.
Good thing on-staff engineers aren't required anymore, sure makes things cheaper for stations, so they can have better cash flow.
The digital-analog delay match is an industrywide problem. It's so common it's a frequent item on iBiquity's own tech discussion boards, with the company constantly haranguing engineers to devote whatever time and resources are necessary to keep the two streams time-matched.
When you look at the record it's clear that this is a major design flaw since it appears to be hard for most operators to keep properly adjusted and in-sync. In such cases there should be a global technical fix instead of finger-pointing and scapegoating of station engineers. Let's be realistic here. Most clusters have one or at best two engineers maintaining studios and as many as five or six transmitters in multiple sites. It's a massive waste of time to devote weekly resources to a silly task like this, which is a product of poor design.
I worked at an AM DA-2 where the 1947 open-rack phasor's common point had to have the reactance tuned out of it twice daily, after each pattern change. It was a major nuisance. The solution was to install a modern, properly designed phasor instead of blaming the staff engineers.
When you look at the record it's clear that this is a major design flaw since it appears to be hard for most operators to keep properly adjusted and in-sync. In such cases there should be a global technical fix instead of finger-pointing and scapegoating of station engineers. Let's be realistic here. Most clusters have one or at best two engineers maintaining studios and as many as five or six transmitters in multiple sites. It's a massive waste of time to devote weekly resources to a silly task like this, which is a product of poor design.
I worked at an AM DA-2 where the 1947 open-rack phasor's common point had to have the reactance tuned out of it twice daily, after each pattern change. It was a major nuisance. The solution was to install a modern, properly designed phasor instead of blaming the staff engineers.
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