Fantastic Indoor HD antenna: BUY THE SILVER RIBBON!

[Mike Walker]

No Black_Shire, I never compared HD Radio to digital cell phones. It's a stupid comparison, and I ain't stupid! I said the technology is DIFFERENT. One is scalable. The other isn't. Scalability makes it possible for digital cell phones to sound WORSE as signals degrade. HD Radio reverts to the analog signal, which sounds BETTER than a degraded digital signal (but worse than a clean one). Hell, even if HD Radio didn't work in a moving car, it would still be worthwhile, as it brings 20khz frequency response, 96db dynamic range and s/n ratio, plus full separation to FM RADIO.

Mobile listening is far less important to me than to many, because being legally blind, I haven't driven in 16 years. Anything that gives me more, and better LISTENING options is fine with me! HD Radio on FM DOES!

It will never be my only radio listening. I'll continue to listen to local AM stations, XM, internet radio of various stripes, shortwave, and whatever else comes next. Whatever brings more options, and better quality, I'm for.

My IQ tests well above average, and I'm quite capable of making up my own mind based upon my own personal experiences. Nobody can talk (or browbeat) me out of them. Only my own observation that I was wrong can do that.

I listened to HD content from 60 to 80 miles distant from my home, through high quality headphones, for hours last night. Never a dropout, never a glitch. Much of that was to HD2 streams that analog radios are completely deaf to. It was FUN! HD makes listening to FM fun again...an adventure...like fm stereo through headphones when I was young. Nobody can take that away from me, or talk me out of it.

 

[Black_Shire]

What is the buffer period of HD Radio? (I've heard that the delay from the analog audio is 8 or 9 seconds.) If the receiver buffer could hold 30 or 60 seconds' worth instead of the station trying to broadcast HD in (near) real-time, that could prevent drop-outs.

Deep space probes are an extreme example of how this could work (although with much, much shorter delays). Planetary orbiters and landers return perfect still photographs, motion video, and even sound files to Earth slowly, at low data rates. Once the files are re-constructed (and un-compressed, as the image files are frequently sent in compressed form), they look (or sound) as good as if they were made just a few meters away.


-- Black Shire

The onboard digital TV cameras in race cars exhibit the same effect at work in video--when the signal fades due to the car's position or distance from the receiver, the image either freezes on the last-received frame or goes to a blank blue screen instead of continuing to "roll" with just momentary "snow" the way an analog TV signal would.

I get where you're coming from here, however I "THINK" (not Sure but think) that those cameras are still analog and the "Digital Processing" does that when it loses a signal. I know that USED to be the case. If you actually watch those analog feeds you'll find that there are LOTS more sinal lossess and snoy pictures then you ever perceive. IIRC it's not uncommon for there to be 3 or 4 "Bad" frames for one "Good" frame. The Processor takes the good and shows it until it gets "Another" good and then replaces it. Missing a few FPS still gives a watchable picture, especially for short periods such as in a race car. But the overall quality of those race car feeds used to be almost unwatchable until they got "Cleaned Up". Your symtom is valid and your point is well taken, but I don't think it's the same technology.

I'll take momentary fades over the jarring all-there-or-not-there-at-all idiosyncracies of digital audio and video any day.

Digital audio can be problematic. Digital video actually works a lot better, ESPECIALLY with some of the cheapie processors out there. The average viewer doesn't notice if half the frames are missing.

Clouseau

 

[Black_Shire]

No Black_Shire, I never compared HD Radio to digital cell phones. It's a stupid comparison, and I ain't stupid! I said the technology is DIFFERENT. One is scalable. The other isn't. Scalability makes it possible for digital cell phones to sound WORSE as signals degrade. HD Radio reverts to the analog signal, which sounds BETTER than a degraded digital signal (but worse than a clean one). Hell, even if HD Radio didn't work in a moving car, it would still be worthwhile, as it brings 20khz frequency response, 96db dynamic range and s/n ratio, plus full separation to FM RADIO.

Mobile listening is far less important to me than to many, because being legally blind, I haven't driven in 16 years. Anything that gives me more, and better LISTENING options is fine with me! HD Radio on FM DOES!

It will never be my only radio listening. I'll continue to listen to local AM stations, XM, internet radio of various stripes, shortwave, and whatever else comes next. Whatever brings more options, and better quality, I'm for.

My IQ tests well above average, and I'm quite capable of making up my own mind based upon my own personal experiences. Nobody can talk (or browbeat) me out of them. Only my own observation that I was wrong can do that.

I listened to HD content from 60 to 80 miles distant from my home, through high quality headphones, for hours last night. Never a dropout, never a glitch. Much of that was to HD2 streams that analog radios are completely deaf to. It was FUN! HD makes listening to FM fun again...an adventure...like fm stereo through headphones when I was young. Nobody can take that away from me, or talk me out of it.

You're answering personal charges that I never made, and drawing personal inferences that I never implied. *Sigh*


-- Black Shire