HD in Microsoft Zune?

[dumber than a box of hair]

From All Access:

"Potential good new for radio -- as CLICZUNE.COM is reporting that MICROSOFT's new ZUNE mp3 player includes a capacitive, multi-touch OLED screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio -- and a link for HD RADIO.

[EDIT]

I guess that would be the end of the nice, tiny, flat Zune...not to mention anything resembling decent battery life.


[EDIT-quotation exceeds fair use standards.]

 

[Seattleradiodude]

I guess that would be the end of the nice, tiny, flat Zune...not to mention anything resembling decent battery life.

Not Really, I posted a link for this in the past.

"SiPort says its new HD Radio chip is shipping"

Heres the Link for the full article: http://www.radioworld.com/article/75892

"110 milliwatts, roughly equivalent to 15 to 20 hours of battery life on a portable device"

Im excited! If this turns out to be true, it just gives the Zune device another foot up iPods A$$.
The FM RDS/ RDBS is great in the current devices and the renders of the new ZuneHD are just sexy!

 

[Savage]

Sure. If only anybody cared about HD Radio.

I'm sure that Apple is quaking in its boots in fear over the imminent demise of iPod due to the approaching MS Zune juggernaut.

Check your claims for current consumption. That's in HD PLAYBACK mode. AFAIK if you're actually listening to a live HD signal the consumption is far greater.

 

[stormy01]

Sure hope the sensitivity is really good on the AM or FM tuner on this or any other portable HD receiver, or you're probably going to have as much or more trouble locking in to and staying locked to an HD signal as a home tuner or a car radio equipped with HD... Right now you're probably gonna have to walk around with a Yagi antenna attached to your receiver... :

 

[nd2023]

You just attach it to the tinfoil hat that you have on your head.

 

[jhardis]

I'm excited! If this turns out to be true, it just gives the Zune device another foot up iPods A$$.

Huh?

I've got an iPhone, and it can ALREADY receive HD stations. Not only that, it can receive HD stations from thousands of miles away. It tunes WGBH-HD2, WCBS-HD2, KROQ2, and many more in between.

 

[stormy01]

Huh?
I've got an iPhone, and it can ALREADY receive HD stations. Not only that, it can receive HD stations from thousands of miles away. It tunes WGBH-HD2, WCBS-HD2, KROQ2, and many more in between.

Yes, you are getting stations in HD, however, it's through an internet/cellular connection, not over the air...

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Huh?
I've got an iPhone, and it can ALREADY receive HD stations. Not only that, it can receive HD stations from thousands of miles away. It tunes WGBH-HD2, WCBS-HD2, KROQ2, and many more in between.

Yes, you are getting stations in HD, however, it's through an internet/cellular connection, not over the air...

I'd bet 99.9 % of listeners don't care how they get the content they want, as long as they get it, whenever and wherever they want it. That's something HD radio can't seem to do and HD radio supporters can't comprehend.

Why are cellular radio signals not considered "over the air" by OTR/HD radio buffs?
How do the signals get there, by magic?

A tiny minority are so totally hung up on the delivery method they fail to see the forest for the trees. Content is king.

 

[Tom Wells]

Why are cellular radio signals not considered "over the air" by OTR/HD radio buffs?
How do the signals get there, by magic?

For me, it's the line-of-sight behavior that makes stuff from 30 mhz and up a different kind of radio than MW and SW where crazy and wonderful things happen with the ionosphere that makes radio so appealing.

Cellular service still doesn't do a grea job of "handing off' to the next cell while driving along, and calls in progress often drop
instead of passing to the next cell. Digital modes are pass/fail while "real radio" lets you hear the medium with all the noises/dropouts
that makes it hard for a digital signal to decode, buts lets you use your BRAIN to see if it can extract the data. Much more fun than
waiting for a cellular connection to return or waiting for a reconnect.

I'm not impressed when listening to music on a webstream over the nearby university's wifi on this laptop, even though there's a "radio" link.
DXing something 300 feet away is not the magic of radio, it's nice, but to me, doesn't qualify as anything the same as me being able to
go off to work at 10 at night here in Chicago, and listen to WSM all the way to work. That's radio and that impresses me, knowing there's such a huge
area of the country they serve and they acknowledge the distant radio listeners on the air sometimes.

Obviously I know it's radio, but under 10 meters, it just don't have the appeal for me.

 

[stormy01]

I'd bet 99.9 % of listeners don't care how they get the content they want, as long as they get it, whenever and wherever they want it. That's something HD radio can't seem to do and HD radio supporters can't comprehend.
Why are cellular radio signals not considered "over the air" by OTR/HD radio buffs?
How do the signals get there, by magic?
A tiny minority are so totally hung up on the delivery method they fail to see the forest for the trees. Content is king.

Exactly! Therein lies the answer...HD radio should transmit via cellular and the internet and NOT mess up AM and FM bandwidth that was NOT designed to support such technology. I am all for HD radio to be up there on 800-900MHz and 1800-1900 MHz where it belongs!!!!

 

[The Insultant]

Too bad technical knowhow took a backseat (as usual) to reality when it came to 'digital' broadcasting here in the US. Imagine if we had used channel 5 and 6 for our digital signal instead of crapping up our own playpin. Wouldn't it had been a whole lot better to hold out for something that WORKS instead of this crap? Imagine several kilowatts of pure digital down in virgin spectrum that was ripe and ready to be recieved by all of these nice handheld devices. Instead of having something that works WORSE than iffy internet streaming, we could have been the more reliable, better choice. Thank the damn NAB, big corporate guys (I know, that was redundant), and the stupid FCC that went along with it. As broadcasters we set ourself up for failure and now we wonder why....

I know how to fix it!!! Let's all throw away what we just bought for 'HD' radio and go buy something ten times more powerful and expensive so we can further hash up the analog signals. What a grand idea, especially when people are loosing jobs right and left and having their pay cut 10 percent. Leave it to corporate America to come up with such a great scheme.

 

[jhardis]

Huh?
I've got an iPhone, and it can ALREADY receive HD stations. Not only that, it can receive HD stations from thousands of miles away. It tunes WGBH-HD2, WCBS-HD2, KROQ2, and many more in between.

Yes, you are getting stations in HD, however, it's through an internet/cellular connection, not over the air...

Excuse me, but yes it is over the air. (That's what a WiFi connection is.)

Please don't ask me to chase down the reference (it was likely either Radio World or the WSJ), but at the time of that article no HD-2 station had enough audience to be rated by Arbitron as a broadcast service, though a few had enough audience as Internet streams to be rated -- that is, more listeners on-line than from broadcast.

 

[KB1OKL]

Huh?
I've got an iPhone, and it can ALREADY receive HD stations. Not only that, it can receive HD stations from thousands of miles away. It tunes WGBH-HD2, WCBS-HD2, KROQ2, and many more in between.

Yes, you are getting stations in HD, however, it's through an internet/cellular connection, not over the air...

Excuse me, but yes it is over the air. (That's what a WiFi connection is.)

Please don't ask me to chase down the reference (it was likely either Radio World or the WSJ), but at the time of that article no HD-2 station had enough audience to be rated by Arbitron as a broadcast service, though a few had enough audience as Internet streams to be rated -- that is, more listeners on-line than from broadcast.

I think you're missing the point, it's not broadcast radio, it's cellular or in other words it's telephone, that is not radio anymore than wifi or satellite is radio. You are receiving an Internet stream from a cell tower probably 5 miles away. The transmission mode is not radio except for that last 5 miles. Radio is broadcast from big towers that shoot way up in the air. I agree with Tom, line of sight radio is boring, is similar to the two cups and a string telephone like we used to make when we were kids.

 

[JohnnyElectron]

I believe 3 or 4 HD-2 stations' Internet Streams had enough to be rated in the last book, but they weren't recieved by an HD radio, but by internet connection - better than nothing, but not the whole idea behind HD.
Unfortunately, with all the radio cutbacks, they're not spending money here to make their HD radio do anything other than repeat the analog - there are no song titles, no artists, no change in the PAD info - all they do is have a static screen with their internet addresses on the display.

 

[Chuck]

I think you're missing the point, it's not broadcast radio, it's cellular or in other words it's telephone, that is not radio anymore than wifi or satellite is radio. You are receiving an Internet stream from a cell tower probably 5 miles away. The transmission mode is not radio except for that last 5 miles. Radio is broadcast from big towers that shoot way up in the air. I agree with Tom, line of sight radio is boring, is similar to the two cups and a string telephone like we used to make when we were kids.

You can debate the transmission method all you want. The reality of the matter is it is all "Broadcasting." That is what most people are thinking of. The average person has no interest in the technical details of how the voices and music come out of his loudspeakers or headphones. All they care is if it works, and if it is something interesting enough to hold their attention. It’s really very simple. Putting digital Band-Aids on broken programming will accomplish nothing.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

I think you're missing the point, it's not broadcast radio, it's cellular or in other words it's telephone, that is not radio anymore than wifi or satellite is radio. You are receiving an Internet stream from a cell tower probably 5 miles away. The transmission mode is not radio except for that last 5 miles. Radio is broadcast from big towers that shoot way up in the air. I agree with Tom, line of sight radio is boring, is similar to the two cups and a string telephone like we used to make when we were kids.

You can debate the transmission method all you want. The reality of the matter is it is all "Broadcasting." That is what most people are thinking of. The average person has no interest in the technical details of how the voices and music come out of his loudspeakers or headphones. All they care is if it works, and if it is something interesting enough to hold their attention. It’s really very simple. Putting digital Band-Aids on broken programming will accomplish nothing.

I agree. People listen to content, not delivery methods (except for a few DXers and broadcasters keeping tabs on their signal).

I'm expecting a package today. Do I care if it's delivered by FedEx, US Postal service, UPS, bicycle courier, or pony express?

As long as it arrives where and when I want it or need it in good condition, I'm happy.

 

[jhardis]

You are receiving an Internet stream from a cell tower probably 5 miles away.

I don't mean to beat this to death, but I was talking about an Internet stream from an IEEE standard 802.11n transmitter in my attic.

Think of it as a low-power repeater.

 

[scanman1]

I always prefer listening to broadcasts on an actual radio, whether they be line of sight or long distance. Streamed digital packets of data just can't provide the same kind of audio quality and satisfaction for me as receiving sine waves flying through the air!

 

[vsa]

I always prefer listening to broadcasts on an actual radio, whether they be line of sight or long distance.  Streamed digital packets of data just can't provide the same kind of audio quality and satisfaction for me as receiving sine waves flying through the air!     

I always prefer listening to broadcasts on a toaster. I prefer living as close as possible to my favorite AM blowtorch. There's nothing like listening to news and conversation on my vintage Toastmaster. And my bread always pops out toasted perfectly. Now that's radio! Bet you can't do that with one of those new-fangled wi-fi radios or iPhones.

 

[Savage]

There's a restaurant right down the street from our studio-TX-office site where you can listen to us on an electric RESTROOMS sign.

Another RFI story I read several years back - think it might have been fybush.com - was about a lady living adjacent to 50kw WAPI Birmingham. The station engineers had to come an antiresonate a washing machine that was audibly detecting the signal.

Love the RFI tales: it's "radio-free radio!!"