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HD Radio Channels?

R

radioguy74

Guest
With all this talk lately about stations in other markets airing HD programming, I'm wondering what the plan is for the Tampa Bay market. I haven't seen anything about this. I'm curious to know which stations are embracing this technology locally, and what the formats will be. Anyone have any insight?
 
> With all this talk lately about stations in other markets
> airing HD programming, I'm wondering what the plan is for
> the Tampa Bay market. I haven't seen anything about this.

According to WUSF's website, 89.7 now has an "HD" feed, featuring a strictly-talk format.
 
> > With all this talk lately about stations in other markets
> > airing HD programming, I'm wondering what the plan is for
> > the Tampa Bay market. I haven't seen anything about this.
>
>
> According to WUSF's website, 89.7 now has an "HD" feed,
> featuring a strictly-talk format.
>

I don't understand why radio stations on the FM band would use their bandwith to air a talk format in HD. Now I can understand why an AM would air a news/talk format using HD but isn't the purpose of HD radio on the FM band suppose to give music formats CD quality sound. It seems to me a waste to put a news/talk format on the FM band in HD.
 
You will NOT, repeat NOT get CD quality or anything like it with HD FM. The audio is even worse the more streams they split the signal up to. At best you will get something that approaches XM or Sirius quality, and they are nowhere near CD quality. Remember HD2 channels provided they are only running 2 streams is only 48 kb stream. No where near CD quality....It is only better than analog as long as the station doesnt smash the audio with their processor to make it loud.
Remember, digital radio has NEVER been about audio quality. It is about extra revenue streams. Audio quality is only to be barely acceptable. In fact Ibuiquity did a lot of tests to see what barely acceptable standard people would tolerate. Some of them I've heard sound fair, some sound just atrocious. Like low bitrate mp3's.


> I don't understand why radio stations on the FM band would
> use their bandwith to air a talk format in HD. Now I can
> understand why an AM would air a news/talk format using HD
> but isn't the purpose of HD radio on the FM band suppose to
> give music formats CD quality sound. It seems to me a waste
> to put a news/talk format on the FM band in HD.
>
 
I've heard some of the HD from the Tampa stations, and it sounds GREAT! Better than the FM and much better than either XM or Sirus. Tampa now has 8 HD stations.
 
> I've heard some of the HD from the Tampa stations, and it
> sounds GREAT! Better than the FM and much better than either
> XM or Sirus. Tampa now has 8 HD stations.
>

What are they and what are the formats on the HD2 channels?
 
Give it a rest!

We can all bitch,piss and moan about "quality" and so on...but I can tell you this. The average listener is NOT a radio guy or girl, an engineer, or anything else. I've been doing processing for a long time and asked a lot of questions of the "average person" to find out what they do hear. Here are ther answers...

1. That station seems louder....

2. They maybe have more treble...

3. they have more bass...

Those are the 3 primary answers. They have NO IDEA of what HD is, will be and so on. Same thing with XM & Sirius. We all just complain because we can. They care about what's coming down the line(progamming)PERIOD.

Talk about quality to the 32k MONO streams on the shoutast with 10,000 listeners about quality. I 've listened to those streams and said.."why or how could anyone enjoy that!" Those listeners, like most others, don't give a rats ass. It's just something else we radio geeks talk about to one up the other guy. So until "they figure it out" I'll continue to use my boxes for processing and wood chipping....When the dust somewhat settles in the next 5-10 years...we'll all see where this biz is going....Until then...just grab another cold one and hope for the best ;-)

Riggie
 
Re: Give it a rest!

HAHA! Hey i'll take a cold one there with ya.

Now I do an internet radio station and if the internet broadcaster is smart enough he knows what he is doing. Some programs such as SAM Broadcaster or OtsDJ has built in processors and compressing for the stream. But some stations use 128k MP3 which is the best on the internet but many stations are moving toward 48k aacPlus which sounds just like 128k. XM and Sirius use 48k aacPlus, now I dont know cause ive never heard HD Radio yet but my guess is it should sound pretty good. When I get my internet station moving again i'll let you take a listen and see what you think.

> We can all bitch,piss and moan about "quality" and so
> on...but I can tell you this. The average listener is NOT a
> radio guy or girl, an engineer, or anything else. I've been
> doing processing for a long time and asked a lot of
> questions of the "average person" to find out what they do
> hear. Here are ther answers...
>
> 1. That station seems louder....
>
> 2. They maybe have more treble...
>
> 3. they have more bass...
>
> Those are the 3 primary answers. They have NO IDEA of what
> HD is, will be and so on. Same thing with XM & Sirius. We
> all just complain because we can. They care about what's
> coming down the line(progamming)PERIOD.
>
> Talk about quality to the 32k MONO streams on the shoutast
> with 10,000 listeners about quality. I 've listened to those
> streams and said.."why or how could anyone enjoy that!"
> Those listeners, like most others, don't give a rats ass.
> It's just something else we radio geeks talk about to one up
> the other guy. So until "they figure it out" I'll continue
> to use my boxes for processing and wood chipping....When the
> dust somewhat settles in the next 5-10 years...we'll all see
> where this biz is going....Until then...just grab another
> cold one and hope for the best ;-)
>
> Riggie
>
 
Re: Give it a rest!

Hey, I'll take one too.... my only reason I commented is that if you ever listen side by side with a real CD audio, you will instantly know that HD is not CD quality. But it really doesnt matter. As I noted in my initital post on this matter, Ibiquitiy did a lot of listening tests to get adequate sound. Noted I said adequate, just like all you have said. I never said CD quality. What really happens with these digital audio codecs is that TSL or Time spent listening will go down as it will wear you out sooner. XM does that to me now. Also remember compressing the audio doesnt take anything away, it just lowers the dynamic range. Digital codecs take away up to 90% of the audio and then attempt to reconstruct it later. Most of them are pretty good. aacplus is good. I got a feeling most younger people have never heard good audio from a radio station and have no basis for comparison.
It boils down to if you like what you hear, then fine....



> HAHA! Hey i'll take a cold one there with ya.
>
> Now I do an internet radio station and if the internet
> broadcaster is smart enough he knows what he is doing. Some
> programs such as SAM Broadcaster or OtsDJ has built in
> processors and compressing for the stream. But some stations
> use 128k MP3 which is the best on the internet but many
> stations are moving toward 48k aacPlus which sounds just
> like 128k. XM and Sirius use 48k aacPlus, now I dont know
> cause ive never heard HD Radio yet but my guess is it should
> sound pretty good. When I get my internet station moving
> again i'll let you take a listen and see what you think.
>
> > We can all bitch,piss and moan about "quality" and so
> > on...but I can tell you this. The average listener is NOT
> a
> > radio guy or girl, an engineer, or anything else. I've
> been
> > doing processing for a long time and asked a lot of
> > questions of the "average person" to find out what they do
>
> > hear. Here are ther answers...
> >
> > 1. That station seems louder....
> >
> > 2. They maybe have more treble...
> >
> > 3. they have more bass...
> >
> > Those are the 3 primary answers. They have NO IDEA of what
>
> > HD is, will be and so on. Same thing with XM & Sirius. We
> > all just complain because we can. They care about what's
> > coming down the line(progamming)PERIOD.
> >
> > Talk about quality to the 32k MONO streams on the shoutast
>
> > with 10,000 listeners about quality. I 've listened to
> those
> > streams and said.."why or how could anyone enjoy that!"
> > Those listeners, like most others, don't give a rats ass.
> > It's just something else we radio geeks talk about to one
> up
> > the other guy. So until "they figure it out" I'll continue
>
> > to use my boxes for processing and wood chipping....When
> the
> > dust somewhat settles in the next 5-10 years...we'll all
> see
> > where this biz is going....Until then...just grab another
> > cold one and hope for the best ;-)
> >
> > Riggie
> >
>
 
How does WFLA sound in HD? Good/Bad? Maybe one of these days I'll invest in one of them fancy new fangled recievers... but right now it seems like a waste of money.

Cedric
 
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