I got to thinking tv will be going digital and I saw on piece on tv last night where there was a poll and many people are doing away with their land lands and just using their cellphones. Well this got me to thinking who is to say that one day there will be just cell phones; personally don't have one and I get mad when someone calls me up and they break up. Which leads me to say how long will it be when radio goes all digital and or hd?
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hd radio how long
- Thread starter candy_kisses69
- Start date
I share your experience and frustration with the cell phone issues but I hardly think cell phone break up has much to do with radio. Cell phones, even with their relatively poor operating characteristics, provide significant advantages over land lines. HD radio does not, and worse, does not generally function as well as what it is trying to replace. I really doubt there is a future for HD radio but unlike cell phones I can choose to ignore it without penalty.
IMHO there may be a day when radio is all-digital, but it won't be HD.
I think the only sane way to morph radio to digital transmission is reallocation in a new band, with a transitional period of tandem operation in analog mode on the existing frequencies - exactly as OTA TV is doing. But there is almost no political drive for such a proposal, and resetting all radio facilities is not in the interest of big group corporate radio. There is too much potential for new, and troublesome, competition in any reallocation scheme.
In any case it will be interesting to watch the February transition of broadcast TV to digital. I predict plenty of problems. The public has been sold on the idea, "all you need is one of these little converter boxes and you'll be fine." (Right. A lot of viewers without cable or satellite are in for a shock.)
I think the only sane way to morph radio to digital transmission is reallocation in a new band, with a transitional period of tandem operation in analog mode on the existing frequencies - exactly as OTA TV is doing. But there is almost no political drive for such a proposal, and resetting all radio facilities is not in the interest of big group corporate radio. There is too much potential for new, and troublesome, competition in any reallocation scheme.
In any case it will be interesting to watch the February transition of broadcast TV to digital. I predict plenty of problems. The public has been sold on the idea, "all you need is one of these little converter boxes and you'll be fine." (Right. A lot of viewers without cable or satellite are in for a shock.)
Yes it will be interesting once 2/17 rolls around. I think there will be problems also. I have a tv in the kitchen and that needed a box we got it set up but it wouldn't get the nbc or pbs channel. I think it might have something do with that we don't have our old attena anymore up in the attic. Before we knew what we needed and we were cleaning out the attic about a year and a half ago we got rid of it. But we got abc cw cbs and fox. We may switch to cable for the kitchen tv yet.
AT&T changed their business model, you can drop your landline phone and keep existing DSL or TV. Before they wouldn't let you. Cell providers are reluctantly moving to flat rate talk all you want plans.
Paid or free “AWS-3” the growth and coverage of wireless Internet access will continue to expand. And every dashboard will be Internet enabled; you can take that to the bank. HD will compete head on with 500,000 radio stations or a plethora of music sites. While HD is new, I feel it’s already obsolete because other technologies will replace it. IBiquity has only sold 500,000 units since 04, and that's slow growth, compared to other devices. If broadcasters get back in the content business, regular AM/FM radio will have a long shelf life while competing with new technologies. IBiquity must win over auto manufactures and so far they've been slow to adopt or promote HD. Satellite won that battle a long time ago.
But 30 years from now who knows. Gee wiz I’ll be 80 or dead by then..
Paid or free “AWS-3” the growth and coverage of wireless Internet access will continue to expand. And every dashboard will be Internet enabled; you can take that to the bank. HD will compete head on with 500,000 radio stations or a plethora of music sites. While HD is new, I feel it’s already obsolete because other technologies will replace it. IBiquity has only sold 500,000 units since 04, and that's slow growth, compared to other devices. If broadcasters get back in the content business, regular AM/FM radio will have a long shelf life while competing with new technologies. IBiquity must win over auto manufactures and so far they've been slow to adopt or promote HD. Satellite won that battle a long time ago.
But 30 years from now who knows. Gee wiz I’ll be 80 or dead by then..
pocket-radio said:
I wouldn't say "Won" for that implies a permanant resolution. Sirius/XM has "Kicked major Booty" in that battle by opening up the checdbook. To the tune of $3.37 Billion Dollars.
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2008/11/26/sp_lowers_ratings_outlook_on_sirius_xm_radio
Terrerestrial radio has basically paid for the conversion to HD as they went along. That's why, despite not doing all that well overall, Terrestrial radio is doing a lot better than SatRad. There appparently is serious concern over whether Sirius/XM can refinance their debt this coming year. With bad credit markets, A new rating of "Negative" and stock price of $0.14, it will be interesting to see if they can continue their outrageous subscriber aquisition costs by continueing to pay for auto radios.
Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see this Christmas as better than last year for them. (That's just totally anecdotal, BTW).
My only point is - If you win the battle and go out of business because of how you won, did you really win. Terrestrial could give away 18 million car radios at $100 each and go into hock for 1.8 billion. I don't see how that's a victory for terrestrial either.
Just comething to think about.
Clouseau
I think the philosophy was to establish the product in the consumer-media marketplace, and create the demand combined with - largely contributing to the outrageous customer acquisition costs - a self-immolating race to steal market share from each other, XM vs. Sirius and vice versa.
Agreed that the current satrad business model is impossible to sustain. How many billions in debt have those two former companies racked up? It's fascinating how "analysts" breathlessly blab about how satrad's national audience is "approaching 16 million listeners" or whatever the current boast is. In 1973, when I worked on-air at CKLW, the station had a weekly North American cume of 16 million. Yep. ONE AM station.
I know, "things have changed in 35 years" but the point is that the entire satrad listener universe remains the equivalent of a handful of major-market terrestrial stations. You've gotta hand it to XM-Sirius' PR machine.
IMO satrad will eventually have to sell spots and pursue the same kind of business track you see with cable TV. There just isn't sufficient revenue from listener subscriptions. And when there are spots on XM-Sirius, one of its major advantages over terrestrial will disappear.
All that being said, HD Radio doesn't look to me like it's on any more successful track than satrad, albeit a flop on a tinier scale. Station installs have slowed enormously after the "low-hanging fruit" of Alliance member-owners turned it on.
Checking the numbers:
iBiquity says it's got something like 1750 station on with HD now. But that number includes almost 200 AM "digital daytimers" which are running IBOC this time of year about 7 hours a day, and an additional dozen or so listed as "intermittent operation" by the most reliable source, Barry McLarnon's IBOC-AM listing. The BE "HD Scoreboard" in RW recently claimed that about 200 more HDs had signed on over the past year. Two problems with that: one, about a year ago, iBiquity was claiming about 1450 HD-FMs were on-air, so the numbers don't add up. And two: 200 installs in a year is way too slow a pace to establish IBOC as a viable standard (out of 13,000 AM & FM stations in the US.) Talk to any equipment sales engineer about HD Radio and whether they're selling gear. The nonbelievers will just roll their eyes and laugh. The (few) boosters shuffle their feet, look at the floor and mumble about "bad economic conditions in the industry."
Add the abysmal receiver sales/availability and HD's got problems at least as big as satrad's. (I would argue HD is an even bigger flop because of the outlandish and false claims made for it.) How is iBiquity going to keep going with no revenue from installations and a tiny trickle of subchannel royalty bucks?
To me, analog terrestrial radio may well be the "last man left standing" when it all sorts out.
Agreed that the current satrad business model is impossible to sustain. How many billions in debt have those two former companies racked up? It's fascinating how "analysts" breathlessly blab about how satrad's national audience is "approaching 16 million listeners" or whatever the current boast is. In 1973, when I worked on-air at CKLW, the station had a weekly North American cume of 16 million. Yep. ONE AM station.
I know, "things have changed in 35 years" but the point is that the entire satrad listener universe remains the equivalent of a handful of major-market terrestrial stations. You've gotta hand it to XM-Sirius' PR machine.
IMO satrad will eventually have to sell spots and pursue the same kind of business track you see with cable TV. There just isn't sufficient revenue from listener subscriptions. And when there are spots on XM-Sirius, one of its major advantages over terrestrial will disappear.
All that being said, HD Radio doesn't look to me like it's on any more successful track than satrad, albeit a flop on a tinier scale. Station installs have slowed enormously after the "low-hanging fruit" of Alliance member-owners turned it on.
Checking the numbers:
iBiquity says it's got something like 1750 station on with HD now. But that number includes almost 200 AM "digital daytimers" which are running IBOC this time of year about 7 hours a day, and an additional dozen or so listed as "intermittent operation" by the most reliable source, Barry McLarnon's IBOC-AM listing. The BE "HD Scoreboard" in RW recently claimed that about 200 more HDs had signed on over the past year. Two problems with that: one, about a year ago, iBiquity was claiming about 1450 HD-FMs were on-air, so the numbers don't add up. And two: 200 installs in a year is way too slow a pace to establish IBOC as a viable standard (out of 13,000 AM & FM stations in the US.) Talk to any equipment sales engineer about HD Radio and whether they're selling gear. The nonbelievers will just roll their eyes and laugh. The (few) boosters shuffle their feet, look at the floor and mumble about "bad economic conditions in the industry."
Add the abysmal receiver sales/availability and HD's got problems at least as big as satrad's. (I would argue HD is an even bigger flop because of the outlandish and false claims made for it.) How is iBiquity going to keep going with no revenue from installations and a tiny trickle of subchannel royalty bucks?
To me, analog terrestrial radio may well be the "last man left standing" when it all sorts out.
Savage said:
Wow, how true. Back in the days of "Nroth America's #1 Music Station" vs today. "Pay Radio" in a day when radio is actually "On the slide" is a bad plan. The days of "I'd pay $12 a month to listen to WXXX instead of WYYY are long gone. WEa all laughed when SatRad had a 2-3 Million Cume. Now we're somehow supposed to be impressed? Can we divide that cume amongst 100 channels? And we get a 1.6 illion Cume? There's DOZENS of single radio stations with this cume!! I'm NOT impressed.
I've often thought I was a kook for thinking this. But I have always felt that SatRad is way far from being a standard.
Fair enough, However the enormouse subscriber aquisition cost doesn't exist for terrestrial. Unlike the anti HD gang suggests, the clock is not really ticking for terrestrial HD.
Might be , Bob. But HD may be able to weather the storm. You only need some bozo to write extension codes for the encoders if Ibiquity disappears. Meanwhile, DirecTV sees SatRad as a Blockage to local TV in 4th tier markets.
Honestly. Who really wants first adjacent FM Freqs? There's no value to liquidation.
Clouseau
Savage said:
I think a good number of people still don't know what DTV Transaction is. They are doing pretty well at getting the word out on Austin/San antonio TV, but I still don't think its enough. I think they should of planed this out a little better. I do believe there will be problems. When I got my box for my place out in Lavaca county I had hoped to get Houston DTV, but I could not, I hoped to maybe get san antonio, but nothing. I'm glad Victoria has TV, or else I would of been SOL on TV off the air.
jras20 said:
I don't know what "DTV Transaction" is, either, unless it's the big chunk of change I paid for my new Sony in the family room a few months ago...
(Worth every penny, incidentally....)
But as far as the DTV Transition goes, while the education campaign got a late start, it's hard for me to imagine that any sentient TV-viewing American still doesn't know about the thing at this point. There have been multiple "shutdown" tests in most markets, not to mention news stories out the wazoo, utility bill stuffers, websites, phone banks, live call-in TV specials (I hosted one last month and will be doing another one next month), and even NASCAR sponsorships - and it will all ramp up to an even more aggressive level in the next 60 days.
Anyone who wakes up on February 18th and is surprised to find nothing on their TV will have only themselves to blame.
No, the process hasn't been perfect, and there are still technical hurdles to overcome. I'm sorry you lost your fringe reception of Houston at 80+ miles out, and hope that you get some of it back when everyone settles in on their post-transition facilities. (Keep in mind that it's been a minor miracle - no, scratch that, a major miracle to effectively double the number of TV signals on the air in the US over the last decade or so, all within the same bandwidth that was "full up" for analog TV circa 1998; inevitably, there's been more interference to long-distance reception as a result, some of which will go away in February.)
But as you yourself note, it's not as though you've lost TV entirely in Lavaca County. You're within the Victoria market, and you have DTV signals to watch from Victoria. As with so many very small markets (and Victoria is among the smallest in the country), it doesn't look like you have a full roster of network signals there yet, but remember that 2/17/09 is just the beginning, not the end, and there's a lot of potential (single-frequency networks, subchannels, etc) for added service in the DTV era that's just starting to be tapped.
Agreed sat radio is hammered with too much debt. So Mel will claim bankruptcy and reorganize their debt, reemerging stronger.
We can whine about sat radio’s pay to play strategy with auto manufactures, but they found a place on dashboards. They also found display space on Best Buy, Circuit City,
And Target’s Sunday full color flyers. They' also found display space on retailers shelves. They usual promote items that they know will drive traffic and increase sales. HD isn’t even mentioned. If you look everything is ipod, and sat radio friendly. I guess if you're going to play with the big boys you have to pay, that's the way it works.
IF HD is the future of radio, IBiquity must amp up their marketing and show some leg to start attracting listeners. Waiting to evolve like FM did, is suicide and isn’t an option, simply because the competition has multiplied from every corner.
Like it or not, agree or disagree, HD receivers are competing head on for consumers dollars and interest with Ipods, iphones, cell phones, sat radio, car payments, and everything else! IBiquity hasn’t managed to separate it self from the crowd. It’s a twig in the forest.
We can whine about sat radio’s pay to play strategy with auto manufactures, but they found a place on dashboards. They also found display space on Best Buy, Circuit City,
And Target’s Sunday full color flyers. They' also found display space on retailers shelves. They usual promote items that they know will drive traffic and increase sales. HD isn’t even mentioned. If you look everything is ipod, and sat radio friendly. I guess if you're going to play with the big boys you have to pay, that's the way it works.
IF HD is the future of radio, IBiquity must amp up their marketing and show some leg to start attracting listeners. Waiting to evolve like FM did, is suicide and isn’t an option, simply because the competition has multiplied from every corner.
Like it or not, agree or disagree, HD receivers are competing head on for consumers dollars and interest with Ipods, iphones, cell phones, sat radio, car payments, and everything else! IBiquity hasn’t managed to separate it self from the crowd. It’s a twig in the forest.
Scott Fybush said:jras20 said:
I don't know what "DTV Transaction" is, either, unless it's the big chunk of change I paid for my new Sony in the family room a few months ago...
(Worth every penny, incidentally....)
But as far as the DTV Transition goes, while the education campaign got a late start, it's hard for me to imagine that any sentient TV-viewing American still doesn't know about the thing at this point. There have been multiple "shutdown" tests in most markets, not to mention news stories out the wazoo, utility bill stuffers, websites, phone banks, live call-in TV specials (I hosted one last month and will be doing another one next month), and even NASCAR sponsorships - and it will all ramp up to an even more aggressive level in the next 60 days.
Anyone who wakes up on February 18th and is surprised to find nothing on their TV will have only themselves to blame.
No, the process hasn't been perfect, and there are still technical hurdles to overcome. I'm sorry you lost your fringe reception of Houston at 80+ miles out, and hope that you get some of it back when everyone settles in on their post-transition facilities. (Keep in mind that it's been a minor miracle - no, scratch that, a major miracle to effectively double the number of TV signals on the air in the US over the last decade or so, all within the same bandwidth that was "full up" for analog TV circa 1998; inevitably, there's been more interference to long-distance reception as a result, some of which will go away in February.)
But as you yourself note, it's not as though you've lost TV entirely in Lavaca County. You're within the Victoria market, and you have DTV signals to watch from Victoria. As with so many very small markets (and Victoria is among the smallest in the country), it doesn't look like you have a full roster of network signals there yet, but remember that 2/17/09 is just the beginning, not the end, and there's a lot of potential (single-frequency networks, subchannels, etc) for added service in the DTV era that's just starting to be tapped.
Please forgive my grammar or spelling
it has never been great. I had to install a UHF antenna at my home place near Austin to pull in Austin reliable reception. The neat thing about it is that I can also pull in San antonio HD good. Victoria only has Fox and ABC in HD, but they have NBC, MyTV and Weather on the split channels which is nice. I hope they keep it like that. It'll be interesting to see what happens in 2009.
Scott Fybush said:jras20 said:
I don't know what "DTV Transaction" is, either, unless it's the big chunk of change I paid for my new Sony in the family room a few months ago...
(Worth every penny, incidentally....)
But as far as the DTV Transition goes, while the education campaign got a late start, it's hard for me to imagine that any sentient TV-viewing American still doesn't know about the thing at this point. There have been multiple "shutdown" tests in most markets, not to mention news stories out the wazoo, utility bill stuffers, websites, phone banks, live call-in TV specials (I hosted one last month and will be doing another one next month), and even NASCAR sponsorships - and it will all ramp up to an even more aggressive level in the next 60 days.
Anyone who wakes up on February 18th and is surprised to find nothing on their TV will have only themselves to blame.
No, the process hasn't been perfect, and there are still technical hurdles to overcome. I'm sorry you lost your fringe reception of Houston at 80+ miles out, and hope that you get some of it back when everyone settles in on their post-transition facilities. (Keep in mind that it's been a minor miracle - no, scratch that, a major miracle to effectively double the number of TV signals on the air in the US over the last decade or so, all within the same bandwidth that was "full up" for analog TV circa 1998; inevitably, there's been more interference to long-distance reception as a result, some of which will go away in February.)
There are LOTS of people out there who don't know. Many people just really don't care one way or the other especially older non-technical people who are quite a sizable population in our country, they just turn on the TV and watch it. This decision was made the way it was so big business could suck more money out of us. The FCC should be held personally responsible for this transition and Kevy Martin should be ordered to get into a box truck and personally put up cable for all the people who don't have cable or satellite, these boxes are not going to work well especially in fringe areas where owners are struggling now to receive TV signals. He's going to need a job soon anyway. Many people, poor and or older, are just going to turn off the TV permanently.
I bought a new Sony LCD TV a few years ago and it is HD ready, do I care? Not one bit. Does my wife know about it? No and she couldn't care less.
KB1OKL said:
So I guess your HD picture and number of OTA choice didn't improve, right, KB? I'd like to point out that "MY" TV picture looks a lot better than before. Sorry if in the land of Mass. that didn't happen. Somehow I think it did.
Every time you change anything, someone's ox get's gored. Did you ever wonder how many people lost their CBS reception in Detroit when they moved to 62 because Fox bought Ch 2? Should we get Rupert Murdoch the box truck, too. Or is that one left for Bill Kennard?
Don't forget 8 in Cleveland or the ABC in St. Louis that now on 34 (I think).
In your clear cutting campaign against anyone who doesn't use a ball of wire on the floor for an antenna, perhaps you could be a little more civil. I don't know Martin, and I suspect neither do you. If you think "HE" deserves personal responsibility, we could only hope that we are worthy of that standard.
OK, I give up. Is it the lattitude or the water? This is out there even for you, KB.
So I suppose if your TV stiopped working, your wife would just say "Never Mind, I'll just knit some more?".
No wonder you think we should all just buy a Multi hundred dollar AM only tuner.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions. And yes, they "DO" vary.
Clouseau
clouseau said:KB1OKL said:
So I guess your HD picture and number of OTA choice didn't improve, right, KB? I'd like to point out that "MY" TV picture looks a lot better than before. Sorry if in the land of Mass. that didn't happen. Somehow I think it did.
Every time you change anything, someone's ox get's gored. Did you ever wonder how many people lost their CBS reception in Detroit when they moved to 62 because Fox bought Ch 2? Should we get Rupert Murdoch the box truck, too. Or is that one left for Bill Kennard?
Don't forget 8 in Cleveland or the ABC in St. Louis that now on 34 (I think).
In your clear cutting campaign against anyone who doesn't use a ball of wire on the floor for an antenna, perhaps you could be a little more civil. I don't know Martin, and I suspect neither do you. If you think "HE" deserves personal responsibility, we could only hope that we are worthy of that standard.
OK, I give up. Is it the lattitude or the water? This is out there even for you, KB.
So I suppose if your TV stiopped working, your wife would just say "Never Mind, I'll just knit some more?".
No wonder you think we should all just buy a Multi hundred dollar AM only tuner.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions. And yes, they "DO" vary.
Clouseau
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