HD-Radio is not DTV for sure

[JohnnyElectron]

I just bought a DTV converter box - and WOW - it really works great! Then I thought about it - here I can switch from a big antenna in my attic to a little POS rabbit ear loop and I get not just the same TV channel, but the same TV channel crystal-clear plus two crappy channels along for the ride. Even the artifact -3 channel is clearer than the analog main channel.

NOW - just imagine if HD-Radio was more like my new DTV converter - a smaller antenna AND a better signal. We don't have that with HD-radio - at least not here in the Great Lakes Region.
FM-HD takes a better antenna to aquire the same station, and if they're multicasting, the audio quality after it flips to digital is just a tad less so, rather than dramatically better audio (as in comparing analog TV with its digital version).
AM-HD takes a better antenna too, and when it flips to digital it sounds tinny and tiring on talk stations, and AM-HD fares no better in thunderstorms than the analog does. I can get several stations in analog stereo that I can't get to lock onto HD-FM, so the range for both AM and FM in HD is less than thier analog version, even with a better antenna.

I really want to like HD-radio. I'm an early adopter. I bought two HD radios. I like the PAD info, but I can get that with RDS. To me, the only advantage on HD-FM is I don't get picket-fencing on one station. The only advantage on AM is the very local station, with proper audio processing, sounds better than newer analog radios, but they don't bother with the PAD info at all. They didn't want to bother with the stereo audio either.

Would I spend $200 on one HD radio again - not likely. Would I spend $100 instead - I might, if all of my locals would put current data on the display - both AM and FM - and utilize stereo audio (to be more like SatRad). I hope that iBiquity has a few more tricks up their sleeve to make HD work better farther away, and stations utilize every feature that they can on their HD offerings (like put a totally new format on HD2 and NOAA WX on HD3 etc...).
Please make me want to like HD more, and promote it more than I am. Maybe we did make a wrong turn - moving around the broadcast spectrum with a hard analog cut-off date and then having a radio converter coupon program (like DTV) might have been a better plan - but it's too late now.

 

[Play Freebird]

I just bought a DTV converter box - and WOW - it really works great! Then I thought about it - here I can switch from a big antenna in my attic to a little POS rabbit ear loop and I get not just the same TV channel, but the same TV channel crystal-clear plus two crappy channels along for the ride. Even the artifact -3 channel is clearer than the analog main channel.

And there's nothing stopping TV broadcasters from offering several really good sounding audio programs in place of those crappy channels. The DTV bitstream has plenty of surplus bandwidth available after the primary high-def video is accounted for, so there's no need to use a compromised 48k audio codec. Surround sound is no problem, either. I expect to see inexpensive audio-only DTV tuners become available in the next few years as TV licensees realize this opportunity.

Radio basically got screwed, thanks to the Greedmeisters who decided in favor of IBOC.

 

[jras20]

I had that also. I'm using a pair of cheap rabbit ears on my HDTV tuner and I can pick up San antonio which is 60 miles, and Austin which is 30 miles. With hardly any drop outs. Out at my place in Lavaca county I almost half to have a outdoor antenna, not sure how well Rabbit ears would work out there.

 

[mgpt6]

DTV stations would have plenty of room of adding 1 or 2 Dolby AC-3 5.1 Surround signals at 384 kbps , with 19.8 Mbps of data space.

 

[KB1OKL]

Would I spend $200 on one HD radio again - not likely. Would I spend $100 instead - I might, if all of my locals would put current data on the display - both AM and FM - and utilize stereo audio (to be more like SatRad). I hope that iBiquity has a few more tricks up their sleeve to make HD work better farther away, and stations utilize every feature that they can on their HD offerings (like put a totally new format on HD2 and NOAA WX on HD3 etc...).
Please make me want to like HD more, and promote it more than I am. Maybe we did make a wrong turn - moving around the broadcast spectrum with a hard analog cut-off date and then having a radio converter coupon program (like DTV) might have been a better plan - but it's too late now.

I'm sure Iniquity has a few more tricks up their sleeve, but not technical in nature that will improve iBlock of course ;D. The basic technology and idea sucks, that's all, you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear as the old saying goes, it has too many inherent problems, even DAB in Europe is failing left and right, people just don't care anymore about ¡¡¡¡DIGITAL!!!!. Instead of trying to make yourself like HD won't don't you try having an open mind and read around some of the blogs such as John Gorman's Media Blog or Inside Music Media. Both of those guys are decades long radio veterans who see what is going on in radio today and deplore it, and especially IBOC which they see (as well as the majority of other radio people) that IBOC is just a diversion from some of the real problems of radio one of which is consolidation which ruined local programming, made radio bland and boring and is threatening to topple the whole structure.
Do you really believe that the FCC should have forced a hard cut off date for a technology which doesn't work well at all and at the same time would have made 800,000,000 radios obsolete in one fell swoop? At least with HD-TV (which does stand for High Definition there as much as it stands for Horrible Disaster in radio) there are converter boxes free for people who can't or won't buy an HD TV. Would you also suggest that the government provide 800 million converter boxes for all the analog radios that exist today that would not work if analog broadcasting was shut down?