> > Will the stations use these HD channels in the same way as
>
> > they would the regular channels? By that I mean are they
> > going to truly minimize the talk factor (or kill it, for
> > that matter) or the advertisement ratio? Doesn't HD radio
>
> > offer a way to run text ads on the screen whilst music is
> > playing? Just curious on what others think about this.
> >
> Who really cares???
>
> I think right now there are 10-20 HD radios in the entire
> state. No, Make that the Southeast.
>
> Stations SHOULD be concentrating on what's on the air now
> and being listened to. Rather than something that's 3-5
> years off/
>
True but the stations have come first. Besides that, the HD signal is just a digital version of their analog. Do you have an HD TV? Why not? Because there isn't anything to watch in HD. Same with radio. The stations have to start broadcasting in HD long before anyone will buy the radios. Now... do they need to setup HD-2 channels? Probably not.
Now being one of those 10-20 people, the HD sounds good. It has no multi-path, but if you don’t have satellite radio you can’t appreciate that. Also the stereo separation is phenomenal. Stations not using separate processing are killing it though. It only benefits from less compression and more dynamics. Also low quality audio, like some mp3s sound really bad. You don’t notice on the “analog” but on the “digital (HD)” it sounds bad, very bad.