IBOC around the world

[Randal Marshall]

I noticed this article in wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBOC#IBOC_around_the_world

It mentions all those countries using "HD radio" as in Ibiquity's IBOC trademarked product. Is this true, or is it more propaganda?

If it is true, then radio is in more trouble than I thought

 

[Savage]

Oh, puh-LEEZE! :

A couple of things: first of all, last I checked "Europe" and "Puerto Rico" are not "countries."

In major Western European countries, like France and Germany, IBOC is reported as being "tested" on one or two or three signals. The notations date to 2007. If HD was such a rousing success there would be more stations operating after three years.

Some of the claims are trivial AND ancient. For example Switzerland apparently has (had) an event called "HD Radio Days" described as "an annual event" where a small group of private broadcasters "discuss the technology." (So, what is this, a claim of "adoption?") And that dates from 2006.

Most of the other countries specifying as "adopters" of HD radio technology are obviously experimenting with it (or, past-tense, HAVE experimented with it) on a handful at most of signals, and again, the entries mostly date to two to five years ago. The obvious implication is that the experiments haven't gone well or else there would be more recent information and triumphant claims that more stations had gone on with HD.

Then you encounter a strong whiff of iBiquity's typical press-agentry hogwash with claims that you can buy HD radios at Apple, Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart. (Apple? Huh?? What HD Radio can you buy at your Apple store?) I invite any visitor here to wiggle on down to Wal-Mart or BB this afternoon and test that claim. Please, by all means, report back here how many HD Radios you find on shelves.) :

In short - typical HD nonsense. (Hey, HD - "how's that digital power increase goin' for ya?"

 

[audioguy]

First, note that this is from Wikipedia, not Ibiquity. That said, it doesn't seem likely that Europe would go for HD radio considering how tightly packed their allocations are. Admittedly, the public's response to DAB has been less than enthusiastic, but apparently DAB+ solves at least some of these problems. However, it's still unclear when widespread adoption of digital radio will occur.

Whenever I have the opportunity to discuss digital radio with my colleagues in CEPT and ETSI, I take advantage of the opportunity to point out some of IBOC's more onerous shortcomings.

 

[Carmine5]

I noticed one discrepancy between the Wikipedia list and iBiquity's official international list. Wikipedia lists El Salvador as an HD Radio adopter while iBiquity does not. Both list Europe as a country (from what I heard the iBiquity marketing department did a coin toss to determine if Caledonia was an actual country or just an old B.B. King song).

But whether the list of international users is 21 or 22, when you consider that there are some 195 countries in the world (192 UN members), HD Radio isn't exactly setting the world ablaze.

c5

 

[Savage]

Yes, and check a little closer on what it means to be an "international user," at least in Wikipedia terms. Over half of the 22 countries listed characterize their HD "use" in guarded or prospective terms such as "evaluation," "testing" or "hopes to" or "plans to" adopt.

For example an uninformed reader might conclude for the entry for "Canada" that they have adopted HD, when precisely the opposite is the case.

Then you have the flat, unsupported (yet still "prospective") declaration that "El Salvador WILL BE choosing HD Radio as its digital radio standard." (Emphasis added.) No date and no source for the information are given (for example, WHEN will ES "be choosing" HD?)

And finally we have the demonstrably false claims given for USA adoption of HD - such as the shopworn malarkey that "1700 stations" are broadcasting in HD, when it's common knowledge that figure is inflated by 25% - and more stations are dropping HD than are cranking it up. And see my notes, above, regarding the Wiki plea about receiver availability.

The number one problem with HD Radio is the lousy, interference-spewing semifunctional technology. The number two ranking problem is the constant lying from its proponents. Trying to band-aid a badly defective technical standard with serial misrepresentations is a fool's errand.

 

[Savage]

In fact, if you read the Wiki piece carefully, the only countries which have stations actually broadcasting in HD pursuant to formal adoption as a "standard" are:

Brazil, El Salvador (prospectively - see previous post), France (1 station), Jamaica (2 stations in Kingston), the Phillipines (1 station) and Thailand. And if your world view is that Puerto Rico is "a country" I guess you could add them to the list.

Every other country listed is "testing," "has tested," is in some form of evaluation or other stage of experimentation. Most of those tests have apparently been ongoing from two to five years - hardly an indication that HD is having appreciable success there.

Mexico is dabbling with HD in much the same way they leveraged fair treatment from the USA in matters electromagnetic with superpower AM borderblasters in the 1930s. Stations close to La Frontera with the States are allowed to operate in HD, likely as a hedge against interference.

I got a kick over how China is listed in the IBOC section, which might lead a casual reader to assume the country is signed up for HD - but upon a closer look they're using FMeXtra!

 

[davideduardo]

Mexico is dabbling with HD in much the same way they leveraged fair treatment from the USA in matters electromagnetic with superpower AM borderblasters in the 1930s. Stations close to La Frontera with the States are allowed to operate in HD, likely as a hedge against interference.

Mexico approved HD for all regions. At present, the activity in Mexico is mostly focused on the move of up to 95% of all Mexican AMs to FM, and in larger cities there has to be a move of many stations on the FM band to new frequencies. This means broadcasters will not invest in plant and antennas until they no for sure what frequency they will end up on. In the first conversion zone consisting of 4 states, 100% of AMs were granted FM channels and are in the process of moving.

The Mexican border zone HD permits were granted specifically so that "Mexican stations would not lose their ability to compete in border economies."

Brazil has quite a few HD's on the air, and their economy is doing so well that they are likely to continue to add HD stations.

 

[davideduardo]

A couple of things: first of all, last I checked "Europe" and "Puerto Rico" are not "countries."

Interesting... Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team.

 

[pqgeorge]

A couple of things: first of all, last I checked "Europe" and "Puerto Rico" are not "countries."

Interesting... Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team.

Funny, I could have sworn that Puerto Rico is still a duly recognized territory of The United States of America. Did I miss something?

 

[LynnW]

A couple of things: first of all, last I checked "Europe" and "Puerto Rico" are not "countries."

Interesting... Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team.

So do American Samoa, Guam and the US Virgin Islands. The Chinese territory of Hong Kong has its own Olympic team, too, but I doubt Beijing considers Hong Kong to be an independent country. More interesting is the Dutch territories of Aruba and The Netherlands Antilles both have teams. I always thought Aruba was part of The Netherlands Antilles. Several British possessions have teams including Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and the Cook Islands. The totally mythical country of Palestine also has an Olympic team.

 

[JimmyJames]

" (Apple? Huh?? What HD Radio can you buy at your Apple store?)"

The Sony with the Ipod dock. I tested it in a Chicago Apple store, first time I'd ever seen one.

 

[JJS]

Savage: I invite any visitor here to wiggle on down to Wal-Mart or BB this afternoon and test that claim. Please, by all means, report back here how many HD Radios you find on shelves.)

I was indeed at BestBuy in Vestal, NY this very afternoon. Available home models are the Insignia HD portable at $49, the Insignia HD Tuner at $99, and the Sony HDR/iPod Dock at $159. For in-vehicle systems, HDR is actually quite strong. BB doesn't need the cap costs and risks of too many feature permutations and SKUs, so they're selling several feature-rich models with WMA/MP3 CD, Aux, iPod, Bluetooth, USB, Sat-ready, and true onboard HDR. An Alpine thus configured was $229 and had me salivating, and similar Sony, Kenwood and Pioneer models were up.

I'd say HDR is a competitive edge in aftermarket car stereo at this point. The buyer may not be in the store for HDR, but he'll compare feature lists on today's kitchen-sink models to combat obsolescence. Other things equal, a model without HDR is likely to lose the sale.

 

[nd2023]

Unless there is a dance format on HD2 with dropout-free reception everywhere I travel daily, HD radio won't sway my decision of which car to buy. I can hear every Internet station in my car right now, including every streaming HD2.

 

[RadeoEngineer]

I want one of these babies!

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3734241&CAWELAID=424313707

 

[tomservo]

Nick, you must be one of the lucky ones. I can't seen to stream anything for more than a few seconds. I'm traveling the desert southwest and am lucky to have a signal at all on my phone in some places. There's no HD anywhere here, either, but good old analog FM and AM still manage to work.

 

[Savage]

JJ and JJS: I stand - actually sit - corrected. Glad you found several HD products locally available in stores. Last I checked around here, not in the distant past, I didn't find that to be the case. (JJS: didn't I meet you at the 2006 Bingo Broadcasters' event?) In any case thanks for the response.

Admitting the apparent availability of a smattering of HD products, I return to the point of the post - which is: the Wiki entry 'IBOC Around The World' is a mixture of old news (testing in a dozen countries dating back two to five years), irrelevant news (suggesting "adoption" when a close reading indicates conditional, limited or plainly experimental use) and native US news which sounds suspiciously like it was drafted by HD promoters, like iBiquity or the Alliance. In short, the linked IBOC piece is typical of what one often finds on Wikipedia - "reference material" which has to be taken with a 5-pound grain of salt.

JJS, I would concede that most aftermarket buyers will opt for feature-rich car receivers since the cost differential between "Bells And Whistles" and "Just CD and Radio" is probably less than $50 in many cases. But I would further argue that aftermarket car stereo represents a small - and shrinking - segment of audio product sales. As has been noted here, increasingly car audio is integrated into other factory equipment a la Ford's SYNC system. My 2009 Honda CRV has a basic radio and 6-CD changer, but even that simple unit's integrated into steering wheel remote pads. And both my Honda and Jeep came with admonitions from the dealerships: hack into the wiring to add aftermarket gear, and your warranty's void.

I also note from client calls here at the radio station, that car-stereo aftermarket shops have shrunk their budgets dramatically. Many are gone, "OOB." The survivors are increasingly relying on sales of accessories like wheels, truck running boards and bug spoilers, window tinting and other nonelectronic add-ons. They're not even selling remote starters - a popular item in the north - much any more.

So sure, if your car's out of warranty and you don't care about losing the functionality of other integrated factory car electronics, HD could be an option. Assuming you can get reliable reception. That can be a tall order in the northeast, especially in cities with rugged terrain like Philly, Cincy and Pittsburgh.

 

[davideduardo]

Funny, I could have sworn that Puerto Rico is still a duly recognized territory of The United States of America. Did I miss something?

Yes, for 60 years Puerto Rico has been a Commonwealth, not a territory. The Spanish term translates as "Free Associated State" and in many issues is quite different from a territory.

 

[cyberdad]

Nick, you must be one of the lucky ones. I can't seen to stream anything for more than a few seconds. I'm traveling the desert southwest and am lucky to have a signal at all on my phone in some places. There's no HD anywhere here, either, but good old analog FM and AM still manage to work.

This reinforces my feeling that if you live in an area where there's a problem with your iPhone signal, then there's no point in investing in HD radio.  There probably won't be any HD signals where you are, either!

And as for Radio Shack's iPhone gadget, I personally don't see the point under any circumstances.  You're paying 70 bucks to access programming (and sound quality) that should be already readily available on your iPhone just about anywhere where you'd also expect to find a useable H-D signal.  In the unlikely event you can't find your favorite HD radio stream on a free app, the worst you might have to do is shell out $10 (or probably less) for something like Wunderadio or Tunein.

 

[JJS]

SavageJJS: didn't I meet you at the 2006 Bingo Broadcasters' event?)

No, we haven't met. I'm not a broadcaster, just a bloke who supports digital alternatives to broadcast radio, so as to dismantle its scarcity. I pushed these ideas quite hard in the '90s, but such advocacy has been pointless for years, except during the sat merger debate. We're in that post-scarcity world these days. Mission pretty much accomplished (by others).

Still, where the political system entrenches incumbent broadcasters -- must carry, performance rights exemption, local content restrictions on terrestrial repeaters, distant network restrictions -- I remain opposed. Let the marketplace decide. IBOC was in this category as well, but it works so poorly that I'd like it to be incumbent broadcasters' only noncompetitive shot at digitization; I'd digitize channels 5 and 6 via auctions on equal terms to everyone. Radical, I know.

So our interests are at odds. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

 

[tomservo]

cyberdad, I don't own an iphone. Strangely I do live in area (n central Mississippi) where there is practically no 3g on AT&T but HD in all the rural thanks to MPB-public radio.