New Insignia review

[rbrucecarter5]

http://www.rwonline.com/article/insignia-a-glimpse-of-artist-experience/211187

It looks like "artist experience" doubles for "ad experience" in their photograph. It also sounds like it suffers from sensitivity problems, which would be a BIG problem for me as the only HD-2's I would be interested in are 40 plus miles away.

I just don't see how you could ever get an acceptable FM antenna into a small package like that. Or into cars without whip antennas. Every car I've been it with no whip antenna has lousy sensitivity. This doesn't bode well for HD. And 10dB increase would be a drop in the bucket.

 

[tomservo]

It's as much an indictment of Insignia's shoddy design and manufacturing processes as it is HD radio's failures. And the thing with the artist image only refreshing TWICE during a song is ludicrous. RDS data is transmitted more often than that, and with robust error correction. Having images that will only display if you happen to have a perfect signal at just the right time shows how little the creators of IBOC understand the world of RF, propagation and all that jazz.

Computer engineers ≠ RF engineers and IBOC is proof of that.

Still, much of the blame also rests on Insignia, where every HD radio they've made seems to have its own quirks and performance issues, whereas the JVC car radios and other models clearly don't.

 

[Savage]

SO darn exciting!! Since we're talking about HD Radio here:

I CAN'T WAIT to have a nice display of an artist's ear, fragments of words and a mosaic of colorful squares on my car radio screen!

 

[iyiyi]

I read the article and believe it is a reasonable assessment of the Insignia 02. Remember that this unit is basically a beta version and Insignia is continually making improvements and software updates as glitches arise.

I believe "artist experience" is a misnomer that plays down the importance and versatility of the radio's video feature. Extra ad revenue potentials are just one benefit for stations. Ability to show weather radar updates, news headlines, important news photos... Probably an unlimited number of uses for this feature to be exploited by an imaginative, progressive radio station management team.

Add the ability to record up to 15 minutes of audio and it becomes even more versatile.

Yeah, the box does have it's shortcomings, but Insignia IS seeking feedback and listening to people's opinions. I feel that the Insignia 03 will really be capable of kicking some royal ass when Insignia is ready to launch that model. Consider the amount of new features and options that a current "garden variety" cell phone has in comparison to any 5 year old, top-of-the-line cell phone.

Addition of the capability of installing a multi-gigabit micro SD card would provide yet another universe of options for HD that analog couldn't even dream of doing.


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[tomservo]

I read the article and believe it is a reasonable assessment of the Insignia 02. Remember that this unit is basically a beta version and Insignia is continually making improvements and software updates as glitches arise.

This is yet another in a long line of countless reasons why computer engineers should not be allowed to design ANYTHING for consumer use.

People tolerate beta and constant improvement in software because they have no choice. In hardware, historically things have worked right out of the box. Anything else is, in my mind, unacceptable. I'm not talking about feature upgrades like one might get when upgrading iOS or Android on your phone, I'm talking about features not working as promised, period.

Imagine if you bought a toaster at Target and one side worked only sporadically. You'd take it back for a refund or exchange, right? With electronics, we just hope for a bug fix. It's madness.

If they promise pictures and album art, the product should deliver it seamlessly, right out of the box. If they promise RDS, it should work as the specs dictate, right out of the box. But then nothing about HD seems to work right "right out of the box" because the people who designed seem to care little about the reality of RF or the physics of broadcasting.

 

[mmnassour]

I read the article and believe it is a reasonable assessment of the Insignia 02. Remember that this unit is basically a beta version .....

They WHY is it being sold?

 

[iyiyi]

I read the article and believe it is a reasonable assessment of the Insignia 02. Remember that this unit is basically a beta version .....

They WHY is it being sold?

Why? The same reason Apple sold the first model I Phone sans 3G and video capability, 3D TV originally had glasses wired to the set, early LCD TVs had a constant-on backlight instead of modern strobed LEDs, early cell phones with web access made dial up seem like the speed of light in comparison...

Toasters and Target??? If you purchase a defective Insignia HD radio, BB makes good on it.

I believe the biggest problem that HD faces is that many folk don't (or won't) understand the difference between analog radiotelephone and digital radiotelegraph broadcasting. The "real" world is analog and digital radio is just as much an analog method of broadcasting as AM or FM. Analog basically takes a signal and creates an analogy of that signal into a different form of energy. This analogy is a direct translation of signal making it suitable to modulate an RF carrier with a reasonably faithful reproduction of the original signal. Analog strives to maintain a faithful copy of the original signal through the various translations between a person speaking into a microphone to a person listening to the loudspeaker of a radio.

Digital is a subset of analog with an entirely different approach. Signal is input into an ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) which changes the infinite analog variations into a finite set of digital ones and zeros with fixed intervals. This "number" will now remain intact throughout the remainder of it's travels. This data may be converted to different data for various reasons (ie: Eight to Fourteen Modulation in a CD) or shuffled (see Reed-Solomon error correction). Regardless, the quantity assigned at the ADC remains the same throughout it's processing. The only real "weak links" in this scheme is the necessity of highly accurate ADC and DAC devices - you can't cheap out on those babies!

So... Where analog reproduction mandates faithful, low noise conditions through it's entire journey from microphone to ear. Digital data (assuming quality ADC and DACs) can be handled far easier and is much more versatile.

Contact Insignia and present legitimate and constructive ideas and suggestions about improving their line of HD products, with the proper attitude. See what happens.


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[mmnassour]

I'm afraid my attitude is that "beta" is just that....beta. For testing purposes.

Apple's first iPhone was able to make phone calls...and a lot more. It succeeded in its mission.

HD Radio is failing in its mission, to deliver excellent quality, multiple channel, audio to mobile and stationary users. We are a decade into the HD Radio era and the same complaints go on, and on, and on. Say....maybe we should have turned HD over to Apple!

Perhaps I'd have a bit better attitude about HD if radios could be bought and those that had already been sold, worked without an extensive outside antenna or wires strung up inside my room.

Honest to God, I'm not an HD hater as some folks here are. I'd love to have three times the number of stations that I do now, each without interference, without picket-fencing as I drove around town. But here in the real world, that's not the case. People who own the same car I do are complaining about why their radios are "defective", why the audio keeps "going away".

HD must a least be as easy to use as analog. Until it is, keep in in the lab, instead of ramming an immature technology into an unforgiving marketplace.

 

[Darth_vader]

"Early cell phones with web access made dial-up networking seem like the speed of light in comparison."

They still do!

 

[Savage]

Apple never would have touched HD, because the engineering is fatally flawed. They also would have rejected the whole scheme because anyone objectively looking at the concept would have noticed that any appreciable consumer demand for this "innovation" was highly unlikely. The reasons have been exhaustively discussed here and need not be repeated.

Apple has succeeded because the company focuses on consumer (not company of industry) needs and exhaustively beta-tests all its products including marketing and feedback from a professionally selected test-consumer base. If HD products, particularly low-end stuff like the Insignias, had been tested Apple-style they never would have seen the light of day. The glitchy, clunky functions and unreliable HD reception would have summarily flunked them.

iyiy's attitude is somewhat startling. So consumers are expected to purchase Insignia radios at retail and then function as part of the BB design team? Good luck with THAT one. That's not how the world of consumer electronics works (or consumer ANYTHING, for that matter.)

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Have you noticed that most of the advocates of HD are advocates of FM HD, and then only because of the HD-2 channels?

This makes my point again that people are going to chase formats and their niche of music, no matter what the medium. A lot are willing to pay for what they want, a lot can't or won't. But either way - up rises Pandora, streaming, satellite, and iPods.

Looking at HD-2 channels as competition in that light - they are pretty much limited to one per station, unless the quality plummets. So - if every local station had HD-2, you effectively double the number of stations in any market. But - that isn't a lot of new channels, compared with the alternatives. And time has shown most HD-2 formats are only slight variations of what the main HD-1 channel is.

Now look at HD-2 from a reliability standpoint. If lock is lost, the radio will default back to analog. A totally different station. Even if the software is smart enough to mute that possibility, any drop at all, and it will take several seconds to get the HD-2 back, and dead silence until that happens. So it is annoying, to say the least, especially with coverage problems that will not be fixed by a paltry 10dB power increase. Fades can be in the 60 dB range. Compare that with driving under an overpass with satellite - because of buffering, most of the time you won't lose the signal. Only very long, very deep overpasses or tunnels (you lose FM in a tunnel anyway).

HD is tough sell compared to the alternatives. As an investor, I'd pass on it.

 

[nd2023]

I could have twice the amount of stations if there was no IBUZ interference

 

[tomservo]

Looking at HD-2 channels as competition in that light - they are pretty much limited to one per station, unless the quality plummets. So - if every local station had HD-2, you effectively double the number of stations in any market. But - that isn't a lot of new channels, compared with the alternatives. And time has shown most HD-2 formats are only slight variations of what the main HD-1 channel is.

I don't think I've ever lost an HD-2/3 for so long the radio went back to the main channel.

And programming has nothing to do with the delivery system, just typical poor corporate radio management.

Going to maximum IBOC power in the parts of the country that can support it, like mine, would help tremendously with car radio installations. As it is with my portable Insignia in the car (aux jack wire dangled over the rearview mirror in good ghetto fashion) I can usually hold an HD signal from 50 miles out or more if I'm facing the transmitter. The car acts as a giant shield in any other direction, unfortunately, with this setup.

But the point is the current power levels are simply insufficient, and poor corporate planning caused by getting this flawed system rammed down the station's throats means no one planned for an upgrade, so now they're stuck with poor performance and an expensive upgrade path.

Going back to the Apple analogy for a moment, I can't help but think if this was Apple's baby they'd have mandated early transmitter upgrades be made so that future power/software changes would happen inexpensively and seamlessly, like updating iOS or Mac OS on a computing device. They would have created a piece of consumer gear that was made of fine materials and more thoroughly beta tested before being released. And their radios would be USB-upgradeable right out of the box, unlike the Insignias.

Those three simple changes would have put HD on much better footing for consumer uptake. It would have probably still flopped, as Apple is not without its huge disappointments (Lisa, Newton, last gen Shuffle, etc.), but it would have been given a much brighter future than it has, now.

 

[KB1OKL]

Nothing would have given HD a bright future, the technology's flawed and there's no getting around that.

 

[nd2023]

Apple could have included HD radio and iTunes tagging in the iPhones and iPods but didn't do it because HD radio reception sucks.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Apple could have included HD radio and iTunes tagging in the iPhones and iPods but didn't do it because HD radio reception sucks.

I wish they would activate the FM chip anyway so people could at least listen to strong analog signals on their iPhones. Holding out for iTunes tagging sounds like something only Apple would do.

 

[mmnassour]

Apple could have included HD radio and iTunes tagging in the iPhones and iPods but didn't do it because HD radio reception sucks.

It's interesting that we've drug Apple into this. Steve Jobs one guiding principle was about giving the customer/user the best experience possible. Breakup and dropouts hardly add to the user experience.

It's obvious that had HD been a useable technology...that could have been had at the right price....Apple would have jumped on it.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

HD never seems to have even remotely approached what I was expecting when I first learned of the idea of digtal radio (even before I knew of the existence of IBOC/HD). Among other things...
better spectral efficiency - for example 16 kbit/s/kHz. LTE / 3.9 GHz cell apparently can do 16.32. Once you're 1% of a QRSS CW or PSK31 signal's bandwidth outside the digital, it should be at least 180 dB down. (Also a digital radio with the selectivity of a crystal set {and I mean the hobby kit ones with just a single cheap tuning capacitor to tune a circuit, NOT a bunch of tuned circuits with $1000+ litz wire - one where if you can hear a station at all, you can hear it across the entire band} should have no trouble getting a fringe signal first-adjacent to a strong local with whose transmitter it is in direct physical contact.)
better management of interference and weak-signal performance - if it was ever possible to detect a QRSS CW or PSK31 carrier from some remote station through lots of co-channel interference (like what it might be like if the graveyarders were allowed to run 2 megawatts), then with digital that station could always be decoded. Same thing goes for very weak signals in the absence of interference - if a QRSS CW or PSK31 carrier can be detected, even if it's too faint to identify, digital would always decode.
absolutely no interference to analog reception. Without a digital decoder, you could physically touch a digital station's transmitter with an analog radio / field intensity meter, and it wouldn't even register, even if it was on the same frequency. You would have no more difficulty picking up weak analog signals than if the digital transmitter was off the air, and in fact possibly better pickup on portables if you're inductively coupling to their antenna to use it as a receive antenna.
I had thought of a few other things which I can't remember at the moment, but even just those expectations would be enough, in my mind, to doom the current incarnation of HD radio. (I'm not against digital radio, there's just some things I expect out of it.)

 

[MarioMania]

Why is HD still here??

Seems like some people is buying it, to keep HD going

 

[nd2023]

This summer I met a girl who had an HD radio in her car. I complimented her on the fact that she had an HD radio. She told me that she hated her HD radio and had to pay someone to disable the HD decoding. I tried to convince her that HD radio was great and even told her all the HD2 formats in the area. Needless to say, she never called me back after the first date and ignored my texts. I blame HD radio for taking the "buzz" out of this potential relationship.

I gave my current girlfriend an Insignia portable HD radio for Christmas. I think she was intrigued by it. I am visiting her hometown in Minnesota this week and I'm jealous that they have an awesome dance station on an HD2 there.