NYC Metro Radio Ratings - January 2023

[Weiserguy]

All HD channels are on a single digital "signal" and each operator can divide 1, 2 and 3 however they want. If I'm not mistaken, you could conceivably make the HD-1 use less of the bandwidth than HD-3. While I have never set up HD bandwidth allocations on a station myself, perhaps one of the engineers who read this can further detail how HD channels can be assigned individual bandwidth.

The "original sin" of Ibiquity's version of IBOC was (IMO) the low *composite* bitrate of 96Kbps. It may have been necessary as HD technology was just getting out of the gate, but if I understand correctly, it's not upgradeable. So even if the state-of-the-art has marched forward over the last couple of decades, the encoding equipment *and* the receivers are forever locked into that composite rate, so the subchannels are destined to remain bitrate-hobbled until the technology is retired (except maybe for HD1-only situations). Am I offbase about this?

 

[Marcos_C]

And I'm surprised WINS is broadcasting both their analog FM and HD1 signals in stereo, including a stereo reverb effect (!), rather than switching them to mono.

My guess is that WINS-FM and WINS-HD1 are broadcasting in stereo because HD2 and HD3 are playing music. Otherwise, the two music subchannels would be broadcasting in mono.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

My guess is that WINS-FM and WINS-HD1 are broadcasting in stereo because HD2 and HD3 are playing music. Otherwise, the two music subchannels would be broadcasting in mono.

The audio on HD subchannel streams does not rely on whether the main analog FM is broadcasting in stereo. Each subchannel can be set up independently of each other, stereo or mono.