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Technology takes time!

M

Mike Walker

Guest
Anybody else here tired of people declaring HD Radio dead, when it's far too early to have any idea whether it will succeed or fail?

Here's a news flash: TECHNOLOGY TAKES TIME! People who tout mp3 players, wi-fi, and other technologies speak as if these burst on the scene immediately, and were accepted by everyone. WRONG! Question...when was the first hardware mp3 player introduced? Tick, tick, tick....1998...nearly a decade ago. It was from Diamond Multimedia. So within a year or so, everybody had mp3 players, right? Check out this 2000 page from Best Buy's mp3 player section, and see if you notice anything missing http://web.archive.org/web/20001205...bleMP3/ViewSelection.asp?m=58&cat=63&scat=250

Give up? NOT A SINGLE IPOD! Hell, not a single "hit" product...two years after the first mp3 player was introduced. I remember the market starting to shrink about this time, as Best Buy seemed to be concluding there was no market for this category. Hey, let's check a couple of years later.

Here's the Best Buy mp3 page from 2002, FOUR FULL YEARS after the introduction of the first mp3 player. Geez, a kid could have graduated from college in this period of time, but mp3 was still struggling http://web.archive.org/web/20001205...bleMP3/ViewSelection.asp?m=58&cat=63&scat=250

See any Ipods? NOT A SINGLE ONE! 700 and others would have undoubtedly declared the category dead by this point from lack of public interest. After all, check out all those market successes from Sensory Science to D-Link to Digisette.

It wasn't until about SIX YEARS after the introduction of the first mp3 player hardware until there was a hit product. THE IPOD! Here we are, not much more than SIX MONTHS after the broad introduction of the first consumer HD Radio units (less than a year even in the largest markets). YES THERE HAVE BEEN STATIONS FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS! There were FM Stereo stations for MANY years before many people heard a stereo broadcast. Ditto AM Stereo.

AM Stereo was introduced in 1982. Stations started to appear in pretty good numbers in 1983. By 1984 there were a good number of products on the market (probably less total than there are HD products today...about forty). But it wasn't until 1988 or 89 that it became generally accepted that the technology wasn't really "catching on". AM Stereo is widely touted as a failure. But it isn't that simple. Something strange happened between 1983 and the late 90s. MILLIONS of AM Stereo radios were sold...largely (though not exclusively) in cars. So if AM Stereo is a "failure", it's sure as hell a great selling failure! Many stations continue to use it, though they're dropping quickly since only in the new millennium did it become apparent that something new would supplant AM Stereo...DIGITAL BROADCASTING. My point? AM Stereo's fate wasn't really sealed for TWO DECADES! And strangely, new AM Stereo radios are rolling out TODAY!

PCs took more than two decades to become common household items. Hell, mobile phones took more than a half-century! TECHNOLOGY TAKES TIME! So the next time somebody tells you HD is dead, take a whif. If it looks like a cow pattie, and smells like a cow pattie, it probably ain't lunch!
 
Mike,

I like your genuine enthusiasm for HD digital radio. I really do, even though I disagree with you on its technical merits. Most of us who have been in radio for many years naturally think in terms of a future where people will continue to buy a box, turn it on and listen to local AM and FM radio stations to their heart's content. Just because we think that way doesn't mean that normal people neccessarily will.

Let me direct you to a 5-part series on "The Future of Radio" written and published 4 years ago by Kurt Hanson. He's a consultant based in Chicago who owns and operates AccuRadio - a network of Internet radio channels with an AQH audience that now rivals many major New York City radio stations in terms of audience size. As you read it, think about how much of it is or is not gradually becoming reality. I also highly suggest you pick up the book referred to in the series. The book's author has since published two additional excellent books. Click below and transport yourself to March 2003.
  
http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/033103/index.shtml

I was a big fan of AM stereo. Back in the 80's and early 90's I couldn't understand why nobody cared about it. Nobody. At least nobody outside of radio. We need to learn to think a bit more like non-radio people. That's when we'll best be able to serve them - and to take advantage of golden opportunities. 

I've gotten tired of arguing. The future will soon reveal who, if anyone, was right or wrong. Please read the series and share your thoughts about it here if you wish.
 
OH COME ON MIKE! HD IS DEAD! The radio of the future is a $10 SONY AM/FM radio. Just Kidding! ;D I think it is along the lines of KDKA- nobody in 1921 had a radio because it was so new. I have a couple HD radios, one for the house and one for the car and I am technicaly savoy. I wish people would quit peeing on my leg and telling me it's raining- I have not ran across the problems that people "claim" to have with the service. I have enjoyed both radios and realy like the JVC car unit. It is what it is- very early stage in the game!! They will have portable devices soon, hell-If they can put a 40GB HD in a Ipod you know damn well they can shrink the chip for HD Radio. It's comming and I welcome it! Oh yeah, portable CD players used to skip if touched, I wonder what happened there? Here's a hint-(IMPROVEMENT) That "Moving pictures" thing didn't fly? The programming is another issue but it will be worked out by the market. The NA-sayers can crow all they want but it WILL happen! Yep! I can get HD signals 60-110 miles away so that tells me something is working!!
 
With that being said, the government would have done us all a big favor if they would have planned a bit better and allocated the now expanded band for local digital for AM, and in the future the channel 5-6 TV band for digital FM use instead of trying to shove everything in overcrowded bands that already exist. If the FCC had their way we'd all be watching color TV compliments of spinning mechanical disks, we'd have incompatible stereo (with mono) FM radios, and we'd have the sorriest AM standard that could have been used which was Magnavox. Once again the bloated intity know as the FCC strikes again... They aught to hire Ted Kennedy as their mascot! FAT-BLOTED-WORTHLESS
 
Speaking of spinning mechanical discs for color tv, does anyone find it ironic/amusing that the "latest/greatest" in color tv technology, DLP (digital light processing) uses...are you ready for this? SPINNING MECHANICAL DISCS! And the hits just keep on comin'!
 
So you all agree that other, better, more versatile, devices and services that you mentioned, and the public already has, have left HD radio in the dust.
The public has virtually no interest in HD radio, for very good, sound, rational reasons. No matter how badly broadcasters wish everyone would throw out all their more modern, more portable, devices with a multitude of listening choices, and run out and buy millions of broadcaster's expensive, limited, problematic, HD radios, it is not going to happen.
Broadcasters just totally self absorbed with themselves and their profits, deep in denial about problematic HD radio, and it's almost total lack of public benefit or interest, that they can't see that the light they see at the end of the HD tunnel is the Amtrack express about to run them over.
 
I bet you a doughnut that public intrest will show when the price of HD Radio comes down. Plasma TV's started at $12K and the public didn't buy them- wasn't in the price range...BUT....when you can goto Worst Buy and get one for $2K -they sell!! Same deal here $200 for a table-top radio is pricey. When I bought my JVC for the car (while the rebates were good) I knew two other people who bought them too, they are selling. Another testomony- I pulled beside a car at the gas station about a month ago, I looked in the car and guess what- the JVC HD just like mine. That must have been so coinecidental right? Not realy, they ARE selling. Give it time...Rome wasn't built in a day. Mike is 100% right!!!!
 
fmradionuts said:
I bet you a doughnut that public intrest will show when the price of HD Radio comes down. Plasma TV's started at $12K and the public didn't buy them- wasn't in the price range...BUT....when you can goto Worst Buy and get one for $2K -they sell!! Same deal here $200 for a table-top radio is pricey. When I bought my JVC for the car (while the rebates were good) I knew two other people who bought them too, they are selling. Another testomony- I pulled beside a car at the gas station about a month ago, I looked in the car and guess what- the JVC HD just like mine. That must have been so coinecidental right? Not realy, they ARE selling. Give it time...Rome wasn't built in a day. Mike is 100% right!!!!
Click to expand...
People will not buy HD radios (even cheap ones) unless there is some benefit to them.
Many things are cheap, few have much benefit.
 
fmradionuts said:
I bet you a doughnut that public intrest will show when the price of HD Radio comes down. Plasma TV's started at $12K and the public didn't buy them- wasn't in the price range...BUT....when you can goto Worst Buy and get one for $2K -they sell!! Same deal here $200 for a table-top radio is pricey. When I bought my JVC for the car (while the rebates were good) I knew two other people who bought them too, they are selling. Another testomony- I pulled beside a car at the gas station about a month ago, I looked in the car and guess what- the JVC HD just like mine. That must have been so coinecidental right? Not realy, they ARE selling. Give it time...Rome wasn't built in a day. Mike is 100% right!!!!
Click to expand...

"Are you waiting in line for your HD radio?"

"Compare that with the industry's attitude about selling new radio hardware: "Once the price drops below $100, they'll fly off the shelves. The more you have to drop your price, the lower the chance people value what you're selling. And the less likely you are to sell your wares at any price the maker of those wares finds appealing."

http://www.hear2.com/2006/11/are_you_waiting.html

Just because HD MAY be portable, at some point, don't expect people to rush out and buy these things at $50+ bucks, when there has been a total lack of interest in table-top HD. Cheap $10 - $25 analog radios, always rank at the top of Amazon's electronics best-sellers list, so when $50+ portable HD radios knock the Sony Walkman radios off the list, you let me know:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172681/ref=pd_ts_e_nav/102-1715314-7993763

As an example, look at the prices for portable DAB receivers in the UK:

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/dab.html

I suspect, that with table-top HD requiring loop and dipole antennas, lousy reception and DSP noise in vapor-ware portable HD will be a real issue, and will prompt many returns.
 
Dude, I LOVE steak. It's delicious. It's one of my passions. I doubt seriously it rates very high on Amazon or Google Trends. Why would I mail-order a 10 dollar radio online, when Wal Mart here in town sells 'em?

Think mp3 players were flying off the shelves in the spring of 1999, less than a year after the introduction of the first portable player? I can assure you, they weren't. They were specialty items for geeks for about FIVE YEARS, before the market reached critical mass.

Cell phones which people love to flaunt as an "instant success" are amusing when you examine their history. Mobile phones date back more than a half-century. The "rich and famous" had mobile phones IN THE FORTIES! Talk about taking the long road to "overnight success".

FM Stereo was introduced in 1962. DID YOU HAVE AN FM STEREO TUNER IN THE 70s? Portable STEREO radios weren't common until the late 70s, and pocket stereo models weren't common until the early 80s...TWO FULL DECADES LATER!

These are the facts. THIS is the pace at which new technology grows...even when it's successful!
 
Mike Walker said:
Dude, I LOVE steak. It's delicious. It's one of my passions. I doubt seriously it rates very high on Amazon or Google Trends. Why would I mail-order a 10 dollar radio online, when Wal Mart here in town sells 'em?

Think mp3 players were flying off the shelves in the spring of 1999, less than a year after the introduction of the first portable player? I can assure you, they weren't. They were specialty items for geeks for about FIVE YEARS, before the market reached critical mass.

Cell phones which people love to flaunt as an "instant success" are amusing when you examine their history. Mobile phones date back more than a half-century. The "rich and famous" had mobile phones IN THE FORTIES! Talk about taking the long road to "overnight success".

FM Stereo was introduced in 1962. DID YOU HAVE AN FM STEREO TUNER IN THE 70s? Portable STEREO radios weren't common until the late 70s, and pocket stereo models weren't common until the early 80s...TWO FULL DECADES LATER!

These are the facts. THIS is the pace at which new technology grows...even when it's successful!
Click to expand...

"Unspinning some of HD Radio's Dubious PR"

"And promotion alone will not guarantee that listeners will care - unless those listeners have an actual need which HD radio solves (and I'm waiting for someone to explain to me what that is)."

http://www.hear2.com/2005/12/unspinning_some.html

"The Washington Post on HD Radio"

"What's striking to me about this is that he's saying, essentially, that the value of the radio experience arises from the quality and creativity of the content, not just its variety, and not simply the fact that it's commercial-free."

http://www.hear2.com/2006/04/the_washington_.html

Analog FM stereo was a different situation - it didn't exist. The HD Radio Alliance is expecting to replace 800 million existing analog radios (with 100 million continued to be sold every year) with expensive, needless HD radios - that isn't going to happen.
 
With this type of deductive reasoning in place at the NSA, well, it explains a lot. NO technology is "different". It ALL takes time for the public to learn if it offers anything of value, and then more time to adopt. FM stereo is NO different. It was a mode that offered improved audio reproduction (in one sense...stereo separation, but of course worse in terms of frequency response and noise). HD offers more than just an audio upgrade. In metro areas FM stereo can already sound quite nice. It addresses specific weaknesses such as multipath distortion...where it's tens, or even hundreds of times better than analog (not subjective...but MEASURABLE...quantifiable...the kind of thing that used to mean something in, say, INTELLIGENCE WORK!) But it also offers infinitely better stereo separation, AND (the real "sizzle" for those who just want more CHOICES) multicasting.

No it's not the same as FM stereo. It's better. MUCH better.
 
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