-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Toyotas Getting HD et al.
- Thread starter dumber than a box of hair
- Start date
clouseau said:
Right. No conservative has ever acted arrogantly about anything. Sure.
clouseau said:
New Coke, Microsoft Bob and the Edsel were facts too.
BRNout said:
Serious technical question here, but didn't FM, pre-stereo, have a theoretical frequency response up to 20 kHz, that was rolled down to 15 kHz to make room for the stereo pilot?
I'd say, as a somewhat low end audiophile, that's a HUGE detriment to the sound quality of FM sound broadcasts. People who grew up with AM and FM as their primary methods of ingesting music probably are used to it, but going from FM to a CD or even FM to a clear HD feed is night and day difference. You really notice what was missing from the top end (if you still got yer hearing, that is.
) After years of XM, during the sound quality heyday pre-MLB, FM radio to this day sounds simultaneously dull and too loud.While it's true that stereo can easily be defeated on some radios (only 4 of 7 at my disposal), it's also true that FM stereo is of no benefit to tons of listeners just like HD. The same fringe users who can't get HD to decode for anything are in many cases listening to compromised FM stereo, if it hasn't been blended back to mono already by the receiver. I'm about 19 miles from all our FM sticks and can't get clean stereo anywhere near this computer, especially if my old beloved CRT monitor is on! HD punches through on all channels but the one I WANNA listen to, which is still technically an improvement if not to my personal liking.
For that matter, I'm pretty sure color TV introduced new and vexing reception niggles that simply did not plague the black and white receivers of the day. I've read about them before but haven't the foggiest recollection of what exactly it was. Nothing major, but it WAS different.
Zach said:
Theoretically, I guess it could have been that way. However I found this:
http://www.pa.msu.edu/~edmunds/Tube...er/rca_bte_10c_fm_exciter_and_transmitter.pdf
An old manual for a tube-type FM exciter. It gives the frequency response as 50 hz to 15 KHz. The real problem for FM is the 75 microsecond pre-emphasis curve. This makes it difficult for broadcasters to offer flat audio and still remain loud.
Dave B.
"There will never be a portable HD radio." Until there was.
"HD Radio will never be in a Toyota." Until it was.
"HD Radio will never be in a Toyota." Until it was.
Who ever said either "there will never be an HD radio portable" or "HD will never be offered in a Toyota?" I don't recall hearing (or reading) either.
So: there are HD portables now (not many, it must be said.) And Toyota just included HD in a very expensive high-end audio-communications system focusing on internet access and data services (without, it must be pointed out, pointing to the presence of HD Radio in its promotional materials, only for luxury vehicles.)
So what? How many people are listening in digital? How many new Toyota owners are even aware their cars have HD?? They most likely bought the expensive entertainment package for its other features which are top-of-mind, not IBOC.
If you're arguing that someone's buying an HD-capable Toyota is the equivalent of being the first guy in your neighborhood in say, 1957, to have a CTC-series RCA color TV and having the neighbors beating a path to your door to watch Disney's Wonderful World Of Color....or the first guy around to have a Sony BetaMax videocassete recorder in 1974....I beg to differ. HD is a total no-show in the media consumer's consciousness these days. Either they don't know about it, or they know about it and couldn't care less. Apart from a few posters here and some ardent promoters with an agenda, HD is irrelevant, unwanted and ignored.
Plus, for some broadcasters - HD is actually destructive.
So: there are HD portables now (not many, it must be said.) And Toyota just included HD in a very expensive high-end audio-communications system focusing on internet access and data services (without, it must be pointed out, pointing to the presence of HD Radio in its promotional materials, only for luxury vehicles.)
So what? How many people are listening in digital? How many new Toyota owners are even aware their cars have HD?? They most likely bought the expensive entertainment package for its other features which are top-of-mind, not IBOC.
If you're arguing that someone's buying an HD-capable Toyota is the equivalent of being the first guy in your neighborhood in say, 1957, to have a CTC-series RCA color TV and having the neighbors beating a path to your door to watch Disney's Wonderful World Of Color....or the first guy around to have a Sony BetaMax videocassete recorder in 1974....I beg to differ. HD is a total no-show in the media consumer's consciousness these days. Either they don't know about it, or they know about it and couldn't care less. Apart from a few posters here and some ardent promoters with an agenda, HD is irrelevant, unwanted and ignored.
Plus, for some broadcasters - HD is actually destructive.
Nick said:
You make an very good point, especially because Toyota's system will offer several other listening options. If HD offers nothing more than a new annoyance, rather than an improvement, users will seek relief by abandoning the broadcast bands in favor of these alternate services.
Considering the substantial problems with hybrid IBOC, all car radios should provide a way for users to retain the option of "analog only" when a station's frequency is saved to a memory preset. It's quite possible that one of a listener's favorite stations has a strong digital signal on the daily commute (thus minimizing the need to "blend" back to analog) but another is a rimshot signal that sounds worse unless forced to analog, due to frequent blending. At least this would allow listeners to have some degree of control over the poor performance of the system.
I should mention that there's an HD station in upstate New York which has been "out of sync" in a major way for several months -- it sounds as if the analog isn't delayed at all. I happen to know the owner, and suspect the only reason he's running HD is to take advantage of the loophole allowing the HD2 and HD3 programming to be carried on co-owned analog translators. He also a pair of Class As which are 25-30 miles out of town, so he simulcasts their programming on these secondary channels which then makes it legal for him to own and operate fill-in translators downtown. Apparently, he has no interest in promoting HD radio (there's no mention on the station website); it's simply a legal way to circumvent § 74.1232(d) and (e).
If I were a regular listener to this station and had an HD radio in the car, I would definitely want to force it to analog!
KB1OKL said:
It would be in iBiquity's best interest to have this feature included. If a customer buys a new Toyota (or another make), then discovers that HD blending is annoying and complains to the car dealer, the dealer can explain how to program the receiver to disable digital reception on the station(s) with coverage problems. With fewer complaints, iBiquity might enjoy a few more years of life.
Otherwise, word will get back to auto manufacturers and/or broadcasters that HD remains directly responsible for a lot of consumer dissatisfaction, hastening the IBOC system's eventual demise.
There's little chance iBiquity would ever consider this idea seriously; that's why I don't mind discussing it here.
KB1OKL said:
AFAIK all car stereos whether OEM or aftermarket seem to offer a force-analog switch somewhere, which may or may not be persistent after the unit is switched off.
It seems to be only the cheapos made by Insignia and other fly by night companies that lack an on-off switch. Wish my radio had one, WJLQ Pensacola has had no delay for months now, which makes their station unlistenable in digital while moving. It's a shame, they have a great sound in HD since they run no subchannels. Also, the Pensacola public radio station WUWF has an issue only on my two Insignia portables, where one won't decode it all, while the older one does BUT drops to silence instead of analog on the HD-1 feed. So there's two cases where I wish I had a switch.
This is where I'd normally say it isn't the radio's fault usually, but the station's for having a piss poor HD setup. But to be fair, I can find NO way to contact my offending station and ask them to fix it. The only stations with actual contact information easily available are NPR/public radio outlets. I've talked to the WUWF folks about their problem but their radios all work fine and they can't figure out why these two radios are affected the way they are.
A REALLY useful switch would be one to switch off an AM station's IBOC noisemaker so I could listen to it clearly again. ;D
It would have made much more sense to handle synchronization in the receiver. Just line up a few waveform peaks and determine precisely how long to buffer. There will always be processing drift at the origin; the receiver simply repeats the process periodically to compensate.
Perhaps a new generation of receivers can do this. Hey, we're up to sixth-generation iPod; SatRad 2.0 is coming this fall. There'd be no disgrace in spec'ing and marketing a second-generation HDR, considering the technology is now in its tenth calendar year on air.
Perhaps a new generation of receivers can do this. Hey, we're up to sixth-generation iPod; SatRad 2.0 is coming this fall. There'd be no disgrace in spec'ing and marketing a second-generation HDR, considering the technology is now in its tenth calendar year on air.
Savage said:
Both were said on this board, repeatedly.
Savage said:
I think this system will be more mainstream than most here would like to admit. They are putting this into Toyota badged vehicles after all, not Lexus. Internet enabled entertainment options like this are more likely to sway younger, less affluent buyers than older, wealthier ones.
Savage said:
That's the beauty of it. HD Radio is well on its way now from becoming "HD Radio" to just becoming "radio." People with this system will just suddenly notice that they have more radio stations. Again, price point for the system hasn't been established, and I suspect Toyota will be aiming it at younger buyers.
Savage said:
Of course not. HD is just an extension of radio. As it becomes standard equipment in more and more new cars, it'll just be more radio.
People don't get excited about a box. If the MacBook I'm writing this on had no OS, it would be an attractive paperweight. People get excited about the programming on radio stations, not the radios themselves. Thanks to Ford and now Toyota, people will have access to the HD programming. Of course to the user, it will simply appear as new stations on the FM dial.
Casey said:
I feel really, really, really good about the chances of Honda offering HD in the not too distant future.
After what I have read about HD Radio at CES, I may have to retract my former opinion. It is still not a given, but it seems much more likely. It seems HD Radio is really trying to start the year off with a bang. I do not know if it will be successful in the long run, but it looks like this will be more successful than past years. I do think Ibiquity is spending way too much time concentrating on meaningless features to make it more social friendly.
Now if only analog AM/FM radio stayed around regardless of digital, I would be happy. I have an ever increasing amount invested on classic radios that I do not want to go to waste.
Now if only analog AM/FM radio stayed around regardless of digital, I would be happy. I have an ever increasing amount invested on classic radios that I do not want to go to waste.
radiogooroo said:
If iBiquity can keep up with the partnerships, even if it's just in one premium model radio per maker, then the hard part will be upon us: getting Cheap Channel and Crumulus and others to FIX the problems on their end. The more people who have access to the technology, the more they're gonna have to actually work to keep their stations from breaking down, dropping out, cutting off and sounding bad.
All the increased sales of HD radios will mean nothing if the stations don't put out a quality product. And right now, I don't hear a quality product in a lot of markets. LA was an exception, St Louis another good HD market… but just about everywhere else I've had the "I can't believe they're letting this happen" reaction.
Management is gonna have to come off some money and the engineers are gonna have to start giving a damn about how their subchannels sound.
Well, I've gotta say it: HD believers have to listen to themselves, and truly appreciate their own arguments, to appreciate the absurdity of this system.
"The beauty of" this development is best manifested when people aren't even aware of it??
When you heard assertions like "HD will have succeeded when it's simply imposed on listeners," we've stepped through the IBOC looking glass. So some of us think it's a really great idea to force a system with "choices" (HD subs) that drop out to silence, a main digital stream which at best sounds about like the analog, ratchets AM back to telephone-bandpass audio, and spews harmful interference on neighbors while self-interference limits car listening -arguably terrestrial radio's remaining wheelhouse? If this kind of thinking becomes dominant, we're in a lot of trouble.
Of course, here is where the real naysayers on this board - HD proponents - quip, "radio's already in a lot of trouble."
Reasonable minds can differ about the depth and breadth of radio's problems today, but a major contributor is HD Radio, IMO.
"The beauty of" this development is best manifested when people aren't even aware of it??
When you heard assertions like "HD will have succeeded when it's simply imposed on listeners," we've stepped through the IBOC looking glass. So some of us think it's a really great idea to force a system with "choices" (HD subs) that drop out to silence, a main digital stream which at best sounds about like the analog, ratchets AM back to telephone-bandpass audio, and spews harmful interference on neighbors while self-interference limits car listening -arguably terrestrial radio's remaining wheelhouse? If this kind of thinking becomes dominant, we're in a lot of trouble.
Of course, here is where the real naysayers on this board - HD proponents - quip, "radio's already in a lot of trouble."
Reasonable minds can differ about the depth and breadth of radio's problems today, but a major contributor is HD Radio, IMO.
KB1OKL said:If you keep saying it over and over again it will become real!
You don't have to say it over and over. With Ford, and Toyota and soon Honda on board, it is real.
- Status