Two new Tivoli WiFi/FM radios. Price tbd. No HD radio.

[Mike Walker]

If internet radio does grow exponentially, bandwidth costs will kill it. One unique connection to each freakin' listener is a SILLY model for mass communication. If someone comes up with something more efficient, then we may be talkin'. The more listeners internet radio has, the more it costs to serve them. And "wi-fi" is internet radio. Solve the problem of bandwidth costs, and we'll be in business...REAL business...able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously with very high quality audio. Now? Not so much!

 

[Mike Walker]

Battery life WILL NOT BE POOR, because the chips, already developed in prototype form, are EXTREMELY efficient. And "reception will be poor"? How do you freakin' know that? Name a technology that hasn't improved with time. I dare you.

 

[PocketRadio]

Battery life WILL NOT BE POOR, because the chips, already developed in prototype form, are EXTREMELY efficient. And "reception will be poor"? How do you freakin' know that? Name a technology that hasn't improved with time. I dare you.

The HD chips are still vaporwear - DAB receiver chips, which have been out for years, are battery hogs averaging 10 hours per use. HD reception has always been problematic, even with AM-loop and external FM-dipole antennas. DSP chips are computers and will always be battery-hogs.

 

[clouseau]

Battery life WILL NOT BE POOR, because the chips, already developed in prototype form, are EXTREMELY efficient. And "reception will be poor"? How do you freakin' know that? Name a technology that hasn't improved with time. I dare you.

The HD chips are still vaporwear - DAB receiver chips, which have been out for years, are battery hogs averaging 10 hours per use.

If this is true, I have a legit question as I don't use battery devices except my cell. Is 10 hours of battery life bad? My cell gets a couple of hours of talk time on a charge. My Laptop needs a battery change to watch a DVD. 10 Hours seems acceptabel to me.

HD reception has always been problematic, even with AM-loop and external FM-dipole antennas. DSP chips are computers and will always be battery-hogs.

Clouseau

 

[SUPERCASTER]

As Tivoli announces 2 wifi/FM radios, Roku has dropped the prices on its popular line of SoundBridge Internet radio and streaming music players.

The SoundBridge M1001 has been reduced by $50 and is now only $149.99.
The SoundBridge Radio has been reduced by $100 and is now $299.99. These planned price reductions are made as part of Roku’s goal of making Internet Radio available to as many consumers as possible. Now Internet radio players are more accessible and affordable to more people than ever before. SoundBridge products can be purchased online at www.rokulabs.com or at retailers nation-wide.

It's getting cheaper and easier to hear those HD and HD-2 stations through wifi radios, leapfrogging any need for a tabletop or component HD radio. As long as they stream online, you can hear every single one of them without distance, antenna, interference or power issues.

Look for more wifi radio announcements as we approach the Christmas gift-buying season.

Unless you are housebound these radios have limited appeal and they all require a internet subscription. To me that amounts to an extra $50 a month bill and the purchase of a wireless router/access point. This is great for home use, but of course if I want to listen to these stations I can always use my computer, so what do I need another appliance for?

If you already pay for your internet connection anyway (you're here aren't you?) then why would it cost an "extra $50 a month bill" to listen to internet radio?

WiMax is coming!

 

[vsa]

Battery life WILL NOT BE POOR, because the chips, already developed in prototype form, are EXTREMELY efficient. And "reception will be poor"? How do you freakin' know that? Name a technology that hasn't improved with time. I dare you.

Digital compact cassettes. AM Stereo. 8-Track tapes, buggy whips.

OK, there may have been some slight improvements, but they all were dead ends.

 

[mgpt6]

Tivoli is working with WZLX in Boston to monitor their 5.1 Surround Sound on their HD-! channel. Bose and Boston Acoustics are doing the same.

 

[Chuck]

Have you guys seen this? http://www.azentek.com/webpages/atlas.html

Looks like an Internet car radio to me. Yes, it is vaporware, but until recently, so was HD. As for the cost of Internet access, that may not be as big a hurdle as some think. Like many things technology has brought us, once we get whatever it is, we don't know how we got along with out it. This looks like one of those products to me.

I'm certainly that way. For a long time, I balked at paying for a wireless EVDO Internet card for my laptop computer. I’ve made it an amusing game to see where I could log on for free with Wi-Fi. Problem was, sometimes I couldn’t, or the hosting company wanted to hit me for $10 for the privilege. Now that I have the card, I wouldn't do without it. It has literally saved me many times the cost each month, just in wasted time and frustration. It has also saved me when I was in a place that wanted to charge me $10 to log on for five minutes.

I suspect that when people figure out how convenient it is to have a multi-function computer in their car, they won't really care what it costs. They sure are dishing out cash for GPS systems, MP3 players, PDA’s, cell phones, PDA’s etc. Whether this thing will ever have HD radio capabilities is a mystery to me, but you can be very sure that it will have streaming audio (and video) capabilities.

People will cheerfully pay for this, just like they seem more than willing to pay for an I-phone. It's because they can easily see a positive benefit for them by spending the money.

 

[vsa]

Have you guys seen this? http://www.azentek.com/webpages/atlas.html

Looks like an Internet car radio to me. Yes, it is vaporware, but until recently, so was HD. As for the cost of Internet access, that may not be as big a hurdle as some think. Like many things technology has brought us, once we get whatever it is, we don't know how we got along with out it. This looks like one of those products to me.

I'm certainly that way. For a long time, I balked at paying for a wireless EVDO Internet card for my laptop computer. I’ve made it an amusing game to see where I could log on for free with Wi-Fi. Problem was, sometimes I couldn’t, or the hosting company wanted to hit me for $10 for the privilege. Now that I have the card, I wouldn't do without it. It has literally saved me many times the cost each month, just in wasted time and frustration. It has also saved me when I was in a place that wanted to charge me $10 to log on for five minutes.

I suspect that when people figure out how convenient it is to have a multi-function computer in their car, they won't really care what it costs. They sure are dishing out cash for GPS systems, MP3 players, PDA’s, cell phones, PDA’s etc. Whether this thing will ever have HD radio capabilities is a mystery to me, but you can be very sure that it will have streaming audio (and video) capabilities.

People will cheerfully pay for this, just like they seem more than willing to pay for an I-phone. It's because they can easily see a positive benefit for them by spending the money.

Chuck, this is nothing to worry about for radio. People who will never pay for a subscription, electricity, batteries or the extra gasoline it takes to power anything inside an automobile will still only listen on those hand-cranking radios. And there are an awful lot of those folks! When those newfangled computer radios are powered by a hand crank then we'll perhaps have some competition.

Excuse me, I've gotta call my broker now and dump sell some stock.

 

[vsa]

Chuck wrote: "...Now that I have the [EV-DO] card, I wouldn't do without it.  It has literally saved me many times the cost each month, just in wasted time and frustration.  It has also saved me when I was in a place that wanted to charge me $10 to log on for five minutes..."

Couldn't have said it better. I'll never go back after owning an EV-DO powered phone. It works so well as a high-speed modem for my laptop. With my VZW voice plan the data service only runs $40 a month. A bargain for what it does.

For those who are unaware, VZW is upgrading EV-DO wireless data service to Revision A right now, which doubles download speeds and boosts upload speeds to half of the download speeds (up to 1.5 mbps down and 768 kbps up). You get the whole Internet at smokin' speeds with a newer card.

 

[R.F. Burns]

As Tivoli announces 2 wifi/FM radios, Roku has dropped the prices on its popular line of SoundBridge Internet radio and streaming music players.

The SoundBridge M1001 has been reduced by $50 and is now only $149.99.
The SoundBridge Radio has been reduced by $100 and is now $299.99. These planned price reductions are made as part of Roku’s goal of making Internet Radio available to as many consumers as possible. Now Internet radio players are more accessible and affordable to more people than ever before. SoundBridge products can be purchased online at www.rokulabs.com or at retailers nation-wide.

It's getting cheaper and easier to hear those HD and HD-2 stations through wifi radios, leapfrogging any need for a tabletop or component HD radio. As long as they stream online, you can hear every single one of them without distance, antenna, interference or power issues.

Look for more wifi radio announcements as we approach the Christmas gift-buying season.

Unless you are housebound these radios have limited appeal and they all require a internet subscription. To me that amounts to an extra $50 a month bill and the purchase of a wireless router/access point. This is great for home use, but of course if I want to listen to these stations I can always use my computer, so what do I need another appliance for?

If you already pay for your internet connection anyway (you're here aren't you?) then why would it cost an "extra $50 a month bill" to listen to internet radio?

WiMax is coming!

Because if you are a normal healthy person you aren't house bound. My internet only comes in via wire into my home. Tell me how that translates to my daily commute? By the way, as a consumer I'd like something like Wi-Max. That way I can listen to all of my NY stations no matter where I am. Stations like WFAN already have an internet pressence and that only means more listeners for the station. I can't speak for small operations but larger broadcasters will not be hurt by internet program delivery. By the way, wake me when the infrastucture is built. I'm not talking about some small town but the entire east coast (I-95) of the United States, into Canada. Think it'll happen in five years? What would you have those of us who are mobile until then? At some point children grow up, become responsible adults and find it helps to know what's happening beyond the block. Where are people going to get their local sports or news coverage? You've got quite a bit of work to do before you see your dream come true. Good luck!!!

 

[Mike Walker]

There's an interesting article in the new PC World about how mobile "unlimited" data plans aren't unlimited at all. MOST limit the amount of audio and/or video one may access in a given month. That more here haven't run up against this limit may illulstrate how much they REALLY listen on these devices! (It's between 1 and 2 gigabytes of total data transfer per month, and many companies outright forbid using any of that for audio or video).

 

[SUPERCASTER]

If internet radio does grow exponentially, bandwidth costs will kill it. One unique connection to each freakin' listener is a SILLY model for mass communication. If someone comes up with something more efficient, then we may be talkin'. The more listeners internet radio has, the more it costs to serve them. And "wi-fi" is internet radio. Solve the problem of bandwidth costs, and we'll be in business...REAL business...able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously with very high quality audio. Now? Not so much!

Internet audio (and even High-Def video) already is "able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously with very high quality audio" and video and already does so, every hour of every day. I guess that makes it a "REAL business" NOW!
The early "problem" of millions of simultaneous streams has long been solved, and was caused by slow connections to end users, while the internet backbone still has several magnitudes of unused capacity.
So there is no widespread problem, as you claim.
Perhaps you still get your internet by pony express, so you think everyone else does too.

 

[R.F. Burns]

If internet radio does grow exponentially, bandwidth costs will kill it. One unique connection to each freakin' listener is a SILLY model for mass communication. If someone comes up with something more efficient, then we may be talkin'. The more listeners internet radio has, the more it costs to serve them. And "wi-fi" is internet radio. Solve the problem of bandwidth costs, and we'll be in business...REAL business...able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously with very high quality audio. Now? Not so much!

Internet audio (and even High-Def video) already is "able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously with very high quality audio" and video and already does so, every hour of every day. I guess that makes it a "REAL business" NOW!
The early "problem" of millions of simultaneous streams has long been solved, and was caused by slow connections to end users, while the internet backbone still has several magnitudes of unused capacity.
So there is no widespread problem, as you claim.
Perhaps you still get your internet by pony express, so you think everyone else does too.

"Internet audio (and even High-Def video) already is "able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously"


Where did you get this from and do you know anyhting about streaming? Are you saying that a single streamer can serve hundreds of millions of listeners..simultaneously? Or even a few hundred thousands streams? That's what you'd need to replace terrestrial radio in a city like NYC. Maybe you have information I'm not familiar with. I do know that one station which uses Live 365 has a 50 person on line maximum. I can't imagine what one million simultanious feeds would cost to stream, if it can be done.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

If internet radio does grow exponentially, bandwidth costs will kill it. One unique connection to each freakin' listener is a SILLY model for mass communication. If someone comes up with something more efficient, then we may be talkin'. The more listeners internet radio has, the more it costs to serve them. And "wi-fi" is internet radio. Solve the problem of bandwidth costs, and we'll be in business...REAL business...able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously with very high quality audio. Now? Not so much!

Internet audio (and even High-Def video) already is "able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously with very high quality audio" and video and already does so, every hour of every day. I guess that makes it a "REAL business" NOW!
The early "problem" of millions of simultaneous streams has long been solved, and was caused by slow connections to end users, while the internet backbone still has several magnitudes of unused capacity.
So there is no widespread problem, as you claim.
Perhaps you still get your internet by pony express, so you think everyone else does too.

"Internet audio (and even High-Def video) already is "able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously"


Where did you get this from and do you know anyhting about streaming? Are you saying that a single streamer can serve hundreds of millions of listeners..simultaneously? Or even a few hundred thousands streams? That's what you'd need to replace terrestrial radio in a city like NYC. Maybe you have information I'm not familiar with. I do know that one station which uses Live 365 has a 50 person on line maximum. I can't imagine what one million simultanious feeds would cost to stream, if it can be done.

I stand by my statement:

Internet audio (and even High-Def video) already is "able to serve hundreds of millions of listeners simultaneously with very high quality audio" and video and already does so, every hour of every day. I guess that makes it a "REAL business" NOW!

Not your deceptively modified version of my statement.
I never said anything about "Live 365". There are many sources and methods of streaming, and downloading. If you know anything about streaming then you would know it is much more then just "Live 365".

 

[Mike Walker]

Someone doesn't understand how streaming works. First of all, internet radio doesn't serve "hundreds of millions" of listeners in America. The most optimistic estimate is that about 20 percent of Americans listen to internet radio. Forty percent of Americans don't even have broadband access yet.

By bandwidth problems, I'm not talking about the internet itself, or broadband in general. I'm talking about how it's TREMENDOUSLY expensive for any individual webcaster to serve thousands simultaneously, let alone millions. There is no "economy of scale'...still the expense of an individual connection from my server to your computer (or device) for each and every listener. EVERY INDIVIDUAL INTERNET CONNECTION HAS A BANDWIDTH CEILING. It may be 5mbps, 10mbps, 20mbps, or higher, but every one has a ceiling...an absolute limit you cannot exceed without increasing the size of your "pipe". It's the only area in broadcasting where if you're breaking even with a few listeners, you likely will lose BIG TIME with a lot of 'em. Perhaps you have no experience in "webcasting", but we (those of us hwo webcast) have to pay higher prices when more bandwidth is used. More listeners COST MORE MONEY.

It's the exact opposite of the traditional broadcast model, where cost is fixed (buy the station, the studio gear, transmitter, etc), and that's it as far as cost (other than salaries, etc.) If you have 100 listeners, your costs are fixed...it costs you a certain amount to broadcast, and with that small an audience you're unlikely to do much for any advertisers. But if you have 100,000 listeners, your cost stays the same, but the economy of scale is through the roof...you're reaching 100,000 listeners for exactly the same price as you previously reached 100.

For a webcaster, if you have 100 simultaneous streams, you may be paying 200 dollars a month. But if that suddenly jumps to 1000, your streaming costs could also jump to thousands. If it jumps to millions, you are s.o.l. unless you can put together a helluva business model PRONTO. You are literally strangled by your own "success". Streaming costs lots. But unless you're one of the "biggies", the revenue it produces is almost never enough to keep up. Which is why "successful" webcasters are just as likely as small ones to LOSE MONEY. Perhaps LOTS OF IT!

Nothing has been done about these realities of streaming. And nothing has been done about the "wolf at the door"...a recording industry hungry for a "kill". Their chosen prey? INTERNET RADIO! And they'll keep sniffing around webcaster's "door(s)" until they finally make that kill. They're VERY patient.

 

[R.F. Burns]

Someone doesn't understand how streaming works. First of all, internet radio doesn't serve "hundreds of millions" of listeners in America. The most optimistic estimate is that about 20 percent of Americans listen to internet radio. Forty percent of Americans don't even have broadband access yet.

By bandwidth problems, I'm not talking about the internet itself, or broadband in general. I'm talking about how it's TREMENDOUSLY expensive for any individual webcaster to serve thousands simultaneously, let alone millions. There is no "economy of scale'...still the expense of an individual connection from my server to your computer (or device) for each and every listener. EVERY INDIVIDUAL INTERNET CONNECTION HAS A BANDWIDTH CEILING. It may be 5mbps, 10mbps, 20mbps, or higher, but every one has a ceiling...an absolute limit you cannot exceed without increasing the size of your "pipe". It's the only area in broadcasting where if you're breaking even with a few listeners, you likely will lose BIG TIME with a lot of 'em. Perhaps you have no experience in "webcasting", but we (those of us hwo webcast) have to pay higher prices when more bandwidth is used. More listeners COST MORE MONEY.

It's the exact opposite of the traditional broadcast model, where cost is fixed (buy the station, the studio gear, transmitter, etc), and that's it as far as cost (other than salaries, etc.) If you have 100 listeners, your costs are fixed...it costs you a certain amount to broadcast, and with that small an audience you're unlikely to do much for any advertisers. But if you have 100,000 listeners, your cost stays the same, but the economy of scale is through the roof...you're reaching 100,000 listeners for exactly the same price as you previously reached 100.

For a webcaster, if you have 100 simultaneous streams, you may be paying 200 dollars a month. But if that suddenly jumps to 1000, your streaming costs could also jump to thousands. If it jumps to millions, you are s.o.l. unless you can put together a helluva business model PRONTO. You are literally strangled by your own "success". Streaming costs lots. But unless you're one of the "biggies", the revenue it produces is almost never enough to keep up. Which is why "successful" webcasters are just as likely as small ones to LOSE MONEY. Perhaps LOTS OF IT!

Nothing has been done about these realities of streaming. And nothing has been done about the "wolf at the door"...a recording industry hungry for a "kill". Their chosen prey? INTERNET RADIO! And they'll keep sniffing around webcaster's "door(s)" until they finally make that kill. They're VERY patient.

This was my point but of course Supercaster toook my response out of context and played dumb to prove his point. Even if you could afford it could the net support the 15 million plus simultanious connects in a city the size of NY?

 

[Chuck]

This was my point but of course Supercaster toook my response out of context and played dumb to prove his point. Even if you could afford it could the net support the 15 million plus simultanious connects in a city the size of NY?

I suspect that to say it will never happen is being very short sighted. Obviously it will be difficult to wire a place like NYC, but then conventional broadcasting has its shortcomings in an environment like that too. There are a lot of people, tons of interference and multi-path from all the buildings. It’s full of places a clean signal isn't receivable. That fact alone might actually give some kind of Internet connectivity a leg up over conventional broadcasting. If a system can be installed that meets multiple problems, including telephone, data delivery, email, web surfing, GPS mapping, audio -video entertainment and information, it may actually be more cost effective than installing several single purpose delivery means. Think about it.

As for the quote "It may work well in some small city" well it seems it does, or at least it is starting there. I do not live in what I'd call a High Tech community, but wireless Internet services are available from a variety of sources at reasonable prices. People out here are actually buying into these services. The local AT&T store had a line to get I-phones. It made the 10 PM evening news. It sounds like people are more than willing to pay for something they really want.

Maybe the big cities are the ones who are going to get left behind. Lots of people are leaving them. Some of them are coming to my area which is experiencing very high growth. These new services are here to greet them.

 

[R.F. Burns]

This was my point but of course Supercaster toook my response out of context and played dumb to prove his point. Even if you could afford it could the net support the 15 million plus simultanious connects in a city the size of NY?

I suspect that to say it will never happen is being very short sighted. Obviously it will be difficult to wire a place like NYC, but then conventional broadcasting has its shortcomings in an environment like that too. There are a lot of people, tons of interference and multi-path from all the buildings. It’s full of places a clean signal isn't receivable. That fact alone might actually give some kind of Internet connectivity a leg up over conventional broadcasting. If a system can be installed that meets multiple problems, including telephone, data delivery, email, web surfing, GPS mapping, audio -video entertainment and information, it may actually be more cost effective than installing several single purpose delivery means. Think about it.

As for the quote "It may work well in some small city" well it seems it does, or at least it is starting there. I do not live in what I'd call a High Tech community, but wireless Internet services are available from a variety of sources at reasonable prices. People out here are actually buying into these services. The local AT&T store had a line to get I-phones. It made the 10 PM evening news. It sounds like people are more than willing to pay for something they really want.

Maybe the big cities are the ones who are going to get left behind. Lots of people are leaving them. Some of them are coming to my area which is experiencing very high growth. These new services are here to greet them.

But again Chuck, you may haver misunderstood me. Never have I said that it will never happen. For years I have been saying that some sort of "internet" transmission will happen BUT, It's more then just infrastructure. Even professional broadcasters with deep pockets would find it hard to supply the many hundreds of thousands of possible simultanious streams which would eb required in a city like NY or LA. As a broadcaster it's kind of difficult when a person tries to tune their radio to your stream and receives, not enough bandwidth can not connect try later alarms. That and at least for now, the internet is a 2 way device and requires the reception of packets from the receiving end so that they can connect with a specific stream. Can you imagine a city like NY where you have millions of simultanious requests or tens of thousands along a single highway like the Long Island Expressway? I read how the anti IBOC typed don't like the buffering which digital transmission and reception require. Can you imagine the buffering required when you're in your car and you lose the signal for whatever reason and there is no analog to fall back on? Or when a massive power outage occurs and the batteries at all of these low power internet transmission sites runs out? When 9-11 occured we had transmitters scattered all over the metro area providinig information. Ever tried to connect with a site when one of the relay links fail? Yea, that'll be great. One of the relays disappears as does your station. That's not robust enough to provide emergency coverage. I've been around long enough to have witnessed or been involved with emergency news coverage which can mean the difference between life and death. As to multipath, that's just what HD will overcome. In a city like NY which is filled with concrete and steel caverns ghosting and multipath are a way of life. However, with digital there is no multipath. I've seen it work myself and it's very effective at combating that anomoly. As for the I-Phone it's been very well promoted by tech heads and sure there arelines. There are lines at Difara's pizza in Midwood too (http://gonyc.about.com/cs/restaurants/gr/rr_difara.htm) and that is most days not just a few. HD is going to take years to catch on but we're very early in the game and no matter what some say major market broadcasting is still a very profitable industry. On a final note yiou mention that many people are leaving large cities. That is hardly the case here. For anyone who leaves there are 100 or more waiting to get in. Taking NYC as an example, there's a reason that we were hit by terrorists and not say Lexington Nebraska. NYC is the center of the world. Sounds a bit self centered? Well think about it. We are the economic center of the United States and home to the United Nations. Where do countrues from around the world have their embassies? In Washington DC (where our government is located) and in NYC. Where is the Statue of Liberty located? Broadway? and on and on. This isn't to say that we are better or worse then other parts of the country. The US is great, but take a look at some statistics and maybe you'll see just how big NYC is; (http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=57)

Finally here are some statistics about population density;

Population (2006)
- City 8,214,426
- Density 26,720/sq mi (10,316/km²)
- Urban 18,498,000
- Metro 18,818,536


So when I say you have to be able to serve millions simultaniously and seamlessly, you see what I mean.


By the way, the reason your local station is covering the release of the I-Phone is because most likely they are getting video from their network newsfeed service. Its a national story
magnified because even with the ongoing war in Iraq, it's a relative slow news period and this is a feature piece.

 

[PocketRadio]

HD is going to take years to catch on but we're very early in the game and no matter what some say major market broadcasting is still a very profitable industry.

"Flat Industry Growth Hurts Radio One"

"The radio industry's growth has been stagnant for years, and Radio One executives said the company's profit is being eaten into by new technology, such as Internet and satellite radio."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050401844.html

Boy, if I was in the broadcast industry I'de be looking for a way out - radio has no future with Gen Y and will eventually just be a shell of what it is today. Consumer interest in HD Radio has been flat ever since the first HD radio was sold in 2004, and HD stations started broadcasting in 2002:

http://www.google.com/trends?q="hd+...odcast&ctab=0&geo=US&geor=all&date=all&sort=0

iBiquity is on the hot-seat, as it still has not gone public and is still raising private funding. Eventually, all of this will implode after destroying the broadcast bands with IBUZZ/IBLOCK.