Here's the link:
http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,117551.0.html
http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,117551.0.html
-
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
WBZ iHiss off!
- Thread starter SUPERCASTER
- Start date
Dont get all sweaty. It would be a great late Christmas gift for WYSL if they took that iBiquity exciter out to the parking lot and Manuelian backed over it a few times with the engineering SUV, but I somehow suspect that would be too much to hope - at least for the near term.
Our sources say WBZ-AM/HD (with studios soon to be downsized to accomodate four high school kids in a Sears utility shed) is having STL problems and has been either at a backup site with 10kw nondirectional or at full power, but without IBOC.
The nitwit management at C-B.S. is too invested in HD Radio to simply shut off IBOC until it's pried from their cold dead fingers. I fervently wish I'm wrong here but I suspect it will be back on hissing away as soon as they can get somebody stupid enough out to Hull to "fix things."
Above all: gotta save face. Can't admit AM-HD has been a disaster. No freakin' way.
OTOH: it appears from Barry McLarnon's AM-IBOC site that WTIC's hiss-factory has been shut down. It does make you wonder if conscience and common sense might finally be seeing the light of day?
(.......nahh. Probably not.)
Our sources say WBZ-AM/HD (with studios soon to be downsized to accomodate four high school kids in a Sears utility shed) is having STL problems and has been either at a backup site with 10kw nondirectional or at full power, but without IBOC.
The nitwit management at C-B.S. is too invested in HD Radio to simply shut off IBOC until it's pried from their cold dead fingers. I fervently wish I'm wrong here but I suspect it will be back on hissing away as soon as they can get somebody stupid enough out to Hull to "fix things."
Above all: gotta save face. Can't admit AM-HD has been a disaster. No freakin' way.
OTOH: it appears from Barry McLarnon's AM-IBOC site that WTIC's hiss-factory has been shut down. It does make you wonder if conscience and common sense might finally be seeing the light of day?
(.......nahh. Probably not.)
Maybe listeners are calling WBZ to thank them for fixing that hissing sound.
Nor will he. He's been told to shut up and be a good little IBOC bootlicker by his dumber-than-a-box-of-rocks bosses. I'm sure the massive layoffs and lurch to syndicated and out-of-market imported talk product on WBZ have him amply scared for his job.
Staying in line and slavishly helping Dan Mason and Glynn Walden save face are the priorities at CBS. Not excellence in programming or engineering reality.
Staying in line and slavishly helping Dan Mason and Glynn Walden save face are the priorities at CBS. Not excellence in programming or engineering reality.
KB1OKL said:
I think it will eventually disappear for keeps with the way AM IBOC is becoming a big disaster both on paper and on the air. It simply does not work. PERIOD. "Call it a day", remove the IBOC, those brickwall filters and make AM sound acceptable once again. Honestly, the way it sounds right now, I cannot listen to it.
M
Mike Walker
Guest
I take strong exception to the term "IHISS" as applied to AM HD. Anyone who's actually heard the interference knows it's NOT a hiss. Instead, is sounds much more like a distant swarm of bees!
As for "artifical highs", that's plain BS. YES there is spectral replication at low bitrates. But there are NO MUSICAL NOTES (fundamental tones) above about 3khz, and overtones are actually quite predictable, hence able to be recreated with pretty good accuracy from what's "down below". Overtones are, after all, harmonically related to the fundamental.
The REAL issue with low bitrate HDC (as in AM HD) is the swishy, gargling type artifact in the midrange, and the weird, hissy, "ghosting" behind voices when there's no music to hide it. The ear is most sensitive at midrange frequencies. God trained us to hear VOICES better than any other sound. And this is where low bitrate coding really falls apart.
As for "artifical highs", that's plain BS. YES there is spectral replication at low bitrates. But there are NO MUSICAL NOTES (fundamental tones) above about 3khz, and overtones are actually quite predictable, hence able to be recreated with pretty good accuracy from what's "down below". Overtones are, after all, harmonically related to the fundamental.
The REAL issue with low bitrate HDC (as in AM HD) is the swishy, gargling type artifact in the midrange, and the weird, hissy, "ghosting" behind voices when there's no music to hide it. The ear is most sensitive at midrange frequencies. God trained us to hear VOICES better than any other sound. And this is where low bitrate coding really falls apart.
"Overtones are quite predictable?"
That, Michael, will come as news to audio engineers, broadcast engineers and musicians who have known for about two hundred years about "odd-order harmonics." You know, the RANDOM overtones which give music and speech a rich, rewarding quality.
If overtones were as "predictable" as you seem to believe they are, each scrape of a bow across a string, each cymbal crash, each "th" and "sh" and "f" spoken by the human voice would sound like every other.
Which, of course, we know is not true. Hence the term (in referring to any digital image of an analog waveform).....'ARTIFACT.' As in: "Artificial."
Even the professionally untrained can readily distinguish a fuzzy digital approximation, from the original sound. This is so well known, and beyond dispute.
That, Michael, will come as news to audio engineers, broadcast engineers and musicians who have known for about two hundred years about "odd-order harmonics." You know, the RANDOM overtones which give music and speech a rich, rewarding quality.
If overtones were as "predictable" as you seem to believe they are, each scrape of a bow across a string, each cymbal crash, each "th" and "sh" and "f" spoken by the human voice would sound like every other.
Which, of course, we know is not true. Hence the term (in referring to any digital image of an analog waveform).....'ARTIFACT.' As in: "Artificial."
Even the professionally untrained can readily distinguish a fuzzy digital approximation, from the original sound. This is so well known, and beyond dispute.
Mike Walker said:
OK I guess maybe iWhoosh is a better term? Whoosh is a lower frequency hiss, and actually hiss would be more tolerable. I have never heard IBOC buzz like bees, only an obnoxious whooshing sound which completely envelopes everything under it including legally operating stations which someone may want to listen to. If the transmitters are capped at 3K anything above that frequency is artificially created or if you will is an approximation of what the synthesizing gadgetry thinks is there, that is artificial sound. A synthesizer is capable of making violin-like sounds, almost but no cigar, the highs on AM iBlock are in the same category, except much less life-like. The highs on AM iBOC are akin to saccharine as compared to sugar. Synthesizers make artificial sound, so does AM IBOC, and Savage is right no two violins sound exactly the same because of differing overtones, even the same violin will sound different in different hands because of different techniques which result in different overtones. AM IBOC is an abomination.
KB1OKL said:
Kind of like any local AM station does to a co channel station, even in analog.
Also it appears since you specifically mention stations being covered up which are "Legally Operating", as in analog, virtually ALL legally operating stations, HD or not, precludethe reception of other legally operating stations.
Just wanted to keep that clear, since I'm sure you weren't intentionally trying to mislead people, KB.
Clouseau
clouseau said:KB1OKL said:
Kind of like any local AM station does to a co channel station, even in analog.
Also it appears since you specifically mention stations being covered up which are "Legally Operating", as in analog, virtually ALL legally operating stations, HD or not, precludethe reception of other legally operating stations.
Just wanted to keep that clear, since I'm sure you weren't intentionally trying to mislead people, KB.
Clouseau
Digital sidebands are constant amplitude, analog sidebands which do not extend for 15 KHz each side BTW like iBlock are not, analog sidebands will splatter but not completely cover up other stations, that is a huge difference.
Gentlemen...let me suggest...
hiss, bees, BUZZSAW...I believe it depends on the bandwidth of your receiver. On most 3.5Kc Delcos, Buzzsaw. On a 13Kc Marantz 2270, it's hiss.
And in my opinion, it's all interference.
Starting with the Graveyards, let the small AMers have a chance by killing the 9Kc filter. If that constant amplitude sideband noise is now acceptable, a little 2nd adjacent channel chatter won't hurt anyone.
hiss, bees, BUZZSAW...I believe it depends on the bandwidth of your receiver. On most 3.5Kc Delcos, Buzzsaw. On a 13Kc Marantz 2270, it's hiss.
And in my opinion, it's all interference.
Starting with the Graveyards, let the small AMers have a chance by killing the 9Kc filter. If that constant amplitude sideband noise is now acceptable, a little 2nd adjacent channel chatter won't hurt anyone.
M
Mike Walker
Guest
Modern codecs (like HDC) DO, with remarkable accuracy, predict overtone structure, and recreate missing overtones. And low bitrate audio is a helluva' lot more FREE OF ARTIFACTS because of it. What goes on "up there' is far less important from an artifact standpoint than what goes on in the midrange...specifically the vocie range. 8khz to 16khz, the practical limit of most adult's hearing, is after all only an octave...yet it takes lots of DATA to completely encode this...the least audibly significant octave of all. That data is far better re-allocated to the midrange, where we can REALLY hear artifacts!
That fact that low bitrate audio CAN sound good proves the point. I've heard a couple of recordings of AM HD at 32kbps stereo that sounded quite good, though the actual broadcasts I've heard were far less convincing. Spectral replication is hardly ideal, or a "purist approach", I'll sure grant you that. At best the codec is making a guess as to what has been removed, and trying to recreate it. But there's no such thing as a "purist approach" at extremely low bitrates. Something's gotta' give. Something will be severely compromised. IMHO that "something" is better the top (and least audibly significant) octave than the couple of MOST audibly significant octaves in the midrange. Another option would be COMPLETELY removing the octave above 8khz, and not trying to "replicate" what's missing. This is also viable. Through many years of internet streaming, I've learned that if you want to produce tolerable sounding low bitrate audio, the FIRST thing that's got to go is extreme highs.
That fact that low bitrate audio CAN sound good proves the point. I've heard a couple of recordings of AM HD at 32kbps stereo that sounded quite good, though the actual broadcasts I've heard were far less convincing. Spectral replication is hardly ideal, or a "purist approach", I'll sure grant you that. At best the codec is making a guess as to what has been removed, and trying to recreate it. But there's no such thing as a "purist approach" at extremely low bitrates. Something's gotta' give. Something will be severely compromised. IMHO that "something" is better the top (and least audibly significant) octave than the couple of MOST audibly significant octaves in the midrange. Another option would be COMPLETELY removing the octave above 8khz, and not trying to "replicate" what's missing. This is also viable. Through many years of internet streaming, I've learned that if you want to produce tolerable sounding low bitrate audio, the FIRST thing that's got to go is extreme highs.
It's not just overtones and high frequencies. It's the complexity of the overall real-world waveform.
Which brings us to another problem with HD's codec. It doesn't tolerate highly-processed program material without artifacts going through the roof. Anything which is aggressively processed or filled with production effects - as, for example, in many agency-produced commercials, network programming or production which originates outside the originating station - sounds screechy and highly objectionable, IMHO.
HD proponents' response to this is to retreat to another "visionary" lecture to the effect that, in the brave new world of digital broadcasting, we've got to abandon "the loudness wars" and process for wide dynamic range and high quality - instead of high intelligibility. There are a couple of major problems with this stance.
First of all: broadcasters have to live with the real world of programming and content quality, not some pie-in-the-sky ideal. Agencies have no interest in tailoring their production to the audio standards of individual stations. You run the spots they send - period. Don't like the audio quality? Fine. We'll delete your station from the buy. And possibly the next ones too, since you insist on being such a pain in the tookus.
Same goes for network live programming. It's everything we can do to get networks to send local break closures, much less pay strict attention to levels and source quality. The new XDS and MAX receivers which have replaced the old Starguides are an improvement, but it's still - LIVE programming with all the warts.
And "watch levels?" In case HD people haven't noticed, there haven't been live board operators behind the consoles of most stations in most dayparts for over ten years now. And in my experience, even when they're there, today's board ops are amazingly unaware of audio levels. I frequently have to remind them that there are VU meters and what they mean. Many board ops today reference fader settings, not the output meters, no matter how much coaching they get.
As far as the lecture about processing for "quality" instead of "intellgibility," it's another unrealistic proposal from the HD faction. Hello? Most people listen to AM in noisy environments - like, ahem, THE CAR, where the radio has to compete with road noise, windshield wipers, wind buffeting and so forth. You WANT your signal to be punched up for intelligibility, analog or digital. You DON'T WANT wide dynamic range, because that forces the listener to dive for the volume control to jack the level up and down. Too hard to use in the real world? The listener gets frustrated and tunes out.
"More, more, more" Andrea True-type items in the seemingly bottomless list of faults of HD - a system obviously designed without any realistic input from the real world of radio broadcasting.
Which brings us to another problem with HD's codec. It doesn't tolerate highly-processed program material without artifacts going through the roof. Anything which is aggressively processed or filled with production effects - as, for example, in many agency-produced commercials, network programming or production which originates outside the originating station - sounds screechy and highly objectionable, IMHO.
HD proponents' response to this is to retreat to another "visionary" lecture to the effect that, in the brave new world of digital broadcasting, we've got to abandon "the loudness wars" and process for wide dynamic range and high quality - instead of high intelligibility. There are a couple of major problems with this stance.
First of all: broadcasters have to live with the real world of programming and content quality, not some pie-in-the-sky ideal. Agencies have no interest in tailoring their production to the audio standards of individual stations. You run the spots they send - period. Don't like the audio quality? Fine. We'll delete your station from the buy. And possibly the next ones too, since you insist on being such a pain in the tookus.
Same goes for network live programming. It's everything we can do to get networks to send local break closures, much less pay strict attention to levels and source quality. The new XDS and MAX receivers which have replaced the old Starguides are an improvement, but it's still - LIVE programming with all the warts.
And "watch levels?" In case HD people haven't noticed, there haven't been live board operators behind the consoles of most stations in most dayparts for over ten years now. And in my experience, even when they're there, today's board ops are amazingly unaware of audio levels. I frequently have to remind them that there are VU meters and what they mean. Many board ops today reference fader settings, not the output meters, no matter how much coaching they get.
As far as the lecture about processing for "quality" instead of "intellgibility," it's another unrealistic proposal from the HD faction. Hello? Most people listen to AM in noisy environments - like, ahem, THE CAR, where the radio has to compete with road noise, windshield wipers, wind buffeting and so forth. You WANT your signal to be punched up for intelligibility, analog or digital. You DON'T WANT wide dynamic range, because that forces the listener to dive for the volume control to jack the level up and down. Too hard to use in the real world? The listener gets frustrated and tunes out.
"More, more, more" Andrea True-type items in the seemingly bottomless list of faults of HD - a system obviously designed without any realistic input from the real world of radio broadcasting.
KB1OKL said:
There is a difference in what overlap is occuring, but there is not a difference in if protection status or viability at the given location. Practically, there IS NONE.
I think we all get the point that you would like to argue your DX sideband nonsense for all time. Again, I would suggest the DX board is more the approproate place. And did you really allude to "Analog splatters but HD radio completely covers up?"
Are you suggesting there is an audience of "People who listen to AM radio despite adjacent analog sideband splatter"?
I guess it's as big as the WLW audience in Worcester, MA. Out
Clouseau
M
Mike Walker
Guest
Valid points (about HDC's intolerance for highly processed audio), except that you're laying at HDC's feet a trait shared by ALL low bitrate codecs. HDC is no worse than others in this regard, and far better than some. Lossy codecs work by "hiding' artifacts behind louder sound at comparable frequencies. But if EVERYTHING is loud...if everything is pushed to 100 percent (0dbfs), then there are no places left to "hide" artifacts. It's quite unfair to blame this on HDC, since mp3, wma, aaz+, ac3, and every other lossy codec shares these "faults" as well...if they can even be called faults.
As for "watching levels", watch them when putting material into the automation! And I'm not saying use no processing. Obviously that would be a silly thing to suggest. I'm saying it doesn't have to be so freaking over the top! Most AM talk stations are not only loud, they're freaking DISTORTED. And I'm talking about the analog signals. ENOUGH! It's no tragedy to use 12db of compression rather than 30! It's no tragedy to use "soft knee" processing for digital, which ramps up more slowly, and can get quite aggressive while sounding more transparent. We can do BETTER!
The HDC codec was selected when listening tests showed that the originally chosen codec (similar to the one used by Sirius0 just didn't cut it. HDC was found to be FAR more listenable and artifact free at low bitrates. It's one of the more transparent codecs out there when bitrates plunge. But it's not perfect. At 32kbps in stereo NOTHING is perfectly artifact free. Nothing. But these artifacts can be managed, and minimized, if one takes the care to do things right. Which is why some low bitrate streams sound quite listenable (on HD and the internet) and others are just awful. I find WSM's low bitrate stream on the 'net to be just fine for casual listening. In fact, the Opry sounds better on it than on XM! But I would never call it artifact free. It just isn't. NOTHING is at really low bitrates. But then analog reception is far from artifact-free. There's pops, crackles, buzz, and phase distortion on AM, there's hiss, multipath distortion, and mono or severely blended audio on FM. And these artifacts are hardly mild.
As for "watching levels", watch them when putting material into the automation! And I'm not saying use no processing. Obviously that would be a silly thing to suggest. I'm saying it doesn't have to be so freaking over the top! Most AM talk stations are not only loud, they're freaking DISTORTED. And I'm talking about the analog signals. ENOUGH! It's no tragedy to use 12db of compression rather than 30! It's no tragedy to use "soft knee" processing for digital, which ramps up more slowly, and can get quite aggressive while sounding more transparent. We can do BETTER!
The HDC codec was selected when listening tests showed that the originally chosen codec (similar to the one used by Sirius0 just didn't cut it. HDC was found to be FAR more listenable and artifact free at low bitrates. It's one of the more transparent codecs out there when bitrates plunge. But it's not perfect. At 32kbps in stereo NOTHING is perfectly artifact free. Nothing. But these artifacts can be managed, and minimized, if one takes the care to do things right. Which is why some low bitrate streams sound quite listenable (on HD and the internet) and others are just awful. I find WSM's low bitrate stream on the 'net to be just fine for casual listening. In fact, the Opry sounds better on it than on XM! But I would never call it artifact free. It just isn't. NOTHING is at really low bitrates. But then analog reception is far from artifact-free. There's pops, crackles, buzz, and phase distortion on AM, there's hiss, multipath distortion, and mono or severely blended audio on FM. And these artifacts are hardly mild.
- Status