WBZ iHiss off!

[Play Freebird]

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.

In fact, many of the audio processors designed specifically for lossy codecs have a low-pass filter option (as well as program-dependent high frequency limiting) to reduce artifacts. I've experimented with these settings and they do make a subjective improvement -- however, the fidelity of the original linear source material is reduced by this type of processing. If your source material isn't linear (for instance, agency spots sent via MP3) then you have to contend with transcoding problems as well. Remember, we were originally promised that "pre-emphasis limiting" wouldn't be required on HD FM, but with bitrates falling from 96k to 48k or 32k, users are finding that special HF processing is needed to keep the midrange artifacts from getting out of hand.

Which leads to the question: If low-pass filtering and HF limiting are now necessary to make a low-bitrate HD codec sound somewhat acceptable, does HD still retain a significant sonic advantage over analog? Enough of an advantage to outweigh the many disadvantages? OK, I would agree with Clouseau that the audio signal-to-noise performance of the HD codec (like most digital schemes) is quite good. The problem is that HD receivers lose digital lock in locations where analog becomes noisy enough that the difference is really noticeable; in other words, it fails where it's needed the most. But in other respects, the HD codec has many weaknesses.

I must admit that I envy those TV guys; the Dolby AC-3 codec specified in the ATSC system is far superior to the HD codec and supports "surround sound" too. I've been listening to DTV sound for a few years and it masks artifacts EXTREMELY WELL in comparison with HD Radio.

It's a shame that radio, the aural medium, is stuck with a digital audio system so inferior to television's.

 

[KB1OKL]

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.

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

Inspector, you are talking about regulations, I am talking about the real world. I did not allude to the fact that analog splatters but HD radio completely covers up, I stated it. It may not matter to you but I bet it matters to Savage.

 

[fybush]

Inspector, you are talking about regulations, I am talking about the real world. I did not allude to the fact that analog splatters but HD radio completely covers up, I stated it. It may not matter to you but I bet it matters to Savage.

I believe the good Inspector's question - is there an audience of "People who listen to AM radio despite adjacent analog sideband splatter"? - is a real-world question, too.

There is, if nothing else, a valid real-world difference between WLW's expected coverage (with or without WOR HD on the air) in Worcester and WYSL's expected coverage (with or without WBZ HD on the air) here at Casa Fybush, less than 20 miles as the crow flies from Savage Acres down there in Livingston County. No, I'm not quite in WYSL's predicted nighttime interference-free contour, but even before WBZ reduced its analog audio bandwidth down to telephone-grade, WYSL was easily listenable over whatever splatter was coming from Boston.

It's WYSL's situation that should be addressed in the real world, and not just in regulations, by the rules that supposedly provide for interference remediation. WLW in Worcester? Not so much.

 

[jhardis]

I must admit that I envy those TV guys; the Dolby AC-3 codec specified in the ATSC system is far superior to the HD codec and supports "surround sound" too. I've been listening to DTV sound for a few years and it masks artifacts EXTREMELY WELL in comparison with HD Radio.

Don't forget that "those TV guys" have a 19.4 Mbps communication channel, of which a few hundred kbps are available for audio. The HD codec at those high bit rates would likely sound pretty sweet, too.

There's also the new standard for "mobile" DTV http://www.atsc.org/communications/press/2008-11-26-atsc-approves-mobile-standard-cs_final.pdf . It uses HE-AAC v2. It's getting play at the CES now http://www.openmobilevideo.com/ .

Here in Washington, DC, 103.5 FM WTOP is already simulcast on DTV channel 7.2. It doesn't take much to figure out that mobile DTV is also mobile digital radio. Or could be.

(Didn't video kill the radio star?)

- Jonathan

 

[clouseau]

It's WYSL's situation that should be addressed in the real world, and not just in regulations, by the rules that supposedly provide for interference remediation. WLW in Worcester? Not so much.

Scott. Thanks for the clarity to see what I am saying. And I'm NOT saying there are no problems. What Scott is alluding to is what I have routinely said all along. I don't know that he is doing it conscioiusly, but I get out of it...

"The Noise floor of "illegitamte" complaints is making addressing the REAL complaints almost impossible."

I'll speculate that 99 out of 100 complaints I see about HD radio's "Interference" are just people not liking the brave new world. I can understand that, but clearly the concerns of THOSE people have already been addressed. (Or perhaps more accurately, those with these concerns have been told to pound sand.) Some folks will complain that "They're not being listened to...". I want my "Out of area listening."

My response... I have made numerous proposals, comments and filings favoring local origination for Class D Translators. I've also worked with a group who felt LPFM should be able to run commercials. They told us to pound sand. You're not alone. The Sones did a song called "You can't always get what you want". Mik is right. Get over it.

My point is, these myriad of garbage complaints not only distract the FCC, but more importantly, it gives them cover. When they are called to answer about HD radio complaints, they can honestly say, "The vast majority of them are from people trying to receive a signal outside of it's coverage area." In today's climate of "Spectrum Maximization" and "Sound improvement", it's pretty easy to see how "2 extra FM channels vs 50 dbu reception" and "HD sound in NYC vs WLW in Worcester Mass" are easy answers for the FCC.

It's also easy to see how Savage's Quite possibly legit compalint, gets labeled as "Whiny Little %^^%$" (Whatever). I say this only because of the theoretical vs real world "REACTION" to HD.

Again, just something to consider.

Clouseau

 

[Savage]

I don't agree, Inspector, that "garbage" complaints (whatever those prove to be in fact) give the FCC "cover" to ignore legitimate ones. That's like saying every crazy person who complains to the FCC that aliens are using their TV set to conduct illegal surveillance represents an excuse to ignore illegal pirate radio operators. There is no regulatory "equivalence" between nuisance reports and real issues.

The FCC has ample staff to deal with complaints. The people in the Enforcement Bureau are professionals. They can dispose of no-merit complaints quite efficiently, I'm sure, without those representing much of a distraction from real interference issues, such as WYSL's.

I believe the Commission is deliberately ignoring complaints about HD adjacent-channel problems. I've heard from at least two sources inside the Commission and also from lawyers who practice before the Mass Media Bureau. It is absolutely beyond dispute that the system is generating legitimate complaints. Actually, thousands of them. There is a political agenda here. And, as is almost always the case, it's all about money. Screw the listening public and individual broadcasters who might obstruct the agenda.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

clouseau "got out of it":

"The Noise floor of "illegitamte" complaints is making addressing the REAL complaints almost impossible."

The noise floor across both AM and FM bands is raising drastically anywhere there are HD radio signals.
What's illegitimate is HD Radio, not the complaints.

 

[tomservo]

Which leads to the question: If low-pass filtering and HF limiting are now necessary to make a low-bitrate HD codec sound somewhat acceptable, does HD still retain a significant sonic advantage over analog? Enough of an advantage to outweigh the many disadvantages? OK, I would agree with Clouseau that the audio signal-to-noise performance of the HD codec (like most digital schemes) is quite good. The problem is that HD receivers lose digital lock in locations where analog becomes noisy enough that the difference is really noticeable; in other words, it fails where it's needed the most. But in other respects, the HD codec has many weaknesses.

That's a good point. I am pretty perceptive to the artifacts created by all these codecs and can often hear things that others don't notice. But even I'll admit that the HD codec on FM is not too shabby. I think it's processing on FM that brings about a lot of the issues people are hearing, as well as multicasting.

And I'll even go out on a limb and suggest that AM HD's codec does a much better job than the ones used by Sirius and XM. They're different codecs, but I forget who uses what. Post-merger, I can tell that XM's sound quality has taken yet ANOTHER hit. It's really to the point where it's not worth keeping now that their channels are repetitive and full of Siriusized chatter, but that's neither here nor there.

The point is, they do good for what little bandwidth they have. That being said, going after HD radio's bandwidth isn't going to yeild many results. Trust me from experience, non-nerds (i.e. non-engineers, non-techs, non-audiophiles) can't tell much of a difference between FM and FM-HD, or XM and FM, or even Dolby 2.0 versus analog MTS stereo. I can't tell you how many "it sounds fine to me" dismissals I've gotten over the years when pointing out off-balance FM radio stations, or the garbled artifact-rich audio FX used to send to cable companies, or the awfulness that XM and Sirius try to pass off as "digital quality". Most average folks just don't notice and it breaks my heart because it all bugs me.

Here in Washington, DC, 103.5 FM WTOP is already simulcast on DTV channel 7.2. It doesn't take much to figure out that mobile DTV is also mobile digital radio. Or could be.

ATSC DTV is useless for mobile reception. I don't know all the technical details, but apparently the codec was optimized to reduce issues with ghosting and... Something else, I forget. But I've heard Europe's 8-VSB standard is much better. Here we're gonna have a whole different platform for mobile video (satellite, cellular companies, etc.) but over there their digital devices can get digital television from the same signals that home users depend on.

This brings me to an interesting experiment I was able to try a while back. I had about a 20 foot long cable and extension cord on a little set top amplified garbage antenna. I walked all around the telly with distant analog channel 18 and noticed the signal didn't vary nearly as much as I thought a UHF signal would. There were a few dropouts, but no sweet spots.

So then I switched to the digital 18.1 channel. I was able to aquire a signal in two or three places, but only if I stood perfectly still. Any movement at all and *poof* — black screen.

I'd be interested to know, though, if mobile reception of DTV signals is actually possible if one isn't friggen 50 miles from the tower.

 

[clouseau]

I don't agree, Inspector, that "garbage" complaints (whatever those prove to be in fact) give the FCC "cover" to ignore legitimate ones. That's like saying every crazy person who complains to the FCC that aliens are using their TV set to conduct illegal surveillance represents an excuse to ignore illegal pirate radio operators. There is no regulatory "equivalence" between nuisance reports and real issues.

Well we all know the FCC tried and true method for dealing with being overwhelmed. Do nothing.

They got 12000 translator apps and everyone screamed. They've sat on 'em for 5 years.

They had lost control of the CB band. They walked away.

They couldn't make a decision about AM stereo without getting sued. They said "Do what you want"

They don't deal with being overwhelmed particularly well.

The FCC has ample staff to deal with complaints. The people in the Enforcement Bureau are professionals. They can dispose of no-merit complaints quite efficiently, I'm sure, without those representing much of a distraction from real interference issues, such as WYSL's.

Do they really? Especially if we accept the "Thousands of them" you claim below? Not to mention the actual legal path for enforcement to do something.
Therein lies the rub. How can enforcement deal with this. It's not so much an enforcement issue as a allotment issue. Right or wrong, (And it very well may be wrong) If they go to WBZ and don't find a violation based on AMHD rules, what do they (Enforcement) do?

I believe the Commission is deliberately ignoring complaints about HD adjacent-channel problems. I've heard from at least two sources inside the Commission and also from lawyers who practice before the Mass Media Bureau.It is absolutely beyond dispute that the system is generating legitimate complaints.

Agreed.

Actually, thousands of them.

If you say so. I don't know nor have I seen a source. (Since an official one doesn't really exist).

There is a political agenda here.

I would agree. And IMHO, that agenda is converting to digital. Clearly the methodology they've chose to do that is pretty weak on AM.

Clouseau

 

[WA5JML]

Hi everyone First post...
Me as an example of "real world"

For years my wife & I awakened to WBAP morning show. Sometime last year or maybee before the station instantly sounded "bad". I don't remember the sound, but it a cross between weak signal and adjacent channel. It was bad enough for my wife to comment "Turn that noise off". Our bedroom radio is a $10 Sanyo from Wal-Mart and we live 30 to 40 miles from the 50KW. site. My choices were:

1. Buy a new $150 radio or
2. Turn it off

I chose #2
We now wake up to the noisemaker in the Sanyo.

BAP still sounded OK in the vehicles.

I don't have a people meter or diary so this will not show in the ratings so who cares.

J

 

[KB1OKL]

There is a political agenda here.

I would agree. And IMHO, that agenda is converting to digital. Clearly the methodology they've chose to do that is pretty weak on AM.

Clouseau

It's pretty weak all around on radio, because NO ONE CARES, because as in above posts, most consumers can't tell the difference and really couldn't care less which has been proved by the abysmal sales which continue to this day despite all the hooey spewed by people like Strew-Bull and others. This digital agenda is NOT people (demand) driven is it driven by the big boys in the industry who want to make existing receivers and transmitters obsolete so we can spend more money, (hey and maybe kill a few of those upstart little guys in the process, huh?). The manufacturers use lobbyists who push the moronic politicians who control the beholden FCC. The whole thing stinks. If as I suggested before the FCC can not be all engineers it should have at least a percentage of engineers on it and technologically minded people who don't bend over backwards to plant one on the lobbyists' posteriors for political purposes as is the case now.

 

[TheBigA]

This digital agenda is NOT people (demand) driven is it driven by the big boys in the industry who want to make existing receivers and transmitters obsolete so we can spend more money, (hey and maybe kill a few of those upstart little guys in the process, huh?).

Ahh the famous conspiracy theories again.

Who wants to spend more money? Name the media company that is looking to find new ways to spend millions of dollars. I can't think of anyone who even has the operating money to replace their aging computers with the latest operating system. Last time I checked, they're all SELLING assets in order to stay afloat. Am I wrong?

Your idea only made sense back when media companies were owned by electronics manufacturers. Now they're not, so they have nothing to gain if people buy new receivers or not. GE and RCA used to make transmitters at one time. Not any more. They don't care. Buy digital radios and TVs or don't. The move to digital for NBC is isn't about making money, but spending it. It's as much an expense for them as anyone else.

I was reading Leonard Goldenson's autobiography, and remembered him saying how the move to color in the 60s almost bankrupted ABC. Bill Paley's book talked about the huge risk CBS took on Peter Goldmark's color system, and how it really hurt CBS, around the same time they were losing money with Fender guitars and the New York Yankees. Ahh the good old days! Back when mom & pops owned the media. What a crock.

If as I suggested before the FCC can not be all engineers it should have at least a percentage of engineers on it and technologically minded people who don't bend over backwards to plant one on the lobbyists' posteriors for political purposes as is the case now.

You really think it's impossible for engineers to have political agendas? Really? How naive are you?

 

[audioguy]

ATSC DTV is useless for mobile reception. I don't know all the technical details, but apparently the codec was optimized to reduce issues with ghosting and... Something else, I forget. But I've heard Europe's 8-VSB standard is much better. Here we're gonna have a whole different platform for mobile video (satellite, cellular companies, etc.) but over there their digital devices can get digital television from the same signals that home users depend on.

Zach, you are quite correct. As far as I know the U.S. DTV standard, which uses 8-VSB, was optimized for stationary reception. When you select a station, the tuner basically performs echo cancellation to compensate for the "ghosts" caused by multipath. If you move the receiver, the environment changes, so the tuner has to re-equalize the signal for it to be usable. The system was apparently not intended to perform this function in a real-time fashion. I suppose if you operated the receiver in a relatively benign multipath environment, such as over flat unobstructed terrain, it might not work too badly. However, there is a new standard for mobile TV being developed by the Open Mobile Video Coalition. I posted an earlier message with a link to a news article about it, but my message was deleted by the moderator for Fair Use violation, so I will not re-post the link. Instead, go to your favorite search engine and do a search for that organization.

Europe actually uses a different transmission standard based on COFDM. Again, rather than explaining it here I will just suggest you go to the search engine and put in "DVB-T". There is also a separate handheld/mobile derivative for Europe known as "DVB-H". You can find out more about either of these by doing a search on these terms. I recommend to click on the link from the organization with a name similar to the common term "encyclopedia" for a very good explanation.

 

[Play Freebird]

Europe actually uses a different transmission standard based on COFDM. Again, rather than explaining it here I will just suggest you go to the search engine and put in "DVB-T". There is also a separate handheld/mobile derivative for Europe known as "DVB-H". You can find out more about either of these by doing a search on these terms. I recommend to click on the link from the organization with a name similar to the common term "encyclopedia" for a very good explanation.

Japan and Brazil have chosen a pretty cool system called ISDB. Check out the technical report here:

http://www.dibeg.org/techp/techp.htm

As I understand it, a 6 MHz channel can carry television or radio services using the same type of transmitter. There also a provision to use a portion of a channel for "one seg" service to cell phones and other portable devices.

 

[KB1OKL]

You really think it's impossible for engineers to have political agendas? Really? How naive are you?

I didn't say that, you did, and obviously engineers have political opinions but hopefully an educated technologically oriented person unlike yourself would be less likely to approve a system that is junk like iBlock for political reasons.

How naive am I? Once again you have proved to me what bigA really stands for. Personal attacks shout that the attacker is backed into the corner and doesn't know how to respond to the truth.

 

[Savage]

Clouseau: at the end of the day, either the FCC can do its job - which is acting as traffic cop for the electromagnetic spectrum and in our case, broadcast services - or it cannot.

I don't care about what they did or didn't do with CB Radio or with AM Stereo. It's irrelevant to this discussion. And I'm not cutting them any slack just because they chose to ignore a huge body of engineering opinion - depending on who you believe, perhaps an actual majority - who warned that IBOC on AM was going to be a disaster. And now they're actually considering repeating it for FM. They're making repeated messes for themselves by listening only to lobbyists and ignoring independent opinion. They're bringing it on themselves.

As the august Tom Ray once said about what the FCC might do about IBOC: "They can do anything they want. They're the FCC." The Commission can make all their "enforcement" and "reallocation" problems go away - POOF! - by simply looking at the ample evidence and making a statement, something like:

"Due to adverse experience in the field, IBOC on AM has proven to be neither technically workable nor the revitalization sought for the AM broadcast band. Serious cases of nighttime interference leads the Commission to order that its use after local sunset cease as of (such-and-such a date.)"

Or, as a less drastic measure, they could enforce THEIR OWN RULES as promulgated in the 2002 Report and Order with regard to case-by-case mitigation. This is a ruse which, I will observe, they are attempting to proffer regarding the tenfold increase for digital FM. You want to talk about "providing cover?" The FCC provides IBOC critics "cover" by disseminating an interference-mitigation and enforcement policy regarding IBOC AM, and then ignoring it, allowing THEIR OWN LICENSEES to suffer destructive interference. That's THEIR doing, not mine. No wonder people are skeptical about the FM increase.

These are the problems I have with HD. It's NOT about improving radio. It's cynical and dishonest. And the real costs of IBOC are being foisted on undeserving people - like me.

 

[radiotower40]

Hi everyone First post...
Me as an example of "real world"

For years my wife & I awakened to WBAP morning show. Sometime last year or maybee before the station instantly sounded "bad". I don't remember the sound, but it a cross between weak signal and adjacent channel. It was bad enough for my wife to comment "Turn that noise off". Our bedroom radio is a $10 Sanyo from Wal-Mart and we live 30 to 40 miles from the 50KW. site. My choices were:

1. Buy a new $150 radio or
2. Turn it off

I chose #2
We now wake up to the noisemaker in the Sanyo.

BAP still sounded OK in the vehicles.

I don't have a people meter or diary so this will not show in the ratings so who cares.

J

First of all WA5JML, Welcome to Radio-Info!

I am surprised that no one has commented on this post. This is a man who took the time to register on the
R-I boards to make, IMHO one of the most important posts on this thread, and let me explain why I say that.

This man and his wife who have woken up for years to 50kw AM 820 WBAP and never had ANY problem with
the signal quality on a cheap alarm clock from Wal-Mart suddenly wake up one morning and their radio sounds
like (insert your favorite four letter word here). What was the reason that said radio sounded that way? HD-AM. PERIOD!
I think this is NOT a unique situation to this man and his wife. How many people out there are listening to radio less
because of this "technology"?

When HD radio was first introduced I was very excited about it. I gave it a chance and can only compare it too
most politicians, big on promises before the election, and once put in to service did not turn out to be what they
promised.

We can argue back and forth all day if someone is pro-IBOC or anti-IBOC and that is not going to solve this.
Radio in general and particularly AM radio are losing listeners to I-Pods, Internet streaming and many other
delivery systems. I do not like even typing those words because of the love I have of radio. I am currently
working in the sales side of the biz, and this is not the first time I have heard a story like this.

I am not trying to get on a soapbox and lecture anyone by what I'm saying, I'm just trying to point out that
WA5JML IS an average radio listener, and the poor sound quality is what is causing him not to listen to WBAP
in the morning anymore, it had nothing to do with the programming!

We are losing listeners to SANYO NOISEMAKERS!! If that is not a compelling reason to shut off AM IBOC, I don't
know what is.

From the way he typed that it sounded "bad" makes me believe when he first heard it he did not know why it
sounded "bad", but when he figured out why it sounded "bad" he was not going to drop 150 bucks to make it
sound better. How many other people out there woke up and realized their radio sounded "bad" and never
learned what was making it sound "bad", and never returned to radio?

Thank You for post WA5JML, I hope it made other people sit back and think like it did too me.

 

[Savage]

EXCELLENT points, TR1992. I plead guilty to failure to welcome WA5JML. Which I do, sir or madam, right now. I'm sure you have noticed that this board tends to be overpopulated with navel-gazing radio insiders, and I include myself in that droll description.

It's far more important for us commercial broadcaster types to listen to you guys - for perspective and agenda-free truth. As I was told 42 years ago when I joined this biz in high school, our job is to LISTEN, not talk - to our listeners and our clients.

Thank you for your post. I look forward to reading more of your thoughts and observations.

 

[tomservo]

Europe actually uses a different transmission standard based on COFDM. Again, rather than explaining it here I will just suggest you go to the search engine and put in "DVB-T". There is also a separate handheld/mobile derivative for Europe known as "DVB-H". You can find out more about either of these by doing a search on these terms. I recommend to click on the link from the organization with a name similar to the common term "encyclopedia" for a very good explanation.

You're absolutely correct - as is so often the outcome I came down with a case of acronymitis and got the names confused.

I chose #2
We now wake up to the noisemaker in the Sanyo.

Welcome to R-I. I think you'll find the HD forums quite interesting.

Did you write a complaint e-mail or letter to WBAP? It probably won't do any good but it can't hurt to try.

 

[radiotower40]

EXCELLENT points, TR1992. I plead guilty to failure to welcome WA5JML. Which I do, sir or madam, right now. I'm sure you have noticed that this board tends to be overpopulated with navel-gazing radio insiders, and I include myself in that droll description.

It's far more important for us commercial broadcaster types to listen to you guys - for perspective and agenda-free truth. As I was told 42 years ago when I joined this biz in high school, our job is to LISTEN, not talk - to our listeners and our clients.

Thank you for your post. I look forward to reading more of your thoughts and observations.

Hi Savage, I hope I didn't sound like I was calling people out, I did not mean any disrespect. You make an excellent point
in that we have to listen and not talk, I learned that lesson from my Grandmother(I think she just said it so she could tell me
the same story she told me 4 times already that day..lol)bless her heart. To be serious again I have learned a lot from you and
your website, as well as the people who I don't agree with on the HD subject, but, that is the great part of a website like this, we
all get to give our arguments and see the different points of view. I just really think it's great when someone like WA5JML jumps
in and puts it out there in black and white.

Have a great day,
TR