Well Here it is!

[TheBigA]

I don't think that's true, with the presumption that you are talking about the affiliate stations and not NPR themselves.

Read what I wrote. I was specifically talking about NPR in Washington and not its stations. The report filed with the FCC came from NPR Engineering. The very next sentence (after the one you quoted) says that stations (like WGBH) would prevent NPR from fundraising around HD.

 

[radioskeptic]

Actually, Big A, I know exactly how NPR works, NPR member stations buy the transmitters, of course—usually with matching funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—so obviously NPR isn’t invested in that way.

But those member stations pay NPR for the rights to carry NPR programs, and there’s a lot of money in that. So NPR has a very real interest in promoting multicasting, though not “HD” specifically.

I don’t know whether all the royalties for “HD” multicasting go to Iniquity, or whether NPR gets a share as they should, in view of the fact that NPR Labs developed the protocols. But let’s just assume Iniquity gets all that money. NPR still has a financial interest in multicasting, whether it’s via “HD” or FM Extra, because it increases the market for the programming they sell (and that goes for PRI and the rest, too.)

So you see, I do understand how public radio works. Try not to be so insufferably condescending.

And now your back to your old ad hominem approach, talking about “haters” as if opposition to a destructive technology were morally equivalent to, say, racism?

Is that the best response you’ve got?

If you think that opposing environmental pollution or unsafe food additives is “psychopathic” just because it could affect some corporation’s bottom line, then I guess it wouldn’t be inconsistent for you to call opposition to “HD” radio psychopathic, to, since that opposition, if effective, will certainly hurt Iniquity’s bottom line. But I don’t think you’ll find too many supporters—at least not any who haven’t invested either their own money or their own egos in it.

 

[TheBigA]

So you see, I do understand how public radio works. Try not to be so insufferably condescending.

If that's true, why didn't you say any of that in your previous post? I guess it took a while to do a web search and find out that you were wrong. Oh well.

And now your back to your old ad hominem approach, talking about “haters” as if opposition to a destructive technology were morally equivalent to, say, racism?

Are you calling the Congress of the United States, which supports HD Radio, racist? Are you calling them psychopaths? Before you make stupid statements about destructive technology and psychopathic behavior and all the other stuff, you should consider who is on the other side.

Look, I understand that you don't like HD Radio. That's fine, and you're welcome to that opinion. I have a lot of friends who agree with you, and even I agree about some aspects about it. I'm certainly not an HD supporter. But that doesn't mean I'm going to invent a bunch of fiction and get into name calling using words like psychopath. Regarding some environmentalists, some actually are psychopaths. If you murder an abortion doctor, that would qualify as a psychopathic anti-abortionist. If you blow up the transmitter of an HD radio station, that makes you a psychopathic anti-HD activist. If you commit a crime in the name of your cause, in my view you're a psychopath. But if you file a technical report with the FCC, an agency that has already declared its support for HD radio, I don't think there's anything psychopathic about it. As far as investing money, how much have YOU invested in your campaign? If you feel these people are psychopaths, take them to court. Call the Promethius Project and get them to support you.

 

[TheBigA]

But those member stations pay NPR for the rights to carry NPR programs, and there’s a lot of money in that. So NPR has a very real interest in promoting multicasting, though not “HD” specifically.

The fees stations pay NPR are based on market size and station ratings. If a station places an NPR show on an HD channel that has virtually no audience, they pay a very low minimum fee. It's lumped in with their overall programming fee on the main channel. This is similar to the music royalty paid for HD channels. So the idea that NPR is going to get rich from HD radio is laughable. You're trying to turn this into some kind of anti-corporate financial argument, and that simply is useless here.

 

[radioskeptic]

No, Big A. I didn’t just look it up on the web. For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard the non-coms say that they need listener contributions in order to buy NPR programs. So again, please don’t be so condescending. You only make yourself look foolish when you talk down to and belittle people who are obviously already well-informed.

Calling some corporate behavior “psychopathic” is rather common in the progressive blogosphere. And I’d certainly agree that Scott Roeder qualifies as a psychopath—and as an extreme case.

But the blind and reckless pursuit of any goal, whether by an individual or an organization, whether motivated by ideology or by profit, and without any consideration of the effects on others, is the very definition of psychopathy.

Now I didn’t suggest that every member of Congress who supported funding public radio “HD” is a either racist or a psychopath (though some individual Members appear to be one of those things, or even both, for other reasons), but I would say those did di support it were at the very least ill-informed about the (non-existent) pros and (manifold) cons of the technology, and could fairly be called “technically ignorant.”

Finally, it may surprise you to know that I have always been opposed to LPFM (not only because of legitimate interference issues, but also because, as I predicted, a majority of the licenses have gone to rightwing Fundies).

 

[davideduardo]

An HD-2 can show up in Arbitron—but only if it has an analog translator!

Not true. There is a description in the white paper about encoding on the Arbitron site. HD-2's are separately encoded at the discretion of the operator (in other words, like stations streams, they do not have to encode) and, if enough listening is detected, they show in the "book" as a separate station unless simulcast with another (such as many HD-2's do with sister AM's in the same market) and then they can show individually or, if the station elects, under the main signal as single line reporting.

I believe there is only one case of an HD2 showing... some web streams show, but erratically (these are separately encoded almost always as none of the commercial station streams in major markets qualifies as a 100% simulcast) and we can go for a number of books in large markets with none showing, or with different ones showing each book.

 

[radioskeptic]

But David, if the HD-2 is separately encoded, wouldn’t that same encoding be on any analog translators?

Yes? Then can you cite that one HD-2 that showed up in an Arbitron report? And did it or didn’t it have an analog translator?

 

[TheBigA]

No, Big A. I didn’t just look it up on the web. For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard the non-coms say that they need listener contributions in order to buy NPR programs. So again, please don’t be so condescending.

That's not the part of your post I'm talking about. You said, "they’ve spent so much of their own money on those transmitters that they can’t just write it off so easily." As I pointed out, that's not true. They don't own stations, so they didn't invest in any transmitters. And as I said in post 83, the amount of money NPR makes from programming aired on HD is negligible. Money is not a motivating factor here.

But the blind and reckless pursuit of any goal, whether by an individual or an organization, whether motivated by ideology or by profit, and without any consideration of the effects on others, is the very definition of psychopathy.

That could be, but NPR's filing of a technical report, as invited by the FCC, is neither blind nor reckless. They simply did what hundreds of other people on both sides of the issue did. One could equally call the anti-HD group as being psychopaths. But that's your word, not mine.

If you read the report, they clearly did consider the effects on others. That's what the study was all about.

Once again, just because you disagree with their conclusions doesn't mean they're ignorant, blind, reckless, or any of the other words you've used. You merely disagree.

 

[radioskeptic]

Touché, Big A. I should have made it clear that I meant not NPR specifically, but rather the public radio establishment as a whole, which would include both members stations and the CPB that provided the matching grants for those “HD” transmitters. But any reader well-versed in the ways of public radio—and not disposed to quibble—would have inferred as much.

And while the NPR study paid lip to service to effects on other stations, it all too cavalierly dismissed them as unimportant, when in fact those considerations will life-and-death matters for some of those FM stations, as they already are for AM stations.

 

[TheBigA]

And while the NPR study paid lip to service to effects on other stations, it all too cavalierly dismissed them as unimportant, when in fact those considerations will life-and-death matters for some of those FM stations, as they already are for AM stations.

I don't think they used the word "unimportant" at all.

My view is there are too many licensees in the first place. The potential for interference is quite often an issue when the FCC accepts an application for a frequency, so it's not like any of this is news to a licensee. They knew they were operating in disputed territory.

But the point is that it is the FCC's responsibility, not NPR's or your's, to intervene in issues regarding interference. NPR is simply presenting its point of view, which is its right, and the right of any American. And the FCC addressed the issue of potential interference in their R&O on Friday. So there's nothing more to say. If a licensee has an issue with an HD operator, they have recourse. And no where in the R&O did I see any mention advocating civilians to take matters into their own hands.

 

[davideduardo]

But David, if the HD-2 is separately encoded, wouldn’t that same encoding be on any analog translators?

Yes? Then can you cite that one HD-2 that showed up in an Arbitron report? And did it or didn’t it have an analog translator?

The HD-1 and the Analog signal of an FM or the HD and Analog of an AM are a 100% simulcast per regulations, so Arbitron does not separate them. HD-2 and up must separately encode for each channel. Audio streams that are not 100% simulcast (nearly all of them, in other words) separately encode.

Translators would be given the same feed as the HD-2 and this encoding would be for a 100% simulcast.

The key here is "simulcast" and perhaps understanding the web streaming helps. If a station 100% streams in simulcast (whether it is AM or FM or and HD-2 or beyond) it qualifies as a simulcast. But if some spots are not run on both the broadcast signal and the stream due to the AFTRA issues, then each will both be separately encoded and appear in the book as separate stations and not added.

In the cases of simulcasts in the same market, whether and AM/FM or multiple signals in the same service, each encodes but Arbitron offers the option of having them combined as a single station... in which case, the listening attributable to each signal is not available to the station or other users of the data except as a special, and costly, tabulation.

I believe the HD2 that showed was WETA in DC.

 

[radioskeptic]

John Anderson had weighed in. See what he says about the digital power increase here:
http://www.diymedia.net/archive/0110.htm#013110

 

[TheBigA]

John Anderson had weighed in. See what he says about the digital power increase here:
http://www.diymedia.net/archive/0110.htm#013110

That's like asking Savage what he has to say about it.

None of it matters. All that matters is what the FCC had to say. The rest is just hot air.

Not that there's anything wrong with Savage. I like him and agree that he's getting the shaft.

 

[KB1OKL]

John Anderson had weighed in. See what he says about the digital power increase here:
http://www.diymedia.net/archive/0110.htm#013110

That's like asking Savage what he has to say about it.

None of it matters. All that matters is what the FCC had to say. The rest is just hot air.

Not that there's anything wrong with Savage. I like him and agree that he's getting the shaft.

I think in the end what really matters is the deafening silence that's coming from the vast majority of consumers who couldn't care less about HD.

 

[hubcity]

John Anderson had weighed in. See what he says about the digital power increase here:
http://www.diymedia.net/archive/0110.htm#013110

That's like asking Savage what he has to say about it.

None of it matters. All that matters is what the FCC had to say. The rest is just hot air.

Not that there's anything wrong with Savage. I like him and agree that he's getting the shaft.

I think in the end what really matters is the deafening silence that's coming from the vast majority of consumers who couldn't care less about HD.

Nobody'll care about HD until it offers compelling programming you can't get anywhere else. Until then, it's just a curiosity.

 

[TVradioguru]

It is true that in the end consumers will have the final say. I submit to make the claim that the consumer has already spoken and the vote is negative could be considered myopic. It took almost 25 years for FM to reach the popularity it had in the 80's. How long has the whole HD radio thing been around? Four years maybe?

Another truth, not unlike the laws of physics, is content is indeed King. If broadcasters come up with a way to put some sort of compelling content on ancillary HD channels, then consumers will find ways to hear it.

 

[dfwrunner]

John Anderson had weighed in. See what he says about the digital power increase here:
http://www.diymedia.net/archive/0110.htm#013110

That's like asking Savage what he has to say about it.

None of it matters. All that matters is what the FCC had to say. The rest is just hot air.

Not that there's anything wrong with Savage. I like him and agree that he's getting the shaft.

I think in the end what really matters is the deafening silence that's coming from the vast majority of consumers who couldn't care less about HD.

I have repeatedly attempted to buy HD receivers over the last 2 years...nobody carries them...how can I buy one if nobody carried them...I finally found a best buy that had a single insignia and bought it...but it suffers from poor firmware performance (yhou scan up and it goes down sometimes), and very poor sound quality, both analog and HD mode...my old sherwood shounds vastly better both on AM and FM in analog...so the receiver manufacturers are not helping the situation buy putting out crappy products.

 

[TheBigA]

Nobody'll care about HD until it offers compelling programming you can't get anywhere else. Until then, it's just a curiosity.

In some markets, it does. In some places, it's the only way people can hear certain formats, the only way listeners can hear certain air talent, and the only way they can hear certain kinds of information.

But it's still a tree falling in a forest, because radio programming is local, and needs a national platform to make an impact. I can give you lots of specific examples of how stations are using HD for original and compelling programming. But you'd have to live there to experience it.

In a world where compelling content is omnipresent, you need more than just compelling content to get noticed. The reality is that people aren't buying radios. It doesn't matter how compelling the programming is. That's the main problem with HD Radio. Not the programming. It requires people to buy new radios, and they aren't doing that any more.

 

[KB1OKL]

Why would anyone buy an HD radio besides techo geeks, DX'ers and people employed in radio somehow or other? Anyone with half a brain knows they can get much better content on the computer and satellite. HD is dead in the water no matter how much the alliance wants to throw good money after bad in feeble attempts to shore up a DOA technology. Hold on to your HD receivers, they'll take their rightful places alongside 8 track players and AM stereo receivers soon

 

[radioskeptic]

Jerry Del Colliano made a comment about the power increase on his blog this morning:

Much was made of the FCC’s approval to allow FM HD stations to increase power to widen coverage, but HD radio is like a model T. Antiquated and irrelevant except to historians. In HD’s case, Edsel would be a better comparison than Model T.

(see http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/betting-against-apple.html)

The Model T? But the Model T actually worked -- and it sold well enough, almost immediately, that we could say it virtually created the mass market for cars.

The Edsel? Well, at least Edsels worked. And if you frequent antique car shows, you know that there's a real Edsel subculture of people who are perfectly sane, if a little eccentric in their taste in cars.

I think a Soviet-era Lada would be closer to the mark!