I read on the AVS forum that ZLX is now broadcasting full time in 5.1 surround audio on their HD1 Channel. They are using the Telos system. The Bose, Boston Acoustic, and Tivoli factories have prototype receivers to monitor the 5.1 audio. Has any with a HD Radio noticed any changes or artifacts when listening to ZLX HD-1 in stereo?
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WZLX HD1 in 5.1 Surround
- Thread starter mgpt6
- Start date
W
webcastboy
Guest
What radios can decode that 5.1 surround signal? I should know this, but I honestly don't. I just tried my Sangean HDT-1 and I didn't expect it to be in surround and it wasn't. But after pondering it for a moment, the only radio I can think of that might get it would be that high-end Yamaha home stereo that's like $1000.
Listening on the Sangean, I'm hearing a lot of crunchiness on these commercials...but that could be the source quality; it's not uncommon for them to be over-compressed MP3's to begin with. Lemme wait a minute for the music to come back on...
...
...
...STILL waiting...
...
Jeez, about 10 minutes later they went back to music...okay, yeah this sounds much better. There's no PSD artist/title, though.
Listening on the Sangean, I'm hearing a lot of crunchiness on these commercials...but that could be the source quality; it's not uncommon for them to be over-compressed MP3's to begin with. Lemme wait a minute for the music to come back on...
...
...
...STILL waiting...
...
Jeez, about 10 minutes later they went back to music...okay, yeah this sounds much better. There's no PSD artist/title, though.
There are currently no commercial receivers for the MPEG system, but some protos exist at Bose, Boston Acoustics and Tivoli (who are monitoring the WZLX HD-1 broadcasts). Panasonic is reportedly in development for a car MPEG tuner.
Artifact question: There are no artifacts on the HD-1 at all, or any other side effects of the surround transmission. The MPEG system is actually eight channels (5.1 surround plus the original stereo = eight). The stereo transmission service (analog and stereo HD-1) ONLY access the stereo (seven and eight). When the tuner senses "surround" encoding, it ONLY accesses the 1-6. This is the advantage of the system. Stereo and surround are completely independent and there is no chance for corruption of any kind to the stereo or mono.
They are transmitting at 64 kp, by the way.
There was a private internet stream set up at both the Telos booth and the FhG booth at the NAB this week in Las Vegas for demonstration of WZLX surround live from Boston. Very impressive. Commercial internet stream (in surround) from ZLX is due shortly, I understand. They are already marking (on RDS) the songs that are in surround, with (5.1) after the title.
Artifact question: There are no artifacts on the HD-1 at all, or any other side effects of the surround transmission. The MPEG system is actually eight channels (5.1 surround plus the original stereo = eight). The stereo transmission service (analog and stereo HD-1) ONLY access the stereo (seven and eight). When the tuner senses "surround" encoding, it ONLY accesses the 1-6. This is the advantage of the system. Stereo and surround are completely independent and there is no chance for corruption of any kind to the stereo or mono.
They are transmitting at 64 kp, by the way.
There was a private internet stream set up at both the Telos booth and the FhG booth at the NAB this week in Las Vegas for demonstration of WZLX surround live from Boston. Very impressive. Commercial internet stream (in surround) from ZLX is due shortly, I understand. They are already marking (on RDS) the songs that are in surround, with (5.1) after the title.
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webcastboy
Guest
If WZLX is using extended hybrid, I don't think they're using it as you describe. One of the limitations of extended hybrid is that the extra 24kbps you gain cannot be combined with the main's 96kbps for multicast purposes. You can use that 24kbps to run an HD3 channel (it won't sound as good, but it's good enough for a news/talk service) but you can't, for example, run 64kbps for HD1, then use the remaining 32kbps to combine with 24kbps to get 56kbps total for your HD2.
I listened to the HD2 briefly yesterday, it sounded fine...better than music on AM (which is still HDC but at 36kbps) so I would suspect it's running at least 48kbps for HD2....but if we know the HD1 is 64kbps then maybe not.
Although come to think of it...I don't know if you could use the extended hybrid to get some more bits to handle the extra audio channels for the surround sound. From what I understand of extended hybrid, it's supposed to be a pretty bring line in the sand between the main channel and it, but I confess I don't know too much about how the Telos 5.1 encoding scheme really works at the bit level.
I listened to the HD2 briefly yesterday, it sounded fine...better than music on AM (which is still HDC but at 36kbps) so I would suspect it's running at least 48kbps for HD2....but if we know the HD1 is 64kbps then maybe not.
Although come to think of it...I don't know if you could use the extended hybrid to get some more bits to handle the extra audio channels for the surround sound. From what I understand of extended hybrid, it's supposed to be a pretty bring line in the sand between the main channel and it, but I confess I don't know too much about how the Telos 5.1 encoding scheme really works at the bit level.
N
Neggy
Guest
Ok now here is my question... what are they going to play that is 5.1 encoded?
I've been in Best Buy a few times and the wall for SACD and CD's remastered in 5.1 is a bit sparse.
Somewhere around here I have a copy of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in 5.1 around here somewhere that I have yet had time to listen to... well I have the time but I don't think I'm going to make any new friends in the building when I do listen to it.
I know many concert DVD's and music videos are in 5.1 so there is some material there.
I've been in Best Buy a few times and the wall for SACD and CD's remastered in 5.1 is a bit sparse.
Somewhere around here I have a copy of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in 5.1 around here somewhere that I have yet had time to listen to... well I have the time but I don't think I'm going to make any new friends in the building when I do listen to it.
I know many concert DVD's and music videos are in 5.1 so there is some material there.
T
TowerBuzz
Guest
Question:
Does any of that really matter? of course for the later recordings that they may play there could be a cleaner sound but for the bands like Led Zepplin, Hendrix, etc, stuff from the 70's that was recorded analog, and considering that they're a classic rock station that should be playing mostly that sort of stuff. Does it even matter?. Could anyone even tell?.
Does any of that really matter? of course for the later recordings that they may play there could be a cleaner sound but for the bands like Led Zepplin, Hendrix, etc, stuff from the 70's that was recorded analog, and considering that they're a classic rock station that should be playing mostly that sort of stuff. Does it even matter?. Could anyone even tell?.
some of the tracks are being remastered by John Wheeler using his "penteo" process. For more info go to www.penteosurround.com. His computer process sends extreme hard left pans to left rear channel. Hard right pans to right rear channel.Midle pans go to the center channel. The main left and right channels are left unchanged.He has done at least 50 tracks for ZLX, and probably more.
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TowerBuzz
Guest
That seems like a lot of money for a process that will hardly do anything for their ratings. I wonder how the purists will feel? Remember how some die hard beatle fans felt about the beatles albums being released on CD? even George Harrison said he didn't like them becuase they sounded "too clean". Interesting, that of all the things about that station they thought that an audio process that would force them to have to in essence bastardize the better part of their library would be any sort of factor in their numbers. I wonder how Page and Plant would feel about some engineer essentially remixing their works so that they'll work for a station's processing.
A couple of clarifications:
Forget Best Buy or places like that as an example of what is available in 5.1 surround. Most discs are found online or overseas.
Material? I understand from the Radio Ink article that they have over 200 songs from the ZLX primary playlist in actual, discrete surround. These (like Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, Neil Young, Grateful Dead, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, Moody Blues, Police, etc) were
remixed from the 16 or 24-track masters under the approval and direction of either the artists or the original producer for official disc release. This is not counting the entire Doors box set, or the entire Talking Heads box set which is 100% surround remixed, both authorized.
There are maybe, I understand, 40 or 50 Penteo mixes of some high-rotation stuff that is not yet in discrete surround. Contrary to some reports, Penteo is not just some box that gives a surround effect, but a very sophisticated process which is hand-tweaked by Wheeler himself. The results are pretty astonishing, but-again-most of the surround tracks on ZLX are actual, discrete, authorized 5.1 surround.
They did a beta showing of the internet feed at the NAB (which Scott Fybush heard and reported on) and, I understand, this will be up for public access this summer sometime. It will work with the Winamp freeware.
Forget Best Buy or places like that as an example of what is available in 5.1 surround. Most discs are found online or overseas.
Material? I understand from the Radio Ink article that they have over 200 songs from the ZLX primary playlist in actual, discrete surround. These (like Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, Neil Young, Grateful Dead, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, Moody Blues, Police, etc) were
remixed from the 16 or 24-track masters under the approval and direction of either the artists or the original producer for official disc release. This is not counting the entire Doors box set, or the entire Talking Heads box set which is 100% surround remixed, both authorized.
There are maybe, I understand, 40 or 50 Penteo mixes of some high-rotation stuff that is not yet in discrete surround. Contrary to some reports, Penteo is not just some box that gives a surround effect, but a very sophisticated process which is hand-tweaked by Wheeler himself. The results are pretty astonishing, but-again-most of the surround tracks on ZLX are actual, discrete, authorized 5.1 surround.
They did a beta showing of the internet feed at the NAB (which Scott Fybush heard and reported on) and, I understand, this will be up for public access this summer sometime. It will work with the Winamp freeware.
T
TowerBuzz
Guest
Very interesting HHH, thank you for that very clear explaination. Still I say with great certainty that this will have zero effect on their ratings. It is always stations like that and ODs that embrace such new technologies when they are such overkill for what they are doing formatically. Like hunting butterflies with a bazooka!.
mgpt6:
The have been no complaints--that I know of--about the MPEG surround impacting the main HD-1 stereo.
I know that people keep asking this question, probably because the Neural and other matrix systems have conditioned people to expect some kind of alteration of the stereo and mono, which--often--it does, since these systems attempt to downmix the surround channels to stereo and mono on the fly. The results can be unpredictable and random.
But again, the MPEG system completely isolates the stereo from the surround. The system is actually eight channels, with 1-6 the surround, and 7 & 8 the familar stereo mix. When you hear WZLX analog or WZLX HD-1 in stereo, you are only getting 7 & 8......there is no path to 1-6. On one of the proto receivers, when MPEG surround encoding is detected, the 7 & 8 go away, and 1-6 appear.
So there is not surprising that there have been no complaints from HD-1 listeners. ZLX HD-1 in stereo has no path to the surround information.
Published reports indicate that they will begin public streaming of the MPEG surround feed sometime this summer. They had a private stream of WZLX surround up at the NAB, played through the Winamp freeware, and it sounded really good when they played a surround song.
The have been no complaints--that I know of--about the MPEG surround impacting the main HD-1 stereo.
I know that people keep asking this question, probably because the Neural and other matrix systems have conditioned people to expect some kind of alteration of the stereo and mono, which--often--it does, since these systems attempt to downmix the surround channels to stereo and mono on the fly. The results can be unpredictable and random.
But again, the MPEG system completely isolates the stereo from the surround. The system is actually eight channels, with 1-6 the surround, and 7 & 8 the familar stereo mix. When you hear WZLX analog or WZLX HD-1 in stereo, you are only getting 7 & 8......there is no path to 1-6. On one of the proto receivers, when MPEG surround encoding is detected, the 7 & 8 go away, and 1-6 appear.
So there is not surprising that there have been no complaints from HD-1 listeners. ZLX HD-1 in stereo has no path to the surround information.
Published reports indicate that they will begin public streaming of the MPEG surround feed sometime this summer. They had a private stream of WZLX surround up at the NAB, played through the Winamp freeware, and it sounded really good when they played a surround song.
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