Broadcast Info......The Future

B-2

A great read for anyone who will take the time. Anyone thinking of investing in a high dollar analog tuner or spending money on upgrading their analog tuner should read this article.

Here's one quote that everyone should understand.

FM IBOC features a total RF bandwidth of a little under 400Khz.

Does the average analog radio listener understand the implications of this? If you don't, it simply means that where there are 100 locations (200Khz apart) on your dial for radio stations, with IBOC there will be 50 (400Khz apart). Your potential choices will be effectively halved. I myself prefer more choices.

(IBOC)<-- Less is not more! -->(analog).

The other quote is:

IBOC is not an open technology like AM or FM radio is. Every transmitter and receiver will include a royalty to cover the use of the patented IBOC technology. While this helps bring a standard to all digital radios, it also puts a private entity at the center of the radio industry that all parties must depend on and pay to make use of the RF spectrum. This does raise public interest concerns in that we won't see competition for digital radio and will see cost built into both broadcast and receive parts of the process.

Ideally we will see Ibiquity, the owner of the IBOC technology, provide RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing terms for those interested in providing IBOC / HD Radio related products and services. Without these terms, there is little incentive for both innovation and cost reduction of IBOC related services and radio gear. Additionally, software radio technologies are still developing at this time. Most of this work is Open Source. Will HD Radio broadcasts remain invisible to software radios due to licensing issues? Should they be, given the public interest in the radio spectrum? These and other questions surrounding the licensing of the IBOC technology remain a growing concern in the longer term that should be addressed before the use of the technology becomes to pervasive.


I ask you, since when has single point control of a technology been a good thing? When I see the name Ibiquity I think MicroSoft. Yeah I use MS Word and MS Excel almost every day at work. I use it at the house too. BUT my computers crash because of MicroSoft's shitty operating system and general wide open door to viruses and hackers. If we all had cars that ran like MicroSoft operating systems none of us would have jobs because we couldn't get to work on time. We'd be buying horses and bicycles. That is what I envision when Ibiquity owns "our" airwaves.
 
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Not losing sleep over this

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showpost.php?p=335740&postcount=107

Guys, maybe you can answer this for me? If I recall, it was General Electric and Zenith Radio that held the patents on the present FM Multiplex analog stereo pilot tone system we presently use, yes? Did transmitter and receiver makers have to pay any patent royalties to GE and/or Zenith for the use of their technology? Or was it just thrown out there for anyone and everyone to use? I've never been able to find out what precisely happened and if GE and Zenith made money on this technology.
Tom
 
This is going off memory alone, but i don't think either licensed their technology. I think they were the sole manaufacturers of the broadcast equipment required, and remained in that position until their patent protection expired.
 
One of my dearest oldest friends is on the forefront of this technology, designing and manufacturing gear for the broadcasters, and traveling all over the world singing the praises of digital radio at trade shows and stuff. Hopefully he won't read this.

I see digital radio as a solution for which there wasn't a problem. Who asked for it? I didn't. There may be a bunch of improvements (less noise, greater dynamic range) but who cares? I don't want surround sound in my car. The same goes for satellite. Who has the time. And why would I want to spend money to listen?

I am a huge proponent of HDTV (although I hate the digitizing aspect of it, the detailed pictures are amazing, so much better). Old TV technology was pretty crude. But for radio there isn't a compelling reason to rush to it - I'll get there whenever.
 
What ever you decide, don't be the first on your block to buy a digital tuner. If you read the article you saw that the first people buying will probably have to replace their equipment after several years because the technology is still evolving. Sort of like all those folks who bought Sony BetaMax and then had to turn around and buy VHS.
 
B-2

Another great read. You must be spending some time on radio world online? In that article I found the most interesting content near the very end. Let me quote the writer:

"Within the next twenty-four months WiFi will be widely available and FREE to all in cities like Austin, Portland, Philadelphia, New York City, San Francisco and others. And that’s not all. Reuters reports that “Slightly more than 100 US cities…are setting up wireless networks now…[and] close to 1,000 local governments worldwide have plans in the works.”

Free wireless audio access?

There’s another name for that:

“Radio.”


A Call to Action

If HD Radio fails it will be for one reason: We ignored good marketing sense and allowed it to fail. But if it succeeds we’re still not out of the woods.

Radio’s long term relevance is not linked inextricably to the fate of HD Radio. Our industry must understand that we have a seat at the table of wireless audio – the biggest seat with the broadest distribution. And we can use our influence and muscle and talent and resources to develop and own that big seat until the end of time. But it will take vision and commitment and an awakening to the realities of what business we’re really in and what opportunities and threats are on the horizon"
.


Very telling. Remember when I was harping that Ibiquity and the HD Radio proponents had another use for the FM band besides radio as we know it? I kept finding references to using the 400khz each HD radio station will get for wireless data transfer. My radio engineer friend was telling me that companies like Clear Channel were buying up all the radio stations in markets like San Diego. Many of those stations were broadcasting the same music to the same listeners at the same time of day. Why would this be? How would you make money unless you had another plan on the horizon? I think the writer has just told us exactly what HD "Radio" is all about. It looks like the plan is they want to control the Wi-Fi market and will use the FM bandwidth to do it.
 
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He's saying that they can control the Wi-Fi market without HD Radio but I'm saying that with HD Radio it will be even easier for the big players. They're going to use IBOC to squeeze the small independents out of the market.
 
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Sounds like a contest

Anyone care how long AM has to go, before the stations all die out?

I'd miss it!
 
While I don't want to file HD and digital radio and all ilks of same under the 'resistance to change', which we all are after we get comfortable, I am mostly upset with the fact that this is all being presented to the ignorant (most folks - look at the government we elected) as something "better". Well, I guess it is if you are someone making money off of it. And that is going to work out just like it always does. Those who have much more than they need get more (the rich get richer?), while those of us who want good sound get f**ked. Sounds just like our tax cuts.
 
We have discussed a few different issues here and missed a few too:

Licensing the technology for broadcasts (open, not open, etc.) which we've butchered
Potential loss of quality of analog (in the future)
Potential loss of # channels (I'll have to re-read that)
Digital copy protection - not mentioned, but seems a possibility (this is a huge issue)
Loss of DX range on digital signals

Several improvements seem obvious:
Low noise and distortion floor
Improved frequency response to 20-22000 Hz

The big question to me is how does it sound? According to what my friend at Omniaaudio.com writes (and boy does he like to write), it is a completely different sound. Analog FM pastes its own (not necessarily unpleasant) signature on the sound. This is GONE with HD radio. I will have to check it out, but I have a feeling that it can sound much improved.

I hate the term "high definition radio." "Low resolution" radio should go along with that. Analog signals are nearly continuous (infinite) - extremely high resolution, but digital signals are fixed resolution - usually 16 bit. Infinte beats 16 bit. Analog v. digital.
 
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