HD Radio To Go, Or Just Going, Going, Gone?
Have you, unlike what seems to be the majority of electronics customers, been pining for a cheaper way to try out HD Radio? A new portable model on sale now in Best Buy stores brings the entry-level cost for HD Radio to its lowest point ever, $49.99. But somehow, I don't think it's going to do much for this digital-radio technology's questionable prospects.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Insignia NS-HD01 portable HD radio hands-on and impressions
Insignia NS-HD01 portable HD radio hands-on and impressions
HD Radio has been desperately trying for years to become important in a world where most Americans are perfectly fine with tinny, 96kbps MP3s, and by and large, it's been unsuccessful.
HD Radio has been desperately trying for years to become important in a world where most Americans are perfectly fine with tinny, 96kbps MP3s, and by and large, it's been unsuccessful.
Friday, April 10, 2009
HD Radio Crying Out to Be Heard
HD Radio Crying Out to Be Heard
By DAVID POGUE
Published: April 8, 2009
Q: How do you make an HD radio executive bang his head against the wall?
A: Ask him, “What’s HD radio?”
The HD radio alliance has spent millions of dollars on promotion, ads and educational efforts. Yet even after four years of this, most people still don’t have any idea what HD radio is.
By DAVID POGUE
Published: April 8, 2009
Q: How do you make an HD radio executive bang his head against the wall?
A: Ask him, “What’s HD radio?”
The HD radio alliance has spent millions of dollars on promotion, ads and educational efforts. Yet even after four years of this, most people still don’t have any idea what HD radio is.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
HD Radio: The Brand Extension Is Dead
HD Radio: The Brand Extension Is Dead
A theory that's gaining momentum is that our time is running out to get the public interested in HD Radio. There have been numerous letters to the editor in this very publication where readers compare HD Radio to AM stereo technology. It sounded pretty good if you ever got the chance to hear it, but so what?
A theory that's gaining momentum is that our time is running out to get the public interested in HD Radio. There have been numerous letters to the editor in this very publication where readers compare HD Radio to AM stereo technology. It sounded pretty good if you ever got the chance to hear it, but so what?
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
HD Radio stalls out
HD Radio stalls out
by Scott Fybush
So 2008 wasn't "the year" for HD Radio's long=promised breakthrough into mass success, either. A handful of new stations added HD signals, a few others shut theirs off, either temporarily or permanently, and while receiver penetration in the marketplace increased (thanks in part to a few impressive new radios such as Sony's XDR-F1HD), it was only incrementally, not the exponential gains the system's proponents had hoped for.
Any hope of exciting new format development on FM HD multicast channels in the commercial world was pretty well quashed by the budget realities that made funding tight even for main-channel programming; indeed, if there could be said to have been any real trend in HD programming, it was the repurposing of existing programming - mainly CBS' news and talk AM stations - on HD2 and HD3 channels of their FM sister stations.
And when the FCC opened the gates for public comment on a proposal to increase FM digital power levels tenfold to solve one of the system's frequent complaints - poor coverage compared to analog - many commenters were strongly opposed, citing the potential for increased interference to analog listeners. (It's an open question, too, whether cash-strapped broadcasters could or would spend the money needed for such a power increase if it were to be permitted.)
HD on AM radio? While the corpse hasn't quite stopped twitching yet, the AM system ended the year looking awfully stiff, with only a handful of broadcasters (most notably CBS, Crawford and New York's WOR) still pushing it at the corporate level, even as some of their local staffers quietly admitted that the adjacent-channel nighttime interference issues between closely-spaced stations such as WINS, KDKA and WBZ reduced usable analog coverage and rendered the digital signal all but unusable even within much of their home markets at night. And if there was a single new digital AM installation on the air anywhere in NERW-land this year, we don't know about it. (Nor, was there any action on that pending interference complaint from Bob Savage's WYSL against Boston's WBZ.)
As for the long-pending promise of HD as a standard feature in new cars, the auto industry's near-death experience appears to have put a halt on further progress in that area for a while.
Now here's the part where the handful of anti-IBOC diehards over on the message boards (hey, Bob! how's it going, Greg?) will stop quoting: there were also some interesting signs of life on the FM HD side. Several public stations - WRTI in Philadelphia, WNED in Buffalo, WXXI in Rochester, VPR in Vermont, to name a few - found plenty of demand from listeners for programming that was otherwise unavailable on their analog signals, and the advent of less-expensive radios made it possible for them to offer receivers to listeners as pledge-drive premiums. A few adventurous stations - WFUV at Fordham University, WXPN at Penn, WSOU at Seton Hall among them - used their HD subchannels to develop new programming, some of it with live DJs, even. And Emmis found a new commercial application for one of its HD3s in New York: it announced a partnership with a broadcaster who will lease the channel for a South Asian service promising better sound quality and wider reach than the usual SCA subcarriers.
(The rival FMExtra system, for all its staunch supporters, made HD Radio look lively by comparison in 2008; at year's end, it was still receivable by only a single $300 tabletop radio, and looks to have a future primarily as a means of studio-transmitter distribution at the rate things are going.)
by Scott Fybush
So 2008 wasn't "the year" for HD Radio's long=promised breakthrough into mass success, either. A handful of new stations added HD signals, a few others shut theirs off, either temporarily or permanently, and while receiver penetration in the marketplace increased (thanks in part to a few impressive new radios such as Sony's XDR-F1HD), it was only incrementally, not the exponential gains the system's proponents had hoped for.
Any hope of exciting new format development on FM HD multicast channels in the commercial world was pretty well quashed by the budget realities that made funding tight even for main-channel programming; indeed, if there could be said to have been any real trend in HD programming, it was the repurposing of existing programming - mainly CBS' news and talk AM stations - on HD2 and HD3 channels of their FM sister stations.
And when the FCC opened the gates for public comment on a proposal to increase FM digital power levels tenfold to solve one of the system's frequent complaints - poor coverage compared to analog - many commenters were strongly opposed, citing the potential for increased interference to analog listeners. (It's an open question, too, whether cash-strapped broadcasters could or would spend the money needed for such a power increase if it were to be permitted.)
HD on AM radio? While the corpse hasn't quite stopped twitching yet, the AM system ended the year looking awfully stiff, with only a handful of broadcasters (most notably CBS, Crawford and New York's WOR) still pushing it at the corporate level, even as some of their local staffers quietly admitted that the adjacent-channel nighttime interference issues between closely-spaced stations such as WINS, KDKA and WBZ reduced usable analog coverage and rendered the digital signal all but unusable even within much of their home markets at night. And if there was a single new digital AM installation on the air anywhere in NERW-land this year, we don't know about it. (Nor, was there any action on that pending interference complaint from Bob Savage's WYSL against Boston's WBZ.)
As for the long-pending promise of HD as a standard feature in new cars, the auto industry's near-death experience appears to have put a halt on further progress in that area for a while.
Now here's the part where the handful of anti-IBOC diehards over on the message boards (hey, Bob! how's it going, Greg?) will stop quoting: there were also some interesting signs of life on the FM HD side. Several public stations - WRTI in Philadelphia, WNED in Buffalo, WXXI in Rochester, VPR in Vermont, to name a few - found plenty of demand from listeners for programming that was otherwise unavailable on their analog signals, and the advent of less-expensive radios made it possible for them to offer receivers to listeners as pledge-drive premiums. A few adventurous stations - WFUV at Fordham University, WXPN at Penn, WSOU at Seton Hall among them - used their HD subchannels to develop new programming, some of it with live DJs, even. And Emmis found a new commercial application for one of its HD3s in New York: it announced a partnership with a broadcaster who will lease the channel for a South Asian service promising better sound quality and wider reach than the usual SCA subcarriers.
(The rival FMExtra system, for all its staunch supporters, made HD Radio look lively by comparison in 2008; at year's end, it was still receivable by only a single $300 tabletop radio, and looks to have a future primarily as a means of studio-transmitter distribution at the rate things are going.)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Stop IBOC Now!
from StopIBOC.com:
BY THE NUMBERS
As of September, 2008:
NUMBER OF US AM STATIONS: 4783
AM STATIONS OPERATING “IBOC”: 258
AM STATIONS OPERATING “IBOC” 24-7 DAY AND NIGHT: 87
(the remainer are “digital daytimers” meaning that directional antenna systems used at night will not work properly with HD. The overall figure of 258 includes a number of AM stations noted as “intermittent operation” meaning HD broadcasts may be infrequent or irregular.)
PERCENTAGE OF AM STATIONS OPERATING “IBOC”: 5%
Note: Most AM stations utilizing IBOC do not utilize the system at night. According to IBOC proponents, as of October 2007, “fewer than 100 stations” are utilizing the system because of skywave adjacent-channel interference problems (see “DROPPING LIKE FLIES,” this site.) An unknown number of AM stations using IBOC are “daytimers” meaning they have no nighttime authority under any circumstances, or are “daytimers with post-sunset authority” meaning they have very small nighttime operating power. Since IBOC utilizes only about 1/100th of AM carrier power the system would not work reliably with the usual PSSA authorized station, operating with only 5 to 50 watts, so daytimers are not candidates for nighttime use of the system.
For a running pop-count of AM stations operating IBOC, a constantly updated list including data from numerous sources: http://topazdesigns.com/iboc/station-list.html
Summer 2008: CLEAR CHANNEL STOPS NIGHT IBOC ON WRVA RICHMOND TO PROTECT CO-OWNED ADJACENT-CHANNEL STATIONS IN MIDWEST
Although radio’s biggest company (and a major investor in iBiquity), Clear Channel has moved decisively to end adjacent-channel IBOC interference emanating from its heritage flagship WRVA 1140 in Richmond, VA. CC won’t comment publicly but internal sources tell stopiboc.com that nighttime IBOC has ceased on WRVA because of destructive interference to three high-power AM stations the company owns in Detroit, Milwaukee and Minneapolis operating on adjacent 1130 kHz.
The 1130s all operate with powers between 10 and 25kw at night and utilize complex 9-tower directional arrays, and are highly impacted by the nighttime noise from Richmond.
Summer 2008: 50KW KMJ 580 FRESNO TURNS OFF IBOC
CBS, a stalwart booster of IBOC and investor in iBiquity and the HD Alliance, has stopped IBOC on legendary KMJ. No reason was given publicly.
Summer 2008: KTCT 1050 SILENCES IBOC IN SAN MATEO
The 50kw Cumulus outlet in San Mateo, CA, has stopped its IBOC operation without explanation to the public.
They’re turning off HD in Washington, DC
http://www.rbr.com/radio/12018.html
Well, this time it’s not an anomaly or a digital exciter glitch—at least not that we can see. For weeks now the Washington, DC market has been turning off its HD Radio signals en masse. There is no longer any station in the market on AM broadcasting in HD. ESPN Deportes Radio/Red Zebra’s 730 WXTR-AM long ago shut off the signal. But now that list includes 630 WMAL (Citadel); 570 WTNT (Clear Channel); Red Zebra’s 980 ESPN Radio; and 1500 WFED-AM (Bonneville). The FM list now includes 106.7 WJFK-FM (CBS Radio); 102.3 WWMJ-FM (Radio One); 104.1 WPRS-FM (Radio One) and 107.7 WWWT-FM (Bonneville).
RBR/TVBR observation: The most likely culprit is licensing fees. Just not worth it for some in tough economic times. Also, these FMs did not have HD multicast (HD2) signals, and two of them were broadcasting in mono—so what’s the point? For the AM side, unless you are 50,000 watts, most radios can’t pick up AM HD very far from the tower array. WFED is 50-kW, but you’d never know it because of its higher frequency—just doesn’t propagate well.
Well, this time it’s not an anomaly or a digital exciter glitch—at least not that we can see. For weeks now the Washington, DC market has been turning off its HD Radio signals en masse. There is no longer any station in the market on AM broadcasting in HD. ESPN Deportes Radio/Red Zebra’s 730 WXTR-AM long ago shut off the signal. But now that list includes 630 WMAL (Citadel); 570 WTNT (Clear Channel); Red Zebra’s 980 ESPN Radio; and 1500 WFED-AM (Bonneville). The FM list now includes 106.7 WJFK-FM (CBS Radio); 102.3 WWMJ-FM (Radio One); 104.1 WPRS-FM (Radio One) and 107.7 WWWT-FM (Bonneville).
RBR/TVBR observation: The most likely culprit is licensing fees. Just not worth it for some in tough economic times. Also, these FMs did not have HD multicast (HD2) signals, and two of them were broadcasting in mono—so what’s the point? For the AM side, unless you are 50,000 watts, most radios can’t pick up AM HD very far from the tower array. WFED is 50-kW, but you’d never know it because of its higher frequency—just doesn’t propagate well.
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