HD RADIO - IT'S JUST TOO COMPLICATED

HD RADIO - IT'S JUST TOO COMPLICATED
Dan Halyburton

Part 1
Part 2

I started to write about the content offerings of HD Radio and the deeper I was in, I reached the conclusion that while the new “band” shows some promise, the whole thing is just too damn complicated. There is a significant price that Radio is paying for this complexity.

More Heartache on HD

Literally, that's the first tag line on the flash page that welcomed me when I went to the newly re-done hdradio.com website: "More Heartache on HD" (along with "more music on HD...more chill on HD...more relaxing on HD..."). How fitting an admission!

Also, now that the Zune HD has been discontinued, the number of portable HD-capable players available is exactly... two - both Best Buy Insignia house brand models. Remember the old days when you'd see industry leaders like Sony followed by other companies like Panasonic, Sharp, etc. fielding quality portable radios? Not for this turkey of a technology, I guess.

http://www.hdradio.com/buyers-guide/hd-radio-player

The NSHD-01 gets respectable feedback but the NSHD-02 has reviews calling it a "joke", saying "don't bother" - both for the user interface and the reception, it seems.

Microsoft cancels Zune HD leaving one last portable HD radio on the market

Microsoft cancels Zune HD leaving one last portable HD radio on the market

This week Bloomberg reported that Microsoft will introduce no new versions of its Zune HD portable music device. Conceived as a competitor to Apple’s market-dominating iPod line, the Zune added an HD Radio receiver in 2009, making it one of only two portable HD radios available. The other comes from the Best Buy Insignia house brand, which has a touch-screen making it look like an MP3 player, even though it’s only a radio.It appears that Microsoft will retain the Zune brand which includes a music store platform accessible on the XBox games system and Windows smartphones. But none of those devices includes HD Radio reception.

While iBiquity, owner of the HD Radio technology, cheered the technology’s inclusion in the Zune, it’s doubtful that any significant number of consumers chose a Zune specifically for its HD Radio. Similarly, I doubt many people bought an iPod Nano because of the radio. I’m certain that a small segment of buyers are won over to a model in order to get a radio, but other features are likely a bigger determinant.

Detroit Pistons moved to CBS due to HD Radio interference?

Pete Skorich, Detroit Pistons Director of Broadcasting, addressed a rumor that  RBR-TVBR heard regarding a rate reduction in The Detroit Pistons contract with Clear Channel’s Sports WDFN-AM 1130 kHz over poor reception in the evenings. Details had it that 50-kW KMOX St. Louis (1120) and 50-kW WRVA Richmond (1140) were killing WDFN’s nighttime signal because of their skywave HD Radio carriers on 1130. Well, Skorich tells us there was no rate reduction but instead a complete move to CBS Radio’s The Ticket (WXYT) simulcast of 97.1 and 1270 some two years ago.
But he did note it was because of reception complaints: “That was one of the components, and we were with them for five years. They had a weak signal and we were getting a lot of people that could not hear us. It could have been [because of] HD Radio, but at the time we were totally unaware of it.”

 

 

AM HD Radio Has Stalled. Now What?

AM HD Radio Has Stalled. Now What?


by Leslie Stimson, 08.31.2010


AM HD Radio, it seems, is the stepchild of the digital world.
Proponents point to AM HD’s dramatic improvement in audio quality over that of analog. But several experts say that, at best, AM HD is having mixed success. Many even characterize it as struggling or not successful. Others, however, say it’s too early to tell what its future will be.

HD Radio on AM – Not worth it

HD Radio on AM – Not worth it


August 29th, 2010 by Paul Riismandel in HD Radio
 
One of the supposed advantages of HD Radio is improved fidelity over analog. As I observed in my listening test of HD on FM, there’s almost no real improvement for HD over the analog signal. The advantage for HD on FM, then, is the addition of one or two more channels of audio. However, due to the more limited sonics of analog AM radio, we are led to expect HD AM stations to offer significantly better fidelity; they don’t offer any additional channels.

But compared to FM, there are much fewer HD stations on AM. This is largely due to the fact that the AM band is seriously congested, with quite a bit of interference. Adding an HD Radio IBOC side-channel to a station greatly increases the potential for interference to adjoining analog stations. A secondary reason is that the AM band is dominated by talk radio formats where fidelity improvement is less important.

HD Radio "Practically Buried Again"

From a translated article, Switzerland has switched off HD radio:

Praktisch schon wieder beerdigt

HD-Initiant Ruoss sieht Projekt gescheitert. HD-initiator Ruoss provides project failed.

Five private radio stations presented in February 2010 an application for an HD Radio (digital FM ") from autumn 2010. Die technische Konzession erhielten sie dann im Juni. The technical concession, they then received in June. Und nun dies: Markus Ruoss, Inhaber von Radio Sunshine und einer der HD-Initianten, gab am RadioDay sozusagen die Beerdigung des Projektes HD-Radio Schweiz bekannt. And now this: Markus Ruoss, owner of Sunshine Radio and the HD-initiators, announced on RadioDay known, as it were the burial of the project HD Radio Switzerland.