HD Radio

[lou99/maximus1987]

http://hdradio.com/

 

 

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[SeanK_]

What about it? 

[lou99/maximus1987]

What about it?

Anything.

 

 

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[SeanK_]

Just sounds like my normal radio in my Fit.

[Mr.Nuke]

http://hdradio.com/

 

Anything.

If you are going to start a thread, please post something more substantially than a link.

[lou99/maximus1987]

If you are going to start a thread, please post something more substantially than a link.

I wanted to know people's experiences, thoughts, etc.

 

 

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[jroepcke51]

I wanted to know people's experiences, thoughts, etc.

 

 

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The extra channels are nice. Nothing else that special

[joshuam]

Audio quality improvement is quite noticeable in my car. Don't care for the slight lag it has between channel. Doesn't work in the tunnels in Baltimore, and more overall interference which is more noticeable with HD radio. But overall...I love it!

[lilotimz]

I wanted to know people's experiences, thoughts, etc.

 

 

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Then you should state so in the post instead of just linking the site. It may be misconstrued as an advertisement considering that site does have items for sale.

 

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[WiWavelength]

Then you should state so in the post instead of just linking the site. It may be misconstrued as an advertisement considering that site does have items for sale.

 

Maybe maximus is astroturfing for iBiquity now, too.

 

 

AJ

[greenbastard]

I wanted to know people's experiences, thoughts, etc.

 

 

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Its a hit and miss as far as reception goes. HD Radio actually stands for Hybrid Digital, so don't let the "HD" fool you. Hybrid Digital only has the bandwidth to have one CD quality stream, so when a station multicasts an HD1 and HD2 channel, the quality degrades to slightly better than FM.

 

Most major cities have FM radio stations broadcasting HD but because of the low availability of HD radios, most engineers don't bother to maintain their HD streams properly. For example in Houston, KBXX and KMJQ's HD main channels actually sound worse than their stereo analog counterparts. Also, KROI-FM spent an entire week once with a dead feed coming out of their HD carrier. Another big problem is engineers do not properly sync the audio from their analog feeds to their digital feeds. HD Radio by default delays the digital audio by (I think) 7.5 seconds, so engineers have to purposely delay their analog feed in order to have a radio sync smoothly from analog-to-HD (and vice versa). This leads to many stations suffering from audio lag when a receiver is in the fringe area of HD Radio coverage. Overall, nice concept when inside the -70 dBu contour of an FM radio station, but crap when outside of it.

 

As far as AM HD Radio, not many stations adopted it nationwide, and those that did turned it off soon after due to the main analog channel suffering from interference.

 

In all honesty, the only reason most companies are using HD Radio now is to skip through FCC loop holes. Since most companies have a limit of the # of stations they can own in every market, many of them are buying small translators and using the HD2 channel as the parent station in order to have more stations. One example is the Austin radio market. Most of the local translators rebroadcast a local HD subchannel rather than an actual FM station. This has resulted in Austin gaining 5 extra commercial FM radio stations.

 

 

Its slimy, but legal.

[Volaris]

The sound is an improvement, but it's nowhere as 'HD' as it should be. It's kinda like satellite radio. 

 

Same goes for range. The signal is weaker than the analog signal, so it sometimes cuts off. Overall though, if you live in a major metro or near the antennas, I'm guessing it should be an improvement (plus a few more stations).

 

^And OMG to the post above. It would drive me crazy when stations wouldn't properly sync their analog and HD broadcast, especially in my rural area. The hand offs were very annoying to where I'd have to disable HD radio.

[WiWavelength]

The sound is an improvement, but it's nowhere as 'HD' as it should be. It's kinda like satellite radio. 

 

Same goes for range. The signal is weaker than the analog signal, so it sometimes cuts off. Overall though, if you live in a major metro or near the antennas, I'm guessing it should be an improvement (plus a few more stations).

 

^And OMG to the post above. It would drive me crazy when stations wouldn't properly sync their analog and HD broadcast, especially in my rural area. The hand offs were very annoying to where I'd have to disable HD radio.

 

Remarkably, this HD Radio discussion bears many parallels to that of VoLTE.

 

AJ

[greenbastard]

Remarkably, this HD Radio discussion bears many parallels to that of VoLTE.

 

AJ

Since I'm not very knowledgeable on VoLTE.....how so?

[greenbastard]

 

^And OMG to the post above. It would drive me crazy when stations wouldn't properly sync their analog and HD broadcast, especially in my rural area. The hand offs were very annoying to where I'd have to disable HD radio.

A lot of this has to do with the lack of attention given to the technology by the radio stations. And quite frankly you can't blame them. HD Radio was only starting to take off when the entire industry got hit with the 2008 Recession. Many radio companies slashed their budgets and HD Radio just took a back seat to other priorities. Also, the first generation equipment many companies received are lousy and always go dark. Companies could upgrade the equipment to more efficient equipment, but most of the Radio industry really took the recession hard and til this day are still budget constrained. Replacing a technology that is mostly ignored by the public is not a top priority for many of the GMs of radio outlets.

 

 

And the way the Radio industry is headed, I doubt HD Radio will even take off. Radio, as a whole, is a dying mean of communication and radio companies are running out of unnecessary expenses they can cut. The end is near for traditional radio. Organization giants such as Clear Channel and Univision Radio are seeing the writing on the wall and are now heavily advertising their online media and apps on the radio. Internet mobility is where future is for media advertising.

[S4GRU]

I put a Mid Range Full Screen Radio/Nav/DVD deck in my Isuzu VehiCross in 2008 and it had HD Radio. Most of the stations in Northern CA I listened to sounded like Sat Radio. Clearer, but tinny. Most had 2 or 3 stations per channel. And that is likely why.

 

I have since bought similar Mid Range Full Screen Radio/Nav/DVD decks for my Suburban, my wife's Isuzu Ascender, my Isuzu Trooper and my son's Chevy Impala in 2010, 2012 and 2014. And none of them have HD Radio. So, in after market radios, maybe the HD Radio fad is already over? Or maybe at least now just being offered in top line decks?

 

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[lou99/maximus1987]

A lot of this has to do with the lack of attention given to the technology by the radio stations. And quite frankly you can't blame them. HD Radio was only starting to take off when the entire industry got hit with the 2008 Recession. Many radio companies slashed their budgets and HD Radio just took a back seat to other priorities. Also, the first generation equipment many companies received are lousy and always go dark. Companies could upgrade the equipment to more efficient equipment, but most of the Radio industry really took the recession hard and til this day are still budget constrained. Replacing a technology that is mostly ignored by the public is not a top priority for many of the GMs of radio outlets.

 

 

And the way the Radio industry is headed, I doubt HD Radio will even take off. Radio, as a whole, is a dying mean of communication and radio companies are running out of unnecessary expenses they can cut. The end is near for traditional radio. Organization giants such as Clear Channel and Univision Radio are seeing the writing on the wall and are now heavily advertising their online media and apps on the radio. Internet mobility is where future is for media advertising.

If stations starting going off air, what else could that spectrum be used for?

 

 

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[grapkoski]

In the DC metro area, Clear Channel (err sorry 'iHeartMedia') has a pretty comprehensive HD radio stack and it sounds a lot better than traditional FM. That said, I with Norway aiming for an FM shutdown in 2017, I wonder what our broadcasters will follow in ten years. Would be nice to refarm that spectrum....

 

Sure, streaming and data is the future, but our cellular coverage isn't ubiquitous enough for everyone to ditch traditional radio.

[greenbastard]

If stations starting going off air, what else could that spectrum be used for?

 

 

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Nothing. HD Radio uses the thin sidebands of a radio station in order to broadcast the digital signal. So for example, if a radio station at 95.7 FM is broadcasting HD Radio, it uses 70 khz of side band at 95.7 to broadcast the digital white noise at (iirc) ~95.725 and ~95.675 FM. This is why you hear digital hash bleed over on 95.5 and 95.9 and why some radios stop on those frequencies when using the seek feature.

 

 

Even if broadcasters could find something to do with this thin spectrum, they wouldn't be able to use another technology since the FCC chose Iniquity's HD Radio as the Digital standard for Digital FM.

[greenbastard]

In the DC metro area, Clear Channel (err sorry 'iHeartMedia') has a pretty comprehensive HD radio stack and it sounds a lot better than traditional FM. That said, I with Norway aiming for an FM shutdown in 2017, I wonder what our broadcasters will follow in ten years. Would be nice to refarm that spectrum....

 

Sure, streaming and data is the future, but our cellular coverage isn't ubiquitous enough for everyone to ditch traditional radio.

Radio won't get axed anytime soon due to our reliance to it during natural disasters. But what we are seeing is big companies cut loose some of their smaller markets as the old business models no longer work for them. The old "buy and conquer" method of Clear Channel is no longer profitable in today's media market. In all honesty, I can't even recall the last time I used commercial FM/AM or satellite radio on my car. Bluetooth has done away with that for me since I can now stream Pandora/Spotify/podcasts or anything I like. Who says Houston needs an FM Active Rock station? I just pull up my phone and Spotify it. Sorry iHeart Media, you're going the way of the dinosaurs.

[Jones]

iHeartMedia is trying to be more Spotify like with thier streaming app so they will likely remain competitive for the next 5-10 years.

 

What is everyone's thoughts on XM - I love the channel variety but the sound quality is no good. Going from FM to XM I have to turn up the volume by 10 just to hear the music. I had read that XM compresses thier bit rate whenever there is a lot of congestion...but no matter what time of day I think it sounds muffled...like listening to a 28kpbs sound file downloaded off Napster.

[cdk]

Radio won't get axed anytime soon due to our reliance to it during natural disasters. But what we are seeing is big companies cut loose some of their smaller markets as the old business models no longer work for them. The old "buy and conquer" method of Clear Channel is no longer profitable in today's media market. In all honesty, I can't even recall the last time I used commercial FM/AM or satellite radio on my car. Bluetooth has done away with that for me since I can now stream Pandora/Spotify/podcasts or anything I like. Who says Houston needs an FM Active Rock station? I just pull up my phone and Spotify it. Sorry iHeart Media, you're going the way of the dinosaurs.

 

Clear Channel (and similar operators) is the primary reason I don't regularly listen to FM anymore. Their stall, bland, one-size-fits-all branding, music, and sindication is terrible.

 

Cutting loose might just be what FM needs, original and locally controlled program devoid of the payola music garbage that dominates it now might actually let it thrive again.

[cdk]

iHeartMedia is trying to be more Spotify like with thier streaming app so they will likely remain competitive for the next 5-10 years.

 

What is everyone's thoughts on XM - I love the channel variety but the sound quality is no good. Going from FM to XM I have to turn up the volume by 10 just to hear the music. I had read that XM compresses thier bit rate whenever there is a lot of congestion...but no matter what time of day I think it sounds muffled...like listening to a 28kpbs sound file downloaded off Napster.

 

I like XM, at least I can listen to stuff I like. They do compress a lot though of their channels, and that is annoying as the audio quality suffers. 

[greenbastard]

I like XM, at least I can listen to stuff I like. They do compress a lot though of there channels, and that is annoying as the audio quality suffers.

Xm/Sirius is a pretty good alternative. The only time I bought subscriptions from them was when I would make a road trip throughout the U.S. or Mexico. Believe it or not, they can be heard all the way deep as Central Mexico (and maybe even farther south...didn't drive down that far to find out).

 

My problem with XM is that, just like traditional AM/FM radio, its only a one-way mean of communication. As customers, we are only receivers and have no say in the music selection.

 

But with internet, all of that changes. Of course, no company has a robust nationwide data network or spectrum to handle a full listener transition from FM/AM/XM radios to internet radios, but one can only hope that with technological advancements, we can get close to it.

[cdk]

Xm/Sirius is a pretty good alternative. The only time I bought subscriptions from them was when I would make a road trip throughout the U.S. or Mexico. Believe it or not, they can be heard all the way deep as Central Mexico (and maybe even farther south...didn't drive down that far to find out).

 

I live in an area that has no good local AM or FM stations, a permanent subscription was the best choice for my sanity. I also like the fact that I don't have to keep look for something I can listen to on road trips. I am more likely to head north than south though, I wonder how far north you can hear it in Canada....

 

My problem with XM is that, just like traditional AM/FM radio, its only a one-way mean of communication. As customers, we are only receivers and have no say in the music selection.

 

But with internet, all of that changes. Of course, no company has a robust nationwide data network or spectrum to handle a full listener transition from FM/AM/XM radios to internet radios, but one can only hope that with technological advancements, we can get close to it.

 

Unless you are looking for an on demand service playing your particular playlist I would argue it is not a big problem.