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Thanks for pointing out that HD radio isn't a pay-as-you-go service -- I admit to little curiosity about it, since, for me, FM radio works just fine. I realize that's partly because of where I live. Does HD radio offer anything useful to those who live too far from FM radio stations they'd like to hear, or who live in mountainous regions where reception is poor even for nearby stations?

maybe i'm not understanding your comment, but RDS isn't a pay-as-you-go service. as such, as long as the startup costs (the stereos that support it) aren't ridiculous, they gets averaged out over the life of the stereo. that's the ideal anyway, in reality when i looked at after-market car radio catalogs two years ago it seemed like only Blaupunkt (sp?) radios had that feature and they were fairly expensive (it seems like XM/Sirius came along at the same time as RDS was gaining traction, and everyone supports that instead).

also, HD Radio is not the same as satellite radio, it's not a pay service so again it just depends on how expensive the entry-level radios are that support it.

So, she's a big fan of, and wants to push DRM, eh?

I guess iBIQUITY is not gonna be too pleased...

HD Radio aka IBOC was tested pretty extensively.

HD Radio is in demand by AM stations that wish to improve the fidelity of their signals. On the FM side, it is being used more for delivering multichannel (aka "multicast").

IBOC is a depricated term. It is now HD Radio

It's based on proprietary technology which comes from a single vendor.

The startup costs run around $100,000 per station, thus shutting out the few independent station owners that remain.

You can hardly find the HD Radio receivers anywhere, and even if you can, they start at about $500 per.

iBiquity is the company that created and licenses the HD Radio technology and they say that it is CD quality. I would not expect the broadcasters to be that interested in spending millions of dollars to roll out something that sounds equivalent to what they have now.

iBiquity is the company that created and licenses the HD Radio technology and they say that it is CD quality. I would not expect the broadcasters to be that interested in spending millions of dollars to roll out something that sounds equivalent to what they have now.

MS always gets kicked around (especially here) for doing things like this...

I think the problem with your question is in the set up, where you posit the hypothetical "a company". I think that the reason many /.ers get as upset as they do is that Microsoft wields more power than your typical "a company" and is more like your basic "a monopoly". Naturally, this changes the answer some regarding them.

I think it also depends on how these changes effect those using the standard. Take HD Radio It adds some functionality to standard radio broadcasting but does so without interfering with my old standards based analog car stereo. This is a reasonable implementation. On the other hand, all the examples of Microsoft extending features I can think of involve breaking part of the ecosystem.

no reason? mmhh... technologically, there's no reason, but politically and socially many good reasons.

Example: My grandmother, who is 92 and still going strong, but her eyesight isn't what it used to be. So she listens to the radio. This is a woman who has only the vaguest concept of what digital is, and if you tried to change the dial on her - well, bad things.

Note: One thing she does know how to do is vote. And she and her peers vote in far, far, greater number than my generation, who are too busy reading here and listening to MP3s or podcasting or video games or whatever we feel like. Any politician who would seriously suggest changing the current radio system would have to go through my grandmother first, and that's just not likely to happen.

Having said that, the FCC and "radio industry" is moving to digital radio (aka HD Radio) and it will at least create some more stations for those with digital receivers while at the same time leaving the old analog stations the way they are. This is the Ibiquity thing.

The old system took a few generations to build up, and it will take at least a few generations to break down. At some point, the FCC probably will become unnecessary, but not yet.

In the meantime, there's always Satellite Radio and Podcasting....

The general technology is called "In-Band, On-Channel." The implementation in the US is different from the the one in the rest of the world. In the USA, DAB technology is controlled by a company called iBiquity. It's incompatible with the world standard. In the rest of the world, the standard is Eureka 417. I found this explanation helpful.

Last I heard, "HD Radio" was compressed using MPEG-4 AAC. I forget the bitrate, but it's likely around 128 Kbps. This is real good, but not CD-quality. Eric Weaver Chief Engineer, KFJC, 1993-1997

First this link (from the summary) says that one station needed to pay $200,000 to switch to digital equipment.

According to iBiquity's website, the average cost to the radio stations will only be $75,000.

I've just started a new reply about this. Similar stuff coming to the USA (at last) from iBiquity

I don't see satellite radio with a future. The BBC in Britain have been at the forefront of digital broadcast radio, and for the last few years have been broadcasting many new stations, which can also be picked up by TV cable and FreeView boxes in the UK - and the stations are also online. To me, this is the way forward, and the technology is coming to the US: iBiquity Digital Radio. I think this has a lot of possibilities, and will go a long way to eliminating the hiss and drop-out of AM/FM.

There is an evolving standard for "hi-def radio" which used to be called IBOC (in-band, on-channel) but is now HD Radio. This technology augments existing analog AM and FM signals with additional digital modulation, allowing both new receivers to enhance the audio quality, and old receivers to remain compatable with the system. They claim it makes AM like FM, and FM like a CD.

Several radio stations are already broadcasting in HD radio.

Check out the Portable People Meter from Arbitron. It can recognize subaudible watermarks in music including over radio, Musak, and even some streaming audio compressions. Arbitron uses it for ratings purposes.

Of course, then there is IBOC from Ibiquity which is an on-channel digital enhacement for AM and FM signals, part of which could be used for datacasting, as part of most DTV signals will.

BTW, Digital AM and FM are coming very soon, using Ibiquity's IBOC system:

IBOC technology makes use of the existing AM and FM band (In-Band) by adding digital carriers to a radio station's analog signal, allowing broadcasters to transmit digitally on their existing channel assignments (On-Channel). A station will convert to iBiquity Digital's IBOC technology and begin transmitting a simultaneous analog and digital signal, known as the "Hybrid Mode".

AM will soon sound like FM.