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High Definition Radio is Here
nfranzen submits this story/advertisement: "Yesterday, I had the opportunity to buy the first High Definition (HD) Radio in the United States. HD Radio, invented by iBiquity Digital, adds a digital channel to the sidebands of an existing analog FM signal. The technology is still pretty new, but I can tell you first-hand that listening to my favorite local FM station in HD sounds just like I am listening to a CD. Well, except for the commercials (grin). Here are some links to local TV news coverage and a news release for more info. HD receivers will hit the open market following the Consumer Electronics Show next week in Vegas." We had an old story about the FCC approving these digital broadcasts in the FM radio bands.
yea but will it have a good selection of music
Comment should include the following:
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Explanation of digital to digital broadcasting
Comments about how to jack this device into Linux
Mention of Kazaa
Indignant remark about the difference between thievery and infringement
Never confuse volume with power.
Sounds cool to me...but would it really be any fun to listen to a CD quality radio station that is full of static from poor reception, passing airplanes, and neighbors who violate every FCC violation in existence? :)
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
Assuming the new receivers are priced appropriately, I wouldn't mind owning one.
Browse the Information Directory
Realistically speaking, the only big problem with FM radio quality is that it attenuates above 16kHz . . . a range that you more or less can't hear in the poor listening environments where FM is typically used (vast majority of the time being, of course, in moving vehicles).
And the main reason is because the sound just sounds awful. In fact I would dare say the lack of high quality radio pushes me to download music and burn CDs.
If it's digital, it's copy protected.
I'll continue exploiting the analog hole, thanks.
Worth it? Yeah, I spend an average of an hour a day driving. It's definitely worth it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Encoding digital signals in a small amount of bandwidth has to come with a catch. What's this sound like if the signal strength is low? What kind of digital qaulity is this? Is there lossy compression used?
I have a few questions, for the ones that did RTFA:
... ?
1. Is there any kind of digital output ?
2. What format is used to transfer audio? MP3, WMA, AAC,
3. If answer to 1. is yes, is there some kind of DRM or we can record stuff onto one's computer?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Is this all digital or dual mode? I still steer clear of all-digital networks of cell phones simply because the range is shorter. Instead of getting static when the signal gets weak it just shuts off. Anybody know if this is the case on these things?
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Who would pay to upgrade their radio for such marginal value? If you want CD sound then put in a CD and you ger that with out the commercials.
Also given that cars in inherently noisy places to begin with makes it worth even less. This will be a forgotten technology.
That's an interesting alternative to satellite radio. Both require new equipment, both have very high quality. Satellite radio has little or no advertising, but you do have to pay a monthly subscription fee.
High definition photos of Mars and now High definition radio? I do believe /. is spoiling us.
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
Or on my crappy $10 headphones. Or at the gym, cranked up to distortion levels on the hifi system. Seriously folks, few people listen to FM in an environment where 'high definition' radio makes a difference. Its like playing crappy MP3s on your free-with-the-PC speakers - you can't even tell that the MP3s suck, because the speakers suck more. I guess hearing the voices on NPR at 16bit,44.1KHz may make some people's day, but this is not like the upgrade path from tape to CD. This is a product looking for a market.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Great, now you can Ads in HD. What everyone wants.
We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose. --Bene Gesserit Coda--
Do two violations make a compliance?
These are the questions that plague mankind...
The sound quality of today's FM radio is fairly good, but the quality of the actual content is not. And it seems to be getting worse by the day.
The same goes for television. Who needs digital high resolution television if there isn't anything you want to watch?
Here in Japan we will only have digital TV in 2007. Send out via the air. Lars
so the people who think that ripping a song involves a microphone and a radio can get good quality rips....
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Digital?? Thieves they are, thieves I say! Quick, pass some legislation to outlaw recievers (or at least make sure they cant *shudder* record anyting!)
Sincerely,
Your recording industry representative
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Why not just buy an all digital DAB receiver?
or am I missing something?
Karma: Bad. Calmer, good.
My car's been equipped with COLOR radio for several years, now.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Which brings me to a second point: nearly all radio today is utter crap. The sort of early adapter who would be willing to shell out $400 extra for digital FM is exactly the kind of person who already shelled out $400 for satellite radio. And why would anyone with that kind of discretionary income want to listen to anything on the FM dial? At the risk of sounding terribly elitist, if you're smart enough to have earned gobs of money, your tastes are likely discriminating enough to want to want nothing to do with what's on the FM band.
The one kind of station that might benefit from high fidelity is NPR, but considering that they're bellyaching for cash every twelve weeks or whatever during pledge drives, this is probably the last type of organization who could cough up the extra dough.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Their playlist is the same-old same-old. Listening to it in CD quality won't make it sound any better.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Anyone know what the difference is between these two systems? Or are they one in the same? Here in Toronto, a few stations have been having ads about DAB being the future of radio... although I was shopping for receivers at christmas time and the only DAB compatible ones I saw were $600CDN+, too expensive for my tastes.
I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days...
Everything that's good about HD Radio is better when you spend (less) money on an in-car MP3 player. Flash memory, thank you, and it doesn't skip. And commercials don't exist. After all, I think most of us probably have a very diverse, vast collection of music on our hard drives already.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
How does this compare with what the BBC already offers? According to the coverage map, 70% of the UK population can already get it.
Unless you're a big fan of public radio, what's the point in HD Radio? Do you really want to listen to Britney Spears in HD? Are the Dixie Chicks worth the money for a HD receiver? Do you really need to listen to Love Line in all that clarity?
The problem with FM radio isn't the signal, it's the content.
Here in the UK, DAB is no longer a long way off. The BBC have been heavily promoting it, and it does seem to have finally left the ground.
I recently bought a DAB radio alarm, and I find the quality is pretty good. Admittedly, I can't tell if it is better or worse than FM through the speaker on the radio itself (although that rather reinforces what others have said on this story - that FM quality is not the limiting factor in most listening environments). Sometime, I mean to plug it into my HiFi and see if I can hear any difference.
"The technology is still pretty new"
I don't know how it's different but we've had Eureka 147 DAB digital radio for 6 years in the UK. We're also pretty keen on mainstream digital terrestrial television broadcasting too.
I wouldn't want to listen to music CD's with annoying DJ's yabbering over the into & closing seconds of every song, annoying station ID bumpers, and 25 minutes of commercials per 60 minute disc. So why would I pay for CD quality sound on the air?
There is some decent radio content out there... talk shows can be entertaining, and some shows feature old recordings (even some 78s!) and serials (who knows? The Shadow knows). But in the case of live talk... the modulation of sound helps make it seem authentic to me... I like the way callers sound "phoned" and DJ's sound "miked". And for re-airing old classic recordings, well, you're still going to be stuck with the fidelity or the original, as part of its charm.
Now if Radio content was generally better, I'd really consider this. But as of now, the prospect of Digital Clear Channel Crapola isn't very enticing.
~~~
"The slave thinks he is released from bondage, only to find a stronger set of chains" - NIN
With very few exceptions, I find the content quality of radio apalling, certainly not something I would want to hear in high definition.
Now if someone would point out to the odd self involved presenter (sorry, "On Air Personality), that I'm really not interested in the minutae of their private life, and just want to hear some slightly different music... THEN I'd start listening. Maybe even in HD!
Read the article in today's Cedar Rapids Iowa Gazette. There is no free online access to the article though. Gazette is pay to read.
Anyhow.. he had it installed at Ultimate Electronics.. Good place to do business with. Much more knowledgable than Best Buy and customer service is way better.
Seems like a lot of dough for the stations to upgrade for digital though. The FM station said it cost them $250k, and the AM station said $100k when all is said and done.
Don't know why Cedar Rapids had the distinction of having the first install. Was the technology Rockwell/Collins developed?
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
IMHO, quality isn't really isn't the main problem plaguing FM radio. It's (1) excessive commercials, approaching 25% of time at some times; (2) homogenous programming, I could care less about what the major record labels think I should listen to; (3) excessive processing before broadcasting (as opposed to in an FM receiver), tons of compression talking over the music, etc.; (4) limited range, where I live, good luck listening to any by 2-3 stations for more than a 30 minutes drive in any direction (too many hills and low-powered stations); and finally overcrowding of the FM band resulting in the low power stations and interference.
I wouldn't pay $20 for an "HD radio". It's like a progressive-scan 13" TV. Who's gonna care?
I don't know, but it works for me.
Why does telephony have to be 8-bit 8KHz audio in the VoIP era? If it doesn't have to go through the 64Kb/s phone system, the audio could be far better.
title says it all ;)
Yay, so now we get Higher Quality crap!! Wee!!
This is gonna be modded as troll, but what the hell...
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
High Definition sounds kind of misleading for this technology.. Detail on the quality of the broadcasts is conspicuously absent from the information I could find on this technology. They only describe it as "CD-like".
So, where High Definition video is clearly defined as 1920x1080i or 1280x720p (~ 5x the resolution of a DVD), "HD" radio is lower quality than a 25 year old audio standard.
They should stick to caling it what it is, Digital Radio. It's really cool technology, with a lot of advantages over analog - but it's not setting a new bar for quality like HDTV is compared to DVD.
...but where's the story?
While some /.ers seem to be invoking the phrase to refer to the music that's being broadcast, I can't help but wonder the same thing about how the music would be processed for HD radio. Currently, there are a bunch of filters applied to music before it's broadcast over FM radio (this was mentioned on Hydrogenaudio) to increase subjective audio quality. Of course, this tends to mean making it louder, adding more base, and otherwise destroying what little dynamics there might have been in the recording.
I can only hope that if HD radio gets widely adopted, stations begin to reexamine their filtering to see what sounds good on the other end.
Just give me an internet connection so I can access my music collection.
They can have their 'radio' BS.
Interesting, but don't worry... Once Clear Channel gets ahold of it, it will be as good as current radio (not very) and we'll complain about it just as much as we do now.
Who in their right mind would actually grin when mentioning commercials? He should be frowning about that!
Increasing the definition of the same crappy music interspersed among lame-ass DJs and commercials doesn't add any value for the listener.
Sirius Satellite Radio, on the other hand, comes commercial free on all music channels. Forget about XM Radio, they expect you to actually pay for the privilege of listening to commercials. And though they play fewer commercials now than terrestrial radio stations do, there's nothing that says they can't increase the amount of commercials they air. That and the fact that Clear Channel owns a large share of XM Radio means that Sirius is the only new alternative that provides anything of real value to radio listeners.
I saw an advertisment for their new TMS320DRI250 DSP with HD radio and MP3 decoding. I wondered who was going to use it. Now I know. It was going for about $30 in quantities, IIRC. The coolest thing I saw in the slick sheet was the possibility of TiVo-like rewind and timeshift features done in software, which I think would be great for talk radio or if you like certain radio shows.
I, for one, welcome our HD-FM overlords.
Last time I listened to music on the radio, it was kind of like watching videos on MTV.
Oh wait...
Radio sux
What's up with high definition radio... is it good or is it whack?
Does anyone know any car radio capable of playing Internet radio streams? It would be great to have SomaFM in my car. :)
What's the point of HD radio when you've got XM that doesn't play ads on most stations for when you're driving, or Net radio for at home & work (which is what I listen to 10+ hours/day). (I like launch.com)
Who in their right mind would actually grin when mentioning commercials? He should be frowning about that!
Increasing the definition of the same crappy music interspersed among lame-ass DJs and commercials doesn't add any value for the listener.
Sirius Satellite Radio, on the other hand, comes commercial free on all music channels. Forget about XM Radio, they expect you to actually pay for the privilege of listening to commercials. And though they play fewer commercials now than terrestrial radio stations do, there's nothing that says they can't increase the amount of commercials they air. That and the fact that Clear Channel owns a large share of XM Radio means that Sirius is the only new alternative that provides anything of real value to radio listeners.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
"HD" Radio (formerly known as IBOC, or In Band on Channel), is an inferior technology which many have found less than awe inspiring. It's adoption in the U.S. is the result of politics and money, not technological superiority.
One reviewer above described IBOC thus: "Let's start with audio quality. It's my opinion that the current 96kb/s codec is incapable of reproducing even a simple male voice without generating objectionable artifacts. It gets worse with music. On the classical cut the strings were thin and harsh. For those of you who are broadcasting contemporary formats, the codec removes sibilance unnaturally, changes the timber of symbols and makes back up vocals strident. This is not CD-quality by a long shot. In fact, during my listening test I found that our station's plain old analog signal sounded better than the 96kb/s codec."
At the same time that the U.S. has locked themselves into IBOC, the rest of the world has been moving ahead with Eureka 147 DAB, a purely Digital technology without the legacy concerns. Fifty countries and counting, with DAB building steadily, especially in Europe.
Three Squirrels
96kbps stream is not CD quality. Their algorithm is proprietary - no chance for an online comparison to ogg/mp3. Then when the station starts using the secondary audio channel for added revenue at 32kbps, their main channel is now 64kbps... gee wiz, sign me up for upgrading all my radios. The FCC should have done the same for radio broadcasters that they did for TV broadcasters. Given them a new frequency band for digital. Instead radio broadcaster have to squeeze this digital stream on the same packed frequency band the analogs are on. (until all the analog receivers are gone and then they'll go all digital - that's the "plan" anyway - lame). AM is on the same path by the way. except 32kbps. they also can't figure out how to keep the digital signal contained at night. so no digital at night for AM. Digital would be great given higher bit rates, but this is not the way!!
Though it's called DAB here :)
Considering how entrenched & accepted FM & AM radio broadcasters & recievers are I think digital is going to have a hard time penetrating the market.
After all, what reason does an already successful & profitable radio station have to upgrade its broadcasts or broadcast simultaniously over digital? Also why would a smaller or less profitable radio station want to? Both would face addtional expenses in the face of uncertain benefits.
Unless is mandated that radio stations broadcast in digital I can't really see it being adopted.
-mark (who almost post enough that he is really thinking about getting his account set up)
The line "..listening to my favorite local FM station in HD sounds just like I am listening to a CD" just killed me.
It makes me recall a passage from an article on high-end audio gear I read years ago.
"A properly built and setup FM tuner can achieve a sound very close to an LP on a fine turntable."
And to be honest, I still rather have an LP.
BTW --> VPIHW-19 Mk.III turntable at home.
-- Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
It's astonishing to see how far the USA is prepared to be isolated from the rest of the world when it comes to technological standards like this. The rest of the world is switching to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) for digital radio as a replacement for FM, with countries like the UK being particularly advanced in their adoption. Here's a map showing DAB adoption across the world - notice the big empty space where the US is? Instead the US have decided to go it alone with this hybrid solution that will be the NTSC of the radio world. What a pity...
I've had a DAB radio for six months now and have been really impressed with the sound quality, ease of tuning and extra information that's displayed with each broadcast. No more trying to guess the band playing a particular song - it scrolls automatically along the LCD display. Want to see what stations are available? Just scroll through the list, rather than speculatively twiddling a knob and trying to identify something through the white noise. There's a whole world out there that the US is missing out on...
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to buy the first High Definition (HD) Radio in the United States.
You: Did I win?
Radio Station: I'm sorry, you're caller #1
You: Did I win?
Radio Station: I'm sorry, you're caller #2
You: Did I win?
Radio Station: I'm sorry, you're caller #3
You: Did I win?
Radio Station: I'm sorry, you're caller #4
You: Did I win?
Radio Station: I'm sorry, you're caller #5
You: Did I win?
Radio Station: You're lucky caller #6! You win a High Definition Radio!
Well, there is a lot of analog out there, more than digital, but that's not really the problem - the problem is the "digital cliff" effect.
With AMPS, as the signal gets weaker, the audio noise floor comes up, and you get wideband static on the signal. Wideband static is fairly benign, in that humans aren't as offended by it (since it sounds like the surf). The user of the phone knows he is getting out of range well before the call drops, and so usually can terminate the call gracefully.
With digital, you get no real degradation of the signal so long as the channel bit error rate is less than the channel's error recovery capability. But when the BER gets above that threshold, then the quality drops dramatically. Moreover, the loss of quality is expressed as garbled vocoder output (I've always described it as "watery" - it sounds like you have water in your ears), or as complete failures of the vocoder (dropouts). Those are VERY offensive to the ear.
Also, the difference between a signal level that gives you a fully correctable BER and a signal level that gives you a BER bad enough the phone drops is almost nil - so just changing position can drop the call without warning.
Personally, if the phone makers would tie the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) into a variable noise generator, so that as the RSSI fell you started to get static, I think most people wouldn't bitch so badly about dropped calls.
There is also the problem that the usual vocoders for phone use are compressing the crap out of the signal - taking a 64 kb/second audio stream down to less than 4kb/sec. VSELP, IMBE and AMBE all do OK when fed voice in isolation, but put in any background noise and they get "confused" - they start making poor choices about the vectors they encode, and what comes out the other end is pretty rocky.
I had great fun feeding the first few seconds of Kansas's "Carry On Wayward Son" into an APCO-25 IMBE vocoder. While there is nothing but voice there, it is a chorus, and the poor vocoder just couldn't figure out what was going on.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Will this operate in competition with Digital Radio Mondiale? Do we really need competing digital radio standards? I suppose DRM's goal is not high-def radio, so they're not identical. I think we have a VHS/Beta, DVD +/- RW, 3.5"/5.25" battle on our hands.
For instance, FM radio fades in and out quite a bit in my Jeep (in spite of a decent system and antenna), depending on where I drive along here in the mountains of Utah. The signal is largely still there, just that it occasionally degrades in some areas. Wouldn't a more digitized signal just cut out below a certain point, but make it relatively useless in terrain that isn't as flat as, say, Iowa? It's tough enough sometimes to find decent cell coverage as it is out here. I'd hate to think that the radio would suffer the same problems as well.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
When there is static you get total dropouts. I prefer analog TV because lighting causes static which is much less disturbing than lost bits in an MPEG stream. OTOH the resolution is fantastic when its working.
I hope he had time to hit it, hard.
just a thought, if there was some kind of life on Mars NOW, how do we communicate with them? signals from Earth is probably useless but something physical and visual from the rover might useful.
imagine an alien spaceship landed on Earth, and just moves around and ignores any communication with it.
Now all that Top-40 pap-bullshit that I can't fucking stand and don't even consider music will come in crystal clear!
Radio is for chumps. (exception: college radio)
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Preach on, brother. I would mod you up, but you are an ass, and your post is the most boring troll I have ever seen.
~~~
Of course, those of us with the Bose Wave Radio have enjoyed ultra hi-fi purified aural utopia for years, but it's nice to see the rest of the world making a starter attempt to catch up. By next June I will have my graphite grey model almost paid off, and will almost certainly fix my sights on the white one!! And then I will be uber.
So I can have the same repetitive playlists of crappy pop, the same politically slanted news and the same assrapingly annoying commercials but now in full, cd quality sound.
That's just great. Call me when you find the alternate universe where Clear Channel hasn't ruined radio.
You have successfully grasped the concept behind the First and Second Laws of Audio*.
...and 2. Louder != Better.)
*(1. Shit in = Shit out, louder.
My dad has one of those radio/CD players. I'd like to say it sounds good, despite the price. But even that isn't true. It's a simple fact that it sounds like a clock radio, and nothing more.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
If digital radio produces "cd-like quality" wouldn't the RIAA want to stop, or at least demand that the signal is encoded (like encryption in DVDs) so as to prevent copying? Does this mean proprietary hardware, codecs and the like? Europe (eg. BBC radio) has a much better standard- why are we stuck with this junk?
Considering that all FM radio stations compress the crap out of the music they air, it would be impossbile to get a decent sound from any radio. Crap in means crap out.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Why would anyone want High Def radio when you can get an Ipod and carry 5000+ songs with you everywhere in CD-like quality? I hardly listen to radio now and not because of FM audio quality issues. Shuffle play on my Ipod is far more intersting than anything played on Radio.
No-one sees the point of buying HD radio, after all who wants to hear 25 out of every 60 minutes listening to HD commercials. Better to just get an MP3 player, since we all have all the music we want on our hard drives anyways.
But wait, if we all stopped unlawfully copying music to our hard drives, perhaps RIAA would stop trying to reclaim the lost revenues from other sources (read: increasing radio royalties), which would in turn allow the radio stations to reduce the ad content to bearable levels. (Okay, so the royalties aren't likely to come down in the near future, but no need to drive them higher...)
Or alternatively you could go with satelite radio, but that has subscription costs, because they don't have commercials, but the subscription costs are pretty high, because they have to pay those same royalties, because RIAA perceives that they are losing money to our hard drives.
So, before you pan radio for the problems, think about how much you have contributed to the sources of those problems.
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
Here in the UK, DAB is no longer a long way off. The BBC have been heavily promoting it, and it does seem to have finally left the ground.
:)
Oh I know, the sets are all arround work and that stations are plugged internally even more! A lot of the country still doesn't even *get* DAB. Digital TV is much nearer, if the BBC advertsied Sky's "100 for a dish and box and better then freeview service and no catch" offer then even more people would switch! While Analog TV can be switched off zone by zone, say starting by turning off London in 2008, FM needs to broadcast across the country all the time as people move radio's arround (especially in cars) more then TV's.
Of course the TV spectrum is what they want to sell off, the 20Mhz allocated to FM is peanuts by comparrison. Some services will never be switched off though. I can see BBC Radio 4 on Long Wave for the next 50 years at least, and the World Service will always be on a variety of analog frequencies so people can pick it up with a long piece of wire and something acting as a diode.
As for sound quality, I can't tell the difference between a CD and an MP3, even at edit suites at work (and they're pretty good obviously). Bit embarrasing being a broadcast engineer and all
...this is why it was pushed on /.
Clear Channel
Radio One
Infinity Broadcasting
and a host of Venture Capitalists...I get the picture now.
So it's big business paired with not so big business pushing for the big stock payoff. This is a waste. Look at the much better technology used in Europe.
There's a link to Digital Disaster in one of the articles you posted. These guys believe that HD Radio will kill off small radio stations by creating large amounts of interference.
Whoa! He's right!@
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I can't wait.
we'll have high quality crap!
I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
As anybody with an appreciation for music can tell you:
No highs, no lows, must be Bose!
Seriously, Bose sucks. And it has nothing to do with the article. Your Bose doesn't get HD radio.
If you want to hear a real audio dream, find a Martin-Logan dealer and take a listen.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
invented? thats a strong word. patented may be closer to reality. I havent gone through each patent but its likely that only iBiquity can say who makes these new HD-FM radios.
If the FCC is going to be blessing a new standard for radio, it should be a free and patent unencumbered standard.
Not that more bandwidth is bad, but the real excitement in radio these days is new ways to use it, more features.
For example, since it's so easy and cheap to do, why not a car radio with Tivo like functions:
a) Recording multiple stations at once, letting me switch among the recordings, FF, pause and rewind among them. Heck, with software radio record _all_ the stations, all the time.
b) Know the local traffic stations (ie. traffic every 10 minutes on the 8s) and record that slot and give it to me at the touch of a button, or better still just tune in some digital traffic service that will tell me only of my route.
Ditto the news, always record the latest newscast, let me hear it any time I want.
c) Of course let me pause and resume. Also record my favourite talk shows (NPR for example) like Tivo, and let me play them.
d) Have a speech interface so I don't have to look at the radio to select programs or tune it or otherwise control it! Just give me a little wheel or 4-way control on the wheel similar to what MP3 players have.
e) And of course, what I am now playing with is using an MP3 jukebox to forget about radio entirely, exept for news, traffic and weather.
I download NPR programs into the jukebox to listen to them. I can even record Morning Edition in the early morning and listen to it in the morning commute, except with FF and pause etc.
Plus of course, music, which Mp3 jukeboxes do just great.
f) Speaking of radio, put 802.11 in the car MP3 player so when it notices it is parked in the driveway, it syncs up my latest music and audio.
More bandwidth is of course nice, but boring.
Think about cool features.
DAB is 10 years old already according to this history page.
Great! Another new technology for recycling crap.
What isn't advertising on behalf of paying advertisers is advertising on behalf of RIAA member corporations. It sucks now, and increasing the dynamic range (compression being the major problem with FM music broadcast) will only make it suck with "CD-like quality".
This solves a problem I do not have. It does not solve the problems I do have. If I'm going to listen to radio, I'm going to stick with indie (read: non-RIAA affiliated) releases broadacst from a local college or public station, and those are SUPPOSED to sounds like that.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
stations have the ads because they can - because the consolidation in media companies has driven out potential competitors. Larger stations (I think) are more likely to get free records, appearances, etc. than smaller stations - this (along with the rules the RIAA enforces on radio stations to play records of its component labels) would implicate the RIAA in part in the lack of competition in radio. Add the RIAA's desire to control their supply chain and its seems less likely that copyright infringement plays a significant role in the amount of commercials on commercial radio.
If CI were a revenue sink for radio, there is another problem. A potential analogy to this situation might be the persistence of toll roads in the US - the only one I've heard of that went from toll to free is the CT Turnpike. Even though toll roads such as the NJ and PA Turnpikes have been long paid for, they don't decrease or abolish tolls (mostly they increase). (Maintenance is in there, but that also is required for non-toll roads as well.) Hotels haven't rescinded the "energy surcharges" they instituted during the gas price spikes. What makes you think that the record companies and the radio stations would behave differently?
If copyright infringement disappeared, what would make the amount of commercials decrease? The radio stations depend on the income, and there isn't anyplace else to go (also thanks to the RIAA and the charges for Internet radio). This doesn't seem to imply any change if copyright infringement goes away. CI may have been a justification, but not a real cause.
I suggest sir, that the load of bunk you are referring to is the position so oft quoted in these parts that because RIAA is evil and corrupt that it is okay to unlawfully copy music. That sir, _IS_ bunk. That sir, is something we all learned as children. However, the sad fact is, that while we may learn that as children, we are generally incapable of applying it in the real world until we grow up.
Now, I'm not saying RIAA is good, it isn't, but unlawfully copying and distributing their member organization's copyrighted material is not an effective way of expressing that discontent. I specifically said that I doubted RIAA would resicnd recent royalty increases, but there is no need to put pressures on them which militate further raises of these royalties. Nor do I think royalty relief, in and of itself will cause radio stations to lower ad content.
However, radio stations will never lower ad content while to do so would jeopardize the bottom line, which in view of the royalty load, is likely. Likewise RIAA will never reduce the royalty load, and in fact will continue to raise it, while they feel they are being deprived of revenues due to large scale unlawful copying and distribution. RIAA will never feel that such a condition exists until people start respecting their member organizations rights to the material.
I suspect the same condition which prevents you from being able to correctly apply the 2 wrongs != 1 right principle is the same condition preventing you from seeing the relationship between all these items. In spite of this, I'll point out that there are certainly other factors which have gotten involved, and other new factors which will complicate the equation. This isn't simple cause and effect (which may be another source of the problem for you) and I'm not trying to quantify the effect, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the costs to buy music, and use music (lawfully by paying royalties) has gone up consitently, and rather drastically, since the advent of on-line music sharing (which in the vast majority of cases is unlawfull distribution...)
As I have repeatedly pointed out, RIAA perceives lost revenues due to file sharing, I generally take RIAA's positions with a huge grain of salt (I'm a musician, and several RIAA members have at various times tried to put us over the turntable as it were) but this one is plausible. As long as RIAA continues to have that perception it will act agreessively to protect the revenue streams of it's member organizations. Simple really. So, rather than promote defrauding RIAA by unlawful copying and distribution, why not send a real message, boycott. If we all boycott RIAA members, that sends a clear message. And, don't bother trying to insinuate that they would just view this as a more evidence of illegal filesharing further pushing their revenues down. That won't wash, we all know that they are watching that traffic to aid in their demographics collection.
Only in such a case will you be sending the message you want to send clearly. So long as you don't respect the rights of RIAA member orgs to the material they own, why would you expect them to ever make the reforms you want them to make? If however, you send a clear message, that doesn;t involve abrogating their rights, that creates a different situation.
Put it this way, as long as you are unlawfully copying RIAA member property, you are sending the message that regardless of your complaint with RIAA, that you value their property. So long as they are convinced that this property has value, they will continue as they have. If,
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
iBiquity is quite upfront about this. Their big investors are Clear Channel and Viacom.
So is the Bush administration, which has explicitly identified "incumbent broadcaster protection" as an FCC priority. Viacom and Clear Channel will, of course, be expected to reciprocate come election time.
digital radio in Finland was launched in april 1999
more info here
after being in use for 5 years, the amount of reciever units sold to population is 0, not really major success I'd say
Has anybody heard of XM radio. It has been here for a while?
What a horrible name. Did they get the name consultants from the bargain bin? (Maybe the consultants who briefly brought us "Monday" as the future IBM consulting?)
sulli
RTFJ.
Mine is too.
Funny how the second you get away from payola stations, things start improving.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I rambled at length about this awhile back on k5.
Maybe you have better stations in your area, or your threshold of pain is higher, but the sound quality of the typical FM station drives me nuts. I'm not a "golden ears" type, listening for subtle nuances in the audio. What I notice are high levels of distortion and multi-band compressors in the transmitter chain that are "set to 11", 100% or higher modulation in every band, all of the time. I've heard much better sound quality on AM radio, which can sound pretty good if the engineering and production staff want to broadcast a clean signal.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The local so called 'smooth jazz' station will still be playing Whitney Houston.
It'll just sound better, which I guess means it'll sound worse.
The problem with analog just isn't quality: analog channels take up much larger bandwidths than those high quality digital channels. There is a reason that your typical digital cable setup has many more channels than analog cable.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
...speakers must look strange. How do they sound?
I mean even "CD quality" seems to be only a loose term. 128k MP3 seems to be able to be called CD quality.
The only actual standardised term I know of is Advanced Resolution. That's stamped on DVD-Audio discs to indicate 24/96 recordings.
Then they want to tell your getting "high definition" at 5kHz band pass. Take a old album and encode it at 196kHz, expand the bass a bit( or get the bass off CD ) -- that's much better.
;-|
They reason CD's can be compressed so well is they have already lost much phase information at HF's
We need to abandon the CD format and get on with 196kHz encoded music DVD's or the recording industry can kiss their low-fi goodby
Here's the rest of the world's standard: DAB.
(ripped from worlddab.org's faq)
DAB stands for Digital Audio Broadcasting. DAB is a digital radio system, which was developed by the Eureka 147 Project. It offers near CD-quality sound, more stations, additional radio and data services and therefore wider choice of programs, the ease of tuning and interference-free reception for the listener, plus the information potential of data, graphics and text. For the broadcaster, DAB provides a means of reaching listeners with sound quality on an equal footing with the CD player, and the ability to offer extra, potentially revenue-creating, services. Transmission will also be cheaper. For other areas of industry, there will be a new market for receivers and transmission equipment.
Why does the US always have to have its own format? See http://www.worlddab.org/cstatus.aspx and select "USA" from the drop down list.
For the lazy:
"(23/01/2003) While the Eureka 147 system has emerged as clearly superior in laboratory and field tests carried out by CEMA (Consumer and Electronics Manufacturers Association), the National Association of Broadcasters opposes the adoption of Eureka 147 in the USA. This opposition is based on lack of new spectrum; dislike of sharing transmitters in the multiplex; and concerns that DAB would introduce new competition. The USA have now developed a more limited in-band solution (originally named IBOC, In-band on-channel, but now called HD radio), utilising existing FM transmitters."
Sigh. Oh well, I'm glad I live in Canada!
not exactly 'hd' but you can also fish for digital content in the shortwave bands.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Reducing CI would help reduce advertising on radio by reducing its external justification (thus fostering pressure on stations to decrease advertising). It might also reduce the need for labels to push songs at radio (they would make enough money on their primary sellers to allow whatever they release to get airplay) thus reducing some of the bad effects of consolidation (radio monotony, endless advertising). The RIAA's labels, however, have worked significantly to control their supply chains, and I don't know if they will relinquish some control of them under any circumstances other than survival.
I don't want to justify CI - it is wrong, either as a way to get stuff or as a way to fight against the diminishing rights of individuals over the works they license from copyright holders. Reducing CI is probably necessary, but not sufficient, to reduce advertising on radio. I guess I have to much contempt and too little trust for the music labels and radio to believe that they would do the right thing if CI diminished sufficiently. But that's just me (it isn't a rational reason not to try to reduce CI).
When it comes to video and music a digital stream which is not absolutely perfect is absolute trash.
Any interference whatsoever in music for instance causes gaps and silent pauses where equal interference on radio causes a slight bit of noise which you might not even notice.
The same with video, poor reception, big black bars and black screens or stutters, rather than a slightly fuzzy but perfectly watchable uninterrupted viewing.
Before mp3's didn't people used to tape music from the FM radio? Crappy quality but good enough and then mp3's and all that happened. But, improved FM quality, might mean a return to people recording from radio. RIAA's job is easier because a royalty system is well established. Users are happier because the threat of legal pursuit is much, much more remote (never impossible). Seems win-win.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
OK, I'm supposed to get excited about FM radio now? Give me a break - I've had an XM Radio for 2 years and I will NEVER listen to commercial FM radio again. Silence is better entertainment. There used to be good radio, but it's very hard to find - and not worth the effort. The almighty dollar has driven everything to the LCD - except when the dollar pays for quality like HBO, and the satellite radio services.
Do they compand the signal before encoding it for digital transmission? They do that to the analog signal, to compress the dynamic range so the station always sounds loud. If they do that to the digital signal, what's the point? It isn't Hi Def by any stretch (no pun intended).
Edith Keeler Must Die
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Wow, a dream come true. Now the local screaming idiot used car salesman can sound crystal clear. I may even be able to hear the disclaimer at the end of the ad. That's good, right ?
http://members.aol.com/deathurbia/talkingpoints.ht ml
There are folks who think that digital in-band radio may make more problems than the improvements in sound quality may be worth.
It doesn't appear that anybody cares! And I'm not surprised; I don't care either. Sure, the idea might be somewhat cool, but the slashdot crowd has evolved along with the rest of the world out of the dot-com era where "cool new technology" was assumed to translate into something that will improve our lives. Just as nobody orders groceries through a web site, nobody turns on their FM radio for good entertainment anymore.
:)
My morning commute is 20 minutes long, and I don't want to spend 12 of those minutes listening to advertisements. I don't care what American media says, I don't need to purchase products to be happy. I don't need a new SUV (or a used one, for that matter) and tonight I won't be tuning into the latest episode of Fox's newest, most outrageous reality series that everyone will be talking about tomorrow. My morning commute is where I clear my head and prepare to deal with the onslaught of crap that I'll face at work. For that, the Dodge Durango jingle just won't work - sorry, but I need <insert your favorite band here>.*
This is a solution to the wrong problem. We're not concerned with the quality of the FM radio feed, we're concerned with the idiots sending out the signal! This move is just a diversionary tactic that will result in crisp, clear crap. If I ever get tired of listening to my own albums, I'll be looking towards XM or Sirius.
*I hate when people name-drop their favorite obscure band in an attempt to show off how cool they are. Just pretend I mentioned your favorite musician. And I'll pretend that your favorite musician is as cool as mine.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
HDTV, HD Radio, ...
High Definition Morse Code ?
AM has better range. Does this work with AM or is it FM only? I know we have a few AM stereo stations here in the twin cities. That would make the AM band usable again for more than just talk. Heck, you could put any data you want in the digital side: think traffic, RDS, emergency, school closings, ......
"You do not support the root but the root supports you." - Romans 11:18
Radio, WTF is radio?
It's slang for the round option widgets you see these days. I guess High Definition is marketspeak for the switch to vector-based graphics for them. That means they will look the same size on your monitor no matter what resolution you are using.:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
I think that the next time you see that creep who leers from your mirror, you should punch him. That ought to make the ipod's DJ more fun.;)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
It's "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood", right? I'm just learning Latin now, and that's my shot in the dark...
For future reference, if you change your sig later on, his siggy reads: Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
It'd be interesting if they added still photos to the digital broadcast, as a supplemental thing.
Then, Ruby Rhod can rule the airwaves and I'll have a chance to make it to Fhloston Paradise!
Option-Shift-K.
Realistically speaking, the only big problem with FM radio quality is that it attenuates above 16kHz
I find that the biggest problem with radio is the enormous amount of compression that is applied to the music to make it sound more 'alive' and 'in your face'.
Listen to an FM recording of an old song and then a high bandwidth MP3 conversion of the same song from the CD. The FM version sounds as if someone has pushed all the sliders to the max on a graphic equalizer (like when Tom Cruise plays Bob Segar in 'Risky Business'). There is zero difference between the lowest and highest volume level in a compressed FM broadcast.
Plus FM stations will speed up the song maybe 1-2 percent to get more time for the commercials.
As far as I can tell there are only three radio stations in the USA: KBOO or other small community independent radio stations, NPR, and Clear Channel. What difference does it make if radio goes high-definition?
I'm really fucking sick
Of Beck and 311,
And Marylin Manson,
I wish someone would break his fucking neck.
And what about Bush
And lame-ass Oasis?
Hey, talk about pretentious,
why don't they just blow England off the map?
Every now and then
I turn it on again
But it's plain to see that
The radio still sucks.
Every now and then
I turn it on again
But it's plain to see that
The radio still sucks.
For those of you who have text display radios...and those who will.
Be prepared for ads for your local bank to go along with the 'artiste' and track title to go in that LCD space. You can be assured that the radio station (local/digital/satellite) will sell that space if/when they can.
Assuming this digital radio thing takes off, I wonder if they'll continue to compress the crap out of the music like they do now? With analog radio, they have to keep everything in a very strict amplitude range so that it doesn't get them in trouble with the FCC. I interned at a radio station where you could grab the volume and wiggle it three inches in either direction with no discernable difference in sound. If the audio is all digital, maybe they won't have to keep crushing the life out of the music like they do now...
Of course, what it still comes down to is that as long as corporations program the music, radio will be a waste of time for true music lovers, no matter how good it sounds. You can only polish a turd so much, and then you're just getting crap on your rag.
Drew
How much does a HD receiver cost? I can't imagine someone being able to make a cheap pocket radio with that requires a DSP and a huge amount of battery power.
I know to some of you this will sound like a stupid question...but when are we going to start being able to get music in more then just plain stereo (5.1, etc)? I've heard a few mentions of things like Audio DVD, but I've seen very little. I know that most set top boxes have only two speakers, but many households now have 5.1 sound systems connected to their TV for DVDs. And cars usually have at least 4 speakers. Right now I have a 600 watt receiver attached to my computer playing MP3s. Course all its surround sound happiness goes unused because my MPs are just stereo. Just wondering when the music/audio industry will start trying to leverage all these speakers to do something more.
Perhaps there is somebody who is in or near the music industry that can give some clues as to when or if this will happen.
END
"Would it have killed you"
No.
But I didn't want to be partial on this particular subject so I decided to let people read it themselves and make their own conclusions.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Blah, blah, blah... Try reading for comprehension next time. My point (since you so obviously missed it the first time) is that you put forth a load of bunk based on invalid assumptions. Or, considering that I derisively pointed out your absurd assumptions, maybe you got my point but can't figure a way to argue to support them, so you just repeat them with more fervor.
Try this on for size: I've never done anything illegal with music. Hmm, kinda destroys your invalid assumptions (in both of your long-winded, asinine rants), eh? What a loser.
No Laughing Allowed!
Kenwood has a HD radio module that you can add to an existing car receiver. $500! What a bargain!
Kenwood KTC-HR100
Schlock is schlock, whether it be analog or digital.
Give the masses what they want: Better programming! There's a ton of good stuff to listen to out there, but the powers that be (Clear Channel, et al) keep broadcasting the same tired trash. And then the recording industry wonders why CD sales are down.
Sheesh.
Let's play Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I'll be Pestilence.
On the road its MP3's. At home its broadcast streams of my favorite 'radio' stations, such as 95BFm, NZ. Near zero commericals and those that there are are all inhouse crafted (no canned spam man) With the tiem zone difference it makes for great listening. Streams at 12KB and 4KB
...can use HD too, y'know.
That's "binary condoms", you ignorant slut.
Have you ever listened to digital radio in the UK? I have no idea what these amateurs are thinking. No stations want to spend money on it and to get their signal to the multiplexes they seem to use low bitrate connections.
So what you end up with is the music first comming out of a 256Kbit MP2 radio automation system, then going into a 128Kbit line, only to be decoded and re-encoded in 128Kbit for the DAB multiplex again.
Now if that isn't bad enough, they can't seem to match levels. The signals are heavily processed, just like FM, so it would be easy to make the use maximum modulation without clipping. But many don't; one station will be at 100%, while the next wil be at -12dB, with some others in between.
So terrible encoding artifacts and unmatched levels, yes, DAB in the UK is a great thing. At least with an IBOC system and engineers that care, there is some chance of it sounding OK. Though I have to admit that 96Kbit sounds a bit low and again, thanks to station engineers caring in the US, analog FM will probably sound better in good receiption areas and equipment.
> Have you ever listened to digital radio in the UK?
:-)
Errr, yes - was listening to the excellent digital only BBC6 last night and the night before come to think about it. I don't need it to be CD quality (or above) sound. No break-up, crackles or hisses - well, until they played some old vinyl
I have one of these (Evoke-1 from Pure Digital) in my kitchen.
Here in Norway we have commercial free state radio broadcasting in high quality on DAB, as well as some commercial stations. Most broadcasts are in 160kbps or 128kbps streams, while special interest stations (like "Parliament live" or "Inner Oslofjord weather") broadcast in 32kbps mono to save bandwidth.
On the DAB stream stations can also broadcast text information like song titles or news.
I could probably get just as good sound in just as cute cabinet from Henry Kloss FM radio, but I'm a nerd, and nerds need DAB.
"passengered", indeed.
FM has something like a 15KHz cut off and most audio is transmitted about the networks (the BBC particularly) at 32Khz PCM.
Yeah, the BBC isn't much of a problem, they know what they are doing and are willing to spend the money. They also have their own multiplex and thus don't rely on anyone elses (in)competence.
The problem is the commercial broadcasters, even the big London stations!
Time to break open another crate of lawyers...
Can anyone announce anything without having to try and make it sound like a hot tasy piece of toast with beautiful butter and my mum's home made strawberry jam on it!
Quit the hype give me the facts. Now that would be superlative.
Instead of the sideband system mentioned in this Slashdot story, the UK DAB (Digtial Audio Broadcasting) system uses "multiplexes" of entire frequencies to broadcast several digital stations at once. So instead of each FM station carrying it's own digital data, there are an additional 5 digital-only FM multiplexes each carrying a variable number of channels.
And here's where our system starts to suck very badly IMHO.
Since there is only a limited number of multiplexes, each with a limited amount of bandwidth, there is competition to squeeze as many digital channels onto each multiplex as possible. The net result is that the bitrates for each station are lowered and lowered to fit more stations in.
Most stations run at 96kilobits/sec. Some run as low as 64kbit/s. A handful run at 128kbit/s. Only one station, the classical and jazz station BBC Radio 3, runs at 192kbit/sec- and that's the highest bitrate of any DAB station.
Now although admittedly there is no hiss or crackle and you don't have to remember the frequencies, what you get at the end of the day, due to the low bitrates, is something which sounds worse than a good FM radio or broadband Internet, and several times worse than what you get get from a digital TV decoder (all the DAB stations are also broadcast as audio-only channels on the UK's existing digital satellite, cable and digital-TV-through-a-normal-aerial television systems).
So this USA system, whereby each normal FM station carries an additional digital sideband, quite literally sounds a much better idea- it should allow more space for each station's own digital output thereby giving more more bandwidth to each station and less competition to fit into a restricted space.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
That way we will have to replace all our car stereos and home stereos with digital equipment, just like the upcoming TV obsolescing in a couple of years.
And of course that will ensure that all my listening will be DMCA compliant too.
Great!
---- Booth was a patriot ----
- The difference in audio quality on digital AM stations (versus traditional AM) is much more impressive than with FM. (FM analog - in absense of fading - is pretty good already)
- I can tell you first-hand that the technology required to pull this off - digitial, in band signalling - without mucking up the existing analog signal is quite impressive
- 'Blend' allows the receivers the seemlessly transition between the analog and digital signals when needed. If the station engineer(s) do their job right, you probably won't even notice when it happens.
- HD Radio utilizes ID3 tagging to provide the song/artist information.
Your monitor is staring at you.
IBOC means the digital signal is In-Band On-Channel. That is, it's along-side the existing analog signal. You can keep your existing tuner as long as you like.
This is exactly why this solution is so elegant. The folks talking about EURAKA/DAB don't get it either. In that system, you're talking about entirely new receivers.
Your monitor is staring at you.
First of all, kudos to KZIA on plugging away on HD.
To all you nay-sayers ripping on Clear Channel, you might want to note that KZIA is one of the few stations in Eastern Iowa that is independantly owned. Rob Norton and Elliot Keller are owners and used to own KRNA-FM who was the first FM radio station to use the Harris digital exciter on air.
The original post also failed to mention that nfranzen is (or recently was) an employee of KZIA
Personally, I don't listen to them much, but in this market it's nice to have a locally owned station that is cutting edge. I find myself listening to the local NPR affiliate 90% of the time, but even then I can't stand the 9am-1pm classical hours...
Also, KZIA was one of the first local stations around here to simulcast on the internet, but along with everyone else dropped it when the bastards wanted duplicate royalties for commercial voiceovers.
I'd love to hear some HD AM. Can you imagine listening to a station with a 1000 mile range that sounded as good as FM?
Who needs satellite radio?
In the US, folks are acustomed to listening to their favorite local channel. And, oddly enough, we actually refer to our favorite channel in units of kHz or MHz. My mom likes 88.1, and she doesn't even know what a Hz is.
Wheter you believe the conspiracy theories or not, the IBOC solution is quite appropirate for the US market, because it permits stations to maintain their current identity. When you only have BBC1 - BBCn to listen to, identity isn't such a big deal. It would be a PITA however, for every US channel so have to say something like "Now broadcasting in digital on station 114!."
The technical aspects of IBOC are fascinating. What's more amazinag is that the technical solutions matches the needs of the customer. All that's left is to see what the public thinks.
Your monitor is staring at you.
This is the same sort of story we were given about HDTV too, if you can remember that far back..
But look at it now, the 'compatibility' was never really put into place, and now its mandated to go into effect....
But time will tell if the paranoids are right, again.
Slow incremental acceptance is the rule.. not the exception...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
am i alone in thinking this is another "just becuz we can" technology?
Heh, Yeah, I can't afford 'em either ;-)
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
Lets assume that people downloading stuff is "costing" RIAA money.
Lets assume that if peopel stopped downloading stuff, the RIAA would make more money.
What does that have to do with the price of anything? What I mean is, if the RIAA knows radio station are willing to pay $X for some music, why would they take less?
If the RIAA knows consumers will pay $Y for CD's, why would they ever lower it?
You're one of those goofy people who think selling price is related to the cost of production; in fact, they're only marginally related.
Problem with free Satellite is although you get much more in terms of numbers of free channels, you don't get the main Freeview quality channels UK History, UK Bright Ideas and FTN free- these are subscription-only on satellite.
Plus, of course, you have to have a dish, which is very offputting to people like my OAP Daily Mail-reading parents, who couldn't take my ex-OnDigital freeview box off me fast enough, despite only being able to get 2 of the 4 multiplexes. ITV2, BBC News 24, BBC4 and BBC7 was enough to sell that idea to them- they've since gone on to buy another brand-new STB and a stupidly large widescreen integrated digital television.
Bastards. Spending my inheritance on widescreen digital TVs. That's MY job!
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
odds are that you won't be happy in or with the vehicle. (From listening to the crapy music or to the subliminal messages [telling you to buy a new car,] or to the voices inside your head [telling you to drive into that bridge abutment and take out that crowd waiting at the bus stop.]?)
I'm with you in regards to the RIAA and the sucking chest-wound rattling wheeze we call the music industry. Its just a noise industry. They neither make or promote the creation of any music.
I have about 620 CDs. I've ripped about half of them to iTunes. I also have almost as much vinyl which I am ripping slowly to iTunes. I broadcast them all over the condo over a WAP to my other boxen and listen that way. (I've also hooked up one of my boxen to my stereo.
To people who tell me that if I don't listen to radio I don't know what's the latest, I reply, "The latest what? The latest 'dong' song from the latest 'group du jour'? Scrap that rap crap too! I'll keep listening to Bach, Beethoven and Brams. And these guys are not writing anymore."
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
... only when one of my audiobooks has finished (the 'entertainment' system in my car automatically switches to radio when that happens), and I don't have another one at hand (or I'm waiting for a chance to stop; I don't change tapes or CDs while I'm driving). Between my local public library and the communal audiobook collection that several of my friends have established, I don't expect to run out of audiobooks to listen to in the near future, but just in case, I keep a couple of classical music CDs in the glove box.
The only time I deliberately listen to radio is if I'm curious about the cause of the traffic jam I happen to be already stuck in.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
Its internet radio - and there's a lot of that around - but all of the BBC's radio stations are available here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/
The BBC have pushed DAB in the UK and have launched a number of Digital-only stations: urban on Radio 1 Xtra, indie, "college" rock on 6Music, spoken word, entertainment on Radio 7. I think 6Music is fab - plus there are no ads on the BBC.
I suppose that's one quality alternative to the Clear Channel monopoly!
I'm sure the BBC has plenty of competent engineers. Unfortunately they're not the ones making the decisions. The BBC DAB stations mostly get 128 kbps or less, and this with a codec that's less advanced than MP3 (MUSICAM = MPEG audio layer 2). Meanwhile the standard audio editing software for BBC Radio works with compressed files, so every editing session involves decompress-modify-compress with the resulting build-up of artifacts.