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HD Radio Recording In the US?

unreceivedpacket writes "The public radio stations I listen to have been advertising their conversion to HD Radio format for some time. They advertise multiple channels, their second channel playing all classical, all the time. I am interested in purchasing a receiver so I can listen to this extra content, and was also hoping to find a receiver with a built-in recorder so I could time-shift programs that are not otherwise available as legal pod-casts. My initial queries have returned few models that support any kind of digital recording, and the existing ones seem out of production or sorely lacking features. Is this the state of Digital Radio in the US? Are there any legal recording devices for HD Radio? Any good solutions for recording and time-shifting, perhaps through Linux?"

303 comments

  1. Liberate the Spectrum. by Erris · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Liberate the specturm or you will suffer digital restrictions. Vista's checking of line voltages to make sure no one has clipped on an analog recording device should tell you where all of this is going. The RIAA has been screaming about "radio pirates" for 50 years. Digital broadcast gives them a way to close the "analog hole" they so dread. If the makers colude with broadcasters, only "authorized" players will have keys to decode "HD" signals. If the specturm is liberated, everything will be high quality because no one but big publishers wants to degrade music.

    --
    DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
    1. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by CRCulver · · Score: 0, Troll

      Who cares if radio is locked down when radio is less and less relevant today?

    2. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Hello, twitter. Are InTheLoo and your other 28 sock-puppets going to join the conversation too?

    3. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Devistater · · Score: 5, Funny

      The submitter?

    4. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by dedazo · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      He's got one of those bizarre threads going on here already.

      --
      Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
    5. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      WTF?

      Take off that shiny hat for a second.

      Vista monitors the voltage on the audio out? Vista doesn't know if you plugged in speakers vs. a recording device.

      And how does MS know the exact resistance of EVERY audio card, cable, connector, amplifier, or headset?

    6. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Every American citizen, since we technically own that bandwidth within our borders?

    7. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by SaDan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I will never subscribe to a paid radio service (like Sirius or XM), and I'm currently looking to the the hell away from cable. I hate paying for commercials.

      I am one of the people who care about this.

    8. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by hansamurai · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What's replacing radio?

      The Ipod? That's been around for years and the people who want one already have them and have stopped listening to radio years ago.

      Podcasts? One of the only mediums that has a lower signal to noise ratio than radio.

      Sirius/XM? Meh, I know one person that subscribes to them, I don't think they're growing very fast anymore, if they ever did.

      Streaming radio? Legislated into oblivion last year or the year before.

      TV? Been there, done that.

      Radio is sticking around, it may be becoming less relevant to your ears but I doubt you've listened in years anyway. Radio is free, and the ultimate road companion. Plus it won't be going away simply because of weather related announcements.

    9. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by CogDissident · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I just got a wi-fi radio, with over 100k stations, and a easy to use search function and favorites function. Now, even when I'm not at my computer, I can listen to whatever I want. So who cares about the "dinosaur" radio stations?

    10. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Vista's checking of line voltages

      Uh, what?

      You have some serious issues...

    11. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by nxtw · · Score: 1

      Vista's checking of line voltages to make sure no one has clipped on an analog recording device should tell you where all of this is going.

      I was unaware that my hardware had the ability to report this information to the operating system. Exactly how does this feature work? At what voltage can Vista be sure that a recording device has been attached? What if my VGA cable is connected to a distribution amplifier? What if my DVI signal is connected to a fiber optic extender? What if I'm using optical audio? What if I've hooked up a recording device to the headphone jack on my amplifier?

    12. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Grey+Ninja · · Score: 1

      Actually, I don't think XM has commercials. I think they simply fund themselves on your subscription. I don't remember hearing any commercials anyway, other than advertising events that they are a part of, or events happening on other channels.

      I've just rented a few cars that had XM, and when available, I'll listen to it. So I might be incorrect, but I'm pretty sure that's the way it works.

    13. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by xclr8r · · Score: 1

      My wife has XM. I've heard commercials for some dog formula that makes your dog's fur shinier (sp?) . I've heard other non-event commercials too but the dog one is the only one I remember since I have a dog.

      --
      Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
    14. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Erris · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Anyone who pays for telecommunication services or publishes should care about spectrum. The spectrum belongs to the public and there is no longer a need for it to be allocated by government the way 100 year old radios required. Free spectrum would bring you vastly cheaper communications and true always on internet.

      --
      DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
    15. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by GigG · · Score: 1

      Yes some XM channels have commercials. To they bother me as a subscriber? Not at all.

      --
      Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
    16. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Enleth · · Score: 1

      Is it?

      The official, state-funded (and well-funded) Second Program of Polish Radio is broadcasting in very high quality (analog stereo, not some fancy-schmancy HD, but it can be high quality just as well if you use a proper transmitter), mostly classical and early music, some jazz, blues and good ol' rock, and at certain times even various kinds of interesting, alternative music. In addition, they interview various artists and scientists, do a lot of discussion on the music they air and so on. Even the ads they have are mostly relevant and they don't increase the volume fo them like in the television.

      See, a radio program can be made so it is interesting. Several millions of people in Poland listen to it (it's actually the second most popular radio program here) and I have yet to see a podcast of really comparable quality (cultural, not accoustic).

      --
      This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
    17. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by CRCulver · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Would a campaign for free spectrum bring an end to the troll twitter? If so, sign me up.

    18. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 1

      Link? I'd be interested in one.

    19. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by beckje01 · · Score: 1

      They have commercials on some stations and some stations are commercial free. So it's slightly better then cable where everything has commercials including the program guide on digital cable.

    20. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by CRCulver · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Same in Finland where I write this now. Finnish radio has excellent arts coverage. However, American resistence to any kind of substantial state funding for the arts means that radio is going to remain a purely commercial affair, and thus it's going to target the lowest common denominator, even as that lowest common denominator is in fact turning more and more to just downloading what they want to listen to or copying it from their friends. Since most classical stations have closed and those that remain are playing essentially the same handful of light works over and over again, and few popular music stations are willing to programme anything daring, I don't understand this argument that radio can be revitalized through good stuff.

    21. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by UncleTogie · · Score: 1

      http://www.momentaryfascinations.com/technology/vista.the.worlds.first.user-hostile.operating.system.html

      Tilt bits.

      ...which have exactly what relation to the supposed ability to measure "line voltage"?

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    22. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Gat0r30y · · Score: 1

      The submitter is referring to public radio. Hey I don't like pledge drives either, but they hardly count as commercials.

      --
      Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
    23. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Deagol · · Score: 1

      That's easy enough -- ditch the TV! Or at least broadcast programming of any kind. Take a PC, a good monitor, and rent from NetFlix or torrent. The only time I see or hear a commercial is when I'm out of the house. I have this dream that a non-trivial portion of the population will, with the death of analog TV early next year, simply not make the transition and quit watching it entirely. The internet and rentals are entertaining enough. Now that I think about it, I haven't even listened to the radio in months, as we don't use the one i the house and the one in the car died.

    24. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      sweet so how does that radio work getting traffic reports when I am sitting on 696 just outside novi?

      Oh wait, they DONT. Oh well I am sure they work great for the 78 year old lady that has to live on $600 a month. that $50.00 a moth charge for broadband is worth it....

      1 dinosaur radio station has way more listeners than all your internet radio stations all rolled together have.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    25. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by phobos13013 · · Score: 2, Informative

      On the point of streaming radio, some of us broadcasters are struggling to meet the regulations, you can hear our listener-supported, progressive radio station at the listen live link at the top of the page for WTUL New Orleans

      --
      ...and it should be known by now
    26. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      Actually, I don't think XM has commercials. I think they simply fund themselves on your subscription.

      You could have been describing cable TV in the 80s. Obviously, that's not the case anymore. I would expect subscription radio will follow suit.

    27. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who cares if radio is locked down

      Only citizens.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    28. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by timbck2 · · Score: 2, Informative

      All XM's music channels are commercial-free; their other channels are not. I believe Sirius has a similar policy.

      --
      Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
    29. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Take a PC, a good monitor, and rent from NetFlix or torrent.

      Except for the netflix part, I'm already onboard.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    30. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by harrkev · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The spectrum belongs to the public and there is no longer a need for it to be allocated by government the way 100 year old radios required. Free spectrum would bring you vastly cheaper communications and true always on internet.

      Riiiight. Maybe we should do the same thing for real property. Why "own" land like they did 100 years ago. Just have communal property. If you see a house that you like, just move in. Is your neighbor's TV larger than yours? Take it.

      I, for one, am happy that the local police, fire department, and ambulance services have their own slice of spectrum. I would hate for people to die because little Billy decided to run his own radio station.

      Or, you can have two TV stations in a "broadcast war." ABC decides to broadcast on channel 7. NBC decides that they have a larger transmitter, so they tune to channel 7 and crank up the wattage, knocking ABC off. ABC then decides to upgrade the transmitter to twice the power that NBC has, and knocks them off the air.

      Radio spectrum is a limited resource. There is only so much of it, and everybody has to share. It needs to be managed, just as you manage other things that are limited (time, money, space, etc.).

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    31. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Pallazzio · · Score: 1

      I'm currently looking to the the hell away from cable. I hate paying for commercials.

      uTorrent + tvrss.net = better than tivo. Never watch another commercial again.

    32. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how does MS know the exact resistance of EVERY audio card, cable, connector, amplifier, or headset?

      Because twitter is convinced "M$" is fighting a personal battle against him.

    33. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by NoodleSlayer · · Score: 1

      iPod Touch + either the Pandora Radio or AOL Radio apps works pretty well too.

    34. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by randomErr · · Score: 1

      You piss me off. You give a lot of hype like 'free [insert topic here] or the world will end as we know it.' How about some ideas? I read through your theory links and theres no real substance. Here, I'll help you out with some ideas:

      - Go old tech - CB radio. Cheap, no license required, if you keep copy written material off the air your pretty much legal, and it gets decent coverage. With SSB you get decent sound.
      - Make a digital mesh network. This is something I've been working on but haven't had the resources to make much headway. Make a channel scheme and use something like Zigbee for networking and OGG for the audio.

      Instead of throwing out slogans with no balls behind them, at least create some ideas.

      --
      You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
    35. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Tekzel · · Score: 1

      Oh my god, thanks for opening up an old wound! Last time I looked at the cable guide on my television 2/3rd of it was this horrid and annoying ad space, and then there was room for 2 or maybe 3 lines of guide data. The stupidity of it made me want to scream. I have been a Tivo subscriber for a long time now and never have to deal with it, thank goodness.

    36. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by caluml · · Score: 1

      I don't mind. They can use all that free HF spectrum for new Amateur Radio bands :)
      Check that out. A 1mm band - that's 250GHz. Does the antenna glow red when you transmit?

    37. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by transporter_ii · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree, but there also needs to be some part of the spectrum allocated to "anything goes."

      It is possible to have both. 2.4 has licensed only bands on both sides of it.

      I can't speak for everyone, but I think a lot of low power FM & TV stations would be great. At least much better than having a choice of one or two Clearchannel stations.

       

      --
      Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
    38. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 1

      BS. Radio has become much, much more relevant in my life in the last year. My local public radio station contains a mix of local, state and national news that keeps me informed. I can listen to it on a very cheap device and I can do other things at the same time since it's an audio-only format.

    39. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "Who cares if radio is locked down when radio is less and less relevant today?"

      You never listen to the radio in the car?

      I know you can bring cd's or mp3's, etc....but, don't you like to listen to live news or talk at all? You don't like to have the fun 'randomness' of someone else choosing the music for the drive?

      I think radio, at least for car travel is still extremely relevant.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    40. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by lostmongoose · · Score: 1
      Your point was valid until your last sentence.

      Radio spectrum is a limited resource. There is only so much of it, and everybody has to share. It needs to be managed, just as you manage other things that are limited (time, money, space, etc.).

      Your argument that it must be managed undermines your attempt to make a point, as follows:

      Usable land is a limited resource. There is only so much of it, and everybody has to share. It needs to be managed, just as you manage other things that are limited (time, money, space, etc.).

      You can't say one's limited and needs to be managed when that very argument applies to a VAST number of things INCLUDING land as you used in your first sentence to illustrate your (non)point.

    41. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then you know nothing about subscription radio. Also, stop spreading this "cable was supposed to be ad free" bullshit. It's not true.

    42. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "Riiiight. Maybe we should do the same thing for real property. Why "own" land like they did 100 years ago."

      Actually...I'd argue that NO one (at least in the US) owns property/land these days.

      Just try not paying your property tax on that land and see how long you get to stay on it.

      Nope...you are just 'renting' the land from the govt. these days....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    43. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      When line voltage goes out of what's expected, a "tilt bit" is set. At least, that's what Vista hardware specs call for. Is it really that big of a jump to make?

    44. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reading that site you had linked sound all good until I hit this point:

      "Everyone knows that waves don't actually interfere with one another."

      I demand a replacement for my now broken bullshit meter. The FAQ provides a very misleading description of interference and gives a false perception that it isn't a problem at all.

    45. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by postbigbang · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Consider the chaos of other countries that have even small portions of open spectrum. Nothing works subsequently, and you'll get some trucker with a 10kw transmitter in Arkansas over powering your TV, radio, cell phone, and WiFi because of the broadband noise produced.

      Free spectrum would be like removing the lines on the highway and the lane markings at intersections. Go ahead.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    46. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "Oh my god, thanks for opening up an old wound! Last time I looked at the cable guide on my television 2/3rd of it was this horrid and annoying ad space, and then there was room for 2 or maybe 3 lines of guide data. The stupidity of it made me want to scream. I have been a Tivo subscriber for a long time now and never have to deal with it, thank goodness."

      I think newer tivos have started injecting some ads in the guide haven't they?

      No problems with this on MythTV.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    47. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by westlake · · Score: 1
      Streaming radio? Legislated into oblivion last year or the year before.
      .

      Strange.
      Shoutcast is still around.
      Screamer, vTuner and others.
      There are the subscription services like Live365 and Rhapsody.

    48. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BS. Radio has become much, much more relevant in my life in the last year.

      Anecdotal evidence doesn't count for shit, dumbass.

    49. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Duncan+Blackthorne · · Score: 1

      How would you like it if you had to pay a subscription to listen to your radio? Don't put it past the recording and radio industry to go that direction, either.

    50. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree that the spectrum is limited, and thus there is a "scarcity" rationale for regulation. However, I don't think it's quite as simple as the situation with real or personal property, which basically are fixed in amount.

      In recent decades, spread spectrum and multiple access technology have improved to allow much more room for wireless communications. WiFi, cordless phones, cell phones, and bluetooth devices can all run in close proximity, each using the same 2.4 GHz band.

      With the increasing amount of "real estate," perhaps there's an argument at least for reduced regulation.

    51. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Duncan+Blackthorne · · Score: 1

      Get TiVo, then you won't have to use cable's annoying, useless cable guide. ;-)

    52. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by freedom_surfer · · Score: 2

      I can tell you on my Vista machine it knows whether or not I have plugged in a mic or headphones or whatever...I also know that I couldn't use my still relatively new and certainly functional SB Live based card with Vista...You may not like it...but this is where its going...thank god for Linux...

    53. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by jmac1492 · · Score: 1

      Land IS managed, though. At one point, all the land belonged a government. The government sold some of it, and gave more of it away, and also kept some of it. It issued documents, called "deeds," to all the land it gave away or sold. And to this day, in order to receive land, you get the deed from its current owner. If you own land, your local government has a copy of that deed on file.
      Land is a limited resource, and is managed like other things that are limited, including the radio spectrum. What exactly is the problem here?

      --
      Jenny's got a new number! 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    54. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem with a part of the spectrum where "anything goes" is that broadcasters could be drowned out by competitors.

      Remember, current bands where "anything goes" aren't quite like that: they have strict power limits, so that you don't have to worry about your cordless phone or 802.11 access point being drowned out by your neighbor's, as long as you're not too close together. Spread-spectrum technology also made these less-regulated bands possible; if we still had fixed "channels" like FM or TV, this simply wouldn't be possible.

      Imagine trying to have a band of "anything goes" TV stations. You want to set up your own TV station, but you're in a crowded metro area, and all the channels are already taken by other amateur broadcasters. So you just get a more powerful transmitter, and take over someone else's channel. That's not right.

      Unregulated spectrum only works because of spread-spectrum technology and low power requirements.

    55. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I got a shock when i flipped on the TV the other and learned that my wife shut off our cable months ago.

      I now get my media from the net and from the good 'ol (overpriced) movie theater.Since I moved away from a major city and now have hicks that somehow pass as rock station DJ's, when I drive I listen to mostly CD's ( happily purchased from the big blue box on the corner of course). I also have been watching and listening less overall. I guess I decided the quality was going downhill and the commercials seemed to be getting longer some time ago.

    56. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by gandhi_2 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Yep, it knows when the resistance CHANGED. It doesn't know why. It's trying to be helpful, not check if you are recording something.

      On a related note, they will attack the M Hole next... with content so lame that you won't remember it.

    57. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      iPod (Zune in my case) and radio aren't mutually-exclusive. I like listening to morning talk shows, then listening to MP3s later on. The nice thing about the Zune is that it has a radio receiver, so I only need to carry around one widget to use both. (Stupidly, it won't record from the radio. That would have been a nice added feature.)

    58. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Wrong. Try moving to someplace where there is no property tax and trying that argument. Here in Arizona, we have a city named Mesa which has no property tax. You can buy land there and not worry about the government taking it for non-payment of taxes. Of course, the city is a dump (cue flamebait mods from Mesa residents...), so I'm not sure why you'd want to live there, but at least you don't have to worry about property taxes.

      Your point is mostly valid, though, just not for the places where there's no property tax.

      But as another counterpoint, if you don't pay property tax, then how does the government ensure you're paying your fair share for police and fire protection services which you use? You can't exactly opt out of police and fire services. And sales and income taxes don't ensure that every resident pays, since many people don't work, and there's nothing forcing you to buy your groceries in your own town (Mesa is right next to Tempe, Chandler, and Gilbert, so it's pretty easy to never buy stuff in Mesa if you live there). While Mesa relies on sales tax and otherwise just puts up with high crime, most local governments rely on property taxes to pay for these services, which everyone uses even if they're lucky and never have a fire. While some places go to a ridiculous extreme with property taxes (I've heard parts of Texas have insane taxes), I think it's still reasonable to tax residential property at a reasonable rate for these services. I just wish they could have higher taxes for lower-income housing than for higher-income housing, since poor people are the ones who use police services all the time. (Before someone says something about white-collar crime, I think corporate/industrial/commercial property should be taxed separately, to pay for the white-collar crime they cause. But you never see "COPS" being filmed in upscale neighborhoods with million-dollar homes, with the cops dragging methheads out of their mega-mansions.)

    59. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by PacoCheezdom · · Score: 2, Informative

      If by 'these days' you mean the past eight hundred years in common law legal systems (the US, and England before it), then maybe your argument that nobody owns property without paying the government is a good one.

    60. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Goody · · Score: 1

      Free spectrum would bring you vastly cheaper communications and true always on internet.

      Free spectrum is a great idea if everyone follows the rules for accessing the spectrum. The kicker is once you enact the appropriate rules to make it work, it's no longer free spectrum. Then we're essentially back to where we started with more expensive equipment and an overly-complicated wireless infrastructure that is to communications what Vista is to operating systems.

      I should add that it's doubtful free spectrum will provide any more true "always on" Internet. There's hundreds of megahertz of unlicensed spectrum available today, yet we still don't have Internet everywhere. You still need infrastructure and a means of backhauling the traffic; spectrum isn't necessarily the bottleneck.

      --
      Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
    61. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by shlashdot · · Score: 1

      It works like this - when you get sick of listening to good music, you turn it off and listen to ads until the traffic report comes on, then you turn that off and go back to the good music.

      --
      Additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page.
    62. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Lost+Engineer · · Score: 1

      Perhaps this is because radio has horrible sound and is not a good way to listen to classical music, nor is the car a good place for that.

    63. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Raineer · · Score: 1

      Sirius/XM? Meh, I know one person that subscribes to them, I don't think they're growing very fast anymore, if they ever did.

      It's a good thing that the people YOU personally know and the success you THINK satellite radio has have no effect on the reality of the situation.
      While I have to endure tons of "oh my god who would ever pay $12/mo for RADIO" from people I know, I could say the same thing about "omg who would ever pay $90 for TELEVISION every month".
      The quality of satellite radio is great and the coverage is very good. Anyone who has to drive outside of a metro area for more than 20 minutes for a job would be insane not to drop $12/mo on Sirius/XM.

    64. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 1

      Streaming radio? Legislated into oblivion last year or the year before.

      I listen to more and more streaming radio every day, thanks to http://pandora.com/ and http://last.fm/ . Sure there are limitations to what these services can provide, but it's far from oblivion. I hear new music every day, in the genre's that I like--- with far more diversity then anything I've heard on commercial radio.

      --
      "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
    65. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by smbarbour · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know this is off-topic, but why is it that car radios don't have the weather bands? Having weather information when you are most vulnerable seems like a common sense thing to me.

    66. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's wrong with checking the input level?

      Stopping people clipping stuff by accident is a great idea. Most of the pro digital stuff I have has 'over' indicators.

    67. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I second. Everyone looks at me weird when I tell them that I pay money to listen to the radio. Then I tell them I don't pay money for satellite/cable tv and they look at me even stranger. Satellite Radio is five times less expensive than cable, and it follows me where ever I go. Plus, I can do other things while listening: reading books, hacking code, watching the sunset, cooking dinner,making out with a beautiful woman, waking up from a dream that I thought was real, cursing the life I live. You know your every day activities.

    68. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by syousef · · Score: 1

      Digital broadcast gives them a way to close the "analog hole" they so dread. If the makers colude with broadcasters, only "authorized" players will have keys to decode "HD" signals.

      Please tell me how this will prevent someone from re-recording a transmission in a quite (or better yet sound proof) room? They can't close the hole. They can just make it less convenient. Sure you could make sound proof rooms illegal, and allege intent etc., but try legislating away quite rooms? What are they going to do? Make it illegal to listen to a broadcast without an annoying hum in the background?

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    69. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy mother of god, this guy is obsessed with Vista, masturbation and lolcats.

    70. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by dfn_deux · · Score: 1

      I don't have my windows boxes in front of me to check this right now, but... Are you sure you aren't talking about the intel HD audio tray app supplied by a third party. I've see this behavior on new XP sp3 builds, but only from the intel HD tray app. I've used 4 or 5 different audio setups (differing cards, interconnects, etc) on Vista and I've never seen any indication that vista knows about or cares about what is plugged into any of the analog ins or outs on any of the cards (including onboard HDA). Care to maybe cite some evidence of the behavior you are describing?

      --
      -*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
    71. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by ByTor-2112 · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure if this is what the OP is referring to, but the HDA audio spec includes a "jack sense" ability so that you can tell what kind of device is plugged in and remap the output through different pins to send audio to that port, even though it is not the default configuration. I'm not sure how many devices actually implement the reconfiguring, but my laptop doesn't seem to allow it (or I couldn't figure out how to do it). However, it is not voltage that is measured, but rather changes in impedance.

      I helped develop the HDA driver for FreeBSD, and there is a lot of functionality that seems to be largely unused. I wouldn't be surprised if "Vista ready devices" were required to have a more complete implementation.

    72. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by UncleTogie · · Score: 1

      When line voltage goes out of what's expected, a "tilt bit" is set. At least, that's what Vista hardware specs call for. Is it really that big of a jump to make?

      Considering that any EMI source can cause voltage spikes/fluctuations, I'm pretty disgusted. I appreciate the info, though... I found this article that pretty much echos my gripe with this DRM scheme.

      Damndest case I ever saw of this was a computer that'd reboot if a cell phone was set on top of it and called. Spiked along the PSU'S PG line and caused a reset.

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    73. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, until some month ago I *only* listened to the radio - mainly because I didn't know anything about the latest bands (can't remeber their names and song-names anyway) and I couldn't decide what to buy.

      Lately I stumbled upon the website Aimee Street. There, you can check out the favourites of other people (30 seconds per song) and then, If you liked most of them, just buy their entire list songs for a few bucks with one click. (I spent 35$ for 200 songs so far and love nearly every single one.) It's very convinient. For me, that's the future.

      They don't seem to have many famous artists there by the way but I couldn't tell the difference anyway.

    74. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by rob1980 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wonder that sometimes too, but if I had to venture a guess why I'd say it's probably because anytime there is a severe weather emergency every local radio broadcaster will cut whatever they're doing and simulcast nonstop weather coverage from their flagship station on both the AM and FM bands. A nasty thunderstorm ripped through Omaha a couple weeks ago and you couldn't get anything on the radio that wasn't coverage of the storm... in a case like that a weather band is really redundant.

    75. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sweet so how does that radio work getting traffic reports when I am sitting on 696 just outside novi?

      Oh wait, they DONT. Oh well I am sure they work great for the 78 year old lady that has to live on $600 a month. that $50.00 a moth charge for broadband is worth it....

      1 dinosaur radio station has way more listeners than all your internet radio stations all rolled together have.

      Ha HA you live in michigan

      Damn.....so do I :-(

    76. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I've spent the last 50 years broadcasting pirate radio in gamma rays. Of course I don't have much of an audience, but at least the noisy neighbors stopped being so a long long time ago.

      Yours faithfully,
      The Evil Overlord VIII

    77. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by freedom_surfer · · Score: 1

      Agreed. But considering they respect the broadcast flag to not record TV shows, I can see a similar arrangement for any HD receivers. Can anyone verify? Does HD radio have such a flag in its standards?

      I was only trying to make the point that this detection makes this type of thing possible. I apologize for not being clear on my first post.

    78. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yes, it needs to be managed. But it shouldn't be managed like property, which only only one person uses at a given location at a given time. It's more like a road. Many people can drive on the same road at the same time. The car seller doesn't have right to say what road you drive on. Nor does the road have (much) say on what car you drive over it. It's not a perfect analogy, and there are (obviously) holes in it, but it's a hell of a lot better than the property model...

    79. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Penguinisto · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Vista's checking of line voltages to make sure no one has clipped on an analog recording device should tell you where all of this is going.

      Bullshit. Here's why:

      Anyone with even a yard-sale-quality stereo amplifier could defeat any such thing - the voltage (and amperage, resistance/impedance, wattage, etc) from the computer audio line-out to the amp's line-in jack would remain within exactly the same expected range during runtime, no matter how much recording equipment you daisy-chained onto the amp's AUX-out line.

      IOW: Once it goes analog, it's all mine... and unless someone, somewhere dreams up a "digital" speaker rig-up that could stand a hope in Hell of competing with the cone-and-coil construction found in 99% of all speakers built in this world, there ain't jack shit that Microsoft Vista (or anyone else) can do about that - it's a matter of simple physics.

      Given that even Microsoft is smart enough to know this, why would they even bother to try once the signal hit the outbound wires?

      /P

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    80. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here you go, 696 outside Novi will be a traffic jam no matter what time you are going to or coming from work.

      The rest of the time it will be moving ok, except the 90% of the time there is construction.

    81. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      The problem with a part of the spectrum where "anything goes" is that broadcasters could be drowned out by competitors.

      Yup. That's the only real reason for having the FCC.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    82. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by cleatsupkeep · · Score: 2, Interesting

      + ted is even better. http://www.ted.nu/.

      It's more or less a cronjob that will check for your shows (new uploads to tvrss.net or other sites), and download the torrents for you. Poor man's tivo, and you don't have to do anything if you set up your shows and let it download for you.

    83. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      You can certainly opt out of fire services. Just hope you never have a fire.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    84. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Goody · · Score: 1

      I fail to see how "liberating the spectrum" will bypass digital restrictions. If all media is restricted to the point where you can't get the intelligence (i.e. the music/sound/whatever) in an external form (analog voltage or digital bitstream), how can you transmit it, open or closed spectrum?

      Internet broadcasting is essentially open spectrum without radio waves and propagation. Barring legal and bandwidth obstacles, you can transmit about anything you want. But if your favorite hip hop album is digitally restricted, there's no way to transmit it.

      Furthermore, liberating the spectrum would simple give digital broadcasting protocols more spectrum to transmit their same digitally-restricted signals.

      --
      Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
    85. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

      "Oh my god, thanks for opening up an old wound! Last time I looked at the cable guide on my television 2/3rd of it was this horrid and annoying ad space, and then there was room for 2 or maybe 3 lines of guide data. The stupidity of it made me want to scream. I have been a Tivo subscriber for a long time now and never have to deal with it, thank goodness."

      I think newer tivos have started injecting some ads in the guide haven't they?

      No problems with this on MythTV.

      And how many premium/protected channels can MythTV handle again?

    86. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      That's true, and I'd be surprised if anyone thought differently.

    87. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by TheLastUser · · Score: 1

      Devices like sonos.com also pull internet radio.

    88. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by crtreece · · Score: 1

      Our Subaru has a presets for 5-6 of the common frequencies the National Weather Service tends to broadcast on. There are buttons for tape, AM/FM, and Weather. Hit the weather button, and then the preset buttons all go to the common NWS frequencies.

      --
      file: .signature not found
    89. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      Please feel free to explain why subscription radio is so different. Also, please feel free to let me know who you're quoting because it certainly wasn't me.

      One of the selling points on CATV was less commercials. It certainly wasn't ad-free; local TV station broadcasts still contained commercials when put on the wire. But it wasn't anything like it is now. Granted - it didn't take long to ramp up the commercials. By the late 80s, things had changed.

    90. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by LostCluster · · Score: 2, Informative

      XM has six music channels programmed by Clear Channel that play a small ammount of ad content per hour. When these formerly ad-free channels went commerical, XM countered by adding a replacement similarly-formatted channel (XM Hitlist to challenge Kiss-XM, for example) that is commerical free.

      There's also several CC-owned talk channels that mostly air Premire Radio Networks talk shows like Talk Radio, America's Talk, America Right. These play commericals in every minute that their format allows, with a small handful of PSAs taking up what isn't sold.

      Other than that, XM's music channels are commerical free, and the advertising are so infrequent on talk stations that XM has a library of content produced for to fill the gaps in syndicated programs, and when talkers on a commerical free station like POTUS '08 need to regroup. A good chunk of the ad time on those channels go to telling listeners what's going on elsewhere on the XM service.

    91. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He was probably talking about devices that transmit over multiple frequencies using a unique pattern.

      Even with such a technology, people would have to regulate the airwaves to prevent what you describe: intentional overlap with known stations and accidental overlap with emergency services. I think a lot of people would be happier if low-power (or the wonder tech. some talk about to allow for more minute divisions of available space) transmissions were cheap enough for certain bands to make regulation less of an obstruction to those who just want to run a neighborhood station. (The FCC actually went in this direction a year or two ago.)

    92. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by transporter_ii · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Remember, current bands where "anything goes" aren't quite like that: they have strict power limits,

      And I suppose it never occurred to you that the FCC could limit power here in the same way as 2.4?

      If you do some research, the FCC was VERY close to legalizing low power FM stations, but then the measure just quietly died.

      You can put on a tin foil hat here, but I would bet good money some corporations slipped some money under the table to the right person, and some low-end competition was killed.

      So see, it is possible to kill competition without even having a transmitter.

      --
      Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
    93. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not anymore, about half of the top stations in XM are littered with commercials (kiss, Mix to name a few). they do make a concession by adding "cm" to the channel names

    94. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Skater · · Score: 1

      I'm certain that if Sirius/XM decided to start putting commercials on their music channels, they'd lose many of their subscribers pretty quickly. I have three Sirius tuners and use them a LOT, and I wouldn't hesitate to drop my subscriptions if they did that.

      Sirius and XM have a LOT more to lose by playing commercials. Cable TV still offers something over broadcast TV (it's usually more reliable and offers more channels), but those advantages in satellite radio are less pronounced for people who live where there are radio stations and aren't on the road all the time. (And let's face it - there are dozens of music channels on satellite but I doubt most subscribers listen to more than 4 or 6, so the advantage of having more channels available isn't as great as it is with cable TV.)

      Also: does HBO have ads? I don't get HBO, but I believe if you pay for that service you get to watch movies and other series without advertisements; at least, that used to be their selling point. If that's still true then they've obviously made that business model work.

    95. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      Well, except for nixon...

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    96. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      What I find interesting is that you've described numerous places that they set aside for commercials but don't have buyers to fill. But what happens once they sell all those slots? What happens if they end up with more customers than current slots?

      Having said all that - I realize I'm off on a tangent. The original point was that there are (relatively) few commercials right now. Ten years from now might be very different. But that is then, this is now. Point taken.

    97. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      I've never heard of such a thing, unless you live in a "county island" as we have here in Maricopa County (places, part of the county, but surrounded by an incorporated city). In fact, it sounds rather dangerous, because the danger with fire isn't just that your house will burn to the ground, but that it'll spread to your neighbors' houses too. Whole cities have burned in earlier times because they didn't have sufficient fire protection services.

    98. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Remember, current bands where "anything goes" aren't quite like that: they have strict power limits,

      And I suppose it never occurred to you that the FCC could limit power here in the same way as 2.4?
      If you do some research, the FCC was VERY close to legalizing low power FM stations, but then the measure just quietly died.

      Sorry, but when someone says "anything goes", to me, that means no rules at all, including no limits on power. You're talking about something entirely different: no limits on usage, but limits on power. That's not "anything goes".

      You can already broadcast low-power FM stations, but only if the power level is so low that it only travels a few dozen feet at most. Many iPod users use FM transmitters with their car radios. If they raise that limit, that's still not "anything goes", since there's a limit on the transmitting power.

    99. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by the420kid · · Score: 1

      Sirius (satellite) radio is great. Its uncensored radio. One of the last few places in america where you can find true 'freedom'. Of course im a huge Howard Stern fan , but the music stations completley blow regular radio out of the water on their own. HD is just plain gay. Hackey DJ's and commericals...bleh! how about unrestrained opinion ?? now thats for me. 420

    100. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by bobdotorg · · Score: 1

      I know this is off-topic, but why is it that car radios don't have the weather bands? Having weather information when you are most vulnerable seems like a common sense thing to me.

      Some do - my '96 SAAB 900 has it built in. Nice for weather forecasts while traveling cross country.

      But no auto alert - you have to select the WB.

      --
      __ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
    101. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      Oh, they'll come out if you call them. If you don't have fire insurance, they just wet down your neighbors' house. Happens a lot in the South and Texas.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    102. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sirius/XM? Meh, I know one person that subscribes to them, I don't think they're growing very fast anymore, if they ever did.

      All point of view. I know countless people who subscribe to either XM or Sirius. I also believe that the recent lack of growth is due to the possible merger. Once that clears, assuming it does, you will see a resurgence.

    103. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by gandhi_2 · · Score: 1

      You are right...Ars Technica has an article about it.

    104. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by 1u3hr · · Score: 1
      Please tell me how this will prevent someone from re-recording a transmission in a quite (or better yet sound proof) room?

      Better, just a line from the headphone socket to the AUX input of your stereo. You can get a cable, with the minimal circuitry in it to match the impedance, for about $1.

      I do that just to use the stereo speakers.

    105. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 1

      Yup. That's the only real reason for having the FCC.

      Be sure to include people trying to interfere with emergency services, aircraft communications, satellites and military for whatever evil reasons as "competitors" and I'll agree with you.

      On the lighter side, ask any fast food manager how much fun it is when someone shows up with a CB radio w/ a 6.5k crystal to hijack the drive through. I am pretty sure more than one injury has occurred over such an act.

    106. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the extra parts might push the cost up $5.
      My old BMW had one. I used it way more than AM.

    107. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 1

      Radio is sticking around, it may be becoming less relevant to your ears but I doubt you've listened in years anyway. Radio is free, and the ultimate road companion. Plus it won't be going away simply because of weather related announcements.

      What about those of us who have radios with mp3 players and just use the national weather band to pull real weather data instead of wading through 45 minutes of garbage to get a 2 minute report that's likely hours old?

      If a storm is on the way and I'm driving, I get a loud Du-doo du-doo alarm when an alert is issued, so no real reason to sit there listening to the monotone computer guy talk longer than needed.

    108. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 1

      I know you can bring cd's or mp3's, etc....but, don't you like to listen to live news or talk at all?

      I'd rather submit to a voluntary lobotomy. Every time I've been in a rental car in a new area, prior to carrying an mp3 player, I found all talk shows were:

      a) Super crazy republicans, endlessly bashing democrats with half-wit rational.

      b) Super crazy libertarians, endlessly bashing democrats based on flat out lies or half-truths.

      c) Super crazy religious preachers, endlessly bashing all that is liberal.

      Not being democrat, republican, or libertarian, I really can't identify with these people, and even if I were, I wouldn't want to subject myself, or people I know, to the level of manipulation and repetitive language which goes into a 2-4 hour AM broadcast. Take a Boortz-head, as an example, you can spot them in the office and every office has a clone of this radio personality, obtained and beaten into him daily by AM radio.

      You don't like to have the fun 'randomness' of someone else choosing the music for the drive?

      It's called "playlist shuffle", I've got more songs in my library than probably 10 radio stations, hundreds of podcasts, and a number of good lectures, ebooks, etc to pick from. Albeit, it's not wise to shuffle an ebook or lecture. :)

    109. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Liberate the specturm or you will suffer digital restrictions. Vista's checking of line voltages to make sure no one has clipped on an analog recording device should tell you where all of this is going. The RIAA has been screaming about "radio pirates" for 50 years. Digital broadcast gives them a way to close the "analog hole" they so dread. If the makers colude with broadcasters, only "authorized" players will have keys to decode "HD" signals. If the specturm is liberated, everything will be high quality because no one but big publishers wants to degrade music.

      That "Liberate the spectrum" link is blocked from where I work, classified as Pornography.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    110. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by blitziod · · Score: 0

      I have seen the death of clear channel...the instrement is the I phone. This is the first device that plays music, can EASILY be connected( even controlled by) major car stereos and has high band width internet connectivity. Not yet though. When somebody makes the "killer app" for net radio over the Iphone, then people will switch to internet radio in the car. XM will be a footnote in broadcast history. CARP don't mean shit to a net radio station in nigeria. Hell Pirate Bay will have it's own station too. This is the RIAA's greatest fear as control by the corperate media will be marginal and tied to merit. A friend of mine had his PDA linked to his car stereo back in 2001. He also had Richochet( remember that 79 dollar unlimited wireless net) and he could listen to shoutcast in the car live. This was costly and a bitch to set up. Now that an Ipod( easy to play over your car stereo) can connect to always on wireless, almost anybody can do it.

      --
      The only way to bust a doper--is when you yourself become a smoker!
    111. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by camperslo · · Score: 1

      If you do some research, the FCC was VERY close to legalizing low power FM stations, but then the measure just quietly died.

      No it didn't. Things may not have turned out as some envisioned, but it happened. Due to interference issues, most of the available allocations were outside of major metropolitan areas. IIRC correctly, licenses were generally being granted to established non-profits. Religious broadcasters really moved in on that more than anyone it seems. They were ready too.

      If you'd like to see what's out there now, do an FCC FM Database search.
      For starters leave the fields blank, but for the popup menu choice under "Service:" Pick "Low Power FM FL", then a ways down the page hit the "Submit Data" button. That'll bring up 1000 or so entries. Those with LIC after the frequency are licensed. CP means construction permit. APP means application. MOD means modification (usually altered plans in a construction permit)
      Check out the names of the licensees...

      There's quite a bit of low-power TV around too.

      Regulation is essential from a technical standpoint. The main area I have issues with is who gets the licenses and what their responsibilities are. Unfortunately major consolidation has been allowed in broadcasting. I would have liked to have seen the opposite where a large percentage of stations would have to be owned by licensees living in the coverage area.
      All should be functioning as trustees of the public interest. The impact of media is huge on the functioning of Democracy, education, our economy and so many social issues. The deregulation that brought consolidation, infomercials, and anything for a buck has done great damage. Even those that don't see the deeper issues have likely noticed many more commercials than years ago, and a serious decline in the quality of programming.

      Considering that selling influence to raise money for campaigns is one of the bigger components of our political corruption, we should look at ways of cutting the ad dollars to broadcasters. Stations should be required to provide free political public affairs time to candidates, and interested members of their community of license. Diversity in station ownership would help insure that a good cross section of views are presented.

      The wrong regulations, or corruption in the process, have serious repercussions in the media just as we've seen with telephony/ISPs, food safety, banking, health care....

      We need FCC regulation, but to serve the public, not broadcasters.
      Positions in the FCC are by appointment. Keep that in mind when voting for those that make the appointments.

    112. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is so off topic... but hey what is on this place... Why does anyone listen to the radio anymore other then to get relevant news like a traffic report? Normal AM/FM is full of adds.. XM/Sirius are better but still have interruption,s be it hawking the station your on or other stuff. I used Sirius for a year, I was not happy at all. The sound quality was not very good, like a poorly encoded low bit-rate mp3. Don't most people who are out and about already own some sort of portable music player? My car has a aux-in.. I plug in my own music, and have add free radio that plays what I like all the time.

      blaa blaa blaa.. anyway..

      Send the audio out of your radio into your computer and record it at whatever time you want.

      Or use a dvr or even a vcr to record the audio out from your radio.

    113. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I duno, I just use both? I listen to my iPod most of the time and click over the the am radio station that does traffic/weather reports every ten mins, get the info I need and go back to the iPod. So yeah.. radio isn't going away anytime soon. Traffic reports on Sirius sucked ass, if you were lucky enough to live in a city they cover even.

    114. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by srussia · · Score: 1

      So let me get this straight.

      1. You enjoy the "quality" service.

      2. It needs to be subsidized because there are not enough people like you to make it commercially viable.

      3. So essentially, everybody else is paying for something they don't want for the enjoyment of the select few like you.

      Sounds like a sweet deal.

      --
      Set your phasers on "funky"!
    115. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by drdaz · · Score: 1

      "Oh my god, thanks for opening up an old wound! Last time I looked at the cable guide on my television 2/3rd of it was this horrid and annoying ad space, and then there was room for 2 or maybe 3 lines of guide data. The stupidity of it made me want to scream. I have been a Tivo subscriber for a long time now and never have to deal with it, thank goodness."

      I think newer tivos have started injecting some ads in the guide haven't they?

      No problems with this on MythTV.

      And how many premium/protected channels can MythTV handle again?

      MythTV has no issues with my protected TV channels.

      I'm talking about DVB-C with Irdeto2 encryption, in Denmark for what it's worth. I have used a setup with an official Irdeto CAM module and now use a softcam setup (the Irdeto CAM burned out, twice).

      So what's your point again?

    116. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by CRCulver · · Score: 1

      Even though the average EU resident might not dig certain arts himself, he generally recognizes their value to society and the need for continuing state support. For example, I've never heard any French politician call for the dismantling of IRCAM. Whether he represents popular interests or keeps his focus on elites, whether he favours big government or thinks about trimming budgets, he just leaves it alone.

    117. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know this is off-topic, but why is it that car radios don't have the weather bands? Having weather information when you are most vulnerable seems like a common sense thing to me.

      SAAB has had Weather Band in its radios for at least 15 years now. Even in the US market. That may have since changed, but I know all the NG900's had it and pretty much any SAAB with the orange PID has it. Pretty convenient actually.

    118. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by urcreepyneighbor · · Score: 1

      radio is less and less relevant today

      Pop your bubble, man.

      --
      "The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
    119. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by WarPresident · · Score: 1

      Unless the only "local stations" are run by Clear Channel. Then I wish you good luck in getting them to actually do anything other than pre-recorded content. An entire region loses power for a day? Nothing's going on if it's Clear Channel, just the top 100 pop crap countdown... Did a train carrying toxic chemicals derail, causing 1 death and over 100 injuries? Clear Channel doesn't air any warnings. The hits just keep coming...

      --
      Here come da fudge!
    120. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Jon_S · · Score: 1

      http://mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_HD-PVR

      OK, so the driver for MythTV is still in alpha, but I understand it's getting close.

    121. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by hanshotfirst · · Score: 1

      The "analog hole" doesn't refer to the analog broadcast, but to the conversion to audio when you go to the speakers. You can always intercept the analog audio signal at or just before the speaker and re-route it to a recording device - that's the hole they dread. I don't buy the bit about checking line voltages.... software cannot tell whether the voltage difference means a recording device is down the line or that a new amplified speaker system is installed, or maybe I'm using 16ohm speakers instead of 8ohm speakers. I was about to at least concede your main point, in spite of the poor support by the other statements, then I read the first linked site - it clearly has no understanding of physics or radio ("radio" as in how radio devices work, not the broadcast industry). Ignoring the above, if the anyone can broadcast anything anytime you get the radio equivalent of MySpace or YouTube - not exactly high-quality content.

      --
      Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
    122. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by rfunches · · Score: 1

      HBO runs ads similar to PBS: they "advertise" their own shows and programming. Since HBO is not supported by corporations, foundations, and endowments, they don't run those half-commercials recognizing sponsors. I don't know if they advertise their shows before on-demand programming, as I've only had the on-air HBO feeds.

    123. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know our BMW has a weather band radio. It even has a feature to alert you to weather warnings if you want it to.

    124. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 1

      You can already broadcast low-power FM stations, but only if the power level is so low that it only travels a few dozen feet at most. Many iPod users use FM transmitters with their car radios.

      And that's bad enough. Our local NPR station is 88.1 FM, and apparently that's the default frequency for many of these things. Often I'm driving along listening to that, and somebody with a music player or satellite radio with such a relay comes near (or there's one house I often pass that has one), and my listening is interrupted.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
    125. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My BMW has weather band built in. I have never thought about it until I got it and I agree that it is a handy feature.

    126. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      all your internet radio stations all rolled together have

      all your internet radio stations are belong to us

    127. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by LVSlushdat · · Score: 1

      The wife and I bought two new Hyundai Accents which came with XM and an Mp3/CD player.. Since we're still on the 3 mo freebie intro period, I've been listening to XM, and frankly, I'm not impressed.. XM called us a month into the 3 mo intro, and tried to sell us on signing up.. I told them I *might* after I do the 3 mo eval.. That 3 mo time is coming right up, and I'm gonna stick to the over 10 hrs of *MY* music on an MP3 cd.. XM can go bankrupt for all I care...

      --
      THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
    128. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My Subaru's factory radio DOES have weather band...that's the only reason I've not replaced it with a satellite-tuner model.

    129. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by chasd · · Score: 1

      Um, buy a Subaru, they come with radios that have a weather band.

      --
      :wq
    130. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Jon_S · · Score: 1

      My subaru does.

    131. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by sm62704 · · Score: 1

      The RIAA has been screaming about "radio pirates" for 50 years

      Congress wasn't always as dishonest as they are now; or maybe the corporations weren't so generous in their campaign bribes. The Audio Home Recording Act of... I think 1972, maybe it was 1978 (google and wikipedia are failing me, or perhaps I fail it) specifically legalized taping off the radio. Despite this, they still screamed about "radio piracy", and did so incredibly hypocritically.

      As I mentioned in a K5 article Birth of a label-sanctioned pirate radio station several years ago, you could record whole albums on cassette. You can still sample whole albums to .wav and convert to .mp3 or ogg.

      If you're in St Louis you can still sample KSHE. If you're not within 75 miles of St Louis you can hear whole albums on Sunday nights at KSHE's website; IINM they stream online. I'm not affiliated with them; I grew up in St Louis. I'm just an old listener who tunes in whenever I'm in the area.

      I mean "old listener" in both senses of the word; I was 17 when they cam on the air.

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    132. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually I presume the Wi-fi radio he's referring to is the Roku Soundbridge (http://www.roku.com/products_soundbridge.php), which I'm considering purchasing myself. The Soundbridge actually does tune in over-the-airwaves stations that also broadcast online. Curious has anybody used one of these? I'm tempted to buy one but haven't heard an actual owner's opinion.

    133. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by sm62704 · · Score: 1

      Man, I love your broadcasts. The fidelity you get with such high frequency transmissions is out of this world. Puts Sirius corporation to shame.

      Your playlists suck, though.

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    134. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Arkansas is another country? Well, maybe it is...

    135. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by byteschlepper · · Score: 1

      Saabs used to until GM got a hold of them. I used it all the time and miss it.

    136. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by kesuki · · Score: 1

      I guess we'll just have to pirate internet radio with VLC

    137. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Subaru stock radio does.

    138. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Obfuscant · · Score: 1
      Remember, current bands where "anything goes" aren't quite like that: they have strict power limits, so that you don't have to worry about your cordless phone or 802.11 access point being drowned out by your neighbor's, as long as you're not too close together.

      Except you need to worry about your 802.11 being disabled by the phone, or your 2.4G video link by both. Or your bluetooth.

      And if your neighbor is a ham who happens to be involved in HSMM, yes, you get to have all of your 2.4GHz devices disabled at the same time. HE's a licensed user of that spectrumm, and HE has much higher power limits than you do.

      Spread-spectrum technology also made these less-regulated bands possible; if we still had fixed "channels" like FM or TV, this simply wouldn't be possible.

      And we should be careful not to mix digital TV in with spread spectrum, even though they both look like noise to standard analog receivers. This is a key flaw in the "empty space" argument. It's really hard to know when you are interfering with a digital signal, since your analog receiver won't tell you it is there, and you may be just beyond the "good" contour and yet prevent people within it from getting a signal. It will take a regulatory agency of some kind, either the FCC or some other agency acting like them, to define where empty spaces are.

    139. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

      I dunno - last time I tried it (a few months back) I connected directly to my cable line and could not receive any subscription/premium content.

    140. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by CogDissident · · Score: 1

      I use a Roku soundbridge radio. It is perfect, easy to set up, and comes with a handy remote control. http://www.roku.com/

    141. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 1

      Good to hear. I bought the Roku box for Netflix, and have been fairly impressed with it.

    142. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Why don't they just try getting assigned a different frequency?

    143. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Obfuscant · · Score: 1
      Sorry, but when someone says "anything goes", to me, that means no rules at all, including no limits on power.

      And let's not forget the historical record on "anything goes except power limits". CB radio has a 5 watt INPUT power limit (not output) that the first thing anyone did was retune the output to exceed. And then got themselves some "boots" to get through the competition.

    144. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Obfuscant · · Score: 1
      Your playlists suck, though.

      But you can read them in the dark.

    145. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...Vista's checking of line voltages to make sure no one has clipped on an analog recording device..."

      Horse hockey. Exactly how, in terms of how it loads the line out, does the input of an analog recording device differ from the input of any other device? There is no "signature" to an analog recording device's input impedance.

      Typical nonsense written by someone who probably doesn't even know how a flashlight works.

    146. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by smbarbour · · Score: 1

      I know that the weather bands transmit special tones (or whatever they use) to indicate an alert, and as others have noted, there are some cars that have the weather band, but they don't auto-switch on alerts.

      If I was actually listening to a radio station instead of a CD or MP3 player, then sure, I might be able to find out if something major was going on, but I would greatly appreciate it if the radio switched itself on a tornado warning.

      Sidenote: When the sirens turn on for a tornado warning, take shelter immediately. When the sirens stop, wait at least 15 minutes before leaving shelter. Reason: The siren may have stopped because it's no longer there.

    147. Re:Liberate the Spectrum. by LostCluster · · Score: 1

      If they were able to fully sell out the service, then the minute-long content will go away. It's been in a steep decline ever since the service launched as they've found more sponsors.

      The satellite channels are only a slight step above the HD Radio HD2 channels in terms of being inaccessable to most people. Simply put, the recievers aren't in the hands or cars of users yet. It's hard to sell advertising when there's nobody listening. So, off they go providing more content per hour than standard radio...

      How's this? I'm watching my TiVo's recording of Current TV's InfoMania show right now. I'm pressing 30-second skip my typical 4 times for a two minute break, and overshooting by 60 seconds! Yep, that's right.. nobody's heard of an appointment viewing show on a digital channel most people haven't heard of and even those who have don't watch. More content for those of us who do.

  2. Minimal /. relevancy I think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To paraphrase the article summary...

    blah blah blah
    blah blah blah
    blah blah blah
    blah blah blah ...can it be done on Linux?

    Immediately moved onto the front page. Sigh...

    1. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by electricbern · · Score: 5, Funny

      You might have missed the memo about Slashdot's new algorithm.
      if (article.contains("Linux")) {
      frontpage.add(article);
      }

      --
      alias possession='chmod 666 satan && ls /dev > il && tail daemon.log'
    2. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by jandrese · · Score: 1

      New?

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    3. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by moderatorrater · · Score: 1

      I see no reason that this isn't a good slashdot question. HD radio is somewhat cutting edge and they're asking for hardware that will work in a specific way. Technology is very much in the realm of slashdot's interest, and asking if such devices can work with Linux makes sense, since Linux allows more freedom with the content than the hardware likely will, as anyone with a myth box can tell you.

    4. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by sm62704 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Citation for the previous post here

      "Netcraft confirms it - Slashdot *is* filled with Linux fanboys." ~ Bill Gates on Slashdot

      "No good editors like Kuro5hin has, No nice layout like Digg.com, Lame !!!." ~ CmdrTaco on Slashdot

      "In Soviet Russia, slashdot trolls YUO!." ~ Russian Reversal on Slashdot

      "On the streets these days, a dime bag of kittens costs a pretty penny." ~ Oscar Wilde on Slashdot's "offtopic" moderation

      <snip>

      The official religion of Slashdot is GNU, with the holy scripture known as "TFA", written in the archaic and obsolete language Perl. Although GNU is clearly a minority religion that will never find mainstream appeal, it has some of the most vocal and annoying evangelists to be found anywhere in the world. It is not uncommon for Open Source priests to be heard preaching the words of the prophets Stallman, Raymond, and Tux in the streets. An oft-heard chant, popular among the proselytizers and the general public to the point of becoming cliche, is "RTFA! Open source is the future! Free software for all! STFU, n00b!"

      All citizens are required by Slashdottian civil and religious law to have Chapter F0, verses 8-A of TFA tattoed upon their back at the age of 13, which reads as follows:

      0x0008. And lo, he must be new here,
      0x0009. And it was ironic, for he had a low ID, and there was much rejoicing.
      0x000A. And verily, did he say, in Soviet Russia, low IDs have YOU!
      This excerpt is also found duped on most government buildings, and citizens are required to salute and sing O, Canada whenever they see it or any of the contained words in print.

      Slashdot's national holiday is Fsck, predicted in the Book of Jobs (the fourth book in TFA) to be the day Bill Gates dies, and has never been celebrated yet, as there is no official set date. Other religious holidays include Anti-Christmas, National Wanking Sesssion Day and +1 Insightful.

      <snip>

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    5. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by rootooftheworld · · Score: 1

      you owe me a new keyboard... and a monitor wipe. What a ROFLOL!

      --
      I know full well that tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack
    6. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by sm62704 · · Score: 1

      Thanks to your sig we're even!

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    7. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by rootooftheworld · · Score: 1

      I am flatered by the recognition (yay! somebody laght at my joke!) but that wasn't supposed to bea pure joke. more like irony. cocaine has half the cardiotoxicity (risk of heartattack increase) of nicotine, and even a smaller fraction of its addictive effects. and cannabis, even smoked, is praktikaly medicine. check wikipedia. Regerds, Tihomir

      --
      I know full well that tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack
    8. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by rootooftheworld · · Score: 1

      sorry about the spelling, whiskey has that effect on people, or me at least.

      --
      I know full well that tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack
    9. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by sm62704 · · Score: 1

      If you read my (mostly nsfw; I see you're not at work but I got one poor fellow in trouble for not warning about it; the warning is for the less intoxicated who may stumble on this comment) journals you'll see that I'm a former butthead (gave it up in 1999 after 30 years) who's been smoking pot since 1971. Cocaine's biggest drawback is that it turns its users into total assholes if they snort/smoke/inject it long enough.

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    10. Re:Minimal /. relevancy I think by rootooftheworld · · Score: 1

      same goes for alcohol, but most don't drink that much at one time or that often. and those who don't overdoit with cocaine are simply not noticed.

      --
      I know full well that tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack
  3. Go Satellite instead... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Satellite Radio is a much better choice for this than the joke that is HD Radio.

    The Sirius Stiletto 2 is a great little radio, with full time-shifting capabilities.

    1. Re:Go Satellite instead... by Masami+Eiri · · Score: 1

      Except, you know, HD Radio is free to recieve, as opposed to having a monthly fee. If you listen to enough radio to justify the monthly cost, more power to you. I suspect subby, like myself, doesn't.

    2. Re:Go Satellite instead... by eln · · Score: 1

      HD Radio is free (after purchase of receiver), satellite radio requires a monthly fee (after purchase of receiver). Why would I want satellite radio if I can get the stations I want to hear on HD?

      Personally, I was fine with just over the air radio until I heard that the local public radio station would be adding a new HD radio station with nothing but news and other NPR content (as opposed to the hybrid 20% news/80% music station they have now). Now, I'm seriously considering HD radio. Still not interested in satellite though, I don't need yet another monthly payment.

    3. Re:Go Satellite instead... by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Satellite Radio is a much better choice for this than the joke that is HD Radio.

      Satellite radio is a good choice for people who don't mind paying to listen to radio. HD Radio, on the other hand, is broadcast over traditional Radio spectrum and is thus just as free to listen to as traditional analog radio.

      You can call it a joke if you want, but some of us prefer to call it free.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    4. Re:Go Satellite instead... by jandrese · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The downside is of course that while Satellite radio works everywhere, HD radio only works if you're within 50 feet of the transmitter. I live in an area theoretically covered in HD channels, but actually pulling any of them in reliably requires a substantial antenna and a very good tuner.

      I really think the FCC screwed the pooch by giving Ibiquity a monopoly on HD radio with their halfassed system. Now you can pay a licensing fee to build the receiver for a service that barely works at all. I was originally excited about HD radio too because I thought it would be like Digital TV, where you can distribute a crystal clear picture out to where the channel would normally get a bit fuzzy and deal more elegantly with having channels directly adjacent to yours (a big problem around here, where sometimes stations will have stations on either side of the dial and most radio receivers will end up mixing your signal with the adjacent ones randomly when you're driving down the road). Instead we have a system where you practically never get an HD lock.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    5. Re:Go Satellite instead... by gbutler69 · · Score: 1

      You do pay for your Public Radio/NPR listening pleasure don't you? Through donations? Don't you?

      --
      Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
    6. Re:Go Satellite instead... by Neil+Jansen · · Score: 1

      You do pay for your Public Radio/NPR listening pleasure don't you? Through donations? Don't you?

      After listening to the 2008 candidate race, I don't know why I would... Since December of last year the only two Democratic candidates that got more than 30 seconds of time were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. If they're so unbiased why can't they give equal time to Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and the rest? On the Rep. side, Ron Paul wasn't talked about much either. You think the donation scheme would keep them honest but I'm not so sure anymore.

    7. Re:Go Satellite instead... by gandhi_2 · · Score: 1
      Well, the only time NPR doesn't simply broadcast "Barrack Obama. Barrack Obama. Barrack Obama. Barrack Obama." is during donation/membership drive time...

      To tell you the truth...I'd rather listen to the pledge drive.

    8. Re:Go Satellite instead... by peas_n_carrots · · Score: 1

      You can't be serious with those claims, Mr Satellite Radio shill. I receive at least 8 HD Radio stations with no problems all over town. Distance is approx 10-20 miles. I recall the stations holding up well even as I drove out of town. It worked well enough that it didn't make me sit up and notice any more quality degradation than before.

      Sounds like you have a very poor quality receiver and/or antenna, or maybe you forgot to connect the antenna?

    9. Re:Go Satellite instead... by NaCh0 · · Score: 1

      Ohhh, I guess 8 channels is enough for anybody. I have about 130 channels with Sirius and as a bonus, unlike terrestrial radio, much of the content is worth listening to.

    10. Re:Go Satellite instead... by davcorp · · Score: 1

      The downside is of course that while Satellite radio works everywhere, HD radio only works if you're within 50 feet of the transmitter.

      Umm... you must receive A LOT of EM Radiation living at least "50 feet" from of a transmitter.... I'm sure you meant 50 miles ;)

      --
      Gravity!... It's not just a good idea... It's the Law!
    11. Re:Go Satellite instead... by tremor_tj · · Score: 1

      Don't be an idiot. The 8 he receives are all local, with local content, traffic, etc. There's nothing precluding him from getting satellite either, as my HD reciever was all of $120 with Sirius/XM readiness. Get off your high horse and give something a try where you don't have to justify your monthly fee.

    12. Re:Go Satellite instead... by mako1138 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      HD Radio is particularly nasty because of the high licensing fees and the noise produced by sticking digital where it doesn't belong.

      http://www.ham-radio.com/k6sti/hdrsn.htm
      http://www.am-dx.com/amiboc.htm

    13. Re:Go Satellite instead... by jdgeorge · · Score: 1

      Well, if you're wanting a fair and balanced source of radio, you might like FOX News Radio. In addition to their streaming/downloadable content, it looks as if there's information about how to find conventional radio stations that broadcast their stuff.

      If you're into that kind of thing.

    14. Re:Go Satellite instead... by jandrese · · Score: 1

      I don't even have Satellite Radio, just the HD receiver that doesn't work very well at all. Granted, I live in the suburbs, several miles away from the transmitters, but of all of the HD radio stations I know about in the area, virtually none of them can be tuned reliably unless the weather conditions are just right.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    15. Re:Go Satellite instead... by Natros · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hmmm, I don't know where you're listening, but in my neck of the woods, I can get 8 or 10 different HD stations over a pretty wide area. I drove from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, NM (about 50 miles) yesterday, and I don't think I lost my lock on the HD station I was listening to more than once. The tuner you buy makes a big difference, as some tuners are much more sensitive than others, and can lock on to a weaker signal. They don't have to be insanely expensive, though--my car radio is quite reliable, and only cost about $150. It probably helps that all of the transmitters in Albuquerque are on top of a mountain that rises 4500 feet above the city. Still, I enjoy the HD channels, especially since our community radio station recently made the upgrade.

      --
      Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?
    16. Re:Go Satellite instead... by lavalamp70 · · Score: 1

      I've had Sirius for over three years now. Bought it after moving to Atlanta from Texas. ATL radio SUX. It's either hiphop or country, or was at the time anyway. I've heard so many good bands/songs that were 'new to me', and that's mainly on the classic rock channel. I can no longer listen to commercial radio due to the commercials, shytty morning shows, etc. For me, the $13 a month is well worth it. I do a few road trips a year as well - with Sirius I no longer have to bring a stack of cd's or listen to static between major cities. Satellite radio may not be for everyone, but it works for me.

    17. Re:Go Satellite instead... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since December of last year the only two Democratic candidates that got more than 30 seconds of time were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. If they're so unbiased why can't they give equal time to Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and the rest?

      I and others don't want to hear about candidates who don't have a chance of willing the nomination. A republican family member told me it would be Hillary and Obama in Dec 2006! I thought he was nuts, but it was obvious to everyone by Dec 2007 that those were the only candidates with a chance. Ron Paul never got close and I heard far more about him on NPR than made any sense given how few votes he got in the primaries.

  4. Lest we forget. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can always use the A Hole.

    1. Re:Lest we forget. by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 1

      That is, the analog hole.

      NOTHING can stop people from exploiting it. You could use it in conjunction with readily available software to divide/manipulate your recordings as you please. It's much more effort than a single out-of-the box solution, but how bad do you want it?

  5. HD Radio adapter for computers by kriston · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Please visit www.rush2112.net for an adapter and controller for the Visteon HD Radio car unit and the one from Directed Electronics.
    It can be used with a number of satellite radio recorders like SatAmp to record broadcasts and timeshift. It also comes with a demo and development kit if you like that sort of thing.

    http://www.rush2112.net/mkportal/modules/oscommerce/product_info.php?products_id=39

    I have his XM and Sirius adapters. They all work on the same principle by talking to a vehicle OEM tuner via the RS-232 port that they all have.

    --

    Kriston

  6. Please read before posting... please! by Red+Flayer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you know of a solution, don't write it in this discussion!

    Please be aware that not everyone who browses slashdot has our best interests at heart. Any commercial method to circumvent DRM will be jumped upon by our broadcast content overlords. Any non-commercial method will be legislated out of existence... the longer the media cartels remain in the dark, the longer we have to enjoy our right to timeshift content.

    Like usenet... the first rule of usenet is that you don't talk about usenet.

    Sorry for the pessimism and tinfoilhattery, but this entire ask slashdot question just screams "honeypot" to me, even if that wasn't its intent.

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    1. Re:Please read before posting... please! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Like usenet... the first rule of usenet is that you don't talk about usenet.

      No, that's Fight Club. The reason no one talks about usenet is the same reason why nobody actively talks about 4chan. It's so base that it's not worth tarnishing your reputation to mention it.

    2. Re:Please read before posting... please! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does DRM take legal precedence or does the fact that broadcast content may be recorded take precedence?

    3. Re:Please read before posting... please! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Security through obscurity, eh?

      If they really cared, why do most Radio Component HD Tuners have outputs? I need to hook it into my main stereo, and could just as easily hook it up to a recording device.

    4. Re:Please read before posting... please! by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You know that whole business of "information wants to be free", not being able to hide information that anyone can obtain freely, etc.? Well it cuts both ways. Just as they can't protect their content, you can't protect your methods for getting their content. So don't bother trying.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    5. Re:Please read before posting... please! by f2x · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That is pretty pessimistic, but what else can people do about this? Moles have been around longer than the internet. While it may be easier for them to disguise themselves, it doesn't make them any smarter.

      I remember back when all you needed was a radio with a cassette player and you could have all the free mix tapes you wanted. Even then they wanted to tax blank tapes because of all the "rampant copying". Yeah... They really had to worry about the collapse of their business model from the Chromium(IV) Oxide threat back then.~

      The bottom line is that any commercial method is likely to be introduced by a licensed manufacturer, and non-commercial methods will be achieved through the analog headphone jack and a line-in digital recorder. They gave consent for the former, and I can't really see where they can outlaw the latter.

      These days I'm still more concerned with their barratry against every day civilians than their ability to come up with legitimate means to prevent unauthorized duplications.

      --
      Blessed with all the brains that God gave a duck's ass, and twice the charisma.
    6. Re:Please read before posting... please! by fm6 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you know of a solution, don't write it in this discussion!

      Sigh. The idea that you can hide your anti-DRM activity from OBCOs is absurd. Their minions, both software and carbon-based, have infiltrated every web site, every mailing list, every chat channel. It's just not that hard.

      Rather than trying to hide from the OBCOs, people with disapproved knowledge should share their knowledge with as many people as possible. When information exists on a few furtive web sites, it can easily be suppressed. When it's on thousands of web sites, there's no getting rid of it.

      Consider the first lyrics server at lyric.ch. When it was the only lyrics server, the IP lawyers were on faster than flies on shit. But now there are thousands of lyrics sites, and the lawyers have given up.

    7. Re:Please read before posting... please! by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      So saying take apart your radio speakers and a microphone connect the Red Radio Speaker Wire with the Red Microphone Speaker wire and do the same with the black ones. And plug the microphone into your computer open Microsoft Recording tools and his record when you turn the radio on is against the law. Perhaps I it would be more legal if I advise the person to be grounded first.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    8. Re:Please read before posting... please! by xclr8r · · Score: 1

      forgive my ignorance what is OBCO? I couldn't find a reference on wikipedia and yahoo gave me the Old Bridge Chamber Orchestra.

      --
      Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
    9. Re:Please read before posting... please! by c0d3g33k · · Score: 1

      I disagree with this post. I'd rather have an appropriate level of balance codified into law instead of skulking in the shadows. I'm not cynical enough to think that the balance will always favor the 'media cartels'. Even if it did, so what? Is their crap really that essential that the choice between "on their terms" and "no thanks, I'd rather do something fun" is that difficult?

      As an example, I actually wish that "perfect DRM" was available. Rather than the desired outcome (huge increases in revenue), I suspect that income for the media cartels would largely remain as it is. Why? Because I suspect that rather than "each download = lost sale", only people who really want the media would purchase it. The rest of us would go do something fun, like talk to each other, have a party, go for a walk, get laid, make our own movies/tunes/books etc.

      It would be quite telling if the development of perfect DRM was met with a collective yawn. Followed by a mad scrambling on the part of the media cartels to find some way to add value that people were actually willing to pay for.

      No matter what level of control the "content providers" exert, as long as people have the freedom to say "no thanks" and walk away, they have no control at all.

    10. Re:Please read before posting... please! by fm6 · · Score: 1

      See parent post.

    11. Re:Please read before posting... please! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Like usenet... the first rule of usenet is that you don't talk about usenet.

      Too late. As of Monday, AT&T broadband has deleted a large group of alt newsgroups, especially the alt.binaries tree. There were a group of us in alt.binaries.midi that used to swap our midi compositions and arrangements, including the brilliant James Pitt-Payne, who singlehandedly has been keeping the turn of the 20th century popular piano music alive through this newsgroup. If it hadn't been for his (and others') exceptional contributions, a great deal of public domain music that exists only in piano rolls and wire recordings would never reach those of us who are interested in these things.

      Fucking AT&T. First they help the Bush Administration break the law by snooping on us without judicial oversight, and now this. It's nice to know that we live in a "free market" economy, where corporations are concerned about what the consumers want, no?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    12. Re:Please read before posting... please! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Just as they can't protect their content, you can't protect your methods for getting their content.

      Did you ever read a sentence that sounds like it's saying something and after reading it about 10 times you realize that it's complete nonsense?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    13. Re:Please read before posting... please! by plasmacutter · · Score: 1

      Indeed it sounds quite convoluted, but doctorow makes the exact same point in his famous talk exposing 'selling bits' as a dot-bomb fallacy.

      Right now both sides of this issue have their own means of attacking at will, but none by which to defend. This means wide-spread p2p use, and wide-spread "extortion via litigation" campaigns against batches of 500 does at a time.

      --
      VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
    14. Re:Please read before posting... please! by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Could you please elaborate on what the problem is?

      They can't protect their content. This is the basic fallacy of DRM which we discuss on this site all the time.

      We can't protect our methods. If they are known on the internet then they can be discovered by the content providers. It matters not a whit whether we discuss it on this site or not, they will still find out.

      The ultimate reason for both of these is the same: information cannot be protected unless all parties who can access it are absolutely trustworthy.

      That's all I said before. Does this way make more sense to you?

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    15. Re:Please read before posting... please! by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      Flamebait, I know, but...

      including the brilliant James Pitt-Payne, who singlehandedly has been keeping the turn of the 20th century popular piano music alive through this newsgroup.

      If he's so great, how come nobody's yet made a website for him?

    16. Re:Please read before posting... please! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like usenet... the first rule of usenet is that you don't talk about usenet.

      Looks like you blew that one. Thanks.

    17. Re:Please read before posting... please! by sm62704 · · Score: 1

      You know that whole business of "information wants to be free"

      Information doesn't want to be free any more than your door wants to be open or closed. Information doesn't want (lucky it). The Intellectual Pooperty Rights folks could as easily and ignorantly say "information wants to be paid for".

      However-

      When information isn't free, neither are you.

      Yes, that "typo" above was deliberate.

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
  7. not a problem by neersign · · Score: 2, Interesting

    say you have a hand-held "walkman" style player, you could just buy a 1/8" stereo to 1/8" stereo cable and plug it right in to the Input on your sound card, then use your favorite recording software to record and export as your favorite audio file type (mp3, ogg, etc.). If your tuner is a home stereo type, then you could buy a RCA to 1/8" adapter to connect to your computer. There are several different styles of adapters out there and they all do the same thing, so there is no need for the "Adapter for iPod" special cables that come with a special price, unless it makes you feel better paying more for the same thing.

    1. Re:not a problem by dstech · · Score: 1

      Of course, in the case of HD radio you've just converted to analog, gone down a potentially noisy/lossy line and then converted back to digital again. Essentially, you just lost the 'HD' in your HD Radio signal :P

    2. Re:not a problem by neersign · · Score: 2, Insightful

      sure, but if you are compressing the stream to mp3/ogg/etc and listening over standard headphones then most people wouldn't notice the difference. If you want to use digital spdif to connect and then encode in flac or other loss-less, that is an option too. There are many different avenues with the same result.

    3. Re:not a problem by popeye44 · · Score: 2, Informative

      The HD in HD radio does not stand for High Definition.

      "According to iBiquity, the name "HD Radio" is simply iBiquity's brand for its digital radio technology,[6] and does not stand for "Hybrid Digital" or "High Definition" such as HDTV does."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_radio

      --
      Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
    4. Re:not a problem by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      "According to iBiquity, the name "HD Radio" is simply iBiquity's brand for its digital radio technology,[6] and does not stand for "Hybrid Digital" or "High Definition" such as HDTV does."

      Ain't it funny how random coincidences work out. The odds against picking a 2-letter brand name that happen to match the acronym for "High Definition" are 676-to-1. And, gosh darn it, they just happened to hit it!

      I bet they were pretty surprised by that one.

    5. Re:not a problem by kriston · · Score: 1

      They're being revisionist. It was originally "Hybrid Digital" and then they changed their mind about it because eventually, say in 20 years, stations will convert to all-digital format and no longer be "hybrid."
      Now they just say it's a nebulous, meaninglist string of two consonants to save face and help the public mistake HD for High Definition since everyone wants HD these days.

      On the other hand, there is a local public broadcaster in our area (MHz Networks) that completely switched off their analog channel the moment they got their digital channel on the air. It has 5 subchannels on one channel and 4 subchannels on another, and none are High-Definition. And they don't say they're High Definition or HD; they just say "digital," just like the truth is.

      --

      Kriston

    6. Re:not a problem by NerveGas · · Score: 1

      HD converted locally to analog is still worlds ahead of analog radio.

      --
      Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
  8. A couple of possibilities by robkill · · Score: 2, Informative

    Cambridge Soundworks makes a model with optical digital outputs. No clue if there are any restrictions on them, though. On a higher end, Yamaha makes several AV receivers that handle HD as well. Again I have no knowledge whether or not the digital outputs are crippled in any way.

    --
    DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
    1. Re:A couple of possibilities by kriston · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Even with digital output you won't be keeping those HD Radio broadcasts for music listening purposes.
      I have XM and Sirius with optical outputs and the sound being broadcast by them has fairly poor fidelity. If you're used to that, then you probably won't notice, but comparing any of the broadcasted digital formats (even internet radio) to anything you can download from iTunes is going to disappoint you.

      HD Radio compares favorably to XM Satellite Radio since they use very similar audio codecs, but even then you're not going to like it for music. If the station you want to record is multicasting, meaning that it has more than one "channel" on one frequency, you're going to be disappointed unless it's a talk program.

      The bandwidth for music on the multicasting HD Radio stations is not worth the cost to bother with optical outputs. Line level input will be more than you could need.

      --

      Kriston

    2. Re:A couple of possibilities by SaDan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      XM and Sirius have significantly less bandwidth to use per channel compared to digital radio. The sound quality of digital radio is much better as a result.

      I wouldn't mind recording digital radio, because it sounds as good as or better than a lot of MP3s you find on the 'net.

    3. Re:A couple of possibilities by kriston · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's right.
      XM's music channels range from 96 kbit/sec to 32 kbit/sec.
      HD Radio in hybrid mode offers a maximum of 150 kbit/sec, not including the subchannels and like I stated, the multicasting stations that use multiple subchannels will suffer in quality until full-digital (non-hybrid HD Radio) occurs which is not forseen until the very distant future.

      Personally I don't like low-bitrate MP3. The new AOL Radio service uses files now instead of streaming and those files are 128 kbit/sec MP3 files which are decidedly low quality.

      In any case I'm getting Mitch's HD Radio adapter as soon as I can find a controllable OEM radio that won't cost near $100.

      --

      Kriston

    4. Re:A couple of possibilities by lupine · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have a sangean HDT-1X with optical output. I use it to listen to our local community radio station which is in HD and has some awesome techno programs and no commercials.
      I havent gotten around to automating it yet... griffin is supposed to come out with some a radioshark HD model which would make timeshifting and recording to a pc easy, but they are not shipping anything yet. Maybe by xmas time.

  9. Maybe I'm missing something here but... by Ynsats · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...if an add-on tuner has a universal output to connect to standard stereo or even multi-channel amplifier then there is an output capable of being recorded from. If it is that much of a problem to hook a pre-amp up and pipe the channel to say a Tape2 output and dub signal to a recording device of some sort then maybe the OP should be looking for another way to grab the coveted radio programming.

    If there are line voltage sensors that let the Vista software know that an external recording source has been hooked up, a fairly simple work around is a equalizer. You can find many on the used market from companies like BSR, Soundcraftsman and even AudioSource. They will all take a line level input and most of the models available from them will have dubbing modes that split the signal internally and won't present a line voltage change to the output of the computer system.

    This is not a difficult issue to overcome from my point of view but like I said, maybe I am missing something. I'm not that up on HD Radio technology but if it's like the HD Television signals at home, I can record those in a similar fashion. Of course the media is different because of the required bandwidth but once the signal passes through the encrypted circuits and is interpreted, there aren't many stops in place that one can't get around with some creative positioning of hardware.

    1. Re:Maybe I'm missing something here but... by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      If there are line voltage sensors that let the Vista software know that an external recording source has been hooked up, a fairly simple work around is a equalizer.

      A simpler workaround is to not use Vista at all.

    2. Re:Maybe I'm missing something here but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If there are line voltage sensors that give Vista an excuse to work half-assedly (from the user perspective at least) why use Vista? Why not boot from some live CD that happens to have Audacity or similar sound recording software as part of the package?

      Once you have the .mp3s, .ogg or whatever recorded - then you can go back to your usual OS. (Even if it is Vista.)

    3. Re:Maybe I'm missing something here but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The proprietary "HD" radio standard mandates poor 32-56 Kb/s codecs from years ago that can't be updated since they're implemented in hardware and no provisions were made for future software improvements. There's your copy protection. :-)

    4. Re:Maybe I'm missing something here but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would add that the red and blue speaker wires have something to do with transferring audio between components, but am hesitant to run afoul of the DMCA. Solder and insulation being the hugely effective copy-protection measures that they are.

      When screwdrivers, cold chisels and soldering irons are outlawed, only outlaws will have screwdrivers, cold chisels and soldering irons.

  10. anything you want it to... by conspirator57 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Or judging from your tone, anything I want it to that you will denigrate should you find out about it.

    http://gnuradio.org/trac

    --
    "If still these truths be held to be
    Self evident."
    -Edna St. Vincent Millay
  11. DANGER! READ THIS! ---- MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I make a great point in the above post. You know you want to.

  12. Amazon by krgallagher · · Score: 5, Informative

    A simple Amazon search turned up quite a few models. Some have optical out. One has an iPod dock.

    --

    Insert Generic Sig Here:

    1. Re:Amazon by Ichoran · · Score: 4, Informative

      The one with an iPod dock only tells the iPod the title of songs so you can buy them later.

      Not too useful if you want to time-shift something that isn't a song. And since you could just go buy the song in the first place and have it at any time you wanted it without even waiting for the radio to play it, if you're interested in time-shifting it's probably not for songs.

    2. Re:Amazon by PocketRadio · · Score: 1

      "Who needs 'Tagging' for HD radio?" "No 'HD tagging' required. No HD radios required, in fact. Why buy a new radio in order to tag your songs when you can do it on an iPod right now?" http://www.hear2.com/2008/02/who-needs-taggi.html HD tagging - what a farce.

  13. SPDIF by Lord+Ender · · Score: 1

    Any decent piece of audio/video gear should have an SPDIF digital output. Does anyone know of a way to losslessly record this digital output? That should provide a way to timeshift any audio regardless of the source.

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    1. Re:SPDIF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any decent Soundcard should have SPDIF inputs, once you can listen the digital stream, it's only a matter of using the right software.
      Even some motherboards include SPDIF I/O for the integrated audio. Any audio recording program should be capable of lossless audio recording through the digital inputs.

    2. Re:SPDIF by Megane · · Score: 1

      How can you use the word "losslessly" when talking about HD Radio? This crap is worse than 128K MP3.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  14. Just don't buy into it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If going digital on all media is only to support the asshat DRM SS troopers, then don't buy the products.

    If enough people say NO and refuse to suck up the DRM crap, then it will fade away.

    Doubts???

    How many new BETA max players do you see in the stores today? Forget it was a better format for the media it was to support, it just is not there due to lack of "want", but you sure do see VHS out there still...

    Stop supporting the DRM SS troopers, stop buying their crap.

  15. it ends up analog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    HD music is a hoax. 48khz to listen, wallah. HD music. the signal to transport, is not what we get to our ears. Unless they got something nuclear top secret for hd music, it is analog as a result.

  16. HD streaming radio by paroneayea · · Score: 3, Informative

    Really, I just listen to HD streaming radio these days. Specifically, WCPE (classical music) and NPR Boston both publish in OGG Vorbis, which is great.

    --
    http://mediagoblin.org/
    1. Re:HD streaming radio by fm6 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You mean digital streaming radio. It's silly to call WCPE's 20 bps stream "HD".

      My own favorite source of streams is the Aussie ABC network (90 bps!). Their "classical" channel is particularly refreshing because they define the term very broadly. Also a lot of good podcasts.

    2. Re:HD streaming radio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But is the stream HD quality, or is it the same 26kbps quality like all the other non-HD station? And most terrestrial FM station simulcast in "HD" anyway. And HD radio is simply CD quality content, not HD-audio as in BluRay, HD-DVD DVD-A or HD-A audio.

    3. Re:HD streaming radio by LostCluster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What these streams are is the "HD2" channel's content being streamed at whatever bandwidth they can afford to give it. Nearly every station that has an "HD2" has an Internet stream of it.

  17. Chumby by missing000 · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are a lot of others, but Chumby does that and a lot more.

    1. Re:Chumby by machine321 · · Score: 1

      I really am not interested in what your Chumby does or does not do.

  18. It doesn't mean what you think it means... by MMC+Monster · · Score: 1

    You do realize that the HD in HD Radio doesn't stand for high definition, right? (I think it means hybrid digital, but according to wikipedia, it doesn't mean anything.)

    --
    Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    1. Re:It doesn't mean what you think it means... by plasmacutter · · Score: 3, Funny

      You do realize that the HD in HD Radio doesn't stand for high definition, right? (I think it means hybrid digital, but according to wikipedia, it doesn't mean anything.)

      ah, so it's like the "HD Vision" sunglasses then : )

      --
      VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
    2. Re:It doesn't mean what you think it means... by Megane · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think it stands for "Horribly Distorted".

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  19. new tech by Eil · · Score: 2, Interesting

    First of all, HD radio is a new technology and one that isn't being very actively marketed. I have a feeling that the main reason for this is that most people are just fine with the audio quality of normal radio. Also, the medium of radio has been destroyed over the last few decades so now 99% of the people who listen to radio these days just have it on as background music in their cards or at work. You don't need high definition and a fancy receiver for that kind of use. People who want actual content coming through their speakers subscribe to satellite radio although I hear the (content) quality of that is starting to go downhill too.

    Probably the best solution for the sumitter for now is simply to buy a regular receiver and plug it into the sound card of a PC. Use an IR blaster for changing the channel, turning the receiver on and off, etc.

    Many Linux-compatible TV tuners come with FM tuners built-in, I suspect it's only a matter of time until they start putting HD radio tuners on those too.

    1. Re:new tech by Eil · · Score: 1

      Edit: I temporarily forgot that "HD Radio" doesn't mean "high definition".

    2. Re:new tech by Chyeld · · Score: 3, Informative

      Many Linux-compatible TV tuners come with FM tuners built-in, I suspect it's only a matter of time until they start putting HD radio tuners on those too.

      Too late!!! ASI8914 - Quad HD Raido Tuner (with linux drivers).

    3. Re:new tech by FooAtWFU · · Score: 2, Informative

      First of all, HD radio is a new technology and one that isn't being very actively marketed.

      You obviously don't listen to a radio station that's paid for the HD Radio technology. KDFC advertises HD radios a lot. (Then again KDFC also has too much gab and not enough music, and it's all very "pop" classical and not so much serious works of more than a minute or three, and... general lame :P i've switched mostly to the jazz station in the mornings)

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    4. Re:new tech by Eil · · Score: 1

      I listen to WDBM in East Lansing, Michigan. They were the first college station to broadcast in HD Radio and every so often they play a little 10-second spot about it. I don't know if any other stations around here broadcast in HD Radio because the rest (other than NPR) are complete crud.

  20. Maybe ... by vtcodger · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't think DRM is an issue. I suspect that the problem you're having is due to HD Radio being a new technology. There is a fairly widely used analog technology called Subsidiary Carrier Audio that is used to transmit background music and similar stuff over FM stations piggybacked on the primary signal. The background music in your local supermarket is probably SCA. Since stations presumably can't do both SCA and HD Radio, the number of stations that can actually deploy HD Radio is limited. Not too many stations means not too much HD Radio equipment. OTOH, maybe HD Radio will catch on. I'm told that HD Radio fidelity is nothing to write home about, so maybe simply feeding your radio's speaker output into the microphone input to your sound card will work until more diverse HD radio equipment becomes available.

    --
    You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    1. Re:Maybe ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Sorry to be nit-picky, but any radio station can do both HD and SCA since HD is in the sidebands, SCA is in the middle analog portion.

  21. HD Radio is a Farce! by PocketRadio · · Score: 4, Informative

    HD Radio/IBOC jams on both AM and FM and suffers from dropouts, poor coverage, interference, bland programming, and almost zero consumer interest: http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com/

    1. Re:HD Radio is a Farce! by PocketRadio · · Score: 1

      Everyone - I hope you realize that the main motive behind HD Radio/IBOC is to jam the smaller competitors off the dial (community-based radio), with adjacent-channel interference. iBiquity and the HD Radio Alliance owned stations are attempting to hijack our public airways through this jamming scheme and through confiscatory licensing and on-going percentage fees. HD Radio/IBOC is going to decimate the smaller broadcasters. HD Radio - a high-level corporate scam and huge carney-shill:

      "Corporate Hijacking of Our Public Airways"

      http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com/2008/03/is-hd-r-farce.html

      With the new RadioGuard, which iBiquity is seeking FCC approval, all current HD radios may become obsolete, as the first-generation HD radios became without multicasting. This scheme demands comtinued HD radio purchases, and with the proposed 10db FM-HD power increase, will require current repalcement of HD Radio hardware by broadcasters. This scheme only benefits iBiquity and the HD Radio hardware manufacturers. If you buy HD radios, then you are supporting this disaster.

  22. in that spirit: dear media distributors by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    if you send the signal out, over the air, or over the wire, it can be intercepted, decrypted, and recorded

    its your hired hacks versus legions of technically astute, music hungry, and most importantly, POOR teenagers

    go ahead media distributors, make your play

    you lose before you start, because you simply don't understand the subject matter: what you can and can't control

    you can't control this anymore. the means of distribution has passed into the hands of everyone. your economy of scarcity is now an economy of infinity. supply and demand: supply is infinite, price is therefore zero

    please retake economics 101 and understand why media distribution is a dying business model, and get out with what little semblance of pride you have still intact

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  23. XM Radio recording by wesglo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I hope this isn't too off topic. I have a Polk Audio XM reciever. It has both S/PDIF and Optical digital out. I just plug into either of the digital outs and record directly to my audio haddisk recorder. Any Mid-Fi device (HD Radio Reciever) shouod have atleast one digital out.

  24. Read and think before spew? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Clicky the linky and welcome yourself to the 21st century. Well, at least the 1970s. You might also look into how traditional radio failed emergency workers on 9/11 and think about all of that the next time you browse the net at a coffee shop. EM does not "interfere" with itself, it adds just as light does.

    1. Re:Read and think before spew? by Goody · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Every time I read open spectrum rants, it's clear that the authors never had any real life wireless experience or their entire experience has been 802.11 Wifi. Or they're high.

      The fact that you say EM "adds just as light does" illustrates my point :-)

      --
      Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
    2. Re:Read and think before spew? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should make the link between David Reed and Open Spectrum a little more clear. His writing on the subject is worth reading anyway. You might also mention Vanu Bose and his little company, which has been mentioned here along the founder's advocacy of Open Spectrum .

    3. Re:Read and think before spew? by Goody · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah, no experience at all. But yeah, that you can pass two light beams through each other and emerge without loss of signal shows that the "radio interference story" the public has been fed is a lie.

      But RF isn't visible light spectrum. And if interference really was a lie, why hasn't anyone created a receiver that is totally insusceptible to interference in 100 years of radio engineering? And if this was possible, technically it should be possible to receive and demodulate any signal at any level infinitely less than the noise floor. I'm not a physicist, but I'm sure there are people way smarter than me who would have done it already, because they'd be obscenely rich right now.

      The over-simplified wrong answer that is open spectrum is painful obvious when you see statements like this:

      28. Does this require everyone to get new radios and TV sets?

      No. Existing technologies will continue to work. They will be replaced by customers as they â" we â" realize the benefits of the new technology.

      Implementing open spectrum would immediately put any existing services into danger because it's the "new technology" that would enable open spectrum. Legacy technology wouldn't be able to participate in such an environment and would be susceptible to interference. Of course for people believing interference is a big lie, it's hard to grasp the concept.

      --
      Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
    4. Re:Read and think before spew? by Goody · · Score: 4, Informative

      Let me rephrase my previous post. While you can pass two beams of light through each other, and you can pass two radio spectrum waves through each other, this is totally irrelevant to radio interference. Beam the two waves, whether visible light or radio spectrum into a receiver and while they can add and subtract, they can destroy information to the point where the intelligence can't be extracted. If you take the simplest model of a carrier modulated with intelligence by turning it on and off, one can create a interfering signal that is turned on when the intended signal is turned off. Match the phase and amplitude perfectly and no technology in the world will extract the signal, hence interference.

      To say that interference is a big lie is an outrageously simple and wrong conclusion.

      --
      Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
    5. Re:Read and think before spew? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually there is a technology that can decode this, you just need multiple antennas. It is called a phased antenna array. You digitally capture the (virtually) raw RF from each antenna and feed the high bandwidth digital signal to an array of DSPs. Then you can mathematically extract any signal. To stop a signal being extracted you would need to transmit the interference from exactly the same point of origin (or use a multiple transmitter phased array yourself - but this is a much harder problem than the receiver).

    6. Re:Read and think before spew? by sm62704 · · Score: 1

      But RF isn't visible light spectrum

      A four legged animal isn't a horse, either. Light, RF, microwaves are all the same thing and behave the same way. They're just different frequencies.

      Yes, like different frequencies of sound different frequencies of EMF are somemwhat different; for example, the higher the frequency the straighter the "beam"; if you stand to the side of your speakers the bass is pretty much the same but the treble will be attenuated.

      I'd link some wikppedia articles about various methods of spectrum sharing, but just consider your cell phones work just fine without tuning dials.

      I'm not the same guy as in the wikipedia link, although from the link it appears we were born the same year. I'd say he knows a hell of a lot more about the subject than either of us.

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    7. Re:Read and think before spew? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually you can extract the signals using a phased antenna array. With 3 antenna arranged in a triangle you can distinguish signals by the point of origin up to the diffraction limit (the further apart the antennae the smaller change in origin point can be detected).

    8. Re:Read and think before spew? by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Let me rephrase my previous post. While you can pass two beams of light through each other, and you can pass two radio spectrum waves through each other, this is totally irrelevant to radio interference. ... To say that interference is a big lie is an outrageously simple and wrong conclusion.

      2 distinct radio sources cannot permanently interfere with each other across a plane when using a phased array antenna. (Other than one completely overpowering the other.)

      I've seen 8 separate radio signals pulled out of a single frequency in RT with clarity you'd find hard to believe. You can switch between the sources or mix and match as you'd like. IIRC, that was with a 4 antenna phased array.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    9. Re:Read and think before spew? by quanticle · · Score: 2, Informative

      EM does not "interfere" with itself, it adds just as light does.

      Except that, y'know, light interferes with itself too.

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    10. Re:Read and think before spew? by corbettw · · Score: 1

      Ooh, goody, link wars.

      Just because you have a Ph.D. in computer science from MIT does not make you an expert in radio operation.

      --
      God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
    11. Re:Read and think before spew? by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

      Also, people tend to forget the difference between 'broadcast' and 'narrowcast.'

      Yes, if you point a laser 0 degrees, and point a laser 90 degrees, they'll intersect and keep going. This isn't what happens with RF broadcast, however.

      Take a military blinker light. Stand a few miles away. Have somebody blink you a message in morse code. Perfect.

      Now, while that code is coming, have somebody else with another blinker, exactly the same color (wavelength, or 'frequency') and output strength stand directly beside the first guy, and start blinking a different message at you.

      Not so easy to pick out your own, is it? Now, do it while a third guy with a flood light is standing behind them both.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    12. Re:Read and think before spew? by xalorous · · Score: 1

      But yeah, that you can pass two light beams through each other and emerge without loss of signal shows that the "radio interference story" the public has been fed is a lie.

      Can I have those brain cells back? You're trying to say that light does not interfere, and therefore radio does not either?

      EM interference isn't like a fullback blocking a defensive back out of the way. All EM waves are subject to interference. The signal picked up by a receiver is the sum of all the signals that it reads. If you broadcast two sine wave signals that are inverse to each other the receiver will see a flat line signal. If you shine two lights at a receiver and one is red, the other blue, the receiver will see purple light. (really need pictures)

      The 'fiction' is that interference permanently mangles the signals. It does not, it only requires more sophisticated processing to pull out the component signals.

      --
      TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
  25. Audio Quality by Detritus · · Score: 1

    If your local radio station really cared about audio quality, they would shoot the program director and rip out their Optimod boxes. Most broadcast stations in the USA butcher their audio.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    1. Re:Audio Quality by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Heavily-compressed audio is obnoxious when you're listening to it in a quiet environment, but most people listen to radio in their cars, where there's a huge amount of background noise and a relatively small loudness 'window' between the noise floor and the maximum desirable volume.

      If radio stations didn't compress their audio, especially for classical music and other programming with lots of dynamic range, people would have to constantly adjust the volume.

      What would be better would be if the radios had the compressors built into them, so listeners could change the amount of compression/expansion they want. People in very quiet luxury cars could keep it turned down, while people listening with the windows down at highway speeds could crank it up to keep the speakers working nonstop.

      Unfortunately, automobiles are far from an optimal place to listen to high-quality music, but they're the place where most radio listening is done, and tailored towards.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    2. Re:Audio Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you're right, but processing can compensate for the coloring in a STL system, exciter and transmitter.

  26. HD is regular FM or AM but Digital by bricko · · Score: 2, Informative

    These new HD stations are being broadcast right now. I live in fly-over country in Wichita,KS and we have about 10 up and going. So I would think those of you in the Big cities would have many more. They are just a subset of the existing channel. They are just being broadcast on a digital signal. They are FREE and use advert. as current ones do. Just be careful of the new ACTA internaional treaty http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1656 since the Sony's of the world want to shut down the ANALOG plugs on the back of your receivers so you cant even record ANYTHING even in Analog.

  27. What's the problem? There are lots of devices... by davide+marney · · Score: 2, Informative

    What's the issue? The first page of a Google search for "hd radio output jack" lists

    HD Pulse with "Stereo Output"

    Sony XDR with 3.5mm stereo output jack

    JVC KT-HDP with a stereo out

    Just plug the line out to your recording device of choice (digital or otherwise) and go to town.

    --
    "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
  28. No encryption, but the RIAA would like that by eggboard · · Score: 1

    HD Radio sort of slipped through the RIAA net. There's no encryption, and there's no broadcast flag. But radio makers aren't interested in you recording digital radio; all the radios I've looked at have analog only output, not even TOSlink optical digital (correct me anyone knows of such a unit).

    Huge delays in low-power HD Radio chips have prevented there from being much HD Radio gear on the market, too. The folks at Griffin promised an HD Radio RadioShark, their USB receiver, which would ostensibly allow direct digital recording, but no ETA on that.

    --
    Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
    1. Re:No encryption, but the RIAA would like that by LMariachi · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Sangean someone linked to earlier has TOSlink out.

  29. Good luck with that search by Khyber · · Score: 1

    Really, the only reason we're moving to digital, besides more channels/advertising pumped down your throat/easier to charge more for a modified analog signal because digital DOES NOT EXIST, is because you can encrypt the signal so only specified radios pick up the channel (e.g. automobile radios, Ford/Chevy/Dodge pays to have their factory radios able to decrypt this broadcast) and to otherwise record the radio broadcast and redistribute it would be a violation of the DMCA. Once again, this is only to protect a dying business model. Let the old coots die, and the newer, younger, SMARTER generation could (though doubtfully) get rid of the DMCA and make a business model that makes piracy near-useless. Shit, if I could listen to an entire album and decide if it's worth buying before I actually buy it, I might very well do that! In fact, most things I've bought came from listening to pirated versions from LAN parties and sneakernet sources!

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  30. yes, cable was promised to be ad free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wuz there, being in my late 50s.

    Now Apple Computer is adding a "copyright levy" to their sales, does that mean if I pay it I can download on Bearshare without it being stealing since I've paid for it? The answer to that is ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

    Thanks for playing, RIAA.

  31. Time-shifting radio with computer tuners by PCM2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Many Linux-compatible TV tuners come with FM tuners built-in, I suspect it's only a matter of time until they start putting HD radio tuners on those too.

    As a side note, Windows Vista Media Center supports FM tuners built-in to TV tuner cards. But it provides no means of time-shifting radio, even though it can do so for TV (and that is arguably its primary purpose). I have often wondered why this is so. What is the benefit of listening to radio on your computer if all the same rules apply as when you're listening to it on any other device? Doesn't it just become sort of a pain in the ass?

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
    1. Re:Time-shifting radio with computer tuners by Eil · · Score: 1

      As a side note, Windows Vista Media Center supports FM tuners built-in to TV tuner cards. But it provides no means of time-shifting radio, even though it can do so for TV (and that is arguably its primary purpose). I have often wondered why this is so. What is the benefit of listening to radio on your computer if all the same rules apply as when you're listening to it on any other device? Doesn't it just become sort of a pain in the ass?

      I would suspect that the companies who design the tuner chips (Connexant, Brooktree, etc) throw in FM radio as well because it's not a costly addition and makes a good marketing bullet-point. The companies who make the cards just copy and paste the tuner chip specs onto their box.

      Microsoft probably didn't bother to implement radio timeshifting because it's not something that's in demand. If it were, they would have put some coders on it.

  32. "HD Radio" means CD quality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It doesn't mean BluRay, HD-DVD, DVD-A or SACD quality audio. Just CD quality audio. Most terrestrial radio stations simulcast in "HD", you just need a receiver.

    1. Re:"HD Radio" means CD quality. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It doesn't mean BluRay, HD-DVD, DVD-A or SACD quality audio. Just CD quality audio. Most terrestrial radio stations simulcast in "HD", you just need a receiver.

      Bull. At best, it's like a low-bitrate MP3. That's nowhere near "CD quality".

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  33. Re:What's the problem? There are lots of devices.. by LostCluster · · Score: 1

    In other words... "Use the analog hole."

  34. How in the hell by Snaller · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can Vista "check the line voltage" ?

    --
    If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
    1. Re:How in the hell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's simple.
      If you read full scale from the a/d input, you know the converter has very likely clipped.

      This has absolutely nothing to do with copy protection.

      Interestingly, in Linux they have started putting real db scales in ALSA. So, when you adjust settings in the mixer, you can actually reference them to a real world voltage.

  35. Yes the HD radios have outputs by bricko · · Score: 0

    Yes the HD radios and tuners have OUTPUTS...however they are NOT DIGITAL data. Even though the radio is playing DIGITAL radio signals it outputs ANALOG just like any other FM radio. There are NO devices allowed to be made or sold in the US that output pure digital signal for you to record. All are ANALOG only. Come on folks...the RIAA and MPAA would never allow such a thing..unless it was locked down such as the new Monitors that adhere to the Blue Ray spec to view High Def content. Must be HDCP capable from the source to your eyes. Or no play. And no the HD in the radio does not stand for HIGH DEFINITION.

  36. Communal Living by copponex · · Score: 1

    Someone whose existence centers around materialism obviously doesn't work in a communal setting. Some people don't mind sharing books, music, and even televisions with people in their community. They may even see it as sign of a healthy society.

    Oddly enough you disprove your own sentiment by stating that everyone has to share the finite radio spectrum, which is true. Just remember that everything is finite as far as humans are concerned. The main difference between the population voting for who gets the spectrum, and the FCC declaring where it will be allocated, is that there's a chance the people with all of the capital won't get what they want out of a democratic vote. Therefore it isn't allowed.

  37. HD bitrates are 32-48 kbps. Why Bother? by ScottFree2600 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Besides the fact that this system is dying a rapid death, the quality is so poor that you wouldn't want to record it, let alone listen to it. Would you download a mp3 music file with a bitrate of less than 128k? If you make an analog recording that is uncompressed, then at least you won't be further degrading the signal. "Stacked Compression" is a very bad deal sonically.

  38. Look at Wikipedia, it's a good reference. by FrankRizzo,Sr. · · Score: 2, Informative
  39. Trip Bits set on Transients. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The idea is well explained here. The bottom line is that you will be able to get around it but it won't be as easy as you think and most people, not just people trying to avoid pay per play, are going to get degraded quality most of the time. M$ has been out front with customer hostile design in Vista but they had the willing cooperation of many other companies. If HD radios are built this way it will have transient checks built in that can be monitored by software. Really bad hardware won't have anything but encrypted bluetooth headphone and speaker connectivity, won't talk to anything but authorized headphones and speakers and won't work if you try to crack them open. That will leave you looking for high quality microphones.

    People don't really want things to be like that and this hardware will fail. The subscription music plans the hardware is designed to force on people have been soundly many times rejected over the last decade. Companies that try will continue to lose money.

  40. You won't be able to record any type of broadcast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This whole shenanigan is about control. We don't *need* HD/Digital radio but as soon as the broadcast flag becomes mandated it's all over for us consumers. No more recording at all. The fair use we have always enjoyed just went out the window. You can't even buy a DVR (or DVCR for that matter) to record OTH HDTV anymore, you must rent it from your local cable/dish monopoly. It's sickening. The government sold all the analog spectrum and mandated DTV to keep us all in line, the same way the internet is headed if we don't revolt.

  41. from a broadcasters perspective.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm a broadcast radio engineer. i'm a tad biased, so to speak:

    1. A privately held codec has no place on the public spectrum. Any hobbyist should be able to build a receiver without paying a license fee.

    2. from an operational standpoint it's death to AM at night. First adjacent channels (ie 1000khz & 1010khz) HD's will interfere with analog signals via skip: listening to distant AM signals (DX'ing) at night will be a thing of the past, especially as solar activity increases over the next 5 years.

    3. We as broadcasters have failed to provide meaningful content on the main signals, and now we're polluting media channels with bad content and no revenue. We've failed to promote hd in any meaningful way. The only clear winner is not the broadcaster nor the listener, but the ibiquity corporation.

    the actual question?
    i don't believe it does HD, but the radioshark is a analog device which does what you're looking for:
    http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark

    1. Re:from a broadcasters perspective.. by whitelabrat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm particularly upset about the use of the term "HD Radio" which people may associate with High Definition. The fact is that HD stands for Hybrid Data which actually sounds quite crappy. I prefer analog FM for it's higher fidelity. Ain't that sad?

  42. Internet vs. "Dinosaur" audience sizes by rustman · · Score: 1

    ``1 dinosaur radio station has way more listeners than all your internet radio stations all rolled together have.``

    That's not correct. There are many internet stations that have more listeners than a single AM/FM station. The numbers you want to compare is a AM or FM's AQH persons to a net stations average concurrent listeners. Not AQH share (which is the percentage of all people currently listening to radio listening to a particular station). For example, WBUR Boston, one of the higher rated stations in Boston, is about 40,000 listeners during drive time. Now for comparison, at this time of night (midnight PST), the combined listeners to the top 20 on Shoutcast.com is over 40,000. That's just the top 20.

    A large interent station (say, one of the most popular DI.FM streams, or Club 977 for example) can have more listeners than a top 5 station in a medium size market like Jacksonville, FL.

    And that's not even counting music services like AOL, Last.FM and Pandora.

    Radio does work well for some segments of the community. But it's a dying breed, largely due to lack of compelling programming. And if you have internet in your car, listening to net radio you can get your traffic and weather online as well. You don't need to wait for it to come on. Heck, your traffic will be integrated with your GPS. Why do you need to listen to someone read a 5 minute out of date traffic report to you when you can have an instant online version?

  43. Oblig. Matrix reference by srussia · · Score: 1

    Even though the average EU resident might not dig certain arts himself, he generally recognizes their value to society and the need for continuing state support.

    "What a mindjob!" (referring of course to the average EU resident)

    In any event, I am no more averse to freeriding than you are. But for someone who does not recognize copyright as a natural inalienable right (I stumbled upon your post in the EU copyright article) I figured that this stance was based on the primacy of natural inalienable rights, such as the right of a person do as he wishes with his physical property (arranging bits on a hard drive, for example).

    In light of this, the fact that you seem OK with at least some people being forced to give up their property to subsidize something they don't care to have is puzzling to me. Does this create cognitive dissonance for you?

    --
    Set your phasers on "funky"!
    1. Re:Oblig. Matrix reference by CRCulver · · Score: 1

      In light of this, the fact that you seem OK with at least some people being forced to give up their property to subsidize something they don't care to have is puzzling to me. Does this create cognitive dissonance for you?

      Nope. As I said, they generally agree that such a tax burden is fair and good for society (the minority who wants to dismantle the welfare state is a small one).

      My argument against copyright was not based on natural unalienable rights, though I used such terminology to frame the discussion with Americans. My argument really comes down to a general quality of life one. Everyone I know massively copies music and is happier for it. Musicians can be happy too provided a new post-copyright funding framework is in place. Everyone wins.

  44. Interference isn't a lie but it can be rejected by tepples · · Score: 1

    But RF isn't visible light spectrum.

    Yes it is. The visible light spectrum makes up part of the radio frequency spectrum, just with a comparatively short wavelength of 380-750 nm, also called the "600 THz band".

    And if interference really was a lie

    For the avoidance of doubt, much of what lay people call "interference" results from poor selectivity at the receiver.

    why hasn't anyone created a receiver that is totally insusceptible to interference in 100 years of radio engineering?

    No receiver is perfectly selective, but a receiver with a more directional antenna (or even more than one antenna) can be more selective in the signals it receives and more effective at rejecting the signals that are interfering with it than a legacy receiver.

    1. Re:Interference isn't a lie but it can be rejected by Goody · · Score: 1

      But RF isn't visible light spectrum.

      Yes it is. The visible light spectrum makes up part of the radio frequency spectrum, just with a comparatively short wavelength of 380-750 nm, also called the "600 THz band".

      And if interference really was a lie

      For the avoidance of doubt, much of what lay people call "interference" results from poor selectivity at the receiver.

      Correct, but that doesn't make the issue of interference a big lie. Furthermore, receiver selectivity does nothing when the interferer is on the same frequency. Antenna "selectivity" (i.e. "smart antennas", intelligent controllable pattern antennas) do little to nothing if the interferer is on the same azimuth as the intended receive signal. Things can be done to minimize interference, but I think some open spectrum proponents are under some belief that interference is a conspiracy to keep the old guard in place or line pockets with money. If there was some magic bullet to eliminate interference, it would be quickly adopted.

      why hasn't anyone created a receiver that is totally insusceptible to interference in 100 years of radio engineering?

      No receiver is perfectly selective, but a receiver with a more directional antenna (or even more than one antenna) can be more selective in the signals it receives and more effective at rejecting the signals that are interfering with it than a legacy receiver.

      I agree, though the original poster was claiming that because electromagnetic waves can pass through each other, interference is a myth. It's not, but there are techniques to minimize it.

      I think the open spectrum initiative has a few good ideas, some of which are in use now in unlicensed spectrum and arguably could be expanded. But the extreme position of opening the spectrum entirely as a big free for all with a few basic rules just doesn't take into account the needs of all spectrum users or the realities of radio engineering.

      --
      Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
    2. Re:Interference isn't a lie but it can be rejected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But RF isn't visible light spectrum.

      Yes it is. The visible light spectrum makes up part of the radio frequency spectrum, just with a comparatively short wavelength of 380-750 nm, also called the "600 THz band".

      Not all EM radiation is radio-frequency. "Radio frequency (RF) is a frequency or rate of oscillation within the range of about 3 Hz to 300 GHz."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_frequency

      Visible light is not within that range, so... you fail it!

    3. Re:Interference isn't a lie but it can be rejected by tepples · · Score: 1

      Thank you for the correction that light and RF are disjoint. But they're both electromagnetic, and the use of "interference" to mean both "signal addition at a point" and "selectivity failure" still confuses regulators.

  45. Wifi radio? by AlpineR · · Score: 1

    Whoa, just yesterday I was wishing for something like that. I listen to a lot of Internet radio but that ties me to the one room with a computer/stereo setup. I was thinking it'd be nice to have a device (cheaper than a computer) that could do that one function.

    Any recommendations for a wifi radio?

    1. Re:Wifi radio? by CogDissident · · Score: 1

      Roku Radio. Wish I had put it in my origonal post.

  46. Not really by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

    I just got a wi-fi radio, with over 100k stations, and a easy to use search function and favorites function. Now, even when I'm not at my computer, I can listen to whatever I want. So who cares about the "dinosaur" radio stations?

    Some of us like to leave our basements. Some of us even still drive cars around.

  47. ARrecorder by Baruch+Atta · · Score: 1
    I have a copy (that i bought and paid for) of ARrecorder. This amazin' little piece of software can record audio, just about any audio, that is piped thru my computer and to my speakers. In other words, aint no way I cant record it.

    Hello, world

    --
    You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
  48. Re:You won't be able to record any type of broadca by AskFirefly · · Score: 1

    Umm.... there are devices you can use to record OTA HDTV..... http://www.tivo.com/whatistivo/whichtivoforme/index.html Tivo HD (Also Tivo Series 3, for that matter): "What kind of television service do you have? Antenna Works with antenna and records both SD and HD programs"

    --
    I'm not a human, but I play one on T.V.
  49. Use a low-tech solution by GWBasic · · Score: 1

    Use a low-tech solution!

    Run the analog output to an older cassette recorder. (Piano-style) Use a lamp timer to automatically turn on the cassette recorder at your desired time.

    Run the analog output to a VCR. Use its internal timer to automatically record at the desired time. HiFi VHS is probably good enough to get an accurate recording.

    Run the analog output to your computer. Use a cron job or a Windows Scheduler job to automatically schedule a command-line wave recording utility. Make sure that it's using at least 48khz, 16-bit.