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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?"
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
You might have missed the memo about Slashdot's new algorithm.
if (article.contains("Linux")) {
frontpage.add(article);
}
alias possession='chmod 666 satan && ls
...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.
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
A simple Amazon search turned up quite a few models. Some have optical out. One has an iPod dock.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
New?
I read the internet for the articles.
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.
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/
There are a lot of others, but Chumby does that and a lot more.
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.
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.
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?
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
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/
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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/ .
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
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.
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/ .
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!
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/ .
In other words... "Use the analog hole."
Can Vista "check the line voltage" ?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
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.
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."
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio
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.
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 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?
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"!
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.
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?
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.
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
Citation for the previous post here
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
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.
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
Hello, world
You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
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.
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.
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.
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
Thanks to your sig we're even!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
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
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
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
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!
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.
No, I will not work for your startup
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