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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.
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...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:
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.
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.
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/
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.
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/ .
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 : )
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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/ .
Can Vista "check the line voltage" ?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
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.
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."
The Sangean someone linked to earlier has TOSlink out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio
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
I think it stands for "Horribly Distorted".
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Citation for the previous post here
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
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