"Telamon" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

Radio, unlike streaming and satellite (in most cases) is highly
portable. There are, by varying estimates, 800 million to one billion
radios out there. Replacing one per household will not make a new
band viable.

I don't see anybody carrying around a HD portable radio.

And you won't for some time. The Intel-iBiquity deal announced a few months
ago is intended to develop portable chipsets with good battery life.

And, as Peter said, ther eis no available specturm anyway.

You take it over just like IBOC does to AMBCB.

HD shares the AM spectrum with a minimal, if any, disruption to it.

When split into two, the bandwidth is enough for two better-than-FM
channels.

Low bit rate audio sounds like crap. FM has enough bandwidth for one
stereo stream not two.

I have listened with our engineers and we agree that the difference between
1 channel and 2 is not perceptable to the human ear. In fact, split in
three, the audio is as good as a present day analog FM, if not better (no
preemphasis, for example)

Peter says he has heard discussion, but I have never heard any
discussion of turning off analog until 100% of usable radios are
digital. The power bill, in a larger market, is so insignificant that
it does not matter.

If Peter said that then I think he is wrong about it. Anyone running a
business wants to reduce costs that add directly to the bottom line.

Peter siad he _had_ heard discussion. I have not. Electricity to a major
market AM is petty cash. In many cases, the tower lights draw more power
than the transmitter.

It sounds better. COmpression algorithims essentially fool the ear by
removing "irrelevant" data. AM HD sounds like FM analog.

Your ears must be more easily "fooled" than mine. I don't think most
people will be "fooled."

I have never heard anyone who thought the current AM HD sounded worse than
analog. the only itme it sounds bad is with cascading codecs ahead of the
transmitter.

Since the economics of radio are such that more stations reduces
service (proven by 80-90 all over America) there is no advantage in
this unless you want 1000 streams from personal iPods.

I think you have this subject all wrong. Your assertion that AMBCB must
go digital to improve the resultant sound quality or fail as a
commercial medium is a house of cards.

I tis already failing, if about 90% of the listening is age 45 and older,
and about 60% is in unsalable demos. It needs a fix, now.

1. IBOC can not sound better than analog on local signals for technical
reasons so the argument of "ear fooling" is totally unconvincing.

All codecs are ear fooling. they remove non-necessary data to compress.

2. Even if IBOC would make an actual improvement on local signals it
will limit "out of market" listening. And yeah, we know you don't care
about that since it is not part of the stations revenue stream but it
does result on a limiting listener choices.

There is essentially no out of primary coverage listening. Primary signal
zones are not affected.

3. It their is a problem with the AMBCB marketing it is programming
related not the technical delivery.

Nope. The issue is that under-45's just will not put up with the audio. many
formats have moved from AM to FM, and found huge increases in 25-44
listening. Bonneville is right now movcin g news talk to FM in DC, Phoenix,
Salt Lake... to get younger isteners who will not use WTOP, KTAR, and KSL
(all of which are the best AM signals in each market) and onters, like Clear
Channel, are following suit.

So where are we at? The industry does not address the real issue of
programming and instead screws with the technical delivery to limit
listener choices.

In the case of AM, this is a pure technology vs. age issue. Not a
programming one.