On 9/2/10 16:17 , Richard Evans wrote:
DigitalRadioScams wrote:
On Sep 2, 4:05 pm, Richard Evans
wrote:
If they wanted to use the FM band, they may have been better off
using DRM+.

Much more spectrally efficient.
Likely to provide better sound quality.
The only licensing requirement is for decoding of aac+.
Better control of which frequencies to use, hence more chance of
avoiding interference to FM services.

No one is interested in buing digital radios.

Perhaps not. But if they are going to try and sell them to people, they
could at least have tried selling then a descent system.



A lot of the thinking in manufacturing, today, is to release what
are effectively 'betas' and let the warranty program cover problems.
Two advantages to doing it this way. One is that sales begin earlier
than otherwise if a 'perfected' system be released on schedule. The
other is that the beta test is real world, with warranty costs
getting written off as R&D. Earliers sales, tax credits, earlier
finished release product.

Chrysler has been doing things this way for a decade and a half.

Lotus has done it this way throughout most of its history.

ATT (Bell Labs) did a very great deal of research into this
thinking, and found that the public will not, en masse, respond to
new technology anyway. So the complaints about failure to live up to
expectations will not hurt long term sales. Immediate release
purchases will be then left up to innovators and early adoptors,
whose priorities are "newness", and "purchase as soon as released".
They expect, and will work around, failures to perform as promised.

It doesn't always work. And failures tend to be spectacular.

But, the strategy works far more often than it doesn't. And even
Apple uses it.

In the meantime, the mass will not be making a purchase until the
product is perfected, and matured. So, an unidentified beta release
for sale makes good business sense.

That said, the iBiquity system by design was fraught with
liabilities. And while early adoptors and innovators did buy up
early release receivers, the reasons for mass purchase by those
interested in a mature product never did develop: ie, content.

If the content were there that would sell, these radios would fly
off the shelves.

So, the current malaise of the Hybrid Digital system is two fold.
One is that the system itself, technically speaking, fails to live
up to its hype. The other is, that even when it does work there is
no compelling reason fostering desire to use it.

By contrast--and I know I'm going to Hell for saying this,--DRM
had fewer liabilities (huge QRM being one,) and offered positive and
specific technical advantages over the analogue SW transmit-receive
complex. Even in that, its offerings were not sufficient to drive
uptake of the technology, and again, the content wasn't there.

What broadcasters and technology manufacturers fail to keep in
mind, is that radio is about LISTENING. That means there has to be
compelling CONTENT to drive a change in behaviour.

Too often, they simply rely on a change of technology alone.