SMS wrote:
On 3/6/2011 1:02 AM, RHF wrote:

snip

The Economic Tipping Point Has Passed
~translation~ YOU LOSE !

Well I'm sure that the 2000+ stations broadcasting in HD, the
multi-national automobile manufacturers, and the receiver manufacturers
are operating in fear of a hysterical blog by an anonymous and clueless
individual, and a page on a web site of a personal injury law firm in
New Jersey that complains that the range of digital radio signals is
insufficient because one of the principals purchased a vehicle with an
HD Radio and didn't realize that it was not the same as satellite radio.

If that's the best that those opposed to digital radio can do, then
digital radio has a very bright future indeed.

Now there's spin if ever I heard it.
I don't remember hearing about any legal suits against Woolworth's
stores here in the UK, so by your logic they also should have had a very
bright future indeed. And yet they still went Bankrupt.

Having no strong legal suits against a company, doesn't automatically
make them a success, that it just pure spin.

For digital radio to be a success, it needs to get the public interested
in buying receivers and in using them. So far (judging from what I've
ready here) the sales of HD-Radio receivers has been tiny. I accept that
sales might increase (as I can't prove otherwise), but that hasn't
happened yet. So you can't yet claim that digital radio has been a
success, and you can not assume that it is going to be a success, and
you can not claim that it has a bright future. At least not without some
strong evidence to back it up, and so far I've not seen any such strong
evidence, just a lot of spin from people like you.

The fact is that digital radio is all about content and a lack of
monthly fees. The lack of multipath interference is a plus, but the same
thing that sells satellite radio and Pandora is what's driving adoption
of digital radio, except that digital radio doesn't have a recurring
monthly charge.

They tried to see us DAB based upon content here in the UK, and that
approach hasn't worked. The forecasts for DAB listening figures keep on
having to be revised down, and it's actually got to the point where
sales grown of often negative. The sales of DAB receivers seems to have
levelled off, while only a small minority of people are listening to it.


If you look at what radio stations are doing with their HD sub-channels
it's adding more content, especially content where the audience isn't
sufficient to warrant continuing the genre on the main station. Even if
the audio quality could technically be better on analog FM, in practice,
the sound quality and lack of interference, even at a lower bit rate on
the sub-channels, still provides a superior product in most cases than
analog FM.

Still more spin, but no sign of significant receiver sales.

Richard E.