"Telamon" wrote in message
...
DRM benefits the broadcaster not the listener.

I bet a lot of listeners to, e.g., satellite radio in the U.S. and Europe
would disagree with the assessment that digital radio doesn't benefit the
listener.

But you do have to keep in mind that companies exist to make a profit.
Unless you'd advocate that only governments should have broadcast rights,
the market will insure that people 'get what they want' when it comes to
broadcasts -- even if that does imply that the content is crap relative to
what you or I might desire.

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
oups.com...
I really have my doubts about this "world-wide renaissance of radio".

I tend to agree, however...

The average user of radio and especially SW isn't likely to go
to the added hassle of DRM.

I think they will. Being able to punch in a frequency and get high
quality
audio without fading, static crashes, etc. will sell people -- who can
afford it -- on the technology.


People have been able to punch in frequencies for an affordable price for
about twenty years now. It's doubtful there's more SWLs now than there was
back then.

Also, digital radio might not have the same fading and static crashes that
analog radio has, but I can't imagine how digital radio can be free from
dropouts and digital SW certainly can't fix the occasional dead propagation
problem.



I have played with DRM and
I am very underwealmed. DRM radios consume much more
energy, IE much shorter battery life, then analog.

This is mainly a question of how well integrated the radio chipsets can be
made; very quickly you get to the point where powering the speaker itself
will dwarf the energy consumption of the radio itself. I expect the
actual
DRM decoding can be done with well under 100mW, probably more like 10mW in
the near future. These are power levels that are easily obtained via
solar
power.

The greater radio complexity also promises
greater user headaches.

I think it actually makes usage a lot simpler. What do you think's
simpler
to use.. a cell phone, or an amateur radio hand-talkie operating on 2m
through a repeater autopatch?

I think the biggest stumbling block by far is going to be (1) getting
broadcasters to adopt the technology and (2) getting people in places that
have the most to gain from the receipt of such broadcasts the radios at a
price they can afford.

---Joel Kolstad



The same could be said for direct broadcast satellites. Such satellites
would provide highly reliable, clear sounding radio (or TV!}.

Frank Dresser

"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...
Also, digital radio might not have the same fading and static crashes that
analog radio has, but I can't imagine how digital radio can be free from
dropouts and digital SW certainly can't fix the occasional dead
propagation
problem.

It can't, of course, but digital broadcasts can still sound perfect when the
signal to noise ratio of the transmission is such that no human could make
anything whatsoever out of a standard AM or FM transmission.

The same could be said for direct broadcast satellites. Such satellites
would provide highly reliable, clear sounding radio (or TV!}.

Good point. I suppose some of the push for DRM is so that the terrestial
broadcasters can actually compete with satellite radio, just as cable TV in
the US has been forced to upgrade its services given the competition from
the DBS services.

---Joel

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...
"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...
Also, digital radio might not have the same fading and static crashes
that
analog radio has, but I can't imagine how digital radio can be free from
dropouts and digital SW certainly can't fix the occasional dead
propagation
problem.

It can't, of course, but digital broadcasts can still sound perfect when
the
signal to noise ratio of the transmission is such that no human could make
anything whatsoever out of a standard AM or FM transmission.

Then, for SW digital broadcast radio to be successful, the listeners will
still have to accept the unreliability of SW.

Reliable communications have never been cheaper, and they will get much
cheaper yet. I think the day will soon come when SW radio won't be the
first choice for any business or government worldwide communication.

The SW spectrum will only be useful for emergency communications and radio
hobbyists. Ideally, SW would be administrated by an agency something like
the National Park Service. Benign neglect would also be OK.



The same could be said for direct broadcast satellites. Such satellites
would provide highly reliable, clear sounding radio (or TV!}.

Good point. I suppose some of the push for DRM is so that the terrestrial
broadcasters can actually compete with satellite radio, just as cable TV
in
the US has been forced to upgrade its services given the competition from
the DBS services.

---Joel



I'm not convinced the average radio listener cares much about fidelity.
Neither AM nor FM stations normally approach their fidelity limits, but
those stations seem to be attracting listeners just fine. Satellite's
appeal seems to be it's wide range of programming. Digital radio might
support a larger number of channels for the terrestrial broadcasters. I
think Clear Channel might be thinking that all those IBOC channels they plan
to install can be used as a sort of super-SCA scheme, if IBOC radio falls
flat.

Frank Dresser

In article ,
"Joel Kolstad" wrote:

"Telamon" wrote in message
..
.
DRM benefits the broadcaster not the listener.

I bet a lot of listeners to, e.g., satellite radio in the U.S. and Europe
would disagree with the assessment that digital radio doesn't benefit the
listener.

But you do have to keep in mind that companies exist to make a profit.
Unless you'd advocate that only governments should have broadcast rights,
the market will insure that people 'get what they want' when it comes to
broadcasts -- even if that does imply that the content is crap relative to
what you or I might desire.

I have several problems with what you posted.

I have not seen a poll of SW listeners who have compared DRM to analog.
What poll are you referring too?

The majority of the SW broadcasters are not for profit national arm of
their respective governments so this has nothing to do with private
companies or the profits they make.

--------------------------------

If you take a careful look of the DRM system, you will understand that
the first order benefit is a reduction in electrical costs to the
broadcaster. Like any anything though there is a down side even to this
main and as far as I can tell only real benefit to either broadcaster or
listener and that is that the broadcaster must then transmit at lower
power. This transmission mode is not supposed to require as much power
as analog for good reception. The result will be lower signal levels at
the listeners radio. This will make the transmission more difficult to
decode with good quality.

The big picture is even worse when you consider that the listeners radio
must now be more complex and require more power to operate. New radio
receivers will cost more and will cost more to operate. Almost all the
existing radios from the beginning of SW broadcasting to now will be
obsolete and the rest converted at no small cost.

The listener will not benefit in any way over analog if the broadcast
power is reduced so that the broadcaster will be able to derive the only
real benefit of the DRM system. The signal that could have been clearer
and free from interference will degrade and instead of being noisy on an
analog receiver will cut in and out on a digital unit.

Under any but the ideal conditions of very good signal to noise the DRM
receiver will cut in and out. This behavior is much worse to most
individuals than the analog fading on current receivers so this is just
an example of different tradeoffs in the system design instead of DRM
being a better system.

I could go on and on about the pros and cons of DRM to analog but the
end result is no better or actually worse for the listener.

The listener will likely have to replace their current radio. The new
radios will cost more money than the current radio. The current or new
listener will have to spend more money for a radio and spend more money
to operate it because it will consume more power. The listening
situation will be different from analog where some aspects will be an
improvement at the cost of different set of downsides. The net result
will not be better then analog just different.

The broadcaster still has to buy the same size transmitters because the
DRM system requires tremendous overhead capacity so that cost does not
change. The transmitter modulation subsystem is more complex and a
little more costly than analog. The engineering costs are a little
greater because keeping all the transmitter parameters within very tight
limits so it does not splatter across the band is more difficult to
maintain then analog. The broadcaster has to transmit a weaker signal to
reap the one real benefit of the DRM system where the listeners antenna
and radio will have to deal with that weaker signal.

------------------------

All that said the thing that ticks me off about the DRM consortium is
that they lie about the system. The claim that the encoding, decoding
system is open is as false as the real benefit will turn out to be if
DRM is implemented as envisioned.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...
Then, for SW digital broadcast radio to be successful, the listeners will
still have to accept the unreliability of SW.

I suppose so, although I think it's safe to do that, in many areas, the
reliability is a very slowly changing function (i.e., dependent much more on
something like the sunspot cycle rather than local atmospheric conditions).

The bottom line is that digital broadcasting can make SW more reliable than
it is now. True, it will never approach the 'realiability' of a local
broadcaster, but presumably the typical use of SW (excluding hobbyists for a
moment) is when the local broadcasts are either unavailable or considered to
be too heavily influenced by the local government.

Reliable communications have never been cheaper, and they will get much
cheaper yet. I think the day will soon come when SW radio won't be the
first choice for any business or government worldwide communication.

Yes.

The SW spectrum will only be useful for emergency communications and radio
hobbyists.

I'd wager that the users of the HF spectrum for free e-mail services such as
Winlink 2000 won't go away any time soon either. :-)

I'm not convinced the average radio listener cares much about fidelity.

I think they care a lot about fidelity, but not how you'd typically measure
it. To the average person, static or fading is far more annoying than heavy
compression artifacts (that abount on XM and Sirius) or even short dropouts.

Satellite's
appeal seems to be it's wide range of programming.

True.

---Joel

Hi Telamon,

"Telamon" wrote in message
...
I have not seen a poll of SW listeners who have compared DRM to analog.
What poll are you referring too?

I don't. I said, 'I bet...' but that doesn't imply I actually have any
proof. :-) It's just my opinion.

The majority of the SW broadcasters are not for profit national arm of
their respective governments so this has nothing to do with private
companies or the profits they make.

Fair point. Still, in -- most -- countries the government respects the will
of the people to some reasonable degree, and as such the broadcast content
will change similarly.

If you take a careful look of the DRM system, you will understand that
the first order benefit is a reduction in electrical costs to the
broadcaster.

I'm thinking that the same effective range can be achieved for less power,
OR one can keep the same (average) output power and increase their range a
skosh.

This transmission mode is not supposed to require as much power
as analog for good reception. The result will be lower signal levels at
the listeners radio. This will make the transmission more difficult to
decode with good quality.

It's a digital mode with plenty of error correct, so the quality of
reception will fall off VERY rapidly with a dropping signal to noise ratio.
Again, for the _same_ power, DRM will provide _better_ reception quality for
the listener.

The big picture is even worse when you consider that the listeners radio
must now be more complex

Yes, although it all gets boiled down into an IC or two these days anyway.

require more power to operate.

Not at all necessarily. As I mentioned last time, the processing
requirements are not so great that it isn't reasonable to figure that --
after a couple of generations of receiver chipsets-- the decoding power
requirements will be negligible compared to speaker amplifier requirements,
so the power 'issue' then only becomes a potential problem for Walkman-style
radios.

(BTW, satellite radio in the US -- XM and Sirius -- are on about generation
#3 of receiver chipsets now, and they've just started introducing would-be
Walkman-style radios. They're not much to write home about yet, but give'em
another year or two and I think they'll have it.)

New radio
receivers will cost more

Not necessarily. Digital processing is a lot cheaper to implement than
analog processing -- besides performance, there's a cost reason that good
car stereos now digitize at IF and 'do the rest' digitally, and cell phones
have always tried to push the digital processing as close to the antenna as
possible.

and will cost more to operate.

Only if they use more power...

Almost all the
existing radios from the beginning of SW broadcasting to now will be
obsolete and the rest converted at no small cost.

Yes, although it's not like that's going to happen overnight. In the USA,
HDTV is taking decades to surplant the old NTSC system, and the same is
surely going to be true of digital radio broadcasts (although perhaps not
_quite_ as long, as radios cost a lot less than TVs to replace).

The listener will not benefit in any way over analog if the broadcast
power is reduced so that the broadcaster will be able to derive the only
real benefit of the DRM system. The signal that could have been clearer
and free from interference will degrade and instead of being noisy on an
analog receiver will cut in and out on a digital unit.

If the broadcasters choose to cut their power, that's a possibility. But I
don't see why the broadcasters would tend to do that?

Under any but the ideal conditions of very good signal to noise the DRM
receiver will cut in and out. This behavior is much worse to most
individuals than the analog fading on current receivers so this is just
an example of different tradeoffs in the system design instead of DRM
being a better system.

Digital transmissions finally cut out well after an analog transmission is
completely undecipherable. I think most people prefer brief 'cut outs' to,
e.g., fading and static crashes, but I suppose that's largely a matter of
personal preference and I don't have a very large sample size.

I could go on and on about the pros and cons of DRM to analog but the
end result is no better or actually worse for the listener.

OK. :-) I guess we'll see how it plays out... you tend to make certain
assumptions about broadcasters' and listeners' behaviors that are different
from mine.

[a bunch of somewhat repetitious stuff deleted, not that I think it's
invalid, but rather I don't have the time to address it right now]

All that said the thing that ticks me off about the DRM consortium is
that they lie about the system. The claim that the encoding, decoding
system is open is as false as the real benefit will turn out to be if
DRM is implemented as envisioned.

I'd agree with you there. Unfortunately the same thing has happened on the
amateur radio bands -- digital modes such as Pactor III just barely squeek
by the FCC definition of being 'documented,' yet trying to implementing the
decoding/encoding algorithms onesself is nigh impossible.

---Joel Kolstad

In article ,
"Joel Kolstad" wrote:

Hi Telamon,

"Telamon" wrote in message
..
.
I have not seen a poll of SW listeners who have compared DRM to analog.
What poll are you referring too?

I don't. I said, 'I bet...' but that doesn't imply I actually have any
proof. :-) It's just my opinion.

The majority of the SW broadcasters are not for profit national arm of
their respective governments so this has nothing to do with private
companies or the profits they make.

Fair point. Still, in -- most -- countries the government respects the will
of the people to some reasonable degree, and as such the broadcast content
will change similarly.

If you take a careful look of the DRM system, you will understand that
the first order benefit is a reduction in electrical costs to the
broadcaster.

I'm thinking that the same effective range can be achieved for less power,
OR one can keep the same (average) output power and increase their range a
skosh.

This transmission mode is not supposed to require as much power
as analog for good reception. The result will be lower signal levels at
the listeners radio. This will make the transmission more difficult to
decode with good quality.

It's a digital mode with plenty of error correct, so the quality of
reception will fall off VERY rapidly with a dropping signal to noise ratio.
Again, for the _same_ power, DRM will provide _better_ reception quality for
the listener.

The big picture is even worse when you consider that the listeners radio
must now be more complex

Yes, although it all gets boiled down into an IC or two these days anyway.

require more power to operate.

Not at all necessarily. As I mentioned last time, the processing
requirements are not so great that it isn't reasonable to figure that --
after a couple of generations of receiver chipsets-- the decoding power
requirements will be negligible compared to speaker amplifier requirements,
so the power 'issue' then only becomes a potential problem for Walkman-style
radios.

(BTW, satellite radio in the US -- XM and Sirius -- are on about generation
#3 of receiver chipsets now, and they've just started introducing would-be
Walkman-style radios. They're not much to write home about yet, but give'em
another year or two and I think they'll have it.)

New radio
receivers will cost more

Not necessarily. Digital processing is a lot cheaper to implement than
analog processing -- besides performance, there's a cost reason that good
car stereos now digitize at IF and 'do the rest' digitally, and cell phones
have always tried to push the digital processing as close to the antenna as
possible.

and will cost more to operate.

Only if they use more power...

Almost all the
existing radios from the beginning of SW broadcasting to now will be
obsolete and the rest converted at no small cost.

Yes, although it's not like that's going to happen overnight. In the USA,
HDTV is taking decades to surplant the old NTSC system, and the same is
surely going to be true of digital radio broadcasts (although perhaps not
_quite_ as long, as radios cost a lot less than TVs to replace).

The listener will not benefit in any way over analog if the broadcast
power is reduced so that the broadcaster will be able to derive the only
real benefit of the DRM system. The signal that could have been clearer
and free from interference will degrade and instead of being noisy on an
analog receiver will cut in and out on a digital unit.

If the broadcasters choose to cut their power, that's a possibility. But I
don't see why the broadcasters would tend to do that?

Under any but the ideal conditions of very good signal to noise the DRM
receiver will cut in and out. This behavior is much worse to most
individuals than the analog fading on current receivers so this is just
an example of different tradeoffs in the system design instead of DRM
being a better system.

Digital transmissions finally cut out well after an analog transmission is
completely undecipherable. I think most people prefer brief 'cut outs' to,
e.g., fading and static crashes, but I suppose that's largely a matter of
personal preference and I don't have a very large sample size.

I could go on and on about the pros and cons of DRM to analog but the
end result is no better or actually worse for the listener.

OK. :-) I guess we'll see how it plays out... you tend to make certain
assumptions about broadcasters' and listeners' behaviors that are different
from mine.

[a bunch of somewhat repetitious stuff deleted, not that I think it's
invalid, but rather I don't have the time to address it right now]

All that said the thing that ticks me off about the DRM consortium is
that they lie about the system. The claim that the encoding, decoding
system is open is as false as the real benefit will turn out to be if
DRM is implemented as envisioned.

I'd agree with you there. Unfortunately the same thing has happened on the
amateur radio bands -- digital modes such as Pactor III just barely squeek
by the FCC definition of being 'documented,' yet trying to implementing the
decoding/encoding algorithms onesself is nigh impossible.

I did not want this thread to be overly long but it is getting there. I
think that most of your replies are assumptions on the progress of
silicon being generated specifically for DRM receivers and that is going
to cost money. Even with the Asicss for the horse power to all the work
in a DRM receiver it seems likely to me that it will require more power
than an analog set. It is not reasonable to assume otherwise.

The DRM consortium is not playing straight with the public and this
makes any claims suspect in my eyes, certainly the ones that imply
slight of hand techniques like the power reduction on the broadcaster
side and at the same time maintain that reception will be better. I do
not believe it. I will need proof and so far, it is not forth coming.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...

I'm not convinced the average radio listener cares much about fidelity.

I think they care a lot about fidelity, but not how you'd typically
measure
it. To the average person, static or fading is far more annoying than
heavy
compression artifacts (that abount on XM and Sirius) or even short
dropouts.


Maybe, but it took thirty years for wideband FM to become competitive with
AM. And FM didn't replace AM. FM didn't start growing until there was a
market for additional stations.

Frank Dresser