In article .com,
wrote:

I've read that speech a couple of different times in the past month,
and I think I finally know why I am bothered by it. The speaker
focuses on the benefits of digitalized broadcasts to the broadcaster
and largely (but not completely)ignores whether all of this will be of
any interest to the listener.

Snip

Congratulations! You got it right there above. I sniped the rest.

DRM benefits the broadcaster not the listener.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

"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.

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

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