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+--- Thread: HD Radio? better than FM? (/showthread.php?tid=76508)
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HD Radio? better than FM? - samintx - 04-16-2009
I just ran across it on Crane's. What is it as compared to Sirius, FM and digital?
Re: HD Radio? better than FM? - Doc - 04-16-2009
It's digital radio.
Stations on both AM and FM can use a chunk of their spectrum to transmit one or more digital signals as well as the usual analog signals. Sometimes they offer different programming via digital.
It's not HD in any real sense. In fact, it's massively compressed and suffers dropouts akin to the stutters and brief loss of picture you might observe in a digital television broadcast.
Re: HD Radio? better than FM? - Filliam H. Muffman - 04-16-2009
HD stands for Hybrid Digital when related to FM radio. It does not stand for High Definition, which is usually assumed to be super high quality.
HD FM radio frequently has severely compressed dynamic range to make it sound loud. Think of the loud commercials on late night TV as an example. It can be very tiring to listen to.
Re: HD Radio? better than FM? - freeradical - 04-16-2009
If you prefer the sound of MP3's over vinyl or compact discs, you'll love the sound of HD radio.
Re: HD Radio? better than FM? - testcase - 04-16-2009
I think of it as a poor solution without a problem.
Re: HD Radio? better than FM? - Joey Cupcakes - 04-16-2009
HD= High Density, not High Def.
In this case "density" refers to broadcasters being able to pack many stations into a smaller bandwidth. They get the signal smaller by audio compression similar to MP3 algorithms, which can mean anything from listenable to dogmeat.
Re: HD Radio? better than FM? - rz - 04-16-2009
Is it commercial free? That would be the only way I would consider getting an HD radio. But even then, I doubt it. I gladly pay for Sirius/XM because they offer several stations with music that I like, and it's commercial free. They also have an uncensored comedy channel that I like to listen to sometimes. I can also get instant traffic and weather for my city. I prefer it to listening to my iPod, because I do like listening to some newer stuff that I don't own, as well as older stuff that I like, but not enough to buy.
Re: HD Radio? better than FM? - deckeda - 04-16-2009
http://www.hdradio.com/faq.php
from Ibiquity's site wrote:
Q : WHAT DOES THE HD IN HD RADIO MEAN?
A: The ‘HD’ in ‘HD Radio’ is part of iBiquity Digital’s brand name for its digital AM and FM radio technology. It does not mean either hybrid digital or high definition, it is simply the branding language for this new technology.
Luckily for them, most everyone equates letters the "HD" with high definition, so claiming otherwise at the bottom of a FAQ page lets them simultaneously come clean and reap the benefits of the popular interpretation. Marketing schmucks and hucksters. It's low-bitrate crap with a broadcast range much smaller than FM or AM. Not a competitor to sat radio. A competitor to the existing, better solution: FM and AM wrapped up in "digital goodness."
Just don't drive too far in your car or around many structures --- instead of some temporary static and noise you get total silence if there's a reception problem.
The various radio stations that promote it got subsidized HDRadio broadcasting equipment from Ibiquity, who owns the rights to this format.
Re: HD Radio? better than FM? - freeradical - 04-16-2009
Let's look at the data rates of various technologies.
- A standard voice circuit for telephone has an audio bandwidth of 4 Khz, and a data rate of 64 Kb/s.
- An FM radio station has an audio bandwidth of 15 Khz.
- HD radio has a data rate of as little as 100 kb/s
Understand that when telephone channels were engineered to have an audio bandwidth of 4 Khz, the goal was to make someone understandable, NOT to provide high fidelity. In a time division multiplexer, each channel is sample at a rate of 4 Khz, and each sample is 8 bits, which is how you get 64 Kb/s. An FM radio channel that has a 15 Khz wide baseband would have to be sample at 30 Khz. If each sample was 8 bits, you'd have a data rate of 240 Kb/s. For one channel...
As a comparison, the audio on a compact disc is 720 Kb/s, and each sample is 16 bits
Re: HD Radio? better than FM? - Black - 04-17-2009
I've had an HD radio at work for several months. The stations that come in well are great. Nice being able to see who the DJ and the artist/song are on the display. There are a lot of stations I can't get at all, so I mostly stick with WXRT and now and then a bit of NPR to distract me so I can get my documentation done. I get no dropouts on either station.
The sound quality is definitely better than standard FM, and this is coming from someone who won't use the iTunes Music Store because most of the bitrates are only 128k.