1inxs

I've had in some of the vehicles I've driven. The programming is only available in the larger cities. The sound is crystal clear and could work out nicely if they would incorporate it with the translator towers across the USA. I would put the sound quality up there with XM radio. I've had them both in my Chevy trucks.

Piggie

Trip I am trying to learn more about it. It appears from my reading there is 300 kbps available while simulcasting analog????

But most stations in Gainesville I looked up have more than one program, thus dividing this 300 between sub channels?

Ok plus now I can't find it but somewhere I read it's basically MP3 compression?

More of a statement now. If it is MP3 compression, and they divide by 2 or 3 like I am seeing. That is not HD at all. That is not CD Quality at all. Maybe if one channel only is used.

To my ear a 256 kbps MP3 is pretty darn good, but not like listening to a CD and my ears are over 50 years old. Younger listeners can probably hear even more difference.

Do I have this right?

bicker

It is not just a matter of age of the listening ears, but also the listening environment. If you're using cheap ear buds, on a subway, then even the most sensitive ears probably cannot tell the difference between full CD quality and 256 kbps MP3.

Piggie

Exactly. Which would bring up the idea, if you had a small FM HD Radio the size of an Ipod, with an internal antenna, it's range on digital would be so poor except within at the most 10 miles of the tower would be worthless due to the currently low power of HD Radio, unless the FCC did approve the 10 db increase, but I can't find any confirmation of this. Then it would have the range of the main analog transmitter.

Trip

Right now, stations have exactly 96 kbps to play with. As such, splitting it up into three programs results in audio that sounds like an overcompressed MP3 file. Not something I feel like listening to.

Not even close to CD quality.

- Trip

Piggie

Not even close. Back over 10 years ago when hard drives were small. MP3 players had 8 to 16 M of RAM, we would compress MP3 to 128 kbps and even that wasn't too great. I remember the first MP3 player I had said to try 64 kbps to get in the advertised number of songs. I puked.

128 kbps didn't sound to great but it was listenable on small headsets, it was new and cool.

Even one channel at 96K can't sound that good at all. No wonder it's a bust.

Note to self. Spend money elsewhere...

Aaron62

I've been looking at adding satellite or HD radio to my car since I already have an aux input. Here's a little comparison between the two.

HD Radio Advantages
- No monthly or yearly subscription
- Higher quality over satellite (This is questionable though)

HD Radio Disadvantages
- HD Receiver can cost $50-$100 more than an FM receiver
- Less stations than satellite radio
- Additional info about what's being broadcasted
- Not a lot of stations are in HD yet
- Tougher to receive than satellite (This one's questionable)

Satellite Radio Advantages
- offers hundreds of stations
- most are commercial free
- Additional info about what's being broadcasted
- Sirius and XM merged together, so there's more programming available

Satellite Radio Disadvantages
- requires a montly subscription of $12-$15
- Satellite receiver costs $50-$150 more than FM receiver

Am I missing anything yet?

From what I understand from this thread and other websites, a single FM HD station could possibly broadcast two different channels (kind of like a multicast on digital television signals) of programming but how many stations are actually doing this?

Piggie

Like DTV, they can divide the bandwidth they are allowed, 96kbps, any way they want.

We have a station here already with 3 audio programs
WUFT-HD Classical
WUFT-HD2 NPR
WUFT-HD3 AAA / Old Time Radio

Find a Station Guide.
HD Digital Radio • IT’S TIME TO UPGRADE!

But as Trip points out. And something you missed because they don't talk about it on purpose, is even if they have only one audio stream or program it's only going to be 96kpbs.

And unless they modified the rules, they had to broadcast digital 20db down from the main carrier. 20db is HUGE. That is like turning the back of a beam antenna at the station. It's the separation a UVSJ has between the UHF and VHF antenna. Or arithmetically, it'a 1% or 1/100th of the signal.

Those kind of numbers doesn't have me rushing to the store. Why I started this thread to to confirm and bust myths about HD Radio.

The sole biggest myth is it is NOT HD.......... Digital, yes, HD, nope!

Aaron62

Think I found where XM and Sirius both broadcast at 64 kbps, so HD only has a slight edge there and I guess that all depends on if the HD radio station is utilizing the full 96kbps for one data stream.

O-O

With breaking down costs, it's all about how often you listen to radio.

I prefer my Ipod for sure right now, and if Apple adds an HD radio tuner to the next Ipod I buy, I'll definetly check it out. Until they do that, I'm just not very excited about it.