[BC] RAIN report: HD Radio s Creative Thinking

[Rich Wood]

------ At 09:12 PM 10/13/2005, Michael Bergman wrote: -------

>B) Tuning is a solved problem, from our point of view.  We (receiver makers)
>are putting resources on new things, some IBOC, some not, but we?re not
>going back to decisions and discussions from 2004 to try again.  Note that
>those discussions in 2004 did not exclude the broadcast industry, as some
>have complained?but not every major broadcast group was polled, of course.

If broadcasters were consulted (beyond engineers) 
I can't imagine no one brought up the tuning 
matter or how it'll affect using the secondary 
channels as independent radio stations. Why 
program a secondary channel if you can't sell it? 
All it does is cannibalize the main channel. The 
only people who know it exists are your main channel  listeners.

>D) The installed base of receivers is not as much of a deterrent as the base
>of stable, completed designs.  Why change them, when so many broadcasters
>are opposed to the change as well?  These are broadcasters, by the way, who
>already are launching multicast channels, in many cases.

I can't imagine why they would be opposed. Unique 
Identification is the only way they're going to 
make money on secondary channels. As a 
broadcaster I don't want to lose numbers on my 
main at a time when there's no way to rate my 
secondary without including my main call letters. 
Until Arbitron has a system in place, anything 
called HD2 is going to get kicked out for manual 
review. Even then the credit will go to the main call.

>E) The IBOC roll-out has momentum.  This multicast tuning debate is helping
>kill some of that momentum.  If you hate IBOC, or you?re behind your
>competition in deploying it, definitely you will want to stir this pot.  The
>hardware makers and the car OEMs do not like uncertainty; the discussion has
>reportedly already caused one manufacturer to postpone IBOC product
>deployment for a year to let the spec settle.

Just like broadcasters' concern are not your 
concerns. IBUZ we can't make money with is not 
our concern. FM doesn't desperately need IBUZ. AM 
could use it to increase fidelity but it destroys 
the band. It's also strange that iBorg didn't 
consider this. How are they going to determine 
what license fee to charge stations if all the 
money made from it (virtually none without Unique 
Identification) gets credited to the main channel? They're screwing themselves.

This is an octopus where one tentacle doesn't 
know what the others are doing. Let's call it Keystone Octopi.

Rich