[BC] HD Radio -- Folks we have to get it right!

[Robert Orban]

At 02:04 PM 10/18/2005, you wrote:
>From: "Bill Sepmeier" <dcpowerandlight at hotmail.com>
>Subject: RE: [BC] RE: HD Radio -- Folks we have to get it right!
>To: broadcast at radiolists.net
>Message-ID: <BAY107-F223DAABA623ADB88F99C76A2710 at phx.gbl>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>
>
> >From: Robert Orban >
> >For a given bitrate, HDC is not quite as good as aacPlusV2. However, I find
> >the 48 kbps HDC streams to be of "entertainment quality." That is, the
> >artifacts, although certainly audible, do not prevent me from enjoying the
> >content. From a business perspective, I don't think that the quality of 48
> >kbps HDC is going to drive away the mass audience.
>
>Given this evaluation, how can one say that because of a little multipath or
>the occasional AM fading today's FM and AM need replacing then?  Both sound
>better as-is than the low bit rate coding I've heard...  :-)

In the Bay Area, FM many times is not of "entertainment quality" because of 
multipath. And AM, through the typical 2 kHz (-3 dB) radio, does not meet 
the expectations of most consumers when the programming is music, although 
it seems fine for talk.

Also, your preference, or mine, or Dana's, when taken in isolation, is of 
absolutely no relevance to the business model of radio broadcasting. Dr. 
Sheffield's double-blind listening tests made for the NRSC clearly showed 
that in a study with enough participants to permit statistical 
significance, listeners from the consumer space preferred the sound of the 
HDC codec at 36 kbps to the sound of analog AM. They preferred the digital 
to the analog with all genres when compared to three different AM analog 
radios. The average mean opinion score when rating sound quality was, one 
the average, about 1 to 1.5 points higher for the digital on a scale of 1 
to 5. On rock music, gap widened to approximately 2 points in favor of the 
digital channel.

Bob Orban