[BC] Yes, sir. The High Definition Stuff is in the TV Department

[Rich Wood]

------ At 11:28 AM 8/26/2006, Phil Alexander wrote: -------

>You didn't see this coming when they named it HD radio? They might
>have used CD radio - meaning Clear Digital - but some "genius" at
>Ibq. apparently decided they could leverage on the efforts of the
>TV community.

This puts me in an awkward position of defending the system's 
manufacturer. However, they made it very clear at the outset that HD 
Radio meant absolutely nothing. It's the HD Dominion that took HD 
Radio and ran with it. Well, didn't exactly run with it. Maybe 
crawled, since virtually no one knows what it is. I think "CD Radio" 
would have gotten the point across much better so long as "Clear 
Digital" was made clear. Then all you have to do is explain why it 
sounds so lousy because of the cranked up processing so that mode 
switching isn't annoying. That happens every few minutes around here 
because of the mountains.

>My only question is what definition of radio becomes "high" because
>it is digital? Could it be the hype definition? Inquiring minds etc.

It goes back to an old record player I had as a kid. It was High 
Fidelity. It said so on the case. Not accurate fidelity. That would 
be a lie. We wouldn't want to lie and claim it's CD Quality. I'm sure 
the marketing department at Polk let the claim of CD quality slip by 
by accident. Someone didn't proof the ad copy. Most high end 
manufacturers know what CD quality means. It appears that someone 
misunderstood and read Chairman Mao's Red Book instead of the real CD 
Red Book.

We're so deep in hype definitions there's no turning back. "AM sounds 
like FM." "FM Sounds like CD." "HD Revolution." I can only imagine 
how awesome CD's sound now that it's been bumped up to being higher 
quality than CD quality. "Liver than Live."

It should have been expected in a culture where even the worst actor 
is a superstar.

Rich