[BC] Creating the right sound on HD

[James Somich]

The HD chipset is not a custom-designed one. The heart of it is a general
purpose TI DSP chip. Nothing is optimized for extremely low power
consumption. This is the way they are built because the radios are not being
mass-produced and they want to be able to easily reprogram them if the
system is tweaked.

Also, it seems that everyone is using a 3rd party HD module, which must add
quite a bit to the cost.  My Sangean has an LG-Innotek module.

I read somewhere that the license fee was currently 40 bucks per receiver!
That might explain a lot of the high cost of receivers and converters.  Of
course, that may just have been speculation by someone.

But I still have to believe that receiver cost is not the big reason for HD
not catching on.

The big reason is that there is nothing on HD that people want to hear bad
enough to pay the price!

Satellite radio is peaking even though they are practically giving away the
radios.

Give 'em something they gotta hear and cost will not be that big an
obstacle!!

This something is NOT a digital jukebox. They already have that with their
iPods.

But what do I know?





On 12/21/06, Jim Tonne <tonne at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> James:
>
> Your comment
>
> > A little more can be "hidden" in the price of a car radio but Detroit
> > needs
> > motivation to push HD.
> > They don't have it now.
>
> hit the nail on the head from my viewpoint.
> And there are other car radio people too.  But each one is extremely
> cost-sensitive.
>
> I had a brief exchange with a fellow at Ibiquity, asking him questions
> about what the cost of a manufacturing license was (was basically
> told to go to Hell), what the cost of a receiving license was (was
> basically told to go to Hell), when the power of the processor
> would be reduced (and was told a 100 mW version should be
> released for evaluation in the coming months, but meanwhile go to
> Hell).  Being a gentleman, I removed his name from my address
> book and degaussed my brain for all instances of "Ibiquity."
>
> But his remark about 100 mW made be stop and think that all of a
> sudden we have an explanation about why battery-operated radios
> are not available.  How much power does an IBOC radio take?
> 5 watts?  If so then little wonder it won't run from a 9 volt battery!
>
> I am under the impression that unlike GE, which had a rational plan,
> Ibiquity operates under two dubious principles.  One is greed.  (And
> I will not be receptive to comments about the cost of system
> development.  That is a business issue and should have been thought
> out better and earlier.)  The other principle is that they seem to be
> operating under the cover of the FCC and Congress, neither of which
> seem to think outside of  the "Big Business Is Best" box.  They seem
> to think that IBOC is the way to go, technically sound or not,
> financially rational or not.
>
> - JimT
>
>
>
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