[BC] HD Alliance

[Alan Kline]

I figured it would be something like dueling codecs.  Thanks, Robert.

It's interesting to wonder what (if any) incentives might be offered to the customers
of the losing merger partner, who could find themselves with useless radios.

ak

------ At 11:04 PM 1/14/2006 -0500, The Most Honourable Robert Meuser wrote: -------
>We discussed that about a week ago. The two systems use different CODECS  XM is 
>AAC and Sirius is PAC. Beyond that there is the issue of the satellites. XM is 
>geosynchronous and Sirius is sort of like a LEO. On paper the Sirius approach 
>should work better but in practice it does not. I have traveled to many 
>different parts of the country and wherever I go, there are more drop outs with 
>Sirius. At home it drops twice a day and XM is solid.
>
>The value of a merger would the the extra bandwidth. Terrestrial repeaters could 
>probably be converted, but many of those would have redundant coverage. My guess 
>is that radios that would work with both systems would be built and the band 
>width of the loosing merger partner would be progressively reduced and new 
>service would be added to the other. Eventually radios would be replaced as 
>would the satellites.