[BC] Re: HD Receivers

[Xmitters@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/12/07 6:08:05 PM Central Standard Time, 
broadcast-request at radiolists.net writes:

<< Although I don't know what was going on among broadcasters back then, I 
can 
 give the perspective of an avid listener, growing up in the 70's! FM used to 
be 
 mostly just "elevator music" stations... lots of them. Is it any wonder so 
 few people noticed it, or even cared? It wasn't until they moved "POP" music 
and 
 rock to the FM dial, that the younger ears perked-up, and radios started 
 flying off the shelves. Word-of-mouth began to spread like wildfire, as 
young 
 people were now able to hear their favorite tunes in crystal-clear FM 
STEREO, 
 instead of the freq-limited, static-prone, mono signals they were so 
accustomed to 
 on AM.
 
 That was certainly my experience... when I discovered my favorite tunes in 
 stereo on FM, they sounded SO MUCH better, that it was a "no-brainer" to 
make 
 the switch. I even started "mocking" the idea of listening to AM once that 
 mindset had sunk in! Now look at me... I work for an AM station. ;) (Will be 
 marking my 20'th year there, soon!)
 
 Willie...
  >>

Willie:

I grew up in the 60's and my experience is similar to yours. My mother 
actually introduced me to FM! She told me "FM sounds like you're sitting in the 
studio with the announcer" I tried it, started listening in monaural to a local FM 
that played top 40 at night (1969). The station was located in a college town 
and the announcer would read greetings from one college kid to others. I 
loved it!

It would appear that you and I are saying the same thing but in a different 
way. It's not delivery, it is content. Notice that there are few, if any, 
elevator music stations on the air. However, once FM took off and stations started 
to full wave rectify their audio with their stupid processing strategies, I 
moved to CDs.

It would be great if in the futture, the broadcasters, music producers and 
the radio audience were treated as a unit. Every receiver would have every song 
ever recorded, stored in memory. The listener would pay a subscription fee to 
some entity, that would entitle him to listen to music. The radio station 
would simply transmit a play list and commercials to the receiver rather than 
audio in a bit stream. Depending on the political structure, the listener would 
not have to pay the fee if he/she listened to the commercials. Now if a listener 
liked a particular song, he/she could play that song at any time from the 
receiver. Once played some arbitrary number of times, the listener would be 
"billed" for that song and it could then be downloaded to an iPod like device. The 
receiver would be automatically updated over the cellular, WLAN or similar 
infrastructure. I can't help but think that listeners would gobble up such a 
system with the vigor of a starved bull dog on a raw pork chop.

Yes, I know that will require a lot of memory! Bill Gates once said that 
"there is no reason a PC user should ever need more than 650 KILObytes (my 
emphasis, not his) of memory on their computer."  Lots of memory is possible and such 
a memory market would make a company like Intel drool and foam at the mouth.

I have an absolutely great music collection that I bought and paid for. It is 
a monumental PITA for me to sort through my collection, pick the disks and 
juggle them around in the car, being careful not to scratch them. So, I end up 
playing the same CD for months. Now, I would HIRE a person to organize and 
package my songs on my own personal "hits for the week" CD I could play in the 
car. 

I therefore fail to see the sense in maintaining this technical mentality 
that the music bit stream has to be played, over and over again, from the radio 
station. The radio station obviously provides a great service to the listeners; 
playing songs that I like in an order and frequency that I can tolerate. 

It's kina interesting to dream, yes?

Jeff Glass
WNIU WNIJ
Northern Illinois University