 Let's
Break Down the Anti-HD Radio Arguments
BY GUY WIRE
Guy Wire is the pseudonym of a well-known veteran radio engineer
who prefers to remain anonymous.
It continues to amaze me how many knowledgeable broadcast engineers
and industry observers persist in calling HD Radio a flawed system
not worthy of replacing analog and are forecasting its failure and
demise. Online list servers seem to attract many of these unconverted.
Changing minds and opinions on this topic might be a little like
trying to convince those opposed to the war in Iraq that U.S. presence
there will further our objectives in defeating world terrorism.
In the HD Radio proceeding, there also appear to be quite a few
undecideds. Will Ibiquity's technology ultimately succeed? Somebody
should run a poll to see how this stacks up. In both cases, the
playing field is constantly changing.
STATUS QUO
Let's give the anti-HD Radio core positions a reality check one
by one:
1. Analog still serves radio's needs very adequately. With new
design techniques it can perform even better. Why obsolete hundreds
of millions of existing receivers?
Lots of HD Radio naysayers tend to favor the status quo. Just because
it's digital doesn't mean it's better, they say. Analog AM is still
receivable on radios made over 80 years ago. Over 500 million of
them still serve their owners well in this country alone. Making
them unusable would be unthinkable. Yet the huge improvement of
noise-free full-fidelity stereo that HD Radio brings to AM is blissfully
ignored. This reminds us of all the horse-and-carriage fans of the
1890s. Proponents of the newly invented automobile back then had
to prove their case.
The argument for FM HD Radio is a little less convincing. Analog
FM with RBDS scrolling text on the plains of Kansas works fairly
well. Think of it as a fast horse-drawn carriage on a really smooth
road with a narrated travel guide.
But the ability to add features and enjoyment pretty much ends
there. The riding experience, just like the listening experience
for those in congested cities full of tall buildings or on very
bumpy roads in hilly terrain, is not so enjoyable.
A century ago, citizens worried about all the new problems and
"interference" that introducing the automobile would cause
existing travelers. Vehicles with gasoline engines were noisy and
caused more pollution. As more of them took to the roads, pedestrians
and horse-drawn carriages were crowded off to the side. But the
advantages of the automobile over horses and walking far outweighed
the disadvantages. Mufflers were invented, roads were paved and
widened and sidewalks were built.
HD Radio right now is like the first automobiles to travel unpaved
roads. Think about what it will offer in another five or 10 years.
History is squarely on the side of better technology as it pushes
aside older, less efficient methods.
2. HD Radio causes new interference to adjacent-channel stations
and reduces their coverage, especially AM at night. Why degrade
useful reception of weaker signals?
Increased interference to adjacent channels is one of the compromises
HD Radio does inflict on existing operations. The impact on the
FM dial has been demonstrated as minimal. FM already tolerates similar
degrees of interference in large markets and short-spaced situations.
The AM case is a bit more problematic. As more HD stations come
online, some stations will probably lose some fringe area and distant
nighttime service. But with less than 5 percent of all radio listening
occurring on AM at night, this may prove to be more of a non-problem
than many inside the industry think.
Whatever methods are used to resolve interference complaints, one
aspect of this issue seems clear. For radio to thrive and remain
successful, it will have to focus on serving its local and primary
coverage area the best it can. The impact of the satellite services
is pushing terrestrial radio in this direction anyway. Super-serving
the local audience will have to become every station's mantra.
3. HD Radio lacks the killer app to attract public interest
in buying the necessary new receivers. Any new consumer product
needs this to be successful.
Most HD Radio detractors seem convinced that consumers will have
little interest in forking over several hundred dollars more to
buy an HD Radio instead of the inexpensive analog models they know
and understand. Without a killer application, consumers won't buy
them and HD Radio will fail just like the AM stereo experience.
I suggest that this paradigm is changing.
Every new technology-based consumer product that establishes itself
as a long-term success has one or more killer apps. The automobile
offered more speed, versatility and comfort. The first ones were
very expensive and not that reliable. It took a while before assembly-line
manufacturing techniques and improved quality control made them
reliable and affordable for most consumers.
Thankfully, the advanced capabilities of today's consumer electronics
industry move the development of new products like digital radios
along rather quickly. As the penetration of XM and Sirius satellite
radios accelerates, radio manufacturers are now looking at designing
multi-mode digital radios that will include all digital formats.
Integrating separate RF sections and programming the DSP engine
to include HD and XM functions in the same radio is relatively easy
since the codecs are virtually identical. This is a natural evolution
for car radio offerings and best serves consumer needs and preferences.
What proves successful as a new feature in car radios usually finds
its way into home radios and portable models.
MOER TO COME
The first-generation HD Radios only offer some of the advanced
features that make HD Radio a superior performer over its analog
parent. Most consumers will probably not be asking for an HD model
or recognize a killer app when shopping for a new radio as more
gen-one HD Radios start appearing in the marketplace. Awareness
of what HD Radio offers will definitely take some time. Perceptions
of it will be blurred with satellite services.
Noise-free, multipath-free reception is not by itself a killer
app. Neither is the scrolling radio-text feature in its present
form. But as more consumers become aware that these improvements
are part of the satellite radio offerings already, they will naturally
come to expect the same from terrestrial radio.
Data services will not flourish in HD Radio until protocols are
more fully standardized and developed to exploit that resource.
TIVO for radio, the "Buy Button" and other PAD services
are the tip of that iceberg. We can only dream about what shape
and form future data-delivered services might take in succeeding
generations of HD Radios. Certainly streaming video and fully interactive
features will be among them, especially in the all-digital HD Radio
format. You can bet satellite will have them.
Offering a second program service within the same RF channel will
be an important new capability for radio that only digital can deliver.
Public radio stations everywhere are now planning their next rounds
of CPB grant funding to include HD Radio conversion mainly to be
able to take advantage of this powerful addition. Commercial stations
have been slow to recognize the value of a second channel, but as
soon as the rules for such service are established and one large
group owner moves forward with it, you can bet many more will quickly
follow.
Surround sound is shaping up to be the bona fide "wow-inducing"
killer app for HD Radio. Consumers are flocking to home theatre
5.1 sound as a very hot seller in video and television. Cars automatically
are suited for accommodating 5.1 speaker positions. Most manufacturers
are ramping up to include this feature in many new luxury car models
starting next year. Selling new surround sound versions of all the
hit songs of the past could be a big shot in the arm for the troubled
recording industry.
4. Ibiquity's technology is proprietary and not an open architecture
that can accommodate future improvements from outside developers.
While this does make it a bit more difficult for independent companies
not affiliated or invested in Ibiquity to bring improvements to
it, it does not preclude them. Witness Ibiquity's change of codecs
from PAC to HDC. They say it's unique, but HDC is merely a multi-streaming
version of HEAAC (MPEG AAC+ with SBR), the same codec used by XM
satellite. Ibiquity will most certainly be looking to incorporate
worthy and compelling improvements to HD Radio in the future. It
is, after all, only software.
Digital Radio Mondiale proponents see that system as technically
superior and more flexible than the AM HD Radio solution. The two
systems are really more similar than they are different, both using
the same digital modulation building blocks. Software driven platforms
are continuously adaptable and tweakable.
Even though the first generation of HD technology is set, there
is really nothing to stop Ibiquity from co-opting and integrating
some of the DRM features or other techniques yet undiscovered into
AM HD Radio as the rollout moves forward with succeeding generations.
Let your imagination contemplate what might be used or discovered
for improving performance and mitigating interference.
5. Unlike HDTV, HD Radio does not have a mandatory, FCC-imposed
conversion schedule. As with AM stereo, "Let the marketplace
decide" is no decision at all and not the directive the industry
needs to make this work long-term.
This objection has suddenly become less relevant in the face of
the recent FCC decision to suspend the HDTV conversion timetable.
Grand scale technology changes take time, money and effort to implement.
All sorts of unknowns and variables change the course of man's best
intentions.
Ibiquity learned from the mistakes of previous efforts to change
or improve the basic engine of radio. Unlike FM Quad and AM stereo,
HD Radio formed a solid alliance of investors and partners from
the beginning from across the industry including broadcasters, transmission
equipment companies and the all-important receiver companies. All
the players are in this game together, with a carefully devised
rollout strategy and timetable, making the chance of failure a more
remote possibility.
The fact that a hard FCC mandate for conversion is not in place
for HD Radio may not make much difference in the end as the rollout
gains traction. As more stations broadcast with the new technology
and more receivers penetrate the marketplace, the public will acquire
and use it. Momentum towards the necessary critical mass that will
make this happen is well underway. Analog-only hardware will slowly
be displaced and fall by the wayside as antiquated relics of the
past.
THE SELLING OF RECEIVERS
What will propel HD Radio sales more than anything else will be
the simple fact that most automobile manufacturers will offer HD
Radio models as an option or as the stock radio in higher-end 2006
models. That rollout accelerates and expands to most models in 2007.
Radio manufacturers are focusing their design efforts for virtually
all future models on DSP-based programmable platforms. They want
to sell new digital models and want to supply radios based on common
chipsets and see little future in supporting analog.
A similar mechanism was at work with RBDS. When it first rolled
out in the United States in the 1990s, not many stations deployed
it. Some that did stopped using it soon after they perceived very
few RBDS receivers were being purchased or used. But thanks to its
use elsewhere in the world, more and more RBDS-equipped car radios
were being delivered in many European and Japanese car models here
in the U.S.
In recent years, U.S. made cars started adding RBDS. The NAB now
estimates about 30 percent of all car radios have RBDS and over
80 percent of all new cars are sold with RBDS. It's suddenly a hot
ticket. Without even asking for it, U.S. consumers and broadcasters
alike have discovered an impressive new feature that magically appeared
in their car radios.
It's ironic that the satellite services are helping to accelerate
the burgeoning public awareness of new digital receivers in the
marketplace. Whether terrestrial broadcasters prefer to depend on
analog for the long term may not matter. The rest of the world is
moving forward with digital services and features in every consumer
electronics appliance and device out there. Like it or not, terrestrial
radio is being sucked into that vortex.
What further suggests increasing penetration of multi-function
digital radios in cars that will include HD Radio is the recent
move by many automobile companies to integrate some of the car's
monitoring, signaling and navigation operations within the radio's
DSP design itself. No longer can you easily replace a stock radio
in many new cars with an after-market model without adversely affecting
other electronic functions in the car.
This change seems to have crept into new car designs almost insidiously.
In the near future, aftermarket car radios could fall dramatically
in popularity. One of the reasons many radio manufacturers have
delayed introduction of gen-one after-market and home models is
the realization that OEM car radios will drive awareness and acceptance
of HD Radio more than anything else. Many consumers will get an
HD-equipped OEM radio when they buy a new car in the next few years
without even knowing it or asking for it.
The stage is set. Radio is entering a new era propelled by new
technology. It's really very simple. The digital bus with HD Radio
onboard has left the terminal. Be on it or be under it.
Guy Wire welcomes your comments and questions. E-mail to gwire@imaspub.com.
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