« Automakers Commit to HD, But Shhhhh | Main | HD Radio Demoed in Hong Kong »
BusinessWeek Tries HD Radio
Stephen Wildstrom finds Polk better then RadioShack: My testing showed the opposite, but that's partly my bias towards uncluttered interfaces. The Polk has a lot of options, making it harder to use. And the unit I tested had muddy sound. The Accurian has quite clear sound that compared favorably with more expensive units.
Wildstrom notes, of course, that content is king, and that broadcasters aren't doing much that's interesting yet with the multicast format. Which is, of course, because they don't have listeners. I expect to see some stations ultimately experimenting with five or more multicast channels, but they have to--for now--receive specific FCC permission, freely granted, for each additional multicast station.
It's quite likely to me that after a year or two of HD Radio growth that the FCC will consider lower-powered digital-only stations in the interstices of FM broadcasts in various markets. If the signal strength is low enough, digital-only stations wouldn't interfere with stations on the same bands in adjacent markets, and could provide much more diversity of programming. This depends on the political winds.
I did not see the problem with a HD Radio signal breaking up in the way that Wildstrom describes on any of the five receivers I tested. When an HD signal wasn't strong enough and would fade in and out, the radio simply switched seamlessly back and forth between analog and digital. This happened infrequently: a station was mostly either good enough to receive digitally over the period of time the radio initially tries to get a lock and continued to be that good--or it wasn't. In a moving vehicle, I expect results to vary, but there's also much better reception outdoors.
Comments
Regarding the comment "the radio simply switched seamlessly back and forth between analog and digital" -- that's fine, IF you're listening to the digital stream for the main channel, where there IS an analog signal to fall back on if needed. But if you're listening to the HD2 or HD3 channel for that station, there is no analog component. All you've got is the digital audio, so if it's not a strong enough signal, any dropouts will result in at least 5 seconds of silence. That can be pretty frustrating in fringe reception areas.
Posted by: Mike Gaston | December 7, 2006 6:04 AM