April 27, 2007
Bad News for HD Radio: Automakers Still Considering Rollout
One of the biggest factors in widespread HD Radio adoption is factory-installed car radios: iBiquity has struck no deals with high-selling automakers, and that's a problem. This Reuters article notes that GM and DaimlerChrysler have made no commitment--and they're saying that publicly. The article estimates that it costs $45 to equip a car with an HD Radio-capable receiver, which must be the incremental cost over a plain AM/FM or AM/FM/CD system. iBiquity notes that it has a number of automaker partners, most unannounced, but they don't include the big three in Detroit.
Satellite radio operators have used massive subsidies and revenue sharing to get XM and Sirius receivers installed as factory or dealer options with several months of free service. If car buyers sign up for service, the carmaker receives some of that revenue stream. Because the two satellite operators (which may merge pending regulatory issues) spend so much to acquire each customer, it's worth their while to get the radios preinstalled in cars.
iBiquity is on a different side of this equation. While they have offered rebates over the last year for different amounts on receivers in the market, including car audio systems, iBiquity doesn't make equipment. (Sirius and XM have different arrangements for how they make and license gear, but they have more direct control and interest in the devices' distribution.)
iBiquity and its manufacturing partners must get carmakers to get on board, and it's much more likely going to devolve to money not technology. If the cost were lower and iBiquity ate some of it in the interest of growing demand and reducing cost, carmakers would be happy to promote HD Radio as a feature. Right now, carmakers can gain a revenue stream from satellite radio because of subscriber fees. iBiquity and manufacturers have to figure out how to create a sweet enough deal to make it worthwhile to automakers.
I would say that demand among car buyers would pull radios into cars, but it's not so. With so few HD Radio receivers in homes and cars right now, there's nowhere near the kind of interest that would make Detroit (or Japan) change its mind yet.
April 26, 2007
WUSF-FM Tests Conditional Access
The Florida radio station is testing conditional access with HD Radio: This is related to the recent announcement that NDS RadioGuard will be used to offer content selectively to listeners based on their receiver's unique serial number. One key part of this testing is looking into replacing sub-carrier, low-quality broadcasts of radio reading services for the visually impaired with higher quality HD Radio channels that would be locked to those qualified to listen.
New HD Radio Rebate Program: $40 Off Most Radios
iBiquity has launched a new rebate program for digital radio receivers: The $40 rebate is valid for radios purchased April 29 to July 3, 2007. All HD Radio receivers excepting Yamaha's high-end home entertainment system appear to be on the list, including a number of radios not yet released indicating a lot in the shipment pipeline for this summer.
April 24, 2007
Onkyo Offers HD, Sirius, XM in Single Receiver
The $499 T-4555P tunes in every major digital network: It's a little pricey, but it's ready for XM and Sirius satellite as well as HD Radio. Ships soon.
April 20, 2007
Best Buy to Stock, Promote HD Radio Receivers
All 832 Best Buy stores will offer HD Radio education and receivers: The announcement, which iBiquity alerted me to in advance of its formal Monday release, is part of the growing effort on the part of the HD Radio Alliance, a group of large broadcasters, iBiquity, and radio makers to increase public awareness as more radios hit the market at increasingly lower prices.
Update: Here's the press release.
April 18, 2007
HD Radio Gets Conditional Access
NDS will provide tools for HD Radio to offer per-radio programming access: The system, called RadioGuard, uses a combination of serial numbers and encryption to allow broadcasters to enable access on a per-radio basis for digital AM and FM. The applications could vary from subscriber-only access to digital channels to pay-per-listen concerts to public-radio subscribers hearing pledge-free broadcasts. The FCC hasn't yet approved charging for digital-only services; rather, they recently asked for comments on the idea. But conditional access isn't limited to fee-based services.
In a briefing a few weeks ago, NDS's director of data applications Tom Rucktenwald said that the company expected to have chips out for radio makers to work with by about September. The NDS RadioGuard technology would initially be in a separate chip that would work with existing HD Radio decoders. The system would eventually be embedded into a single decoder/conditional access chip, probably by the second quarter of 2008, Rucktenwald said. RadioGuard was announced at NAB this week.
Existing HD Radio receivers won't be able to tune conditional-access channels, but most industry analysts peg an installed base of perhaps a few hundred thousand HD Radio equipped receivers so far. Millions are expected to ship during 2008, and most of those, I expect, will have this technology embedded. (Existing receivers simply won't "see" conditional access channels.)
One key use for conditional access is enabling Radio Reading Service for the sight impaired, which arose out of an exception granted in copyright law: radio stations can broadcast people reading current periodicals and other materials without violating copyright law because of this exception. Thousands of volunteers read material for these services, which typically regional. Some are broadcast as Internet radio, too.
Stations currently use an FM sub-carrier that provides reasonable, but not terrific sound quality, and requires a special receiver to tune in. With conditional access and HD Radio, the estimated 3.5m qualified blind and sight impaired Americans could use an off-the-shelf radio that they register with a station. Sound quality would also be improved. "The quality difference is remarkable," said Rucktenwald. And "the same piece can be used for entertainment." (National Public Radio's chief technology officer suggested in 2005 that HD Radio could be used for captioning of broadcasts for the deaf and hearing impaired, too!)
For public-radio listeners, there's a great carrot and stick here, too. NPR and individual stations have speculated that it would be possible to identify those who had donated recently or regularly to a station and grant them access to a programming feed during pledge drives that wouldn't be interrupted by requests for funds.
NDS's deal isn't exclusive, but they will likely achieve lock-in as the first provider approved by iBiquity, and one whose technology could be embedded in millions of early radios. Rucktenwald said NDS's long experience with the broadcast industry through set-top box and receiver conditional access for video and TV programming has led it to be extremely careful about pricing and licensing to make their offering as relevant and ubiquitous as possible.
The RadioGuard system could be used for data as well as audio, enabling downloads of songs or delivery of podcasts alongside regular programming.
April 14, 2007
Directed Offers $250 HD Radio Receiver
The DHHD-1000 has two speakers that can be detached from the main receiver: Generally positive review at Radio World online, although the display is too bright, the bass lacks oomphf, and it's a little pricey. But it delivers good receive sensitivity plus the unrelated decoding of stereo AM. The reviewer would like it better at a lower cost.
Radiosophy Plans Near-Time $100 HD Radio
The firm that release the first transportable HD Radio says they will ship a $100 receiver in May: The price will be $120 after June 30. The new radio has several neat properties, including a compact size, and digital station scanning (omitting analog channels). Radiosophy took about 18 months longer than intended to ship their first HD system, but with such a short shipping date, that indicates a product well along in the pipeline. This radio will be the cheapest one on the market, and $100 less than the retail price of Radio Shack's Accurian HD, the second-most-expensive unit. (A $50 rebate until April 21 brings the price down.)
April 11, 2007
Consumer Reports Praises Sangean Component Tuner
The first component tuner for HD Radio gets high marks from Consumer Reports: The $200 tuner pulls in a good, clear signal. Consumer Reports didn't like the bright display (for dimmer rooms), and the lack of being able to lock a signal for analog only. In reviewing all the HD Radio sets available last fall, I found that none of them offered an analog lock--an irritating feature when a digital lock can't be reliably obtained.
Sangean's HDT-1 nonetheless should score quite a few purchases from people with home entertainment systems where they want to slot in a replacement radio receiver instead of having a standalone (and potentially overdesigned) radio or replacing other gear.
Right now, I'm only aware of a single receiver meant for home systems that tunes in HD Radio signals. I expect that we'll see a small explosion of digital AM/FM being added to those kinds of units.
April 9, 2007
Cambridge SoundWorks Ships HD Radio
The SoundWorks Radio 820HD was originally slated to ship last November: The $300 radio has no characteristics that I can see that warrant the price other than the current high price of HD Radio receivers. One expects that the speakers are of a higher quality than the RadioShack Accurian HD Radio, about which BusinessWeek just gave an extremely poor review. The 820HD from SoundWorks is probably closest to Boston Acoustics's $300 Receptor Radio HD. It does have an integral FM antenna (like the Sangean HD model), and acts as a alarm clock radio.