September 27, 2007
JVC Adds Transportable HD Radio
The KT-HDP1 can be used in a car or at home with separate kits: The $150 receiver requires two separate $60 kits to use with a car and at home. The former comes with all the modules to tie into an FM receiver and auxiliary input for automotive audio, along with a stand for dashboard mounting; the latter, a stand, AC adapter, and some audio cables.
September 26, 2007
Ford Expands HD Radio to Most Product Lines
HD Radio is now part of a dealer-installable option on most Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury cars: Also, older cars back to 2005 models can have a digital AM/FM receiver installed. This is a bit of a move in the right direction, but it's nothing like a factory-installed option, where more people would choose a model of car that happened to include HD Radio.
1,500 Stations Broadcasting HD Radio
HD Radio reaches a milestone of sorts: Perhaps 10 percent of radio stations in the U.S. now broadcast in HD Radio format. Now, if anyone were listening, that might appear more significant. We're still waiting for mass penetration of the consumer audience with digital AM/FM receivers.
September 17, 2007
Why Digital Radio Succeeded in England
Washington Post's Marc Fisher explains HD Radio's failure to catch on: In the UK, digital radio has had the largest success of any market in the world with about 6m receivers sold. Fisher notes that only a few hundred thousand HD Radio capable receivers are in consumers' hands in the U.S. The reason? Broadcasters in the UK provided "new and live content on digital stations." He notes that WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., will shift all its bluegrass and acoustic Americana music to a digital-only offering, plus give up to 1,000 HD Radio receivers free to previous station donors. They'll leave NPR news and talk on their main station, and put BBC news and additional NPR programming on a digital-only station, too.
Fisher thinks this kind of move could finally jumpstart HD Radio. I think that the real reason for its failure to gain a foothold is a combination of stale programming outside public radio and a lack of affordable receivers, as well as no integration into non-tabletop models. The fact is, until HD Radio is built into integrated receiver/amplifiers, found in most car radios as an almost-basic option, and available in portable form or as a plug-in to MP3 players like the iPod, it's unlikely to find a mass audience.
My local NPR station has been using the HD format for about as long as any station, and still has a very small listenership. They haven't particularly promoted the format because, I believe, the lack of receivers that average listeners might want to purchase. I've tried most HD Radio tabletop models on the market, and while I have complaints about this or that in each unit, the primary problem is that they solve a problem most people don't have: most people don't need a new radio. They buy a radio for a new home or to replace one that dies.
So far, HD Radio hasn't given people a reason to replace their sets as an upgrade, as the folks with satellite radio did, by convincing listeners that satellite radio had so much more variety than commercial. In the end, satellite radio's variety is more about range than actual variety. There's not that much different on satellite, there's just more of it in one place.
September 6, 2007
iPod, iTunes, and an HD Radio Receiver with a Dock: Tag, You're Bought
Something new under the HD Radio sun: Interesting announcement today from Apple and iBiquity: iTunes Tagging. This will allow you when listening to a song on a properly equipped HD Radio receiver to press a hardware button--the Tag button, naturally--and have that choice recorded to a docked iPod or iPhone. Then, when you sync that iPod/iPhone to iTunes, the program will tell you which songs you were interested in. (Most, ostensibly, will be in the iTunes Store's huge catalog.)
To use the Tag button, you'll have to get an HD Radio receiver that has both an iPod dock and this special button. Part of today's announcement was that Polk Audio's second generation i-Sonic would forgo its DVD playback capability--via an external jack--and replace that with an iPod dock. iPod audio can be played through built-in speakers, and iPod video via S-Video and component outputs.
Radio stations also have to get in on the action to make iTunes Tagging work. They'll have to broadcast the tag information. The HD Digital Radio Alliance said that hundreds of their HD Radio broadcasting stations will participate in tagging initially, with more to follow.
What's neat about this is that it's the first step in tying together two different kinds of digital music listening. What's also cool is that it shouldn't leave college, independent, and alternative stations out in the cold as previous technologies that alleged to offer this service did. (Sony eMarker, I'm talking to you.) I don't know right now whether Apple or iBiquity will charge fees or share revenue with radio stations for broadcasting tags.
The price is $499, $100 less than the first i-Sonic, but this unit omits DVD playing and the slot for an optional $50 add-on XM satellite radio module.
(For some reason, Polk decided to mock up the iPod screen that's in their promo image: what, they think we've never seen an iPod before and wouldn't notice?)
September 5, 2007
iPods Won't Have HD Radio Tech Today
Some reports have indicated that iPods expected today would include HD Radio tuners: That's tricky, given that the chips to embed in portable, battery-powered devices do not, to my knowledge, yet exist. They will, but we won't see products based on them until perhaps spring 2008, based on the timetable that I'm aware of.