HD Radio
1 - 20 of 37 Posts
Yeah - I wish they had HD radio built-in, instead of XM.
Me too. But isn't it still rare as original equipment in cars? Somehow this hasn't caught on yet with car makers.
On the other hand, the amount of broadcast radio listening I do has fallen off to almost zero due to the combined effect of iPod listening and the frequent commercials on radio. I guess HD radio still has the commercials.
On the other hand, the amount of broadcast radio listening I do has fallen off to almost zero due to the combined effect of iPod listening and the frequent commercials on radio. I guess HD radio still has the commercials.
HD radio would have been nice but since I listen to broadcast less than 1% of the time I'm in the car, it would just be more of a novelty item. I definitely prefer pandora or just the ability to stream with bluetooth and can pick and choose the playlists or genres that I want. Not to mention I have to give a +1 to Berry for his point on commercials. There have been times I've been "forced" to listen to broadcast and had maybe 5 minutes of music and the balance of my 15 minute commute was all commercials. Pretty sure HD is just broadcasting in an upconverted signal and would still have similar commercial breaks.
My last vehicle had HD radio and SXM satellite radio. The real benefit of HD radio is improved reception in some areas with less static. That and for each assigned AM or FM frequency 3 more HD programs can be broadcast simultaneously, so for example if 96.9 is the FM station frequency, there can also be a 96.9 HD1, HD2, HD3 and HD4.
Simple, lithium ion batteries are expensive. You start running the car price up with costly accessories like HD receiver, higher fidelty speakers, and the price of the car gets to a point where there are few buyers.
Before coming to the forum today I was looking on-line at Porsche's and then thinking for the money - what's a better deal? Volt, Porsche, a 100K Suburban? The Volt is reasonable as long as it stays in the 30K range.
Joined
·
2,268 Posts
Me too. I usually listen to either audiobooks or podcasts and sometimes music via my ipod. Last week I forgot it at home for the first time in ages.
Radio was AWFUL averaging 6 commercials per song and these were the terrible, locally produced, kind to boot.
It was a hell drive
Yea, is it my imagination, or has this changed drastically over time? I used to listen to radio a lot up until about a decade ago. I remember it being mostly content and just a small amount of advertisements back then. Now it seems I have trouble finding content even by surfing all the buttons.Radio was AWFUL averaging 6 commercials per song and these were the terrible, locally produced, kind to boot.
It was a hell drive
A trend like that could kill radio all together.
It is not the cost. The extra cost of a chip with HD radio is negligible.
https://www.digikey.com/en/product-...Tc7ezZKXVtog6hswZiudsE_sT2cBNCoIaAjFSEALw_wcB
The cynic in me suspects that having HD radio reduces the chance that someone will purchase a Sirius subscription, and GM gets a cut of that. Frankly, I think that HD radio chipsets should be required. FM is an inefficient use of valuable bandwidth, and we need to get away from it.
And for quality, while I agree that commercial radio sucks, I wake up to public radio every day.
WNCW and WMOT are great.
https://www.digikey.com/en/product-...Tc7ezZKXVtog6hswZiudsE_sT2cBNCoIaAjFSEALw_wcB
The cynic in me suspects that having HD radio reduces the chance that someone will purchase a Sirius subscription, and GM gets a cut of that. Frankly, I think that HD radio chipsets should be required. FM is an inefficient use of valuable bandwidth, and we need to get away from it.
And for quality, while I agree that commercial radio sucks, I wake up to public radio every day.
WNCW and WMOT are great.
Joined
·
4,137 Posts
Would you happen to know the sensitivity datum for the chip? Years ago, one could compare radios for sensitivity and pick the best one. Those data seem not to be important to quote these days. Now it's a crap shoot to pick a good radio.
I believe there is a licensing cost with HD radio, that's the expensive bit.
But I don't discount the XM partnership thought one bit. They totally get a kickback or reduced cost by ensuring XM hardware is in every car, or GM wouldn't be doing it.
Welcome to the slow death of "free" radio. Get a good smartphone, media server and a sufficient data plan.
Joined
·
13,358 Posts
All of my content is from Pandora, Spotify, and Podcasts
No surprise here.
There is no licencing cost with HD radio. It is simply commercial radio, with more options. We have a local HD station that is better than all of XM combined. And because it's HD it sounds about 1000x better than XM.
While I don't have any info on the XM kickback, it wouldn't surprise me at all.
Yes, that's me. A bleeding heart liberal. I'd be happy to share a thoughful, intelligent, discussion of public policy regarding a regarding a public resource (the radio spectrum), but that would be beyond the scope of this thread.
But still, check out WNCW.
No, I just did a naive search for "HD radio chipset"; but it should not really matter. The only important thing is the analog front end. The HD signal is a digital signal that shares bandwidth with the analog signal. If a given chip family does a good job of picking up the analog signal, a quality digital signal should follow.
1 - 20 of 37 Posts
