Fw: Letters To The Editor In Today's Globe

[Dan Strassberg]

Forgot to send this to the entire list

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>
To: "Laurence Glavin" <lglavin@lycos.com>
Cc: "Bob M Bittner" <Jibguy@aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: Letters To The Editor In Today's Globe

I think Bob was wrong. I believe that if a station uses only two channels,
versus the three that Bob mentioned repeatedly, the second channel has the
same bit rate as the main channel, but, in that case, both channels have
only half the bit rate of the main channel of an FM that transmits only the
main HD Radio channel. I can't recall the bit rates, but I think that the
bit rate for an FM that transmits only the main HD channel is 128 kbps. If
there is one subchannel, both channels are alotted 64 kbps. If there are two
subchannels, the main gets 64 kbps and each subchannel gets 32 kbps. I
believe that 32 kbps is the bit rate of the only channel of the AM version
of HD Radio. Now, 128 kbps, happens to be the bit rate of the most popular
emodiment of MP3, so you might be tempted to conclude that the quality of
FM-band HD Radio with only one channel is the same as that of MP3. If that's
your conclusion, you'd be wrong because HD Radio's lossy-compression
algorithms are more advanced than MP3's compression algorithms (which, IIRC,
are not lossy). Although the point is subject to heated debate and the
conclusions about audio quality are intimately related to the program
content, some people say that 32 kbps in HD Radio produces audio quality
that is comparable to that of a 128-kbps MP3 stream.

In a sense, though, this discussion is kind of a red herring. You don't need
HD Radio to transmit FOUR programs on a (nominally) 200-kHz-wide FM channel.
Analog FM allows for a main channel and three subcarriers. The subcarriers,
which are frequency modulated onto the main carrier, are themselves,
amplitude modulated, and none has the 15-kHz bandwidth of the main channel.
As I understand it, current regulations make it illegal to sell to the
general public in the US FM receivers that decode the analog subcarriers.
These are reserved for subscription services, such as background music.

iBiquity et al have decided to make the subcarriers available in radios sold
to the general public, thus providing the potential of additional revenue
streams from one FM license. If the set makers can get the cost, size and
power-conumption of HD Radio receivers down to reasonable levels, this may
become the key feature of the system. However, the idea of the broadcasters
conspiring to allocate different formats to different companies sounds
illegal to me because it appears to be in restraint of trade. And given the
competitiveness of broadcasters in just about any multi-station market, the
idea seems to define the word "unworkable." Haven't the clowns who set up
the consortium idea ever heard of format flips? Can you imagine any
broadcaster agreeing to change a format only if all competitors in the
market approve of the switch? That has to be the biggest laugh of this
still-young millennium

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Laurence Glavin" <lglavin@lycos.com>
> To: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
> Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 2:04 PM
> Subject: Letters To The Editor In Today's Globe
>
>
> > Apropos some of the comments about WCRB on today's "Let's Talk
> > About Radio", there are three Letters To The Editor in today's
> > (01/15/06) replying to a column by the Globe's music critic
> > Richard Dyer that was published New Year's day.  It was suggested
> > on today's "LTAR" that there would be a noticeable reaction to
> > the demise of the current WCRB format if it went away.  The opening
> > sentence of Dyer's column seems to take exception to that;  he
> > wrote: "The news that Boston may soon be losing its only full-time
> > classical-music station has NOT put the musical community
> > up-in-arms as you might expect" (Capitalization mine).
> > One of the letters is by WGBH-FM station manager Marita Rivero...
> >
> >
>
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/01/15/letters_and_comm
> entary/?page=2
> >
> > On today's "LTAR" Bob mentioned that he believed that the
> > second HD channel would be inferior to the main channel...nothing
> > was said about this by the WGBH-FM GM.
> >
> >
> > --
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