Howdy Everybody— Just got my first Fuze for Xmas and cant wait to play with it, the misses has it wrapped and under the tree, sigh.
Anyway, I have been reading all about my new toy and look forward to experimenting and seeing what its got under the hood , sort of speak and am curious about something. I know it has a digital FM Tuner, and that you can record and save radio transmissions but is a digital tuner the same as a High Def Tuner? Not XM SAT Tuner, but the new HD format radio, does it pick that up? If not, is it likely to be added by firmware or can this unit be modded, is there a community of Homebrew type software creators for this unit as there are for the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP machines?
I have not seen any small portable HD radio receivers. I guess we will see them sometime in the future. I don’t know when they will be included in mp3 players though. This requires different hardware. A firmware upgrade can’t provide this.
"I doubt that you will ever see small HD tuners. I doubt that HD radio will even survive. "
Why do you say that? HD radio is very inexpensive for a radio station to add, and they can transmit in both standard radio and HD. It will take some time for HD receiver circuitry to get much smaller and very inexpensive.
I wonder about the future of satellite radio. Imo it will probably at some point need to become free and have commercials on all the stations. Imo the number of people willing to pay for radio reception is quite small.
A while back some were enthusiastic about the merger of Sirius and XM, however now not many are enthusiastic.
Thanks, JK, I wasn’t aware hardware was really needed, as computers are HD by default, just figured you could software the reception of HD radio. With the explosion of Podcasts and the popularity of regular radio and coupled with both of those being free options, I agree Sat radio is not long for the current business model, I get some channels of it on my DISH Network DVR and I never listen to it, its too impersonal.
First of, “HD” in HD Radio doesn’t mean high definition. Originally it meant “hybrid digital” (in that it supports both digital and analog radio), however they’ve dropped that monikor so at this point its just a marketing ploy. HD radio isn’t all bad: its highest bandwidth format is 150kbps, and their codec is similar to AAC, so it can be better quality than what one might buy from iTunes.
If you read up on it, HD radio has been too power-hungry for any portable application. Its getting better, but not even close to the point where it could be in something like a Fuze. It might never become cheap (in the US), because its all proprietary and requires payment of a license for each receiver. It also has a compatibility problem - not all countries use the same formats, consequently manufacturers would have to have separate models of receivers for different countries.
Most major cities already have HD radio, but licensing costs and decreasing market (who wants to listen to advertisements and witless chatter when they can listen to MP3s?) will probably keep it from growing.
I work in Radio, We just got a prototype of a small HD tumer the other day. Looks cool, But unfortunatly the Fuze having a Digital FM Tuner cannot play an HD Signal. The way the signal is transmitted is different
As For The survival of HD Radio…It took a while to catch on but watch over the next year and you will see a rise in it popularity. Our HD radio station is nearly as popular as our FM Station in terms of listners. I love HD Radio and cant wait to have one in my car
Message Edited by Conversionbox on 12-22-2008 04:06 PM
The radio industry has decided to go the path of reverse compatibility, which has been very wise over the years. The analog signal will continue to be broadcast, plus the new digital streams.
The name is interesting, “HD radio”, borrowing from the optimism over high definition television. The HDTV system is a radical departure from many years of NTSC TV broadcasting in the US, dropping a major portion of the VHF TV band, and going with the new DTV system.
The parallel compatibility idea was dropped years ago for the current (well, about to be fully started in February) system for television.
Radio broadcasting, in my opinion, has made a wise choice in the analog / digital symbiotic system. I hope it catches on, and is successful in both the analog and digital venues.
Perhaps, in the future, the Sansa will have a receiver. The coolest part? Unlike television, the analog system will continue.
Actually it would be better if the analog went away on radio too because if the digital signal had the full bandwidth of the station to use, it would be far more reliable and could carry many more channels on one carrier. As an addon to the analog signal it has more problems. Back to the Fuze which is great.
@cfsacks wrote:
Actually it would be better if the analog went away on radio too because if the digital signal had the full bandwidth of the station to use, it would be far more reliable and could carry many more channels on one carrier. As an addon to the analog signal it has more problems. Back to the Fuze which is great.
Actually no. Carriers are limited on how many signals they can broadcast. I like the idea of full bandwidth. The main issue is that without analog things like emergancy broadcasts would have to be reformatted which would cost millions. Also some of the what we call “Charicter” like the blips and pops on vinal for example or the background in studio and at live broadcasts would not translate as well. On our HD Channel which is mostly internet driven (10% are in car listners) There is minimal stoppage of music, only a couple of commercials an hour and like 2 minutes of DJ talk, the major complaint is the lack of information. We do it this way to save $$ it is pure revenue. Our analog signal features live interaction with listners and more information for the listners. This is popular because of the interplay. The two would be awesome if intigrated for instance 999.7(analog) 999.9(HD) on the same tuner.
