[opendtv] Re: FCC on revitalizing the AM band

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 09:05:04 -0400

On Oct 27, 2015, at 8:46 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Craig Birkmaier wrote:

On one hand, Bert is promoting HD broadcasting in the AM band,
while for TV he suggests simply moving on and relying on the
Internet instead of broadcasting.

Hey Craig, do you really think I hadn't thought of that?

Sometimes it is very difficult to tell. Consistency in your arguments is not
something we have come to expect.

The deal is simple. Yes, in theory, now that 4G is becoming almost
ubiquitous, we could say that all car radios should simply migrate to
Internet radio. After all, at home, that's what I've done too. The problem is
that wireless Internet is still metered, is not truly everywhere yet, so that
car radios which operate in the AM/FM bands are still useful. But sure,
continue to add value to Internet radio, and not to OTA radio, and you'll see
the erosion of even that OTA medium.

The history of the personal computing, the Internet, and now broadband all
share a common theme, with Moore's Law driving the evolution of the
applications that emerge and prosper.

The audio industry was disintermediated by the PC in the '80s, in large measure
because the data sets that the computer needed to operate upon were very
manageable. It took another decade for "Desktop Video" to displace dedicated
video processing gear, due primarily to the much larger size of the data sets.
To make matters worse, the traditional video equipment suppliers believed that
HDTV would afford them some protection from the gathering PC hoard, due to the
increased size of the data set. They completely ignored the reality that once
Moore's Law made it feasible to operate on SDTV quality data, HD and UHDTV were
only a few cranks of Moore's Law in the future.

Likewise the history of the Internet has been tied to the bandwidth available
for applications. E-mail was the "killer app" in the early years due to the
very compact size of the messages. The Web was a slow and frustrating world in
the early days of modem access to the Internet. With broadband, the complexity
of the applications and size of the data sets they operate upon grew
exponentially, enabling the reality of streaming HD video to mobile devices.

When investments in infrastructure are being driven by a huge consumer of
bandwidth as we see today with video streaming, applications that place small
demands on the infrastructure can thrive. Such is the case with streaming
audio, podcasts and music libraries in the cloud.

Our family now shares 15 GB of cellular data a month. Even with video streaming
we don't use all of that data; audio is just noise level stuff. And it is
important to consider the fact that un-metered WiFi is typically available at
home, work and in most businesses.

One problem I have run up against is that SOME Internet radio stations don't
support the digital formats used by your typical Internet radio. You can
listen to these on your PC, but not on the stand-alone Internet radios like
my Sangean "tuner."

Standards are obviously important!

Purpose built devices that are locked into a few standards were the norm in the
analog world. But in our digital world standards are often limited in terms of
their useful life, and can form barriers to evolution. We need look no further
than broadcast television and cable in the U.S., which are still locked into
MPEG-2.

Your PC enables interoperability because it can be programmed to support.
Evolutionary standards. The only limits are related to speed and storage, which
leads to periodic upgrades/replacement. And even here, the need for replacement
is slowing.

The TV industry is finally coming to grips with the reality that consumers are
just buying big displays that will last 2-3 times as long as the processing
hardware that delivers the bits. We made this extensibility argument more than
two decades ago; unfortunately we did not have $39 HDMI dongles that receive
bits via WiFi and decode h.264 HD Video.

Hopefully that has been explained. And yes, absolutely, I removed my
shortwave radio from my home setup a long time ago, specifically because I
can and do listen to radio stations from all over the world, way more of
them, with infinitely better sound quality than before. But in my car, I'm
stuck with analog FM/AM only.

That is your choice. You could upgrade the radio in your car with HD Radio, or
you could get one with an external input that can connect to an MP3 player or
your phone. If you have an Aux Input you can add a Bluetooth kit. No Aux Input?
You can get a Bluetooth to FM transmitter...

Regards
Craig


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