The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers holds its annual Broadcast Symposium in San Antonio this week. And if I could be there, I’d be hitting up the last session of Thursday afternoon, for there may be a few fireworks.
There are two planned speakers: first up is David Layer, the Director of NAB Labs’ Radio Technology Committee, who will give a status report on the state of all-digital AM-HD signal testing. The most recent round concluded in Seattle, and depending on who you ask, the results were either spectacular or so-so. Continue reading “NAB v. DPR: Showdown in San Antonio?”
Tag: codec
IBOC Overhaul: Good As Advertised?
Digital radio is essentially streaming audio over the air. Anyone who’s handled an audio file knows the rule of thumb: the better the bitrate, the better the sound. In the file-sharing community most songs are offered is 128kbps – okay, not CD quality, but not cruddy like a tape dub. Some audio encoders offer better quality than others, due to subtle differences in the encoding algorithm each system uses.
For “HD Radio,” the U.S. brand name for digital radio, the bitrate for most stations is expected to be between 64-96kbps, with AM running as low as 36kbps. iBiquity, the company behind the system, promises “enhanced sound fidelity” at these bitrates. In May the National Radio Systems Committee disagreed, suspending the official standard-setting process for the IBOC technology (at the heart of “HD Radio”) after declaring its audio quality unsuitable for broadcast, jeopardizing the full-scale rollout of consumer receivers for that all-important holiday season in the process. Continue reading “IBOC Overhaul: Good As Advertised?”