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HD Radio: The auto industry rides the Hi-Fi highway
HD Radio offers AM that sounds like FM, and FM that sounds like CDs. It's free, and it's a big gamble for radio and the auto industry.
Mon, Jan 03 2011 at 5:06 PM
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Photo: Jamescridland/Flickr
Is HD Radio the next big thing for in-car audio? Well, it’s not like the transition from AM to FM (that was a big leap), but it’s an interesting improvement. And it has a big advantage over satellite radio — it doesn’t cost anything. As long as you have an HD-equipped radio (3 million have been sold by Ibiquity, which is owned by big-league radio chains) you can listen to the digital signal for free, without a subscription, and at the same frequencies, too.
HD’s claim to fame is that it just sounds better — existing FM stations sound like satellite radio or CDs, and AM sounds like FM. But it’s unclear if there are a lot of audiophiles around, given the popularity of the high-fidelity-challenged iPod for listening to music. There is also, as with satellite, supposed to be more diverse programming on new HD2 and HD3 stations, but there doesn’t seem to be much of that yet in my listening area. (Check out your own airwaves here.) Stations available in some markets offer dance/electronic, bluegrass, comedy and “chill/coffee shop,” which sounds like an endless loop of mellow Starbucks CDs.
I’m going to the big Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week, and I’m sure I’ll learn more about HD (at the last one I went to, in Japan, 3-D television was the rage). Automakers are betting heavily on it — it’s available on a plethora of cars (again, here’s a list), and is featured on snazzy car audio such as the MyFord Touch system. Volkswagen said just before Christmas that HD would be part of its new touchscreen radio Premium VIII. It’s still not a hugely popular option — only 5 percent of new vehicles come with HD.
There are 13,000 AM and FM broadcast radio stations in the U.S., and just more than 2,000 of them have been converted to HD. According to the trades, the rate of conversion has slowed as radio hit the economic crunch (revenues down from $20 billion to $16 billion in recent years), and only 135 stations were converted in 2009, maybe about the same in 2010.
Carmakers like anything that might get customers in the door. The aforementioned Ford Sync is a selling point when cars are otherwise equal, and it’s been installed in 3 million cars. (It’s standard on Lincoln, optional on Fords, with three levels of service.) One of the coolest things about it is sophisticated voice controls.
Jim Buczkowski, director of Ford electronics and electrical systems engineering, told me that the system doesn’t need the new owner to read into it so it “gets” his or her pronunciation — it learns on the go, even absorbing your Bluetooth phone book. Just say “Call Jim Hanson,” and it will. HD Radio is part of a Sync package that also includes the ability to plug in an iPod USB hard drive and have the system ID and shuffle the songs.
The Sync system has arrived, in that it’s on 80 percent of the 2011 Fords sold, up 4 percentage points from 2010 models. It’s becoming “a key point of satisfaction,” says Ken Czubay, a Ford VP of marketing. I like the apps that allow control of sites like Pandora, Open Beak and Stitcher through owners’ cell phones — and with voice commands, too.
HD Radio adds the concept of “tagging." If you’re listening to a song you like, you can hit the tag button and metadata from the song will be stored, and turned into an iTunes playlist. Of course, you actually have to buy the songs if you want to hear them. This Ford video explains all:
I’m a huge music freak, but I also have a tin ear when it comes to high-end audio. Maybe being five feet from the speakers at a Who concert in 1969 left me, like Peter Townsend himself, with permanent hearing loss. What did you just say?
I’ve heard HD radio in test cars, and it sounds fine to me, but not, well, like the difference between AM and FM. I don’t think my life would change if I had it in my daily ride, but I’d like to do a more thorough road test. It’s either one more format that’s going to get orphaned (remember four-channel stereo?) or tomorrow’s next big thing.
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A good FM station will easily blow away FM-HD, and satellite as well, as far as sound quality goes.
I've been a Sirius subscriber for a long, long time, but it isn't because of the "digital quality" sound. It's the content. When I want good sound, I pop a CD into the car stereo.
There is no more reason to imrpove AM or FM. For financial reasons there are no more real VARIETY radio stations left. Top 40 has become top 30."Classic Rock" is definced as playing Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl" along side AC/DC's Back in Black. Ever since teh real WNEW102.7FM closed, broadcast radio had been gone
I couldn't agree with you more--radio content is mostly junk, the same straitjacketed formats everywhere you look. It's not even Top 40 anymore, it's Top Ten. As a "free form" radio programmer of more than 30 years experience, I can say these things with authority.
I will pay good money to avoid the endless barrage of commercials.
Satelite radio for me...not even considering alternatives.
Seven years ago, I purchased Sirius with a lifetime subscription, and it's the best money I've ever spent. I could never go back to terrestrial radio, even with "HD." I want my music commercial-free, and my talk/comedy uncensored. Also, it's nice not to have to hunt for a new station when I drive out of the transmitter's range.
Total BS. All HD audio is highly compressed. The exact amount depends on a station, but I would guess in most of the cases it would be roughly equivalent to MP3 encoded at 64Kbps. Even at 128Kbps it is nothing like CD.
On the other hand, a car is not the optimal environment to listen audio to start with. With all the background noise, 64Kbps MP3 is acceptable. Just don't compare it with CD.
There's an old saying that goes (in the clean version), "You can wrap a pile of garbage in a mink coat, but it is still a pile of garbage." As with HD commercial radio...
Sorry, it's not the quality of the sound that is coming to my car that I don't like... It's the content. I don't want to listen to the same 4 songs and have commercials every 7 minutes.
Sirius FTW.
Jason hit the nail on the head. Why upgrade to an already known inferior service when folks have Sirius/xm? It's nice they want to make it free but the bottom line is the content stinks. COmercials, lame talk radio....make it free and I will still PAY for Sirius. Then factor in mobile devices that stream Pandora...it'a all over for Terrestrial radio. TO that I say "Bababooey, Bababooey, Howards Sterns Pe..." ah welll you all know that one. ;)
I don't understand why HD radios are not standard in all vehicles. Integration would drive the cost per unit to almost nil for factory installed units. There would be more broadcasters if there were more receivers. Aftermarket HD radio has been available for years, so the technology exists for consumers, why not in factory models? The argument should not be if auto buyers would pay for optional HD, but why the HD is not standard like FM (it is only electronics).
This is just a passing fad. The units cost the same if not more than satellite radio, so who is going to 'upgrade' their current factory installed AM/FM radio to get better 'quality'? It still doesn't affect the constant commercials, censored music, and overall low quality in talk radio that you find on the antiquated 'terrestrial radio'. Satellite radio is the future people.
I listen to NPR radio all the time. Sometimes if there are other people in the car someone will talk and I am forced to listen to two conversations at the same time and I usually have a really hard time doing that. I would pay a lot of money for a Tivo like radio so that I can pause it when someone talks and resume when they finish.
Most satellite radio receivers have built in dvr's. I pause and rewind radio on a daily basis.
Does Satellite have NPR?
So jealous!
Love it!
Sure HD Radio might better the sound and options, but the My Ford Touch was frustrating slow and dangerious while driving with the full touch screen controls.Read the latest issue of Consumer Reports (Feb 2011). They trashed the Ford infotainment thing. So I don't think HD Radio is going to help this. But if it gets into GM cars and trucks then you are talking some movement. Is there a portable HD Radio????