[BC] Re: HDTV and the dopy general public

[Xmitters@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/24/05 4:30:13 PM Central Standard Time, 
broadcast-request at radiolists.net writes:

<< You can make monitors do pretty well whatever you want.  Stretching and 
 cropping are both options. If you have a true Hi Def feed, 4X3 programs 
 have side panels. It is totally up to the end user.  Personally I use 
 4X3 stretch for SD channels and 16 X 9 for HI def feeds which will give 
 me any 4 X 3 as 4 X3. I let my cable box pass 720 P and 1080I as native 
 without conversion. 4x3 signal also gets line doubled in both directions 
 so you get about a 1000 lines by 1400 which does make prettier pictures. 
 Also, my stretch is not as brutal as what you described.
 
 R
 
 R >>

R:

That makes me feel a lot better from the technical side in that when I buy a 
16:9 I can make the picture look right. It still bothers me that he general 
public can pay for something designed to make the video look absolutely awesome 
and then (apparently) be satisfied with setting it up incorrectly. The stores 
that sell this stuff should know better! No excuse for not having proper video 
for displaying what HDTV can do and how it's supposed to look.

This situation is similar to what some people do with FM stereo. I lunch at a 
place during the week that has two dining rooms. The left speaker in one room 
and the right in the other. A vocal with instrumental accompaniment sounds 
like the singer is in the bathroom depending on what room you're in. Apparently 
management thinks that's a good use of his equipment. I've seen many 
restaurants do this same thing.

Both of these scenarios I feel are suggestive of what we face with HD-Radio 
marketing. The technical superiority of IBOC is going to be pretty low on the 
priority list with most consumers. By virtue of what the public is apparently 
willing to live with and accept as "normal" could actually be a Good Thing. I 
think HD-Radio success or failure depends entirely on how its marketed.

My station is an NPR affiliate and there is actually an underwriter credit 
that we air from the network for Sirius Radio! How stupid is that! Maybe Clear 
Channel 
or CBS would be willing to have an NPR underwriting credit too! NPR probably 
figures that the underwriting is easy money and that there are not enough 
radios out there to cut into our audience share. maybe, but it's not always going 
to be that way. When they feel Sirius has enough penetration to pull the 
underwriting announcement, it will probably be too late (for terrestrial radio that 
is) Sirius is obviously managed by some pretty sharp marketing people. they 
realize that NPR listeners are generally pretty well to do financially and most 
likely to go for the new technology. I wonder how they will listen to their 
new Sirius radio and NPR too. 

Where Srius and Xm have us beat is in the fact that they have a unified 
marketing strategy. Whereas HD-Radio is so focused on the technology that marketing 
is not being addressed very well. If it is, it's not such that I see it. And 
if I'm not seeing it then neither is the general public!

I wonder how long it will be before a cell phone and an iPod get married. As 
a subscriber, I could tell my service provider the kind of music I like and 
even the music rotation and my "drive to work" music selections for the next 
morning could be downloaded to my cellPod overnight. or the songs could already 
be loaded and all I would have download is just the play list and not the 
actual songs. Limited only by the amount of memory! And don't even bother telling 
me how the memory will be the major stumbling block. Not too long ago, Bill 
Gates said 630 kb of computer memory is all we would ever need. If anything like 
this ever comes to pass, what would broadcast radio be good for? HD or no HD? 
Local wx alerts and news could easily be integrated into such a system.

Jeff Glass