[BC] Re: HDTV and the dopy general public

[Ron Cole]

Many new cell phones have MP3 playback already.  Most only come with 64m of
memory but the flash card can be upgraded to around 1gb.

Ron

On 12/25/05, Xmitters at aol.com <Xmitters at aol.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
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