Where is my HD radio?

[Woochifer]

"Only twenty dollars".
THATS FUNNY.
When THE mts stereo standard was adopted it wasnt much, had poor channel seperation,
And the dbx name on it, but it was better than nothing.
RCA shaved off the name DBX name and changed things around, the savings were
about a dime a tv(or something like that) they didnt care about the worsened sound.
THE CHANGE netted them MILLIONS.

Not true. The MTS standard has always had the dbx processing circuitry in it, whether the name was on the box or not. As more licensees came onto the market, manufacturers had more supplier choices and could obviously go with lower cost vendors if they chose to do so. But, anything conforming to the MTS standard had to license the dbx noise reduction in the process.

Zenith partnered with dbx to jointly develop their stereo TV format. When the competing stereo TV proposals were getting forwarded to the FCC, the Zenith/dbx proposal won out, because the dbx circuitry allowed for greater audio performance than the other proposals, including better S/N ratio and channel separation than FM radio. Both companies have been collecting the licensing revenue since then.

THAT "twenty dollars" is huge, and what I was talking about, sure it wont cost 179 bucks to add an HD tuner, it might be less than 20 bucks, but if its ten bucks the cost would be huge for manufacturers.
Ten bucks (let alone twenty) over a hundred thousand players is a MILLION bucks after all

That $20 is what the cost spread on the list price is right now, and what one company (Dual) chose to pass along to consumers at this juncture. That's not what the actual unit cost differential is -- it's what Dual presumes consumers will pay to get the HD Radio feature.

Recall that the first production stereo TVs all cost substantially more than previous monophonic models, a lot more than $20 even on the successors to those "stereo ready" console models that already used two speakers. As production volumes ramped up, the cost differential reduced over time until the stereo capability became nothing more than just another commodified feature.

Also remember that the first standalone MTS decoders cost $200 ($350 in today's dollars) when they came out in 1984. Not much different than what you see right now with that $179 standalone Sangean tuner.

Price points on midlevel receivers have been inching up over the last three years to begin with. Satellite radio tuners, networking features, and video processing have bumped up the price points on the midlevel models anywhere from $200 to $400. As more of them add HD Radio tuners, I doubt that the price points will get bumped up much further, since those other functions are now more commodified and trickling down into the entry level models.

Plus, it's easier to absorb that kind of cost on an item that sells for more than $1,000 versus something that lists for $170 (and sells for $100). If more and more manufacturers add HD Radio tuners to their receivers, the remaining manufacturers won't exclude the feature just to save a few bucks. Same thing happened when DTS, DD EX, and Pro Logic II came onto the market. The processors incorporating those formats added to the material and licensing costs, but receiver manufacturers absorbed those costs because those costs were nothing compared to the potential loss in market share as consumers went with receivers that did add those features.

[pixelthis]

Not true. The MTS standard has always had the dbx processing circuitry in it, whether the name was on the box or not. As more licensees came onto the market, manufacturers had more supplier choices and could obviously go with lower cost vendors if they chose to do so. But, anything conforming to the MTS standard had to license the dbx noise reduction in the process.
Zenith partnered with dbx to jointly develop their stereo TV format. When the competing stereo TV proposals were getting forwarded to the FCC, the Zenith/dbx proposal won out, because the dbx circuitry allowed for greater audio performance than the other proposals, including better S/N ratio and channel separation than FM radio. Both companies have been collecting the licensing revenue since then.

Were you alive back then, or asleep?
RCA, (and all of its subsideraries) dropped DBX, and adopted a much cheaper alternative
that had even less channel seperation than the DBX version.
DVX and ZENITH had a liscense for "their" solution to mts decoding, but the govt couldnt force anyone to pay liscensing fees to anyone for something they had to have due to govt regulation.
I WAS THERE, SAW THE SETS IN THE FRIGGIN STORES, read the reviews in the magazines, RCA DIDNT use dbx, didnt put the dbx trademark on their sets.
EVER.
And saved a ton of money in the process

That $20 is what the cost spread on the list price is right now, and what one company (Dual) chose to pass along to consumers at this juncture. That's not what the actual unit cost differential is -- it's what Dual presumes consumers will pay to get the HD Radio feature.

And is probably more than the cost of putting HD radio into the sets, otherwise they wouldnt be doing it

Recall that the first production stereo TVs all cost substantially more than previous monophonic models, a lot more than $20 even on the successors to those "stereo ready" console models that already used two speakers. As production volumes ramped up, the cost differential reduced over time until the stereo capability became nothing more than just another commodified feature.

Its been awhile but I dont remember the cost being that much different, really

Also remember that the first standalone MTS decoders cost $200 ($350 in today's dollars) when they came out in 1984. Not much different than what you see right now with that $179 standalone Sangean tuner.

Heres the answer to your confusion, you're from another planet.
The dollar has lost AT LEAST three fourths of its value in the last twenty years,
and that is just the official, doctored stats from the govt.
Anything costing 200 bucks in 1984 bucks would be 800 in todays bucks, at least.
Electronics today are cheaper due to increased efficiencies and improved tech

Price points on midlevel receivers have been inching up over the last three years to begin with. Satellite radio tuners, networking features, and video processing have bumped up the price points on the midlevel models anywhere from $200 to $400. As more of them add HD Radio tuners, I doubt that the price points will get bumped up much further, since those other functions are now more commodified and trickling down into the entry level models.

Prices wont be "bumped" much further because in the future only stripped models will be sold, because thats all that will be able to be sold.
RETAILERS ARE HURTING BADLY NOW, MUCH MORE than has been let on,
with food and gas and other nessesaries soaring through the roof, a car stereo is going to be waaaay down on the list

Plus, it's easier to absorb that kind of cost on an item that sells for more than $1,000 versus something that lists for $170 (and sells for $100). If more and more manufacturers add HD Radio tuners to their receivers, the remaining manufacturers won't exclude the feature just to save a few bucks. Same thing happened when DTS, DD EX, and Pro Logic II came onto the market. The processors incorporating those formats added to the material and licensing costs, but receiver manufacturers absorbed those costs because those costs were nothing compared to the potential loss in market share as consumers went with receivers that did add those features.

This is econ 101, so whats your point?

You are saying that HD will be added to radios, and that others will add them just to keep up.
This presumes that HD will catch on, something that hasnt happened yet.
Thing is, you are limited by the number of stations with HD, with sat radio you have a lot more choices.
And for the home there is internet radio, cable, etc.
I get 40 channels over cable commercial free that beats the pants off of HD, and did I mention they are connercial free?

[Woochifer]

Were you alive back then, or asleep?
RCA, (and all of its subsideraries) dropped DBX, and adopted a much cheaper alternative
that had even less channel seperation than the DBX version.
DVX and ZENITH had a liscense for "their" solution to mts decoding, but the govt couldnt force anyone to pay liscensing fees to anyone for something they had to have due to govt regulation.
I WAS THERE, SAW THE SETS IN THE FRIGGIN STORES, read the reviews in the magazines, RCA DIDNT use dbx, didnt put the dbx trademark on their sets.
EVER.
And saved a ton of money in the process

Oh I was very much following the development of stereo TV back then. Some of the details seem to have been lost on you obviously, since your grasp of the facts seems to have ended with whatever you saw in the stores. You were there, right -- like you were in the RCA factories and board rooms when they were selecting their supplier vendors?

Like I said, there were multiple suppliers for the decoding circuits that came into the market, but the basic encode/decode process was licensed by Zenith and dbx, whether that trademark was on the box or not. Even if RCA opted for a cheaper solution, the noise reduction built into the MTS standard was still a dbx process and required a royalty payment somewhere along the way, whether that was paid directly by RCA or by whatever supplier vendor they chose to procure the stereo decoding circuitry. The dbx patent was still in effect when the MTS standard was adopted, so every TV sold with MTS stereo required a royalty payment to dbx.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multich...levision_sound

The govt. didn't force anyone to pay the royalties, since manufacturers that didn't want to pay those royalties could simply opt not to make stereo TVs. The FCC approves standards with proprietary technologies all the time, just look at communications standards like HD Radio and even Wi-Fi -- all of them have some form of a patent pool that requires royalty payments. The FCC can choose to approve one standard like they did with stereo TV and HDTV, or they can choose to approve all of them like they did with the disastrous AM stereo formats (a tuner capable of playing all four AM stereo formats had to license the decoders from four different consortia, one of many reasons why AM stereo failed).

Its been awhile but I dont remember the cost being that much different, really

The prices were very different, because the first sets with MTS stereo were the higher end models. The Sony console TVs added about $100 when those models were updated to include the MTS decoder. There were no other changes to account for that cost increase since the previous year's models were "stereo ready" with multiple speakers and built-in audio inputs for outboard stereo TV decoders. The price differential was about that much for smaller TVs as well, partly because those TVs had to change from one speaker to multiple speakers.

Heres the answer to your confusion, you're from another planet.
The dollar has lost AT LEAST three fourths of its value in the last twenty years,
and that is just the official, doctored stats from the govt.
Anything costing 200 bucks in 1984 bucks would be 800 in todays bucks, at least.

I might be from a different planet than you, but my planet is Earth, not so sure about yours! The inflation numbers I'm quoting are from the UNITED STATES, which is a nation on PLANET EARTH. Your dollars obviously come from a different source than the ones that I spend!

http://stats.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm

Electronics today are cheaper due to increased efficiencies and improved tech

Sure, but the spending power of a dollar has little to do with productivity increases in one industry segment.

Prices wont be "bumped" much further because in the future only stripped models will be sold, because thats all that will be able to be sold.

There's no need to bump up the price points because they have already gone up. The price points in the HT receiver market had held steady for nearly a decade until manufacturers began adding satellite radio, networking, and video processing features over the last few years. Those features have bumped up the price points on the midlevel receivers by at least $200.

The midlevel market will always be there because the laundry list of features that some consumers are willing to pay for will continue to expand. Manufacturers can afford to add new features like HD Radio because the unit costs on other features like satellite radio will continue to decline as those functions get integrated into multifunction circuits. Basic DD and DTS decoding used to be done on separate chips from the DSP functions, now they are all combined onto one chip, which reduces the unit cost.

RETAILERS ARE HURTING BADLY NOW, MUCH MORE than has been let on,
with food and gas and other nessesaries soaring through the roof, a car stereo is going to be waaaay down on the list

Actually, the market for aftermarket car stereos ($2.4 billion in 2006) is more than double that for home audio components ($1.1 billion). This is why the mobile market matters more for HD Radio, since that sales tally doesn't even include factory-installed OEM systems.

You are saying that HD will be added to radios, and that others will add them just to keep up.
This presumes that HD will catch on, something that hasnt happened yet.

It's already catching on in the car audio market. Satellite radio didn't make its way into home audio components until XM and Sirius successfully penetrated the mobile market and became a factory-installed option on new cars, and HD Radio will likely follow a similar progression. They got Ford, Hyundai, BMW, Mercedes, Mini, Scion, and Volvo already on board.

Thing is, you are limited by the number of stations with HD, with sat radio you have a lot more choices.

Already got over 1,200 stations broadcasting in HD Radio, and each of those stations can multicast up to five simultaneous feeds onto a single frequency.

And for the home there is internet radio, cable, etc.
I get 40 channels over cable commercial free that beats the pants off of HD, and did I mention they are connercial free?

But, unlike cable or satellite radio, once you buy your tuner the content itself is free (and currently, most of the multicast channels are also running commercial free), and unlike satellite radio, you don't have to pay separate activation and monthly changes with each additional radio.

[pixelthis]

Not getting into another long drawn out debate with a hardheaded type who refuses to pay attention.
No I wasnt on "RCA'S boards deciding things, but it was pretty much public knowledge ,
and in every review of an RCA product I read, they came up with a way to exclude DBX,
used a stereo solution that had even worse channel seperation than the DBX chip,
and saved them a ton of money,
THIS WAS PRETTY MUCH PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE AT THE TIME.
You had to pay a liscense fee if you used dbx, but RCA didnt use DBX,
didnt put it on their sets, or IN them.
And as for the dollar, do some research, my estimate was fudged from the actual,
truth is, the dollar has probably lost more than 3/4 of its value in the last twenty
years.
WHEN GAS recently went up the papers reported that it was, after inflation, THE SAME AS 1980.
In 1980 it was a dollar or so, now its three plus.

[Woochifer]

Not getting into another long drawn out debate with a hardheaded type who refuses to pay attention.
No I wasnt on "RCA'S boards deciding things, but it was pretty much public knowledge ,
and in every review of an RCA product I read, they came up with a way to exclude DBX,
used a stereo solution that had even worse channel seperation than the DBX chip,
and saved them a ton of money,
THIS WAS PRETTY MUCH PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE AT THE TIME.

If it's public knowledge, then how come that Wikipedia citation makes no mention of this? It indicates that all analog stereo TVs included a royalty payment to dbx -- the exclusions would be those using digital solutions. This supports my recollection of the articles I read at that time indicating Zenith/dbx supplied their own processing circuits to other manufacturers, and other licensees sold their own lower cost MTS decoding boards to OEMs as well. Just because you don't see the Zenith/dbx trademark on the TV doesn't mean that Zenith/dbx weren't collecting a royalty payment at some juncture.

And as for the dollar, do some research, my estimate was fudged from the actual,
truth is, the dollar has probably lost more than 3/4 of its value in the last twenty
years.
WHEN GAS recently went up the papers reported that it was, after inflation, THE SAME AS 1980.
In 1980 it was a dollar or so, now its three plus.

"fudged" is the operative term here, because you seem to be pulling those numbers out of your back side! I'll admit that my inflation figure was off -- a 1984 dollar is now worth $2.09 rather than my rounded figure of $1.75, a variance of 19%. But, of course, you were claiming that a 1984 dollar was worth 4x what it's now worth , which means that you were only off by about 92%!

And BTW, a 1980 dollar is now worth $2.59, not more than triple; and a 1988 dollar (which actually comes from 20 years ago) is now worth $1.80. These numbers come straight out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator, so I've done my research. Should be amusing to see what angle you take to perpetuate your "dollar has lost 3/4 of its value in the last 20 years" myth! I'll gladly correct myself when I erroneously report something, but the waiting game is now on to see how you spin and fuzzymath and outright lie yourself out of this one -- this should be fun!

Y'know you can still truthfully claim that your 4x inflation is correct by telling us which planet you're actually from! After all, my facts and figures seem to more grounded in Earth-bound reality, and you're the one claiming to be from a different planet than me. C'mon, are you from within this solar system, or another one within the Andromeda Galaxy? Or gosh, did you actually traverse multiple galaxies to grace this board with your unintentional comedy? We gots to know!

[pixelthis]

If it's public knowledge, then how come that Wikipedia citation makes no mention of this? It indicates that all analog stereo TVs included a royalty payment to dbx -- the exclusions would be those using digital solutions. This supports my recollection of the articles I read at that time indicating Zenith/dbx supplied their own processing circuits to other manufacturers, and other licensees sold their own lower cost MTS decoding boards to OEMs as well. Just because you don't see the Zenith/dbx trademark on the TV doesn't mean that Zenith/dbx weren't collecting a royalty payment at some juncture.



"fudged" is the operative term here, because you seem to be pulling those numbers out of your back side! I'll admit that my inflation figure was off -- a 1984 dollar is now worth $2.09 rather than my rounded figure of $1.75, a variance of 19%. But, of course, you were claiming that a 1984 dollar was worth 4x what it's now worth , which means that you were only off by about 92%!

And BTW, a 1980 dollar is now worth $2.59, not more than triple; and a 1988 dollar (which actually comes from 20 years ago) is now worth $1.80. These numbers come straight out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator, so I've done my research. Should be amusing to see what angle you take to perpetuate your "dollar has lost 3/4 of its value in the last 20 years" myth! I'll gladly correct myself when I erroneously report something, but the waiting game is now on to see how you spin and fuzzymath and outright lie yourself out of this one -- this should be fun!

Y'know you can still truthfully claim that your 4x inflation is correct by telling us which planet you're actually from! After all, my facts and figures seem to more grounded in Earth-bound reality, and you're the one claiming to be from a different planet than me. C'mon, are you from within this solar system, or another one within the Andromeda Galaxy? Or gosh, did you actually traverse multiple galaxies to grace this board with your unintentional comedy? We gots to know!

Beleive it or not "Wikipedia" is not the end all be all of knowledge.
Its whatever someone wants to put into it, and its quite limited..
Typical of this board, I WAS THERE.
I saw the TV 'S, you think I am making this up? Why would I?
NOW memory fades, but I remember this paticular incident because of the outrage I felt
at the time, another case of RCA going for the lowest common denominator.
We had a fight to get a stereo standard, broadcasters fought it tooth and nail,
and heres RCA coming out with something that just about negated having stereo sound,
so typical of RCA, the guys who came out with a videodisc system with a stylus

AND the other thing in my life besides HT and audio is economics and world events,
If you dont know about the massive inflation that we;ve been sufferring from for awhile now you need to read up, and not just "govt" sources.
You must be a liberal, they dont understand that the govt lies as a matter of policy.
Again I was THERE, trust me the dollar has lost at least 3/4 of its value since the 80's,
if you had lived in the eighties you'd understand that.
If you did live in the 80's and dont know that, you need to pay more attention

[Woochifer]

Beleive it or not "Wikipedia" is not the end all be all of knowledge.
Its whatever someone wants to put into it, and its quite limited..
Typical of this board, I WAS THERE.
I saw the TV 'S, you think I am making this up? Why would I?

Sure, you passed through some TV stores -- yuh, you were there! The only TVs that actually had the dbx trademark on the box came from Zenith (and maybe Mitsubishi). Sony never had a dbx trademark on the box, but their product manuals had dbx in the copyrights. Like I said, just because dbx wasn't on the box doesn't mean that it wasn't inside, and the Wiki article supports my recollection of the facts.

AND the other thing in my life besides HT and audio is economics and world events,
If you dont know about the massive inflation that we;ve been sufferring from for awhile now you need to read up, and not just "govt" sources.

Uh, weren't you the one that claimed that your "3/4 loss of value" came from the govt sources? I simply called your bluff and exposed your nonsense for the lies that they were -- I guess you knowledge of economics and world events is just as lacking as your grasp on HT and audio topics!

You must be a liberal, they dont understand that the govt lies as a matter of policy.

What does politics have to do me citing fact (and corrected my original calculation), and you making crap up? You claiming to be a libertarian has nothing to do with you being a liar. You're just a liar because you lie! You got caught in one YET AGAIN, so own up to it and move on. On second thought, just keep doing what you're doing -- poking holes in your balloons is riotous fun!

Again I was THERE, trust me the dollar has lost at least 3/4 of its value since the 80's,

Right, we should trust YOU because you know better than the professionals who actually compile the data and work with this stuff for a living! Y'know, those professionals who publish the govt figures that you originally said supported your claim?

Your persistence just illustrates your total ignorance of how the CPI is actually calculated -- it's based on the totality of how consumers spend money in all categories, not just on a single category like energy or consumer electronics. I work with the Consumer Expenditure Survey data used to compute the inflation rate all the time, so I know how laboriously documented and open the data is. A single CES cross-tabulation of the full dataset for all expenditure categories is more than 200 pages long. All of the error rates and deviations are stated up front, and any data not meeting their statistical significance thresholds is clearly indicated. How do I know this? Because I actually work with the data, dude.

The BLS statisticians in D.C. will happily answer any questions you might have if you think there's some conspiracy behind the numbers. I know because I've actually TALKED to them about questions I had about their data's confidence intervals, error rates, confidentiality thresholds, etc. Y'know, like I WAS THERE!

If you still think the dollar has lost 3/4 of its value in the last 20 years, you need to start spending U.S. currency.