JVC unveils the KT-HDP1 "plug and play" portable HD radio

We've seen a lot of slick tabletop HD radios hit the market in the past few months, but for those of you just looking to add a little high-res broadcast goodness to an existing stereo, JVC's KT-HDP1 seems like a simpler solution. The $129 device rocks an AM / FM / HD tuner and a white LCD screen to display track info and other data. JVC's also releasing three home / car docking kits that should allow you to just pop the HDP1 in and out without a lot of fuss. These should be trickling into Best Buys relatively soon, according to JVC, and should signal the start of a wave of similar products that'll be out in the next 18 months.

[nxtiak @ Sep 27th 2007 9:52PM]

Sweet. Looks good, I almost bought the Sony tabletop "hd" radio for $179. I'll take one of these so I can take it in the car and whatever. Hopefully it has a regular headphone jack.

[Dan @ Sep 27th 2007 10:40PM]

HD Radio is a big sham on the American public. The quality is less than
90 kbts mp3, which is quite a bit less quality than uncompressed FM stereo.
The company doing all this, with a monopoly sanctioned by the FCC is
ibiquity. They are not interested in providing better quality, just signing up
stations around the country, who have no other choice. They are the only
provider of HD radio. Who slept with who to get this done?

It's all about the money, not about provided the consumer with a better
listening experience. The idea of Broadcast Quality is now officially dead
with the advance of so called HD Radio. The very name is such a joke to us in the
industry the only thing we can do is salute the old days and say, at least
I was lucky enough to be around when good quality radio was important to
broadcasters. Those days are over my friends. This will drive more people
to their iPods and Internet radio than ever before.

Dan

[Craig @ Sep 27th 2007 11:15PM]

I agree with everything you said...up to the point that there's nothing of quality to listen to anymore. Our local NPR station here in Cincinnati just started broadcasting its NPR content on HD channel 1 and simulcasting a formerly Internet-only alt-rock station, WOXY.com, on HD channel 2. This is positively huge because WOXY, which had the terrestrial frequency of 97.7 until the owners retired a couple years ago, was about the highest-quality alternative station you could find (consistently recommended by Rolling Stone, etc.) and it has managed to retain a pretty good version of itself through its transition to online-only. So, to be able to hear WOXY again in my car and home without futzing with HTPCs and other wonky net tuner gadgets will be really nice. Worth $130? Yeah...I think it is.

[Dan @ Sep 27th 2007 11:31PM]

I stand corrected and defer to the gentleman from Ohio.
I understand where you are coming from. Something is many times
better than nothing. And simple is also better than "futzing" to get the
job done. I'm betting in the future, you could buy an iPhone (version 2
with G3) go online to the internet version of WOXY, connect your iPhone to your
car system and listen in your car to internet radio. Pretty cool don't you think?

Dan

[Shane @ Sep 27th 2007 11:39PM]

@Dan
As a broadcaster who is doing HD, I would have to agree with you on some of those points, however, it's the system we're stuck with. It may not be the best technical solution but it does have a number of advantages to digital listeners like higher audio quality, reduction in multipath interference as well as 2nd and 3rd audio channels.

You mostly have the commercial broadcasters to thank for the fact that iBiquity is what it is. If they had their way initially we wouldn't even have HD2/HD3 channels! They were afraid of diluting the market...It really is the public broadcasters who are pushing the envelope on this one. NPR worked closely with iBiquity to invent that capability. Most Public broadcasters care enough about quality that their audio channels don't sound like crap.

Regarding the bitrate and sound quality, it really isn't fair to compare it to MP3. Apples and oranges. The codec used by iBiquity is HDC which is essentially an implementation of AAC+. XM also uses an implementation of this codec. At 96 kbps it sounds absolutely amazing. Better than FM quality and nearly CD quality. The biggest advantage over FM is not dealing with a pre-emphasis curve and corresponding de-emphasis.

When you split the 96 kbps HD channel into 48/48 or 48/24/24 to do HD2 or HD2 and HD3 it starts to get a little worse but still better than the bitrates that satellite radio is running on their channels...

Regardless of how you feel about HD Radio, it's here to stay.

[Dan @ Sep 28th 2007 12:53AM]

Here's what I think a lot of people are going to figure out...
You can set up your own internet radio station very easily on the Mac with
Nicecast. (Probably there is something on the PC too). All you do is
run iTunes into Nicecast and broadcast your stream on the internet.
If you have DSL you can easily have enough bandwidth for one or two
streams, so you can point your iPhone to your own internet radio station
and listen to your own mix, on the way to work and on the way home
and in the office, ( for 128 or higher bit rates, we'll need version 2 of
the iPhone next year... so be it). This is very simple and once people are shown how simple it is, they will most likely start setting it up themselves.
A few simple video tutorials on youtube and off you go. Maybe I'll do a few.

Broadcasters have killed the goose by putting 20 minutes of commercials
in a typical hour and also basically eliminated new and interesting music
because their consultants told them the 30 songs they MUST play to get
listeners. This is bad because where are new artists going to get
exposure going forward? Certainly not from the iPhone-iTunes-Nicecast
senario I mentioned above. The marketing of music is forever changed
and it seems like the last folks to understand the change are Radio folks.
How will new artists get exposure? I'm not a guru and don't have the answer.

I ask you this, if a new Elton John were to release an album next month,
(a 24 year old Elton that is) who would hear it? Only a very small sliver of
the listening audience, versus 37 years ago when the vast majority would have
had the opportunity to sample his music on various stations across formats.
Not today my friend. So how does it work today? That is not a simple answer.

40 years ago it was very simple. Broadcasters today have not even the
foggiest idea of how to do it, which begs the question..... what do we need
them for? They don't do news, they don't do local coverage of any kind
whatsoever like we used to. They don't cover local bands. They don't
cover local politics. What are they there for? Why do we give them our
airwaves free of charge? Are they serving the public interest as a public trustee?
Stuff to think about, no?

Dan

[Shane @ Sep 28th 2007 4:35AM]

Dan, Again, I agree with you on many of your points but did you even pay any attention to my comments about PUBLIC broadcasters? Many of them are using the airwaves exactly the way they are intended and are doing some very innovative things.

The shell games that many commercial broadcasters play in terms of buying, selling and moving stations to turn a profit drive me nuts. The FCC has for some reason decided that these kinds of actions actually serve the public.

These kinds of games along with poor programming and too many commercials do indeed drive away listeners and do nothing to serve the public.

You seem to really like Internet streaming. I do as well, however, when you start thinking about the cost per listener it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense as a business model. It's a nice thing to offer but it will never be able to serve the same number of people as cost effectively as a large FM or AM transmitter will.

With traditional broadcasting the initial investment in hardware is only made once. There is no recurring cost per listener. It is inherently a one-to-many technology.

Perhaps as the Internet changes and mobile broadband becomes more and more common this will change, but for now, broadcasters still have an advantage in that regard.

[Greg @ Sep 30th 2007 12:29PM]

What all of you are missing here is that Radio is about dead. This was apparent to me when I drove from San Antonio to El Paso with my laptop and Verizon Broadband card, streaming a radio station non-stop where there aren't any radio stations. Cars will soon have broadband internet and we will all be listening to an internet radio signal and not need to be stuck with commercials. Sat. is not the answer because of no-locally issues but with a stream of a local provider, this issue goes away and probably without the Gov. restrictions of broadcast radio. All of us in the radio industry need to find new jobs in about 4-5 years.

Greg

[enry @ Sep 28th 2007 8:27AM]

HD Radio is too little too late. When you can get superior reception and selection from satellite, it's hard to think why you'd want an HD radio in the first place. We do a lot of traveling by car, so having satellite provide the same channel everywhere is a big benefit.

[Sirocco @ Sep 28th 2007 6:49PM]

HD seems misguided. It would seem to make more sense to just exploit the existing FM dial, since everybody already has FM.

Satellite radio is the ultimate for the car. And for the home, we've got internet radio. HD doesn't improve upon that! There is no HD market, even in theory. It's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. Existing infrastructure doesn't allow for HD. HD is a giant step backwards. I wouldn't invest in it.

[Sirocco @ Sep 28th 2007 6:53PM]

Here's the fallacy of HD radio: if you told me there was another station on AM or FM, I wouldn't listen to it, i.e., I wouldn't listen to it even though it cost me NOTHING. Therefore, why in the world would I listen to another station if it cost me something?

[Sirocco @ Sep 28th 2007 7:06PM]

Anybody who invests in HD needs to "rediscover" their existing AM and FM dial, because whatever they're looking for probably already exists there. And at the point where you'd invest in HD, it makes more sense to invest in satellite. Since there's nothing important or exclusive on HD radio, there's no reason anyone would want it. What were they thinking?

[Sirocco @ Sep 28th 2007 7:17PM]

There's already too much media: AM, FM, Internet radio, Satellite radio, the music channels on Comcast, live TV, the stuff I recorded in Tivo, DVD's, video games, email, my ipod, my blog, my website, cell phone, audiobooks, my CD's, old LP's, mixed tapes, etc. It's bad enough that at some point all of this becomes work. HD is just pointless.

[john @ Sep 29th 2007 2:07AM]

i alreay have a sanyo hd radio in my car but no multi casting ability. and so far my thoughts on it are ok. some areas need to really improve they need to find talent like a alternative morning show for the second and 3 hd channels in there as the commercials say "in between channels". it really would help them at least try to sell these devices. i would make it stand out from basic am/fm. the idea of the device i dont know exactly on the sound quality specs. ive heard for multi channels the bandwidth is split between channels. but if its just 1 channel teh sound quality is better for fm analog. i really would like another choice of a morning show not just a dj. that would make me want to upgrade for my house stereo

[n9ds @ Oct 1st 2007 2:03PM]

I have to ask...what does ANY of this discussion have to do with the KT-HDP1?

[bico @ Oct 2nd 2007 12:50PM]

Hmmm, looks suspiciously like the Sirius PNP receiver from a year and a half ago???

http://www.amazon.com/Plug-Play-SIRIUS-Satellite-Accessories-model/dp/B000E626K2

[tgrove @ Oct 4th 2007 12:08PM]

built in FM transmitter for "cd quality" sound

does that make sense?

[Mike @ Oct 23rd 2007 4:25PM]

If NPR wants Hybrid Digital-Analog (so-called HD Radio) for local content, why has it produced syndicated programming for these new outlets? Shame.