HD vs Satellite Radio

[Girius]

Who here has had both HD and Satellite radio and can give an unbiased review of the pros and cons of each?

Everyone I talk to is 100% sold on one or the other.

I obviously have Sirius Satellite Radio but am thinking about thying out HD if it has value.

 

[LER]

From what I can tell, it very much depends on where you are geographically. I.E. what city you live in, and how close you are to the towers.

I haven't tried HD radio, but do have subs to both XM and Sirius.

I know ClearChannel promotes the hell out of HD here, but I don't know how strong it is, nor if the content is any good.

 

[Girius]

I am in the Charlotte NC area 9If anyone has experience with either)

 

[philhu]

I have all 3.

I like XM best.

HD here in Boston is iffy. It goes in and out as you drive around town

When it is on, it sounds very good, even the HD AM station.

What else would you like to know?

 

[goaliebob99]

I too have all three.. I like Sirius the best...

Then my HD radio as I get over 50 stations.. (Im in the chicago area) I don't have the issue of it going in and out when I drive around.. It seems no matter where im at within 40 miles of the city I get a very constant signal. anything 50 miles and out it will drop out.

then XM.

 

[harshness]

I'd suggest going to a high-end car stereo store in your area for information. I used that technique recently and found out that there are nine stations available in my area.

Like AM stereo before it that was driven by the car stereo market, I don't have a lot of hope for HD Radio.

 

[stone phillips420]

i have all 3 active in my car

MSP MN Area

i must say i prefer sirius for music xm for sports and only listen to hd radio when having trouble with sirius/xm

hd radio is nice kinda sounds like 5.1 to me
most stations in my area broadcast hd, but i thought hd was commercial free, i hear commercials on hd radio more often then not

i say stick with sirius, but as long as you in a metropolitain area there should be more then a few hd radio stations to choose from

 

[mdovell]

I have a HD one and I think it's interesting to a point. I think much of it though depends as to the station and depends if it's in a car or not. There's some great content that's good as long as I'm within say 15 miles from the transmitter. However there's also a public radio one that has three stations that I could probably get in maybe entire counties. Beyond 30 miles I'd say is when things get iffy. I like the substations as some are creating their own format rather than that of generic rotation of the same stuff. Having the displays of the track and artist is a big plus and this goes beyond RDS material.

the FM portion I think is fine...the AM definatly needs some more work and I think this will take another year to year and a half to finalize. It isn't so much during the day but at night some of the dx'ing gets complicated.

It's also encouraging to see some of the non commerical sectors such as college and public radio getting into the spectrum again...I wonder if pirates could be abound in this too.

 

[DStroyer]

I have XM and HD.

Pretty much, what it comes down to is:

1) Channel choices - Right now, no matter how close you are to a major market where everybody (or, almost everybody) is broadcasting in HD and (most are) carrying multiple streams of audio, satellite radio still wins. Here's the eventual ideal thing for HD radio - When you're in the car, and you're near a major or medium radio market, you can probably get around 20 FM stations... If each of them broadcasts 3 channels of audio, then you've got 60 stations to choose from. That's pretty good. That could be a deciding factor for people who don't want to pay a monthly fee for radio.

2) Cost - Whether or not you want to pay for radio. Some people are STAUNCHLY against paying for radio. Once you can get 60 HD radio channels in any given area, those people will gladly go with HD over satellite. I think most of us who are satellite radio subscribers will agree that $13 a month is a decent price to pay for not having to stumble across commercials on your favorite music channels. (Yes, a couple of XM music channels that are programmed by Clear Channel have commercials, but XM also has non-commercial near-duplicates of those channels.)

3) If you have very narrow musical interests, and typically only listen to one or two stations, and you absolutely can't stand commercials, HD is not for you. HD-1 channels are simulcasts of the main stations that you get on a regular radio, so expect commercials on those right now. At this time, most HD-2 and HD-3 channels ARE commercial-free, but that will eventually end as broadcasters have to start paying for the equipment necessary to broadcast those channels (as well as make a profit!)

I love the concept of HD radio, but right now, as far as channel choices go, it just can't compete with satellite. I think radio is pushing HD way before it's ready for primetime. They should've stayed away from spending the money and spot inventory promoting the hell out of it until you can get at least 50-60 channels of programming ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE you drive.

Here's my vision for HD radio: Suppose you're a jazz music fan. You're driving through an area where you're listening to WXXX-HD2's jazz channel. (If they want to save some money, they could even have the programming come off of a network, instead of being programmed locally.) As you drive out of WXXX's coverage area, you drive into WYYY's coverage area. They should make an HD radio receiver where, as the WXXX signal gets weak, it automatically and seamlessly switches you over to WYYY's HD2 channel that's running the same jazz format.

I don't know if the technology will ever get that far, or...... Will Wi-Fi-equipped car radios finally see the light of day, and trump everybody? A wireless broadband connection to your car radio and over a million channel choices! (That won't cause TOO many accidents )

 

[mdovell]

Certainly there's far more formats to listen to music today than before. Plenty of devices can play mp3's....pda's, gpd's, some cd players, dvd players etc.

I don't think that either format would kill the other outright. this is how hd could play things a bit

1) making sure that every channel is showing track and artist information...maybe make it a gimmic and have a contest with some "magic word" that is ticker information implying you have to get one of the radios also use the ticker for things we should picture sometimes that are important. lottery winnings, maybe weather reports etc

2) put things that are more "edgy" on the hd2 stations...controversal debates and some music etc

3) give a break for the transmitters to low powered stations, college and community ones. That way it doesn't look like a big media grab for things

heck maybe give out a few transmitters to some pirates...

 

[digiblur]

It's a no brainer for me... Sirius works great especially for trips since you aren't hunting for stations. Love the artists and song alerts on the Sirius too. I couldn't go back at this point.

Plus we only have like 3 or 4 digital radio stations. Sorry, I don't call it HD since it is a play on words from HDTV's. The digital radio I've heard isn't high definition.

 

[Peter Parker]

HD is hit or miss here in DC. I like XM because of its deeper play lsits for most genres but that is my taste others may have a different opinion.

 

[markcosenza]

Just curious on something. I was under the impression that the bonus stations not available on regular radio were commercial free. So that isn't the case I take it. To me, that alone would be a deal breaker.

 

[harshness]

Just curious on something. I was under the impression that the bonus stations not available on regular radio were commercial free. So that isn't the case I take it. To me, that alone would be a deal breaker.

Most stations offering Hybrid Digital (HD) channels offer a simulcast of the analog feed as their primary channel. Some HD channels are commercial-free, but not as many as they seem to be implying.

The problems that I have with HD channels in my area are that they aren't available from the channels that I listen to and all of them are at least 50 airline miles away.

I heartily encourage anyone thinking about HD radio to do a thorough investigation to determine if there is any content worth going after in their area. Start at your local car stereo specialty shop as they'll be the most likely to know what you're talking about with respect to Hybrid Digital radio.

 

[rlaurinojr]

These two are apple and oranges completely.

HD radio has superior sound to Sirius/XM but is limited geographically thus can be come nasty as you leave the coverage area. It is limited by the number of local stations in the area that have opted to spend the 250,000 to upgrade their transmitting equipment. So ojnce they upgrade it is highly unlikely that they will reverse course on having these channels.

10 channels in the Charleston, SC market just became 20 and I can probably reach some of the other markets as hear channel in Columbia all the time on standard. Not too bad!

You can check the listing at:

HD Digital Radio | DISCOVER IT! | HD Digital Radio

Sirius/XM is nationwide. Almost 200 channels of varying content. Music channels are over-compressed and the talk stations (anything higher than 100 on Sirius) is even worse.

HD radio should be used to augment your listening capabilities as these new channels are offering a unique blend of music. These stations are required (HD 2 & 3 channels only) to broadcast commercial free making it even better for the listener. I've seen channels playing better blends of Classic Rock than the regular Classic Rock station. Folk Music and Oldies as well as Contemporary Christian has been interesting. The Christian Channels normally choose one channel to play Christian Rock and the other plays Praise & Worship. The Rock is normally good. (No pun intended

-Ray

 

[paja]

These two are apple and oranges completely.

HD radio has superior sound to Sirius/XM but is limited geographically thus can be come nasty as you leave the coverage area. It is limited by the number of local stations in the area that have opted to spend the 250,000 to upgrade their transmitting equipment. So ojnce they upgrade it is highly unlikely that they will reverse course on having these channels.

10 channels in the Charleston, SC market just became 20 and I can probably reach some of the other markets as hear channel in Columbia all the time on standard. Not too bad!

You can check the listing at:

HD Digital Radio | DISCOVER IT! | HD Digital Radio

Sirius/XM is nationwide. Almost 200 channels of varying content. Music channels are over-compressed and the talk stations (anything higher than 100 on Sirius) is even worse.

HD radio should be used to augment your listening capabilities as these new channels are offering a unique blend of music. These stations are required (HD 2 & 3 channels only) to broadcast commercial free making it even better for the listener. I've seen channels playing better blends of Classic Rock than the regular Classic Rock station. Folk Music and Oldies as well as Contemporary Christian has been interesting. The Christian Channels normally choose one channel to play Christian Rock and the other plays Praise & Worship. The Rock is normally good. (No pun intended

-Ray

I live in the Chicago area where we have 55 HD stations and 19 HD2 with more on the way. I am also a sub of both Xm and Sirius. One of the HD2 stations here is an Oldies format which I find better than either similar offering on XM or Sirius. And the AQ blows sat away.

 

[rcbridge]

In my area Philadelphia DMA, there are about 20 HD stations with varying genres of music and a few talk, the overall quality is very good (this can vary from station to station).

I also have Sirius radio, the variety is much better than HD, however the quality of sound is lower then HD.

I don't know where you are located so I would do my homework and find out what is available in your area, how far are you from the broadcast towers.

(there are a few sites to find available stations in your area, do a google search).

In my opinion quantity vrs quality.
Quantity Sat radio.
Quality HD radio.

 

[darrencp22]

The thing that concerns me about Sat radio is the loss of local content adn identity.

 

[harshness]

The thing that concerns me about Sat radio is the loss of local content adn identity.

When the local content is limited to local advertising and the rest is nationally syndicated or seemingly "canned" programming, I don't think there's much local identity to many of the commercial stations.

 

[bpickell]

I have both Sirius and HD in my car. I almost exclusively listen to Sirius do to it being commercial free. HD still has commercials and in my case if I stray out of the coverage area it tends to lock up the display on my head unit and I have to power it off and back on again for it to clear. Plus I love the artist alerts that you get through Sirius. If one my favorite artists comes on one of the other channels it will pop up and tell me what channel it is playing on. I love that feature.