http://www.macminute.com/2007/01/08/radio-shark-hd/

Griffin to Develop radio SHARK HD

January 8, 2007 - 17:18 EST Griffin Technology today announced plans to develop radio SHARK HD, a digital table top radio for Mac and PC with HD Radio technology. radio SHARK HD -- like Griffin's radioSHARK and radio SHARK 2 -- will house a radio tuner in a "shark fin" that connects to the USB port of a Mac or PC. With radio SHARK HD users will be able to listen to their favorite AM/FM stations in pure digital audio quality, conveniently from their personal computers.

With next-generation digital HD Radio technology from iBiquity, digital FM stations approach CD-quality sound, and digital AM stations approach FM-quality sound. HD Radio technology also makes "multicasting" possible, allowing broadcasters to double or triple the number of program streams (all free) available to listeners. In addition, it will allow users to review and playback music recorded from digital radio on a personal computer, sync recordings of digital radio programming to an iPod, and purchase songs heard on digital radio from Apple's iTunes Music Store. Griffin's radio SHARK HD will be available in Summer 2007. Pricing was not announced.

I was looking at the URL http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark2 and although I see Radio Shark 2, I still don't see a Radio Shark HD yet.

I wouldnt hold my breath waiting. There is a real good reason why there are absolutely NO pci HD Radio tuner cards on the market. Ibiquity and the record industry put a stop to those before they could even hit the shelves, and there were several products ready to release at the time. They would have provided a means to legally record HD Radio broadcasts in pure digital format along with the title and artist info. A big no no as far as the RIAA and Ibiquity is concerned, and Ibiquity went to a lot of trouble to encrypt the digital stream just to prevent anyone from doing so.

Even the add itself is a joke, I mean ask yourself why you would want to tag a song so that you can purchase it from an iTune's store when you just recorded it to your hard drive! Some poor vapor ware add designer just put their foot in their mouth big time. :)

There are currently two inexpensive HD Radio receivers that CAN be controlled by a PC, and the only reason they exist is that they could not be interfaced to a PC when they initially released the products. They are both limited to analog recording, but you really dont give up much there.
With a single mouse click I can automatically record all the songs an HD Radio channel broadcasts, and each song is saved as an mp3 with the title and artist info. :p

Don’t get me wrong here, as I would love to see the RIAA collapse completely when the onslaught of legal high quality pure digital near CD recordings hit the internet the same day they release the hardware that provides that capability, but as long as Ibiquity controls HD Radio hardware through restrictive licensing its just not going to happen.

A big no no as far as the RIAA and Ibiquity is concerned, and Ibiquity went to a lot of trouble to encrypt the digital stream just to prevent anyone from doing so.


So HD radio is actually encrypted ? Or is it just a straight receiver ?

The digital stream that rides on the RF signal is encrypted, the receiver electronics contain an Ibiquity licensed DAC that only permits access after the digital to analog conversion has taken place. The only way receiver hardware can transmit the stream is after it has been processed by the DAC, so even a PCI card or USB equivalent could only use analog transfer rather than pure digital for its audio, and that pretty much defeats the purpose or advantage of either technology. The use of encryption is why Ibiquity can control the hardware licensing, otherwise licensing would amount to less than an after thought by most hardware manufacturers and asian based products would likely completely ignore it. I have seen some workarounds such as reprocessing the analog signal so that it can be transfered over TOSLINK. Its certainly not a pure digital transfer of the source signal, but it does remove the analog cable connection between the receiver and another perepheral.
There is another HD Radio capable receiver on the market (Onkyo Integra DTR-9.1) that can interface with a PC and it provides a TOSLINK (e.g. digital optical) connection, but the price for the hardware (~$3000) is a bit prohibitive, and its particularly discouraging when you realize what is actually happening inside.

I think one has to almost admire the existing HD Radio hardware manufacturers, it takes a pretty commited group to absorb the ~$6000/mo Ibiquity licensing for reciever hardware. You would have to sell a lot of radios every month before your out of the red there. Maybe thats why they are so dam expensive. ;)

I think one has to almost admire the existing HD Radio hardware manufacturers, it takes a pretty commited group to absorb the ~$6000/mo Ibiquity licensing for reciever hardware. You would have to sell a lot of radios every month before your out of the red there. Maybe thats why they are so dam expensive. ;)

Sure you didn't mean transmitter instead of receiver?

I wonder if they give a break to colelge stations on that...6K a month can be huge...but could a transmitter send out more than one station (not counting sub stations) then it could be shared.

Nope, thats for receiver hardware. The licensing for a station is usually over $10k, and the equipment expense to upgrade for HD Radio transmission can easily exceed $100,000. I dont believe you could transmit more than one station with a single tower, but I could be wrong there.
There are some folks that hang out here on the HD Radio forum that could answer questions like these more precisely than I could.

The digital stream that rides on the RF signal is encrypted, the receiver electronics contain an Ibiquity licensed DAC that only permits access after the digital to analog conversion has taken place. The only way receiver hardware can transmit the stream is after it has been processed by the DAC, so even a PCI card or USB equivalent could only use analog transfer rather than pure digital for its audio, and that pretty much defeats the purpose or advantage of either technology. The use of encryption is why Ibiquity can control the hardware licensing, otherwise licensing would amount to less than an after thought by most hardware manufacturers and asian based products would likely completely ignore it. I have seen some workarounds such as reprocessing the analog signal so that it can be transfered over TOSLINK. Its certainly not a pure digital transfer of the source signal, but it does remove the analog cable connection between the receiver and another perepheral.
There is another HD Radio capable receiver on the market (Onkyo Integra DTR-9.1) that can interface with a PC and it provides a TOSLINK (e.g. digital optical) connection, but the price for the hardware (~$3000) is a bit prohibitive, and its particularly discouraging when you realize what is actually happening inside.

I think one has to almost admire the existing HD Radio hardware manufacturers, it takes a pretty commited group to absorb the ~$6000/mo Ibiquity licensing for reciever hardware. You would have to sell a lot of radios every month before your out of the red there. Maybe thats why they are so dam expensive. ;)

Wow Mechanic. I am sure I have seen you on here before, I am sure you are aware that this is not completely true. The Sangean HDT-1X does also provide a TOSLINK S/PDIF output and in full digital without being converted to analog first.

Wow Mechanic. I am sure I have seen you on here before, I am sure you are aware that this is not completely true. The Sangean HDT-1X does also provide a TOSLINK S/PDIF output and in full digital without being converted to analog first.

But does the HDT-1X control the radio from the PC?

I actually think this is largely a "distinction without a difference'. The degredation of encoding to a lossy codec is far more than just recording the analog sianal from your tuner card through your system mixer, using a program like Total Recorder.

Nope, thats for receiver hardware. The licensing for a station is usually over $10k, and the equipment expense to upgrade for HD Radio transmission can easily exceed $100,000. I dont believe you could transmit more than one station with a single tower, but I could be wrong there.
There are some folks that hang out here on the HD Radio forum that could answer questions like these more precisely than I could.


http://www.ibiquity.com/i/pdfs/Licensing_%20Fact_%20Sheet_2008A.pdf

The above to ibiquity's HD license agreement.

As I read it, there is a one-time fee for main channel and a revenue sharing plan for the auxiliary streams if they are used for commercial purposes with a $1000/yr minimum which I have been told applies to non-com users as well.

The use of multiplexers to permit several stations on a single stick/array has been common practice for at least 60 years. Here in NYC TV and FM have been on antennas atop the Empire State bldg since the late 1940s. The common TV antenna was installed around 1952-3 and common FM (Alford) was built in 1965.

AM can also multiplex but it has thus far been less common. Two examples I know of are 660-880 (WNBC-WCBS) beginning in 1967 untill recently. Another case is that of WNYC feeding one of WMCA's three sticks. WNYC is 10K day and 1K-n and runs iboc daytime

AM iboc has really critical requirements for antenna bandwidth, symmetry and phase so directional arrays often require expensive re-work.

As I understand it, the practice is for FM stations to use separate TX/Ant for iboc and AM using common for both.

Lino