Visiting Atlanta multiple times recently, I have had great success with Tuner2 Internet radio on iPhone each time. Most recently, my rental was some kind of "crossover" vehicle from Chrysler with absolutely no headroom. However, it did have the requisite AUX jack, so I plugged in and listened contentedly getting to my meetings around the city. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though, AT&T makes its home in Atlanta, so I would hope that in their home city, they would be solid. (Of course, we have seen home town apathy before...)
Side note, during a brief sojourn onto the FM dial, I heard a commercial from Comcast. In Atlanta, are offering their High-Speed 2go (awkward spelling) bundling 4G, 3G, and home cable into a single bill. $50/month for the cable + 4G, $70/month for cable + 4G + 3G for roaming. Pretty good pricing. Of course, it is only available in a couple cities so far.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Stinky Steers Suppliment Stinky Signal
More local reporting. I continue to be amazed that AT&T has such poor signal down the I-5 corridor. Folks may say it is "just me," but as I drove by the feed lots north of Coalinga, the signal was still a typical jumpy mess. Sometimes, it even read "no service," meaning no voice or data! After about 20 minutes of trying to let it find a stable spot, I gave up and went back to iPod. For those who might think that it is just the car, that seems highly unlikely. I have had the same results in a PT Cruiser and a Toyota Sienna - two vehicles with what I have to imagine are very different EM profiles.
Let's see if AT&T can improve this highly trafficked corridor.
Let's see if AT&T can improve this highly trafficked corridor.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Flash streaming on iPhone?
Yes, you read the headline right, and it is true. Modulation Index, the folks that have been making radio stations sound better for over 30 years, has released a new version of their Internet radio player on Apple iPhone that supports audio streaming using Flash on iPhone.
So, why is that important? Because it solves three problems: audio quality and reliability, economy of scale, and interactivity.
Problem 1 is audio quality & reliability. Quality is determined by two factors, audio quality per bit and transport overhead. Today, the vast majority of what you hear on iPhone is MP3 over Shoutcast. Some folks have found a way to get HE AAC v1 over Shoutcast using the iPhone built-in decoder. But to get a reliable listening experience on iPhone while driving, you can't send your stream at more than 32Kbps. 24Kbps is even better. And as much as I love HE AAC v1, taking it down to 32Kbps is pushing it (and MP3 at 32Kbps sounds like garbage.) That means you need HE AAC v2, which is only possible if your iPhone app licenses a good codec from a reliable source. (Don't get me started on the low-quality of FAAD2.) That solved the codec problem, but the transport issue was still there. I also love Shoutcast, but it was never intended as a mobile streaming protocol. It works great when the connection is relatively reliable, but it frays at the edges when you get dropouts. HE AAC v2 delivered over RTMP, the Flash Media Server protocol, addresses both issues. You get a high-quality codec delivered on a reliable transport. A solid sound that will make the most demanding station GM proud. Problem 1 solved.
Problem 2 is economy of scale. Even though mobile streaming is becoming popular, it still doesn't have the cume of desktop listeners. That means stations had to either set up a separate server to reach mobile or they had to shoehorn their PC stream. Now that Flash streaming with HE AAC v2 is availble on iPhone, stations don't have to choose. They can have a single stream to serve Windows, Mac, and iPhone, reducing overhead and mangement requirements. It also means that stations can pick from a wider variety of CDNs, giving them control over their own destiny. Problem 2 solved.
Problem 3 is interactivity. As much as it might offend the purists (most of the time, I think I fall into that camp,) radio stations need visuals and interactivity to help differentiate Internet radio. By supporting the Flash streaming protocol and establishing a format for advertising and albumart metadata, the Modulation Index solution gives stations the ability stream album art with clickable "buy now" links as well as synchronized graphics for audio ads, again with click-through on iPhone, on Windows, and on Mac. Problem 3 solved.
The barriers keep falling and the industry is evolving ever more mature solutions to make Internet radio a real business. Given that we are 10 years into this endeavor, I am glad to see it.
So, why is that important? Because it solves three problems: audio quality and reliability, economy of scale, and interactivity.
Problem 1 is audio quality & reliability. Quality is determined by two factors, audio quality per bit and transport overhead. Today, the vast majority of what you hear on iPhone is MP3 over Shoutcast. Some folks have found a way to get HE AAC v1 over Shoutcast using the iPhone built-in decoder. But to get a reliable listening experience on iPhone while driving, you can't send your stream at more than 32Kbps. 24Kbps is even better. And as much as I love HE AAC v1, taking it down to 32Kbps is pushing it (and MP3 at 32Kbps sounds like garbage.) That means you need HE AAC v2, which is only possible if your iPhone app licenses a good codec from a reliable source. (Don't get me started on the low-quality of FAAD2.) That solved the codec problem, but the transport issue was still there. I also love Shoutcast, but it was never intended as a mobile streaming protocol. It works great when the connection is relatively reliable, but it frays at the edges when you get dropouts. HE AAC v2 delivered over RTMP, the Flash Media Server protocol, addresses both issues. You get a high-quality codec delivered on a reliable transport. A solid sound that will make the most demanding station GM proud. Problem 1 solved.
Problem 2 is economy of scale. Even though mobile streaming is becoming popular, it still doesn't have the cume of desktop listeners. That means stations had to either set up a separate server to reach mobile or they had to shoehorn their PC stream. Now that Flash streaming with HE AAC v2 is availble on iPhone, stations don't have to choose. They can have a single stream to serve Windows, Mac, and iPhone, reducing overhead and mangement requirements. It also means that stations can pick from a wider variety of CDNs, giving them control over their own destiny. Problem 2 solved.
Problem 3 is interactivity. As much as it might offend the purists (most of the time, I think I fall into that camp,) radio stations need visuals and interactivity to help differentiate Internet radio. By supporting the Flash streaming protocol and establishing a format for advertising and albumart metadata, the Modulation Index solution gives stations the ability stream album art with clickable "buy now" links as well as synchronized graphics for audio ads, again with click-through on iPhone, on Windows, and on Mac. Problem 3 solved.
The barriers keep falling and the industry is evolving ever more mature solutions to make Internet radio a real business. Given that we are 10 years into this endeavor, I am glad to see it.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Funny Culture of Free
Walk with me for a moment and consider the following...
Imagine you are a person interested in HD Radio radio (a bit far fetched, I know, but stick with me). You have heard stations in your area talk about their great digital quality on HD Radio and their additional programming choices on HD2 and HD3, and you want to hear it. So you go into Best Buy and head to the car audio section. You see a nice HD Radio receiver and take it over to the counter. The person scans it and says, "$99 plus tax please." "$99? What a deal!"
You also happen to have an iPhone. You visit the app store and see two Internet radio players. One is free but uses old codecs (or pirated open-source codecs) and won't stream anything but the most rudamentary formats. The other costs a few bucks but has professional grade audio quality and supports the wide variety of content formats out there. Which one do you choose? The free one, of course! Because Internet radio should be free, right? Even if it sounds crappy, it is better to be free and crappy than cost a couple bucks and sound good.
What is wrong with this picture? The person is willing to pay for a limited piece of hardware that gives them access to only 30 new low-quality broadcasts that may not even come in clearly where they live, but they are not willing to pay a couple of bucks to get a well crafted piece of software that gives them quality access to 100s and 1000s of stations across the Web.
Let us walk some more and consider this next scenario..
You are the GM of a major broadcast radio station. Your boss at headquarters is all excited about HD Radio, so you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to convert your station to HD even though you know there are more transmitters than radios in the market. People want choice, people want digital quality, so even though HD Radio gives you neither, you do it because HD is the "salvation of broadcast radio." During this process, you scream at your engineers because unless they tweak the HD signal just right, it impacts the quality of your analog FM. And if you have learned only one thing in your career, its that quality is critical.
Soon after, some funny thingamajig called an iPhone comes out. In a short time, nearly 50 million people have this iPhone or its slightly deprived younger brother, the iPod touch. Your boss hears the buzz again and says "get us on the iPhone." You call up the professionals and they say "you should use the modern MPEG-4 HE AAC v2 codec over Flash Media Server or 3GPP. That way you can have high-fidelity sound and reliable delivery to all those iPhone listeners." But after seeing their relatively modest price quote for the encoder or the iPhone software, you say "no way!" The Internet is cheap and the Internet is free. Why should I spend money to stream on the Web and to iPhones? It's not as important as my broadcast signal, so I can cut corners. So to save a couple thousand bucks, you use "free" streaming tools and low fidelity codecs to stream to the iPhone, giving your listeners ear fatigue and and continuous drop outs.
What is wrong with this picture? This GM is willing to spend a huge sum of money to chase the HD Radio wild goose and flames his engineers over FM quality issues but is unwilling to spend a couple thousand bucks to give his listeners a high-quality experience over what is the future of his station - the 500M streaming-ready mobile phones already in the market.
The moral of the story.
The free culture of the Internet is going to kill itself eventually. People get what they pay for. Radio Paradise and SomaFM are only here because their listeners love them enough to pay and support them. Ad supported Internet radio is only here because people listen to and act on the advertising. Adobe Flash CS4 is only around because enough people pay for it.
The irony is that many times people pay for stuff that is crappy and snub paying for stuff that is good, just because they think that everything on the Internet should be free. I am using HD Radio as an example, just because it is easy to knock, but the same faulty logic is being applied to any physical vs. virtual purchase. People are willing to pay $8 for a latte and a muffin, but they gripe at an $8 iPhone app. What's up with that?
Bottom line: if nobody pays, then nothing will get produced.
As the Internet evolves, I hope that quality cheap trumps crappy free because people are willing to pay a little for quality. The world will be a much sweeter sounding place.
Imagine you are a person interested in HD Radio radio (a bit far fetched, I know, but stick with me). You have heard stations in your area talk about their great digital quality on HD Radio and their additional programming choices on HD2 and HD3, and you want to hear it. So you go into Best Buy and head to the car audio section. You see a nice HD Radio receiver and take it over to the counter. The person scans it and says, "$99 plus tax please." "$99? What a deal!"
You also happen to have an iPhone. You visit the app store and see two Internet radio players. One is free but uses old codecs (or pirated open-source codecs) and won't stream anything but the most rudamentary formats. The other costs a few bucks but has professional grade audio quality and supports the wide variety of content formats out there. Which one do you choose? The free one, of course! Because Internet radio should be free, right? Even if it sounds crappy, it is better to be free and crappy than cost a couple bucks and sound good.
What is wrong with this picture? The person is willing to pay for a limited piece of hardware that gives them access to only 30 new low-quality broadcasts that may not even come in clearly where they live, but they are not willing to pay a couple of bucks to get a well crafted piece of software that gives them quality access to 100s and 1000s of stations across the Web.
Let us walk some more and consider this next scenario..
You are the GM of a major broadcast radio station. Your boss at headquarters is all excited about HD Radio, so you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to convert your station to HD even though you know there are more transmitters than radios in the market. People want choice, people want digital quality, so even though HD Radio gives you neither, you do it because HD is the "salvation of broadcast radio." During this process, you scream at your engineers because unless they tweak the HD signal just right, it impacts the quality of your analog FM. And if you have learned only one thing in your career, its that quality is critical.
Soon after, some funny thingamajig called an iPhone comes out. In a short time, nearly 50 million people have this iPhone or its slightly deprived younger brother, the iPod touch. Your boss hears the buzz again and says "get us on the iPhone." You call up the professionals and they say "you should use the modern MPEG-4 HE AAC v2 codec over Flash Media Server or 3GPP. That way you can have high-fidelity sound and reliable delivery to all those iPhone listeners." But after seeing their relatively modest price quote for the encoder or the iPhone software, you say "no way!" The Internet is cheap and the Internet is free. Why should I spend money to stream on the Web and to iPhones? It's not as important as my broadcast signal, so I can cut corners. So to save a couple thousand bucks, you use "free" streaming tools and low fidelity codecs to stream to the iPhone, giving your listeners ear fatigue and and continuous drop outs.
What is wrong with this picture? This GM is willing to spend a huge sum of money to chase the HD Radio wild goose and flames his engineers over FM quality issues but is unwilling to spend a couple thousand bucks to give his listeners a high-quality experience over what is the future of his station - the 500M streaming-ready mobile phones already in the market.
The moral of the story.
The free culture of the Internet is going to kill itself eventually. People get what they pay for. Radio Paradise and SomaFM are only here because their listeners love them enough to pay and support them. Ad supported Internet radio is only here because people listen to and act on the advertising. Adobe Flash CS4 is only around because enough people pay for it.
The irony is that many times people pay for stuff that is crappy and snub paying for stuff that is good, just because they think that everything on the Internet should be free. I am using HD Radio as an example, just because it is easy to knock, but the same faulty logic is being applied to any physical vs. virtual purchase. People are willing to pay $8 for a latte and a muffin, but they gripe at an $8 iPhone app. What's up with that?
Bottom line: if nobody pays, then nothing will get produced.
As the Internet evolves, I hope that quality cheap trumps crappy free because people are willing to pay a little for quality. The world will be a much sweeter sounding place.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Adjusting the signal
The other day I was driving and I noticed a change in my behavior. On my way to a regular destination, I chose to go a different route. Not really longer, just different. Turns out my reasoning was to avoid a hole in the 3G coverage that I noticed awhile back. I have become seriously attached to my Radio Paradise sessions in the car and I don't want to miss anything, even while running errands. My mental routing engine knows that and plans accordingly.
Internet radio in the car has now become part of my subconscious pattern. Radio has become visceral again, part of my life. I like that.
Internet radio in the car has now become part of my subconscious pattern. Radio has become visceral again, part of my life. I like that.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A funny thing happened on the way to Cupertino...
Arrived in San Jose and got the standard rental car from Thrifty. This time an exciting Seabring... be still my heart! Anyway, as with the other rentals I have had this month, this one had a AUX jack, so it was "Internet radio ready." I plugged in my iPhone running Tuner2 and headed out.
Driving around the South Bay, I tested 101, 85, 280, Lawrence Expressway, and Montague Expressway. The experience was flawless, with two surprising exceptions. First, it dropped out briefly around 85 at El Camino, center of the commute path for folks heading to Google, MSFT, and the other companies in Mountain View.
The second, however, was even more odd. Heading down 280 south at DeAnza, the radio dropped from 3G to Edge to nothing. Those in the know will recognize the location as being right outside Apple HQ in Cupertino! A friend suggested that the failure was due to heavy usage within Apple. That may be the case, but it is pretty odd. Area in La Jolla near Qualcomm HQ must have at least as much usage, but I haven't experienced failure around there yet.
It appears that Apple and AT&T need a little more cooperation.
Even with the dropouts, though, I must say that they were brief and definitely provided an experience as least as good as satellite radio.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Cruising to Palm Springs
A brief post for a brief trip. Went out to Palm Springs last weekend. Tuner2 App on iPhone worked great. As usual, signal died at the top of the 241 toll road. Also had brief signal trouble on California Hwy 60 going through the hills outside of Moreno Valley. Overall, though, it was smooth sailing. On a two hour trip, the interruptions accumulated to at most 5 minutes of silence. If only AT&T would get on the job and fix those holes!
For those who find these signal gaps a reason to dismiss the readiness of Internet radio in the car, I offer the following advice. Next time you listen to FM radio, listen carefully. You will soon hear dropouts in those same rural regions where your mobile signal fades. KPCC is the only reason I listen to broadcast radio in LA. As soon as I enter those same hilly areas where I lost signal on my iPhone, the FM signal gets fuzzy and sometimes even drops off. It would be interesting to have a sponsored study where someone drives around and records audio quality and reliability of an FM signal compared to the audio quality of that same station delivered over Internet. I am thinking that they won't be so different on the reliability front and the audio quality front will be heavily in favor of the Internet station.
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