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Satellite Radio Reviewed
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: TotalRecall
ArsTechnica has posted a review of Satellite Radio, a new form of radio that is commercial free, higher quality, and available nationwide. The review takes a trip from the broadcasting company to your car and points out many details about satellite radio along the way. Here's a snip:
Now it's important to understand the encoding process. Each format, or in XM's case, channel, is handled by an encoder. For example, XM Channel 4, the 40s Music channel, goes through the process above, and is sent to its own encoder (Analog to Digital), where it is digitized in real time into 1's and 0's. The audio wave is simply sliced into segments that equate a value of 0's or 1's depending on the amplitude and frequency of the wave. Whereas commercial broadcasters like Clear Channel may encode at this point at up to 256kb/s, 48KhZ (Producer rate), XM most likely encodes up to 128kb/s, 44.1Kh (CD Quality) for reasons I will state later. Keep in mind that this is not the broadcast rate.
Read the entire review here.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
If P2P services get shut down, I just might look into this technology since I won't have a way to try new music out before I but it anymore. Surely there will be a PCI XM tuner card out soon enough.  And 10$ isn't that bad at all for commercial free radio.
10$ a month commercial free sounds unrealistic though. I look for them to either jack the price, or add advertising when the user base gets high enough.
Posted by: redwench
i dunno about that  i have a subscription to a streaming radio program thats almost commercial free (maybe 2 an hour) and it runs me 7 a month. and i can listen to back programs for a month. so 10 for a month of commercial free is certainly doable.
Posted by: Tweaker
I heard about this service, suppose to be good! If I traveled more in the Jeep, I would probably get the service.
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