CES 2007: HD Radio – audio quality to rival DAB on FM rbands
HD Radio is a new technology that is sweeping through the States. It works by providing a digital signal on ordinary FM and AM frequencies. That means much greater sound quality and none of the complication of trawling through long lists of stations to find your favourite one – you still tune your radio to the same frequency as you did before and your HD Radio picks up the new channels . It can even be used to offer multiple channels on the same frequency.
This years CES is a big deal for HD Radio in the US – the technology is still in its infancy, but judging from the sheer number of dokcing stations, handhelds and car stereos on show that support it, it must be going from strength to strength.
So what are the odds of a UK launch ever happening? It seems kind of hard to imagine to me, especially given the fact that our airwaves are ruled with an iron fist (hell, we’ve only just been allowed to use FM iPod trnasmitters recently). However, the HD Radio team at CES seemed confident that it could take off in the UK someday – just as it is beginning to in other countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, New Zealand, The Philippines, Poland, Switzerland, Thailand and Ukraine. We’ll have to wait and see.
Check out the rest of our CES coverage.
