I agree that the quality is relatively low with the free player that I use. I used to be a DXer when I was younger (pull in distant AM stations) and it sounds much like those distant stations I'd pick up now and then, or perhaps more like music over the telephone. A few stations broadcast in stereo and that helps. But basically, low quality AM bandwidth.
And what else could it be at 12 to 20 kilobits per second? By my calculations, over-the-air analog FM would need approximately 30000 samples at 8 bits or 240 kbits/s to be reproduced digitally (a CD would be 705 kbits/s). Obviously, the compression used by RealPlayer does a very good job of optimizing the tiny spectrum they are permitted to use, but it doesn't come close to what I would choose to play for music. DVD audio, if they ever stop fighting over the standards and encryption, would be a much higher BW than any of these.
BTW, I do find RealAudio useful for getting sports broadcasts on occasion -- last baseball season I listened to Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez pitch several times. I felt it was a fabulous medium for sports/talk radio.
Also, I listened to numerous dispatches from the Mt. Everest expedition that tried to find (and succeeded in finding) Mallory's body last March. I've felt from the beginning that the potential for RealAudio is large as it first absorbs the shortwave market and then eventually the news market, too.
The big inhibitor of this stuff will be the video, though, not the audio. I'd love to watch the news whenever I wanted to, but to get even halfway decent video, I think it needs a minimum of 100 kbits/s (based on experience) and ideally much higher. Obviously, not a lot of people have connections that fast at home yet, and it won't take many of those to clog the pipe today. |
