Satellite Radio vs. the Competition

Satellite Radio vs. the Competition
From:http://www.electronics-in-china.com/buy-receiver/
Key words: CD, mp3, receiver
There has been much speculation concerning the future of satellite radio and the competition it faces from the likes of iPod and Internet radio. Lets break it down.
A music player that you can stream in your car with CD quality sound and a virtual unlimited song list unless you are obsessed with simply trying to compile every song ever recorded. It is a very nice way to have your entire music catalog at your finger tips and the sound quality through your car speakers is decent. Personally I use mp3 CDs in my car. The down side to all of this is that eventually I desire live voices through my radio. Yes even musicians get bored with music and need some talk radio to change things up a bit. Switching to Satellite financial radio is what I love to do.
I very much believe it will be a major contender in the future but it is not as easy as you may think. A lot of things have to improve technology wise. For those of you who think it will be like punching up a web site from your laptop, think again. It will still be receiver based. Motorola is working on an Internet radio receiver for your car, but guess what? You will have to pay for this service also. After all it is the Internet. You will need an ISP and that ain't free. Think of the satellite card from Sprint that plugs into your laptop enabling you to surf the net anywhere. They are $40.00 - $60.00 per month.
With the receiver, it isn't as if you will be able to punch in any old web site you want to get the desired audio stream. The Internet receivers will have a set directory of music stations that are licensed to stream to them. Also, Internet radios will need a standardized way to get a list of stations which are available and that list will need a globally relevant set of sorting and grouping tags. Then you will need a way to transport that sound your radio which will probably be in the codec of mp3. Sound quality stream will be bit rates from 96kps to 128kps. This is typical terrestrial radio sound quality in comparison. For bit rate efficiency it will probably be more like the lower value 96kps which is close AM quality sound. I can go on and on but I think you get the picture.
From：www.electronics-in-china.com