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When working for Sirius Satellite Radio (now Sirius-XM), I was asked to attend a seminar in Newark, N.J., sponsored by iBiquity, the developer of the HD Radio standard. I was uninformed as to the purpose of the seminar and assumed it was a "spy" mission.

With the invitation in my hot little hand, I presented myself at the conference room sign-in desk. Since the HD radio group considered Satellite radio the mortal enemy, I was greeted with a lot of upturned eyebrows and numerous whispers.

I discovered that the seminar was a brain-storming session attempting to identify alternative applications for the HD radio spectrum. Other than straight audio, most suggestions involved various text and simple image file transfer applications. When I suggested that it may be possible to transmit motion A/V data if the full available bandwidth were employed, after the laughter died down, I was (very politely) asked to leave.

I have since discovered that, indeed, a technique is being developed to not only transmit TV over (FM) HD Radio, but also HDTV complete with six channel audio. The technique being used to do this is revolutionary and not at all close to the method I suggested at the seminar (that wouldn't work anyhow).

The actual technique being developed for this Very Low Bit-rate Television (VLBTV) employs a psych-optical display technology call "Image Modeling." The information representing the "core image" of each scene is encoded as a simplistic model, something similar to a "stick" figure. Encrypted in this "model" data are individual "cues" that allow a vast receiver look-up table to render the exact image. The mathematical algorithms, as you may imagine, are exceedingly complex; therefore, the computing power and memory to run the codec are several orders of magnitude greater that that found in CE devices today.

No doubt, VLBTV will revolutionize television as we know it. Bandwidth will cease to be an issue. To my knowledge, Sirius-XM was never invited to another iBiquity seminar.

- Ed

April 1, 2009