Whatever happened to Sirius Backseat TV?

[Roveer]

I read with great joy back in early 2006 about the SCV1 that would be
available. This thing was already winning awards. It's been listed
on crutchfield.com for over a year. Now I read it's still winning
awards at CES 2008. Yet... It has not hit the market yet.

Does anyone know anything about this product and when it will be
available? This will be my 3rd spring vacation that will come and go
without a product that I have been eagerly awaiting.

I did find a link on sirius's website that made mention of Q2 08.
That's 1.5 years after initial announcement. I also see it as an
option on Chrysler town & country. Really confused as to why we can't
buy it... Thinking it must be something legal.

Roveer

[David]

Post by Roveer
I read with great joy back in early 2006 about the SCV1 that would be
available. This thing was already winning awards. It's been listed
on crutchfield.com for over a year. Now I read it's still winning
awards at CES 2008. Yet... It has not hit the market yet.
Does anyone know anything about this product and when it will be
available? This will be my 3rd spring vacation that will come and go
without a product that I have been eagerly awaiting.
I did find a link on sirius's website that made mention of Q2 08.
That's 1.5 years after initial announcement. I also see it as an
option on Chrysler town & country. Really confused as to why we can't
buy it... Thinking it must be something legal.
Roveer

It's on the air and has rendered the audio on all the other channels
very painful to listen to. The little shitheads don't need live TV to
msedate them. A DVD will warp their minds just as well.

Sirius is run by morons.

[q***@gmail.com]

Not to add salt to the wound, but I have aways felt that satellite
radio (I have XM in my wife's car) was so unbarable that I wouldn't
even bother to listen to it. We liked having FNC after 9/11, but that
has worn off and I have to say that listening to anything other than
jazz (where there are lots of silence between the beats) was just
painful. I put on a classic rock station and was so dissapointed by
what I heard that I will no longer listen to XM.

Sorry to hear that Sirius stole what little bandwidth you had for
BSTV, but I still don't understand what is holding up their
aftermarket product? Looked finished to me.

Roveer

[Rick Brandt]

Post by q***@gmail.com
Not to add salt to the wound, but I have aways felt that satellite
radio (I have XM in my wife's car) was so unbarable that I wouldn't
even bother to listen to it. We liked having FNC after 9/11, but that
has worn off and I have to say that listening to anything other than
jazz (where there are lots of silence between the beats) was just
painful. I put on a classic rock station and was so dissapointed by
what I heard that I will no longer listen to XM.
Sorry to hear that Sirius stole what little bandwidth you had for
BSTV, but I still don't understand what is holding up their
aftermarket product? Looked finished to me.
Roveer

Honestly, what configuration are you people using who have sound quality
problems?

Unit?
Stereo?
Connection?

I have a Sirius Sportster using the Audio out to the Aux input of my new Volvo's
DynAudio factory system and it sounds incredible. Is it as good as THX DVDs on
an expensive home unit? Not at all, but WAY better than the FM from that same
car unit.

I think that if you asked the people at Sirius and XM what SQ threshold they are
shooting for it would be "better than FM". Were you really expecting the SQ of
a some uber-expensive audiofile system? Do none of you use MP3 players either?
If I plug my Ipod into the Aux input of my car stereo I detect no difference in
quality compared to Sirius. If you are using the FM transmission feature then
THAT is the problem, not sat-radio in general terms.

Perhaps some of the sat-receivers on the market are just deficient in this area?

[Kimba W Lion]

Post by Rick Brandt
I have a Sirius Sportster using the Audio out to the Aux input of my new Volvo's
DynAudio factory system and it sounds incredible. Is it as good as THX DVDs on
an expensive home unit? Not at all, but WAY better than the FM from that same
car unit.

Either that's a rotten FM radio, the stations in your area have rotten
audio processing, or you're talking only about noise levels.

Post by Rick Brandt
I think that if you asked the people at Sirius and XM what SQ threshold they are
shooting for it would be "better than FM". Were you really expecting the SQ of
a some uber-expensive audiofile system? Do none of you use MP3 players either?
If I plug my Ipod into the Aux input of my car stereo I detect no difference in
quality compared to Sirius.

Sirius music is about equivalent to 96kbps-128kbps stereo MP3s--LAME, not
Fraunhofer. The voice channels are about like 32kbps mono MP3s, or lower.

[David]

Post by Kimba W Lion
Sirius music is about equivalent to 96kbps-128kbps stereo MP3s--LAME, not
Fraunhofer. The voice channels are about like 32kbps mono MP3s, or lower.

Dream on. Since the BS TV started, they might sound like 64 K on a good
day.

[Roveer]

I'm glad to see two posts showing bitrate. CD quality is more like
1,140 (I believe), so there's just so much of the music missing you
can't even begin to make comparisons. Yes, static is eliminated, but
if you were to do an A/B comparison even on car stereo equipment you'd
instantly see how flat the music becomes. Many people are just so
happy to have no static and lots of channels they don't seem to care
about the quality of the music. Afterall, 2 entire industries have
grown out of marginal sounding music, with lots of choices (satellite
radio and mp3 players). I get asked all the time when will full
bandwidth music services come, and a few have tried, but I remind
people all the time that superbit CD's came and went because very few
people care about the quality, they just want 10,000 songs on their
nano...

Keep fighting the good fight, but I think we are the modern day
dinosaurs when it comes to this one.

Roveer

[David]

Post by Roveer
I'm glad to see two posts showing bitrate. CD quality is more like
1,140 (I believe), so there's just so much of the music missing you
can't even begin to make comparisons. Yes, static is eliminated, but
if you were to do an A/B comparison even on car stereo equipment you'd
instantly see how flat the music becomes. Many people are just so
happy to have no static and lots of channels they don't seem to care
about the quality of the music. Afterall, 2 entire industries have
grown out of marginal sounding music, with lots of choices (satellite
radio and mp3 players). I get asked all the time when will full
bandwidth music services come, and a few have tried, but I remind
people all the time that superbit CD's came and went because very few
people care about the quality, they just want 10,000 songs on their
nano...
Keep fighting the good fight, but I think we are the modern day
dinosaurs when it comes to this one.
Roveer

Bad audio makes people cranky. Psychoacoustics is rarely mentioned
these days.

[Joel Koltner]

Post by Roveer
I get asked all the time when will full
bandwidth music services come, and a few have tried, but I remind
people all the time that superbit CD's came and went because very few
people care about the quality, they just want 10,000 songs on their
nano...

People care about quality, but you have to keep in mind that everyone's
definition of "sounds great!" varies significantly (some people seem to think
that quality is strictly a function of how much power your subwoofer puts
out!) and yeah, almost no one makes quality the *only* consideration when how
many songs or channels you have available matters too.

[ron felder]

Post by Kimba W Lion
Sirius music is about equivalent to 96kbps-128kbps stereo MP3s--LAME, not
Fraunhofer. The voice channels are about like 32kbps mono MP3s, or lower.

What are the number for XM? Wonder if they are just as bad, better, or
worse.

Ron

[David]

Post by ron felder

Post by Kimba W Lion
Sirius music is about equivalent to 96kbps-128kbps stereo MP3s--LAME, not
Fraunhofer. The voice channels are about like 32kbps mono MP3s, or lower.

What are the number for XM? Wonder if they are just as bad, better, or
worse.
Ron

XM's worse. Everything sounds like chipmunks on acid.

[Kimba W Lion]

Post by ron felder

Post by Kimba W Lion
Sirius music is about equivalent to 96kbps-128kbps stereo MP3s--LAME, not
Fraunhofer. The voice channels are about like 32kbps mono MP3s, or lower.

What are the number for XM? Wonder if they are just as bad, better, or
worse.

I only have old info for XM, since I dumped it over a year ago. But I
found XM's sound to be worse than Sirius'. XM had less intrusive digital
artifacts in their music (which is what I alluded to with those MP3
comparisons), but they filtered out the top and bottom couple of octaves,
so that everything sounded very "flat" and lifeless. XM's talk channels
were compressed to the point that they were unintelligible very often.

Neither XM nor Sirius' music channels are suitable for more than
background listening IMO, but Sirius' wider frequency response is more
pleasant. XM's talk channels were very fatiguing to listen to.

People say XM improved their sound quality during this past year, but I
don't know what the difference is.

[Roveer]

I've found my people. I too find this stuff too hard to listen to.
Can you believe I have worked with a high end electronics integrator
who was pushing crestron xm tuners for the whole house audio and the
customer was insisting on it as well. When I opened my mouth to tell
them I thought it was something he should consider again considering
this gear is north of 1,000.00 but these guys insisted it was great.
I don't care how much they spend on the pre-amp section of these
tuners, the source material is still junk to begin with. Very
dissapointing what peoples acoustic qualities have become.

[Kimba W Lion]

Post by Roveer
I've found my people. I too find this stuff too hard to listen to.
Can you believe I have worked with a high end electronics integrator
who was pushing crestron xm tuners for the whole house audio and the
customer was insisting on it as well. When I opened my mouth to tell
them I thought it was something he should consider again considering
this gear is north of 1,000.00 but these guys insisted it was great.
I don't care how much they spend on the pre-amp section of these
tuners, the source material is still junk to begin with. Very
dissapointing what peoples acoustic qualities have become.

Heh. Reminds me of when I first got my XM radio. I was SO incredibly
disappointed in the sound quality that I thought maybe the radio was
defective or maybe badly designed. So I went to a Tweeter store to check
out a Polk XM receiver. Sounded exactly the same.

When the salesman asked me what I thought, I told him. He started
sputtering, then managed to blurt out, "BETTER THAN CD QUALITY!!!"
I walked out thinking I'll never buy any of the CD players they have for
sale. :)

[David]

Post by Rick Brandt

Post by q***@gmail.com
Not to add salt to the wound, but I have aways felt that satellite
radio (I have XM in my wife's car) was so unbarable that I wouldn't
even bother to listen to it. We liked having FNC after 9/11, but that
has worn off and I have to say that listening to anything other than
jazz (where there are lots of silence between the beats) was just
painful. I put on a classic rock station and was so dissapointed by
what I heard that I will no longer listen to XM.
Sorry to hear that Sirius stole what little bandwidth you had for
BSTV, but I still don't understand what is holding up their
aftermarket product? Looked finished to me.
Roveer

Honestly, what configuration are you people using who have sound quality
problems?
Unit?
Stereo?
Connection?
I have a Sirius Sportster using the Audio out to the Aux input of my new Volvo's
DynAudio factory system and it sounds incredible. Is it as good as THX DVDs on
an expensive home unit? Not at all, but WAY better than the FM from that same
car unit.
I think that if you asked the people at Sirius and XM what SQ threshold they are
shooting for it would be "better than FM". Were you really expecting the SQ of
a some uber-expensive audiofile system? Do none of you use MP3 players either?
If I plug my Ipod into the Aux input of my car stereo I detect no difference in
quality compared to Sirius. If you are using the FM transmission feature then
THAT is the problem, not sat-radio in general terms.
Perhaps some of the sat-receivers on the market are just deficient in this area?

Fascinating.

At home, I listen mainly on a Conductor, optically coupled to my home
theater receiver. This is where the artifacts are most annoying. In the
Suby the artifacts are somewhat masked by road noise. That's a Clarion
sound system with a Sirius Connect dealer installed tuner.

I listen to webcasts all the time through the home theater. There are a
lot of very good sounding stations.


http://www.orbitcast.com/archives/sirius-conductor-satellite-radio-comes-home.html

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