Protections against faulty music pressings (Liz?)

True. That's because the article is NOT about error correcting codes (such as Reed-Solomon but rather deals with: "pulse-code modulation, which turns regular samples of an analog signal into bits, and error-correcting codes, which make sure those bits don’t get corrupted".

CD's definitely include CIRC (Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding) error correcting code. However, that was NOT what Kees Immink contributed to the technology that make CD's less prone to read errors.

I had an hour to burn. So, I decided to see how much damage to a CDROM was necessary to obtain read errors. My chose test software was:

"VSO Inspector"

I started with a vintage TDK CD-R disk, with about 500 MB of arbitrary Windows files. An initial scan showed no errors. I then started scratching the CDROM (bottom), about 10 times, with my pocket knife. Scan again, and no errors. I tried the test again. No errors. Gouge, repeat, retest, several times, until I finally had some fatal errors at 50 cuts:

I didn't quite believe that about 30 cuts would not show any errors, while 50 cuts would show a large number of errors. So, I repeated the test with 3 other CD-R's and about 30 cuts each. Each CD-R has about

Conclusion: It takes major damage to convince a CD-R to generate uncorrectable errors. The CD-R can correct "minor" damage, but fails badly at some unknown threshold.

"the Dutch have a tendency to “push down” anyone who begins to appear even a bit better than those around him or her, which was likely affecting Immink."

I've seen that effect in action.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Data CDs use a different error detection/correction scheme. Audio CDs use cross interleaved RS with ~8 syndrome bytes per frame.

A data CD enhances this with another layer of ECC that adds another ~200 bytes of ECC to each frame (2KB).

Audio can tolerate uncorrectable errors as some amount of prediction can be employed based on the signal "around" the error. This isn't possible with digital data which need have no relationship to the data "around" it.

Additionally, "masked" media have different characteristics than writable media.

I think that one reason FM radio still exists is that D anything either works or it doesn't.

FM is mostly digital now too.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

A digital processor can buffer any amount of data and use it to pave over any uncorrectable gaps.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

There may be some legacy issues like the push to have AM radios in all vehicles...

IIRC, there was a similar move to put radios in cell phones, as well.

This doesn't tell me anything useful at all.

That's how gigabit ethernet is encoded. The extra 2 bits are used to provide DC balance and such:

Incidentally, the initial specifications for the CDROM were inscribed in the "red book" because red ring binders were available and probably free at Intech to the Japanese engineers:

Digital FM is quite real in the USA:

and in Europe:

In the USA, the technology is commonly called "HD Radio":

On the FM audio band, it's (in my never humble opinion) a half-hearted conglomeration of old and new tech. The frequency allocation is 200 KHz channels. The original analog FM continues to operate using the entire 200 KHz, including various sub-carriers for data, paging, stereo multiplex, etc. Between each 200 KHz channel is a 200 KHz "guard band" intended to prevent FM modulation from interfering with other stations 200 KHz higher and/or lower. The digital sub-channels were allowed to fit in the space previously reserved for "guard bands".

On a spectrum analyzer, it looks something like this:

There are also various satellite based digital audio services, which are all digital:

What "push" to have AM radios in cell phones? There are no cell phones that have AM receivers. That's because the internally generated EMI/RFI noise from the computer and display sections of the phone creates enough interference to make reception impossible. For fun, I just tried it with my Alinco DJ-X2 receiver and my Moto G Power (2010) smart phone. Put them next to each other and AM reception is buried in the digital noise.

There are some Android cell phones that have a built in FM receiver chip. However, when I searched for usable apps, all I found were either scams or were streaming audio via internet or Wi-Fi. I didn't feel like checking all the apps available, so some additional searching might be useful.

A clue as to how well things are going in broadcast are the Classical California FM radio network:

Note that Classical California does not sell advertising. Instead, it is listener supported and sells sponsorships. Together with donations, that's usually not enough to pay the bills.

In Australia it is called the "tall poppy syndrome". I think it is a human universal. We all like to have good people on our team, but if some other team is looking competitive we do like it when their best performers are disadvantaged in some way.

Of course, if some members of your team aren't performing very well, and the competition ridicules them for their failures, you can explain away the ridicule as the "tall poppy" system in action, even when it is just dispassionate comment. John Larkin does seem to be prone to that.

I said "RADIOS IN CELL PHONES". You are conflating two different issues.

I've had a few Android tablets and phones, they've all had FM radio and a native app. They only work with wired headphones as the headphone wire is the antenna.

This is UK 88-108 MHz. I've never seen one with DAB though.

I've only ever seen HD FM in vehicles (alongside XM offerings). I think there is only one credible vendor of "tabletop" HD radios. I've never known anyone to own one.

As SWMBO has a fondness for one of the local HD stations, I've opted to go the SDR route.

Ditto. I keep one around as a means to get emergency broadcasts -- in the event the cellular network goes down. SWMBO keeps wanting to put the wired earbuds away ("Don't we have wireless ones?? Why do we need to keep THESE??")

Apparently, the hardware exists in some/many phones but is not active (missing app?)

Even with real FM, the content is digitally processed. They don't have deejays spinning platters any more. Most FM stations don't have real deejays either.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

In the 'Digital' hype surrounding the launch of CDs and all that followed, the fact that reading them involves an analogue process seems to have been forgotten. It is quite easy to bring out an analogue signal directly from the optical head and use that to identify faults on the disc that would be masked by error correction.

I built a CD tester using a cheap player mounted on a box, with a meter (analogue!) to show the signal strength and a loudspeaker that played the music with bursts of noise superimposed on it whenever there was a digital drop-out. The result was like listening to a noisy LP with surface noise at CD rotational rate. It was very instructive for checking that I wasn't sending out products to my customers that were either faulty or so marginally recorded that they would eventually break down or fail to play on some players.

I think the whole point of digital processing is to be able to create a *cheap* medium that exhibits few-to-no flaws.

Vinyl and cassette formats are more involved to produce, in quantity.

After all, the music vendors are always looking to lower their production costs (and increase yield).

And, of course, the "marketing" aspect works to convince folks to repurchase their collections to gain the advantage of the new medium.