Surrounded by Frustration

The surround-sound receiver under my TV is nearly 13 years old. I'm not proud of this, but I also don't think I can do anything about this year. I blame HD Radio for that.

Two years ago, I took an HD Radio receiver out for a spin, driving from here to Philly to check out the sound of this new technology, which overlays digital signals on existing FM and AM frequencies. Despite the paucity of HD programming at the time, I liked it; FM sounded a little sharper but AM sounded unimaginably better.

After writing that column, I decided that I'd have to look for HD Radio compatibility in my next receiver and figured that I wouldn't have long to wait.

I'm still waiting.

The Boston Acoustics Recepter clock radio I reviewed yesterday is nice, but I'm not going to plug that into my TV. Yet my only other option is a $1,900 (!) Yamaha receiver, and the folks at iBiquity Digital, the company that developed HD Radio, don't seem to think there will be a cheaper option for at least the rest of this year.

That's just crazy. Either Columbia, Md.-based iBiquity has been doing a terrible job of selling electronics manufacturers on this technology (in which case, they ought to hire whoever's been doing that sales work for XM Satellite Radio) or the manufacturers have some irrational fear of investing in this one technology -- even as many of them gladly march into a format war (Blu-Ray versus HD DVD) with at least one and possibly two guaranteed losers.

So if you thought that my job meant I always bought the latest, greatest electronics hardware, that's not so. Sometimes my job keeps me from buying anything new.

(BTW, while I'm whining about the failure of the electronics industry to satisfy my needs, I might as well note that I've yet to buy a DVD recorder to replace my antique DVD player and VCR for a similar reason: Nobody's making one with the ATSC tuner needed for digital broadcasts. Maybe I'd never use that in practice, but why buy hardware that won't give me the opportunity to do so?)

A Strange New Name From Nintendo? Mais Wii!

Nintendo's next-generation video game console is still months away from its formal introduction, but the company chose to reveal the device's name last week. Instead of Revoluion, the designation Nintendo used for this successor to the GameCube until now, this silver box will be known as "Wii".

That's pronounced "wee," but as far as most gamers are concerned, "Wii" rhymes with "why" instead. The puns abounded in forums (for instance) across the Web:

"This is Wiik."