Re: Satelite Programming
Programming-wise, and cost-wise, they are both about the same. The diff is one has Martha Steward, the other doesnt. One has Howard Stern, the other doesnt. One has NFL, the other doesnt. I think one of them has NASCAR, too. That kind of thing. Music content is too similar to distinguish between the two. XM seems to appeal to folks old enough to remember classic rock, Sirius seems preferred by the those that prefer more contemporary music. Both are ok for background classical music, neither are satisfactory for opera. XM used to be pretty good for political-talk, evenly balanced between liberal and conservative programming.<br /><br />If you have DirecTV, you now have the XM radio free via your sat receiver. Look in the 800 channels where the MCs (music channels) used to be. Many of the XM receivers were made by Delphi. Delphi filed for bankruptcy this year but its not going away, just reorganizing. Dont know how or if that impacted XMs music service. Perhaps the biggest diff between the two corps is that XM didnt gamble just on a music service. Their two sats (one named Rock and the other named Roll) were designed for other sat services; weather programming (see Garmin products and wxworx.com), and something to do with a private locating service, something like a rescue beacon, but not intended for rescue like an EPIRB is. A third XM sat is scheduled to be launch anytime now, dont know what for.<br /><br />Those little Delphi XM receivers are now on their third generation. The first gen were junk. The second gen is good stuff, the third gen is the same as the second but with minor tweaks. Folks have modified the second gen receivers to create a digital TOS-link output so they can record a digital path from sat to CD. No need to pay for CDs anymore.<br /><br />The bandwidth of sat music in not as high as it is with a CD but most folks cant tell the diff. At the same time, the digital entertainment industry as a whole is changing. Higher res music and video sources were introduced in Asia and Europe at the beginning of the year, just now come to the US. Also, there is a whole new push to promote the free hi-res digital FM format (not in all areas, yet). Its similar to sat radio but has commercials, hence the free part.<br /><br />I had XM for 6-months, liked it, but they bumped the cost from $10/month up to $12. With inexpensive MP3 players littering the landscape, I cant see anyone paying for sat reeceiver hardware and then a music service when they can get an MP3 player that will hold 100-million CDs worth of music for less than the annual XM fee...and listen to what they want to when they want to.<br /><br />Edit: another diff is the Apple vs IBM (PC) marketing schemes. Both Apple and XM control the manf and distribution of their hardware, IBM and Sirius license the technology to many companies. So, less selection of Apple and XM hardware, greater selection of (IBM) PC and Sirius hardware.
