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Hardware

Review: PogoProducts' Radio Your Way 223

Posted by timothy from the alien-technology-records-coast-to-coast-am dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Being a long time TiVo-head and a talk radio junkie, I've been waiting for the first commercially available PVR for radio (PAR?). PogoProducts finally released just such a product, which they call 'Radio Your Way'. After seeing the announcement on Slashdot I quickly placed my order and have now been using it for about a week. The following is a quick rundown of the good and the bad."

The Good

The product has a decent form factor and intuitive buttons for playback. It has a 3V DC-in so you can keep it powered in your car (a $15 3V car adapter from RadioShack did the trick for me), a line-in port for recording from external sources, and of course a USB port for transferring files to your PC.

Recording is fairly straight forward. There is a red button on the front that is used for manually starting and stopping recording of the current 'mode' (AM/FM/Voice), and a timer function which allows up to 10 scheduled recordings to be programmed. There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to scheduling these recordings, but once you understand the controls it's quite easy to add or modify scheduled recordings. You can set up repeating recordings for a given day (Mon, Tues, Wed., etc.), every day, or Mon-Sat (which I thought was a bit odd - why not Mon-Fri?). A really nice feature of the scheduled recordings is that the device will automatically turn on and off before and after recording stops, meaning you don't have to worry about wasting batteries by leaving the unit on 24/7.

Listening to recordings is a breeze. There are standard next/prev and FF/RW buttons that work like a VCR. If you FF a selection that is not playing it moves extremely fast, and if you FF while playing it scans - allowing you to hear the content zipping along so you know when the commercial is over, for example.

The internal memory holds approximately 4 hours of audio, and can be supplemented with SD/MMC cards giving you up to 1 Gig of storage and days of recording time.

The device comes with a desktop application for transferring, playing, and converting files. I haven't used it much but my first impressions were positive. No complaints here.

The Bad

Given that this is a 1.0 product and the first of its kind (as far I know), I fully expected there to be some usability issues and missing features. I was right. The most notable missing feature is the ability to pause a live recording. This is apparently due to the fact that there is no 'always on' buffer ala TiVo. How many times have you been listening to the radio and wanted to rewind 10 seconds because you missed something? Pausing live radio seems like an obvious feature for a Radio PVR, but you won't get it with Radio Your Way. Live recording is strictly a manual option - hit the red button to record, hit the stop button to stop, then back up and listen to what was recorded. This is very archaic for someone used to the power of TiVo. Hitting the red button while recording actually pauses the recording, which I suppose could be useful for on the fly editing of commercials. However, the lack of a true 'pause live radio' feature is a serious drawback that I'm sure will be corrected in future versions, even if it's a small buffer.

Other disappointments:

- No manual 'auto stop' feature. I'd like to be able to hit record and tell it to stop in a given amount of time. Unfortunately if you hit record you have to manually hit stop or it will continue recording until the memory is filled of the batteries run out.
- Uses AAA batteries instead of a chargeable system.
- Reception is so-so.
- Very poor speaker quality - stick with headsets or car adapter.
- No off button! As far as I can tell, once you turn the device on there is no way to manually turn it off other than to wait for it to enter sleep mode after several minutes. Very annoying.
- Overall the device feels a bit cheap, particularly the volume control button. This ain't no iPOD.
- Poorly written manual.
-A bit pricey at $150.

--- Conclusions ---
Despite the drawbacks listed above, Iï½m happy with the Radio Your Way from PogoProducts. It gives me the basic ability to time-shift AM/FM programming in a small, lightweight, portable package. I wouldn't use it for recording FM music - stick with traditional MP3 players for that. But for those of us that are addicted to talk radio (I'm a day one P1 for those of you in Dallas) it's a good solution, and will tide you over until the next generation of devices comes to market.
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Review: PogoProducts' Radio Your Way More

Review: PogoProducts' Radio Your Way

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  • practicality (Score:5, Insightful)

    by frieked ( 187664 ) * on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:51PM (#6125415) Homepage Journal
    Sounds like a good idea, but I don't see this catching on to the extent that Tivo has even if they do make the improvements suggested in the article.
    There's just too much of a lack of quality radio programming these days for me to ever consider buying one of these.

    Would've been cool to have in the 1950's-60's though when families used to gather around the radio rather than a TV set.

    • Re:practicality (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Phil Hendrie, Bill O'Reilly, Coast to Coast AM, the Savage Nation, Dan Patrick, Tony Kornheiser, Pardon the Interuption, Rush Liambaugh, Mike and Mike in the Morning (on ESPN Radio), etc.

      There's lots of good programming on the radio these days.

      • You've got to be kidding.

        Savage, at least, is good for entertainment value during the 30 minute drive home, since my FM is broken and I can't be entertained by Loveline. The extent to which he's convinced himself that his extremist views are the absolute truth can be quite hilarious.

        (The Savage Nation is carried by a local AM station which is mostly full of extreme right-wing political talk shows, with a few hardware/car/investing shows as well. It's the only thing I get in my car, but since I generally

    • Re:practicality (Score:5, Funny)

      by dubiousmike ( 558126 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:00PM (#6125500) Homepage Journal
      It would have been cool to have the internet back in the 50's as well, but it was still a glimmer in Al Gore's eye at that point.

      :P
    • Most radio programs worth a damn these days stream webcasts or offer some sort of new media solution for obtaining their programming.

      Radio is an on-the-go medium these days anyway - last I heard something like 80% of radio listeners listened from cars, and nowhere else.

      Hear something you like on the car radio, find it on the web. No need for third-parties to peddle their odious wares.
      • Doesn't work in a lot of corporate situations, though. Streaming all that data across my system has... er/um ... would get me a visit from the local Net Nazi. I'm not a good enough employee to take the chance of that on a regular basis.. :D

    • Re:practicality (Score:2, Informative)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      Umm, you mean 30s to 40s.

      TV became ubiquitious in the 50s.

    • Please tell me you're trying to be funny with your "gather around the radio" remark... % of homes with tv passed 50% [tvhistory.tv] somewhere around 1953-1954. Uncle Miltie? Jack Paar? The Honeymooners? Any of it sound familiar?

      More fun tv facts [tvhistory.tv]
      • % of homes with tv passed 50% somewhere around 1953-1954. Uncle Miltie? Jack Paar? The Honeymooners? Any of it sound familiar?
        Come on Marty! 1955! Ralph dressing up like a spaceman? It's a classic. I used to watch this...in...reruns.
    • Since I don't watch TV on my way into work, this would give me the option of listening to the news that I find interesting, rhather than what the shock jocks find interesting. (need to have some way to eliminate the timestamps however.)
    • There's just too much of a lack of quality radio programming these days for me to ever consider buying one of these.

      This is actually one of the *reasons* a device like this would be useful. Maybe you actually find you like 1 song out of the dreck on the current rotation on your block of friendly neighborhood clear channel stations. You set up your PRR (personal radio recorder), and you've got your song, which you can later decide to purchase or that it loses its novelty after the 10-15 plays.

      Not to menti
    • There are two big issues that really work against a RaViO device (Radio TivO).

      1. No centralized scheduling service. The biggest feature of the radio is that allows you to think about "shows" not "timeslots" when you're recording stuff. This can only be done if there are accurate and reasonably complete playlists somewhere for the device to use. A few years ago (I don't know about today) it was illegal to post a playlist, because the record companies were paranoid that people would tape stuff off of the

  • I want it! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by _Sharp'r_ ( 649297 ) <sharper@@@booksunderreview...com> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:53PM (#6125439) Homepage Journal
    Every time I hear something on the radio that I want to replay, my hand makes the same motion I use for my PVR and I wonder why this product isn't out on the market already. Now it is... imagine, radio without commercials as long as you are "behind" the broadcast in time.

    Time to start hunting the web for the best price!

  • Neither First nor Unique (Score:5, Informative)

    by RobotRunAmok ( 595286 ) * on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:54PM (#6125448)
    The "Radio Personal Recorder" from RPR Products out of Tucson has been around for a while, I thought. Specs, etc., can be found
    here [radioprogramrecorder.com].
    • Even better. I like the FM transmitter functions on the "Radio Personal Recorder". Too bad it looks like most of their models are currently sold out.

    • First and Unique (Score:5, Informative)

      by dpille ( 547949 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:02PM (#6125520)
      Uh, actually, the RPR product appears to be several devices chained together, rather than the sigle device reviewed. I'm sure any of us could figure out how to use the 'audio out' in conjunction with the 'mic' jack on just about anything to successfully record.

    • Neither First nor Unique - Look at iRiver Products (Score:4, Informative)

      by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @04:28PM (#6126822) Homepage
      I've had an iRiver iFP-395TC for about three months now ( http://www.iriveramerica.com [iriveramerica.com]). It is an 512MB MP3 player with FM receiver/recorder and memo recorder.

      The higher end of the iFP line has these features with varying amounts of Flash. Memos and recordings can be uploaded into a PC. It doesn't have a "pause" feature, like you would want on a "PAR". I've been using it to record "The House of Blues" on the weekend and then listen to it at my desk at work.

      Nice box and I highly recommend it. Too bad its so hard to find (rumour has it Best Buy [bestbuy.com] stocks different models of the iFP line but I have never seen them in stock). I ended up buying mine directly from iRiver.

      myke

  • One huge flaw IMO (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chris_Stankowitz ( 612232 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:55PM (#6125453)
    Reception is so-so

    Like the equivelant of recoding TV with rabbit ears? To much of pain, even for talk radio. maybe if this came with a subcription to satelite raido.

    • I briefly reviewed the specs on the Pogo Web site. It mentions an external antenna connection.

      What type of connection is provided? Coax? Twin-lead (yucckkkk)?

      Would using a good external antenna improve the "so-so" reception? Could I use the FM feed off a Cable TV system for better reception?

      How good is the basic tuner, in terms of its technical specs? Meaning how much of the so-so reception due to the antenna, and how much is inherent in the electronics?

  • Guy:Honey, what did I miss?
    Girl: The weatherman said that there will be rain tommorow, but only some of the time, and .......

    Announcer:Now with Radio Your Way, you can tape all of your favorite radio programs, and never miss anything important again.

  • RIAA??? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Quasar1999 ( 520073 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:56PM (#6125462) Journal
    90% of the stuff you would want to record you can buy on CD... and therefor, according to the RIAA, you're cutting into their CD sales, by not buying music from them, but recording what is being broadcast over the airwaves for free...

    Shame on you all...

    Oh, and don't even think about using it to skip commercials...

  • PAR (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dfn_deux ( 535506 ) <datsun510@gma i l .com> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:57PM (#6125470) Homepage
    This eems not at all like tivo functionality. It is more similar to a VCR or as many people on slashdot have already discovered some newer home stereos already allow scheduled recording to a tape deck. For this to be at all useful (to me at least) it would need guide info and at a bare minimum a pause live recording option. I mean really this thing is quite feature bare.
  • I try to stay up late to listen to Coast2Coast, but it usually doesnt work, if only there was a device to let me tivo it.
    • I try to stay up late to listen to Coast2Coast, but it usually doesnt work, if only there was a device to let me tivo it.

      Coast to Coast AM is a very sweet radio program. I have been searching the internet for months, ever since Disney bought out the radio station in my area that broadcasted the program. Coast to Coast [premiereinteractive.com] wants you to pay $6.95/mo for their streamlink. Maybe now someone will be posting files....

      Be sure to check out Coast to Coast AM [coasttocoastam.com]'s web site to find a radio station near you. This is geek r
  • I would like to see a stereo version...
  • Except that you can schedule recordings. Admittedly, that's a nice feature, but what I need the most is to be able to pause live radio and rewind. This is especially useful when listening to talk radio.

  • damn this is a bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    why not set your TiVo to record on channel 3 / or av inputs and leave your home sterio on to the station you want to record?

    that would kinda work....
    • Author of parent post is a freakin' genius!
      Now if I could just shoehorn my Tivo into my truck next to the Linux box, CD-changer (don't ask), engine computer, amp and toolkit... :)

  • That would make the delay even worse! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prince_Ali ( 614163 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:57PM (#6125480) Journal
    Host: We have anonymous reader on the line.
    AR: Hello?
    Host: Turn your radio down.
    AR: Hello?
    Host: You need to turn your radio down!
    AR: Hello?
    *click*
    AR: That was rude!

  • How is this a PAR? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by douglips ( 513461 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:00PM (#6125496) Homepage Journal
    Big deal - this is like a digital tape recorder. To be a true PAR it would need at least these features:
    - Guide service. Imagine a recorder that knows what song is playing on the radio right now and saves this 3:26 chunk of audio to "BritneySpearsHotGrits.mp3" for you. At the very least it needs show-based guide service. VCRs have had timers since like 1982.
    - Pause live radio (as noted by the review)
    - Wishlisting (Find me songs by Aretha Franklin.)

    I don't think radio stations advertise what songs they will play ahead of time, but you could imagine that you could scrape the "currently playing" track off the station web site and retroactively label the audio. If the PAR is constantly recording a station, and then it sees a track by Aretha Franklin, it saves that last song for you.

    Until something works like this, it's about as useful as a cassette player with a timer.
    • Theres something like that for Shoutcast internet radio streams. I can't think of the name off hand, but it starts recording to a file based on the id3 info, when the id3 changes it starts a new file.

      Especially evil since shoutcast is just mpeg over http, if the bitrate is high enough there really isnt any additional quality loss.
    • Then you will never see a "true PAR", at least in the US.

      Federal copyright law prohibits advanced program schedules for radio broadcasts (see 17 USC 114 [cornell.edu], "advance program schedule" shows up all over). You've probably never seen a radio analoge of TVGuide in the US, and that's why. So you'll never get your dream radio Tivo.

      • Federal copyright law prohibits advanced program schedules for radio broadcasts
        Huh? You shouldn't speak in such absolutes. There is a HUGE class exemped from this requirement, and I quote: "or if such advance program schedule is a schedule of classical music programming." Every year, I send a check to my local NPR station, and each and every month, they send me a complete guide.
      • Well, Since most of us would use it to timeshift talk radio, and since that is fairly well pre-scheduled... I know that the advance program schedule is available... as USC 114 only applies to music programming or pre-recorded as best as I can interpret... but IANAL.
      • Federal copyright law prohibits advanced program schedules for radio broadcasts

        Explain this page [kxnt.com], then.

        • As others have replied, that particular federal law seems to apply only to non-classical music broadcasts.

          Also, even if the copyright law does apply to talk radio, the copyright holder can always sell their content under whatever license they want, including a license that explicitely allows advanced program schedules.

    • Check out Yes.net [yes.net]

      It's delayed about 45 minutes, but you can't tell me some warm body is actually LISTENING and updating the site. They just don't want to tell the public the truth, that %99 of all radio stations have their music schedule planned out weeks in advance.

      If you could get them to publish this crap in advance for subscribers, you would have your scheduler feature.
      • Actually, that's perfect.

        All you have to do is record the stream to a file, wait for the information to show up on yes.net, and then categorize the data. I can't schedule per-song recording in advance, but I can put in a wish list, or just record every song played on the radio and file it away.

        This could just sit and accumulate MP3 files and throw out duplicates or things I don't care about all day long.
  • Live recording is strictly a manual option - hit the red button to record, hit the stop button to stop, then back up and listen to what was recorded - and how is this better than a tape deck + radio in one??

  • Never buy 1st run products.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by trotski ( 592530 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:01PM (#6125512)
    A few years back, I heard about something called an MPTrip CD player, it was the first of it's kind. A portable CD Player that could actually play MP3s.... it was cheep too, only 150 CDN dollars!

    I ran out and got one as soon as it came out. Frankly it was a piece of shit, none of the features one would really need like skipping between albums was there. It skipped like MAD, and it sucked battery power like there was no tomorow. Overall, a terrible CD player, it couldn't even play regular CD's!

    Needless to say, I stopped using it after about a month. Two years later (or a few weeks ago) I picked up a second mp3 CD player, this one rocks and actually works. The product has been seriously refined since the first one came out, and I am very satisfied.

    From reading "The Bad" part of this review I see that the author is having the same sort of problems... I guess the message is: hmmm thats cool, but I'll wait until Panasonic, Sony, or anyother reputable company makes one.

  • Other radio time-shifting substitutes (Score:5, Informative)

    by LinuxParanoid ( 64467 ) * on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:03PM (#6125531) Homepage Journal
    This topic, and device, was last discussed on Slashdot May 12th [slashdot.org] (found via slashdot search for "radio your way".)

    Two links I found useful were a a competing piece of hardware, Neuros [neurosaudio.com], and a much cheaper substitute if the radio program is streamed on the internet, Replay Radio [replay-radio.com]. Plus an even earlier Slashdot thread [slashdot.org].

    In fairness, this is not a dupe, as the May 12th thread was about 'future' products and this is a product review.

    --LP

  • Not a "RaVo" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:06PM (#6125555) Journal
    I wouldn't compare this at all to a TiVo. It's more like a digital audio recorder. The best features of TiVo (and similar) are the live buffer and the automatic scheduling (Wishlists). Other than the internal memory replacing a cassette tape, this is just a Walkman with a timer.

    If I can tell it to automatically record every episode of NPR's All Things Considered (NOT 'record anything on channel X at 8:00 PM every Friday'), then we'll talk.
    • Forget All Things Considered. I want to get Car Talk and This American Life and be able to fast forward the ads. Yeah, I know NPR doesn't have ads, but somehow I have heard all I can take about Corn-Ferry Intl, not to mention the WBUR Citzens of the World Tour to Tuscany. I thought I sent my money in each year so that I wouldn't have to listen to ads. Maybe it is time to stop sending money in.
    • Without a "pause live radio" feature, or a "Record all episodes of Howard Stern" this thing is akin to a VCR, not a Tivo. Anyone who's used a DVR wouldn't think of this as Tivo for radio.
  • Anyone else immediately think of Pogo the Monkey? [pogothemonkey.com]
  • If you were to record a song off of the radio, one that was broadcasted freely into the air and then rip it into mp3 and share it with your friends, would it be considering piracy?

    You've done nothing more than taken what everyone could have heard and saved it and allowed others to hear it at a later time, would this then be constituted as a "rebroadcast" even though it's for personal viewing(listening) only?

    Is it as fuzzy as recording Television shows as it is for radio? I know the Howard Stern show ha

  • Killer Application: (Score:5, Funny)

    by bourne ( 539955 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:08PM (#6125582)

    School closings during snowstorms.

    We've all tuned in time to hear "Tangoville" announced and had to sit and wait for them to work all they way around the alphabet to get back to "Sierraville" for you.

  • Hold the 'Stop' button for a few seconds and the device powers down
  • I don't want to stifle innovation, but I am too addicted to my IPOD. I've got my entire CD collection in here, downloaded a few almums from Apples's store, converted to mp3 because aac won't play on my other player... but man I've got over
    1003 songs on it now. I have the same playability as the pogo product since If I really want to I can
    just record radio from my wintv Theatre card, save to in mp3 format and copy it to my IPOD.

    And, you can't shake a stick at 15GB of storage!

  • what's the point? (Score:4, Funny)

    by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:15PM (#6125631)
    The state of radio today is so bad, I can't imagine a use for this device.

    Why record anything when you can be sure that whatever you just heard will be repeated an hour later? I don't need to record stuff off the radio so I can listen to it later, the radio station already solves that problem by looping the same 10 songs over and over again.
  • Hold down the stop button - at least that's how you turn off my pogo mp3 player
  • Portable devices rarely get decent reception. And of course there's the whole space issue. I want to see a device that isn't portable and has an external antenna input. It should also have a LAN port and standard line level outputs.

    With network connectivity, you would simply stream it any hard drive on your network. Or stream it to/control from work, or any other PC. Or simply throw the MP3s on a real MP3 player once the show has been recorded if you want to take it with you.

    I can't imagine a device like
  • Anyone know if the lack of a 'pause live radio' feature is due to something like the Pause Technologies patent for TV pausing [ffii.org]?
  • so its like a tape recorder only with flash ram and a usb port, and a timer, wow how innovative....

    And only 150$, what a deal, no wait never mind I'll get a 160gig hd or a midrange video card insted then I'll go down to wal mart and get a tape recoreder for 10$ and just hook it up to my sound card for thoes times I want to save the mindless chater of talk radio to my computer.

    I can see how this would be a cool thing if it was like 50$ but 150$ just for a audio recorder is too much

    yes I know it can pla
  • - Uses AAA batteries instead of a chargeable system.

    I see this as a feature. If I'm somewhere and don't have a charger handy (picture a road trip or vacation), then I can stop at any convenience store, gas station, drug store, etc. and get more power. Not so with a proprietary charging system.

    Ronco Karma-matic! It slices, it dices, it mod's
    • 12V->120VAC inverters are great for this sort of thing. Plus, there's a lot less waste involved in recharging a battery a couple of hundred times vs. throwing out a couple thousand AAA batteries.
    • That's why you use standard rechargable batteries. Take my FRS radios: Four AAA's each. Drop it into the cradle and it recharges. Batteries run out and you don't have an outlet? Remove the rechargable batteries and put in some plain old alkalines.

      Just don't drop it into the charging cradle with said alkalines...

      I always wondered why more companies didn't do this with their products, and I think I just figured it out: People are idiots and would attempt to charge normal batteries if given the opportunity.

  • Time-compressed playback (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bingo Foo ( 179380 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:26PM (#6125716)
    Another feature that audio players should make use of is time-compressed playback, digitally speeding up the audio without "chipmunking." You might be able to squeeze 20% more time out in addition to commercial skipping. I wouldn't recommend it for music, of course.

  • Personally, I'd avoid Pogo if you're a Linuxer... (Score:4, Informative)

    by apexchin ( 622309 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:28PM (#6125730)
    I bought (and still have) one of their flash-based mp3 recorder/players. Despite some quirks, I like the device, but I'm not happy with how the company handled my invitation to port their MP3 manager software to linux.

    Because the player is flash-based, you can only upload/download mp3s using the Windows MP3 manager software. Having done projects like this in the past, I offered to port the manager software to linux for the company, free of charge.

    My offer was immediately accepted, but came with an NDA regarding any code they would send me. After I explained that if I were going to do it for free, I'd want it to be open source, I never heard another word, despite several followup emails.

    The company has obviously decided against open source of any of their products, though I can't imagine why. If someone really gave a shit what the download/upload protocol was for their software, it would be fairly trivial to reverse it.

    So anyway, bear this in mind if you think Pogo is the company for you. You'll be using their stuff on windows or via an emaulator. Jeff

    • A lot of companies still fear the words open source.

      For them NDA is just how the game is played and *free* isnâ(TM)t really in their business lexicon, I mean who supports it? Does it somehow benefit their competitors? Could it damage their hardware? What if its used in a way not intended? Could this cause liability problems? How can they control it?

      I understand your frustration and *really* appreciate your interest in porting it. They'll wake up eventually...(I hope).
    • Um...... I hope you do realize their standpoint behind this. They're a small company which has obviously spent many hours and dollars in order to create their software. You then have the nerve to ask them to release it to the public for their competitors to use as they please.

      For a small business, this just doesn't make sense. Most linux hardware drivers are either reverse engineered, or are simply drivers of common OEM hardware (for example, most network cards are virtually identical, even across diffe

  • RadioVo (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ghotiboy ( 7771 )
    I actually built a basic one of these at home. I bought an ADS Cadet Radio Card (the only one on the planet that gets the AM band) for $7. I bought a $50 PC at a computer show (Dell P200MMX) and installed Linux. I then wrote a Perl program to control recording, etc.

    THEN, I found out that AM reception is nearly impossible on the ADS Cadet in certain circumstances (namely mine). Tried just about everything I could without buying a $50 antenna. Anyway, I ended up hooking up my stereo and my wife mostly u

  • PAR under Linux... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by claud9999 ( 412067 )
    Using off-the-shelf software on Linux (cron, mpg321, etc) I was doing this over a year ago. Talk radio compresses down nicely. Burning the .mp3 (or .ogg, for those so inclined) files to a CD-RW made the show quite portable.

    'course, having a portable device is nice, for when you're listening to the radio and hear that a particularly good segment is coming on that you might want to save...

    Also goes to show you that buying a head unit for your car that has a line-in port continues to be worthwhile. (Too bad

  • More issues (Score:5, Informative)

    by vanyel ( 28049 ) * on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:36PM (#6125787) Journal
    I also pre-ordered one and have been playing with it for a week or so. First off, you can turn it off by holding the Stop button down for 2-3 seconds.

    I got mine not so much as a portable device, but as the first thing I'd found that could do timed recordings from radio. Thus, I'm plugging it in and leaving it next to the computer with the idea of burning programs to CD to listen at the car later.

    There are two problems with this:

    1. If the USB cable is plugged in, everything else is disabled, including recording. So make very sure you remember to unplug it after transferring files.

    2. The recording quality is very low --- by default only 16Kbps. You can switch that to 32Kbps (using twice the space) by holding the EQ button down for a couple seconds (something you have to carefully read the table of button functions to find out), but even 32Kbps is barely good enough for decent speech. Don't expect to record real music with this.

    3. Reception is worse than "so-so" in my book. While strong stations do come in fine, there's a local station run out of a high school that is the only classical station in Portland (KBPS) that I like. It comes in just fine on every other radio in the house and car, but this thing can't even pick up a hint of it (well, maybe a weak hint once in a while if you listen through the static enough). And that's with the antennae plugged in (which works through the earphone jack). I was hoping to record shows like Carl Haas and Shickele Mix off here, but with both the low recording quality and the fact that it can't pick up the station anyhow, I'm outta luck on that.

    4. For some reason, probably relating to cpu performance I'm guessing, they record to a proprietary format, not mp3. The desktop application will convert to wav, and then you can mp3 that, but I imagine that only makes the sound worse (I haven't really tried it yet, only the wav conversion). The conversion to .wav blows the file size up about a factor of almost 20 (at least on the one I did it to: 14M -> 225M).

    So, while it's an interesting toy, it's definitely V1.0. I may end up using it as a portable voice recorder, but I'm planning on recording some shows that are talk only like Science Friday and a local group's weekly local issues speech and Q&A show.

    • Re:More issues (Score:3, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      Thus, I'm plugging it in and leaving it next to the computer with the idea of burning programs to CD to listen at the car later.

      You do realize you could have just bought a tuner card for much cheaper. Hell, I saw a mouse with a built in FM tuner the other day.

      Much better would be getting a halfway decent *real* tuner, that you can connect to a *real* antenna for *real* reception, and record off the line out. You'd get much better audio this way. And stereo to boot.

      A cron/scheduler job would be all th
      • I tried that once a while back and the software absolutely sucked. The same is true for the TV versions. And this way, if I do want to take it with me, I can.
      • I've done this. It works well.

        And since NPR (the only station I cared about recording) has their clocks set set correctly, I was able to nail the start/stop times with ease, using NTP.

        The whole thing was seamless, once cron was set up for it on my FreeBSD router (it happened to have a PCI slot available for a dedicated sound card, and it -never- fucks up). Every now and then, I'd burn a CD with a few months worth of of lovely mid-side encoded LAME VBR Car Talk MP3s and archive it on the shelf.

        At $0.15

  • How about OZradio for a software/pc solution... (Score:4, Informative)

    by msimm ( 580077 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:42PM (#6125833) Homepage
    OZradio [sourceforge.net] is written by Gary Baker South Australia. The purpose of OZradio is to provide a simple and easy to use application to play and Record FM Radio on BTTV Compatible cards.

    This looks like a great option for all you radio fans out there, its open source and it even records to ogg.

    OZRadio will now build or execute on a Linux system that has KDE, GNOME, ICEWM, XFCE etc.. with or without GNOME libraries

    From the FAQ:

    Why OZradio
    I am Gary Baker from South Australia, I live in Adelaide and due to my Age/Generation am probably a bit more of the old fashioned Ozy. Whenever someone has asked me where I am from, for as long as I can remember I have answered South Oz. Why I dont know. Does it have anything to do with Dorothy, no not really. Does it Matter. No not really. Anyway Im pretty happy that I can knock together this code and maybe people from all over the world, religeon, colour, sexuality etc.. doesnt matter, can use it.

    Overview
    OZradio has been written on a Mandrake 9.0 system running KDE 3.0 with a Brooktree BT878 Video/FM card. It is written in 'C' and the GUI was written using GLADE 1.2 (Excellent GUI Development tool). OZradio will run in either a Gnome or KDE environment although all of my testing is done in KDE. Its probably kind of strange, but I prefer to work in the KDE environment but reckon the GLADE tool is the best GUI development tool for the way I code. One of the drawbacks with supporting both KDE and GNOME with the same binary is the Library requirements. I am considering building Gnome and KDE Versions so as that users do not have to install libraries for both environments to run OZradio.

    Development Direction
    OZradio is being developed as rapidly as I can. Originally I intended to write an application to play FM radio on BTTV compatible cards and nothing more. But once I did that and realised how simple the base radio player was to write, I thought I would expand it. There are often radio shows I would like to listen to but I am at work so I thought I would record them. This has expanded the development of OZradio.

    Most of the base structure is now in place. Heaps of cleanup is needed. I am thinking at the moment of stabilising OZradio at BETA 0.8.2 with full help and Error checking. I am looking to providing Fast Foward, Rewind functions within the playback section and the ability to save parts of a recording to a different file. To complement this I will need to look at supporting mpxx, vorbis, wav etc.. files for export and the ability to replay all these file types which will further expand the capability of OZradio.

    OZradio will continue to support both KDE, GNOME and will be developed on Mandrake Linux. I have no intention of and will not port it to any Microsoft environments,

    Software Requirements
    OZradio requires a 2.4xx kernel and Linux. Both the standard Gnome and Kde Libraries are required and GTK 1.2 or greater is required. No other special libraries or software is needed other than the modules to support your FM/TV card. OZradio assumes you have already installed your card and loaded the required modules etc. to make it work.

    Hardware Requirements
    OZradio requires some form of FM radio card and a sound card in the computer. Many different types OF FM/TV cards will probably work as I use generic video4linux api calls and access things through /dev/xxxxxxxx . My system is setup with the audio output from the FM/Video card going into the Sound card input. OZradio expects to be able to access /dev/radioxxxx to tune the radio frequencys, /dev/mixer and /dev/dsp to record and playback radio.

    Enjoy!

  • Why the references to TiVO? (Score:3, Informative)

    by recursiv ( 324497 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:44PM (#6125851) Homepage Journal
    The only similarity this seems to have to TiVO is that it records things. Let's take a look at the features...
    Scheduled recording... nope
    Replay during recording... nope
    Play lagged behind recording... nope
    Manual record/play/stop action... yes

    It appears to be functionally equivalent to a $40 boombox w/ cassette recorder, only for 4x the price and no speakers.

    WHAT A DEAL!!! SIGN ME UP FOR ONE. NO WAIT. MAKE IT 100!!!!
  • There have been a bunch of flaws already stated (i.e. no live pause, poor reception). However, there is one major feature missing for the timed recording. You can't set it to record multiple shows on a different band (i.e. AM and FM) or frequency (i.e. 650AM and 101.9FM). You can only set one band/frequency and the time for record. This is a basic function that any VCR can do yet it is missing here. ...Yeah, this is fine for those who listen to just one station.
  • The only thing I'd want to record these days is Harry Shearer, and he does it for me on his website.

    This thing would be awesome if radio was halfway decent and had some variety. If I like a song on the radio, all I have to do is wait 15 minutes, and they'll play it again... and again... and again.

    Thanks, ClearChannel...

  • How to turn the unit off.... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...you hold in the power button (the "on" button) for three seconds. I'm not sure when this became standard, but it seems that all of my electronic gadgets, from iPod to cellphone to electronic fish scale have this feature. Anyway, it's in the fine print in the instructional manual. Not sure if it's on the web site anywhere. HTH

  • I have thought about a portable device that has a microphone and a live buffer (like Tivo) that would be great for those times that you wished you could replay what you just heard. Pogo and some similar devices have a microphone, but they act more like dictation machines. I have not heard of a device that does what I'm talking about. Perhaps someone knows of one. Or maybe someone could make a "Livo" by recording an exisiting device. "It's not just live, it's Livo. Life, your way."

    Imagine having the l

  • I have a server in my basement; I just plugged in an old radio into the mic input, and run a script to record ( sox ...| lame... )

    It's tuned into CBC [www.cbc.ca], so cron records shows like Ideas, and Quirks and Quarks

    I then have a script to download the shows when I connect my MuVo [nomadworld.com]

    It's great for when I'm doing chores around the house!

  • CompactFlash isn't that much larger given how large this unit is. Yet it's available in FAR higher capacities, and is FAR cheaper than SD/MMC in the useful capacities. According to DealRAM.com:

    256mb CF is $49
    512mb CF is $107
    1gb CF is $211

    256mb SD is $70
    512mb SD is $250
    There is no 1gb!!

  • Without the ability to pause live audio, it seems to me like this is a lot like a normal radio/casette player, only digital. Oh, plus it can schedule record times. I think I'd rather stick to the 'traditional' solution, instead of this product which is apparently just riding the tivo trend.
  • What's not mentioned, so I assume it's not present, is a convenient skip to a convenient break point.

    There's a specific application I have in mind for this product: I want to timeshift John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show, so I can listen to it on the way to work in the morning. The music is eclectic, and my journey is shorter than the show, so it would be nice, if the current song didn't appeal, to be able to skip to the next "talky" bit. I'm sure some spectrum analysis could manage to tag talk vs music to make t

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