Today, I am, again, mostly listening to ...

I still think internet radio is the best thing since, oh, I dunno, sliced bread, colour tellie, synthetic inserts for cycle shorts ...

Anyway, here are one or two of my favourite internet radio stations:

• RemoteDJ.com - rare R&B, plus broken beat, bossa, etc ...
• SomaFM.com - over a dozen minority interest stations, including; Secret Agent, Beat Blender, Illinois Street Lounge and the very, very cool,Sonic Universe.
• bbc.co.uk - most stuff from the world of BBC radio, occasionally interrupted because of rights' restrictions, but BBC Radio Five Live International gets me through the day. The virtual compulsory use of iPlayer is becoming an encumbrance though.

All of these stations, plus about 14,000 more, are available through your computer or internet radio device. Then there are other radio facilities such as play it again and podcasts. I manage my podcasts using Nimiq. More of that another day ...

Internet Radio : update

Internet radio, for me, has turned out to be one of the most useful developments on the interweb, along with stuff like Skype and ... put your favourite web application here.

I have two internet radios; a Noxon iRadio and a Sangean WFR-20. The radios work independently of a computer, basically looking like a sometimes rather bulky transistor radio or table radio.

The Noxon iRadio was one of the first wifi internet radios available in the UK. I bought it about three years ago. There was nothing remotely like it available in the US for another couple of years at least. Stuff like satellite radio stifled demand here, although the US market is now discovering the benefits of internet radio - 15,000 stations freely available on your dial.

Hmmm ... freely available; more about that later ...

However, at the moment, the latest firmware is getting rather long in the tooth, although there is a beta-version available, but I can't get it to upload into the Noxon. One of the advantages of the Noxon is that it's a nPnP device and it can have some of its features controled via its own internal web interface. It uses the vTuner portal for access. vTuner is a pretty basic service with no user forum or similar available. It is also not able to access stations broadcasting in WMA, a problem if you like nice quality on the BBC. On the other hand vTuner has been pretty reliable.

One of the first wifi internet radios available in the USA was the Sangean WFR-20. This is a much more substantial radio than the Noxon and has a pretty good tone too.

Unfortunately the Sangean does not use nPnP, although the latest beta-firmware is working in that direction.

The Sangean uses reciva.com as a portal. Stuff like favourites, streams and podcasts are controlled via the portal. Reciva also has the benefit of a lively support forum, although the forum software is pretty clunky and slow. Beta-firmware is available via the forums.

I also started iRadioForum.net for general internet radio chat and support. It's a bit slow taking off ... but who knows?

Internet radio does face some challenges though, in particular, geo-blocking and station flash-players.

Geo-blocking is internet radio broadcasters' response to rather dated copyright laws, sometimes just irritating - ie: BBC Radio 5 Live Premier football match commentaries blocked - but largely just plain restricting. Another problem is that radio stations will only play via a specially developed flash player application and stream, thus unavailable to internet radio devices and frequently associated with geo-blocking too. In other words, radio stations, and particularly US stations are determined to chain us to our computers.

Hopefully there will be a way around this.

The Internet Radio Forum

Living as an Englishman abroad, it's nice to have those reminders of old Blighty.

McVitie's Digestives, Taylor's Yorkshire Gold, Private Eye and the Guardian crossword ...

... and, of course, the BBC.

Isn't the interweb a wonderful thing? Now, via the wonder of internet radio, it's possible to listen to BBC Radio 5Live and hear about lane closures on the M32 or an incident on the Circle Line.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I have two internet radios, a Noxon iRadio - using the vTuner portal - and a Sangean WFR-20 - using the Reciva portal. Both have been good acquisitions.

However, finding a place to discuss internet radio problems is difficult. So I've started a forum - The Internet Radio Forum - http://iRadioForum.net/ - to make a start at focusing online discussion and problem solving.

It's very small, at the moment, but I hope in time it will grow. If you're interested, please sign up.

Steam Radio ...

Whatever happened to old-fashioned radio?

Of course, it's still around. Small boys still listen to short-wave under the bed clothes ... don't they?

For me, one of the biggest developments on the web in the last couple of years has been internet radio. This is especially true since the introduction of stand-alone, wifi devices such as the Noxon iRadio and Sangean WFR-20.

I mean, listening to BBC Radio5 in real time in New Jersey, USA, let alone any of the other 14,000 or so stations around the world. How neat is that?

The interesting question is, what's happening to real radio?

There are now a number of ways of listening to radio other than over the analogue airwaves; in N America, satellite radio; Europe, DAB - Digital Audio Broadcast; via cable/satellite on your TV and via the internet.

The main problem for these new methods of delivery seems to be quality. Currently, it seems that nothing compares to a BBC Radio3, over-the-air, FM broadcast.

Contrary to DAB/satellite claims of cd quality, bitrates are far below those found on cd. In fact, many internet stations are starting to surpass DAB stations. In addition, other means of cramming stations onto limited bandwidth means that compression technology is impinging on quality and dynamic range.

For me, internet radio seems to be the way to go. There are problems, particularly if you're mobile. In-car internet radio seems a way off yet, although I see that people are already using European unlimited 3G access via an appropriate mobile device to achieve this end.

However, quality and access is rapidly developing.

I like it.

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*See my hifi / media index here.

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WiFi 04 : Sangean WFR-20

I've had the Sangean WFR-20 a couple of days now and I'm beginning to find my way around the thing.

In many respects it compares well to the Noxon iRadio, particularly in terms of sound quality and volume, but in some areas it is either lacking or I just haven't figured how to do it.

The Sangean was quite easy to get up and going. On initial turn-on the unit first of all updated its station list, then searched for any firmware update. The menu, although tortuous, is still rather easier than the Noxon's and the display, while not state-of-the-art, looks a lot better than the Noxon's clunky blue screen. The remote though is not as competent.

The unit also found my wireless network music server - TwonkyMedia - quite easily and navigating through the tree is once again quite simple using the single knob on the front rather than figuring out which button does what on the remote. The radio happily plays the usual formats including .flac, but is not capable of playing .ogg which puts it at a disadvantage to the Noxon which can, and although it can't directly play .flac it does work with TwonkyMedia's .flac transcoder.

Where I have yet to get any success is getting the unit to play my wlan's music stream. I'm not sure if it's a deficiency on my part or the radio's but whichever, it's a big issue for me. *sorted here

The Noxon has the advantage of showing up on the local network as a network device. As such it also has a device webpage which enables the manual input of radio streams in addition to the ones already available at its web radio gateway - vTuner - the Sangean uses Reciva. This means it's possible to input the address of a local network stream, in my case operated via SHOUTcast server. As yet I haven't figured out how to do this for the Sangean, or if indeed, it's actually possible.

Generally, I'm very pleased. The unit does 90% of what I want very well indeed. However, the .ogg codec issue and the inability to play music streamed on my wlan are a significant downside.

Internet radio devices still have a way to go.

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*See my hifi / media index here.

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Nu Music

Latest acquisitions:
St-Germain-des-Prés-Café 9 : Another incredibly cool and sophisticated look at new European jazz, this edition easily lives up to the quality of the previous eight outings. It's hard to identify a standout track, because they all are ...

Hôtel Costes X : M. Pompougnac serves up the latest edition of lounge-music with a certain je ne sais quoi.

If you like this sort of stuff you can do no better than listen to internet radio station somafm, in particular, BeatBlender.

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*See my hifi / media index here.

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