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Music From The Heavens - For A Fee
Judg3 writes: "There's an article over at Wired about how Sirius Radio [Warning: features rude Java - timothy] just launched the first of three satellites that plan to provide coast-to-coast digital radio to the tune (heh) of only 9.95$/month. Why pay for their digital radio when we have the free analog stuff? Well, according to Sirius, and their competitors XM Satellite Radio, people will pay the extra dough for the niche channels out there, somewhat like Cable TV these days. I dont know about you, but I'm looking forward to the '80s Glam-Rock Channel' and the 'Who 24/7 Channel'" I see this relegated to supplying soothing in-store Muzak(tm)-type background music -- won't free and micropayment-driven Internet delivery make this redundant for ordinary listeners? Still, I'd like to see a political-satire channel, or a stand-up comic channel, or a lot of other obscurities.
An unnamed correspondent adds: "Stereophile reports:'The Sirius 1, built by Space Systems/Loral, will be placed in an inclined elliptical orbit with high angles of elevation to the ground. The company says this type of orbit will improve reception in urban areas.'" Just as interesting, the article mentions a tabletop radio manufactured by Thomson, to be branded in the U.S. as RCA: "The AM/FM/IM (Internet Modulation) radio connects through an Ethernet connection on the tabletop product, allowing listeners to find thousands of different channels of entertainment." Nice to see Stereophile enter the MP3 age intact, too.
hehe...oh my :)
:)
i don't think i laughed that hard in so long..
*giggle*
it was perfectly timed too, i jsut got in a silly mood.
thanks man, hehe
geez
Cable TV started out with many channels with no commercials.
Now look at what we have today. You pay $50/month to get more commercials than on network television.
---
Linux is only Free if your time is worth Nothing
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Be in Your Senses
Of course, that can also be said for *shudder*... MTV. :)
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seumas.com
As far as I could tell, what looked like rude ECMAScript is in fact Flash. Geez, I remeber when the Macromind stuff used to only trouble you if you happened to run a "Windows Multimedia presentation" or courseware authored with Director. It didn't end up inserted in the middile of your Internet traffic.
-=Maggie Leber=-
Unfortunately, what most people want to hear has nothing to do with what needs to be heard. Look how long it took for violence in schools to become a topic. It wasn't new at all. It wasn't new to my generation, it wasn't new to the one before it and it certainly isn't new to the current generation. Until now, nobody wanted to hear it. And, unfortunately, most people don't -- until it's quite late.
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seumas.com
Aggh! College Music! Make it stop! Though the conversations would make me stop and listen though.
surfsalot wrote:"I think tim should get a life of his own. Too bad I'm too lazy to take him of the list of people whose postings I look at. Just cause rob likes the who and tim
... that's about it. People are free to like the Who, but I'm in the wrong demographic or something, since I think I would trade Who tickets for a nice dinner of Korean or Indian food and not feel cheated. The Pet Shop Boys are another matter!
:)
wants to be just like rob (who has the best posts) he has to mention the who. get a life of your own... "
Well, the guy who submitted the article mentioned the Who, but I sure have nothing to do with the Who. Rob likes them, and Rob is a nice and intelligent guy, but I'm not sure I could even identify a Who song other than "Pinball Wizard," which my middle-school music teacher foisted on my class in 7th or 8th grade (a while ago). I know there's a guy named Pete Townsend or Townshend or Townedshend (well, I know there's a guy with a name sort of like that) and, uh, that the kids are alright and uh
Sorry about that laziness problem, but until you get some vivarin I guess you can just not click on stories I post
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Does anyone know how they are going to encode the service? They seem to say CD quality on their site, to me this means uncompressed .WAVs. I think that 128kbit mp3 is great on my 2" computer speakers, when I make a CD and play it it my car, or hook my home stereo they sound like crap. I will pay 10 bucks a month for real CD quality music to my car and home. One last thing, do you suppose they will charge me 10 bucks each for my house and my car?
The first broadcasters were retailers who provided programming for free in order to sell radios. It didn't take long for radio, along with entertainment, to become commercialized. Today, broadcast radio programming consists as much of commercials as actual entertainment. Sirius will revolutionize the mobile audio entertainment marketplace by providing only music, interference-free and with digital quality, uninterrupted from coast to coast. Portable internet reception will probably never match this functionality--especially in urban markets--because there just isn't enough available bandwidth. The break-even point for Sirius is only about 100,000 subscribers. Yes, what they are doing is revolutionary. And yes, they will succeed.
Unitedstatesian who assumes everybody lives in the US. Need I say more?
Believe me, it is logically impossible for me to leave the US.
Are you adequate?
Fine. I can live with your point of view.
However, will I pay $9.95 a month for this like you would? Probably not.
Question: Does this mean that advertisements will be excluded? It would be crappy to pay $9.95 and be forced to hear advertisements too. My take on the whole thing is that people will get spanked both ways. I suppose it is this kind of thing that that makes me state that I don't need any kind of fancy-dancy juiced up digital radio...
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com -- Usability Vortal
How to Download YouTube Videos
I don't know if I'd pay ten bucks a month for it, but if I did ... I *would* like to be able to listen to a single radio station for hours while traveling long distances in my car
signature not found
OK, so I don't have the extensive MP3 collection, or the time to keep up with the newest stuff coming out of Napter. For those of you that do, this isn't aimed at you. This is aimed at folks like me who live in Kansas City who have no decent radio stations AT ALL (ok, we have a 1000 watt modern rock station that is good that's in the extreme northeastern part of town that you can get with static over some of the city). I want decent radio. I'll pay $10/month to get it with no commercials and -fewer- annoying DJ's. I have a fairly long commute (It's Kansas City, we don't have public transportation, we've got highways). I can get NPR without it fuzzing out on me. I can get good music without the 30-minute commercial marathons that plague our local station.
The local stations here spend 15 minutes every hour playing that one ACDC song, you know, that one. It doesn't matter which one, they all sound alike. Oh, and something from Pink Floyd's The Wall. They put out like 500 albums and they only play stuff from The Wall. It gets really old, folks.
I'm thinking this satellite radio thing will either get me better music directly by subscription or indirectly through competition. Here's hoping anyway.
Last I checked, its a free country and nobody is forcing you to pay for this service nor listen to the music. If it were to turn out too many commericals, people would stop buying the service.
Finally all those "think road trip" hints make sense. It was a major headache, but it's easy to find hidden sid's if you read slashcode carefully. Anyway, I found the new sid that replaced k23320(or whatever)inchfan.
Let's take a vote here:
Should I
a) spam them into non existence?
b) wait for mod points and watch them scream "what the hell!!!" as I knock their shit down?
c) tell vladinator and team up to rip them a new one?
d) something else?
I really want to do something clever and funny to those damned trolls, but I'm not sure what. Any ideas?
Thanks,
--Shoeboy
Maybe these folks will have a great product, but if their product is anything like thier web site, they are going to be a great company to avoid like the plague. No place to send in questions, no comment forms, sitty design with loads of slow loading graphics and no actual content.
Not only that, if you cor to their home page without flash all you get is a blue screen of death. Cretins.
not only that, but there only appeared to be "benign" java scripts, at least that i encountered. There were no repeatedly popping up windows that wouldn't go away, just a script to figure out what browser you had and then pop up ONE window to make it easier to navigate. Didn't seem very rude to me. Not nearly as annoying as those ugly geocities fly up ads, for example.
You mean they didn't even have AM talk radio with local programs?
Anyway, if you live there, isn't it the natural thing to become involved with the community, learn what they do, what worries them, and such? Local AM talk radio is usually a great way to learn this kind of thing.
Are you adequate?
Are these signals encrypted? I would imagine they are. So where can I pick up an H Card for this great new service?
http://www.usadr.com (disclaimer...I happen to work for this company)
Your monitor is staring at you.
There is a company called worldspace that is doing a similar thing. Except i believe that they are just going to charge for the recievers that major companies like JVC, Panasonic, and Sony are already making.
--Brett
If you need exposure to new music, try your local college station. They get the opportunity to play new music before most of the big boys -- and often choose better stuff than commercial radio program directors, whose music taste is dictated by $$$. Remember when no one thought we would need anything more than AM? Then FM came along...but I don't think digital radio will get the same lucky break.
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
Does no one see the potential for recording music?
Picture this: You're driving down the road in your ride, you hear a new (to you perhpaps) song come on this digital radio, and you dig it.
Theres no hoping the announcer says the title and artist at the end of it, or straining to remember it until you can get home to download it.. you hit the button on your car receiver, it pulls the song, title, artist and whatever out of its buffer and saves it. You get home, you take the receiver out and dock it with your box, and voila... a digital copy of whatever song you want.
I wouldn't even mind paying for each saved song, its convenience in its most ludichous form...
>Why pay for their digital radio when we have the
>free analog stuff?
No, it should be:
Why pay when you can get it elsewhere for free?
Geeks in space . . *Bam* the future of rock and roll.
___
I'm surprised nobody noticed that the FCC made yet another duopoly arrangement with these satellite licenses. Remember how long cellphones were that way? And remember how expensive they were until there were three or more players in each market?
Dog is my co-pilot.
Of course, then you'll never hear any new music will you, unless you happen to download a track just because you like the name of the song, or it was reccommended. I don't know about anyone else but often times i'll be in the vicinity of the radio, hear a song that i instantly like, and when i get home i go searching for my own copy of it, and other stuff by the same artist. There _are_ benefits to having music pushed at you, maybe not the commercials, but definately the music. of course, you also get played a lot of crap, but oh well.
I agree... I hate being out of town and not able to hear Afropop or, here lately, they've been playing the HHGTTG radio play...not to mention the news coverage and that hottie Terry Gross. ;-)
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
With Napster, Gnutella, Freenet, and the like, who needs any radio? Get the right player for your car and you're all set too. No channel hunting, just music that you want. All pull, no push, thank you very much.
How to Download YouTube Videos
Remember the "information superhighway" and the promise of "hundreds of channels"? When was the last time you heard of this in the media? In contrast, when was the last time you heard of "e-commerce"? Apply the pattern.
The fundamental flaw behind this, of course, is that this radio service is being run by a corporation, which gets to decide on what is it that you and I should listen to. This is doomed to repeat the failure of the Web. The only way to make this technology really deliver is to make it accountable to the public-- say, make half of the channels public access channels (for a not very radical proposal). Why should the corporations get that much of a voice, and the public be forced to be silent?
Are you adequate?
I don't like whatever food a particular resturaunt serves, I vote with my wallet and don't go there, I go to the place across the street that serves better food.
As long as there is a strong enough noncorrupt government to insure competition this will work. Be afraid when the "place across the street" is also another McDonalds.
Now *that* would be worth paying for . . . DJ's instead of those "personalities" . . . The entire broadcast spectrum in the morning, regardless of type of music, has been taken over by the "morning moron" format. . . . Dozen's of stations competign to find who can most proficiencly display their lack of intelligence . . .
:)
:)
So I want stations with DJ's, not "personalities"--just shut up and spin the records. (ok, I just dated myself
Currently, I have radio channels on digital cable. The classic country station is better than the one that fidhnryeotk has, cutting off right before new country rather than the arbitrary 1979 (missing some of the best Merle Haggard, among others).
hmm, I'm ranting
hawk
--
--
=8^
This sounds a lot like the digital cable radio that some cable companies offer. I personally don't like it, the lack of D.J.'s make it dull and the lack of good music makes it duller. :P
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
The fact that they will ultimately decide what the content is really isn't all that different from the current radio model. Listeners can call in and request songs, but the DJs and station owners still make the final choices of what to broadcast.
Most radio stations in the US are not owned by small companies, but major corporations that also own controlling interest in many other media industries (i.e., the same company that owns your favorite cable station also owns your local radio station -- and one just like it in all other major US markets -- and they ALSO own the artists that they choose to play on their systems.
Many times, (I'll use St. Louis as my example) a single company will own SEVERAL of the radio stations in your area, further limiting your ability to hear new music.
For example, Emmis Broadcasting owns 3 different FM stations in the St. Louis area... WXTM 104.1 FM, KSHE 94.7 FM and WKKX 106.5 FM. Their main competators own three other stations. So six of the major stations in St. Louis are owned by 2 companies whos only real competitors are each other.
Listeners DO call in and make requests, but haven't you ever thought it was strange that NOBODY ever requests a song that isn't already on the playlist? I can tell you from my OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE as a radio station employee (WXTM 104.1 FM, St. Louis) that the only requests that EVER get played on the radio are the ones that were ALREADY ON THE PLAYLIST. It goes a little like this:
Joe Listener: Hey guys, i haven't heard that kick-ass song "LATEST POP SINGLE" in the last few minutes, could you play it for me?"
DJ (to himself): Hmm.. Let me check the list... yup, this one's scheduled to be played again in the next hour.
DJ (to listener): YOU KNOW IT MAN! I'm here for YOU! Call in now with your requests to 555-1234. And here... BY REQUEST is "LATEST POP SINGLE"
Next Caller: Hey man, I hear you're playing requests! That's great! Do you guys think you could play "ANY SONG THAT WASN'T OFFICIALLY RELEASED AS A SINGLE IN THE LAST 2 MONTHS?"
DJ (to himself): Yeah, right pal. I just push buttons here. I can't make any real decisions, and besides, my playlist was decided a week in advance by the program director.
DJ (to listener): Hey man, I'll see what I can do, OK? In the meantime, here's the latest by BANDOFTHEMINUTE!
-The Reverend
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
Course who the fuck needs another centralized behemoth?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Why create a service like this when analog services such as this already exist and have for a while? (Where do you think McD's gets their Muzak)
Two wrongs don't make a right, three lefts do!
A political satire channel? If they start beaming out 24-hour marathons of the "Capitol Steps", might I suggest using some of those US missile shield anit-satellite rockets to shoot those mothers down.
I think anyone who's heard them will agree with me on this one... ;)
Have you never heard of On*Star?
General Motors owns Hughes electronics and thus has direct access to a lot of satellites, including the ones which handle DirecTV.
One of GM's goals is to improve profits through value-add monthly subscription services in their cars.
Imagine if for $10-20/month you had a system in your car which would:
- help you contact someone in an emergency
- provide maps for whatever destination and helped you get there
- allowed you to check email and get on the internet
- provided coast to coast radio programming with a variety of channels to suit various tastes
I don't see why you think it's a poor idea. GM has already been fairly successful with the On*Star service, and they've showed these other features in their prototypes at auto-shows.
It's not too far off in the future.
First of all, we have Internet radio. I know that most people don't have them in their cars yet, but, hey, it's all going wireless, right?
Another thing is, remember the Superstation? Ted Turner's nationally broadcast satellite station? His big money-making idea? About the only thing it ever plays is 80's movies. Not to diss 80's movies (GOONIES ALL THE WAY!!!), but I don't think he has much of an audience beyond young Gen-X'ers.
I doubt that people would be willing the pay for better radio in their cars, when they can just get an MP3 player, probably ending up cheaper?
But then again, how much money does Turner have now...?
The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong GHOST (mentha lemures)
Ahh, yes, it's all the mega-corps.
..
People are choosing wrong, they don't *really* want what they're buying, or choosing. Turn control over to us, and we'll give them what they want, instead of what they think they want.
Oh, and for good measure, we'll forcibly relabel their nationalities. Goodthink all around.
Nobody listens to us because we don't get the access. Give us the access (on your nickel, not ours), and we'd be just as popular.
\end{sarcasm}
The anglo-american notion of free speech is *not* the right to be heard, nor the right to the means to spread your message (although the constitution of the U.S.S.R. did guarantee these, along with religious freedom). It's the right to *not be silenced*. Getting people to listen is your problem, and noone elses.
If you can show that the megacorps or government came and stole your publications (whoops, that was student radicals, not th government), or if you can show that they jammed your airtime, we'll get concerned. Until then, we'll assume that you're just not popular because noone agrees with you .
hawk, an Americn
>Putting your toothbrush under your absolute
;) ]
>control has no ill effect on society;
[ed note: you're making strong assumptions about his dental hygiene. How do you know he's not one of those people that society would be *much* better off if forced to use his toothbrush every day???
>however, putting the means of production
>under the control of a few divides society into a
>minority of powerful owners and a minority of
>alienated workers.
Yes, we've seen the amazing successes of central planning . . .
And how did the means of production land in the hands of those who control it? Gee, it might not have *anything* to do with them having created those means, or caused the production of those means by combining what already existed?
And, certainly, they would create just as many means if they knew the fruits of their own labor would be taken from them in the name of labor . . .
hawk
At which point, you open a burrito shop on teh next corner.
Now, if you are prevented from doing this, even though you offer the prevailing rate to rent the premises, this is a serious problem. However, we've now left the realm of capitalism, and are discussing fascism
hawk, the economist
" "Megacorps" do not tell me when to wake up, when to eat and what to eat, when to sleep and what pillow to buy, and how many times a day I should pray."
.... But the mere fact that something is advertised and I use that product doesn't mean that I'm being told what to do. The choice is still mine.
Your choices become more and more limited as these large companies (without governmental regulation to stop them) shut smaller companies down by undercutting, superior marketing or outright buyout. (I could point to Microsoft, but we're all tired of that.) These megacorps *DO* effectively limit your choice, because they control which products will become available to the public, in which quantities, and at which times. Sure, you can still choose to not buy Taco Bell, but you've got to eat SOMETHING. What do you do when you need something and the only product available (or the only one you can afford) is created by a company that you dislike/disagree with? Your only "choice" at that point is to submit to their will or do without.
You may say that it's just the "American Way" to allow those unscrupulous businesses to grow in any way possible... It definately is the way things *ARE* being done around here.
Corporations now have more rights and political influence than individual citizens... If an individual citizen manages to hoarde large chunks of resources, we can at least count on the fact that they will eventually die and their earnings will be redistributed. Corporations never die, they just get taken over by a larger corporation.
-The Reverend
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
It's sure not like country, though.
:)
It seems to be a mix of about 10% country themes/melodic pattern, 100% pop-style shrieking, overinstrumentalization, and the like, and -10% any form of intelligence
Stations are increasingly identifying themselves as either "New Country" or "Real Country."
hawk
I thought this product sounded familiar, then I remembered the Kerbango (www.kerbango.com), which was released about 6 months ago, with and embedded Linux OS. Still nice to see products like this making news though, even though the fee is technically outrageous.
Grrrr. It's not bad Java on that page, it's bad JavaScript and they have nothing to do with each other. JavaScript predates Java and was called LiveScript until it was renamed to capitalize on Sun's over-hyping of Java. As it gets standardized it's getting called Ecma script and I for one will be glad to be rid of the confusion.
Moderate this offtopic, please.
--
he's written a new book since then.
you can buy it here, or someplace else
And for you greenies in the crowd...
(complete with programming realism)
"RALPH NADER--"RICH MEDIA, POOR DEMOCRACY is more than a prolonged wake-up call; it shames those who do nothing and motivates~ validation-form-field.description_0001: ~ those who are trying to build a more democ ratic media that reflects the all-important noncommercial values which forge a just society."
--
+&x
Ages ago, I took trips from San Antonio to Waco. Along the way, we'd pass through the broadcast for the University of Texas in Austin's campus radio station. If we were lucky, we'd pass through at the right time to hear their comedy hour.
I miss it...They used to play stuff like "Seven hillbillies in a haunted house," and "God told me to rob the 7-Eleven". I have NEVER found any tune I heard on that station ANYWHERE else. I'd seriously consider an act of maiming or other carnage for a chance to hear some of them again =)
OK, that was a flub (re. Javascript). Good point, sorry :)
But the rudeness of site certainly affected me -- I get to their intro site, and hitting the "back" button only relooads it. (I'm using Netcape 4.7, haven't done it with Mozilla yet).
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I can already get close to seven hours of digital quality music on a single CD with the help of MPTrip portable CD player. And that's music that I want to hear - not stuff that's broadcasted at me. And those numbers will only grow, to the point where I can get literally hundreds of hours of the music I like to hear crammed on a DVD disc in MP[34] format and never have to worry about radio again. That stuff is just around the corner, literally. Sirius Radio bears many ominous similiarities to the last satellite-based debacle we had; they both seemed like a great idea when they were concieved 5-10 years ago, but technology has simply outpaced them as time was spent turning that conception into reality.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
This kind of thing would have been useful a decade ago. At this point, multicast technology is maturing to the point where we'll soon be able to have nearly infinite digital media capability without the ugly overhead of having to transmit a separate stream to each listener/viewer. At that point, everyone is a potential broadcaster, and the only difference between NBC and Joe Sixpak with a video camera is that the former has a bigger advertising budget.
--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
What would really be convient with Sirius Radio is if you could connect it to a cd-r or mini-disc and make your own mix cd's which would actually be legal. And once again the quality would be relatively unaffected, especially if there is a way of sending the digital stream straight to your hardrive.
Man, and people have conspiracy theories over the OnStar service that some vehicals come with. "Now Big Brother will not only know where you are, but what you're listening to!". Oh man.
I would assume that you aren't forced into the service if you buy those cars and that it is considered a negotiable 'option' that you can refuse and, thus, not be charged for? Oh well, who cares -- apparently the service will only be available in yuppy cars. And only yuppies will fall for this gimmick in such droves as to make this a successful endeavor whatsoever. The same high-fashion wannabe yupsters who whip out that cell-phone at every chance will now have a new toy to impress the ladies and their friends. "I may have a teeny weeny, but I have digital radio!"
Of course, if you already have a car, you can purchase the Sirius receiver system for about $150. Hm. Suddenly, this service doesn't sound so cheap as $9.95/mo.
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seumas.com
Well, first you get VCs of course, but as I recall from a few weeks ago, for the talented, that isn't hard (certain full-motion video internet technologies come to mine...)
1) Send up satellite. Start a website at www.ads.com (Administration that Don't Suck) (I'm sure the domain is available, if not I'll sue the squatting fuckers).
2) Start broadcasting a TV channel called "Movies that Don't Suck". MoDS would go for weeks without repeating anything, and only shows old-but-good stuff.
3) Launch the sister network, "Music that Don't Suck". Sucking is of course in my personal opinion. Yours will not be tolerated, and you will like it.
4) Get a 50% market share in 6 months.
5) Acquire AOL/Time Warner. Start showing first run films (Matrix II, Matrix III, come to mind) on MoDS. Likewise, brand spankin new Britney Spears would go only on MuDS.
6) Use marketing power to disband the MPAA, RIAA, and other such shit.
7) Acquire VA/Linux, Red Hat, Microsoft, and the FSF. Force RMS (through the use of crack commando squads) to denounce the GPL, and suddenly change the license to everything.
8) Bundle Debian with AOL, Red Hat with MSN, and Windoze with pr0n (no need for browsers that way).
9) Retire a happy multi-gillionaire.
I figure I should be able to get this done within a few years? VC's, call me!
Oh, I don't know, you might start with talent and a message that people want to hear.
Of course, "progressives" can't get on the radio because The Man(TM) is holding them back. It wouldn't have anything to do with ratings.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
yup, that is a cool ass feature. And if you could press a button and buy the cd, it would be almost as good as Internet radio.
Wireless, Ubiquitous, High-speed, IP.
When?
--
+&x
Sky Digital, who are responsible for the bulk of channels on the Astra 2A satellite, a full list of which can be found here already has, on transponder 25, 60 channels of nonstop no-DJ no-Ads channels of digital music. I guess it's not bad if you like that sort of thing, but I'm willing to put up with short commercials if there's a decent DJ who can liven up the programming.
About 15 of these channels are part of the standard SKY Digital subscription with the remainder being a pay-for add on option. I don't see any figures showing how many people actually take them up.
I'm happy with the programme content of that system, but I'm sometimes vigen to wonder what happens to all the data that their 'free' recievers collect. To get a free dish and box, you have to agree to have your box connected to the phone line for 12 months, and each week, the box sends back a list of what you have watched. If this is compiled for advertising revenue ratings purposes, fair enough, but the possibility for abuse is huge.
Finally, if you want inane background music for shops, it's also there. A number of stores use satelite radio for their background muzak. ASDA (a UK supermarket group) have their Asda FM on the Astra 1 analogue satelite, and Costcutter (a smaller UK chain) use Astra 1D.
It's one of those parallel worlds novels, in which many different versions of the world exist, some better and some worse than ours. In one of the better ones, the radios display the name of the song and artist (yeah, yeah, computer CD and MP3 players can do this now). So what does this have to do with this article? Well, according to the web site, the proposed radios will have this feature.
You know, public radio has very few commercials. Excpept for the member drives. Give them money and they shut, though.
The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong GHOST (mentha lemures)
...but you don't have a good reason to be. Just because morons like Penis Bird Guy can't do anything about you, doesn't mean I can't. Check the sid. I posted AC of course, but I'm there.
--Shoeboy
Yes, the Establishment. The handful of media corporations that overwhelmingly produce the content most seen in the world.
No one is stoping them, after all the USA is a Free country. If they want to get their message out they can.
Pray tell me how one gets one's message out as much as, say, Rush Limbaugh, when the big players in the media systematically refuse to carry your message.
Are you adequate?
That's the big question. I'd definitely be interested if I could escape advertisers, but I can't imagine that they'd igonore such a major revenue generator. I didn't catch any indication of which way that wind was blowing in the Wired article....
Being an instructor of Java, I must correct the (once again) misconception that Java and Javascript are the same thing. They are not. Thank you for playing.
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
I listened to about half of the samples they have (the RealAudio ones) and there didn't seem to be much on them that you wouldn't get through analog radio anyway. (Lack of commercials aside.)
If anything like this ever becomes popular, I hope it's because it tries new ideas and doesn't just keep playing the same big label stuff repeatedly but through a different medium.
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I like music as much as the next guy but I'm always disappointed by the lack of non-music radio programming. Radio is good for a much wider range of content. When you have to spend a lot of time in the car wouldn't it be great if you could get real brain food from your radio instead of a thousand channels of mindless thump-thump-thump and the same endless repetition over and over of skimmed news headlines and sickeningly predictable political sound bites.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
The one advantage Radio has over your CD collection is that it can introduce you to new music. If there was a local rock/goth/industrial music station, I'd listen to it, purely to hear music I might like that I've never heard of before.
My Journal
I agree! Having lived in rural Montana, rural Wyoming, rural Colorado, rural California, rural Nevada, rural Kansas, rural Arkansas, rural Mississippi, rural Oklahoma, rural Georgia mountains, rural Texas, and rural Alabama, $10 a month for a choice of radio stations is cheap to me.
... Here, anyway.]
... Then, of course, you still have to spend another $20 a month for an ISP ... *IF* you can find one that supports ISDN.
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Just because there is no discernible market in one's domain does not mean there's not a market in someone else's domain. For those of us who actually live in the hinterlands and actually travel the hinterlands, this is quite attractive.
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I like Dr. Demento, news-talk radio, techno, progressive rock, and foreign language broadcasts (gotta practice dem accents!). [And, when there is something particularly interesting or onerous going through the local or Federal governments, I want to keep track of it.]
But, there is absotively, posilutely NONE, here. No Demento. No techno. No progressive rock. No talk radio. I've done everything short of leasing a direct line to radio stations to get a signal. [For some reason Dr. Demento, AgDay, and Kraftwerk are not found on the same radio station
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So, I turned to the net.
There are NO good ISPs, here, for netcasts. The regional vice-president of the telephone company said there will NEVER be ADSL in this STATE. The telco does offer ISDN for a mere $70-100 a month with a three year guaranteed contract, a $300-500 installation fee, a second telephone line at $25 a month, and a non-guarantee of up to 256kps
The local ISPs depend upon the marginal service of the telco, so, everything comes to a congested halt. [Three-odd years ago, when I was desperate to transfer some business files, I couldn't get the local ISP modems to answer. I tried AOL. I couldn't get an answer, there, either. I kept calling and complaining to the ISP and AOL that their services would not answer. They said they had no one logged in and no problems reported. We tracked it down to the telco who had severed a fiber line: my modem went to an unconnected circuit; the ISPs modems went to unconnected circuits. The telco said nothing and the ISPs got a black eye.]
The ONLY cable television company changed their official response from "never" to "no plans."
For the DirecPC advocates, I live on the wrong side of the hill.
So, for this hinterland location and my wants and needs, I think digital subscriber radio is feasible.
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Also, I think this digital subscriber radio service is good for when I leave this hinterland and go to another.
I (too-) frequently drive from this location to Las Vegas, Reno, San Diego, and other parts west. I estimate that for well-over 80% of the trip, there is no desirable-to-me radio programming.
While I do load up the MP3 player and carry lots of CDs and cassettes and books-on-non-print-media, sometimes I just want to hear news, talk, sports, weather and road conditions, whatever, coming from a LIVE human voice.
And, in my experiences, unlike the promises of the manufacturers, the cellular telephone/mobile ISP coverage does not exist, yet. [And, adding $1 per minute for six or seven minutes, just to go to a specific point on the web only to find that there is net congestion and I cannot hear the weather through the computer/ISP ("Please try, again, later.") is a little rich for me.]
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So, on the one hand, national digital subscriber radio sounds impractical and niche. But, on the other hand, it sounds quite attractive. It all depends upon your individual and geographical wants and needs.
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P.S. In 1994, when I moved to my current location in this uninhabited area, I needed a pager for work. I called Sk*P*g* who advertise 100% coverage of the US. They said they had no coverage in my area. "But, you advertise that you have 100% coverage of the US!" "Yes, we do. And, we do have 100% coverage of the US. But we have no coverage in your area." I guess '100% coverage' depends upon what your definition of 100% is
P.P.S. There is a major national airline which is constantly bombarded by customer requests for inflight pay radio to listen to a particular radio talkshow, either live or recorded. While most of their customer balk at the $3-5 inflight movie headset rental, they claim that the average offer is $10 for a flight's worth of pre-recorded radio broadcast.
P.P.P.S. I think I remember some of these same 'against' arguments were used for pay-tv, cellular, pager services, ISPs, owning your own telephone
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I believe that satellite radio from Sirius and XM will probably be a success. There's still a large percentage of people that don't know what MP3 is, let alone have an MP3 player in their car. Programming from radio also doesn't have to be music. Talk radio is the largest money making genre on radio and obviously it doesn't lend itself to mp3 format. Talk radio is all about interaction with the audience and allowing people to call in to voice their opinions. The problem is that if you're in the middle of Montana, odds are you're only going to hear Rush Limbaugh and the rantings of militia groups. Also think about people that have to do a lot of traveling for their jobs. If they drive several hours a day, now they can at least sit back and listen to the same music channel, genre, whatever. you're not forever searching for the "alternative station" in each city you drive through. Many people listen to radio because you discover new music. Obviously this is an area where mp3 is lacking. For the most part, people download or rip music they know. Very few new music discoveries are made via mp3. This is really a mass-market technology, designed for audience much wider than the people that read slashdot. It's a model based on DirecTV, Dish network, et al. Who would have though that cable tv would prosper... "pay for tv when you can get it for free... never!" Who would have thought that satellite tv would grow so fast. Internet music is cool, but it's not convenient for most people. My parents don't listen to mp3, does yours? However, my parents do have DirecTV and when they buy a new car, if satellite radio is available, they'd probably accept that. Think mass market people... not geek market.
You can choose from dozens of radio stations.
When it prompts you to download the .pls file, download it, and view it.
Then pass the url you see into xmms.
Enjoy !
If you try www.com it's got a stand up channel and it's free (Real Audio required). Quite good too, Dennis Leary etc.
So there's another company trying to compete with DMX, MusicChoice, Muzak and SkyRadio. Their one hook is that they're trying to be the first to get portable and mobile receivers made, which will go thr way of the dodo, quadraphonics, 8-track and AM stereo if the receivers are designed only to hook to their system.
Satellite and cable narrowcast "radio" stations have been around for some years now. And yes, while DMX and Sky are available to digital cable and home sattelite customers at home, their core revenue source is commercial subscribers: shops, restaurants, offices, buildings and so forth, which pay a higher fee.
There's certainly a niche for this sort of thing for mobile delivery. But it's going to be short-lived. Once wireless broadband rolls out in larger metropolitan areas in a couple of years, you'll be able to listen to your favorite high-bandwidth streaming audio services--or even access the MP3 jukebox you have at home, for that matter. Of course, there will have to be a way to make up for the lost visual ad revenue for some streaming stations, but that will probably come from ISPs paying a blanket charge covering all of their subscribers, just as cable and satellite TV companies pay fees to providers of the "basic cable" channels.
Moderate this. Egads, he's at Chico!
This sounds very similar to AOL's (cough, cough) Spinner.com -- Internet radio with hundreds of genre-based channels, which is free. What VC is backing this deal? Maybe I should send them a plan... BTW, now P2P is the 'in thing' with VCs (I would think profitability would be, but who am I?), do you think virtually any P2P plan could get funding? Its odd how VCs flock in the same direction.
"The Establishment"? No one is stoping them, after all the USA is a Free country. If they want to get their message out they can.
Because the lauched the fscking sat. That is why, lauch your own sat and you turn over 1/2 of the channels to public access. After all the web is about as public access as you can get and yet most of the sites still suck
With a C-Band BUD, you can get many SCPC channels (analog tho) for free. root around at Lyngsat for info.
One of the best things I have found is WRN1. 24/7 live feeds from around the world. sat or net-streaming
- another cosmic ray -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
not a bad idea but... I think tim should get a life of his own. Too bad I'm too lazy to take him of the list of people whose postings I look at. Just cause rob likes the who and tim wants to be just like rob (who has the best posts) he has to mention the who. get a life of your own...
If a nominal amount will free me of the annoying commercials, AND if they'll find a way to put it in your car, I'd probably go for it ;-). I think of the radio as much more of a car product, where I want to occassionally get traffic updates and most of the time listen to music. And, yes, 80s music does sound quite appealing to me... I guess my age is showing.
-- it's just me --
Part of me thinks that this is a great idea. Hell, some form of competition to the tradtional forms of transmission and media usually is. I'm just not convinced it will offer anything I will care to pay for. I have my CD's and MP3's. What else do I need? If I want non-stop Industrial music, I'll pop a bunch of discs into my changer or fire up a decent playlist in my MP3 player.
I would think the lure of targetted demographics would be enough to land some advertisers and, by removing any subscription free, they would find that they could gain a pretty hefty base of listeners.
Then again, look at all the idiots who actually pay for Cable because they feel it's such a necessity that they'll croak without it.
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seumas.com
[i]50 channels of commercial-free music. [/i]
I can't stand all the adds on normal radio... it makes talk radio unlistenable...
Not to mention the fact that I can only really get one clear interesting station at my house...
If this sattelite radio includes DJs and commercials or is nothing more than re-broadcast analog stations, their going to have to pay me $9.95 a month to listen to it.
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Check out AbiWord.
This is a bit of an extension on the commentary already given in the article, as well as my own curiosity. What kind of market exists for this kind of service? Especially with MP3s circulating every which way, as well as RealAudio radio servers on the rise and ImagineRadio providing free customizable broadcasting to subscribers, I'm not sure if this will catch on. I mean, hell, my college radio station will soon be setting up a RealAudio server, so how hard can it be? These kinds of services are everywhere.
This is, I suppose, a comment not only to assess the available market for the technology, but also as a possible "suggestion box" to the company in charge of the project, as it would have to provide something that these free services lack. Personally, I agree with the idea of a "stand-up comedy" channel, so long as it provides broadcasts of the obscure performances of comedians not necessarily available in stores. Or perhaps they could rebroadcast "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Hell, I'd sign up right then and there. A lot of care has to be taken to make this service unique, appealing, and marketable.
Suggestions, anyone?
/* TNW */
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG
No commercials would be worth 9.95 a month.
If I can recieve this via my walkman while cycling, or on my powerboats radio/sailboat radio my car radio then it has a chance to become HUGE. but after looking all over their site there are no plans in supporting that. (In fact their technology cant support low-power recievers) Now add to that an extra fee - Myradio. I select the songs that my "station" plays. Hell, if you mate this technology with that of a diamond rio pmp-300 you'd get a radio station that has up to 40 minutes to re-aquire and upload before you lost audio.
Nahhh... wont happen. not in my lifetime.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You put it very succintly and effectively. However, this is /.; when the typical user sees the word "radio", he thinks "music". Remember when the FCC's microradio ruling came to discussion here? All they could think about was about running a music station in your neighborhood (to broadcast nothing but corporate-produced bad anglo pop music, of course), and of course, they all discounted the idea on the grounds that Napster was cooler.
The idea that radio might be a medium for all sorts of activities that build up communal ties and enhance democracy is just beyond them. They have been brainwashed.
Are you adequate?
From my experience (and especially if they try to go worldwide) they're likely to not-choose and then exclude efficient payment systems, instead relying on a single system plagued with fraud, because only a 1950s system (inartfully stapled to the internet) could ever be the vaunted "ecommerce" to the pointy-haired set.
:^)
I'd love to be proven wrong, though, and maybe a few of them will care about STAYING paid...If so, contact me.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
Is this a joke? Or R U SIRIUS?
Okay. Now that I've got that out of my head (it was like one of those horrible songs that you have to get out of your mind or you'll go mad... thank you for understanding).
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seumas.com
But wouldn't it be great to be able to toggle window.open like you can cookies and such? Now, that's a feature that I would pay for...err...download and use.
i always do the right-click-open-in-new-window thingy because slashdot takes so damn long to load, so i didn't notice that there is a problem with going back (i was looking for the fly-ups of doom). Easily solved of course if you just hold the back button down and get a little list of where you want to go back to...I don't believe that this was done as a malicious act though, just stupidity. They're using this tiny little script they got off the net somewhere "detect_flash.js" (52 lines including comments and extra carriage returns) that quickly redirects you to different pages if you have(n't) flash, which is why you can't get back from that page. Classic case of a webpage hobbled together by danged artist-types using flash...
What crap. I'm honestly stunned that anyone thinks this can make money. Not just one satellite, but THREE? Are they expecting an enormous demand for radio you have to pay for and buy new equipment ($280) to receive? Fuck it, this can't be real. Someone started this web site as a joke, and Wired took the bait. If someone ponied up the scratch to put three satellites in orbit for this idea, then God is dead.
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
This is all without adverts, and if you turn the TV on while you are listening to the music, you can find out the song title, artist and more. All in all a very good system. We also have all of the standard radio stations on the satellite in addition (BBC 1 to 5, Virgin, etc), and 8 Music TV stations (MTV, MTV2, MTV Extra, MTV Base, VH1, VH1 Classics, The Box, UKPlay).
So we are not short of music in the UK. And Sky Digital is the best television package you can buy in the world (probably due to having all the best American TV shows available on it) and with the interactive stuff and other fun stuff it outshines the rather weak OnDigital terrestrial digital TV system in England.
This is timed really well. Bandwidth is getting bigger every year, and people are beginning to use the net for audio news/reports/analysis/whatever.
:)
I often search on www.npr.org for RA snippets that match my interests, and it's inevitable that there will be web sites catering to all kinds of niche interests.(There's indeed a high probability that someone will start a channel broadcasting fan noises from people's overclocked PCs in at least 3 different streaming audio formats).
It's also unlikely that car manufacturers would outfit millions of cars with a device that needs subscription to work. This, at a time when MS is aggressively gunning for their browser to be placed in cars (I think they already have a deal w/ Ford). Hmmm...is it possible that they might give away their browser for free to gain market share, do you think?
The subscription model for radio is a poor idea to start with. There is already a cable-TV like radio broadcaster, which gives you the choice of hundreds of channels. Radio and subscription just don't mix.
Wonder where they got funding for this? After all, what VC would be willing to throw money away on a startup that has no customers and is unlikely to make money? Oh wait...nevermind.
w/m
I used to live in rural Montana, and the lack of any radio in some places and the lack of non country stations in others annoyed me to no end. 9.95 a month is cheaper than keeping a cd collection up to date, and the car cd/mp3 players are still pretty expensive ( I didn't see how much the satellite radio recievers are) but even if they are more expensive than a car mp3 player the high speed internet access to make one worthwile is nonexistant in rural areas. DSS is popluar there for the same reason, no or piss poor cable. It may be out of date by something else soon, but it is a step in the right direction for those who dont live in populated areas.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
Is a channel devoted to classic radio show. The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, Superman, they were great and so engrossing... really let you appreciate the impact that sound can have (and the amazing imagery that can be provided by it). I would definetly pay stuff that just wouldnt have a large local market but would be feasable for a national one (ie : Radio Shows)... then again an Anime Music Channel would be nice too...
According to a press release I read on the Sirius site a while back, one of the channels on their system will be "Sci-Fi Radio," produced by USA Networks Interactive (the people who bring you the Sci-Fi cable TV channel). I'm not sure what the programming is gonna be like. I actually sent those folks a demo CD of my bad ass radio program that would have been PERFECT for their channel... but I have heard nothing from them. OK enough bitterness from me...
With some programming, you can automate ecoding everything they play into an MP3. It would be nice if they had a station that never repeats a song within a month, $9.95 for 14400 MP3s! (3 minutes per song * 30 days) I wonder if they have commercials.
If people want radio without adverts, try listening to (BBC) Radio 1. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1 and click on the listen now button (needs RealPlayer). No adverts, and great music (quite alot of American stuff, especially during afternoon (British Time) and morning, but lots of british music as well music as well.
BTW, have you lot in America decided on your standard for Digital TV (terrestrial / via areil type) yet? We had it first you know :).
ONdigital carries most national radio stations (incluiding both BBC RADIO 4's (Long Wave and FM!), and a Stero 5Live...) as well, but doesn't have Sky Digitals extra music channels, or all 4 BBC CHOICES, or Paramount Comedy Channel, or UK DRAMA. Or old-fasioned Teletext, or the 5000000 varitaions or MTV and VH1 (run from 'Breakfast Television House' :)
-- This is not a sig. But I'm a liar.