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Satellite Radio Is Officially Here
dragons_flight writes: "XM Satellite Radio has officially launched, initially selling equipment only in the Dallas and San Diego markets, but going national by Nov. 15. A reciever for home or car costs ~$300 plus a $10/month subscription service. Many new cars will be pre-equipped with satellite-ready radios. XM provides 100 digital channels, a signicant number of which are commercial free. Sirius satellite radio says they are committed to launching be the end of the year." Any readers out there with the equipment for this have comments about it? ($10x12 + $300 makes $420 I'll be putting toward other things.)
It is hard to sell commercials without an existing user base. Once you have the customers, than you can zap them with ads.
love is just extroverted narcissism
I don't see any electronic or techno music in the listings.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
How do they enforce the subscription fee? Do they just make you send back the receiving equipment if you don't pay? If so, I predict that the DirecTV hackers will have a new toy to play with. ;)
Honestly, this could turn out to be worthwhile, *if* they provide stations that play a wide enough variety of music, and remain well-organized by music category. Having all music and no commercials/talk is a big plus. The big problem is that $10 monthly fee for the privilege of listening to a pre-determined playlist that you have no control over.
With the era of MP3 music upon us, I think many people will prefer to spend that $10 a month on blank media, and buy an in-car MP3 player (for roughly the same price as these satellite radios), and control what they listen to and when it's heard.
Satellite radio is a great concept, but I have a hard time seeing too many people subscribe under the current terms. The "itch" that this addresses (too many commercials, not enough variety) isn't severe enough to justify the $300 + $120/year. Especially not when cheaper "scratches" exist, like CD players. The audiophiles that I know are more likely to spend their money on MP3 and CD alternatives.
Maybe if they can get enough cars to come with the hardware preinstalled, they have a shot. But until they have that installed base of hardware, this service is a pilot project at best.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
Accept the fact that some people like not knowing exactly what's available or do not have the time to compile playlists. Take the time to come up with a valid complaint, like why the hell would I spend $420 the first year to listen to the radio?
Instead of supporting this form of broadcast, why not send some money to your local public radio organizations instead? (Sorry to everyone else if this is largely a US idea.) They insulate you from the blatant and sickening commericialism. They don't ask you to install special equipment. They (usually) broadcast things which expand your mind and make you more informed. They do not just allows themselves to be swept along in every popular culture movement you can think of, etc.
In short, they don't ask for much, and they deliver quite a lot in return. It's an excellent investment. Please consider sending them the $420 instead.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Is there some particular reason why you couldn't just grab this radio feed out of the air? Sure, you might have to reverse-engineer/hack the top secret elite XOR key out of an existing radio, but after that, what's stopping you?
I dunno, I've gotten so weary of commercial radio that I almost never listen to anything but CD's anyway. And remember when cable TV was introduced and the big motivation for paying for it was so that you got broadcasts without commercials? That didn't last too long...and now consumers can pay up to $100.00 a month for cable that consists of more advertising than is allowed by law on network channels.
So, I don't really believe the non-commercial aspect, at least not once they get a big enough subscriber base.
And reviewing the available channels, it seems to me that it would be easier and cheaper to just buy CD's. At $12.00 a pop for a new CD, you could buy 35 CD's of music you want to hear instead of constantly flipping through another 100 channels of crap.
----I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying.--
so if I understand this right for ten bucks a month I only get 30 stations that are comercial free and 100 + that arn't any any different than what I already have.
excuse me if I don't run out grab one.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
I bet you could hack one of these things to instead of playing music to encoding to mp3 or ogg right on your hardrive. On normal radios, this is kind of pointless because the sound quality is so poor, but on fully digital music, this could be sweet. Hmmm, maybe that's what we'll have to start doing: hacking the hardware to be able export digital music, like CD's and such, to software. Mayeb I should switch from Math-Edu to CompE so I could make a bundle setting up something like this.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
most higher end sony car audio decks come ready for XM recieving. I got one i am really looking forward to the launch
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
XM and Sirius units use different standards and are incompatible with each other.
Imagine if I had to buy a different TV for watching ABC, CBS, NBC, HBO, Disney, etc...
Deja vu... can't we all get along?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I listen to the radio on my way to work. I listen sometimes in the evenings. Mostly I just bounce around between about 4 stations looking for something interesting.
And I don't pay a cent.
Why would someone pay for something that is moderately better when they have a perfectly acceptable *free* version already available?
This is very comparable to the popularity of Napster. Sure you occassionally D/Led a song with a clipped ending... or the person logged off during mid D/L... but it was free. And the masses spoke.
In my view.. Radio is public, free, and analog. I just can't imagine subscribing to the radio.
Ugh.
antidigerati
Finally someone comes out with a radio service that can get me the 24-hour electronica fix that I so crave! And 3 channels nonetheless!! Not too sure what everyone else's situation is but here there's rock, country, rock, oldies, country, talk, country, and maybe some rock. Doesn't go so well if you just have this insatiable urge to listen to some Digweed in the car (mind you, I have no CD player or AM radio to speak of (then again, it's AM)).
Had I the cash to throw down on something like that I'd definitely have it by tomorrow. Sadly there's these things called food and shelter. . . . .
But I hope that this takes off, if only for the sake of having what may actually be some quality programming and reception! Who knows. I might be able to afford it in a while. Oh yeah, and if you don't like techno, I think there's some other channels, too.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
if im going to spend 420, I'm going to smoke it too.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Instead of supporting this form of broadcast, why not send some money to your local public radio organizations instead?... They insulate you from the blatant and sickening commericialism.
This is not, in fact, the case.
Listener donations are an important part of community radio, but corporate sponsorships also play a big (often a majority) role. The only difference between a sponsorship spot and an out-and-out ad is:
Apart from those, there is very little difference between the ads you hear on commercial radio and the spots you hear on public radio.
I worked for a community radio station in Charlottesville, VA called WNRN (91.9 -- still have my t-shirt). They started off with 4 breaks per hour -- :03, :20, :35 and :47 plus the top-of-the-hour station ID live/liner break (or something close to that -- it's been some years). During donation drives the number of breaks doubled.
By the time I moved out of Charlottesville this past year they had added I think 2 promo spots to the hour. You can't get enough on your calendar otherwise to support the station.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not knocking community radio. I loved WNRN and the people who work there. But let's not talk about how public radio is "non-commercial" when that's simply not true.
-- Old Man Kensey
What a deal? I mean the other broadcast crap is free, but this broadcast crap only cost $420. And remember back in the '80s when all your friends had cable and didn't have to sit through commercials. Well, now you won't have to listen to commercials on the radio, until everyone has a satellite radio and they decide to add commercials.
/. concerned about anything other than where their next bit of entertainment is coming from? $420 to listen to the same crap that my wife tortures me with now? Sheesh!!
Really people. Is
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
weed perhaps?
(if you don't get the joke, please just ignore it)
from the just-when-my-car-gets-a-decent-cassette-deck dept.
Jesus. What did you upgrade from, an 8-track?
C-X C-S
This news comes just in time for the great magnetic storms (1 GT of solar mass headed our way...) Too bad the service was not launching today ;)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
What if you want to listen to something other than music? They have many channels devoted to current news, CNET radio for tech news, talk shows, comedy channels, financial news, PLUS quite a few nice music channels thrown in. (the world music channels look especially interesting to me)
Music is great, but sometimes you need a little variety, especially to keep you company if you spend a lot of time on the road. And if you're on the road a lot you know that a good signal is hard to pick up in the middle of nowhere.
load "linux",8,1
The Sirius radio satellites will transmit directly to cars. They are in a specially designed orbit, with three regularly spaced satellites in an inclined orbit, which takes them very low over South America and high over North America. That way, there's always one satellite nearly overhead and moving slowly over the USA. Their control station is in Ecuador, where all three satellites are visible at all times. Unles you are in a tunnel, there should be no interference anywhere in the 48 contiguous US.
Aside from the occasional fund raiser, NPR and college stations are already commercial free.
Plus, they tend to be inane-DJ-chatter-free as well. I don't know what's worse, actually.
Of course, since my radio was 'removed' upon moving to DC, I haven't had to suffer through commercials or moronic DJs.
Regardless, both this and the Rio Empeg cost more than my car is worth, so fat chance I'd buy either one...
I see a few repeated thoughts against subscription radio. Here's a some thoughts on why they're wrong.
:) Subscription-based media access works (cable TV, newspapers, magazines), despite the wide variety of high-quality, free sources (network TV, indie 'zines).
Anti-1) Just buy CDs.
At $10/mo. you can't even buy one CD/mo. Assuming good playlists, this is a cheaper way to get a variety of music. As for the $300 one-time cost for the radio, that will come down. CD players debuted at $500 - $1000 (?? just buy blank tapes at $0.50 ea.!); likewise for VCRs, DVD players, etc.
Anti-2) Listen CDs for good selection; don't rely on radio.
CDs play for 70 min max. Then it either stops, repeats, or you must switch discs. The point of radio is fire-and-forget. Pick station, and not have to interrupt work to fiddle with music selection. Multi-discs CD players reduce the problem, but don't remove it.
Anti-3) Use MP3 player to play large compilation discs.
Like Anti-2, it reduces effort, but still requires effort (both up-front to make the MP3s, and possibly to switch discs). But it's also Anti-1 -- you gotta have discs before you can rip 'em. Unless you steal music, but that's another discussion.
Anti-4) Just make your own mixes, and listent ot them. Why listen to corporate-run radio?
Uh huh. Just like you make your own DVD mixes, rather than getting cable-TV for movies, news, variety, etc.
For many of those people, the objections will be sufficient deterrent to trying digital radio. But early adopters are funny beasts, and are not easily stopped
There are many obstacles, but I think subscription, digital radio could work.
ShoutingMan.com
Clear Channel is a "strategic equity partner" in XMRadio (read: part-owner). So much for that...
Will Canada just come over to the States and buy the dishes, only to get the signal for free across the border?
Considering how small an mp3 stream is, it wouldn't be hard to capture the stream to a 128meg DIMM chip so you can precache stations.
Without commercials and without commentary, there's no disincentive to timeshifting digital satellite radio. Why not make a system that will cache the last 100 songs, so you can just skip the ones you don't like?
Kevin Fox
The phrase "begging the question" has never meant "asking the question". "Begging the question" is a name for a specific logical fallacy. Please see http://skepdic.com/begging.html
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Thankfully the Bay has one truly Public Radio station, KKUP. None of the DJ's are played, they have 15+ genres, and are 100% listener supported (quite possibly the only station in the country). Not that I would bet too many /.'ers are big reggae fans, but they have the most reggae hours on radio period. (XM just happens to have 1 reggae station I am streaming right now)
A point on XM radio, the trucking industry will be the first to take great use of this, on a trip to Mardi Gras from Indiana with my father, I failed to bring anything to read with me, and picked up all the free trucking magazines I could at local gas stations, and they were looking forward to XM in great force. It also interested me the amount of trucking companies who provided e-mail services built into their rigs to their employees so they could keep in touch with both their dispatchers and families.
Always remember not 'ALL' tech is created by geeks for geeks....
Obviously, I'm not able to speak to the VA public stations (I'm in MN), but I do find that public radio here (91.1 FM and probably others in this area) contain so little commercialism that I experience no dilemma of conscience in describing them as non-commercial. Many public radio stations will license the National Public Radio and follow their guidelines, so beyond that, YMMV. In MN (MPR), they point out key sponsorships with a little phrase behind it probably every 15 minutes. Apart from that, it's just content. Maybe I should've promoted MPR specifically, but I'm guessing that public radio practices nationwide are probably good enough to warrant a blanket endorsement.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
I think what would be really useful is a combo CD player/HD unit, that would rip to the HD while you were listening.
Granted, without net connections you wouldn't get track info right off BUT - how big is the whole freecddb database? Since storage is cheap you could include the whole thing locally and provide some means of updating (like a new DB burned on a CD).
With that combo you would still have the variety of your CD collection without the typical pain of burning all your CD's and then transferring the MP3's around.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The sattelites aren't set up for it. Iridium is setup for many two streams with really tiny bit rates. I guess 2400bits/s based on the sound quality I heard. It is isen't a matter of making the bit rate higher as the hardware is optimized for the many small streams. Also a constalation of 66 LEO (low earth orbit) sats is harder to manage then one geosycronous satelite.
I think I'd buy it. There was a radio station here in Salt Lake City that played for about two weeks straight with no commercials, most of which was music I liked. It was great. They will be offering 30 or so channels of no commercials... as well as some 40 more channels of music.. in addition to 20 or so news feeds. I think that's a great deal for $10 a month.
.02 cents.
I'd love to be able to listen to CNN in my car. I don't know how many stations I can pick up here, but I don't think it's 100. And I'd bet that they add in channels later if the service was popular.
K, that's my
-Frijoles-
My first choice would be for a live NPR feed though PRI and of course CBC would be welcome. All-music would be useful as an alternate though I'm really looking for something to keep me engaged on the long and at this hundredth-time boring night drive. Mp3's or other pre-recorded music aren't what I'm looking for (I already have a large collection of CD's & tapes) and so aren't interesting as an alternative. I could download some news & interview programming I like and burn it to a CD before each trip but this would be far more preparation then I care to do so regularly.
Unfortunately it appears that "satellite radio" will be as problematic for me as conventional radio. Driving through the mountains at ~45 North will likely result in service interruptions (doubtless the same as with conventional radio: always at the most interesting points.) Without much likelihood of repeaters in these rural areas this appears an inherent bug in the service and one which (at least for me) brings it from a strong possibility to something I'm not willing to pay much extra for.
A couple of tangential thoughts:
-
As Canada's CRTC takes no action to prevent piracy of US FCC-licensed satellite television broadcasts (aside from refusing to allow the services to be directly sold in Canada) I wonder if the same will hold true of radio broadcasts?
-
Is anyone aware of an online service where I could plug in a route (not a single location) and get a listing of stations by genre along the way? I imagine this would be a popular add-on to the many online route/map services but none seem to have anything like this. What I'd like to see would be something like a listing of public radio station by frequency along my route; others would presumably prefer country stations, pop or rock programming, etc.
Finally, Howstuffworks has a much more complete explanation of the history of this technology and how it really works (the corporate web sites are careful not to identify problems such as the need for repeaters.)I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Why support Linux vendors when you can just bleed them dry?
Why be nice to people?
Why shouldn't you lie, cheat, and steal at every opportunity when you won't be caught?
Why not cheat on your taxes?
Why help your neighbor?
I do hope you're just trolling. If you can't understand the "Golden Rule" as a simple equation for self-interest, if nothing else, then you truly are a loser.
I do know people who think the presence of law enforcement is the only reason you should respect other people. They are sad people who really have no hope for happiness until they change their attitude.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
I've really enjoyed the piped music coming in on the channel 8?? range on DirecTV. It's commercial free, and they display the artist/title/CD/label on the screen for your information (which is more than I'll say about most FM stations that just assume you know).
But of course it's a stationary service, rooted to my home system.
It would be nice if I could just receive those same audio channels from DirecTV in my car, on my personal CD/MP3 player/tuner instead of having to subscribe to yet another service. The BW requirements seem minimal enough in principle but perhaps there's no convenient way of extracting just those channels from their feed with a dinky antennae?
Of course, another alternative might be if cell phone time comes down in price enough so that we can stream audio over the web via WAP(?)
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Why is everyone talking about the music possibilities of satellite radio. I'm looking forward to getting NPR and the BBC. Nether of witch I can get very well here in Florida with analog radio.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
I'll pay as much for this as I do for cable TV now: nothing. I strongly doubt that there's going to be more than 5% of this that's worth listening too, and I can get about 95% of that from my own music, our two good broadcast stations (CBC and CKUA), and the odd moments of silence that are quite enjoyable when they happen.
5% new of 5% worthwhile isn't enough to justify paying any money at all for.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Ok, so XM Radio has one metal channel, playing wannabe metal such as Korn, Limb Bizkit, and Marilyn Manson. But, out of "100 channels", there's still not one that offers melodic death metal such as In Flames or power metal such as Helloween!? Bah. (And, FWIW, it doesn't look like Sirius fares any any better)
:).
But, to their credit, XM Radio does offer BBC World Service, which is almost reason enough alone to sign up
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
They will become filthy rich if they do it right.
First they really have to offer a small portion of channels 100% free. I.E. I buy a satt radio and these stations come in without registration or calling anyone. put up channels that have a large amount of commercial spots on them, but put something there to entice the customer to pay for the full service.
If they have nothing free to draw in the users then they will die. and die horribly.
I refuse to buy anything I cannot try, that includes software,music,power tools, etc...
Hell car dealers let you test drive cars for free, BestBuy let you mess with stuff for free, HBO even gives you 2 times a year a weekend free.
I want 5 sattelite channels free! but they don't have any that are free, just the "demo packages" that require you to give them credit card numbers,DNA samples and information to spam the hell out of you with while you listen for 15 days.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What you want would require two way communication... VERY EXPENSIVE if it is satellite based... You would need a transmitter, and the satelitte in orbit would need multiple 'channels' listening to not only you but every other American with this service... It just isn't feasible...
If you wanted it for detour info, etc... a cell based solution is/should be available soon... but the bandwidth isn't there to stream anything... not for at least the next 5 years...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
meaning, a good concept that no one wants.
what percentage of the driving radio listner would want coat to coast radio stations, and pay 10bucks for the privilage?
truckers, trains would be the biggest market, and is that enough to keep your business floating? probably not.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's good to know that there's an applicaton that handles this for points along the way but I'm looking for something that could generate listing for the entire route, not just from the dozen or so control cities I'd have to manually plug in.
I assume the FCC has some sort of database of stations, frequencies and transmission areas (I've seen highly detailed maps for individual stations showing thier transmission areas) and there must be a table of stations-to-formats out there. With these two datasets it seems it would be trivial to overlay this on a route and generate a listing of stations of the sort desired and note where they begin & end.
Instead i expect (and well could be wrong not being at all familier with the product) that DeLorme is simply listing stations registered as serving a particular metropolitan area and not actually matching their transmission areas to the exact geographic location.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Try it out at their web site. It seems to be broken right now, but it looks like they are trying to provide a trial service.
Bash Clear Channel all you want (hell, we do!), but they do own 91X here in San Diego, arguably the best alternative music radio station (and going strong for nearly 20 years)...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Some guy's mp3 collection set on random is not my idea of entertainment. Shoutcast/icecast/*cast sucks.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Try it out [xmradio.com] at their web site.
No, thanks. It runs under javascript.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I hope you're talking about your home system and not the one in the car. If you can hear an enormous difference between a decently engineered FM station and a CD, you probably aren't getting enough audio input from the environment you're moving that vehicle through, input that you need to make informed, intelligent decisions about how you're going to operate that vehicle.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I think everyone is seriously missing the point of XM satellite radio.
The problem with today's music radio stations is that they've been so market-researched to death that the only formats I hear commonly are Adult Contemporary, Country & Western, Hip-Hop and some Heavy Metal. They've essentially wiped out Classical, many ethnic formats, Easy Listening, and Jazz formats, just for starters.
The potential for XM is enormous: a lot of music formats we used to hear widely and/or niche format music heard only regionally can now get national distribution again. Imagine being able to listen to techno and dance music from Europe and Japan (great music few people in the USA hear)--XM could provide an outlet for that soon.
To all of you touting how XM is "commercial-free" take a look at the disclaimer on xmradio.com's sample page:
Following is a sortable list of XM Satellite Radio's channels. You'll also find an option to listen to XM programming samples. (Although all of our samples are commercial-free, some of the actual channels may carry minimal advertising.)
Interesting -- so where's the benefit again? Incidentally, crutchfield is already selling the XM recievers and add-ons Here
~arbitrary
$10x12 + $300 makes $420 I'll be putting toward other things
I can take a hint. Try smokedot.org
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
This is, though, a 12" or 18" parabolic dish in a radome, so it's a bit much for small cars. It would be cool to replace the fibreglas radome with a clear one, so people could watch the dish track as you drove along.
I mean really, who wants random objects to fall out of the sky when they turn on the radio?
Or even worse -- Snoop Dogg?
arcane for life
The Washington Post has had lots of coverage of XM, since it's a local company, and they report that there will be far fewer commercials than are on, say, Clear Channel. Oh, and XM has some former DJ's from WHFS. Those of us who've lived in DC for many years remember HFS, fondly, as a true alternative radio station. It used to play lots of reggae, punk, other non-mainstream formats. Looks like XM will do the same.
Best Slashdot Co
I do this, mainly to hear NPR, but my God, the do fundraisers OFTEN and LONG. It's painful to listen to them begging for money for a week and a half, when you *could* be listening to Morning Edition. g
I have a suspicion what the answer is going to be, but does anyone know if XM and Sirius are using the same hardware/software? That is, if I buy an XM radio, then learn that my favorite DJ or Band is getting their own 24-hour channel on Sirius, can I cancel XM and join Sirius with the same hardware?
I'm afraid this is going to be too much like DirecTV vs Echostar -- each using their own systems. Why, oh, why, can't we develop STANDARD content delivery systems and simply use the inherint subscriber / key information to control which bird you're listening to?
I have to agree. It's also bad when a big event occurs, like the 9/11 attack and like the Lewinsky/Clinton case. I suppose they beat dead horses like that because they should. In the case of the 9/11 attack, at least it's warranted. With things like the Lewinsky case? I don't want to hear it anymore after a couple days.
I will say though that their fund-raising has gotten a lot less intrusive (at least in MN) since they started encouraging "pre-funding" over the Internet. They're able to reduce the cuts to air-time by simply starting collections online before the actual drive. Then they don't have to go nearly as long as they used to. I've noticed some difference personally and I would guess that it takes them about 2-3 days less to wrap up now than it used to.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Actually, my mp3 collection set on random is definately my idea of entertainment!
Your ears are part of an "early warning system" of which you may not be fully aware. It sort of operates in background mode. There's a lot more to hear than just emergency vehicle sirens.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.