Slashdot Mirror
Review: PogoProducts' Radio Your Way
An anonymous reader writes "Being a long time TiVo-head and a talk radio junkie, I've been waiting for the first commercially available PVR for radio (PAR?). PogoProducts finally released just such a product, which they call 'Radio Your Way'. After seeing the announcement on Slashdot I quickly placed my order and have now been using it for about a week. The following is a quick rundown of the good and the bad."
Recording is fairly straight forward. There is a red button on the front that is used for manually starting and stopping recording of the current 'mode' (AM/FM/Voice), and a timer function which allows up to 10 scheduled recordings to be programmed. There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to scheduling these recordings, but once you understand the controls it's quite easy to add or modify scheduled recordings. You can set up repeating recordings for a given day (Mon, Tues, Wed., etc.), every day, or Mon-Sat (which I thought was a bit odd - why not Mon-Fri?). A really nice feature of the scheduled recordings is that the device will automatically turn on and off before and after recording stops, meaning you don't have to worry about wasting batteries by leaving the unit on 24/7.
Listening to recordings is a breeze. There are standard next/prev and FF/RW buttons that work like a VCR. If you FF a selection that is not playing it moves extremely fast, and if you FF while playing it scans - allowing you to hear the content zipping along so you know when the commercial is over, for example.
The internal memory holds approximately 4 hours of audio, and can be supplemented with SD/MMC cards giving you up to 1 Gig of storage and days of recording time.
The device comes with a desktop application for transferring, playing, and converting files. I haven't used it much but my first impressions were positive. No complaints here.
The BadGiven that this is a 1.0 product and the first of its kind (as far I know), I fully expected there to be some usability issues and missing features. I was right. The most notable missing feature is the ability to pause a live recording. This is apparently due to the fact that there is no 'always on' buffer ala TiVo. How many times have you been listening to the radio and wanted to rewind 10 seconds because you missed something? Pausing live radio seems like an obvious feature for a Radio PVR, but you won't get it with Radio Your Way. Live recording is strictly a manual option - hit the red button to record, hit the stop button to stop, then back up and listen to what was recorded. This is very archaic for someone used to the power of TiVo. Hitting the red button while recording actually pauses the recording, which I suppose could be useful for on the fly editing of commercials. However, the lack of a true 'pause live radio' feature is a serious drawback that I'm sure will be corrected in future versions, even if it's a small buffer.
Other disappointments:
- No manual 'auto stop' feature. I'd like to be able to hit record and tell it to stop in a given amount of time. Unfortunately if you hit record you have to manually hit stop or it will continue recording until the memory is filled of the batteries run out.
- Uses AAA batteries instead of a chargeable system.
- Reception is so-so.
- Very poor speaker quality - stick with headsets or car adapter.
- No off button! As far as I can tell, once you turn the device on there is no way to manually turn it off other than to wait for it to enter sleep mode after several minutes. Very annoying.
- Overall the device feels a bit cheap, particularly the volume control button. This ain't no iPOD.
- Poorly written manual.
-A bit pricey at $150.
--- Conclusions ---
Despite the drawbacks listed above, Iï½m happy with the Radio Your Way from PogoProducts. It gives me the basic ability to time-shift AM/FM programming in a small, lightweight, portable package. I wouldn't use it for recording FM music - stick with traditional MP3 players for that. But for those of us that are addicted to talk radio (I'm a day one P1 for those of you in Dallas) it's a good solution, and will tide you over until the next generation of devices comes to market.
The Good The product has a decent form factor and intuitive buttons for playback. It has a 3V DC-in so you can keep it powered in your car (a $15 3V car adapter from RadioShack did the trick for me), a line-in port for recording from external sources, and of course a USB port for transferring files to your PC.
Recording is fairly straight forward. There is a red button on the front that is used for manually starting and stopping recording of the current 'mode' (AM/FM/Voice), and a timer function which allows up to 10 scheduled recordings to be programmed. There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to scheduling these recordings, but once you understand the controls it's quite easy to add or modify scheduled recordings. You can set up repeating recordings for a given day (Mon, Tues, Wed., etc.), every day, or Mon-Sat (which I thought was a bit odd - why not Mon-Fri?). A really nice feature of the scheduled recordings is that the device will automatically turn on and off before and after recording stops, meaning you don't have to worry about wasting batteries by leaving the unit on 24/7.
Listening to recordings is a breeze. There are standard next/prev and FF/RW buttons that work like a VCR. If you FF a selection that is not playing it moves extremely fast, and if you FF while playing it scans - allowing you to hear the content zipping along so you know when the commercial is over, for example.
The internal memory holds approximately 4 hours of audio, and can be supplemented with SD/MMC cards giving you up to 1 Gig of storage and days of recording time.
The device comes with a desktop application for transferring, playing, and converting files. I haven't used it much but my first impressions were positive. No complaints here.
The BadGiven that this is a 1.0 product and the first of its kind (as far I know), I fully expected there to be some usability issues and missing features. I was right. The most notable missing feature is the ability to pause a live recording. This is apparently due to the fact that there is no 'always on' buffer ala TiVo. How many times have you been listening to the radio and wanted to rewind 10 seconds because you missed something? Pausing live radio seems like an obvious feature for a Radio PVR, but you won't get it with Radio Your Way. Live recording is strictly a manual option - hit the red button to record, hit the stop button to stop, then back up and listen to what was recorded. This is very archaic for someone used to the power of TiVo. Hitting the red button while recording actually pauses the recording, which I suppose could be useful for on the fly editing of commercials. However, the lack of a true 'pause live radio' feature is a serious drawback that I'm sure will be corrected in future versions, even if it's a small buffer.
Other disappointments:
- No manual 'auto stop' feature. I'd like to be able to hit record and tell it to stop in a given amount of time. Unfortunately if you hit record you have to manually hit stop or it will continue recording until the memory is filled of the batteries run out.
- Uses AAA batteries instead of a chargeable system.
- Reception is so-so.
- Very poor speaker quality - stick with headsets or car adapter.
- No off button! As far as I can tell, once you turn the device on there is no way to manually turn it off other than to wait for it to enter sleep mode after several minutes. Very annoying.
- Overall the device feels a bit cheap, particularly the volume control button. This ain't no iPOD.
- Poorly written manual.
-A bit pricey at $150.
--- Conclusions ---
Despite the drawbacks listed above, Iï½m happy with the Radio Your Way from PogoProducts. It gives me the basic ability to time-shift AM/FM programming in a small, lightweight, portable package. I wouldn't use it for recording FM music - stick with traditional MP3 players for that. But for those of us that are addicted to talk radio (I'm a day one P1 for those of you in Dallas) it's a good solution, and will tide you over until the next generation of devices comes to market.
90% of the stuff you would want to record you can buy on CD... and therefor, according to the RIAA, you're cutting into their CD sales, by not buying music from them, but recording what is being broadcast over the airwaves for free...
Shame on you all...
Oh, and don't even think about using it to skip commercials...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Host: We have anonymous reader on the line.
AR: Hello?
Host: Turn your radio down.
AR: Hello?
Host: You need to turn your radio down!
AR: Hello?
*click*
AR: That was rude!
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Every time I hear something on the radio that I want to replay, my hand makes the same motion I use for my PVR...
Do you drool everytime you hear a bell too?
It would have been cool to have the internet back in the 50's as well, but it was still a glimmer in Al Gore's eye at that point.
:P
School closings during snowstorms.
We've all tuned in time to hear "Tangoville" announced and had to sit and wait for them to work all they way around the alphabet to get back to "Sierraville" for you.
The state of radio today is so bad, I can't imagine a use for this device.
Why record anything when you can be sure that whatever you just heard will be repeated an hour later? I don't need to record stuff off the radio so I can listen to it later, the radio station already solves that problem by looping the same 10 songs over and over again.
Doesn't work in a lot of corporate situations, though. Streaming all that data across my system has... er/um ... would get me a visit from the local Net Nazi. I'm not a good enough employee to take the chance of that on a regular basis.. :D
A slashdot article time shifter.
There seems to be a significant market for time shifting actually reading the article to before replying to it.
paintball