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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.
Sounds like a good idea, but I don't see this catching on to the extent that Tivo has even if they do make the improvements suggested in the article.
There's just too much of a lack of quality radio programming these days for me to ever consider buying one of these.
Would've been cool to have in the 1950's-60's though when families used to gather around the radio rather than a TV set.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
This eems not at all like tivo functionality. It is more similar to a VCR or as many people on slashdot have already discovered some newer home stereos already allow scheduled recording to a tape deck. For this to be at all useful (to me at least) it would need guide info and at a bare minimum a pause live recording option. I mean really this thing is quite feature bare.
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
Except that you can schedule recordings. Admittedly, that's a nice feature, but what I need the most is to be able to pause live radio and rewind. This is especially useful when listening to talk radio.
why not set your TiVo to record on channel 3 / or av inputs and leave your home sterio on to the station you want to record?
that would kinda work....
Big deal - this is like a digital tape recorder. To be a true PAR it would need at least these features:
- Guide service. Imagine a recorder that knows what song is playing on the radio right now and saves this 3:26 chunk of audio to "BritneySpearsHotGrits.mp3" for you. At the very least it needs show-based guide service. VCRs have had timers since like 1982.
- Pause live radio (as noted by the review)
- Wishlisting (Find me songs by Aretha Franklin.)
I don't think radio stations advertise what songs they will play ahead of time, but you could imagine that you could scrape the "currently playing" track off the station web site and retroactively label the audio. If the PAR is constantly recording a station, and then it sees a track by Aretha Franklin, it saves that last song for you.
Until something works like this, it's about as useful as a cassette player with a timer.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
i had been doing this for awhile already to record the Savage Nation but it required alot of interaction. I bought a program called supermp3recorder it has a timer but you have to set it every time you open it......then you have to find a good internet stream, it took me a couple of weeks to find agood one now i can get his whole show without game interruptions. after the program records it i then edit out the commerical (here is where all the interaction is) i can condense a 3 hour show(1hour and half) to 100 meg
The Arkie Libertarian
Most radio programs worth a damn these days stream webcasts or offer some sort of new media solution for obtaining their programming.
Radio is an on-the-go medium these days anyway - last I heard something like 80% of radio listeners listened from cars, and nowhere else.
Hear something you like on the car radio, find it on the web. No need for third-parties to peddle their odious wares.
A few years back, I heard about something called an MPTrip CD player, it was the first of it's kind. A portable CD Player that could actually play MP3s.... it was cheep too, only 150 CDN dollars!
I ran out and got one as soon as it came out. Frankly it was a piece of shit, none of the features one would really need like skipping between albums was there. It skipped like MAD, and it sucked battery power like there was no tomorow. Overall, a terrible CD player, it couldn't even play regular CD's!
Needless to say, I stopped using it after about a month. Two years later (or a few weeks ago) I picked up a second mp3 CD player, this one rocks and actually works. The product has been seriously refined since the first one came out, and I am very satisfied.
From reading "The Bad" part of this review I see that the author is having the same sort of problems... I guess the message is: hmmm thats cool, but I'll wait until Panasonic, Sony, or anyother reputable company makes one.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
I wouldn't compare this at all to a TiVo. It's more like a digital audio recorder. The best features of TiVo (and similar) are the live buffer and the automatic scheduling (Wishlists). Other than the internal memory replacing a cassette tape, this is just a Walkman with a timer.
If I can tell it to automatically record every episode of NPR's All Things Considered (NOT 'record anything on channel X at 8:00 PM every Friday'), then we'll talk.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Hold the 'Stop' button for a few seconds and the device powers down
Thus, I'm plugging it in and leaving it next to the computer with the idea of burning programs to CD to listen at the car later.
You do realize you could have just bought a tuner card for much cheaper. Hell, I saw a mouse with a built in FM tuner the other day.
Much better would be getting a halfway decent *real* tuner, that you can connect to a *real* antenna for *real* reception, and record off the line out. You'd get much better audio this way. And stereo to boot.
A cron/scheduler job would be all thats needed for its super advanced timer functions.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!