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RadioShark for Windows and Mac OS X
Quantrell writes "Ars Technica has done a very thorough review of the AM/FM radio time-shifting device radioSHARK. I was surprised when I read it,
because I thought it was Mac-only. Actually the device has good Windows support, and their review shows that some of the problems experienced by early adopters have been solved
with recent updates to the product. That said, there are actually some considerable flaws with the product, so buyer beware." There's a lot more meat on this review than this story which was a lot more glowing of a review.
I got mine for Chistmas, and it's nice, however I get really bad reception in my house.
They really NEED to get the capability to tune into internet radio as well, then all will be well.
Eschew Obfuscation
Seeing as almost all of our local stations have been consumed by mega-corporations such as Clear Channel. We have nice exciting playlists that repeat about once a half hour.
I guess for sports, national public radio and the like this might be a cool thing. Or for college radio shows that play at odd hours (it always seems that the only shows I like are on at 3 in the morning).
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I'm surprised RadioShack isn't suing them over the name.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
It shouldn't be long before the RIAA attorneys start swarming all over this product like angry yellow-jackets that are being squirt with a hose.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Why not get a Happuaguge tv tuner card that comes with a FM reciever? The radio tuner alone would have to be several factors cheaper then the TV card to make this a good buy, and its not.
I had a difficult time reconciling the fact that the following two statements are in the same review:
...
...
Say you're listening to All Things Considered and Nina Totenberg is about to make an especially poignant point about the day's oral arguments at the Supreme Court
If you're listening to your favorite top 40 radio station and the newest Ashlee Simpson tune comes on and you want to save it
Yikes! Still, I think the pause feature may be a nice Tivo-ish thing, but the Season Pass concept will probably be better covered by podcasting. (Actually, there was a feature on podcasting on NPR's Day to Day: you can listen to it here, but alas, not as a podcast.)
You want to talk about repeats:
1 0/ 1338207&tid=176&tid=1a rticle.pl?sid=04/09/29/ 1521201&tid=141&tid=137&tid=3
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/
http://apple.slashdot.org/
Make this one a threepeat!
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Over at newegg you can buy a WinFast TV2000 XP PCI card for about $36 shipped. It has both a TV tuner and AM/FM radio. You can scedule records for both TV and radio broadcasts. Why would ANYONE spend $70 for the RadioShark? Does looking "cool" really sway people that much?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Is it just me, or is configuring ALSA a black art?
The whole reason it costs more is because it needs a case and power supply the PCI card does not have.
The reason why people would pay for this is because there are not that many people who want to install cards in the computer compared to the set of computer users as a whole.
I personally would not buy a Radio Shark, but that's because radio has just about nothing I care to listen to.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One existed but sadly ClearChannel sent cyborgs back in time to kill the inventor.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
RadioSHARK software records in both AAC and AIFF on Macs. Plus it imports directly into iTunes. So no panic or angst or work on your part is necessary. ;)
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
Seems like the market for this is limited. StreamRipper lets me download most radio stations' MP3 streaming audio. Mplayer with some addons allows me to download RealAudio streams which can be converted to MP3. I've got this all automated via cron job to download NPR news, This American Life, plus foreign radio broadcasts for later playback. Plus I can download multiple streams simultaneously, and no worries about poor reception.
If it were me, I wouldn't buy it. Why? I have several Griffin products and the thing that is common between all of them is that the software sucks to start with and the software never really gets fixed. Case in point - I have a Griffin PowerMate USB rotary controller. To this day it does not work properly with multiple users in Mac OS X. By this I mean *both* there being more than one account on the system with each account logged in to at different times, as well as greater issues with having multiple accounts logged in at the same time (fast user switching.)
In the former case the issue is relatively minor, but still annoying. In some accounts rotating the knob to adjust system volume does not provide visual or audible feedback. In other accounts it does. Relatively minor, but still very annoying.
In the case of fast user switching it's a substantial problem. What happens is that the software continues to run even in the background accounts, the net result is that using the PowerMate produces unpredictable results. You can see the volume go up and then jump to some entirely different volume because it's adjust both in your account, and the one in background, fighting for control. Or you might be rotating to move "play head" in iMovie, but at the same time it changes system volume. Etc. Even more fun with 3 or more accounts logged in!
It's not like Fast User Switching (introduced in 10.3) was just released. They should have had this fixed long ago, and the best I could get out of Griffin's difficult to contact tech support was that they were aware of the problem but couldn't say when (perhaps not even if) it will be resolved.
Buyer beware of anything Griffin makes that involves software that they write. I know I won't be buying any more Griffin products no matter how cool they sound.
--- What?
I have a RadioShark, and the reception is very poor no matter where I place it (other radio receivers in the same area work fine). It is so bad that I haven't even tried the time shifting feature yet, since the sound that you end up getting is very painful to listen to anyway.
They say that plugging in headphones to the RadioShark will improve reception, but it seems to have no effect at all.
Is there some other kind of antenna that can be plugged into it to improve the reception?
The RadioShark is a great piece of hardware but fails in the biggest area that makes TiVo great-the guide. What good is recording radio if you don't know what is on and where it's coming from. The heart of our service is our guide, it covers am/fm, internet, and xm/sirius radio, and soon will have full rss/podcasting support. To quote our website, we have "35,000 stations in 140 countries. 100,000 sports games per year."
We have both mac and pc clients, though the mac client is still very early in development. Recordings are made as simple mp3 files, and even get dumped into itunes. The mac client supports the RadioShark, the pc version will very soon.
We're always looking for great feedback to help us improve the service. Sign up is free for unlimited listening.
As for streamed broadcasts, this would be a feature of the radioSHARK software, not the hardware. I think Griffin is lucky their software runs at all at this point, nevermind having the ability to grab internet streams. I imagine that feature will be implemented later in the Mac software using Applescript and iTunes since iTunes already streams internet broadcasts. I'm not holding my breath. I would recommend Mac users get RadioLover for the timed recording of internet broadcasts.
At this point their software is very buggy and hastily assembled, IMO.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
RDS support in the US is spotty. My 99 Audi's factory stereo has it, and RDS signal broadcasting is mixed. Public radio tends to be very good about broadcasting it, while some stations broadcast it intermittently (maybe a particular dj, often it'll be several songs behind, sometime poor spelling), and still others never broadcast the signal.
I was a little dissapointed when my wife bought the ipod radio broadcaster thingy (iWhatchamacallit?), and it didn't have an RDS signal broadcasting the mp3 tag info. Seems that would have been perfect feature to include.
RDS adoption is growing. it's certainly worth adding to Radio Shark.
I agree this gizmo would be cooler if it recorded streams, too. Think I'll still buy one, if only to aircheck the other morning shows while we do ours.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
I feel it's almost a concept too late for the show. We're probably not that far from a generation which says, "AM? FM? What are these strange things you speak of? Can I get that at the iTunes store?" where all they know of is what they download or listen to over the web.
What I need is something to record From the Web audio to my HD for later playback, and I'm pretty sure such a thing is out there if I look, or maybe just a few tricks.
What would I want to record radio for? Unless I'm so cheep as to want to make MP3's out of music DJ's blab over.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Who needs radio when you've got Podcasting?
I produce my own podcast once a week (TinyPodcast) on mobile technology and gadgets, and I subscribe to dozens of other podcasts. I get to listen to what I want, when I want, and it's almost invariably more interesting that what's on the radio. What's more, the only station I usually listen to anyway, NPR, is starting to podcast some of its shows, like On The Media and Tech Nation.
I love picking up my iPod (or any other MP3 player) in the morning, and having fresh content that I've selected, not what the radio station wants me to hear.
Say you're listening to All Things Considered and Nina Totenberg is about to make an especially poignant point about the day's oral arguments at the Supreme Court, but nature is urgently calling. Click on the TS button, hit pause, and walk away. Nina is then cut off in midsentence. Once you take care of business, you can then return to your PC, hit play, and Nina takes up right where she left off.
I often listen to NPR as well, not having a radio in my office I just listen to WBUR's real audio stream. With Real you can also pause the live stream and go take care of business. The buffer seems to be pretty large (I haven't hit any ceiling yet).
I live in Boston so WBUR is my local NPR station, which is perfect. But even if your local NPR station isn't online (I think most are) you can just go ahead and listen to one that is.
I know this product can do more, and not just for NPR, but as for that being a selling point, it just doesn't work. And Real seems to be doing a lot better now in terms of not being jerks and actually adding features that are helpful (I know quick time for windows can't pause and resume live streams... and quicktime still annoys you every time you start the application). The Helix Player and the recent Real Player on Linux is great as well. I actually wish them well these days.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
Just picked one up at my apple store. It was "refreshed", which means that someone bought and returned it. I know why they did now.
The reception is pretty crappy for me. I'm trying to tune a FM station that is broadcast locally from about 3 blocks away from my house and I mostly get static. I've got the Shark sitting in my upstairs window and am using a Sagean ANT-60, which is plugged into the mic port and unwound about 15 feet creating a "web" in the window (I've also tried various other positions and poses, with and without the Sagean antenna). There are several stations that I pickup with any other radio tuner that I own (even the on tiny FM tuner for my rio mp3 player). I'm also using the latest version of the software for the Mac Version; 1.0.3 (RS59).
I'm going to try the trick mentioned by some of purchasing a USB extension and wrapping it around the unit and see if that helps. If not, I'm returning it myself.
I'm disappointed, and I think that this will turn me off of other Griffin products. I had be considering the PowerWave for some time, but there are other USB audio input devices on the market. The only other "saving grace" would be if the tuning software worked for Internet Radio stations (including Windows media), but it sounds like those plans have been scrapped.
Check the return policy on this item if you buy it.
PS I do think that it is cruel that the only station that the unit will "seek" to is a FM Country station broadcast from several counties away.