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Music Media

KPIG is Back - By Subscription Only 151

Posted by michael from the pay-to-play dept.
We've noted before that KPIG, one of the oldest internet broadcasters, was one of many to shut down their netcasts after the recent CARP ruling on copyright royalties. Well, they're back, but 128kbit mp3 streams have been replaced with with lower-quality Real streams, and free has been replaced with subscription-only. Gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.
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KPIG is Back - By Subscription Only More

KPIG is Back - By Subscription Only

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  • The best Net radio... (Score:4, Informative)

    by NineNine ( 235196 ) on Monday August 26, 2002 @12:21AM (#4139461)
    http://www.launch.com

    They've got a shitload of stations, and on top of that, you can make their own.
    • Oh my god! This is what i've been looking for forever!! Finally, streaming radio that takes advantage of being net based. Creating your own station is just awesome.
      • Dude forget about the radio station! Did you check out the parent posters sig? NineNine. Free porn. Period. [ninenine.com]

        Free pr0n w00t!

        This funny comment brought to you by the number 9 and.

        --toqer
    • I'm gonna cast my vote for http://www.wfmu.org ...not only do they have one of the most diverse playlists of anybody, but at least 75% of their music doesn't fall under CARP at all. AND it's a listner-supported station, so you can give whatever you think it's worth.

      --DocL
      ---

    • ...you can make their own.
      What? That makes no sense on multiple levels. -davidu
      • Typo. You can make your own station.

        I love it. My station is a bizarre mix of industrial, trance, 80's, blues, and classical. And, even better, you can set "moods". If I'm in a, say upbeat mood, I can say, emphasize stuff like Beethoven's 9th, and de-empahsize, say, the Baroque period and Bauhaus. All in all, I gotta say Launch rocks. Thank god Yahoo didn't screw it up when they bought it!

  • Well (Score:2)

    by flewp ( 458359 )
    Is this a good thing? I never really cared for streaming services much, and I've pretty much always despised realanything. For me, I'd rather have all the media (mainly, mp3) on my HD or accessible over my network, or on CD/tape, whatever.
    The RealAudio stream will vary from 32kbps to 64kbps; the old webcast offered a wider choice of formats and bitrates, up to a 128kbps MP3 stream. - So not only has the quality gone down, the cost has gone up!
    • I have no idea what this /. article is talking about!

      Been listenning to the PIG all weekend and this morning, with no interruptions and at 128K all the way.

      In fact if you know where to look on their web site [kpig.com], you'll see they still offer the same old stream rates (incl. m3u).

      Am I the only real PIGie out there that reads /. ? Strange... Good stuff. Try the PIG!

      Of course, if you want commercial free listenning, you can get that for $6(-$0.05)/mo. and you must use Real :-( uh, RealSpyware?)

      Frankly, I don't hear enough commercials on the PIG to matter that much, to me.

      • Re:Well (Score:1)

        by lrc ( 5755 )
        You aren't the only KPIG fan in /. land.

        I actually submitted several stories about KPIG and CARP but they all got rejected. It's good to hear that they're back on the net.

        KPIG is awesome, they've got a great selection of diverse music, they were the first station to simulcast on the net, and they do it all on linux based machines.

        Seriously, how many other stations will play Hank Williams Sr. and the Rolling Stones in the same set?
      • (uh, RealSpyware?)
        And please tell me what spookware Real uses? evntsvc.exe? Give me a break....
    • Try it yourself, encode a song you like from the original CD to 64k RealAudio in RealOne.

      Whether you may like it or not 64k RealAudio is way more equal to 128k MP3 than 64k MP3.

  • WKRP In Cincinnatti? (Score:4, Funny)

    by PantherX ( 23953 ) on Monday August 26, 2002 @12:23AM (#4139469) Homepage
    Anyone remember the episode where they had a station mascot... the Carp (WKRP WCARP?) and the rival station was WPIG and they had a pig mascot?

    Wierd!
    • You have a very strange mind to be able to pick up on that pattern.

      Yes, now that you mention it I do remember that episode.
    • You have to admit that Venus Flytrap was a pimp.
    • And Herb was the WKRP Carp and got into a fight with the WPIG Pig in the men's room (in full costume of course). If course the Pig really had it coming, he'd spray painted WPIG over the WKRP logo in the lobby. Nope don't remember that at all.

      But do you remember this line (different episode) "Oh, I'm a big fat muffin that has no feet, a big fat muffin that loves to eat ... and looooooovess to explode", "And you did".

      Far too much of my childhood was wasted watching sitcoms and WKRP was one of my top two favorites.

      "Hold me closer tiny dancer"

    • Re:WKRP In Cincinnatti? KSHE ST. Louis (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The world's first FM Stereo rock station (1976) has had a pig as its mascot since inception.

      The original 1967 bumper sticker had "Sweetmeat" wearing sunglasses and headphones, with a "hand rolled cigarette" in his mouth.

      Real Rock Radio

      They also opened the "Real Rock Cafe" and was sued by the Hard Rock Cafe, who lost. KSKE was Real Rock Radio YEARS before the bozos that started the "Hard Food Cafe" got going.
  • Remember, we're against all this homogenous crap on radio stations. Now who wants to _PAY_for it? The best agreement is to go directly to artists and ask if they can use, roalty-free songs, like ones found at mp3.com .

    Fuck CARP and the RIAA.

    • Re:Like we care.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mlh1996 ( 446618 ) on Monday August 26, 2002 @12:40AM (#4139522)
      Actually, KPIG is not homogeneous crap. That's why it's important that it's back online.

      Anyway, the issue is not that they're back so much as THIS IS WHAT THEY HAD TO DO to be back. Be suitably offended.

      Lastly WE are not against anything. Remember that. You do not speak for me.

      • And that is why the RIAA makes the rules, and you and I we live by them. For they have stood united against us, while we stand divided, to fall.
        As Benjamin Franklin once said, "We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang seperately."
    • Back in the old days, to avoid licensing fees and such, the pirate radio stations actually transmitted from a ship in the ocean. it's too bad KPIG can't relocate outside of the RIAA's hand of evil grasp.

      • I actually remember something like this...

        Near Cincinnati's river (Ohio, right?) there was a pirate station back in the 70's. They did a lot of jazz, concertals, scat.. anything "cool". I'm not sure what kind of wattage they had, but the guy did it from on top a barge ;-) He didnt interfere with signals, and he didn't stay in 1 place. To my knowledge, he was never caught.

        Still, It'd be funny if somebody bought a 1 MW FM transmitter (and huge power source) and broadcast it at 11 nautical miles from US coast. From what I understand about interational waters rules, 11 miles is out of range of jurisdiction. It'll piss 'em off though..


        • "The FBI has just determined that a ship, 11 miles off the coast, is a front for terrorist activity. As such, it will be bombed with several hundred cruise missles. After which, we will have everyone associated with this terrorist activity appear before a military tribunal."

          "What Evidence do we have??? What the hell do you mean by that? He must be a terrorist... Get him boys!"

  • The alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PRickard ( 16563 ) <pr.ms-bc@com> on Monday August 26, 2002 @12:27AM (#4139481) Homepage
    If the RIAA charges broadcasters more per listener than the advertisers will pay per listener (this is their end goal, afterall) then this is the only choice left for Internet radio. We can pay for a subscription that allows the small broadcasters to survive, or listen to free stations that play mostly terrible music nobody has ever heard of before. That's just how the world works now - write your senators and representative to change it, otherwise be prepared to pay up.
    • Well, if there were a radio channel running
      Mentl Music artists 24/7 I'd listen to it.
      There certainly is plenty to listen to outside
      the major labels.
    • Listening to stations which play artists you have never heard of before is one way of getting to expand your listening experience. Who knows, you might even find that you like some of these "unknown" arists and would thank the station for introducing you to them.
    • Hey, I already pay for a public radio station [kkjz.org] where I can, but these guys are commercial free and have been since they came on the air in 1981. If KPIG wants to do it as such, great, otherwise, screw them.

      It's the same reason why I don't get cable: US$40-US$80 is far too much to be paying for a medium that rapid-fires commercials at me. If I want that, I know where I can find it.

      • If basic cable in your area costs $80 you should move. For about $30 here you can get about a hundred cable channels, targeted towards all kinds of special interests. Without cable you would never have this kind of narrowcasting because it would be FAR too expensive for say, HGTV or Discovery to have affiliates in each market. And don't complain about paying for what you can get for free either. That really isn't the case with cable. The cable companies would love to drop network programing and open up space for a few more paying channels.

        The cost of basic cable barely pays for the infrastructure that brings stations from all over the world into your house. Cable companies really only offer this level of service because they have to. The premium channels mostly don't have commercials, they make their money off of subscribers and syndication of their shows. All the other channels make money off of advertising and don't see a dime of your monthly bill. You are paying for the transport not the content.

        • If basic cable in your area costs $80

          Basic cable television service probably doesn't cost that much. dacarr talked abour $40-$80, and in some areas, cable modem service does cost that much, at least in part because some local cable monopolies will offer cable modem service only to basic cable television subscribers.

          you should move.

          That would cost even more, to the tune of $200,000. Give the poor fellow 30 years to pay it off with interest, and it still costs at least $600 a month.

  • KPIG? CARP? Heh. So is Andy Mavis going to be the general manager?

    *wonders if anybody'll understand the reference*
  • IMHO radio sucks every which way. I have yet to find a decent radio station that plays not only what I want to hear, when I want to hear it, but w/o commercials.

    I am so sick of having to rummage through the channels to find something decent. I don't want talk, I don't want teeny-bopper garbage, and I certainly don't want to hear 80s (they're dead, let them die peacefully).

    Just my worthless .02
    • That new satellite radio may be what your looking for but you have to pay a subscription per month. which does suck but it maybe worth it. Best Buy had a small section devoted to it last time I was there.

      I have never tried anyone who has care to comment on it?

      • Assuming you're talking about XM (I haven't been to Best Buy in a while) I don't know if he'd go for it. I seem to recall the ad on TV saying something about how there were some commercial-free stations on it, implying the rest still had commercials just like the stuff on the dial. Probably more genres to pick from, but ClearChannel's got a large stake in it so my guess is the difference has more to do with the delivery mechanism than it does with the content.

        Maybe it'd be worth picking up a CD player that can playback MP3 and burning a couple of 10 hour discs? I've already shifted most of my collection to MP3 so admittedly it's pretty convenient for me, but it works well and you don't get any commercials.

    • Re:Radio sucks in any form. (Score:5, Informative)

      by E-prospero ( 30242 ) on Monday August 26, 2002 @12:44AM (#4139533) Homepage
      Well, if you have access to the bandwidth, try streaming Triple J [abc.net.au].

      It's an Australian station, free-to-air (but internet streamed as well), and government funded, with a mandate to service the "youth" market. In it's FM, free-to-air form, it generally holds between 5% and 15% of market share in the 15-30 age bracket (depending on location).

      Don't let the government funding discourage you - the only notable side effect is the fact that there are no ads (other than station ID's, and the occasional concert/competition promo). There is a reasonable current affairs show that runs 9am-12am (AEDT, GMT+10), and it is often critical of government policy.

      It's very indy-centric (you won't _ever_ hear Brittney or N'Sync), so the playlist contains lots of Aussie independent bands with a history of putting on good gigs, and they only rarely step into the 80's, and then only for some Stranglers or Violent Femmes - don't expect to hear any Ultravox.

      The DJ's are also very refreshing - very low key, laid back, not afraid to get down, dirty and swear, or get intellectual just for a change. None of that "All top 40 rock, all the time" overproduced, overhyped BS that seems to overflow on commercial stations.

      Unfortunately, they only stream RealPlayer or Windows Media Player - but IHMO they're well worth the listen. Or, if you're in Australia, turn on the radio, and pick it up on the old transistor...

      Russ %-)
      • JJJ is rubbish. complete and utter rubbish. The DJ's are just as mindless as any other, they don't know anything about the music they're playing. Nicole Fossati for example, who hosts the afternoon program used to be a host on SBS's Alchemy. I now hear her talking about how much she loves indie music. Yeah. right. I'm sure, love.

        The days of JJJ playing indie demos has long gone too.

        Why not try SER [2ser.com], RRR [rrr.org.au], PBS, RTR [rtrfm.com.au] or 2RRR [2rrr.org.au] (note, 2RRR's not streamed)

        I notice that you're a fellow Curtin student, you might want to check out 100.1 fm I could never pick it up at home (joondalup) but could occasionally from curtin campus.

    • >I don't want teeny-bopper garbage, and I certainly don't want to hear 80s (they're dead, let them die peacefully).

      Turn your dial lower then. And put a real TV tower up.

      College radio is still out there. No "real" commercials (unless you consider "advertising" college events commercials), and no pop stuff (well, usually).

      All you have to do is put up with the DJs. And, depending on the size of the station, and the show you're listening to, they can still be very professional.

      As an example, our 4000W college station (trust me, that's a LOT of power for a community college) plays a polish review, drum and bass, electronica, hard-to-find punk, heavy metal, rap (yeah, probably part of your not wanted list, but these guys actually are full time professionals, so it doesn't suck at all), euro dance, and a lot more that I've probably missed outside of radio prime-time.

      It's very worth the effort to turn the dial down a little, but because most Colleges are power-limited, you'll really need a proper antenna on a tower.
      • Problematically not my college station. They play Top 40 "Alternative" and "Urban" (i.e. rap) exclusively with the rap slot dominating the entire evening. The playlists are selected by the programming directors and DJs have almost no say in things it appears. There are very, very occasionally individual shows, but only after midnight. Seems like it's doing it's job to make more ClearChannel DJs much like the USA Today styled campus paper.
    • There are only two realistic ways to get what you want to hear, when you want to hear it, without commercials: Streaming audio services where you pay per song you hear which pays the costs of having all the music available you want to hear. Your home entertainment system where you purchase the music and play it yourself. Commercials are a necessary evil. Think public broadcasting pledge drives and subscription services if you don't believe me. Most people would rather put up with commercials than fork out money from their own pocket directly. There has to be some way to cover the expenses of purchasing all the music that is likely to be desired by listeners, paying the per-play copyright fee, and maintaining all the equipment involved in broadcasting to listeners. I would agree that I don't want to listen to talk radio. I could live without teeny-bopper tunes, but I do enjoy some of the 80's music. I also enjoy techno, trance, and electronica -- which are considered by some to be too repetitive and noisy. You and I are each unique individuals with unique tastes. No commercial radio station could comply with both our tastes simultaneously. So we suffer with the compromise that exists.

  • sigh (Score:1)

    by laymil ( 14940 )
    soon we're going to be telling stories of the 'good ole days' of the internet. why, i remember when there wasn't that much regulation, and you could do whatever you wanted for free!...that kinda stuff
    as the years go on, it just gets more and more frustrating, and there's less and less to do. its a sad sad day when a station that used to stream 128kbit mp3s is forced by the legislature to reduce their quality and charge a subscription.
    the only good thing in this is that at least one station was able to come back at all.

    on that note: fuck the riaa and the mpaa.
  • To mp3 streams from the UK...
    CARP Isnt going to collect a dime from them.

  • Shoutcast (Score:2, Informative)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 )
    does anyone know how this CARP ruling affects individuals who host shoutcast streams?, i used to listen to low-fi shoutcast a lot before i got broadband and switched to videos, but i just went to the winamp site (3 is out!!) and they still have shoutcast listings
    • They're just run off some 10 year olds box in some ass end part of the world like antartica .. The CARP stuff doesnt apply to them for the most part.. They're not actual "for-profit" stations. It's just someones remix of tunes played over and over in Siberia.

  • Not RealAudio (Score:5, Insightful)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Monday August 26, 2002 @12:38AM (#4139512) Journal
    I'd pay $5/mo for KPIG.

    But not via RealAudio. Real sucks for so many reasons, allow me to list a few:

    It likes to spy on users' listening habits

    To prevent the spying, one has to tour through several configuration screen, and sub-screens, and buttons that open sub-sub-screens, making sure to select the right options, options which are described so ambiguously as to make me believe that all of this foofarah is designed to make it too onerous to prevent spying, while still claiming the option(s) are there.

    Even after all this, even with all privacy options set correctly, you can't stop it from phoning hone once a month anyway.

    It loads slowly.

    Its interface is obstrusive, clunky and counter-intuitive, the better to provide ad space. (Compare this to winamp's ability to add skins and maximize or minimize different parts of the app.)

    Its codecs appear to be inferior to free codecs, like Lame; its sound quality certainly is.

    In short, RealAudio is just too slow, ugly, and nosey for me to run it. No mater how compelling the content.

    The only thing in Real's favor is that it hired Andrei Alexandrescu, the C++ template guru.

    Offer me KPIG at $5/mo via winamp, and I'm in.

  • Internet Radio Fairness Act (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SteelX ( 32194 ) on Monday August 26, 2002 @12:56AM (#4139553)
    If you really care about Internet radio and wish to see it remain free, check out the Internet Radio Fairness Act.

    Quoted from Voice of Webcasters [voiceofwebcasters.org] (VOW):

    "Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA), George Nethercutt (R-WA) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) have stepped up to protect small businesses from being unfairly forced out of business by the performance copyright royalties recently affirmed by the Librarian of Congress. They have introduced a bill in the US House of Representatives (HR 5285) that would SAVE INTERNET RADIO (click here to view a copy of this important legislation [voiceofwebcasters.org]). In protecting Internet radio, it will help ensure that artists will have a chance to receive fair compensation for their work and that webcasters will have a chance to survive and grow to provide artists with a place to promote their music."

    VOW also has a page [voiceofwebcasters.org] where you can send a fax to Congress about this legislation.
  • ...is my girlfriend getting songs off of Gnutella or Kazaa and sending them to me. It's cheaper than subscription services and much better than regular radio because if I don't like a song, I can delete it. Simple and cheap.

  • Ogg (Score:1)

    by kiowa ( 5743 )
    Why are people clinging on to these old codecs when new and free ones are emerging? Yes, I am thinking about Ogg Vorbis.

  • Radio Paradise (Score:2, Informative)

    by dbCooper0 ( 398528 )
    A spinoff of KPIG is RadioParadise [radioparadise.com] which is run by Bill Goldsmith, whom I believe is or was instrumental in KPIG's avoiding the AFTRA bullshit that cropped up a year or so ago. You know, commercials being billed at terrible rates because of the webcast and "personalities" being compensated much like the RIAA labels strive for. Kinda shames me, as my father was a member of AFTRA, part of a television show out of Detroit in the 60s/70s. He was never that greedy.

    They are donation based, commercial free, and are also up against CARP, but seem to be hangin' in there.

    The official billing for this streaming station is "eclectic intelligent rock" which pretty much fits my listening needs. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to listen to music - it's not pissed anyone off in my office, so far ;-)). Oh, and support them if you can - they are the future, IMHO.

    • I agree. RadioParadise is well worth my monthly donation. They provide an excellent mix of eclectic, intelligent music. Something that has been missing from commerical radio for a long time. I consider them a service much like public radio and Mandrake Linux. If you like it and want to keep it alive...it's your obligation to support it.

  • gotta move (Score:2, Insightful)

    by madHomer ( 2207 )
    Damn! Looks like I gotta move to the Santa Cruz area if I want to listen to the Pig. Oh well, at least rent is cheap. I can just live in my van down by the river with all the other hippies.

  • KPIG is a breath of fresh air. It is located in Freedom, CA. It has always had a great mix of classic rock, contemporary country, and a mix of blues, bluegrass, and just plain fresh music you would be unlikely to hear anywhere else.

    They are a true pioneer in Internet radio and it saddens me that they have been forced into this.

    What's really sad is that they are using RealPlayer. What a piece of crap spyware, I don't bother using it.

    At least I can still just tune my FM radio to 107 (onik) 5 to get my fix of TRUE PORK. Some of us should make a hog call to the station, to comment, and send a letter to our legislators, as this is one of the best example's of True Americana getting out to the people of the world.

  • Why RealAudio ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tempmpi ( 233132 ) on Monday August 26, 2002 @02:30AM (#4139719)
    Compared to the fees required by the CARP, the cost of bandwith for the 128kbit/s MP3 stream is quite small. If they are going to use a subscription modell, they should try to make everything that else as pleasant as possible. Why not give the user the choice which format he wants to use ? 128kbit MP3, 128kbit OGG and 192kbit MP3 would be a selection of possible formats.
    Changing to a subscription modell and changing to RealAudio is a step in the wrong direction. Nobody is going to pay for something that is much worser than the free version that existed before. DRM isn't required by CARP, they just seem to be silly.
  • If it is going to be subscription only, will it work with the free Realplayers, or will it require the paid for RealOne? Other subscription sites (eg Bigbrother) only work with the paid for RealOne which is only available for Windows.

  • RadioPass / RealOne (Score:4, Informative)

    by speedenator ( 83485 ) on Monday August 26, 2002 @02:58AM (#4139760)
    DISCLAIMER: I work for Real.

    That being said, here's my view from the trenches:

    1) IMHO 64K Real8 sounds better than 128K MP3. 32K is actually pretty close. Just my opinion. (It's a hell of a lot better than WMA, but who reading this listens to anything via WMA? :)

    2) One of the big reasons for stations to switch to a lower bitrate Real stream than MP3 is to save $$ on bandwidth, which is a killer. 64K MP3 sucks. 64K Real isn't bad at all, even if you prefer 128K MP3. Still isn't enough to offset the cost. Question for y'all: would you rather have an offer like $9.95 / mo for 128MP3 vs $5.95 / mo for 64 Real? 'cuz I'll give the feedback to the folks who can actually make it happen. The new Helix thing we're doing is actually having some internal effect, and we're trying to surface some other codecs to make the product better.

    3) The sad little truth is that most of the folks out there making content don't have a real business model --- it costs them more to make content than people are willing to spend. The internet advertising model is a complete train wreck, and it's worse for radio. Royalty issue aside, local advertiser, who make up the bulk of a radio station's cash, don't like paying for extra exposure to random folks on the Internet, as they don't live locally and thus won't be buying locally.

    So what Real is trying to do is package enough of it at a price point that people are willing to spend. That's it. This lets folks like KPIG can actually support themselves for their webcast, and folks like yourselves don't have to subscribe or pledge or whatever to a ton of random sites you listen to off and on.

    -e
    • Have you done any tests of Real streaming versus ogg streaming ? I'd be interested to know the results.
      • Honestly, I don't know. I was actually looking for a decent audio (and video) codec bake-off page about a month back, and totally struck out. M$ has one which (surprise) favors their codecs in slightly unfair ways, and Real has one which just compares M$ in equally unfair ways. Whatever. But a nice blind test across various bitrates would be a nice thing to have.

        -e
        • while it doesn't compair the audio end of the spectrum. http://www.doom9.net/ Doom9's website does a nice and fair comparison of the video end of the spectrum (RV9 vs Divx and others).
      • Vorbis clearly sounds far superior to real at pretty much any bitrate. I'm not going to point you to any page with pretty graphs trying to convince you of that, only actual sound samples. Yes, that means you have to actually *listen* and hear what I'm talking about.

        Xiph.org's comparison for the 1.0 release [xiph.org]

        Real's codec isn't listed on the 'heavy hitters' comparison because it's generally not even considered in the same league.

    • Real8 64k is Sony's ATAC3 which sounds pretty good at that rate.

      WMA V8 at 80k and above has incredible stereo imaging - something missing from all the other codecs. It's odd how some people don't seem to notice imaging. It makes a big difference to me.

      Each codec has their sweet spots in terms of bit rate vs. sample rate etc. For streams from 60k to 192k I'd use WMA8, above 240k I'd use Ogg Vorbis or (if I had to use a commericial codec) I'd use Real. Mp3 is not the best at anything anymore, it's basically obsolete. At the higher bandwidths Ogg, and to a lesser extent Real, approach lossless compression.

      For the really low sample rates, I'm not sure which I'd recommend. If you really need stereo, WMA8 at the lowest possible sample rate is probably the best - nothing else comes close to whatever kind of stereo optimization they're doing. At the lower sample rates, Real falls back on their old codecs. If you have enough bandwidth for the lowest bandwidth ogg, it beats the others in it's little sweet spot.

      Rocky J. Squirrel

    • Re:RadioPass / RealOne (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dieman ( 4814 )
      Then you need to make RealOne work on Unix. I've got better things to do than use a windows machine to listen to the radio streams.

  • RealOne Player Adware / Spyware (Score:5, Interesting)

    by speedenator ( 83485 ) on Monday August 26, 2002 @03:35AM (#4139798)
    DISCLAIMER: I work for Real.

    (figured two sep posts would be easier than one long-winded one :)

    Re: adware: RealPlayer is, next to AOL, the most obnoxious ad experience I've ever seen. And I, and many of my colleagues, have told our execs that. At company meetings. And there's some acknowledgement of that; we reduced the streaming ad frequency down to once per 5 minutes last week. That being said, our ad sales group still managed to get tons of cash from Verizon and whomever sells FreeMem Pro (go figure). So we "monetize the free player experience." ;)

    My advice, in all seriousness: buy a subscription. By paying us for a service, this means (a) it's ad-free (and thus pretty useable :), and (b) you get to bitch at us and we actually have to listen. It's been pretty helpful so far in getting a lot of stuff fixed.

    Re: spyware: it is, but we're crappy at spying. Legal is also pretty good about making sure we don't keep what we shouldn't. I know it's annoying, but as per above, creating a service that goes through Real (and thus potentially creates a log entry) is often the fastest way to get something to market. My advice: again, buy a subscription. Then ya get to bitch. :)

    PS - you probably may also want to stop using Credit Cards... VISA / MC are much better spies than we are. They sell your purchases to whomever wants 'em. Which means when you want to launch a direct mail campaign to sell your cool subscription service and need names and addresses of people who have purchased similar content before, guess where you get the names and addresses from? Lovely, ain't it?

    -e
    • Can I as a Linux user buy a subscription? If so how? Despite all of the emails Real sends to me offering a subscription, I have never managed to find a way of downloading a Linux subscription version - all I can find are versions for Windows.
      • Yes, but it's not what I'd consider a good user experience. You basically gotta download the Real 8 player, then buy a subscription, and then hunt forever to get to premium links. There are moves to get things not so tied to the RealOne Player (had to for the Mac, where you can't wrap IE the way we did for Windows), but it's slow going as 99% of our audience comes from the Windows world.

        It is coming, but it's about a two-year lag IMHO, so we'll probably see something next year or so (note: totally forward looking and could well be BS, and I have a horrible track record for my estimates). They're working on a new RealOne Player mostly for the embedded experience (devices, like the HP recorder we did, the RePlayTVs / TiVOs, Playstation, etc) which is linux based, but it's not our main thrust. Standard party line here: more Windows people willing to pay for the service than Linux people, so we focus on the Windows experience.

        -e

    • I value your insight into the RealNetwork as a company. Hey at least it's not Microsoft.

      Real, OGG, MP3, and WMA had a cool codec roundup at some site i saw here: http://www.ff123.net/ [slashdot.org] Keep up the good work, and hope things can change from within and from outside.

  • Their only option was to align with a big player like Real...who could afford the CARP stuff. Only the big players will be left standing....this is the way that the RIAA wants things and we all know that we (they?) have the best government that money can BUY! It's sad to see the 'net prostituted like they're doing to it. It had real promise as everyman's nirvana, but big business in concert with the politicians they've bought and paid for are ruining it. In many ways the early 2000 era U.S. government is worse then the late 1900's government of the Soviet Union. At least the soviets knew that their govt. was corrupt. The U.S. citizens still believe the bullshit that's being told them.
  • Ok, so I think this is a big deal, but in the immortal words of George Costanza, "the worlds are colliding!"

    I get (or...got?) kpig from where I live, since it's broadcast from Watsonville. It covers most of the Monterey Peninsula and Santa Cruz and a bit towards San Jose and possibly Salinas. The CTO of my ISP has a kpig bumper sticker. I thought we used to host their site, it must be another radio station in town. They're being hosted in Santa Cruz.

    KPIG has great music of the country/folk variety with a 90's twist. And in place of real comercials they had hilarious parodies and songs. It was stuff I could listen to, my dad could listen to, and my grandfather could listen to. Pretty impressive. Songs with lyrics like "I thought she's gonna steal my heart, she only stole my double-wide" and "When....exactly....did we...become white trash?"

    After 10pm they had the "dirty boogie"; songs you wouldn't want any young virgin ears to hear but they were pretty damn funny/explicit (www.dirtyboogie.com). I belive the station is 107 oink 5, as the DJ's called it.

    The point is, it wasn't your average radio station. Many people were upset when they went off the air, and the same thing happened to KAZU, broadcasting from Pacific Grove. They had great eclectic music on there. Now it's just NPR...
  • "He's back! In Hog form!" ...ok, for those of you who have listened to kpig, this is exatly the type of bad pun they'd...ah fuck it

  • ..are so called 'drunk stations', last for few hours, have the best jokes/talks, and usually funny stuff in general, and top that with classic boozing rock.
  • There's always peercast [peercast.org], its looking really good recently, runs on windows and linux, supports Ogg Vorbis and has a ton of free radio stations out there, growing daily.

    check it out, who needs all this paid subscriber rubbish.
  • WFMU [wfmu.org] has a 128kb MP3 stream [wfmu.org] in addition to real radio waves and is free. How they do it? They rely on donations [wfmu.org] from their listeners and hold a biannual record fair [wfmu.org], where they sell some of their records. They get most of their donations from their annual on-air fund-raising marathon [wfmu.org]. They have gotten along this way for pretty long. Others should follow them.

  • Public broadcasting? Or low-power FM? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dschuetz ( 10924 ) <david@NOsPaM.dasnet.org> on Monday August 26, 2002 @07:40AM (#4140231)
    I've just started messing around with Shoutcast streaming at home (into my Rio Receiver -- very nice!), and am amazed at the quality of independent stations out there. Like the bumper sticker on RadioParadise's monitor says, "Corporate Radio Sucks." I'd forgotten what it *could* be like.

    That said, I'm honestly a little reluctant to make donations to any of these, for fear they'll just have to close up in October, anyway. But I've been wondering about two possible ways out, beyond requiring a subscription.

    1) Can internet broadcasters join up with the Public Broadcasting System? They're already complying with the no-commercial ideals of PBS, and many are already accepting listener support via PayPal and such. What would it take to get some kind of formal support from PBS, in the form of grant dollars, legal support, technical advice, etc.? PBS has TV and Radio stations, maybe it's time they had an Internet arm, as well.

    2) From what I understand, the most exorbitant fees are levied against internet-only broadcasters. Established radio stations (broadcasting via electromagnetic waves, insted of ethernet pulses) are exempt, or at least get to pay much lower fees. With the FCC trying to establish low-power radio stations (at one point, I'm not sure whether it's been quashed by ClearChannel or not), could stations like RadioParadise or KPIG simply apply for a low-power license, somewhere (not necessarily where their studio is), and use that as justification for lower rates?

    Maybe they could combine the two?

    Other ideas:

    * Subsidies from big internet companies. Maybe AOL, Cox, AT&T, COVAD, etc. could pony up some money to help pay the fees, since, after all, the existence of quality streams will only get more people interested in broadband services.

    * Tiered subscription models. Maybe lower rates for free streams, subsidized by people subscribing for higher bitrates? I figure if you're listening 4 hours a day, 15 songs per hour, it comes out to only $12 a month, or so.

    Maybe we need plugins for WinAmp (or JReceiver or whatever) to give users a monthly report of how much they've listened, and to suggest a donation amount consistent with that usage. I know that if I can be shown that I've listened to $30 worth of internet radio in the last, say, 3 months, that I'd have no problem making a donation in that amount.

    Are there any actual Internet streamers out there who can comment, on these questions or the overall story?

    • With the FCC trying to establish low-power radio stations (at one point, I'm not sure whether it's been quashed by ClearChannel or not)

      Low-power FM radio is dead, but I cannot state conclusively as to whether Clear Channel Communications was responsible. Applications for low-power FM radio [fcc.gov] must be filed within a five-day window. The FCC hasn't opened any such windows in over a year [fcc.gov] and doesn't plan to open any more windows for filing low-power FM radio license applications in the foreseeable future.

  • I'm sure I'm not the only one who never listened to KPIG before. And since you now have to pay to see what its like, I'm sure I'm not the only one who wont bother trying it out.

    Not only that, but now its a lesser quality than when it was free? Its like when Everquest raised the system requirements for the game (while reducing performance), and then raised subscription rates.

    Ok, not really, but that sucked too.

  • WXYC [wxyc.org] Chapel Hill, the first radio station to broadcast on the Internet, is still online, though struggling [wxyc.org]. Their broadcasts are only RealPlayer, but they're free, and the quality of the G2 stream is adequate. WXYC is pretty much the most diverse and interesting Internet radio stream out there.
  • Gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.

    Agreed. And what we gotta do is get rid of the stupid CARP, overturn the unconstitutional DMCA and start making the RIAA our bitch.

    KPIG is a pretty good station and it's nice to see they're streaming again, but to me, the sacrifices (shitty quality, REAL streams and the subscription -- at least it's commercial free) seem like too much was given away to please the RIAA. I hope this is only a short-term solution while their lawyers are busy trying to overturn the CARP/DMCA rulings. But I won't hold my breath.

    e
  • For me, listening to radio (like many things) is about control. In radio's case, however, it is about relinquishing that control. There is something freeing about allowing someone else to plot the creative journey that I find very important in my own design process. I guess it just allows me to free up some bandwidth and not have to worry about what I am going to listen to next. My two favorites are http://www.radioio.org which now is asking for donations and my local http://www.radio1190.org. The former plays a diverse mix of progressive music and the latter plays a VERY diverse range of College radio. Both have multiple format and bandwidth options and are pretty reliable. Resistance is futile...
  • Radio Paradise is related to KPIG and is a decent alternative to my lousy local radio stations. I read about them in Linux Journal. They use the same open source program to control and web-cast the station as KPIG. MP3 stream is available too. http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5725 www.radioparadise.com
  • The Internet Radio Fairness Act has been introduced in the House of Representatives. It's very important to send a fax message to your congressmembers to let them know how you stand on this issue. Click here [voiceofwebcasters.org] to send a fax now.

    http://www.voiceofwebcasters.org/smallwebfax.htm [voiceofwebcasters.org]

    Note: you don't need a fax machine - it is all done through the link above...
  • Well I dunno if they were just testing the waters or what. But as i'm writing this i'm listening to them via winamp @ 128kb/s as found on their Listen page on their site.
  • ...is that the mascot for WKRP in Cincinnati was the carp, and their major rival radio station was WPIG.
  • Rant Radio [rantradio.com] has been free for a very long time and will continue to be. Industrial music (VNV Nation, Berzerker, etc), with permission from the record companies to be able to rebroadcast for free. I don't see why others can't seem to figure out that it's completely possible to survive without going to a crappy medium like Real and having to charge subscription rates.
  • WFHB in Bloomington Indiana was being multicast on the Mbone in May of 1994. One of the earliest live music performances on the internet took place via WFHB in June of 1994, documented in a Bloomington Arts magazine, the Ryder.

    I know - I did it. The sfotware used is called VAT (Visual Audio Tool) from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (and others) I ran a patch cord from our lab's radio receiver to an SGI IRIS 4D30 (called nano.cica.indiana.edu) and onto the Mbone. The live broadcast had listeners from as far away as Melbourne Australia, which the band thought was really cool.

    As far as I know the first live music on the internet was also via the Mbone. A band called "Severe Tire Damage" did regular multicasts from Digital's facility at Xerox/Palo Alto Resarch Center. At least that is what the regular "Radio Free VAT" people (mostly geeks from Argonne labs patching their CD players into their SPARCstations or SGI INDY workstations. Radio Free VAT was programmed by people anywhere in the world on a sign up basis - if you wanted to play some music for a while you could easily get a slot
    .
    In some sense the guys at Argonne have claim to the first internet radio stations.

    The Mbone tools are still available for download. I have no idea if people are still regularly multicasting their music picks, but it is very easy to do.

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