Digital Radio With Removable Flash Storage 181
Billy69 writes "In a comment in a story yesterday about TiVo and MS Media Centre, somebody made a comment about being able to store Digital radio straight to a format to use on a MP3 player.
Ladies and Gentlemen (and geeks) I give you The Bug.
It is a DAB digital radio that can timeshift, store as MP2 or MP3 straight to an SD card, and can connect out via USB or SPDIF.
Oh, and it is sexy as hell."
Isn't this a UK/Euro product? (Score:5, Informative)
Now that that's out of the way...
Euro broadcasts use slightly different frequency settings and bandwidths (I did have a portable with a switch in it for AM/MW bandwidth, FM was simply being able to dial 98.0 instead of odd intervals like 98.1, 98.3 in North America) Hopefully it's available for US buyers (best check lest it get intercepted at the border by the Federales. You know how Washington listens when RIAA, etc. bark. They know they're Master's Voice*)
This would be wonderful with satellite radio (all these great stations with swing and jazz), but I would probably not use it for broadcast, at least where I live. DJ's talking over the music is probably encouraged to screw with us who made tapes back in the poor days (lived in a paper bag in a septic tank or shoebox in the middle of the road...) Unless, say, I wanted to archive Paul Harvey or something like that. (This would have kicked butt back when J.P. McCarthy was still alive and doing his radio shows on WJR-Detroit)
Sexy? Reminds me of a Martian War Machine [thomasmodels.com]
* Arcane reference to Victor, the RCA dog.
Yes, and it's a *digital* radio (Score:4, Informative)
DAB is great. Got a Perstel Bluenote for Christmas and I'm currently listening to BBC 6Music. You can too via the BBC website [bbc.co.uk].
Doh (Score:2)
DAB (Score:2, Informative)
There's a bunch of info on it, buried in this very pretty website [worlddab.org] Near as I can tell the encoding is the same, but I couldn't tell you about what the frequency intervals are, etc.
Re:Yes, and it's a *digital* radio (Score:2)
a) technically, it would interfer with frequencies assigned to the military
b) US broadcasters (in threory) are independant, and quite fond of the frequency they're on. In Europe, you have national broadcasters. (Entities like ClearChannel certainly blur this distinction, of course.)
The version of terrestrial, digital radio emerging in the US is branded as 'HD Radio'. Technically, it is IBOC (In-Band On-Channel) DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting)
Re:Yes, and it's a *digital* radio (Score:3, Interesting)
no, in the UK we have local only channels that aren't available nationally, both on FM and DAB. I've had a dab radio for ages (I've got a sony 777es) and I agree, dab is great, but it's worth noting that while it can be better than FM, it's often not as lots of channels are multiplexed onto each frequency, so the more channels you shoehirn in, the lower the bitrate for eac
His Master's Voice (Score:4, Informative)
Re:His Master's Voice (Score:2)
dave
Re:Isn't this a UK/Euro product? (Score:3, Informative)
No, you live in the US.
Canada has DAB in its major cities. It's just that most people don't have receivers.
How long... (Score:2, Insightful)
Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Google Cache (Score:2)
Can't even link to the pretty pictures, because they decided to make it a "multimedia experience". Flash on the "All About" page, and even the simple pictures on the front are chopped into tables so they could use animated
Hopefully the tech in the unit is a bit more efficient than the marketing on the webpage.
If the point is recording.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If the point is recording.... (Score:2)
Re:If the point is recording.... (Score:3, Informative)
I have Audio Hijack Pro, but I ordered the Radioshark because the Real streams are so unstable... I often come back to an alert box rather than a recording.
Radio Shark looks like it will be scriptable and come with a tivo-esque program, but it also will show up as a regular input... and you could write a script (that AHP will trigger when the timer is triggered) to tune the station properly...
now if RadioShark would only ship...
Re:Audio Hijack 2 runs w/o APE (Score:2)
Re:If the point is recording.... (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, except for the one problem with the Griffin radioSHARK; it doesn't exist yet. It's been "shipping soon" for about 9 months now.
~jeff
Re:If the point is recording.... (Score:2)
I hate to break it to you /.'ers, but that thing's been "coming soon" for over a year now. The product even got a dubious honor related to Wired Magazine's "Top 10 Vaporware of 2003."
Re:If the point is recording.... (Score:2)
Lucky British... (Score:5, Interesting)
Digital Audio Broadcasts? 85% coverage of the UK? Wicked radios? And it's for FREE!?!? XM ain't lookin' so hot right now...
Re:Lucky British... (Score:1)
Re:Lucky British... (Score:2)
Re:Lucky British... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Though funnily enough, it's the really crap ones like Are You Being Served that seem to do best in the US...
Re:Lucky British... (Score:2, Funny)
(shudder)
Re:Lucky British... (Score:2)
AYBS is horrible. I can't believe it was funny 30 years ago (when they were being made) but the "humor" is the most predictable I have seen on television *ever*. If I hear about Ms. Slocombe's pussy again...
Same thing with Keeping Up Appearances. Predictable, and just not funny.
Now a show that gets shown occasionally on our PBS station that I really like is Chef! (which I believe is called "Ready, Steady, Cook!", according to my British friend). That's actually
Re:Lucky British... (Score:2)
DAB is available in several Canadian Markets too, (and has been for awhile.)
You can see a list of links of participating stations here [cab-acr.ca]
Re:Lucky British... (Score:2)
Re:Lucky British... (Score:2)
I don't even know a single soul who bought a DAB enable receiver...
And I just learned (by the link in the parent post) that 7 local radio station supports DAB, while I only heard those annoying commercials in 1.
Re:Lucky British... (Score:2)
Mirror anyone? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mirror anyone? (Score:1)
If this was a closed source site, the Bug would have remained up for months
I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:2)
While you may be right that there was a lot controversy over PVRs, you can go order one from a number of vendors right now.
Re:I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:1)
Greg Kihn does the inane babble on KFOX. Yet another guy who spent years on hard drugs and alcohol and is now a republican... The music was ok, but geez, he and John Madden* (on KCBS) could just stuff it or allow you to FF past them.
*"Hey did you hear what John Madden said?"
No, and I really don't fscking care! (yelled at radio while trying to stab MUTE at 70 mph)
Re:I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:2)
Do people actually expect this to be released without a hitch?
Saw them in John Lewis in London about a month ago. Was tempted until I saw they were £150...
--> Stephen
Re:I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:2, Funny)
How gaylicious.
Who listens to the radio anyways? It's a dead medium. Video killed the radio star.
Seriously, would you rather listen to Britney Spears or look at her? Oh wait, this is slashdot. Would you rather listen to Justin Timberlake or look at him? Thats better.
Re:I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:2)
But isn't this device recording analog radio?
-Em
Re:I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:2)
Re:I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:2)
-Em
google cache (Score:1, Interesting)
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:MzaBgZJufrYJ:w
ID3 tagging (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:ID3 tagging (Score:2)
Re:ID3 tagging (Score:2)
Alternative (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Alternative (Score:3, Informative)
You can also do so in XMMS, just use the disk writer output plugin.
Re:Alternative (Score:2)
Probably for the same reasons most people don't use their computers to record Cable TV programs. First, you probably don't have a digital radio tuner built into your PC. 2nd, Winamp or any other stream grabber isn't going to do time-shifting. Using some batch programming you can probably get it to record future shows, but it's a kludge. The bug is an all
Re:Alternative (Score:2)
Price point (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Price point (Score:2)
It does have pretty good features, like pausing playback (for up to 12 minutes) and seperate configurable alarms (weekdays = Getupyoulazybastard.fm & weekends = Haveaniceliein.fm) but the bug's a wee bit teenage if you ask me.
Fortunately Videologic are making proper stereo systems and hi-fi seperates with the same technology - for example the Pure Legato [pure-digital.com].
Someone needs to get out more (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, and it is sexy as hell.
Step away from the keyboard.
Soon to come (Score:3, Interesting)
Stupid bastards. Notice this was never a problem when people were dubbing radio on to tapes. Leave it to the rest of humanity to find a good way of owning, storing, and organizing music, and then the RIAA says, "Hey, this is efficient and high quality. Better stop them while we can..."
RIAA==America, DAB=Europe (Score:2)
Re:Soon to come (Score:2)
Add to this that a lot (though not all) of the DAB content being broadcast in the UK belongs to the BBC (and thus to the British public indirectly) gives a whole different twist to this. The BBC is well known for embrassing new technology rather than just complaing about it. You can already replay Real Audio streams of past FM broadcasts legally from the bbc website.
in Finland (Score:2, Interesting)
and currently the amount of sold digital recievers countrywide is 0
honestly, the concept really needs some rethinking
in the UK (Score:3, Informative)
I believe it's the UK government's ultimate goal to switch off analogue radio transmissions eventually, along with analogue TV and have everyone switch to digital TV and radio. I suspect this is going to take longer to accomplish than they want
Sexy? Like hell. (Score:2)
"Sexy as hell" my ass. That thing looks like it was designed by a ten-year-old still feeling nostalgic for his Nintendo games. Especially with those digital eyes -- when that thing blinks at me, I got flashbacks to R.O.B. [gamersgraveyard.com]
Put that in your living room, guys, and you're guaranteed to never have a girlfriend -- they won't be back for a second visit to your place after seeing kitsch like that pass for decor...
Re:Sexy? Like hell. (Score:2)
B) It was designed by Wayne Hemingway, nice bloke. http://www.hemingwaydesign.co.uk/
C) Who'd put it in the living room?! There's a whole range of Pure (makers of The Bug) DAB radios, from Hifi stackers to wood cased kitchen radios. We have a Pure Evoke-1 in the kitchen. In the living room, we have Sky Digital, so nearly all the radio channels are duplicated there.
I would not be interested in a girl..... (Score:2)
So frankly I fail to see exactly what point you are trying to make.
There are many girls out there that can see beyond idiotic stereotypes.
Who still listens to the radio? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who still listens to the radio? (Score:2)
But satelite has enough options that you can hear a lot of good music.
Re:Clear Channel bashing (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Clear Channel bashing (Score:2)
Why would you record it? (Score:2)
Sexy As Hell? (Score:2)
That's just odd.
sexy as hell (Score:2)
I can see why it is called the "bug"... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Oh, and it is sexy as hell."
Maybe it's just me, but odd-shaped packaging is cute for about 1 minute, then it is just a pain. You can't stack stuff on it, you can't push is flat up against your cubicle wall, etc.
If form-follows-function, fine. But if there is no reason for some odd shape, can't we have something more practical, less fragile and, frankly, less goofy looking? I wouldn't buy one of these things solely based on how it looks.
Re:I can see why it is called the "bug"... (Score:2)
Any company that does this will get my money:
Make a satellite radio unit that has a form factor similar to an iPod with a pin-compatible dock connector. Then, make a car head u
Re:I can see why it is called the "bug"... (Score:2)
Re:I can see why it is called the "bug"... (Score:2)
If you want a DAB radio which can be stacked, than there's plenty of others to choose from.
Re:I can see why it is called the "bug"... (Score:2)
Re:I can see why it is called the "bug"... (Score:2)
Ladies and Gentlemen (Score:3, Funny)
Are you implying that geeks are neither ladies nor gentlemen?
Alternative (Score:3, Interesting)
If only it worked (Score:5, Informative)
So far, the Bug is full of them, bugs that is
The radio has problems reading SD cards sometimes, even the ones that it writes itself. The result is generally garbled filenames or unreadable files.
More seriously, the firmware shipped with the radio is having problems recording more than two thirds of the SD card. After 2/3 of the memory is used up, the recording starts to stutter (as if it's missing packets, which it probably is) or fail altogether.
Times recordings often fail, file deletion is buried in a submenu in a submenu...there's no fast forward or rewind on recordings. The sleep timer is hidden away, the 'joystick' control is unreliable.
And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it doesn't really record MP3. DAB radio is transmitted as MP2, the radio writes the stream directly to disk. If you want MP3 you have to upload to your computer, then convert. I think it can write mp3
All this will apparently be fixed when the new firmware becomes available. Which will be very soon, imminent in fact, honest.
I would post my sources, but their on PHP message boards, it'll get creamed by the slighest hint of a /.ing. It's easy enough to find if you're thinking of buying The Bug online, in the UK.
BB
Re:If only it worked (Score:2)
Re:If only it worked (Score:2)
Check out the Digital Radio forums on www.simplyradio.com in the 1.1 Upgrade thread.
I just installed it.
MP2 is the native stream off most DAB systems, cos thats what comes out of the chipset. Easy enough to convert. And it happily plays back MP3s, which I record on my PC running Dabbar (because it has EpgExplorer)...
Re:If only it worked (Score:2)
Ok, so the firmware update came in the hour between me checking if it was out on the simplyradios forum and posting.
I know MP2 is the native DAB format, I never meant to suggest it was inferior anyway. The O/P said it recorded MP3, the sales pitch says it records MP3. It doesn't record MP3.
Please tell me the update is good?
BB
Re:If only it worked - IDIOT!!! MP2 is "MPEG 2" ! (Score:2)
./ squash the bug! (Score:2, Funny)
Diva GEM (Score:3, Informative)
It's as small as cigarette lighter, it has MMC/SD slot supporting even 1GB cards (I tested myself). It also has FM radio, plays AAC/MP3/GSM-AMR/WAV and can record from radio or buil-in mic -- works as a voice recorder too. You can upload/download files from the card via reader, or directly from this device via USB 1.1 (read ~600KB/s, write ~300).
It works from exchangeable li-ion battery over 10h and you can recharge it from (included) USB and wallplug charger.
More expensive models have built-in Bluetooth which enables it to work as a headset for BT-enabled phone -- GEM automagically stops music and receives call.
I bought the model without BT and with only 32M internal flash (plus the MMC/SD slot) for ~$140, Kingston SD 512M card for about $100. Works like a charm.
Robert
Re:Diva GEM (Score:2)
Do you have any evidence that this player works with AAC or AMR? I can only find specs that mention MP3 on the manufacturer's website.
If so, do you know if it plays MPEG-2 AAC or MPEG-4 AAC? My Xpanium only plays MPEG-2 AAC, so I had to write a short command line tool to remove the QuickTime wrapper from iTunes files and insert ADTS headers for portable playback... Even though I've
Re:Diva GEM (Score:2)
As for AMR, I know it works, because I used GEM's voice recorder in this format. Only I don't have anything on Linux to play it, so I switched recording to MP3. Takes more space, but I can simply copy that to the computer and edit or type it there.
Robert
Re:Diva GEM (Score:2)
It's 600/300 KB/s. USB 1.1 (so called full speed USB) is 12Mb/s and USB 2.0 (or high speed USB) is 480Mb/s, while firewire is 400Mb/s.
That's kilobyte, megabit, megabit and megabit.
Robert
Appearance (Score:2)
DAB in USA vs. rest of the world. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:DAB in USA vs. rest of the world. (Score:2)
s/DAB/mobile phone/
s/iBiquity/Qualcomm/
s/Eureka 417/GSM/
Phillip.
The Bug? Er... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just been upgrading the firmware on it (lets make everyone scream, it needs Windows to update the flash...), so now it has rewind and fast forward when playing back off SD card.
Lovely functionality, still undecided on the ergonomics, and I wish the SD slot was on the front.
Ladies and Gentlemen... (Score:2)
RP
Legal MP3s? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Legal MP3s? (Score:2)
Yes.
If some one put them out on P2P, would it be legal to download and play these MP3?
Whether it would be legal or not to download is somewhat of a grey area. However it would definitely not be legal to upload them.
How would one differentiate between such MP3s v/s the CD ripped versions?
1. They'd sound a lot crappier unless the cd ripped version is very poorly encoded.
2. If you're talking about by fil
Re:Legal MP3s? (Score:2)
Re:In USA talk radio is usually on AM not FM! usel (Score:5, Informative)
The unit I have works PERFECTLY and is the FASTEST way to switch from AM to FM that I know of. You can have AM and FM mixed in with each other in your presets and you can timeshift record.
I too usually listen to AM - I have been wanting such a product for a very long time.
Griffin will finally deliver VERY soon. They've had a number of problems with manufacturer getting the internals right.
Re:In USA talk radio is usually on AM not FM! usel (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In USA talk radio is usually on AM not FM! usel (Score:2)
Car "TiVo" radio (Score:2)
I would pay a substantial sum for a car "TiVo" radio with the following properties:
Re:Car "TiVo" radio (Score:2)
However, I'm betting that our friends at the RIAA are absolutely dead set against recording broadcast material in any way, shape, or form. We all know the tech is available and implementable, but that has to be the reason that no one has done it yet.
Re:Nice Idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
The Hauppaugg! "theater" card has a built in FM radio tuner, (model 401 card) so with the appropriate software or collection of software, you could schedule to record, and re-code to MP3, ogg vobis, WMA, or other audio format at your convienence. However that leaves out AM, and is not a Digital Radio tuner.
Presuming you can find an AM tuner card (the only thing that comes to mind at the moment is a card that acts as a scanner as well, and I can't recall its information) you could do this as we
Re:I knew is had to look lame. (Score:2)
See the about section of the web site. I'm off to my fave chippy. Gaak.