Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Music Media Communications Toys Technology

Digital Radio With Removable Flash Storage 181

Posted by michael from the sweetness dept.
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."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Digital Radio With Removable Flash Storage More

Digital Radio With Removable Flash Storage

Comments Filter:

  • Isn't this a UK/Euro product? (Score:5, Informative)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:36AM (#9959968) Homepage Journal
    I live in North America you insensitive clod!

    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)

      by rpjs ( 126615 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:44AM (#9960060)
      This is a DAB - Digital Audio Broadcasting - not an AM/FM radio. I have no idea whether the DAB standard we have here in the UK/EU is a world-wide standard or not, and whether these things would work in the US or not. Sadly, I suspect that now that DAB sets are coming with the ability to record, that people like the MPAA will be working hard to ensure that they won't...

      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)

        by rpjs ( 126615 )
        Got my AAs mixed up. I meant RIAA of course...

      • DAB (Score:2, Informative)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *
        I have no idea whether the DAB standard we have here in the UK/EU is a world-wide standard or not, and whether these things would work in the US or not.

        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.

      • DAB doesn't work in the US, because
        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)
        • b) US broadcasters (in threory) are independant, and quite fond of the frequency they're on. In Europe, you have national broadcasters.

          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)

      by BearJ ( 783382 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:48AM (#9960125)
      Actually, the RCA dog's name is Nipper. [toymuseum.com] The little puppy's name is Chipper.

    • I live in North America you insensitive clod!

      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)

    by cheeseSource ( 605209 )
    Untill the RIAA screws this up...

  • Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:37AM (#9959973)
    Here [64.233.161.104]
    • Oddly enough, the pictures show up quickly on the Google cache [64.233.179.104], but the site itself is awfully slow. Guess their .asp server [thebug.com] is having problems.

      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 .gifs [thebug.com] for the screen.

      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)

    by voidstin ( 51561 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:38AM (#9959986)
    ... wouldn't you prefer something like this [griffintechnology.com]?
    • Now that is sweet. I have been looking for something similar, now if I will just sit down and write some scripts to d/l the radio programs I cant recieve over air, I would be golden.
      • you mean something like this [rogueamoeba.com]?

        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:If the point is recording.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by jeffehobbs ( 419930 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @12:03PM (#9960279) Homepage

      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
    • ...wouldn't you prefer something like [The Radio Shark]?

      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."

    • Actually, I'd prefer to do what I've always done. I bought a 1/8"-minijack-to-1/8"-minijack cable and plugged one end into the line-in port on my Mac (and later, my PC, the Mac's a server now) and the other end into the headphone out (yeah, I know, it's amplified, bad idea... but aux-out was already in use) of my stereo system. Then I downloaded and installed Audacity [sourceforge.net]. The rest is fairly simple. Get the levels nice with some test runs (like setting that pesky headphone out... :X ), then record everything el

  • Lucky British... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TexTex ( 323298 ) * on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:38AM (#9959992)
    First the US learns that the Brits have all the good sitcoms...and now Slashdot shows me that they have all the good radios as well.

    Digital Audio Broadcasts? 85% coverage of the UK? Wicked radios? And it's for FREE!?!? XM ain't lookin' so hot right now...
    • I cant read the article so i cant tell this, but is digital radio really the same as satellite? i didnt think so but im not an expert by any stretch. oh, and by the way, brits have a LOT of shit sitcoms too. :)
      • It's broadcast from regular masts so that local radio can also get a bite of the pie. It also means that rather like mobile phones, signal is poor in upland or heavily enclosed indoor areas.

      • Re:Lucky British... (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by rpjs ( 126615 )
        oh, and by the way, brits have a LOT of shit sitcoms too.

        Though funnily enough, it's the really crap ones like Are You Being Served that seem to do best in the US...
        • same with Absolutely Fabulous...

          (shudder)
        • I've never understood that at *all*.

          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

    • Lucky Canadians Too!


      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]
      • Mirror for Canadian links here [mnsi.net]

      • Well, appart from those annoying (too often repeated) commercial about stating that 'DAB delived Cd-quality sound' and 'complementary information', it didn't change a single thing.

        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.
    • If you lived in a densely populated country the size of a postage stamp, you too would have digital radio coverage over 85% of it. Try leaving the city once in a while, you'll find that the US has a lot of empty space.

  • Mirror anyone? (Score:3, Funny)

    by syrinje ( 781614 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:38AM (#9959993)
    Two comments and The Bug has been squashed by the almighty /. effect.

  • I hate to be pessimistic, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ALeavitt ( 636946 ) * <aleavitt@gmail . c om> on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:39AM (#9960004)
    Do people actually expect this to be released without a hitch? Look at all of the controversy currently surrounding TiVo and other PVRs. Now consider the fact that the RIAA will be fighting this flash memory tooth and nail. The Bug will allow people to listen to what they want, when they want. No more inane DJ banter, no more 10-minute commercial breaks between every song, no more screeching pop tarts (unless that's what people want to hear.) There is no way to secure this device against copying, no matter how hard they try. There's a way around every copy protection. This will allow flawless, portable, digital recordings off of the radio. Granted, it's what consumers want, but since when were consumers in control? I have a feeling this will incur the wrath of the RIAA and, therefore, the US government. Just wait, these Bugs will be banned within a matter of days.

  • google cache (Score:1, Interesting)

    by weenis ( 656512 )
    seems like the site is quite slow already.
    http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:MzaBgZJufrYJ:ww w.thebug.com/+&hl=en [66.102.7.104]

  • ID3 tagging (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jacksonai ( 604950 ) <taladon@gmail.com> on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:41AM (#9960021) Homepage
    I admit I haven't RTFA since the site is ./ed, but I have a question. Does this digital radio fill in the ID3 tags? Also, are they doing any watermarking of the mp3's?
    • I would doubt ID3 tags would work since most stations don't put track names into the information field (rather, websites and show contact information). It would be rather like recording ratio to a cassette.

  • Alternative (Score:2, Insightful)

    by oasis3582 ( 698323 )
    Why can't you just do this with the Winamp plugin that records streams to mp3 files (forgot name, sorry) and then transfer to media card via film reader?

    • Re:Alternative (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dreadlord ( 671979 )
      You mean Streamripper [sourceforge.net]?

      You can also do so in XMMS, just use the disk writer output plugin.
    • Why can't you just do this with the Winamp plugin that records streams to mp3 files (forgot name, sorry) and then transfer to media card via film reader?

      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
    • Well you could. But you would have to buy a DAB radio card as well to even get the stream in the first place.

  • Price point (Score:2, Informative)

    by remahl ( 698283 ) *
    I googled for places that sell it, and found it at £150 here: The Bug [comet.co.uk]. It translates to roughly 270 USD.
    • £150 is the RRP. I found it here [superfi.co.uk]for £124 = $228.

      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].

      Advanced radio features
      ReVu technology allows you to pause and rewind live DAB radio

  • Someone needs to get out more (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:43AM (#9960046)

    Oh, and it is sexy as hell.

    Step away from the keyboard.

  • Soon to come (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nlawalker ( 804108 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:44AM (#9960066)
    The RIAA is going to have absolute fits about this. I remember hearing months ago about the advent of digital radio, and how the RIAA was already on it's case because of the ability to "retain and store high-quality digital broadcasts" (not a direct quote.)

    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..."

    • Perhaps you're confusing DAB with IBOC-DAB (aka HD Radio) in the US?
    • This is a UK product the RIAA can take a hissy fit all it likes but is has no juristiction in the UK what so ever that last A is America.

      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)

    by Keruo ( 771880 )
    we've had digital radio broadcasts for ~6 years now
    and currently the amount of sold digital recievers countrywide is 0
    honestly, the concept really needs some rethinking

    • in the UK (Score:3, Informative)

      by rpjs ( 126615 )
      The BBC has been pushing its new DAB-only stations quite hard. We have approx 85% DAB coverage now, although the take-up is still only about 2%. However a lot of the DAB stations are also available via webcast and bundled with cable and satellite TV subscriptions.

      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 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...

    • A) The eyes turn off. It's just er... eye candy.

      B) It was designed by Wayne Hemingway, nice bloke. http://www.hemingwaydesign.co.uk/ ... bit of a history in design.

      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.

    • .... that would judge me as a person for a fscking radio.

      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.
  • In the U.S., I can see recording a talk show or NPR for a later date, but with all the Clear Channel owned crap, what is the point.
    • Clear channel has the shortest most repeated play list on the air waves.

      But satelite has enough options that you can hear a lot of good music.
      • Now I love to bash clear channel as much as the next guy, but here in LA they launched a station called Indie 103 [indie103.fm] that is actually pretty damn good and while it does have some repeats, they pull out some deep cuts and b-sides that have impressed me. Much better than the other corporate rock station or NPR style hippie radio... I'm sure it's voice tracked and they are/will be cookie-cutter stations like this all over, but hey, it's still good music. Could it be that they're actually going after a slightly
        • The other thing about Clear Channel that is a major annoyance are the mind numbing commercials. If you listen to one of their stations for three hours, you have heard everyone of that days commercials twice. And they definately cater to the lowest common denominator as to intelligence level.
    • I believe that every NPR show is available tolisten to on the web - at least that is true from the MPR (not 'N') website...
  • I'm thinking that the article submitter must have one strange E.T. fetish.

    That's just odd.

  • Ummm, yeah. If you find tech equipment that sexy, then you're probably not getting laid that often.

  • I can see why it is called the "bug"... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotQuiteReal ( 608241 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:54AM (#9960192) Journal
    ...because its shape sure bugs me!.

    "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.

    • I totally agree with you. I've been looking into getting satellite radio (XM or Sirius, leaning toward Sirius), but the form factor of the radio's is what is holding me back. The portable units all have odd sort of shapes that don't lend well to being out of the way in a car and require even odder shaped "boomboxes" for home use.

      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
    • I wouldn't buy one of these things solely based on how it looks.
      I'd go further than that. I wouldn't buy one of these things until they make one which looks a lot better than that. Give me a beige box over something produced by a fashion designer any day.
    • Er, it's designed to be a bedside radio. Hence the angleable display, low button count, and alarm features.

      If you want a DAB radio which can be stacked, than there's plenty of others to choose from.
    • Well, I'm willing to bet it's sexy to the British. Remember, they're not like us... nasty teeth and weird clothing styles are attractive for them.
    • From the reviews I've read I wouldn't buy it full stop. The sound quality is below par in comparison with other radios, and the menu structure is unusable with the low number of buttons. Since you appear to have one, perhaps you can add your thoughts on this?

  • Ladies and Gentlemen (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:56AM (#9960205)
    Ladies and Gentlemen (and geeks)

    Are you implying that geeks are neither ladies nor gentlemen?

  • Alternative (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gumshoe ( 191490 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:56AM (#9960210) Journal
    The legendary British radio manufacturer Roberts, produce a similar device called the Gemini 1 [dab-digital-radio.com]. I don't know if it's as "sexy" as The Bug (whatever that means) but Roberts' reputation in the field of portable radio manufacturer is second to none.

  • If only it worked (Score:5, Informative)

    by BuilderBob ( 661749 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:58AM (#9960232)

    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

    • Converting between lossy compression formats is bad, MMM'kay? It mungs up the quality, the compression artifacts of one format are amplified when converting to another. MP2 (MPEG1 Layer 2) is actually a pretty good format on it's own, and most computer media players can handle it.

    • Er, the firmware is out.

      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)...

      • 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

  • Ladies and Gentlemen (and geeks) I give you The Bug.

    ...and we give The Bug the Slashdot effect! *swat* :)

  • Diva GEM (Score:3, Informative)

    by Gadzinka ( 256729 ) <rrw@hell.pl> on Friday August 13, 2004 @12:24PM (#9960489) Journal
    Check out Diva GEM [daisymm.com], I recently bought this one for my wife's birthday.

    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
    • 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.

      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

      • Well, I don't have any AAC files. I just downloaded one song in MPEG-4 AAC from allofmp3.com and tested it -- it didn't even find it, no matter what extension it had.

        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
  • Sexy as hell? Looks more like a demented Robby the Robot [defunctgames.com] from the old Nintendo Entertainment System. This is one of the foulest examples of product design since ... since ... I'm not sure; there are so many to choose from.

  • DAB in USA vs. rest of the world. (Score:5, Informative)

    by talmage ( 223926 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @12:56PM (#9960941) Homepage Journal
    The general technology is called "In-Band, On-Channel." The implementation in the US is different from the the one in the rest of the world. In the USA, DAB technology is controlled by a company called iBiquity [ibiquity.com]. It's incompatible with the world standard. In the rest of the world, the standard is Eureka 417 [eureka.be]. I found this explanation [fact-index.com] helpful.
    • The general technology is called "In-Band, On-Channel." The implementation in the US is different from the the one in the rest of the world. In the USA, DAB technology is controlled by a company called iBiquity. It's incompatible with the world standard. In the rest of the world, the standard is Eureka 417.

      s/DAB/mobile phone/
      s/iBiquity/Qualcomm/
      s/Eureka 417/GSM/

      Phillip.

  • The Bug? Er... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dj ( 224 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @01:28PM (#9961365) Homepage
    Went to the launch (at the Dali Gallery), wasn't completely sold. Got one. Got irritated by the bugs, but lived with them.

    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.

  • I give you the slashdot effect

    RP

  • Legal MP3s? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nghate ( 722525 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @01:48PM (#9961579)
    Recording Radio is legal, so would it make the MP3s recorded by the Digital Radio legal too? If some one put them out on P2P, would it be legal to download and play these MP3? How would one differentiate between such MP3s v/s the CD ripped versions?
    • Recording Radio is legal, so would it make the MP3s recorded by the Digital Radio legal too?

      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
    • Recording from radio is legal, but selling/delivering that recordings are not what ever is the media or hte recording method. You cannot sell recorded c-casettes, do you ?

Slashdot Top Deals

The 11 is for people with the pride of a 10 and the pocketbook of an 8. -- R.B. Greenberg [referring to PDPs?]

Close