New Changes In Radio@AOL: slow conversion to XM

[letti001]

It seems that the relationship between Radio@AOL and XM is growing.  There are now Radio@AOL stations being deleted and replaced with XMRadio stations.  For example, the Acoustic Rock station has been replaced with XM The Loft.

Unfortunaately the AOMRecorder will not record the XM stations that are in Radio@AOL.

By the way, the Acoustic Rock station was better than XM The Loft.  I have been listening to Acoustic Rock for several years since good ole' Spinner.Com still existed

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

Sal

[Thomas]

Sal,

You can record XM stations if they deliver artist and title and if there are breaks between the songs. Without breaks AOMrecord is not able to separate the songs.

I suggest you try the German Radio@AOL which still has the Acoustic Rock station.

Greetings

Thomas

BTW. There is another radio broadcaster where you can get good music: Pandora.com.

[letti001]

I will give it a try.  Do you think the time will be added to the song info since there is no time present when an XM station is playing?

Also, I tried Radio@AOL in Germany and could not sign on because I was"out of the country". I will try that again.

Thank you.

[letti001]

Thomas,

I have tried recording from the XM stations on Radio@AOL and AOMRecord does not recognize the changes in the songs.  I set it to "Record Next Song" and the recorder never kicks in.  I have also tried the "Record Now" feature, but then I need to sit there and record each song manually and also miss the beginning of the song.  I need to end a song and beging a song in a split second between the songs.  I am unable to do this also.

The song and artist  information are present.

As XM invades Radio@AOl, I think the ability to record will become more difficult.

Sal

[letti001]

It seems that I am unable to record anything that is tagged to an XMRadio station on Radio@AOL.  I am unable to listen to the German site because my user ID puts out of Germany and I am locked out of listening to that site.

I have a D-Link Media Center (DSM-320) which uses Radio@AOL and the Acoustic Rock station is still there along with the AllDaveMAtthews station.  That is for home listening.

Hopefully, Thomas can figure out a way to record the XMRadio staions on Radio@AOL.

Sal

[Thomas]

Hi Sal,

As I mentioned before AOMrecord depends on a break between the songs to separate them. As long as this is the case, you can record XM stations, too. I prepared a changed MSIE.ini file which is available for download here.

This file disables AOMrecord's looking for the remaining time of a song and uses only pause recognition (for Radio@AOL US only). Replace it with the same file in AOMrecord's program folder (normally C:\Program Files\AOMrecord).

BTW. I have the feeling that XM Radio has a worse quality than the old AOL stations. Especially their dynamic seems very low to me.

Regarding the German stations I didn't know that they are not available in the US. I thought as we can hear Radio@AOL US, you can do vice versa, too. Too bad. What about the UK stations? Are they available in the US?

Please let us know if the MSIE.ini file helps you at least a bit.

Regards

Thomas

[letti001]

Thomas,

Again, no luck.  There is no pause between the songs in the XM channels. There is a runin from one song to the next without pausing so the volume never goes to baseline so therefore ther is never a signal to start.

Any other thoughts? Oh,and I agree that the quality of the station has twindled.

This is a real interesting twist in AOL's scheme.

Radio@AOl was first Spinner.Com and then was meged with Netscape and became Radio@Netscape.  Then AOL came in and started buying things up and thus evolved into Radio@AOL which began was leading to charging people for access. Now all of a sudden they are hooking up with XM.

I think the orignal Spinner.Com concpt will be lost.  The folks that put that station together really cared about music and playlists.

I would welcome back Spinner.

As usual, thank you for good support and whatever other thoughts you may have.

Sal

[Thomas]

Sal,

Again, I can only recommend Pandora.com. Until today I didn't have to pay for this service. Their ads don't bother me. And even if I'm going to use this service more, 36 $ per year isn't too much for what they offer. And their quality is great.

Try it an let me know about your experience.

Regards

Thomas

[letti001]

I will look at Pandora.  

I still have the old Radio@AOL stations via my D-Link media player (DSM-320).  I can play this through my home stereo.

Thank you as always.

Sal