I covered getting a good quality player for audio and video in the previous post, but what about content?
Internet radio or streamed programming (this is where you can listen to the audio only while your computer is connected to the internet, this is live and is also known as internet radio). Examples of this include traditional radio station who “broadcast” there radio play live on the internet. If you want your own music stations with your tastes try www.pandoara.com just point your browser there and enter a song or artist and create your own radio station!
One of the biggest problems with streamed media like internet radio is that you need a special player that will often include adverts and the quality can be very poor. Pandora gets around this with high quality feeds and a great player that work in any flash enabled browser! Ok so streaming has it limitations, it does not work on the road, on a train or on a plane, but most of all you have limited control of content, playback and quality!
So what software should you use to receive programs on the internet? I’d recommend avoiding iTunes (Slow and bloated) and Microsoft Media player instead use a program called Juice Receiver: http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/download/index.php
This is a great free program, no adverts or Spyware. It is very fast even when you subscribe to loads of shows. It has one click operations, and it recovers from errors and lost internet connections automatically.
With Juice Receiver you can:
- Subscribe to shows you like
- Once subscribed new ephisode are download automatically.
- Locate old ephisodes and download them at the click of a button