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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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GCap Media has launched a new mobile website that provides iPhone and iPod Touch users a way to listen to live radio over the internet.

The new site launched at MusicRadio.com provides a mobile Safari optimized browsing experience that allows users to listen to live radio streamed over the internet. 5 stations are presently offered from the London based company:

Capital 95.8 - hits and new music
Xfm - interviews, rock, highlights from the Top 20
Choice FM - hip hop and R&B
Classic FM - classical music
Gold - classic hits

The service also provides users to see the last 5 tracks played and buy them through iTunes on your iPhone. In our brief testing, the service worked quite well with good quality through Wifi.



Article Link
 

Popeye206

macrumors 68040
Sep 6, 2007
3,148
836
NE PA USA
Excellent!

The concept here is totally cool! Now if they would just let me pause and rewind the Radio too (like TIVO).

The challenge is going to be how this is delivered... of course, you can't be walking or driving around with WiFi access to listen. But I still love this concept and think this is one of the areas that Apple needs to exploit and expand on more - doing so would take the iPod line to a new level changing the playing field once again for MP3 players.

Cool!
 

mainstreetmark

macrumors 68020
May 7, 2003
2,228
293
Saint Augustine, FL
Yeah! Really! Works great. I don't know if I'd ever use this, but it's a good demo of what can be done!


All this free bandwidth for YouTube and now Radio, yet our tiny SMS messages are (artificially) limited.
 

maehara

macrumors regular
Jan 2, 2003
149
7
Northern Ireland
I still love this concept and think this is one of the areas that Apple needs to exploit and expand on more
Yup - a central list from Apple of iPod-compatible radio streams would be a really useful app (or a good idea for someone else to do once the SDK comes out, maybe?). Not much of a fan of the stations featured, but the idea's a good one...
 

The Phazer

macrumors 68030
Oct 31, 2007
2,997
928
London, UK
The challenge is going to be how this is delivered... of course, you can't be walking or driving around with WiFi access to listen.

It just about works on Edge too...

This about the single best innovation Gcap has done for years. I remember giving a presentation there a few years ago talking about building a site that linked to stores to buy the track you just heard as a revenue generator, and there didn't seem to be any buy-in at all, so it's come a bit out of the blue.

But a very welcome surprise.

Phazer
 

Drumjim85

macrumors 68030
Oct 7, 2007
2,603
229
DFW, TX
The concept here is totally cool! Now if they would just let me pause and rewind the Radio too (like TIVO).

nope, that gets into royalty battles... and how many times does the station have to pay the artist for that song play....

there are pretty strict rules on internet radio about that kinda thing... pandora.com (a great site!) talks about that some.
 

sammywoj

macrumors newbie
Feb 6, 2008
1
0
Satellite Internet Radio?

Can the Sirius/XM stream be accessed on the iPhone/Touch via WiFi? I access my satellite internet radio from my home computer now. Would be nice to take it with me around the home or office. If not, is this a possibility soon?
 

Popeye206

macrumors 68040
Sep 6, 2007
3,148
836
NE PA USA
You know... sometimes you just have to try it. :) For some goofy reason when I read UK... I assumed it would not work in the US... silly me!

Anyway.. I tried it... seems to have some quirkiness to it, and one annoying feature.... when your iPhone sleeps... the connection is lost! Yikes! Still this is cool and I'll have to play some more to see if I have a setting wrong.
 

brucebrendon

macrumors regular
Mar 30, 2007
182
52
UK
Bbc

Oh if only the BBC would move away from realplayer etc for some qt. Would gain them instant easy points until their mac compatible iPlayer comes out. Simple. Easy. Ideal. Unlikely.
 

Wolf103FM

macrumors regular
Apr 29, 2006
154
0
Huntsville AL
I'ved been running Tversity media server on my windows box, along with uxm and usirius to allow mw to listen to live XM and Sirius satellite radio at work on my touch, where I can't get the satellite signals. as well as many radio stations I have manually added to the library
 

Fender321

macrumors member
Oct 27, 2007
36
0
This works perfectly for me over Edge (Atlanta, GA)! I've been hoping for something like this for a long time. Let's hope for more stations in time.
 

Popeye206

macrumors 68040
Sep 6, 2007
3,148
836
NE PA USA
nope, that gets into royalty battles... and how many times does the station have to pay the artist for that song play....
there are pretty strict rules on internet radio about that kinda thing... pandora.com (a great site!) talks about that some.

Well... then they are going to get into royalty battles... this service does allow you to pause and rewind. Just Like I was asking for.

Honestly, I don't see what the issue is... I understand the royalty issue, but recording TV and Radio has been out there for years... how is pausing and rewinding any different than that?
 

Popeye206

macrumors 68040
Sep 6, 2007
3,148
836
NE PA USA
This works perfectly for me over Edge (Atlanta, GA)! I've been hoping for something like this for a long time. Let's hope for more stations in time.

Hummm... I really can't get it to work all that well... even on my WiFi... when the iPhone sleeps... I'll loose the feed for the station... so I assume I'm loosing my internet connection when the iPhone sleeps... do I have a setting wrong somewhere???

Looking for some answers if anyone has any suggestions. :D
 

Ronnoco

macrumors 68030
Oct 16, 2007
2,568
522
United States of America
Hummm... I really can't get it to work all that well... even on my WiFi... when the iPhone sleeps... I'll loose the feed for the station... so I assume I'm loosing my internet connection when the iPhone sleeps... do I have a setting wrong somewhere???

Looking for some answers if anyone has any suggestions. :D

Mine did that a couple of times as well but now it is working perfectly even while it is in sleep mode...perhaps there are still a few quirks to work out which is to be exoected...all in all a brilliant new function IMO...Cheers to GCap! :)
 

fpnc

macrumors 68000
Oct 30, 2002
1,979
134
San Diego, CA
Promising but drops connection every minute or so

I was able to get this to work over both WiFi and EDGE, but it seems to last only about a minute and then the playback stops. I suspect it has something to do with power management on the iPhone and it could simply be that the iPhone isn't designed to hold an internet stream indefinitely. Also, the sound quality was somewhat suspect. If my results are typical I don't think I could use it to listen to music, maybe talk radio and news but not music.
 

Fender321

macrumors member
Oct 27, 2007
36
0
I played it for about 20 minutes on edge, in sleep mode, before it stopped.

It appears as though the "streaming" is done by having the iPhone download a huge file (4 hours long) that the server is writing on the fly.

This means the iphone is likely caching the file as it downloads. Perhaps it's stopping once the phone runs out of memory, because I doubt it has any idea to delete the file as it goes.
 

Am3822

macrumors 6502
Aug 16, 2006
424
0
Groningen, The Netherlands
Oh if only the BBC would move away from realplayer etc for some qt. Would gain them instant easy points until their mac compatible iPlayer comes out. Simple. Easy. Ideal. Unlikely.

How about using their 'embedded' player (the one that pops up from their website)? Will it work on the ipod touch?

EDIT: obviously, the realplayer plug-in is required, and until RealMedia comes up with one compatible with the touch's architecture and/or the helix people do the same (and also manage to install it successfully), there's no chance of it happening.
 

Wyvernspirit

macrumors 6502a
Jul 23, 2002
813
99
Massachusetts
Yeah! Really! Works great. I don't know if I'd ever use this, but it's a good demo of what can be done!


All this free bandwidth for YouTube and now Radio, yet our tiny SMS messages are (artificially) limited.

I'm sure you could get your SMS' for free if you allow for advertising on each message and message creator/sender.
 
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