What drives this motivation? I just got Tunein radio on my phone this afternoon and am quite disappointed, actually I'm kind of angry. My first concern is about Seattle's KPLZ and several other stations that I probably don't know, KBZC in Sacramento is another one though. Why do they broadcast over the internet in mono but over the air in stereo? Here's what I'm really angry about though, the number of stations that are restricted on the tunein app. It's all the CBS and CC stations. In Seattle that's the following stations, 93.3, 94.1, 95.7, 96.5, 102.5, and 106.1 fm, and 950 am and 102.9 fm, as well as the rimshot 104.9 fm. I don't get what drives these restrictions. If it really is money, how come I'm not seeing just about every non-com station restricted? Seems like they would be the first to restrict there internet feeds to the United States only because of the increased cost. Seems as if CBS and CC are the only two companies doing this right now, and I think they need to realize that. 1090 isn't even listed on Tunein. Anyone have any thoughts? And let's not get into the townsquare situation. Seems as if they only list one station per market on Tunein.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
I don't understand
- Thread starter bobdavcav
- Start date
To answer your questions... Some stations don't care about their internet stream thus youll get a mono stream for a FM stereo signal.
Your other question.. restrictions....
Clear Channel has their own app called "iHeartRadio" They pulled their stations being listed in any 3rd party applications [Such as TuneIn] when they launched 'iHeartRadio' .. They want you to listen via their own app because they can drive NTR that way (ads in the player etc..) They can't do that if your listening to someone elses app. CBS is the same with their radio.com app.
These restrictions are not a fault of "Tune In" but the station owners who want to only have their streams listed in their own app.
Your other question.. restrictions....
Clear Channel has their own app called "iHeartRadio" They pulled their stations being listed in any 3rd party applications [Such as TuneIn] when they launched 'iHeartRadio' .. They want you to listen via their own app because they can drive NTR that way (ads in the player etc..) They can't do that if your listening to someone elses app. CBS is the same with their radio.com app.
These restrictions are not a fault of "Tune In" but the station owners who want to only have their streams listed in their own app.
Of course this wouldn't be Tune In's fault, that seems silly that they would restrict certain stations. I have the IHeart Radio app on my phone, it was the first one I downloaded. It's really good, but VoiceOver goes weird sometimes and I have to press really hard on the screen to get it to do what I want. Tunein provides the ability to record streams which is nice, especially if you need some radio but don't want to use data. I have some buffering issues on my phone though, maybe recording will eliminate these. If IHR introduced that feature on there app, I would use it, and probably not complain much. If I were CC, I wouldn't make myself stand out so much. I've never been to Fayetteville NC and I only know 3 stations there, all owned by Cumulus. However, from looking at the tunein app, it's obvious which ones are owned by CC. If I were CC here's what I'd do, lift the restrictions on WKTU because it's listed on ITunes. I would also right away lift the restrictions for KIIS, KOST, and KHKS. Then, I'd go from the smallest market I owned stations in lifting restrictions one station per day until I get all the way up to where CBS also has holdings, and keep the restrictions there until CBS decides they will lift them. This way, it's not as obvious which stations are owned by CC, especially in the major markets where CBS is also active, but the restrictions are lifted gradually.
Some stations only offer low-bitrate streaming, often in an old format like mp3. I have no idea why.
KPLZ offers one stream, 64k mp3. Typically, stations with that bitrate and format will broadcast in somewhat low quality stereo. KBZC is an Entercom station. By default, TuneIn will launch a 64K AAC stream. TuneIn doesn't specify if that's AAC+ (which offers high quality at low bitrates). However, if you go into the options for the station, you can choose a 128k mp3 stream, which is no doubt stereo.
Suffice it to say, it doesn't matter what the station broadcasts over the air. It's all about how they put it on the web.
Myself, I often wondered how a station like WFMT, known for it's attention to detail and audio quality, offers only a 64k mp3 stream and a 128k AAC+ stream. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
KPLZ offers one stream, 64k mp3. Typically, stations with that bitrate and format will broadcast in somewhat low quality stereo. KBZC is an Entercom station. By default, TuneIn will launch a 64K AAC stream. TuneIn doesn't specify if that's AAC+ (which offers high quality at low bitrates). However, if you go into the options for the station, you can choose a 128k mp3 stream, which is no doubt stereo.
Suffice it to say, it doesn't matter what the station broadcasts over the air. It's all about how they put it on the web.
Myself, I often wondered how a station like WFMT, known for it's attention to detail and audio quality, offers only a 64k mp3 stream and a 128k AAC+ stream. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
I know KBZC is an Entercom station. Seems all Entercom Sacramento stations broadcast in mono on the web in 128 kbps mp3 and via Streamtheworld's flash player, also in mono, at least last I checked. Most other Entercom stations broadcast in stereo at 64 KBPS mp3 rather than 128. It would appear that Tunein opens a stereo stream of KFFM, even though the mp3 stream is 48 KBPS mono, like most Townsquare stations.
Well personally if CC or CBS want to take their balls and go play elsewhere then that is their own hangup.... It just means that many less stations on that App my 5 stations have to compete with for listeners....
TuneIn has done very good for my stations in the past but with the most recent updates it seems they are trying to bury Internet Only Stations and only giving prime real estate on their site to Terrestrial Stations which is sad....
I would love to be able to click Seattle Radio on there and see The X KXRX on there with the terrestrials.... We certainly play more and better music than 99% of the Rock stations in this market....
Same can be said for KONG our classic rock station it has some great programming with specialty shows on the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and just good local music.....
When Apps like TuneIn take Net Radio Stations serious enough to put us along side with terrestrial radio thats when the real shift to net broadcasting will be on....
TuneIn has done very good for my stations in the past but with the most recent updates it seems they are trying to bury Internet Only Stations and only giving prime real estate on their site to Terrestrial Stations which is sad....
I would love to be able to click Seattle Radio on there and see The X KXRX on there with the terrestrials.... We certainly play more and better music than 99% of the Rock stations in this market....
Same can be said for KONG our classic rock station it has some great programming with specialty shows on the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and just good local music.....
When Apps like TuneIn take Net Radio Stations serious enough to put us along side with terrestrial radio thats when the real shift to net broadcasting will be on....
unpwn said:
There aren't a whole lot of webcasters out there streaming at 320k. That requires a pretty hefty internet connection. And forget 3G. That won't fly. Plus, it is rather expensive, and from a webcaster point of view, a waste of bandwidth.
Most stations streaming 128k do it in stereo. Stereo can be done with mp3 all the way down to 64k, possibly less. AAC+ streams can sound adequate in stereo all the way down to 32k. Surprised more stations haven't done that.
M
MajorArmstrong
Guest
First, you pay for the bandwidth...128k is 128k in mono or stereo. A MP3 stream at 64k in stereo tends to sound swishy since you are pushing more information over a low-end stream. AAC+ is really the way to go, but most radio stations set it and forget it...so for them to change to a newer technology now is asking a lot. A lot of the radio streams are horrible sounding 32k streams since it's cheap(er) to stream.
bobdavcav said:
64K mono sounds so much better than 64K stereo, as it isn't splitting the stream into two 32K streams; left and right, to make the 64K.
As for stations going to 320K, it is a huge cost to stream that high, and so 128K mp3 is the norm for a good chunk of stations, or less. Still, the aac+ stream at 64K sounds every bit as good as 128K at mp3, and maybe better, but not all people are able to access an aac+ stream, so we will wait together until that day occurs.
nitnitr said:
I think the only devices that can't pick up AAC+ streams are a few standalone internet radios, perhaps older models. Any PC can play them, and my Android phone has no problem whatsoever with AAC+ streams. It's already being used extensively. Pandora and Slacker use the format, as does Clear Channel and webcasters like Soma FM. I think within a few years, we'll see AAC+ become the standard streaming format, unless a better one comes along. 56-64k AAC+ sounds just as good as 128k mp3 or even FM.
However, I always wished the industry was more welcoming to the ogg vorbis streaming format. Highly underrated and neglected, and best of all, no royalty payments or legal hassles since it is open source. And as far as compressed audio goes, vorbis is one of the best. I use it for the music files on my phone, since I get great sound with a much lower bitrate and file size.
AAC+ plays on any PC IF that PC is running Windows 7 or greater (a small percentage right now) OR the listener goes through the trouble of downloading and installing an AAC+ capable player.
I can hardly get listeners to find the "play" button; what chance do I have of getting them to download and install and use 3rd-party software?
Still, you can set up an AAC+ stream on one server and a standard mp3 stream on another, create a playlist with the AAC+ stream first in the list, and if the player can't play the AAC+ stream it will jump to the mp3 stream and the listener is none the wiser.
Regarding bandwidth: you'd be surprised even today how bad some connections are. I stream at 96kbps and got compliments from France, saying they couldn't listen to all they 128k streams but they could listen to us...
...Then a listener in Wyoming complained he couldn't listen at work without the 96k stream stuttering. I put up the 64k AAC+ stream, and he hasn't had a problem since.
You never, never know what else is going on, on their end!
I can hardly get listeners to find the "play" button; what chance do I have of getting them to download and install and use 3rd-party software?
Still, you can set up an AAC+ stream on one server and a standard mp3 stream on another, create a playlist with the AAC+ stream first in the list, and if the player can't play the AAC+ stream it will jump to the mp3 stream and the listener is none the wiser.
Regarding bandwidth: you'd be surprised even today how bad some connections are. I stream at 96kbps and got compliments from France, saying they couldn't listen to all they 128k streams but they could listen to us...
...Then a listener in Wyoming complained he couldn't listen at work without the 96k stream stuttering. I put up the 64k AAC+ stream, and he hasn't had a problem since.
You never, never know what else is going on, on their end!
I appreciate your enthusiasm; I love what AAC+ can do for low bandwidth streams.
However, you are the exception. If your just a listener and not even in the radio biz, you're even MORE of an anomaly. I'm pretty sure 0% of my listeners visit Radio-Info... or ANY radio-biz related website or discussion board.
When I started at this (12 years ago; yikes!), I wanted the hottest, latest, whiz-bang setup I could make. I wanted to be on the bleeding edge of technology; nothing was too extreme or too new, no hoops too many to get the best sound.
I'd asked friends if they'd listened. They told me they went to my page, but couldn't figure out how to get it to play.
I asked if they'd had problems installing the player.
They hadn't gotten that far. They couldn't figure out to click the big red "PLAY" button on the front page.
It was a painful revelation for me.
The typical listener does not care how you get the music and talk to them... only that you do. They are also more forgiving regarding sound quality (although what most corporate broadcasters are streaming is truly unlistenable in 2012) than radio junkies are.
I will provide the highest quality sound I can that does not prevent technological barriers to inexperienced listeners. It's why I left Live 365 so many years ago; they wanted registrations, approval to install players, and on and on.
If I could afford the royalty costs to embed a player in my webpage that would require NO listener input, I would. (In fact, using flash, you can embed a player that will play AAC+ or whatever you like with nothing needing to be done by the listener but have flash on their machine! Obviously, though, this doesn't work for smartphones...)
If you make it too challenging to listen, you may have great programming... but will anybody figure out how to get to it?
However, you are the exception. If your just a listener and not even in the radio biz, you're even MORE of an anomaly. I'm pretty sure 0% of my listeners visit Radio-Info... or ANY radio-biz related website or discussion board.
When I started at this (12 years ago; yikes!), I wanted the hottest, latest, whiz-bang setup I could make. I wanted to be on the bleeding edge of technology; nothing was too extreme or too new, no hoops too many to get the best sound.
I'd asked friends if they'd listened. They told me they went to my page, but couldn't figure out how to get it to play.
I asked if they'd had problems installing the player.
They hadn't gotten that far. They couldn't figure out to click the big red "PLAY" button on the front page.
It was a painful revelation for me.
The typical listener does not care how you get the music and talk to them... only that you do. They are also more forgiving regarding sound quality (although what most corporate broadcasters are streaming is truly unlistenable in 2012) than radio junkies are.
I will provide the highest quality sound I can that does not prevent technological barriers to inexperienced listeners. It's why I left Live 365 so many years ago; they wanted registrations, approval to install players, and on and on.
If I could afford the royalty costs to embed a player in my webpage that would require NO listener input, I would. (In fact, using flash, you can embed a player that will play AAC+ or whatever you like with nothing needing to be done by the listener but have flash on their machine! Obviously, though, this doesn't work for smartphones...)
If you make it too challenging to listen, you may have great programming... but will anybody figure out how to get to it?
- Status