Suggestion-New Radio station capture ability

[tccieslak]

I would like to recommend that AOMRecord be upgraded to allow access to http://www.slacker.coman Internet radio station that I think is very nice and provides a vast amount of music.  Slacker.com allows you to create virtual playlists of artists or similar artists you like and will try to play those songs.  You can also build a virtual radio station that allows you to play a custom list of songs/artists that you would like to hear and no other music.  This customizing ability of the music coupled with the power and flexibility of AOMRecord would make a really dynamic ability.  I would like to see AOMRecord pick up the Artist and Song title information like it does now for AOL Radio and selected other stations.

I find AOMRecord to be one of the simplest to use recording tools for Internet music and also one of the most reliable and accurate.  Adding Slacker.com would be a great addition to its capabilities.

[Thomas]

OK, I did it.

Please follow these steps:

- Rename MSIE.ini in AOMrecord's program folder to MSIE.ini.old.
- Download the file http://AOMrecord.com/updates/MSIE.ini into the same folder.

Try AOMrecord and let me know if it works.

Thomas

BTW, you should use the latest version (2.3.565). Otherwise it won't work.

P.S. Could you please use a real name, too?

[tccieslak]

I did as you said then started slacker.com, then I started AOMRecord, checked the recording levels and then told AOMRecord to start recording on the Next song but nothing ever happened.  Also when I started AOMRecord my volume went very low and when I tried to raise the volume through the Windows volume control it would just reset to the previously level after I moved the slider up.  I am using the version of AOMRecord you quoted in your posting.

What folder will be used to store the newly recorded songs?  I did not see Slacker.com in the drop down list of stations you would start via AOMRecord so that's why I started it separately.  Also I noticed the MSIE.INI you sent was about 9K and the old one was about 11K, I don't know if that means anything but thought I'd mention it.

I then renamed the new version of MSIE.INI and renamed the .old version to the original and started AOMRecord and now the same problem happens with the volume control, the volume goes very low on startup and if I try to raise the volume via the Windows slider it automatically resets itself to the low volume level.  If I stop AOMRecord, the volume control returns to its normal capabilities.

[Thomas]

Could it be that you didn't check the box Get media data from provider on the first page of AOMrecord?

[tccieslak]

I tried it again, only this time I started Slacker.com first and then AOMRecord and it popped up a little window asking me to pick settings from another station I've used, I chose AOL and up it came running like a champ although I had to play with the Pause Recognition a little.  Another thing I did is start Slacker in the real Internet Explorer, last time I was using the AOL browser.  The problem with the volume control also went away.  I'll try it again later with the AOL browser and see if the volume control problem returns.  Other than that, it seems to be working as well as it does with AOL Radio.

This is truly an elegant piece of software and I've been in the computer industry for over 35 years.  Thanks.

[tccieslak]

I had a chance to try Slacker.com with the AOL browser and sure enough, when AOMRecord starts after starting slacer.com in AOL the volume goes very low and if you try to raise the Windows volume control it will reset itself to the previous level as soon as you release the left button on the mouse.  It works just fine using Windows Internet browser.

Another question is, I usually use the Windows volume control to lower the volume as low as it will go and click the mute button to record for hours especially overnight.  Sometimes when AOMRecord ends because I had set the number of minutes to record, it will turn off the mute option and raise the volume which is not normally a problem unless it's like 4AM and then slacker.com starts blaring away.  is there any reason AOMRecord does this volume reset?

[Thomas]

When Use saved mixer settings at start of AOMrecord is checked AOMrecord remembers the mixer settings it finds when it is launched. It resets the mixer settings to these values when it quits. If you don't want this behaviour uncheck this box or launch AOMrecord after setting the mixer.

Thomas

[Ice Tea]

Hello Thomas. First of all congrats for your soft.
Could it be possible to add the ability of Aomrecord to get the metadata of any of those radio services : Sirius web radio, Realnetworks "Realpass", Realnetworks "Realmusic" , eko.fr ?

Being able to get that data for Aol Radio or Live365 is what makes all the
difference between your soft and the others who do the same job capturing sounds passing through the sound cards, but the sound quality delivered by those two services are only 64kb.

Aomrecord can do the job with Y! Launchcast but unfortunatly here in Europe we can't get the high bitrate that is reserved to US subscribers.
By the way Thomas, i've read other posts with screen captures suggesting that you're a subscriber of Yahoo Launcast Plus. How do you that being
a resident of Germany?
Thank you for your answer.

[Thomas]

Hello Ice Tea,

Please give me your real name (makes things a bit easier).

I'm just looking around if I can adopt these stations. Could you please provide me with their URLs?

About Y!LAunchcast etc.: There are some tricks to do things like that. I'll write some more about this in my next newsletter. If you are a subscriber you'll soon get some more infos... If you are a bit familiar with computing think about using a free proxy server in the USA. That'll make it.

BTW, AOL is 128 kBit if you're a AOL customer.

Hope to hear from you.

Good night
Thomas

[Ice Tea]

Thank you for taking time to answer, but i can tell you that Aol Radio is
broadcasted in AACPlus 64kb, i've read many documents about it in forums and also in Aol announcements. Sometime ago there was a high quality stream at 64kb for Aol subscribers and a low one at 32kb for the others.
Now there's only a single one at 64kb for everyone, all you need is a AIM
account, which anybody can get.
That service is great but i'd prefer a higher bitrate, knowing that there's additionnal quality loss with the digital=>analog=>digital conversion.
That why i asked you for Eko and Sirius for example who broadcast at 128kb.

Thanks again for your time.
Alexandre.

[Ice Tea]

I forgot about the urls; here they are :
Realnetworks "RadioPass" =>http://radio.real.com

Realnetworks "Realmusic"=> http://de.real.com/music/premium/radio
                              or =>   http://france.real.com/music/premium/radio

Sirius Internet Radio        =>http://www.sirius.com/siriusinternetradio

Eko radio => www.eko.fr

[Thomas]

Hello Alexandre,

I can adapt the Sirius stuff, but they don't supply information about the album and there's no cover image, is that correct? I'll publish the new configuration with the next update.

About Real: Is this the stuff that uses the Real player? Haven't had a look at this yet.

eko.fr: I can't do that.

Have nice day
Thomas

[Ice Tea]

Thanks for the fast answer, for Sirius missing the album name is not a big deal. It's a nice 128kb subscription; it would be great to have it supported by
Aomrecord.
You're right about the two Realnetwork subscriptions, they play through Realplayer, i hope it's not a problem. The "Realradio" one can be accessed
worldwide, the "Realmusic" one is adapted to each country but i guess if you
can get it to work in Germany i'll also be able to do so in my country.

Bye.

[letti001]

Hello Alexandre,

I can adapt the Sirius stuff, but they don't supply information about the album and there's no cover image, is that correct? I'll publish the new configuration with the next update.

About Real: Is this the stuff that uses the Real player? Haven't had a look at this yet.

eko.fr: I can't do that.

Have nice day
Thomas

Hey, I could go for some Sirius too. I have it in my car and am getting used to it a bit.  I really miss the Acoustic Rock station from AOL but the Sirius Coffeehouse is pretty close.

Also, did you see the Radio@AOL beta version. They seem to be on the verge of a big change.

Sal

[Ice Tea]

Hello Thomas, i've tried the new beta version; works great.
Just a couple of questions: do you plan to add a solution to record
Sirius and the Realnetworks stations i told you some days ago ?

Now each recorded song has also cover in the output folder.
Is it possible to disable that feature; i'm not interested and erasing
those is a loss of time.

With Aomplayer we can launch Yahoo radio but it's useless since the
european versions have a such a low bitrate. Could you give us your
trick to access the us version, all my efforts with free us proxies failed.

Moreover could you tell us if there's a difference of quality between
"Aol radio" and "Yahoo Launchcast", if not : no need to loose time
with Yahoo!!

Alexandre.