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December 14, 2005
Are we getting Sirius yet?
As the big day approaches when Howard Stern goes off the air and onto Sirius satellite radio, I figured it would be a good time to get a Sirius subscription. A lot of people are going to want to record Stern via Sirius online, and we'll be ready for them with a new version of Replay Radio.
This was actually an interesting exercise, as I come from the Replay Radio + iPod perspective, and somehow having a couple hundred radio feeds is sort of new.
So I got the StarMate receiver - both a home and a car set. First, tried to hook it up in my house. The antenna must point east. The stereo is on the west side of the house. Major bummer. My stereo also has an iPod cradle, which has always worked well.
Next - to install into the car. There is a suction-cup thing that affixes to the windshield, and you place the receiver there. After a few tries, I got it to stick, and hooked up the antenna wire (about 15 fed of threading through the minivan), as well as the stereo out and cigarette lighter adapter. It all worked well, but I was haunted by what my wife would say about all those wires. A professional installation is preferable.
Listening was great - there are a lot of talk and music channels to choose from. And no ads, of course.
(Aside: the one thing that bugged me about the Sirius receiver was how the up and down buttons worked. The left/right buttons let you view different categories of stations, and the up/down buttons let you choose stations in those categories by moving up and down in the list. That part was nice. Once you're listening to a station, the up and down buttons change stations, but in a different direction than they are displayed. The up button increases the channel number, moving down in the list, and the down button increases the channel, moving up in the list.)
Where Sirius has an advantage over iPod + Replay Radio is in a couple of areas. First of all, it's nice to have live content like news, sports and traffic. Next, you don't have to sync the device up - it's always ready to play whatever you want. And of course, on January 9, Howard Stern.
Where Replay Radio (and Replay Music) + iPod excels is in having complete control of your listening experience. Being able to skip ahead is something you just cannot do with live streams (or at least until someone invents a time machine). Don't like that song? Just skip to the START of the next one. With radio, you always wind up in the middle of a song when you change stations. Listening to recorded stations on the iPod is soooooooooo flexible.
It occurs to me that Sirius isn't really in the radio business - they are in the content business. In that vein, Replay Radio + iPod rules, as we have far more listening options available.
The best thing of all would be to have a combo Sirius radio / MP3 player that you can transfer Replay Radio and Replay Music recordings to. Given the impending bloodbath between the Record Companies and the Consumer Electronics companies over recording features in some of the new Sirius receivers, the only way you may ever be able to get that true TiVo-like experience for radio is going to be by using Replay Radio.
Any hardware makers listening out there? We'd love to work with you!
Posted by Bill Dettering at December 14, 2005 11:48 PM | Technorati Tags: sirius tivo recording stern radio xm ipod satellite
Comments
So, when is Replay ready for Sirius? i operate a podcast on a shoestring budget, but would pay the frieght for internet Sirius if I could time-shift the Stern show, ie Replay to my mp3 device.
Posted by: Beardo at December 19, 2005 04:57 PM