“Slacker” Announces Satellite Receiver
Broadband Instruments recently unveiled Slacker, a “Personal Radio” service to deliver content online and through a WiFi and Satellite-capable portable player. After recruting executives from MusicMatch, Rio, and iRiver; Slacker was ready to expand Personal Radio services, introduced by internet-only Last.fm and Pandora, to the portable market. Their satellite bandwidth will be leased from the Ku band, and is rumored to deliver 10,000 tracks/day (7 tracks/minute) to be archived on the portable receiver while docked. Slacker’s Portable Player will cost between $150-$350, dependent upon storage capacity desired. It will support MP3, subscription-based WMA, WMA, and MPEG-4/AAC-encoded audio files, and play WMV video on a 4-inch screen. You can try out the Slacker Jukebox online at Slacker.com. The online service is free, but for $7.50/month you’ll get a player without video ads and the ability to skip more than 6 songs per hour per channel.
How will the introduction of Slacker affect the Sirius/XM merger? Post in the comments section below.
the device looks to kick ass and with rumored capacity of up to 120gb....
I will definatly be checking this out when it hits the shelves.
also can anyone say "satellite radio competition? by soxnationonline
I'd like to know how they can get around the free download issue that the RIAA is up in arms about for other devices. by SatRadioRules
the device looks to kick ass and with rumored capacity of up to 120gb....
I will definatly be checking this out when it hits the shelves.
also can anyone say "satellite radio competition?
I wonder how the sound quality on the satellites will be? This would be fantastic. I know I'll get one -- to complement Sirius not replace it. by SuperH
We'll see how long before the NAB starts whining. by Stephen_M
It'll be interesting to see how their satellite service works and how good the connection is. by jim999
If it's just down with MP3s (yeah you know me!) then how is it different than anyother music downloading site? by rustytrombone
from cnet.com article:
"You can also decide whether you want a DJ commenting throughout. As actual DJs, rather than some artificial intelligence, program all the content, it stands to reason that you'll like the stations that ultimately result from your relatively minor input. "
Full article here:
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-969...?tag=cnetfd.mt by giddy_up721
Can anyone say BETA by v1ru5
Are you sure that wasn't your monitor you tried to pick up? by DoublEE
Are you sure that wasn't your monitor you tried to pick up?
How will the introduction of Slacker affect the Sirius/XM merger? Post in the comments section below.
[Via <a href="http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/03/broadband_instr_1.html" title="Wired - Slacker" target="_blank">Wired</a>, <a href="http://www.orbitcast.com/archives/heres-how-slacker-works-via-satellite.html" title="Orbitcast - Slacker" target="_blank">Orbitcast</a>, <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/14/slacker-music-device-and-service-via-internet-satellite/" title="Engadget-Slacker" target="_blank">Engadget</a>, and <a href="http://news.com.com/A+new+wavelength+for+satellite+radio/2100-1041_3-6166934.html" title="CNet - Slacker" target="_blank">CNet</a>]
So far I'm liking the Slacker thing. The sound quality seems better than the no additional fee streaming Sirius gives us. I do wish there were DJs occasionally though... by ToolShedd
I'm digging "Alternative Chill". by TacoKid
It's a good balance of hearing what you want and being exposed to new music, without having to rely on a program manager at Sirius or a regular radio station deciding what you will hear. Or, you can go with the pre-set stations that they have already put together.
Oh, and the sound quality is much better than Sirius' standard online streaming, and over the satellites. It's comparable to that of Sirius Internet Radio. I wonder if they will compress their satellite streams, or keep the same SQ. by K3V
I'm digging "Alternative Chill".
Question is how well will the satellite end of things end up being and will they add variety to the fold or strictly concentrate on music? by phrenetic
and satellite service
imo this is the real deal hope xm/sirius are
paying attention to this new competitor by KTMC
and satellite service
imo this is the real deal hope xm/sirius are
paying attention to this new competitor
I'm a tech writer and do embrace technology to a large extent and did give this Slacker thing a try one evening. Hell I shut everything else off, plugged the laptop to a beefy sound system and let it roll one evening and for a beta version it sure isn't much to attract. I do hope however it creates the necessary evil the new SDARS entity will need to stay alert and improve the product (especially SQ).
Also, wouldn't it be a bitch if this business model of satellite downloadable music to a cradle-attached radio resulted in audio quality not significantly superior to what conventional sat radio has the potential to achieve with its restored 30+ MHz bandwidth? What a waste it would be!
Lastly, I'm originally from the Gaspe coast, a rather technically challenged area of the continent. Now this summer, the telco is planning to deiply a wireless internet infrastructure a top the mountaintops (I did not say Wimax but...). So I would expect anyone looking for quality/custom internet playlists to be in for a treat just about anywhere. by pluche
Since high speed internet was rare the way Click Radio worked was when you were online Click Radio would automatically download new content for you. You didn't have to be online to listen. It had a 'thumbs up, thumbs down' feature, as well as 'song skip.' It looks to me like this is the same thing. For the portable it will basically just download a large playlist to the unit when it can connect to the sats or a cpu. It should be great SQ since at no point will it be a "live" transmission. I don't think I would ditch Sirius for this, but I will get it for the improved music stations. (They've got to be improved for everyone, since you decide the content.) by River_King
Click radio was totally cool. I also used to stream HardRadio since day 1 and thought it was the coolest thing since sliced cucumbers. You are right the sat model is similar. by RoadClosed
The KU band is used for Dish I believe. So the data comes from Dish or Directway? Or some new system. by RoadClosed
I think Slacker has a lot of major strengths. I'm really digging the music on it now.
I just think that this may be an option, but I suspect the number of people who actually would be working at this company (Slacker) would be far fewer than most would suspect. That is to say I wouldn't expect much customer service. In fact I'd be surprised if their ever was a call center of sorts for this kind of thing.
It's super easy to offer great things online without phone support. You can create and get so much done easily. But offer phone support and a lot of time and effort get's put into that and sort of drags down everything else.
I'd like to see this company grow and I'd suspect SIRIUS would adopt certain things from them as well. by TSS Taylor
according to their FAQ's, you're allowed 6 skips an hour. unlimited skips if you subscribe when it gets out of the Beta version.
the sound quality is nice, and for some reason my laptop gets the surround sound treatment when sirius doesn't so that's an added bonus.
one downside: i made a Kingston Trio station before going to sleep and fell asleep during it. I woke up (6 hours later) with nothing playing and an alert saying they ran out of songs or something. I guess that's part of the "beta"
but even if they run out of songs they should maybe randomize some repeats?
another plus: they have a folk station though and that's something i don't think is on Sirius (unless I missed something) by dkain1976
but even if they run out of songs they should maybe randomize some repeats?
Bauhaus
Anal Cunt
Alien Sex Fiend
Dead Kennedy's
Another cool thing is it remembers where I was when I log off. Oh and the sound quality on my office Logitec Z4 system is very nice to excellent. by RoadClosed
http://reviews.cnet.com/4326-13362_7-6565453.html by TheScionicMan
My 2 friends say it loaded for them so im confused? Could I be banned even thou I did nothing illegal but listen to music? lol by u2watcher
The IP I get today is 207.158.48.135 - try that as well. If it still doesn't work you got something on your PC blocking it. by RoadClosed
I do know that the IE version uses Active X, your browser security may be blocking that. It installs an MS HTML component as well after the Active X control is initialized.
Adding sites to a trusted zone doesn't always automatically change security settings that are universal. Still I haven't tweaked anything in Firefox and it works fine. Try setting your IE internet settings to LOW security. Mine works fine with medium high but I don't have a clue what you got going on your PC. by RoadClosed
I knew someone in AM/FM radio (a voiceover guy) who left the traditional radio industry because he was convinced this was what EVERYONE was going to be listening to. He quit his cushy 6 figure job for it and told them why. The amazing Click Radio. Insane! He would rave about it's amazing interactive radio features. Skipping songs and whatnot. If I remember right, this was in the mid 90's or so.
I have my ClickRadio CD-ROM disc. I keep everything. Supposedly it contains hundreds or thousands of songs already on there but encoded so you can't access them directly from the disc. You need the service/player. Then the software would continue adding songs in the background once you'd established an account on the service to keep the service fresh.
I'd never really know, however, as it never worked for me ONCE. I tried to install it on two separate computers I had at the time. I never got to hear one song. On the first computer I tried, I extensively tweaked settings and tried everything to get it working. It would say connecting to the mothership or whatever, and then do nothing. I thought I would at least be able to play one of the hundreds of thousands of songs supposedly being stored on my local end (The software took up huge gobs of disc space back in the day) but it never even let me do that. Hours of configuring and nothing. It just plain wouldn't work for me. I'm usually pretty good with playing around with new software and getting things to work too, so I don't know how any average user ever would've used it.
Tip #1: Make sure before you quit your day job that the company you are going to work for has working software.
Did it ever work for you? by BigRadioFan
So you're NOT in the market for an MP3 player, but you want the Slacker?
The Sansa they are referring to does pretty much the same thing as Slacker will if it gets to market, but uses WiFi instead of a sat signal. by TheScionicMan
But one thing you need to know is that the Slacker device, is an MP3 player.. its a DAP just like the Sansa Connect. by DAB