Internet radio device
Encyclopedia
An Internet radio device, also called network music player is a hardware device that is capable of receiving and playing streamed media
from either Internet radio
stations or a home network
.
, iTunes
, and 7digital
.
The network music player is connected to a home router. For convinience often a wireless
router is used. The router is connected to the internet
and thus enables access to Internet streaming resources. Alternatively the home network of can access the user's collection of music on a computer or on a network-attached storage
(NAS) device dedicated to store a user's music files.
technologies such as Wi-Fi
in a networked environment.
The computer, which is typically used for storing the music file, acts as a music server
by means of server software, often compliant to DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) standard. And the network music player is a typical receiver which starts playing an audio file as soon as some of the data has been received so that one does not have to wait for the entire audio file to finish downloading.
The MP3 music file is streamed to the network music player in digital format, commonly in the original MP3
format. Therefore, the audio details of the MP3 music are sent wirelessly in the home to the network music player as it is stored on the computer and without loss.
The MP3 music files are then converted back into audio signal by the network music player and played. As the MP3 music files are organized by the music server on the computer, the information is also sent to the network music player where the user can see all of the music track information.
Many companies working actively in bringing Internet radio into devices are organized in the Internet Media Device Alliance IMDA. In addition to the home networking standards of DLNA, IMDA compatibility standards dedicated to all aspects of Internet radio distribution.
. It has expanded enormously with an estimated 13,000 stations currently available, including many traditional FM /AM simulcasting their content over the Internet.
Network music players that support online music services let users access this vast selection of music tracks.
Examples of online music services : Napster
, Rhapsody
, Last.fm
, Pandora
, Live365
, Slacker
, Sirius Satellite Radio
, Radio IO, SomaFM
, MP3tunes, Deezer
...
Station directory services keep a current list of active Internet radio stations, their URI
and streaming formats and list them sorted by genre, location, language and other criteria. Many devices use either proprietary vendor-specific station list servers or dedicated directory services from The Lounge, TuneIn
, vTuner, streamfinder, PDAtuner and others.
Examples of commercial devices are the Philips
Streamium
NP1100 and NP2500, the Logitech Squeezebox
, the Roku SoundBridge
(M500, M1000, M2000 and M1001), and the Grace Digital
IRDT200.
Examples of commercial devices are the Flow range of devices from Pure Digital
, Terratec Noxon family, Scott Devices Scott, Streamit Lukas, Philips Streamium NP2900 the Logitech Squeezebox Boom
the Roku SoundBridge Radio (R1000), and Grace Digital
models IR1000-IR2500. Also many higher end audio devices such as AVRs and systems from Denon, Pioneer and Onkyo include Internet radio capability.
Some devices also have:
and an FM radio receiver. The FM transmitter is plugged into the computer's headphone jack, and set to an unused frequency. Then, the FM radio receiver is set to the transmitter's frequency. This arrangement can be used to listen to Internet radio, music downloads, podcasts, and Youtube videos, without the need for a wireless internet network.
FM transmitters are widely available on the market today, and are often touted as a way for consumers to listen to their iPods through their car radios. One of these devices could be found on the Internet for $50 or less, or could be easily constructed by an electronics or radio hobbyist.
The legality
of such devices varies from country to country.
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
from either Internet radio
Internet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
stations or a home network
Home network
A home network or home area network is a residential local area network . It is used for communication between digital devices typically deployed in the home, usually a small number of personal computers and accessories, such as printers and mobile computing devices...
.
Background
Streaming media became mainstream with the advent of portable music players / MP3 player and the convenience of converting and compressing CD music into music file by the computer or the acquisition of products in such formats using on-line music stores like AmazonAmazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
, and 7digital
7digital
7digital is a privately held digital media delivery company based in the United Kingdom, offering downloadable music, video and movies to customers primarily within major European markets...
.
The network music player is connected to a home router. For convinience often a wireless
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
router is used. The router is connected to the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and thus enables access to Internet streaming resources. Alternatively the home network of can access the user's collection of music on a computer or on a network-attached storage
Network-attached storage
Network-attached storage is file-level computer data storage connected to a computer network providing data access to heterogeneous clients. NAS not only operates as a file server, but is specialized for this task either by its hardware, software, or configuration of those elements...
(NAS) device dedicated to store a user's music files.
Audio streaming
Audio streaming is one way of transmitting audio files on a continuous feed to a network music player. A common way today is to stream the audio from the computer to a network music player over the more convenient wirelessWireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
technologies such as Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
in a networked environment.
The computer, which is typically used for storing the music file, acts as a music server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
by means of server software, often compliant to DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) standard. And the network music player is a typical receiver which starts playing an audio file as soon as some of the data has been received so that one does not have to wait for the entire audio file to finish downloading.
The MP3 music file is streamed to the network music player in digital format, commonly in the original MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format. Therefore, the audio details of the MP3 music are sent wirelessly in the home to the network music player as it is stored on the computer and without loss.
The MP3 music files are then converted back into audio signal by the network music player and played. As the MP3 music files are organized by the music server on the computer, the information is also sent to the network music player where the user can see all of the music track information.
Many companies working actively in bringing Internet radio into devices are organized in the Internet Media Device Alliance IMDA. In addition to the home networking standards of DLNA, IMDA compatibility standards dedicated to all aspects of Internet radio distribution.
Internet radio
Internet reaches many areas in the world, and thus does Internet radioInternet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
. It has expanded enormously with an estimated 13,000 stations currently available, including many traditional FM /AM simulcasting their content over the Internet.
Online music services
Online music services usually offer millions of songs and thousands of artists for users to choose from.Network music players that support online music services let users access this vast selection of music tracks.
Examples of online music services : Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
, Rhapsody
Rhapsody (online music service)
Rhapsody is an online music store subscription service, launched in December 2001, and available in the United States only. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody officially declared its independence from RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version...
, Last.fm
Last.fm
Last.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
, Pandora
Pandora (music service)
Pandora Radio is an automated music recommendation service and custodian of the Music Genome Project available only in the United States. The service plays musical selections similar to song suggestions entered by a user...
, Live365
Live365
Live365 is an Internet radio network where members can create their own online radio station or listen to other Live365 broadcasters' online stations. As of October 2006, there were about 6,500 active stations, some of which play niche genres seldom heard on AM/FM radio...
, Slacker
Slacker (music service)
Slacker Radio is an interactive Internet radio service available in the US and Canada. Listeners can access the service on the web, through mobile apps on multiple smartphones as well as on Slacker Personal Radio Players and other devices. It allows users to create and share customized music stations...
, Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...
, Radio IO, SomaFM
SomaFM
SomaFM is a listener-supported, commercial-free Internet-only streaming music station, which started broadcasting out of founder Rusty Hodge's basement garage in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California...
, MP3tunes, Deezer
Deezer
Deezer is a free music streaming service based in Paris, France. Deezer was launched on August 24, 2007. Deezer has negotiated rights to make 165,000 songs available for streaming legally via an agreement with Sony, as well as some of Universal's catalog...
...
Station directory services keep a current list of active Internet radio stations, their URI
Úri
Úriis a village and commune in the comitatus of Pest in Hungary....
and streaming formats and list them sorted by genre, location, language and other criteria. Many devices use either proprietary vendor-specific station list servers or dedicated directory services from The Lounge, TuneIn
TuneIn
TuneIn is a privately held company based in Palo Alto, California, founded as RadioTime in Dallas, Texas in 2002. The RadioTime program guide is available as part of consumer devices such as the Logitech Squeezebox. It is also part of software products produced by Sonos, Cisco, Kodak, and Microsoft...
, vTuner, streamfinder, PDAtuner and others.
Categories
There are generally two types of network music players:- Those without speakers that need to be connected to an audio system in order to listen to the music
Examples of commercial devices are the Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
Streamium
Streamium
Streamium is a line of IP-enabled entertainment products by Dutch electronics multi-national Philips Consumer Electronics. Streamium products allow users to consume digital entertainment and multimedia content—whether stored on their desktop computers or delivered through Internet-based services—on...
NP1100 and NP2500, the Logitech Squeezebox
Squeezebox network music player
The Squeezebox is a network music player from Logitech . It plays internet radio or digital audio streamed to it across a home network, either Wi-Fi or Ethernet...
, the Roku SoundBridge
SoundBridge
SoundBridge is a remote hardware device from Roku designed to play internet radio or digital audio streamed to it across a home network, either WiFi or Ethernet. SoundBridge devices directly browse the Radio Roku Internet Radio Guide....
(M500, M1000, M2000 and M1001), and the Grace Digital
Grace Digital
Grace Digital Inc is a consumer electronics company based in San Diego, CA. Grace Digital, Inc. was founded in 2007, by James D. Palmer and Greg Fadul...
IRDT200.
- Those with their own speakers
Examples of commercial devices are the Flow range of devices from Pure Digital
Pure Digital
PURE is a British consumer electronics company, based in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, founded in 2002. Pure is a division of another Hertfordshire-based company, Imagination Technologies, which primarily builds processors and graphics chips....
, Terratec Noxon family, Scott Devices Scott, Streamit Lukas, Philips Streamium NP2900 the Logitech Squeezebox Boom
Squeezebox network music player
The Squeezebox is a network music player from Logitech . It plays internet radio or digital audio streamed to it across a home network, either Wi-Fi or Ethernet...
the Roku SoundBridge Radio (R1000), and Grace Digital
Grace Digital
Grace Digital Inc is a consumer electronics company based in San Diego, CA. Grace Digital, Inc. was founded in 2007, by James D. Palmer and Greg Fadul...
models IR1000-IR2500. Also many higher end audio devices such as AVRs and systems from Denon, Pioneer and Onkyo include Internet radio capability.
Hardware
Network music players usually have:- Broadband connection: an EthernetEthernetEthernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
and/or Wi-FiWi-FiWi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
network interface, with TCP/IP support for access to the Internet - USB port , where the user can connect an external MP3 player like iPod or external harddrive for MP3 files
- LCD display, remote controlRemote controlA remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...
- Built-in amplifier/speaker, or AUX-out port, that can be used to connect to a HiFi or similar audio device
- Rechargeable batteriesRechargeable batteryA rechargeable battery or storage battery is a group of one or more electrochemical cells. They are known as secondary cells because their electrochemical reactions are electrically reversible. Rechargeable batteries come in many different shapes and sizes, ranging anything from a button cell to...
for mobility with internal chargerBattery chargerA battery charger is a device used to put energy into a secondary cell or rechargeable battery by forcing an electric current through it.The charge current depends upon the technology and capacity of the battery being charged...
integrated - Favorite streams & contents can be saved as presetPresetPreset can refer to:* Preset keys of a Hammond organ* Default , a setting or value automatically assigned to a computer program...
s - Clock with lighted display, some with alarm settings and auto-time-sync
Some devices also have:
- Memory card readerMemory card readerA memory card reader is a device, typically having a USB interface, for accessing the data on a memory card such as a CompactFlash , Secure Digital or MultiMediaCard...
: SDSecure Digital cardSecure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...
or even SDHC card - XLR connectorXLR connectorThe XLR connector is a style of electrical connector, primarily found on professional audio, video, and stage lighting equipment. The connectors are circular in design and have between 3 and 7 pins...
s - (MP3) stream encryption
Alternative
A low-cost substitute for an Internet radio device can be set up, using nothing but a simple FM radio transmitterFM transmitter (personal device)
An FM transmitter is a portable device that plugs into the headphone jack or proprietary output port of a portable audio or video device, such as a portable media player, CD player, or satellite radio system. The sound is then broadcast through the transmitter, and plays through an FM broadcast...
and an FM radio receiver. The FM transmitter is plugged into the computer's headphone jack, and set to an unused frequency. Then, the FM radio receiver is set to the transmitter's frequency. This arrangement can be used to listen to Internet radio, music downloads, podcasts, and Youtube videos, without the need for a wireless internet network.
FM transmitters are widely available on the market today, and are often touted as a way for consumers to listen to their iPods through their car radios. One of these devices could be found on the Internet for $50 or less, or could be easily constructed by an electronics or radio hobbyist.
The legality
FM transmitter (personal device)
An FM transmitter is a portable device that plugs into the headphone jack or proprietary output port of a portable audio or video device, such as a portable media player, CD player, or satellite radio system. The sound is then broadcast through the transmitter, and plays through an FM broadcast...
of such devices varies from country to country.
See also
- FM radio
- DABDigital audio broadcastingDigital Audio Broadcasting is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations, used in several countries, particularly in Europe. As of 2006, approximately 1,000 stations worldwide broadcast in the DAB format....
- Digital photo frameDigital photo frameA digital photo frame is a picture frame that displays digital photos without the need to print them or use a computer.- Features :...
- Radio receiver