gHacks technology news » stream http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:37:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Spotify: Music legally on demand http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/21/spotify-music-legally-on-demand/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/21/spotify-music-legally-on-demand/#comments Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:21:19 +0000 Joe http://www.ghacks.net/?p=10687 gHacks suggested Spotify as an alternative to Pandora last year, and Spotify has recently gained a lot of attention in the British press. I thought it may be wise to discuss Spotify on here.

Spotify is a service which allows users to stream many songs online free and legally. The service is ad-supported and currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. The adverts are only a minor annoyance; I find there is about 2 minutes of them per hour of music. A premium service is also available, where adverts can be removed for a cost.

The service requires a desktop client to play the music. Their client is currently only available on OS X and Windows. Using this software, users can search for music, compile playlists and listen to online radio. The music is streamed as an Ogg Vorbis at 160kbps, so it is very high quality! It also scrobbles the music to last.fm.

The advertising is tolerable. Generally, they last about 30-45 seconds and either advertise Spotify Premium or, currently, the Disasters Emergency Committee in the UK. Premium (ad-free) Spotify costs either 99p a day or £10 a month.

I am beginning to reconsider if I still have the need to download music. Most songs are available free on Spotify, with the exception of some of the newest releases on certain labels. My only problem with Spotify is that it isn’t portable, so I can’t use it on my iPod etc.

Spotify has a bigger collection of music than the ‘full tracks’ available on last.fm.

It is currently only invitation only, but I will give the first 4 people to ask an invite each. Just leave a comment asking for one.

Spotify

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/21/spotify-music-legally-on-demand/feed/ 27 Speed up Youtube Video Playback and Download http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/04/speed-up-youtube-video-playback-and-download/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/04/speed-up-youtube-video-playback-and-download/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:30:54 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/04/speed-up-youtube-video-playback-and-download/ Youtube Videos which are also used on sites like Myspace or embedded into blog posts sometimes take ages to load which results in freezes and stuttering which can only be solved by pausing the playback until the video is fully loaded. There is a possible way that would accelerate the download of the youtube video by up to five times. This is done by the free software Speedbit Video Accelerator which builds up five different connections to the video server to speed up the streaming of the video. This method does not help if you are already using the maximum bandwidth available of course.

speed up youtube videos

Each request for a youtube video is routed through the Speedbit servers which open five new connections to the video server offering the video which results in a speed increase which can be remarkable.

The service has to be running in the system tray while watching youtube videos and starts automatically whenever a new video is requested from youtube. I was not able to take a look at some of the program features that are shown at the developers website but the video acceleration is working fine.

youtube accelerate video

As you can see the technology is working in Firefox and Internet Explorer, unfortunately not in Opera. I found the software at the Connected Internet Blog.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/04/speed-up-youtube-video-playback-and-download/feed/ 21 Download free music at the Hype Machine http://www.ghacks.net/2007/02/08/download-free-music-at-the-hype-machine/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/02/08/download-free-music-at-the-hype-machine/#comments Thu, 08 Feb 2007 13:30:31 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/02/08/download-free-music-at-the-hype-machine/ The Hype Machine is a free music blog search engine that makes it easy to search and listen to music that is posted on music blogs. Whenever a music blog that is connected to the Hype Machine adds a new mp3 file it is added to the index of the Hype Machine as well and everyone visiting the website is able to listen to it using his favorite player.

The Hype Machine currently supports Winamp, iTunes, Windows Media Player, Real Player and a online flash player. All songs are downloaded as playlists and will be streamed to your computer. You could use streamripper with Winamp to download the files if you like.

Every time you search for an artist, song or concert you can download the playlist that was created on the fly. You could also download a playlist of the latest mp3 files that have been added to the index or search the most popular or most active music blogs.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/02/08/download-free-music-at-the-hype-machine/feed/ 6 Record more than 4000 internet radio stations http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/17/record-more-than-4000-internet-radio-stations/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/17/record-more-than-4000-internet-radio-stations/#comments Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:06:40 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/17/record-more-than-4000-internet-radio-stations/ If you are looking for an easy way to record internet radio stations look no further. Phonostar is a free radio player and recorder that comes preconfigured with more than 4000 radio stations. Phonostar tries to automatically determine the audio source that can be used to record songs and loads the interface afterwards. Top stations are selected and a double-click starts the playback of that station. Please note that all top stations seem to be in German, conduct a search for English stations.

Phonostar has more than 2100 English stations in it database including such famous ones as digital imported radio. If your favorite stations are missing you can simply add them by clicking on On Air and selecting Add radio station or open stream url. Before you are ready to record songs you should enter the recording settings and change the default format from .wav to .mp3 to save space on your hard drive. Click on recording in the left pane and select mp3 as the file format.

Click on Options > Settings afterwards and check the Recording settings there as well. Change the default dir for the recordings if you do not have enough space on c:\ like I do. Everything can remain as is. To record simply click the red button in the left pane and the recording process starts.

I did not find a way (unfortunately) to change the way the recorded files are named. Some programs are able to save information like artist, song title and album when recording and it seems that Phonostar is not able to do that. This is clearly a disadvantage.

Phonostar is nevertheless a fine program that makes it easy for even inexperienced users to record songs of internet radio stations.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/17/record-more-than-4000-internet-radio-stations/feed/ 0 Use Orb to stream media on any device with internet access http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/11/use-orb-to-stream-media-on-any-device-with-internet-access/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/11/use-orb-to-stream-media-on-any-device-with-internet-access/#comments Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:26:43 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/11/use-orb-to-stream-media-on-any-device-with-internet-access/ Orb is a free software that changes your pc into a streaming server. If the Orb software is running on the pc every other device that has internet such as the Nintendo Wii, a notebook or pda can connect to a website and view any media file that is shared on the streaming server. The setup is really simple. Download the Orb software and install it on the computer that you want to use as the server.

The next step would be to create an account at mycast.orb.com. When that is done you can start configuring the service at the server. Right-click the icon that should appear in the system tray and select Configuration. Select the media tab and add folders of videos, music, photos and documents that you want to access with another internet device. You may add other users who are allowed to view your media files.

orb media web interface

Once everything is setup you simply open the mycast.orb.com website and login. After that you can browse the contents that the server streams and view it on the other device. A real simple but effective system. I was able to view movies using my Wii that way. You can also stream tv if you have a video card that supports it. I don’t think it makes that much sense to stream tv to my wii but it would be nice if you are using a notebook for instance.

Take a look at the following youtube video which demonstrates orb used by a Nintendo Wii.

Please note that you need a broadband connection to do this kind of things. Some folders are automatically added (my documents). If you do not want this make sure to remove them from the configurations menu.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/11/use-orb-to-stream-media-on-any-device-with-internet-access/feed/ 1 Pandora adds commercials http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/10/pandora-adds-commercials/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/10/pandora-adds-commercials/#comments Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:07:14 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/10/pandora-adds-commercials/ Pandora streams music over the internet which is related to a artist or song that you have entered at the beginning. The service is great to find new artists that make a similar kind of music than artists that you like to listen to. The service was completely free until now.

They have decided to add advertisement to their service. According to Pandora’s CTO Tom Conrad about 10% of the users are receiving a nine second advertisement once a day. This looks like testing the waters for me. If few users complain about the ads they might introduce this to all listeners and probably even increase the amount of ads that are displayed each day.

I personally think that it is not such a big problem if you compare it to terrestrial radio stations for instance. It could become one if they would decided to increase the advertisements. One should also consider that websites that offer such services have to generate money somehow to be able to pay the bills for servers, bandwidth and service.

A alternative would be finetune.com which can also be used to get new suggestions.

What is your opinion on the matter ?

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/10/pandora-adds-commercials/feed/ 3 FineTune a Pandora like Music website http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/23/finetune-a-pandora-like-music-website/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/23/finetune-a-pandora-like-music-website/#comments Sat, 23 Dec 2006 14:07:23 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/23/finetune-a-pandora-like-music-website/ If you do now Pandora you feel right at home when entering the FineTune website. Guests may use only part of the streaming radio services offered at the website but it is good enough for a rough overview of what FineTune has to offer. Just enter an artists name in the search field and FineTune will search for the artist that you have entered and related artists and start with the playback of songs that the search found.

The search reveals many albums of the artist as well and you can either add selected songs to a playlist that you can create after you registered an account or listen to the songs for 30 seconds. Adding playlists is rather easy. You click on the + symbol in front of the songs and it is added automatically to your playlist. There is a limit of three songs per artist and you need to create a complete playlist of 45 tracks to be able to listen to it.

This is a severe limitation of course but it seems that they have to comply with some restrictions to be able to offer the service at all. If you have added at least songs from three artists you may click the I’m lazy button which adds suggested songs automatically to your playlist to fill it.

Once it is filled to the brim you may listen to it. Once a playlist has been created it becomes public and everyone may listen to it and write comments about it. Instead of creating your own playlists you may also listen to playlists created by other members or so called stations which are playlists created by the finetune team.

You may even add playlists into your blog or myspace, code is provided to do so. I personally like this even more than Pandora but that is more a matter of taste.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/23/finetune-a-pandora-like-music-website/feed/ 2 Taksi Open Source Alternative to Fraps http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/12/taksi-open-source-alternative-to-fraps/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/12/taksi-open-source-alternative-to-fraps/#comments Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:33:02 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/12/taksi-open-source-alternative-to-fraps/ Fraps is a application that lets you capture videos / screens of 3D applications and is mostly used for recording in game movies. The biggest drawback of Fraps is that it is not freeware, you have to purchase it to use all of its features. Taksi steps in and provides a similar functionality with the advantage that it is Open Source, free for everyone to use and download.

The unregistered version of Fraps stops after 30 seconds of recording and adds a Fraps watermark automatically to the captured video. It does not make lots of sense to use this version but for testing purposes. Taksi on the other hand has no such limitations making it an ideal capturing application for everyone who does not want to buy Fraps.

Taksi is able to use installed video codecs to compress the recorded video on the fly which makes it possible to record very long sequences. The biggest drawback is that Taksi will not record audio as well, you need to find a different way to record the audio. (should work with harddisk ogg for example, not tested though). There are no limitations but the space on your hard disk for recording videos.

I hope the Taksi team decides to integrate audio recording to their application, this seems to be the only thing that is missing to make it a great alternative to Fraps.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/12/taksi-open-source-alternative-to-fraps/feed/ 4 Find out which codec is missing for playback http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/08/find-out-which-codec-is-missing-for-playback/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/08/find-out-which-codec-is-missing-for-playback/#comments Fri, 08 Dec 2006 14:38:01 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/08/find-out-which-codec-is-missing-for-playback/ It happens sometimes that you download a video clip from the internet and have troubles playing that movie on your computer. This problem is most of the time codec related, one indication would be a black screen or no sound after hitting play. One solution, which is not that perfect, would be to install a so called codec pack and hope that the coded that is needed for playback is included in that pack.

A drawback is that you install many codecs that you do not need and that could interfere with codecs already installed on your system. A more elegant approach would be to scan the media file to find out which codes have been used to encode the file. One freeware that is able to do this is Media Info.

Media Info loads the media file and scans it for codes that are needed to playback the file. It displays extensive information about audio and video streams, the bitrate used to encode the movie and the names of the codec(s). A great feature is a link to the website of the codec used where it is possible to download it and a link to a video player website that is able to play the file without downloading the codec seperately.

 

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/08/find-out-which-codec-is-missing-for-playback/feed/ 6 Another site that offers tv streams for free http://www.ghacks.net/2006/11/29/another-site-that-offers-tv-streams-for-free/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/11/29/another-site-that-offers-tv-streams-for-free/#comments Wed, 29 Nov 2006 10:13:22 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/11/29/another-site-that-offers-tv-streams-for-free/ Wow those sites seem to popup like nothing else at the moment. Everton from connected internet was writing about streamick and I decided to add an article of my own to give you an alternative to all those other streaming sites out there. Streamick offers more than 300 tv channels to choose from including BBC One, ESPN Starsports, CNN & several other news channels.

This is basically a collection of free streams that are available on the internet and can’t be compared to programs like tvu player that stream popular tv channels like ABC, Comedy Central and FOX. The only advantage you get with streamick is that it displays the streams directly from within their website.

To be honest, many channels that are offered at their website are crap. Local channels about Miami or New Orleans don’t appeal to a world wide audience. Neither do many of the other channels offered there Boardriders TV and High TV for example.

My suggestion would be to give it a try, take a look at the offered streams and see if they offer any that might be of interest to you.

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