|
|
||||
|
|
|||
| Radio over the internet is finally here. It will be widely discussed,
widely written about, and, perhaps, widely misunderstood. It cannot help
but be; it is a complex achievement as well as an extraordinary one. We
offer the following primer on the subject with the hope that it will both
help you in understanding how and why internet radio works and enhance
the hours of listening pleasure internet radio will offer you in your home.
Before internet radio netcasting techniques were developed, the impulses
of station were only broadcast by airwaves. These impulses were
were fed to a transmitter and from there to the conventional, monaural
AM
radio, which you the hear through one loudspeaker. The conventional
AM radio station offered brillant sound and exciting sound, but, of necessity,
it offered only limited reception range. Internet radio is simply an attempt to give you radio reception as it sounds on your local stations. Essentially, what happens is that the station sends their audio to an encoder which compresses the sound. This compressed audio is then sent to a central server, which allows people from all over the world to tune in. The sound of internet radio partly depends on what type of compression is used. For example, when internet radio was young, audio was sent over the web as ".wav" files. On conventional broadcasts, however, the signal is listenable immediately, without the long download associated with .wav files. The "immediate" type of broadcasting has been in use since Marconi invented radio years ago. What about internet radio? The compressed audio file is available almost immediately, with a delay of no less that 30 seconds on most computers. In order to pick up the internet radio netcasts, multimedia computers equipped with a modem and a sound card have been developed to log into the internet and receive these netcasts. These computers reproduce the netcasts and channels the information to the proper amplifier and speaker. The information contained in the compressed audio file is fed to the sound card, which this then sends the signal on to your computer speakers. |
The net of it is the ability to receive radio from around the world
with a more natural, local sound. For the first time, your ears will be
able to distinguish the audio of stations hundreds of miles away from the
static you would hear if you tried to recieve them on a traditional radio.
In short, enveloped in solid sound, you will hear radio in truer perspective.
RealAudio 5.0 is the latest step in an improvement process that began
about 4 years ago. In listening to it, you will enjoy the highest achievement
yet in the art of radio.
KCFO now offers an already large - and rapidly growing - selection of the programs you want, presented by the worlds' greatest speakers, on REALAUDIO internet broadcasts. |
|---|
|
|
Call the listener comment line anytime 24 hrs a day... (918) 748-3309 |
Now, the simple and obvious fact is that we all live in different places,
and we are used to being able to pick up stations clearly. Generally speaking,
we have a tendancy to listen to stations within our listening area. If
we change locations, we often will change the stations we listen to, simply
because the ones we previously listened to are now out of our listening
range. 
When you "go internet" - either by acquiring a new multimedia computer,
or by converting your present set - your presets of "broadcast" stations
do not become obsolete. Quite the contrary - internet radio will expand
the number of stations you can hear clearly, broadcasting or netcasting.