• Channels, Shows, and Stations
• Software to Listen to Internet Radio - 'Streaming Media Players'
• Pocket PC and Cell Phones - Mobile Users
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Channels, Shows, and Stations

• Channels. Channels are a grouping of shows and stations.  These groupings are organized by content experts to provide a useful set of similar stations or shows around a topic.
• Shows. Shows are either recurring or one-time events. Shows, such as Morning Edition are actually broadcast at many different times across time zones - RadioShowLinks delivers a live version if possible. Further, some shows, such as Car Talk, Morning Edition, Major League Baseball games and others are also archived. In this case RadioShowLinks will deliver to you the live version if possible, otherwise the last archived version!
• Stations. Stations are similar to radio stations, broadcasting from a geographical location in a general genre. With RadioShowLinks, we have also captured the multiple streaming types that a station may broadcast, e.g., a low bandwidth windows media stream, a high bandwidth MP3 stream, etc. With this information and you having set your configuration in RadioShowLinks (i.e., your local bandwidth, what players you have installed on your machine) we can deliver to you the best possible stream.
• Streams. Streams are the actual delivery of media from a station to your machine.

Software to Listen to Internet Radio - 'Streaming Media Players'

• Real Player

  . This player can be obtained for free from www.real.com. This player, on Windows and Mac machines will also play MP3 streams.

• Windows Media Player

  . This player can be obtained for free from www.microsoft.com.

• Streaming MP3 Player

  . There are multiple types of MP3 players, though note that we utilize 'streaming' MP3 as opposed to simply playing an MP3 file, say from your local hard disk.  Note that both the Real Player and Windows Media Player both support streaming MP3, so there is no requirement that you have an MP3 player. You can also use the WinAmp player as well as possibly others.

• Quicktime Player

  . This is a player from Apple Computer.

It is highly advantageous to have as many players installed on your machine as possible. This provides you with both a wider variety of shows / stations to select from as well as providing RadioShowLinks with more opportunity to provide you the best possible stream if multiple streams are available.

Note: After installing an additional player(s) please go to the Configure window to alert the system of your new players.

Pocket PC and Cell Phones - Mobile Users

• Real Player
• Windows Media Player (although this came with your Pocket PC, you may need to upgrade to the latest version) You may wish to download the Active X control for Windows Media Player for the Pocket PC as well.
• Both the Real Player and Windows Media Player will often play MP3 streams, although functionality is limited on the Pocket PC. There are also third party players available including a free player at Streaming MP3 Player.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Install both Real Player and Windows Media Player on your machine(s) - and if already installed verify that you have the latest version of each.
2. Visit the Configure window to ensure that RadioShowLinks is set correctly, i.e., your installed players and the bandwidth for your machine(s).

And start enjoying! 

Why do I not see stations when I think I should?
Stations provide their streams based on player type and bandwidth. For example, a high-quality Jazz station might broadcast at 100KBPS for the MP3 format. If your machine is configured to only accept dial-up speed streams (and possibly not accept MP3 formats) than you can not play this stream. RadioShowLinks will not show you this stream in this case where it would if your machine could meet that stream's requirements.

Can I use my RadioShowLinks account over multiple machines?
(Caveat - this feature is not yet implemented - so the answer is currently no.) Definitely, actually this is the preferred means of using RadioShowLinks. You can share your configuration of channels across all platforms. Note that you will want to set the machine configuration for each specific platform. Note that for cell phones you are only able to play streams - you can not manage your RadioShowLinks configuration.

What if a stream doesn't play?
If this is the first time you've used RadioShowLinks or this player it is recommended that you ensure that your player was installed correctly and produces the sample sound that normally is provided after installation.
We are constantly checking our stream 'inventory' to ensure they are all operational. However, often a stream will not be playable for any number of reasons, including:

• The station's server is out of capacity
• The station has recently changed their configuration or gone off-the-air
• Real Player streams generally do not play over a WiFi network connection.

Note that Today's Schedule is similar, although all shows for the current day are shown.

How can I improve the sound quality?
The most important thing is usually having a good set of speakers attached to your computer. After that try and utilize high bandwidth streams, especially when high quality is desired, e.g., Opera over, say a newscast.