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THE MP3 REVOLUTION Tuning in Online Internet radio is growing fast as listeners discover diverse music from around the globe Neva Chonin, Chronicle Staff Writer |
Sunday, August 8, 1999
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It saw London through the Blitz. It disseminated the Beatles to the world. It got Americans dancing to big-band jazz. But is traditional radio obsolete? Not yet, but Internet radio is nipping at its band waves. Radio stations are jumping on the online broadcasting bandwagon in droves as the technology known as ``streaming'' live audio improves. Two years ago, a live Web broadcast was the aural equivalent of listening to music over the telephone. Now sound quality on some players is approaching FM radio standards as modems and computers increase in speed and power. Online radio has its disadvantages -- lack of portability, reception that stutters and burps when network traffic is heavy and unpredictable station schedules. But the advantages are enticing. Just ask Dave Samuel, founder and chief executive officer of San Francisco's spinner.com music site. He cites three reasons why traditional radio lags behind its Internet rival, and they all make sense -- even after discounting the source's vested interest. ``One, on traditional radio you can't get any information, because you don't know exactly what song you're listening to and the DJ may or may not tell you,'' he says. ``Two, if you're able to find out what the CD is, you have to travel to a store to purchase it. Three, there's no variety. Within the San Francisco market there are maybe 15 different formats. We have about 126 channels of music, and you can buy the CDs online.'' Paul Marszalek, operations manager at KFOG, which now provides streaming audio from its Web site, agrees that online radio is exciting but disagrees with the ``more is better'' approach. ``These sites have a huge music library, but they're no fun,'' he says. ``How many times have you turned on your 72-channel cable television and said there's nothing good on TV? This is an incredible opportunity for radio stations that have unique content. The entry cost is minimal and those who know how to entertain are going to win.'' Not all Web radio is geared toward entertainment commerce. During the bombing of Kosovo, the Serbian government's online Radio Yugoslavia broadcasted to an international audience long after its television and radio stations were rubble. A San Francisco Giants fan relocated to Bangkok can cheer along with the old home team via live broadcasts of games on KNBR. Underground Internet radio offers live feeds of electronic and other noncommercial music, and independent news stations are blossoming on the Web's unregulated frontier. In the Bay Area, for instance, KPFA employees are broadcasting from www.kfcf.org. Listeners can hear news from Beijing or Chinese pop music from Guangoong, China. Radio CHR in Dublin, Ireland, dishes the dirt on Posh Spice's marriage. Radio Skyrock broadcasts hip-hop from Paris, and Couleur 3 offers indie rock from Lausanne, Switzerland. There's even American country music coming out of Berlin. For office workers such as computer pro grammer Laury Kenton, the choice between traditional and online radio is a practical one. ``At work the best radio stations are blocked because of building structures, and you wind up having to listen to AM or large mainstream stations,'' she says. ``But you've got the computer in front of you anyway, and it gives better reception. You can watch streaming video and audio at the same time. You can get a wider variety of stations.'' How does streaming audio work? Like an aural shorthand that edits, encodes and compresses audio information to reduce the amount of data sent to a computer, which then has to decode and decompress the sound. Other methods of receiving Internet audio require downloading a file completely before listening to it. With streaming, the listener hears the audio data in an unbroken broadcast as it arrives, or ``streams,'' into the computer by using one of several downloadable players. System requirements -- a decent amount of memory, a sound card and speakers or headphone jacks -- are standard in most new computers. Player software is available for free on the Internet. ``I think the Internet is to FM radio what FM was to AM radio back in the '60s,'' says Live 105 operations manager Ron Nenni. ``It's a future, and we want to be in line with its development. But we're not really worried about it at this point. When it becomes available in cars, it will be more of a concern.'' With streaming technologies sprouting like cyberweeds, that future may be closer than Nenni realizes. Imagine it: Tasmanian folk music and Baltic pop blaring from car radios during a Bay Bridge traffic jam. Here are the top players: -- RealAudio: The latest free version of RealPlayer currently rules the audio roost and provides sound that's more than decent. For those willing to pay a little for higher quality, there's the RealPlayer G2 Plus. www.realaudio.com. -- Media Player: Microsoft's streaming audio format provides good-quality sound and looks set to give RealAudio a run for its money. www.microsoft.com/downloads. -- WinAmp: This player can handle MP3/M3U and Media Player streams as well as WAV files. Lots of plug-ins are available, too, including spectrum analyzers, oscilloscope displays and reverb. www.winamp.com. Following is a sampling of Web sites: -- www.broadcast.com: A corporate megasite that includes all manner of online audio as well as live radio. Includes perks like site of the day, broadcast guides and contests. -- www.spinner.com: Formerly TheDJ.Com, Spinner Networks Inc. offers recorded streaming audio. It boasts its own Spinner Plus Player and is the technological brains behind Yahoo Radio (radio.yahoo.com/). -- www.live-radio.net: This United Kingdom site offers 2,000 stations from more than 100 countries. A great place for Internet neophytes who need guidance and don't want to feel like dopes. -- www.thewomb.com: Plays drum 'n' bass, jungle and ambient music from the electronic nirvana of Miami's South Beach. Dedicated to creating ``the soundtrack to our species' progression into the digital age.'' -- www.irational.org: Radio 90 out of Banff, Alberta in Canada is a collective/pirate station that also broadcasts on FM cellular. It plays everything from Modest Mouse to Mission of Burma, Ornette Coleman to the Police.
WHAT MP3S COULD MEAN TO ... THE CONSUMER-- Groovy new tunes -- Free music -- Slightly inferior sound quality (for now) -- Yet another format to fool with -- Yet more files to fool with
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