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Internet radio device

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An Internet radio device is a hardware device that receives and plays audio from Internet radio stations or a user's PC. The devices which are currently on the market mainly support MP3 (also known as MPEG3) streaming. Other popular formats like Windows Media Audio (WMA), RealAudio, Ogg, and Apple's AAC are supported by only a few of these devices.

Internet radio devices can be divided into several product categories:

  • Products which are mainly targeted at listening to music stored on a local network. These devices are usually called network music players. These devices are usually sold with server software in order to play the music from the network. Examples of such devices are the Slim Devices Squeezebox2 and the Roku Soundbridge. Some of these devices also have the ability to listen to a number of Internet radio stations. As these devices do not have an integrated loudspeaker, they need to be connected to an audio system in order to listen to the music. These devices usually have an Ethernet and/or Wi-Fi network interface.
  • Standalone products like the Reciva and Streamit Internet radio devices which are targeted at users who do not want to be dependent on a PC (or PC knowledge) for their internet radio listening. These products are often used in closed user group applications due to the ease with which a cut-down specialised stations list can be delivered to them. Closed user groups might be an geographically distributed enthnic community who all want to listen to the same internet radio station, or a commercial application such as restaurant chain that wants to distribute the same audio to all their restaurants. With the Streamit a dynamically updated stations list also makes it possible for the receiver to always have an up-to-date list of available on-demand content as it becomes available from national broadcasters BBC and VPRO. Some of these devices also allow the user to listen to media files from the local network, as with the network music players above. There are variants of these devices with and without an integrated speaker. They normally connect to the Internet via the user's broadband connection using an integrated Ethernet or Wi-Fi network interface.
  • Standalone products like the Barix Extreamer and Streamit Lukas EV. These products are targeted at professional audio streaming applications.
  • The new addition to the category of standalone products is built-in wireless internet radio players like Sonowave, you can take your Internet Radio with you anywhere around your home or apartment. Although wireless network adapters could be added to any of the non-wireless receivers as can A/C power-line network extenders. A combination software/hardware control system allows you to change from Internet Radio, local FM, mp3 files, or CDs from your computer and from the tuner's location you can tune to local FM without having to go back to your computer.
  • A new growth area is the support of MP3 stream receiving through dial-up connections. The Streamit Lukas product offers dial-up access for listeners who do not have accesss to broadband connectivity, such as rural locations or countries where the broadband footprint has not reached. In some cases dial-up may be the only connectivity that some internet users will ever have.

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Major brands:

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