Filed under: Radio
My very kind mother got me a Sirius Satellite receiver for Christmas. After researching it for a while, I decided to ask her for it even though I had some apprehensions. After getting it set up and using it for a couple hours, I’m still not so sure that I’ll keep it around.
The receiver itself seems quite nice. It has a decent screen, built-in 44 minute cache, and decent controls.
Programming
It should be no surprise that my interest lies with the non-music programming. Sirius has made licensing deals with NPR and PRI, but the selection is pretty weak. Most notable is the absence of Morning Edition and All Things Considered. I have been on the lookout for a version that didn’t contain annoying local modifications. Most public radio stations hack these shows up, adding their own local content that is often not interesting. I was hoping that Sirius would provide a clean version. Not even available! I presume due to politics (NPR upsetting member stations for bypassing them.) So, as far as Public Radio content, there is nothing I can’t already get via the internet.
I’ll keep my mind open about music programming, but after a quick glance, the smaller independent music isn’t popping out at me.
Howard Stern and the Comedy channels will hopefully provide me with some adolescent entertainment.
Timeshifting
44 minute cache just doesn’t cut it. I’ve been recording public radio shows for several years now for transfer to my iPod and once you can listen to any show whenever you want, you never go back. Podcasting has just made this even easier.
No computer controlled receiever for Mac OS X
There are now a couple solutions for controlling and recording content with a computer. TimeTrax is a commercial solution for Windows.
A guy has created a “Sirius to RS232” board which allows you to connect a receiver designed for a car to your computer via the serial port.
The Audio::Radio::Sirius perl module has been created which will work with the above board. However, support under Mac OS X is unchartered territory. In theory it would work with a RS232 to USB converter. I emailed the creator of the board, and he said he hadn’t heard of anyone using it with Mac OS X.
Neither XM or Sirius is excited about a computer controlled recording solution for piracy reasons, but I’m sure someone will take the plunge and get this working on Mac OS X soon. I almost went for it, however, I just couldn’t justify the cost of the SIR-ALP1 receiver, the RS232 converter board, the RS232 to USB converter for something I wasn’t sure was going to work.
Reception
I’ve got a window in my office pointing directly west (the direction I was suppose to put the antenna) and the receiver was unable to get a signal requiring me to install the antenna outside which makes a bit of a mess.
Online streaming pretty crappy
Sirius offers on-line streams at a lower bitrate to subscribers. However, it is almost exclusively music channels. If it matched all their channels, I wouldn’t even bother with the receiver and just record the web streams. Of course they make that a pain too, using an embedded windows media plug-in that doesn’t work for me in Firefox. When I try it in Safari, it opens the stream using the external Windows Media Player application, says it is playing, but there is no sound.
Cables
The receiver is quite small, but it has these three annoying cables (antenna, audio out, and power) sticking out the left side. Not much they could do about it, but it is a mess.
Commericals
Cable TV promised subscribers that by subscribing, you would get to have a commercial free experience. Sirius has skipped that from the beginning. Music is said to be commercial free, but the talk channels all have commercials. The PRI station even has a commercial telling me to
Sound quality
I don’t particulary care (speech doesn’t require many bits) but Sirius has clearly sacrificed sound quality to squeeze more channels in.
I was at least aware of all the above issues before signing up, but decided to give it a go anyway. However, unless I’m surprised by content that I’ve yet to discover, $13 a month just isn’t justifiable.
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