RADIOSHARK LETS COMPUTER TIME-SHIFT RADIO
How would you like to have some of the same abilities of a
television DVR for your radio? A new computer device gives you the
power to do so. Anyone who uses a digital video recorder or DVR like
the ones offered by ReplayTV or TiVO knows the value of time-shift
recording. These set top boxes are always recording whatever live
television programming you may be watching at any given moment. The
recorded information is transferred and stored to the DVR's internal
hard drive. So at any time you want, you can freeze the action to
take a break or answer the phone and then resume from that point on
when you are ready to continue watching. How long you can pause a
show is directly proportional to the size of the DVR's hard drive or
however long your DVR's operating system is programmed to do so. You
can also rewind what you may have missed so you can watch it over
and over. How far back you can rewind is also based upon the same
criteria. And now you can do much of all this with radio
programming.
 The
radioSHARK from Griffin Technology is a new device that attaches to
your Windows-based PC or Macintosh via any available USB port.
Looking much like a shark fin (thus the name), the peripheral allows
your computer to receive local AM and FM stations and play the audio
directly through your computer's speakers. But the radioSHARK is a
lot more than just a simple radio receiver. As with the
aforementioned DVRs, the radioSHARK can be programmed to record any
radio broadcast it receives directly to your computer's hard drive.
And as with the DVR, if you want to pause the broadcast or rewind it
back to listen to something you may have missed, you can do so via
the included software.
The included application lets you control all of the radioSHARK's
radio and recording functions including favorite station presets
that can be set with a mouse click. Adding new stations can either
be directly tuned or use the scanning feature to discover new
stations in your area. But the real power of the radioSHARK lies in
its ability to time-shift any radio audio you hear. And as with the
DVR, the application lets you pre-program the radioSHARK to record
unattended upcoming radio shows.
The fin-shaped device is actually the unit's radio antenna.
Simply place it in a location where radio signals are best heard and
rotate it to achieve an optimal receiving position. As it is
connected via the USB port, the radioSHARK gets its power directly
from the computer and needs no other power source.
Once you have recorded a radio broadcast, the data is stored as
an AIFF-compatible audio file which can be transferred to an iPod or
any other compatible portable player. If your device only plays mp3
files, most any player application worth it's bits can easily do the
conversion for you.
Unlike the DVRs I mentioned, a downside to the radioSHARK is that
it doesn't offer a programming guide grid so you will need to what's
playing on your local station from your newspaper or some other
source. The upside is that you won't ever have to pay for a
subscription service to use the radioSHARK. The amount of radio
audio you can record is limited to the available amount of storage
on your hard drive. And given that audio takes up a fraction of the
space needed to store video data, today's multi-gigabyte drives
promise that you'll be able to record and store more radio shows
than you'll probably ever care to hear.
The radioSHARK sells for $69.99.
www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark |
