Internet radio

[jamespaulritter]

My first ever BB arrives next week and the first thing I will do is search for a NPR internet radio stream. NPR streams in .wma, .pls, and maybe even .m3u and .mp3.

Dozens of sites have several old threads discussing RadioBee, MFRadio and BerryTunes. Half the users say it won't work for them.

Can someone tell me what I should try next week when my Alltel 8330 Curve arrives next week?

[jamespaulritter]

Well it looks like they all work OK. Not great but OK. dollars5 seems to skip the least and so far can play any stream. New Improved mediaPlayer v1.5: with Internet Radio and tons of enhancements - PinStack.com - BlackBerry forums (http://blackberryforums.pinstack.com/34900-new_improved_mediaplayer_v1_5_internet.html) I can stream 320kbit stations with no skips on my Windows Mobile device but it seems that even a 24kbit station causes these BB players to skip. Not bad but enough. I can live with it though because I am loving this curve.

If anyone doesnt know how to stream free Internet radio what I do is save the file from shoutcast and open it with note pad on the desktop then type the url from note pad to the player on the BB the section to copy is the section ending in :#### such as h t t p: / / 64.71.145.106:8002 is NPR in Cape Cod.

[jamespaulritter]

After a battery pull I'm streaming free Internet radio skip free with dollars 5 mediaPlayer pretty nice! Dollars 5 Community :: View topic - Internet Radio stations for mediaPlayer/Radio (http://dollars5.com/munity/viewtopic.php?t=56)

I don't know why anyone would pay a monthly fee to get XM or Serious or what ever they pay for.

I think one of these media players for the BB is not free. I guess I'll just delete the one that asks for money in a few weeks ;-)

[ikasen]

I can't even see paying for the Dollar 5 player. I use MFradio and it works very well for three stations; the local Las Vegas Police scanner, NPR, and ESPN sports radio. If Dollar 5 is really that much better than MFradio, I wish someone would say so.

[jamespaulritter]

I deleted MFRadio because is skips on every station I tried.

So,,,,, for me right now its a contest between dollars5 and berrytunes.

[jamespaulritter]

I have about 70 shortcut links that I have saved from my favorite stations on shoutcast and so far BerryTunes has been able to play all the ones I have entered. Its a main to manually set up each station though.

dollars5 so far can play the ones I have entered but it couldnt play npr boston

http ://64.71.145.106:8000

[sstroud]

i'm curious on how you set up berrytunes. i tried it and it gave a message that the program was trying to access both inside and outside my firewall which was not allowed by my IT policy. it would work if i disabled the firewall, but then opera mini and all my other web apps would ask for permission to connect everytime.

also have you found a trial version for the dollars5 program?

[jamespaulritter]

I didnt do anything special when I downloaded or ran berrytunes. Do you want me to look up any specific settings so we can compare?

The dollars5 media player days it has a 1 week trial Dollars 5 Complete » mediaPlayer for Blackberry 8800, 8300 and 8100 (http://www.dollars5.com/plete/blackberry/mediaplayer-for-blackberry-pearl-8100/)

[jamespaulritter]

So far,,,,, the only streams I can enter manually are streams that I can "save target as" from the desktop and then get the "numeric only" http url.

Does anyone know of any other tricks to "capture" streams cause you know the streams that are preset are always lousy.

[dan kilgore]

looking for internet radio to use on curve . xm was a bust with just a few stations. interested in talk radio stations also. what site really works
thanks
dan kilgore

[jmack549]

Thanks for all of the info, this will help me a lot.

[1Kool guy]

I have MoodioFM & it works really well on my BB Device.

[flatlined]

How long do you listen to the radio with Berrytunes? I have about an hour commute to and from work and have some Winamp stations programed on my Berrytunes. Do you think that would put me over my data limit with AT&T? I have Unlimited Data, but I heard they cut you off at a certain point.

[Redflea]

How do you find the NPR station addresses? I'm on the west coast, would love to find a station out here that I can listen to on my BB.

Edit: I've installed Berrytunes, and echo Stuart's comments below...it seems to work very well for me. I tried MFRadio again today, and it's still skip-city, constant skips. Berrytunes has handled two stations I've added NPR Boston and NPR Cape Cod) effortlessly. No skips in almost 10 minutes of listening - just unheard of in my previous attempts to stream radio.

[StuartV]

I just want to say THANK YOU to jamespaulritter for starting this thread and for mentioning BerryTunes.

I have had my Pearl for about 6 months now and had not, until I saw this thread, explored the potential for streaming Internet radio.

Sitting here in my office, I just used my BB browser to go to berrytunes.com and do an OTA download/install. It fired right up and I checked a couple of the preset stations to verify that it worked.

Then I surfed over to kplu.org to find a URL for the Internet stream of my favorite radio station of all time (KPLU in Seattle - NPR news and Jazz). I added the URL for their MP3 stream to BerryTunes, hit play, plugged my powered speakers into the headphone jack of my Pearl, and I am a HAPPY camper! :-)

[Redflea]

Can you post the URL? Never mind...found it:

KPLU MP3 32K on-air stream: h t t p://sc1.abacast.com:8238

So far the NPR Cape Cod station (posted above - h t t p: / / 64.71.145.106:8002 is NPR in Cape Cod) is more what of what I want, the NPR talk shows.

NPR Boston is almost the exact same URL: h t t p: / / 64.71.145.106:8002

KQED San Francisco: http://205.234.249.144:8000

NPR Chicago: h t t p://205.234.246.236:80

Can those of you w/other NPR URLs post them? :)

[StuartV]

Okay, so I thought BerryTunes was free, but it's $25.

I tried Dollars5 mediaPlayer, but it won't even play the stream from KPLU. Maybe 'cause I'm running OS4.5 on my Pearl? Anyway, it's $20.

I tried MFRadio and it also gives an error trying to play KPLU.

I tried Moodio and it plays KPLU. And it's free. But, it doesn't seem to allow me to do anything else while it's playing the stream. As soon as I hit the Menu Key or the End key, it stops playing. BerryTunes will let me hit End to get back to the home screen, then go do email or whatever while it continues to play.

Are there any FREE media players that will stream Internet radio and let me send and receive email (and/or run other apps) while they continue to play the stream?

[StuartV]

I would be satisfied with BerryTunes and consider shelling out for it, but for one thing: the UI for listening to the radio sucks.

It really needs a transport UI - i.e. play/pause buttons that you can click, so you don't have to go into a menu just to stop it playing. Barring that (or, actually, even better), keyboard hot keys for starting/stopping. Space seems to start the selected preset, but it doesn't stop it. It just starts it again. There is no online help built into the app, so I can't tell if maybe there's some other hot key and I just don't know what it is.

It is somewhat important to me to be able to quickly and easily stop it playing. I have assigned my right convenience button to bring up BerryTunes, so it could be as simple as two button presses to stop it playing, even if I am in the middle of some other app. But, it's not.

[spbbp]

Have you tried xPlayer? http://www.blackberryforums.com/aftermarket-software/138232-xplayer-now-internet-radio-functionality-need-beta-testers.html.

I have not tried it myself... Please share your experience!!

[dmiller1856]

I wish Pandora would offer support for Blackberry.. That is one awesome radio app on the iphone.

[Redflea]

I would be satisfied with BerryTunes and consider shelling out for it, but for one thing: the UI for listening to the radio sucks.

It really needs a transport UI - i.e. play/pause buttons that you can click, so you don't have to go into a menu just to stop it playing. Barring that (or, actually, even better), keyboard hot keys for starting/stopping. Space seems to start the selected preset, but it doesn't stop it. It just starts it again. There is no online help built into the app, so I can't tell if maybe there's some other hot key and I just don't know what it is.

It is somewhat important to me to be able to quickly and easily stop it playing. I have assigned my right convenience button to bring up BerryTunes, so it could be as simple as two button presses to stop it playing, even if I am in the middle of some other app. But, it's not.

What about just pressing the Mute key? That's what I've been doing...I can then close it down at my leisure (via the convoluted two-step process required).

I agree w/your comments on the UI - neither pretty nor efficient, but it is at least simple to figure out, and it has been nothing short of amazing in terms of streaming capabilities compared to Dollar5, MFRadio, and another streaming app I tried a while back (can't remember the name).

I don't get any stutters or skipping at all - just like the real radio.

Definitely worth the money to me - I have missed having access to NPR when I'm out and about. Just wish my local station offered MP3 streaming...they are on windows media and have no plans to change...

[walds11]

I echo the same thing. I use Pandora on my desk-top.

I wish Pandora would offer support for Blackberry.. That is one awesome radio app on the iphone.

[zx475ti]

i have a sirius subscription and want to use it on my blackberry along with a fm station on occasion can anyone tell me if any of these apps will stream sirius radio and stations running from the streamaudio.com site. the fm stations i want to hear are theboneonline.com and rock105i.com, and sirius online. any help would be appreciated. im new to this bb stuff.

[kingston73]

I don't know why anyone would pay a monthly fee to get XM or Serious or what ever they pay for.

;-)

I guess you're not a Howard Stern fan. That by itself is enough to justify spending $13 a month for Sirius. And for the last poster, I too have been trying to find a way to listen to Sirius on my 8310, and no luck so far. I can't believe nobody has created an easy to use app for this yet!

[Redflea]

FYI - I tried Xplayer...nowhere near as good as Berry Tunes for streaming radio. Very happy camper w/Berry Tunes. If they can just improve the UI a little...but I'll take high quality, stable streaming over UI quibbles any day.

[ChristopherRI]

Just tried this and I really like it. Is there a good resource somehwere that lists stations that have streams that can be added. I want to add 630 WPRO from Providence, RI - but I don't know if it streams in a way that is able to be added to berrytunes. This streaming stuff is all new to me.

Thanks!

[Redflea]

I sussed out the process below from James comments above (the second post in the thread from the OP) about Shoutcast and PLS files...there may be an easier way, but so far the steps below have worked for all the stations I've wanted to listen to.

Go to Shoutcast (SHOUTcast | Free internet radio! (http://www.shoutcast.com)) and search on your desired station's call letters.

In the Shoutcast search results, Right-Click on the "Tune In" button next to the station you want.

Select Save Link As from the right-click menu and save the .PLS file to a folder on your hard drive. (Or use whatever process you want to save the file to your hard drive so you can open it.)

Open the .PLS file w/a text editor (e.g., Notepad) and you'll see something like the following (this is from the PLS for KQED in San Francisco):

[playlist]
numberofentries=2
File1 = [u r l = h t t p: // 205.234.249.144:8000]SHOUTcast Administrator[/url]
Title1=(#1 - 311/2000) KQED Public Radio
Length1=-1
File2=http://205.234.249.144:80
Title2=(#2 - 478/2000) KQED Public Radio
Length2=-1
Version=2

Take the URL from above (h t t p ://205.234.249.144:80) and enter it in to the Add Station dialog in Berry Tunes (Open the Radio option in Berry Tunes and then select "Add Station" from the menu.

Save the new station (it will be added to the "Favorites" section) and click on it to listen.

There are two URLs in the .PLS file for KQED in the .PLS file above...some .PLS files I've seen have even more. I don't know the process to know which is the right one, so sometimes a little trial-and-error has been required.

If anyone has a better way, chime in! :)

[ChristopherRI]

Redflea - Thanks a lot. That has definately worked for me. I appreciate it.

Chris

[Kamau]

Does this method work for xPlayer as well? I tried it, but I keep getting the error message to check my connection settings when I tried to play it.

[txmx]

Wirelessly posted

I use berry tunes and I think its awesome!!! To get new streams I use this site http://www.streamfinder.com I subscribed to this site,and then I search for stations,and then I click on the link for the RSS and I copy it to my Viigo,then I open all the new articles,and the from the menu I choose to read the full article and that's it!!! The only thing is that I can't find the stations that I want,I'm from texas and hispanic,so it would be very nice to find a couple of sites of tejano radio stations,does anybody can provide me a couple of URL's for tejano stations,actually I was thinking that right here on the forums we can ask and post URL's for everyone who is interested and copy'em and paste'em in our blackberry players thank you

[teon39]

If I had an unlimited data package and was cut off after a lot of use I would change carriers but I would never deal with at&t after being with T-MO

[txmx]

Wirelessly posted

I think that we should ask to the developers of berry tunes to include with the berry tunes software a search engine for new radio streams I hope they can do that,I don't have a computer at the time,so its really a pain to find new URL's

[txmx]

Wirelessly posted

I think that we should ask to the developers of berry tunes to include with the berry tunes software a search engine for new radio streams I hope they can do that,I don't have a computer at the time,so its really a pain to find new URL's

[zx475ti]

there is a app for windows mobile to get sirius streaming but not for bb. i cannot believe there is no way to get sirius on a blackberry looks like i may end up with a tilt so i can get sirius even though the bb is a much nicer tool than the tilt.

[Redflea]

I've been playing w/the Podcast feature a bit more in BerryTunes...has a nice feature to allow you to resume where you left off when you return to a Podcast.

[peeq]

Thanks for the info. Have been looking for streaming radio for a while now.

Cheers

[Redflea]

Purchased Berry Tunes today from handango....used a 20% off coupon (2NDCHANCE) that I found to get the price to only $19.

Berrytunes Support has been very responsive...I've sent a few emails back and forth w/Virtual Views and get very quick responses...even sent an email last night (Friday evening) and had a reply shortly thereafter.

Just very impressed w/the functionality of this app and how the company stands behind it!

[tlhead]

i tried using the "right click on shoutcast.com station and i dont see the save as link...is that the same as page info? im so lost :( thanks for anyones help.

[tlhead]

wait nevermind i did it!

[powercx]

I used xPlayer and it works great. But granted I'm on 3G and WiFi with Blackberry Bold. I tried xPlayer with my curve and played the same stations on my bold but with skips. I never streamed music with the Curve.

[Stvgray]

I've followed jamespaulritter's and Redflea's instructions, but the stations keep stopping on me after about 20 seconds or so.

These stations are broadcasting at a 128k bit rate. Is that the problem -- too high a bit rate?

[russ5260]

I use flycast & moodio. they are both great and both free! I like moodio better since they let you add your own stations. Far more variety than flycast.

Russ

[bigbda1]

I use flycast & moodio also and they work great. Flycast has NPR. They are both free and easy to use.

[ikasen]

I hate to say it, but I really have found the ultimate answer: aol radio or shoutcast radio. They are both on the Iphone and both are free. They both work far better than anything on any Blackberry.
Sorry, just the truth!

[StuartV]

Just a "for the record" post here.

I had BerryTunes 2.5.4 on my Pearl. When I upgraded to a Storm, the Switch Device wizard moved BerryTunes over automatically. It would play on the Storm, but it was very flaky. It would sometimes stop playing for no reason at all (among other things). I was running OS v4.7.0.83 on the Storm.

After about a week, I went into BerryTunes and did the Check for Updates thing and it found v2.5.11. I upgraded to that. With that version, my NPR station that I like to stream wouldn't work at all.

Somewhere in there, I upgraded my Storm to OS v4.7.0.85. I don't remember if it was before or after upgrading BerryTunes to 2.5.11.

Today, I checked for Updates in BerryTunes again and it found v2.5.13. I upgraded to that and now my NPR station works just fine.

Yaay, BerryTunes!

[cscotty]

I have MoodioFM & it works really well on my BB Device.

Kudos to that. I just downloaded it and it works fine for me.

I am running a pearl 8100 with 4.5.0.102 using EDGE on T-Mobile and so far so good. I am streaming a channel from Jamaica.

Scott

[GeoffreyM]

I'm really happy to have found this thread. I just got my Bold today and have loaded up BerryTunes. I appreciate the stations that have been posted here, but really wish I could find a way to get WAMU to work. It streams using live365.com and no manipulation of any URL has worked so far. I'll have to keep trying, there must be a way!

[Shaun]

Check Nobex Radio Companion to see if the station you are looking for is part of their index. I was fortunate enough that mine were.

[SteveO86]

Slacker is available for the BlackBerry. Not bad a program but it can consume battery life pretty quickly.

[cscotty]

Wirelessly posted

Just a "for the record" post here.

I had BerryTunes 2.5.4 on my Pearl. When I upgraded to a Storm, the Switch Device wizard moved BerryTunes over automatically. It would play on the Storm, but it was very flaky. It would sometimes stop playing for no reason at all (among other things). I was running OS v4.7.0.83 on the Storm.

After about a week, I went into BerryTunes and did the Check for Updates thing and it found v2.5.11. I upgraded to that. With that version, my NPR station that I like to stream wouldn't work at all.

Somewhere in there, I upgraded my Storm to OS v4.7.0.85. I don't remember if it was before or after upgrading BerryTunes to 2.5.11.

Today, I checked for Updates in BerryTunes again and it found v2.5.13. I upgraded to that and now my NPR station works just fine.

Yaay, BerryTunes!

Wait. You switched devices and berry tunes was able to transfer? I upgraded to the storm and just finished my trial period. Does that mean I can run a restore and restore only berry tunes from my curve backup?

[StuartV]

Well, a week after upgrading to 2.5.13, it told me my trial expired. It seemed like it worked for longer than a week after I first got my Storm, but I could be wrong. It may have been the case that each time I did an OS upgrade, it reset my trial period for another 7 days, and this latest OS is the first one I've run for longer than 7 days. I'm not really positive.

Regardless, I emailed Tech Support with my new PIN and they sent me a new activation code.

[cscotty]

Wirelessly posted

Well, a week after upgrading to 2.5.13, it told me my trial expired. It seemed like it worked for longer than a week after I first got my Storm, but I could be wrong. It may have been the case that each time I did an OS upgrade, it reset my trial period for another 7 days, and this latest OS is the first one I've run for longer than 7 days. I'm not really positive.

Regardless, I emailed Tech Support with my new PIN and they sent me a new activation code.

Really. Which tech support did you contact? Berry tunes or where you purchased it from. Please forward me the contact info :)

[StuartV]

I was instructed to go through Handango for this kind of stuff.

[cscotty]

Wow it worked! I contacted MobiHand customer support and they emailed me my new registration code.

Thanks!

[StuartV]

Sumgun! ;-)

[smith67]

Anyone know of any issues affecting moodio fm on a pearl 8100 - vodafone - and why I get the message "an error has occurred attempting to play media" ? This happens no matter what channel I select ...

[daphne]

Did it ever work for you, or did you just start trying to use it?

[hyedipin]

I hate to say it, but I really have found the ultimate answer: aol radio or shoutcast radio. They are both on the Iphone and both are free. They both work far better than anything on any Blackberry.
Sorry, just the truth!


I agree, how come nobody can come up with similar applications for Blackberry but they make us suffer.. Can't we have some fun on our boring business devices (blackberry)! (n)

I tried moodio, I tried bunch of others, non of them seem to work properly or at all on my 4.5 Curve.

RIM should just enable full streaming support on built in player. What is wrong with allowing it to playback .pls or .wma streams? How difficult could it be?. Just buffer it to pre-set KB on the external memory (since security is not a big concern with buffer storage) and just start playing back... Let the user worry about bandwidth they use.