Robby Pedrica's Tech Blog

Category: Music

  • SA Radio getting even crazier

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    Robby Pedrica
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    The saga between NetDynamix ( the provider of streaming services to BallzVisual Radio and 2OceansVibe Radio ) and Shawn Dewberry, the author of a scathing report into possible over-inflated statistics provided by NetDynamix, has continued through the last week. MyBroadband, a leading SA online tech news site, asked Chris Grant, NetDynamix CEO, for a number…

  • SA Radio gets a little crazy this week

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Earlier this week, Shaun Deswberry released a post slating the listener/viewer statistics that had been released by NetDynamix, the company that streams the Ballz Visual Radio and 2Oceansvibe Radio online stations.He backed this up with a lot of reasonably sounding technical detail so it was surprising that NetDynamix immediately went on the offensive and said…

  • Freedom and copyright

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    Robby Pedrica
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    A statement by John Sullivan from the FSF in the US has just been posted and sheds a lot of light on the ongoing RIAA lawsuits which the RIAA themselves said they would be dropping earlier this year. What is interesting about the article is the continued view that music, art and software, and the…

  • File sharing studies says p2p piracy is overstated

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    Robby Pedrica
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    ARS Technica has a very interesting article where NPD Group has found that old-fashioned CD burning is a bigger threat than p2p file sharing/swapping … The no. 1 source of infringement however appears to be streamripping ( saving the bitstream of Internet radio or other streaming services )

  • Creative Muvo TX

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    Robby Pedrica
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    I’ve been playing around with the Creative Muvo TX MP3 player for the last few weeks. Decent sound/earphones, lightweight, sharp screen, Linix support (mount it as a memory stick ) as well as Amarok support, solid controls and a nice graphic equaliser. Cons are no OGG support, can’t start with a specific song in a…

  • DVD Audio

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    Robby Pedrica
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    One to watch for those who like folk rock, Sarah Mclachlan’s Afterglow Live is absolutely awesome – it may be nearly 2 years old but still  one of my favourite DVDs. Sound and set visuals are stunning although perhaps a DTS soundtrack may have been better.

  • Music Madness

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    Robby Pedrica
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    It seems the music hounds in the US are at it again – most of the major labels have laid suit against XM radio for apparent breaches of copyright by the Inno product. The Inno product allows one to record satelite radio and then play back songs in a different order. How they are going…

  • KDE Audio Converters

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Found a promising audio converter for KDE in the form of soundKonverter currently at 0.2rc1. Doing some wav to mp3 conversions and this works great – next some mp3 to ogg and vice versa. Klira is in fact simpler but I can’t seem to get the variable option to work. Oh I’ve also got Slackware…

  • Amarok 1.4beta2 Part 2

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Well I got this installed but couldn’t understand why I kept on getting errors trying to play my mp3’s with the gstreamer engine until I realised that mp3 support is not included as a plugin by default – you need to go to the Fluendo site and download it there. Anyhow my xine engine with…

  • Amarok 1.4beta2

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    Robby Pedrica
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    After running Amarok 1.4beta1 for the last 2 weeks and been quite impressed, I decided to go ahead and do the Amarok 1.4beta2 thing. Interesting note in the release notes: support for aRts and gstreamer 0.8 is removed – this should be interesting!!! So downloaded gstreamer 0.10.4 and associated plugin packages and gst-plugins-base needs liboil…

  • Web-based Jukebox

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    Robby Pedrica
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    For those looking for a web-based alternative to music jukeboxes, take a look at Jinzora – some neat features including lyrics and album cover downloads. – Music for the Masses

  • Songbird

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    Robby Pedrica
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    For those who are avid online music purchasers and iPodders, an alternative to iTunes is starting to take shape in the form of Songbird, which is based on the XUL technology from the Mozilla Group. Difference is that Songbird will allow you to purchase from a whole host of sites instead of just iTunes Store…

  • 5.1 Speakers

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    Robby Pedrica
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    I’ve tried a set of Catsonic 5.1 speakers purchased for just R200 and must say I’m suitably impressed. The satellites are fairly lightweight but when used together with the sub, the overall sound is quite good. Not Hi-Fi good mind you but not bad. – Radio killed the DJ