Audio streaming - (Very) basic questions

[atferrari]

Audio streaming . Let me tell that besides knowing it runs "on line" I ignore most about it thus my eventually nonsensical questions.

Wikipedia cannot explain all this and googling brings too much advertising.

For your reference, I have never used iphones, ipads, tablets, androids and the like. My Nextel and my mobile are used just for SMS and phone calls.

a) Lately I started to listen music the day long but wondering if keeping a PC involved isn't excessive just for that. Is the buffer implemented on RAM or in the HDD? This last seems to be working often for minute periods. Increasing RAM would reduce the activity? WINXP's tasks manager shows what seems little activity there.

b) What would be the cheapest solution to have a dedicated "receiver" for the music? I Googled for AV receivers but they seem to require something else in between. Bluetooth is frequently mentioned.

c) Could I buy one that I could plug directly to my ADSL? Prices seem suprisingly high, at least for me.

Ah, while video could be involved, it is not my current interest. I do not even watch TV at all.

Brief and to the point answers will be much appreciated.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Search for 'Internet Radio' - here's one example on AmazonUK - they tend not to be cheap though.



I tried, and failed, to find a 19" rack mounting one, there are a couple out there, but silly prices, and hard to obtain.

 

[killivolt]

Search for 'Internet Radio' - here's one example on AmazonUK - they tend not to be cheap though.



I tried, and failed, to find a 19" rack mounting one, there are a couple out there, but silly prices, and hard to obtain.

If you could find one that laid flat you could use a 1 or 2u shelf. The prices aren't bad, my 42" TV was $400us, same for the Surround System Totaling $800us.

For $800. He could get a good Audio System and Radio.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I have an old Roku but it doesn;t work well now and it's not supported, so I don't want to buy another.

Some stations work, but others don't at all. I wanted my mom to be able to listen to AM radio from the Internet.

It was rather complex. You had to usually stream it on your PC and then run a program that snooped the packets. It would them tell you if the stream was streamable and then you could make it a preset. It has an AM/FM normal radio too, but I havn't figured it out. The interface is horrible. Usually you use a remote control. It also had an SD card as well.

I'd almost like to find something easy for an elderly lady to use like a Linux SBC computer with a 7" touch screen. I wish I could make a custom front end, like a) ON/OFF, b) volume c) Station presets and that's about it.

If I knew html and a scripting language, then maybe. I have played with Unix in 1975 and about 5 years ago. Linux (cygwin on windows) a tiny bit. I must know a little bit because I set up a "man in the middle" to get around access permissions.

 

[3v0]

atferrari if I understand your question right you want to stream audio from the internet without having to run a PC.

Right now I think your best bet is an android device. Something like this 7 inch for about $60 US. I know your import duties/taxes will make that worse.

The drawback is these all have small speakers and to get decent sound you have to connect to external speakers. This one seems to have a 3.5mm audio jack and no bluetooth.

Not that I am not suggesting this one just something of that type.

 

[atferrari]

Nigel, killi, kiss and 3v0, gracias for replying.

Happy that you understood my questions. And yes, a PC on, just for music, is not reasonable.

3v0, could you please insert the link to this 7 inch for about $60 US?

Clunky interfaces. Strange that for something that has some time in the market it still stays so poorly developed...

Thanks again.

 

[3v0]

Sorry I had intended to do that in the original post

**broken link removed**

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

How about a Raspberry PI - small and cheap, and will do the job.