Dear all,

In answer to some questions that I am frequently asked by people tuning-in :-

• What's the best way to tune-in then ?
  

You will have to have a Media Player to tune in to 'Stellar Attraction'. There are quite a few to choose from, however, the best in my opinion is 'WinAmp'. It can be downloaded for FREE at www.winamp.com. Not only is it fast, 'lightweight' (doesn't use-up too much of your PC's resources), easy to use and configure there are simply hundreds of 'plug-ins' and various other goodies from the official website.

'RealPlayer' is also another popular choice. Again, this is FREE and can be downloaded from the official website www.real.com. In particular, it can also be used for streaming video with it's high-compression '.rm' file format.

The 'Stellar Attraction' radio stream can be played on ANY media player available. Some very early versions of 'Windows Media Player' being the only exception. Everybody has their own particular favourite. I've been reliably informed that the Mac's 'iTunes' and the Linux 'xmms' player both prove excellent when listening too - scrolling song titles, the lot.

• It's great music but I don't know who it's by and I'm fed-up with having to reload the front page of the 'Stellar Attraction' website to see the name of the song playing !!

The vast majority of Media Players will automatically have the name of the song and artist scrolling across them somewhere.

Are you using 'Windows Media Player' ? If you are, you won't see the song title / artist's name and have it automatically updated as the music changes. Nothing I can do about it I'm afraid. 'WMP' uses a different streaming file type to every other Media Player - hence the separate link on the front page of the website.

Any Media Player can easily be configured to automatically play different types of files (mp3s, AVIs, MPEGs, midi, WMA, WMV etc.). The type of file that is used to stream the music on 'Stellar Attraction' is called a 'PLS' file. For example, if you still like using 'WMP' to play your own music that you have on your PC and to watch movies with - another 'Media Player' can still be installed alongside 'WMP' - just configure it to associate with the type of files NOT used by 'WMP' already.

• I click on the 'listen live - click here' link and my computer says it's trying to download a file - I don't like the sound of that ...
  

You're not downloading anything onto your PC in the literal sense of the word. Honest. Nothing will be 'installed' on your computer by 'Stellar Attraction'. When you click on a 'listen live - click here' link, it tells your computer that it is a 'PLS' file (see above) and your computer prompts you to download it. Once 'downloaded' it sees that it is in fact pointing to the 'Stellar Attraction' radio stream, will open the Media Player associated with a 'PLS' file and start playing the stream. All you are really 'downloading' is the information (IP address, port number, the name of the radio station etc.) that tells your computer where the 'Stellar Attraction' radio stream is on the internet so that you can connect to it.

Again, make sure you choose the correct link. If you're not sure, try them all until one works.

If anybody is still unsure or has another, different question, you know where I am ... :)

D.C.

Hi D.C.

Thankyou for the mention on S.A. this evening! Nice surprise! Sounds much better now we have broadband now. Clearer quality.....

Keep up the good work!  :D

No problem Bubba ;)

Best way to tune in for the Mac - Audion (http://www.panic.com/audion/). Best Macintosh media player there is. And for Linux - amarok (http://amarok.kde.org/). And for Windows definately Winamp (http://www.winamp.com/). I don't recommend Real Player for Windows personally because it's loaded with spyware but some Linux distrobutions come bundled with it. Some other great apps people swear by for Windows are foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/) and Media Player Classic (http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/). Media Player Classic plays about every bloody format out there as well.

Hi everyone, just registered--excellent site & station (thank you broadband)!  Anyway, aside from tracking cookies, I have never found anything resembling spyware associated with RealPlayer.  I am more than a little paranoid regarding computer security and routinely check for spyware.  It's not that I feel compelled to defend RealPlayer, I just find it to be a versatile, easy-to-use application.  Again, hello everyone.

Cheers.

Hi there forklift and welcome to the forum ;D

Everyone has their own particular favourite Media Player. As most of you know, I'm a WinAmp man myself ...

This basically sums up how I feel about Real Player. http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/2004/02/29/real_obnoxious
I am using Real Player and Quicktime Alternative for all of the not so good file formats that some sites insist on using. I've also switched to foobar2000 and love it but I personally wouldn't recommend it to someone who isn't very computer savy. I'll post my setup later if anyone wants it.

... If the 'Best Media Player' discussion is to continue, please do it in Tech Talk.