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.
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