|
Internet radio is also known as net radio, e-radio, web radio or streaming radio. It is an audio service transmitted using the internet. The music streaming on the web is generally referred to as web casting as it is not transmitted via wireless methods.
Internet radio streams media which presents a constant stream of audio to the listeners that cannot be replayed or paused; quite similar to the traditional broadcasting media. Internet radio is quite different in this aspect from the on demand file service. It is also different from pod casting that involves downloading files rather than streaming them. Most of the internet radio services are related to the traditional terrestrial radio stations or radio networks. However there are some internet only radio stations which are independent of these associations.
An Internet radio service can normally be accessed from anywhere in world. As an example you can listen to an American station in Australia. However some major networks in the US and the UK restrict the listening to their country due to licensing constraints. Internet radio is extremely popular among the expatriates and listeners having interests which are not adequately serviced by local radio stations. Internet radio services offer sports commentary, talk, news and different genres of music in all the formats that are available on a traditional radio station.
Technology for internet radios:
Streaming: This technology is utilized for distributing internet radio and makes use of lossy audio codecs. You can stream audio formats such as Ogg Vorbis, RealAudio, MP3, Windows Media Audio and HE-AAC. The audio data is transmitted serially or is "streamed" over the internet or local network. Then they are reassembled at the receiving end and run after a couple of seconds. This delay is referred to as lag and is present in many stages of digital audio broadcasting.
Simulation: You can use a local simulation tuning program that has all the internet radios which may also be heard on the air in that city.
History and Popularity of internet radios:
A Rolling Stones concert held in 1994 was the first major cyberspace multicast concert. In the same month, WXYC also became the first conventional radio station to broadcast on the Internet. They used an FM radio which was connected to a system located at SunSite and was running CU-SeeMe software from Cornell. The radio station however began testing the broadcasts in August 1994 and also began streaming on the same day by using their custom software known as CyberRadio1.
The first free download Real Audio was released in 1995 by Progressive Networks. It took advantage of the latest developments in digital compression and delivered sound that was AM radio quality and in real time. After some time major companies such as Microsoft released audio players as free downloads. Due to the availability of these software audio players, a lot of web based radio stations kept springing up.
A lot of media and investor attention was attracted by internet radios in the 1990's. The revenue generated from online streaming music radio touched US $49 million in 2003. This figure rose to $500 million by 2006. The internet radio is built into lots of dedicated internet radio devices that give an FM radio like listening experience.
|
