Rogue Amoeba is well known for their audio software (Audio Hijack Pro and Fission) and just this week they’ve released another amazing product: Radioshift – Radio On Your Schedule.
The idea behind RadioShift is simple–wouldn’t it be great to be able to timeshift the 50,000+ internet-based radio programs streaming freely across the net? Beyond indulging one’s inner “shortwave geek” there are plenty of other useful applications for this technology.
For example:
- language students can burn a CD with an hour or so of this week’s top French radio show to listen to as they drive to class
- if your favorite BBC show doesn’t offer a podcast you can just create your own.
- Listen to Friday’s SANFL soccer game but you can go to bed before the 3:00am finish.
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to come up with at least one personally compelling reason to give Radioshift a try. Of course, if you’re a Windows user you may already be quite familiar with the benefits of radio timeshifting. Radiotime, a service bureau that maintains a database of all internet-streamable radio content, already provides timeshift software for Windows users (RedButton) but they dropped their Mac client some time ago. Rogue Amoeba was able to license access to the Radiotime database and began building a Mac client…
Enter Radioshift
With Radioshift, it’s easy to find and “subscribe” to radio streams from around the world—and equally simple to record and move the recordings into iTunes (instant podcast). A Radioshift background process enables the recording even when the application isn’t running (I can now easily listen to the BBC’s The Afternoon Reading or Ras 2 from Reykjavik on my iPod).
In cases where there’s not a specific program listed, you can ask Radioshift to record a user-defined time segment that will then catch the show you’re trying to hear. I instructed Radioshift to record a segment from Radio Acores TSF (Barrosa, Azores) starting in 30 minutes and then shut down the application. Later in the day, I again launched Radioshift and there was my mp3 of Portuguese Talk Radio (at least I think it was—I don’t speak Portuguese).
With several other applications that help record internet radio already available and widely used (e.g., Audio Hijack Pro, WireTap Pro, RadioLover), who needs Radioshift? I’ll suggest just about anyone who’s tried to record an internet radio source that originates in another time zone.
It can be done with other software but it usually takes a handful of other software and patience to boot. Radioshift combines the content discovery process with the subsequent content manipulation and that’s the key. The program helps you find content with their licensed use of Radiotime’s database and then handles all the steps of recording the source for you. It can record MP3, Real Audio, QuickTime and Windows Media streams (Real and Windows media require installing additional software if you don’t already have RealPlayer and Flip4Mac installed but Radioshift simplifies even that task).
It’s a really strong 1.0 product but there’s still some work that could be done:
- I am having a really hard time figuring out how you’re supposed to record something that’s streaming real-time (that is, not a “subscription” feed that Radioshift is handling in the background). For now I use WireTapPro if I need an instant recording but a big “RECORD NOW” button somewhere on the interface would be nice.
- There are TV stations intermingled in the radio listings and many stations in the database that don’t have streams.
- Moving recorded content to iTunes is not automatic. You have to manually hit the “Send to iTunes” button. It would be nice to have that as an automatic option for selected subscriptions.
- It would be nice to be able to set the bitrate for individual subscriptions (e.g., talk radio at 32Kbps mono and music at 192Kbps stereo).
- You can add a stream that’s not already in the database as a subscription (just give the URL and set the time), but you can not add a station for “Listen Now” purposes.
If the idea of creating podcasts from any radio source on the net appeals to you, download the Radioshift demo—fully functional although it will begin to introduce hiss into your recordings after 20 minutes. Registration for Radioshift is $32 (US).