|
X-OOM MP3 Radio Recorder for iPod Review |
|
Written by Don Lee
|
|
Tuesday, 26 December 2006 |
 Now that you received that shiny, new iPod for Christmas, you need to
learn how to get the most out of your new device. I mean, there’s only
so much music that you’re going to listen to before you are going to do
more with your iPod. X-OOM has developed the MP3 Radio Recorder for the
iPod where you can listen to a number of radio stations via the
software’s web interface.
I was curious about the level of quality and the content that would be available. Here is what I discovered about the X-OOM MP3 Radio Recorder for iPod.
Let’s Get Tuned In
The installation process is a little odd as it will ask to install an MP3 encoder. You will be prompted to select from either Ogg Vorbis or LAME MP3 encoder. This is a necessary step to ensure the usage of the program. I selected the LAME MP3 encoder, which opened up a webpage in my browser. It was to a direct link to the LAME MP3 encoder. Don’t be alarmed by this and it is not some kind of spam. Just click on the link provided in the webpage and continue with the download of the LAME MP3 encoder. Once it is installed, you can then complete the rest of the X-OOM MP3 Radio Recorder installation process.
When you launch the program, you are immediately prompted to update the list of stations available. It defaults to 1000 stations but you can increase this amount. Even though I set my station list at 6000, the actual number returned was considerably less. I also noticed that there’s no count kept of available stations. It would have been nice to see a running count of available stations. There are a lot of stations and genres but the program does sport a search function where you can find more suitable stations to fit your taste. There’s music from different music eras (70s, 80s, 90s through today’s music), different cultures (Chinese, Polish, Russian) and even niche music tastes. I never knew there were so many various genres of music but that’s what makes this program universally attractive.
After finding the stations that suit your tastes, you can add them to your favorites list for quick and easy access.
You can double click the station you want to hear from the X-OOM interface. After a short delay for the program to buffer the audio stream, you should now hear the station. The program provides a playback control panel in the lower left portion of the X-OOM software window. The control panel consists of a volume control, start playback button, end playback button, record playback button and a stop button.
Once you begin an audio stream, click on the record button to save the stream to your hard drive. By clicking the Music Library button at the top of the program’s interface, you can view your saved audio streams.
Although the product is named the MP3 Radio Recorder, it can also rip audio tracks from CDs. Once a disc is loaded into your computer’s CD tray, you need to go up to Tools>Rip CD to access this feature. You will then be shown a window where you can choose which tracks you want to extract and the format quality. Remember that the better the quality leads to larger file sizes. There is also a ID3 tag editor so you can change the information to your audio files. It would’ve been nice to have had the tag editor and the CD extraction window combined instead of separated. It would have saved a little time and clicking trying to rename file information.
 The Final Word
While I enjoyed the program’s capabilities and the number of radio stations that are available through the program, I found the program to be pretty useful if you want to extend the usefulness of your iPod. The quality of the streaming audio is not going to be CD quality so making a recording from the streams will be a little disappointing. The program does have CD ripping and burning capabilities which is a nice feature. The program's ability to record and transfer directly to your iPod also works very smoothly. The application’s low price also makes this product very attractive as well. Unfortunately, there is no downloadable demo available at the company website.
The program has a lot of cool features and it worked exactly as advertised but this I was hoping that the streaming audio would be a little better for recording purposes. There are some good stations available through the program but I found only a handful that were presented in a bitrate higher than 128 which was disappointing. If you are looking to add some streaming audio capabilities to your iPod, then this would be very useful. 3 out of 5 stars.
You can click HERE to purchase X-OOM MP3 Radio Recorder.
About X-OOM
X-OOM is a series of software products that empowers the users to enjoy their digital lifestyle without limits. Aimed at both novice and advanced users, X-OOM offers a variety of tools that enable to edit and manage digital contents for further usage. A continous cutting edge development effort ensures state-of-the-art products and an excellent value for money. You can find them online at http://www.x-oom.com
|
