XM PCR Computer Receiver?

[cpalmer2k]

I recently stumbled upon an old article about the XM PCR- an XM Radio receiver for the PC that allowed you to record satellite radio directly. It was quickly discontinued for obvious (copyright) reasons when the license holders flipped out.

My question is... does anyone still use these, and do they still work with today's services? Looking at the software requirements (Windows 98- wow) are there any more modern software applications that you can use with them?

 

[harshness]

It strikes me as very unlikely that SiriusXM would activate such a receiver if you managed to acquire one.

 

[cpalmer2k]

At first I thought so too but the seller supplied me with the radio ID and I can go all the way through the process to add it to my account. I didn’t hit the last confirm button but all indications are it will work and is allowed.

 

[harshness]

As of today, it looks like it will cost something just under $27 to find out whether they'll activate it or not. The ad copy on one eBay listing said that the receiver was "Not tested" so there's that knock against it. The free return policy is a good thing but it usually costs you some shipping charges if it doesn't work out.

Have you thought about ripping from the Internet streaming service instead?

I'm not convinced that there's a great deal to be gained using a digital transfer versus an analog connection given the low bitrate of many of the satellite feeds.

If you have a Windows 7 machine, you could try the software in XP mode.

 

[cpalmer2k]

.

Have you thought about ripping from the Internet streaming service instead?

I have, but unfortunately I haven't found any software that can capture the SiriusXM online feeds. The only way appears to play it in the background and capture the audio and their system requires you to click a box every 90 minutes to keep listening. That makes it almost impossible to do unattended recordings. As a matter of fact it appears doing these recordings on anything is getting more and more difficult. I've been using stream writer for years but it apparently can't handle the secure-only streaming URLs that iHeart and some others use now.

 

[manowell]

I recently stumbled upon an old article about the XM PCR- an XM Radio receiver for the PC that allowed you to record satellite radio directly. It was quickly discontinued for obvious (copyright) reasons when the license holders flipped out.

My question is... does anyone still use these, and do they still work with today's services? Looking at the software requirements (Windows 98- wow) are there any more modern software applications that you can use with them?

I had one of these, used the software to record music channels in 2004-2006. Yeah, it got chopped down very quickly. There was a third party company, Time Trax Technologies Corporation, that was around through at least 2006 that made software to record it, also. Software was called "ReCast". It was never as good as buffering to "rewind just far enough" when the song matadata changed to chop the files really well.

There are better sources for better quality sound files today, but I thought it was totally amazing at the time.

 

[harshness]

I have, but unfortunately I haven't found any software that can capture the SiriusXM online feeds.

Such is the nature of a medium that has been forced to pay royalties that terrestrial radio doesn't have to pay.