Light Radio, free easy-to-use Internet-radio-playing software

Light Radio 2.1
http://hase85.wordpress.com/
(600Kb)
is a radio-station player that can also record radio streams direct to the hard drive in mp3, no instructions required, is lightweight, plays many formats including AAC+ (an advanced format which uses compression rates roughly twice as good as mp3).

It comes as a compressed .rar file. You can use the easy-to-use http://www.softpedia.com/get/Compression-tools/Free-Unrar.shtml
software (600Kb, for Windows XP to 7) to decompress it.

For lists of many free radio stations use
http://www.shoutcast.com/

http://www.listenlive.eu/index.html


I also like http://www.bbsradio.com
with great music & thought-provoking and revealing talk shows, like Zero Point on BBS 1.

If you're on a limited/slow Internet connection the above Web sites provide many good quality, stereo, 32K AAC+ streams. Amazingly, on http://www.shoutcast.com
you will see that some people still listen to 32K mono mp3 streams, presumably because they don't know about software that plays AAC+.

Although many radio stations use AAC+ there are still many which don't. Or, they use AAC+ version 1 (SBR) rather than 2 (SBR+PS) which offers an even better compression rate like 2.5. Any software using AAC+ can play both versions.

You can use two versions of Light Radio, at the same time, to record two radio streams by making another copy of the Light Radio folder.

Make regular backups of the stations.ini file too: the station-editor software isn't always reliable. You can edit that file to change the default recording rate (128 Kbps) to another like 32, 64, 96 Kbps:
lame_options=-b 96

Radio stations are listed in categories but you can avoid using these to list stations individually, which gives you quicker access. The list of stations will scroll if there's too many to fit on the screen. (To add a new category use the word "null" for the URL.) The artist-song name is displayed in certain stations.

The only slight problem with Light Radio is that you have to edit & save the stations.ini file every time you want to try a new station by pasting in a URL. So, you could use another piece of software. For example, VLC player 0.8.6i+ and Winamp 5.04+ (available at http://www.oldapps.com
along with many other useful software) can play AAC+ and show more detailed information of the stream like the AAC+ version being used.

You can also find the AAC+ (FAAD2) codec at http://www.rarewares.org/aac-decoders.php
which is suitable for various Windows/Mac media software including Quintessential and XMPlay.

The 32K AAC+ v2 streams sound very good:
http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=9490755
. http://www.chromaradio.net
New Age (relaxing)
http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=81237
......FLUIDMUSIC (jazz-easy listening)
http://www.pulsradio.com/magicradio//aacp.m3u
...................Magic Radio (stunning French & English pop)
http://online-musicradio.tavrmedia.ua/MusicRadio_32.m3u
.....MusicRadio, Ukraine (great French & English pop and easy listening)
http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=2950870
. http://www.StreamingSoundtracks.com
(cinema music)

Even the 24K AAC+ v2 sounds good:
http://190.41.211.32:8006/listen.pls
........................................Exito Peru, traditional lively South American music
http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=272191
....Blasenita (beautiful romantic Spanish-sung music)
http://lyd.nrk.no/nrk_radio_folkemusikk_aac_l.m3u
................NRK traditional folk, Norway (for those who like classical)
http://www.radioparadise.com/musiclinks/rp_24aac.m3u
....... http://www.radioparadise.com/c-content.php?name=Listen
(various pop)
http://lyd.nrk.no/nrk_radio_jazz_aac_l.m3u
...........................NRK jazz, Norway
http://aacplus-a9-48.as34763.net/listen.pls
..........................90s pop, U.K.
http://aacplus-a0-48.as34763.net/listen.pls
..........................00s pop, U.K.
http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=9468628
. http://www.Radio-Heimatmelodie.de
(Lively German music)

Finally, even the rarely-used 24K AAC+ v1 sounds perfectly reasonable. Still in stereo, it even retains the 44Khz sampling rate:
http://http.yourmuze.com/bbs-radio-station-2/aacplus-24-s.aac
.....BBS 2
http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=1627481
.........Venezuela (traditional lively South American music)

Most of these stations broadcast 24/7, otherwise most of the time.

My stations.ini file (a text file) gives you another way to access the stations above: //www.curezone.org/upload/Doc/stations.txt
(8Kb)

The Light Radio download contains the source code.

You can comment on Light Radio at
http://hase85.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/light-radio-v2-0-released/#comment-41



~~~~~~~~
[Android users: To play AAC+ try the Android "Market" or see Winamp at http://www.shoutcast.com

Or, try VLC for Android 2.1+ http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-android.html
]

[Linux: both the above software will work with WINE. However, you may need an alternative version of Light Radio http://buix.fergonez.net/tools/LRTest.rar
(80Kb)
Recordings are saved in your home or Light Radio folder.]

[Mac: for AAC+ software try http://www.sourcemac.com/?page=fstream
or the cross-platform VLC http://www.videolan.org
]

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