Review – Replay AV

In the beginning: I wanted a way to listen to music that simply is not available in my area.  Early on, it was the process of finding websites of stations, and or broadcasts that streamed live out over the Internet.  Streaming is the process of delivering multimedia such as live radio programs, playing music, or video over the Internet.  Some websites make it as simple as providing a button such as “Listen Now” allowing you to listen from their website, while others require a “player” such as Real Player or Media Player to play back the streamed media.  There were particular stations from Los Angeles I liked and listened to when living in that area.  After we moved out of the L.A. hustle and bustle to an area new to us and a much smaller population, I found I was missing some if not all of the stations and music I had come to really take for granted.  Knowing that some of those stations also were streaming live over the Internet and the fact I was working from a home office was the perfect situation.  I could easily listen to those stations right over my fast Internet connection and enjoy the programs I had come to love just like I was still there!  How perfect was that?  It didn’t take long to expand and look for others that offered streaming programs.  I was searching out and finding all sorts of stations and programs like technology news and info, gardening advise and information (yes, I now had a place to garden and needed to learn all I could!), classic rock, smooth jazz (ahhhh talk about boosting my focus and productivity), and much more.  In some ways I was like a kid in a candy shop trying anything I could get my hands on.  Basically anything I could think of I searched for.  We have good friends in the Bluegrass scene, the Cherryholmes, so naturally I needed to up my Bluegrass knowledge and found programs like “Into the Blue” on World famous 650AM in Nashville.  If you have never listed to 650 AM, do yourself a favor and check them out!  They are of course home to the “Grand Ole Opry” and much much more.  Two of my favorites on 650 AM now are Bluegrass Underground which literally takes place live 333 feet underground in the Cumberland Caverns, and more recently is Music City Roots; another outstanding live show taking place in the Loveless barn not far from Nashville.So, let’s take a step back for a moment and explore how I stumbled upon Replay AV.  In the beginning I was perfectly content listening to programs as they happened live over the Internet, then came my iPod and that world changed for the better.  Amazed at the ease of use and how much music I could load up on the thing, it didn’t take long before the idea of listening to what I wanted when I wanted really sank in.  You hear the word convergence thrown around much these days, well that’s exactly what I wanted to do with the great Internet radio programs I found and the iPod.  The challenge, and I never back down from a challenge especially a tech one, was to somehow capture these live streams, record them and play them back on my iPod.  Thus began the search for a solution.  First – a way to record those live streams.  The live streams really were not that difficult to record and save to a format the iPod and iTunes accepted.  But that was not the best part.  Secondly – I needed to schedule the recordings.  I tried various solutions and software and then found the pièce de résistance, I found Replay AV! Right out of the box, I found it easy and intuitive to enter and set up scheduled recordings of my favorite program.  The hardest thing was figuring out what the URL or web address was for the streaming audio.  I chose to save to mp3 format and automatically import into iTunes.  I just sync up my iPod and voila the world of recorded shows right at my finger tips ready to play anytime I wanted.  This perfectly solved my problem or challenge how to automatically record live Internet radio, save to a proper format, and import into my iPod.  But the solution didn’t stop there.  Also included in Replay AV is a media guide.  I now had even more great programs to try!  I dabbled in international programs, more news, talk shows, information, and even audio books.  Replay AV and my iPod has literally changed my life or at least how I listen and what I listen to.  In my humble opinion, there is simply no better solution than Replay AV!

I won’t go into step by step instructions as the software maker provides great help, tutorials and videos, but here’s a couple potential gotchas:

• Replay AV runs as a start-up application when you log in.  What this means is you must be logged into your computer for Replay AV to run your scheduled recordings.  If you are not logged in, you will miss your scheduled recordings.  Such as if your PC is automatically restarted from an automatic Windows Update.  If your computer does not automatically log you in, Replay AV will not run until you log in.  I have missed my share of scheduled recordings for this very reason.  The solution for me would be to run Replay AV as a service.  This is not a necessity for me and as such, I may explore this more later…
• If the stream or source URL changes – I have experienced failed recordings on more than a few occasions where the Radio station or provider changed it’s streaming URL.  That’s the web address direct to the live stream.  Solution: Check the station’s website for more information.  Also another great feature of Replay AV is to use either Stream Capture or URL Finder.  See the help file for details.  Trouble shooting tip is to select the scheduled program and “Tune to Station”.  This way you can test or verify you have the correct streaming URL.  If it plays, you have the correct URL.  If it does not play, you most likely have an incorrect URL.

Here’s all the kinds of things Replay A/V can capture:

• Radio Shows
• Radio Stations
• Internet TV Stations
• Internet Video clips
• Podcasts
• Video Blogs or Vlogs.
• XM Radio
• Sirius Radio
• Video from a TV Tuner Card
• Video from a Webcam attached to your PC
• Audio from an AM/FM radio or any external device attached to the mic or line-in input on your PC