3 questions about FFR - Freeze-Frame Radio

murscclub · Chairman Of The Board

3 questions about FFR

JD The Jazz Doctor · Grand Poobah

Hey Mark,

Once an hour the auto-cue will automatically pull one of the popular songs of the day to give the station a contemporary feel. This may be the songs you hear repeatedly, although some folks do have their daily, or at least every few day favorites they may request as well.

Loud City sometimes clicks off once or twice a day for me, not sure if its just a rebooting or outtage of their server.

We used to have a 32k dial up stream for a few months a few years ago, but couldn't justify its expense at the time- it was hardly ever used. I doubt the current stream would sound good on dial up.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

1) What you're probably hearing are the new releases. There's a few that I'm getting tired of too, but JR has mentioned he's going to switch them out soon. He's got it set to play a certain number of new releases automatically every day, but I can't remember the exact schedule. One an hour maybe? They're also supposed to go through them all before playing the same song again, but I've wondered before if that's working right.

2) I loose it sometimes, but I think it depends on your connection. Since they fixed my connection here at work, I barely get any drops at all, but before they fixed it I got a lot. You can also play the stream in other players, like iTunes, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, or RealPlayer, but I've found the amount of dropping will likely remain the same.

3) I'll have to defer to JR. I think it's supposed to work with dial up, but I'm not sure.

Jeremy Riggs · 2011 Super Bowl Champions!

Yeah, what they all said is basically correct.

1) The new releases work like this. One song every 30 minutes is played from the NEW RELEASE file. Ordinarily I keep 100 of the newest releases in there, so unless a song is requested, it will only auto-play once every 2 days or so.

But with my move back to WI and lack of easy access to the system the new release folder was allowed to go down to only about 40 - 50 songs, which means it gets played pretty much every day.

The next song to play from the NMF is the one that was least recently played. But that can be affected by a few things. For example. Maybe the new Taylor Swift song SHOULD play right now, but because someone requested a different Taylor Swift song an hour ago the new song can't be played for four more hours, so the NEXT least recently played song is moved up a space.

Also, let's say that Duffy song is due to play automatically at 8 AM, but at 6 AM someone requests it. Well then it goes all the way back to the end of the line for it's next play and won't be brought up as a new music song for another 24 hours or so.

Confused? I could explain it better in person.

Long story short, eventually we'll get more new releases into the folder and there will be more time between plays.

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

I wouldn't expect it to to work at all with dialup.

The station streams at 64k.

Even a good dialup connection will only max at about 52k . . . its just not enough speed to keep up.

Jeremy Riggs · 2011 Super Bowl Champions!

You really might want to upgrade soon anyway.

Pretty soon the city will declare your dial up a landmark (you know, last remaining dial up connection and all) and then you won't be allowed to get rid of it

.

-- Edited by Jeremy Riggs at 11:35, 2008-11-19

confuzzed · Permanent State of Confusion

It's okay Murscclub, I also still have dial-up at home. I am considering an upgrade if I can get a really good deal.

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

All the better deals around here come with contract signups. I'm not signing a contract for my internet service. A lot can change in the next year.

Jeremy Riggs · 2011 Super Bowl Champions!

I was watching a KING OF QUEENS from the late 90's and Carrie went online and they commented on the goofy sound the computer makes when it's connecting via a modem, but they didn't actually mention specifically what it was that the computer was doing to cause the sound.

I thought about how dated that already is and in ten more years there will be young people who will see that show and have no clue why when she went on line the computer went "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwww uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz cadunk cadunk cadunk eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

Yeah, but for those of us who it was such a part of getting online every time . . . 40 years from now, we'll hear a recording of that and still know exactly what it is and remember the way "it used to was".

Jeremy Riggs · 2011 Super Bowl Champions!

Yup!

Just be another one of those things that will prove how old we are. Like the days of corded phones, LPS & 45's, Glass 2 liter soda bottles, and on and on...

murscclub · Chairman Of The Board

Thanks for the info folks! I did have broadband for one year when I worked from home for an internet start-up company and they paid for me to have the line, but then I got laid off and lost the line and had to go back to dial-up, thus ending my days of listening to FFR. I remember that was around the time you experimented with the slower speed line, but I couldn't really stream the station well with that even.

I have Juno for dial-up for %9.95 a month, and none of the big broadband companies service my nieghborhood yet, so I can;t beat the dial-up price and the budget doesn;t have room for the extra expense of a cable modem or phone company DSL right now. I figure once the kids are in grammar school and the wife goes back to work we'll have more of a need and more money available for braodband. Until then, I play Freecell a lot while I do my online banking, waiting for each successive screen to load...

Speaking of LPs, a couple years ago I went back to my alma mater for a reunion of radio station DJs, and I saw some current students practicing on turntables, and I remarked to my wife that I bet they didn;t even know what those wierd vinyl things even were!