Overview
There is a great deal of discussion here about streaming live music to PCs and Pocket PCs. One popular way to stream to the Pocket PC is to use GSPlayer and streams from ShoutCast. You can find a handy setup guide for this here:
http://palmtops.about.com/od/pocketp...reamingPPC.htm
ShoutCast can be found here:
http://www.shoutcast.com/
This is fun and handy for your PPC if you have wi-fi and a big battery and/or gobs of mobile phone data access.
But, wouldn’t it be nice if you could record the music stream to transfer to your Pocket PC and take with you? Well, you can, and it’s free!
Recording
The recording is done on your PC, then the music files are transferred to your PocktPC (or, I imagine, any other MP3 player as well).
For this purpose, you need to have a media player that will stream from ShoutCast. I recommend WinAmp for this, because as you’ll read below, there is a plug-in for WinAmp that will allow stream recording. Find WinAmp here:
http://www.winamp.com/player/free.php
I downloaded the “Full” version of WinAmp.
To listen to music, all you have to do is go to Shoutcast, find a radio stream you'd like to listen to, click on “tune in,” and it
automatically opens WinAmp and starts playing.
Now, WinAmp won’t let you record, but there is a plug-in called Streamripper that will allow this. Find Streamripper here:
http://streamripper.sourceforge.net/
Download and install Streamripper. It opens as a separate window automatically and as a plug-in to WinAmp.
All you have to do to record the Shoutcast stream is to hit the record button in Streamripper. After you've installed it, Streamripper automatically opens when you open WinAmp. If it doesn't show up right away, restart your PC, and re-open WinAmp. It'll be there and obvious as can be.
You can let it sit and record, and it separates each music file for you. That's right, it creates an individual file for each song streamed on Shoutcast. You can find a music channel you like, record it for hours, then delete all the songs you don't want. Or, copy it all to your Pocket PC and listen to hours of music as if it was being broadcast.
It records in MP3, which means it is very flexible. And, there is no DRM, so you can copy it directly to your Pocket PC without having to run it through the desktop Windows Media Player. Many of the stations stream at a 128 kbit rate, so the quality is very good.
It will play on your Pocket PC in Windows Media Player, GSPlayer, or any one of several other MP3 players.
The only drawback, for Shoutcast at least, is that there is some talking from the DJ that is recorded. Shoutcast is commercial-free, but there is just a bit of occasional talking that you will pick up. A small sacrifice for the price in my opinion.