Officially recommended way to listen the radio?

Station
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Hi there.
I’ve been listening GR since a little bit more than a year already and I came across this question a few days ago. Up until now, I’ve been listening through the .pls file in the AIMP player on my PC and everytime I found a song that makes me go like “oh, I need to rate this” I just open the web page in my browser and rate it there.

My question, while it is stated in the title of this topic, would be more like a sum of the following doubts:

  • Is it recommended to use a software player like AIMP, Winamp and others, at all?
    While it works (and leaving aside the unability to rate songs this way), I’m not sure if the station gets aware that someone is listening to the radio in that moment through (a third party?) software.
  • Is there an official way to play the radio besides the web browser that let us rate songs while listening?
    Not to complain, really. It’s just that I’ve found some difference in the audio quality when using one way or the other (Maybe because of the equalizer? Dunno.) and the RAM usage of the browser is nowhere near that of the audio player, at least on PC -shrugs- (my little toaster is giving its best, don’t be harsh).
    So, is it available anything like that (rating songs outside the web)? Any software in particular? Maybe a mobile app?

I’m pretty sure that I’ve read somewhere a list of the official channels but I can’t recall where it was. Either I’m still too dumb to navigate the website or it isn’t there.

Also, while thinking about it these past days, I even search for a GR app for Android in the Play Store! Which, obviously, don’t exist. So…

  • Have you guys considered releasing an official app or something like that anytime?
    Of course with the same features of the website (login account, songs rating). Would it be viable? I know basically nothing about the topic, but giving its nature of being a radio, I guess it would be very practical in comparison to the web counterpart.

All of this started because my computer is getting old and I use almost every bit of RAM available for graphic edition software but I still want to listen the radio (AIMP) and rate songs (web browser) hahah.
I’m aware that not everyone out there goes through my same situation and it isn’t my intention to sound pretentious (something like “arr, arr! give me choices because the current ones don’t fit my needs!”). Even if there isn’t anything like I’m looking for, I still wanted to share my thoughts. Hopefully, they’re interesting enough at the very least.

Keep up the beautiful work you’re doing!

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Hey RKD,

There are some good questions here, and they’ve mostly been asked before, but that’s okay! Hopefully others can learn a bit from the answers below.

Is it recommended to use software like AIMP, Winamp, or others to listen to GR?

Listeners are welcome to use whatever software or app suits them best to listen to the station. You can use Winamp, AIMP, Foobar, Media Player Classic, etc. to listen and it all works just the same.

If I listen through a software player, does the station know that I’m listening?

Yes. As long as it’s not through a relay server, all listeners that make a connection to the station have their IP address noted by the station. Additionally, when a listener rates a song on the website, the IP address is used to match against the list the station has. For this reason, it doesn’t matter what player a listener uses when rating songs as long as the player and web browser are both used on the same internet connection (so that the IP matches between them).

Is there an official way to play the radio besides the web browser that lets listeners rate songs while listening?

The website is the only “official” mode of listening to the station that GR currently offers. While there are multiple other ways to listen, the only way to rate songs is on the website’s player page. Currently, we do not have a public API or other method for rating songs outside of the website.

I’ve found some difference in the audio quality when using different ways of listening.

Any difference in quality between different software is purely in the software itself. Since the beginning, there has only been one stream source for Gensokyo Radio which is a 128kbps mp3 audio stream.

Have you guys considered releasing an official app or something like that anytime?

Yes, buuuuut…

Mobile apps are hard. In 2015, there was an app publisher that created an app for Android, but it was a very basic, one-page player with placeholder text and an unrelated theme (it was taken down soon after). A couple others have offered to help or have told us about turn-key solutions which would be based on the website, but we have turned these down. If we make an app, we want it to be designed and built as a standalone app with native functionality.

With that said, if anyone has a Mac Mini laying around they’re not using, PM me or one of the staff about it. Much time has been spent looking into Android development, but we can’t even get started on iOS without Apple hardware.

Hopefully that helps shed some light on the station and you’ve learned a bit about how things work behind the scenes.

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Thank you for your answer. That turned out pretty interesting, honestly.

Too bad there’s no other way to rate songs in the station but that’s ok, I was expecting that outcome so no problem.

Since you guys still have the project of an app, that’ll eventually come. I’ll be looking forward to it (or anything you make to keep improving the radio).

In any case, thanks again and have an awoo.

awoo_by_miwol

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