Manual
- Introduction
- Organization of radio stations
- User interface
- Listening
- Recording
- Managing radio stations
- Settings
1. Introduction
Resco Pocket Radio is an application allowing you to listen to internet radio stations. Currently supported formats are MP3 and OGG Vorbis. You can easily add your favourite radio station, tune in to it, listen to it and even record the broadcasting. The program supports skins, so you can download a skin from the Resco website and change the appearance of the program to your liking.
2. Organization of radio stations
Resco Pocket Radio organizes radio stations into a system that should be described in more detail. The top level is represented by categories. Each category contains a list of radio stations and each radio station has a list of streams.
A Category could be a particular genre or any other category you want. This helps you organize the huge number of available radio stations.
It is perfectly clear what a Radio station is. Many radio stations provide several streams at different bitrates (quality) or in different formats (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, ...). Resco Pocket Radio groups the streams of one radio station into one radio station. The idea was to decrease the number of radio stations in the list. A lot of other programs don't differentiate between a radio station and a stream. So if you would like to have two streams of one radio station in the list (one with better quality and one with low bitrate for slower internet connection), you would have to add two radio stations in the program. A radio station can have several streams, but only one of them can be active. The active stream is the preferred one when trying to tune in to the radio station.
A Stream represents the actual connection to a radio station server. It is specified by its URL.
3. User interface
Main screen
The main screen consists of two parts: the Presets panel and the Main panel.
The Presets panel has 9 buttons with predefined radio stations, which you can quickly tune to. To tune to a preset radio station just tap a button. To assign a different radio station to a button, perform the tap&hold action on the button. This will display the Radio Stations dialog. Choose the radio station you want to assign and close the dialog using the OK button.
The Main panel has the following controls:
- Play button
- Information texts
- Static info
- Live info
- Status line
- Volume up/down buttons
The Play button is used to open a radio station, and to stop or mute the playback. If no radio station is tuned in, you can open one just by tapping this button. The Radio Stations dialog will be displayed and you can select a radio station. During playback, you can mute the playback by tapping this button. To unmute, tap it again. To stop playback completely, tap&hold the Play button.
The Static info shows information about the tuned radio station, which does not change during broadcasting.
The Live info shows information about the current song or program. Each radio station provides different types of information.
The Status line notifies about general actions of the application, such as connection progress, sound volume changes, start/end of recording, ...
Radio Stations
Description:
- Category
- Radio station
- Bitrate and format of the active stream
- Stream
- Active stream
- Comment for selected stream
Popup menu items:
- Change stream... – shows the list of streams for the selected radio station
- Select stream – sets selected stream as active
- Delete – deletes a category, a radio station or a stream
- Properties... – shows a dialog where you can see and edit the radio station or stream properties
Menu items:
- Import – load new radio stations from a M3U or PLS file
- New category... – create new category manually
- New radio station... – create new radio station manually
- New stream.... – create new stream manually
The Radio Stations dialog contains a list of radio stations. This dialog is used frequently. It is used to select a radio station to listen to, to select a radio station to assign to a preset button, or to edit radio stations.
Scheduler
Description:
- Date – date when recording will be performed
- Time – starting and ending time of recording
- # – number of preset. Broadcasting of the station assigned to this preset will be recorded.
- New – add new scheduled recording
4. Listening
After launching the program, you have several ways of tuning in to a radio station. The fastest and easiest way is to tap a preset button. If the station you would like to listen to isn't assigned to any of the preset buttons, choose "Open" from the menu, or press the Play button.
This will display the Radio Stations dialog. Find the desired radio station, select it and close the dialog using the OK button.
The program will try to connect to the radio station and if successful, playback will commence. You can adjust the volume using the volume up and down buttons, or you can mute the sound by tapping the Play button. To stop playback completely, tap&hold the Play button.
5. Recording
You can only record MP3 streams. First, choose the destination memory in the Settings dialog. All recordings will then be saved to this location. Then tune in to a radio station. After the playback starts, choose Record->Start from the main menu. To stop recording choose Record > Stop.
6. Managing radio stations
All management tasks are performed in the Radio Stations dialog. From the main menu choose "Open" to open the dialog.
Add a new radio station
There are two ways of adding a radio station: importing it from a file or adding it manually. Many radio stations provide on their web sites links to M3U or PLS files. You can use a web browser to download these files. These files contain links to streams. Copy them to your Pocket PC. From the menu (in the Radio Stations dialog) choose New > Import. Find the M3U or PLS file and open it. The new radio station and its streams will be added to the list, under "My Radio Stations".
If you don't have a M3U or PLS file, you have to specify all required information manually. This can be done right from the menu by tapping the New category, New radio station, or New stream option.
Edit or delete existing radio stations
To change the radio station or stream properties (such as title, comment, URL, ...) select it and invoke the popup menu by performing the tap&hold action. Any action that can be performed, is listed in the menu.
7. Settings
General
Screenshots
Use prebuffering – If checked, the program will fill the entire buffer before starting the playback. This should prevent accidental sound drop-outs.
Location for recordings – The memory in which all recordings will be stored. Files will be stored in the root or in the "My Documents" folder, depending on the storage media.
Skins
List of available skins for the current screen resolution. You can change the skin here by selecting it from the list.
Resco Pocket Radio