I am using the FM Radio feature in MCC.  My tuner card has an FM input.  I receive a very good FM signal from a local radio station via an antenna - radio waves not internet FM.  I would like to record radio broadcasts on a scheduled basis similar to the way I record TV programs. Is there a way to do this?  Software?

Thanks,

 Jim Finney

You're going to have to go outside Media Centre to record FM. For just listening I had links setup in MCE2005 that went to the radio station's relevant streaming page online but haven't redone those in Win7. For recording I use the digital radio that Freeview provides, or more usually I just download an mp3 from BBC iPlayer.

Use a Freeview (DVB-T) tuner to record the radio programmes that offers - works well for me for things like "Fighting Talk" on Five Live.

The problem I have with recording radio off Freeview is that I cannot get it converted to mp3 to listen to on my mobile. I can do it if I record radio off Virgin, but that ties up my tuner. That's why I end up just grabbing an mp3 off iPlayer.

Hi Jim,

The answer given by Mark1234 is correct, you will need to go outside of the Media Center 10' interface as Media Center has never natively supported the recording of radio broadcasts or web streams, whether scheduled or real time, something which has always seemed like a really big oversight to me

You may want to take a look at RadioTime & the red button. http://radiotime.com/  I'm pretty sure they have updated it to include Win 7 support, but check the website for a definitive answer on that.

Just a little background on RadioTime: the base software app is free and is essentially a comprehensive collection of web links for online radio broadcasts. It will also interface with many terrestrial radio tuners to combine both webcasts and local broadcasts into one clean interface. Now, in order to accomplish what you are interested in doing, which is to schedule recordings, you need to pay a one time subscription fee of  $29.00 USD to activate "RED BUTTON" functionality which as the name implies, enables recording via the RadioTime interface. You can even try out "The Red Button" for 14 days before you commit so, you might as well check it out to see if it serves your purpose.

The other thing you can do is certainly not as slick or polished as the red button but, works is leaving your radio tuner up and tuned to your desired broadcast, and then set an audio recording app such as total recorder http://www.highcriteria.com/  to roll at whatever time you specify. Total recorder is NOT free but, does offer some nice features and is IMHO, well Worth the money.

I hope these ideas have helped you out...

Best,

 -Steve

I have tried radiotime in the past.

It works fine but the record features via red button are NOT available on the 10' interface. You will have to pick up a keyboard and mouse for it.

I talked to the developers.....they think there is no market for this kind of product.

Personally I beg to differ.....I have been searching high and low for a DVR like functionality for FM radio on the media center's 10' interface. I dont want to pick up a keyboard !

sjulty

...Media Center has never natively supported the recording of radio broadcasts or web streams, whether scheduled or real time, something which has always seemed like a really big oversight to me.

I suspect its no oversight at all. Everyone lives in fear of the Music cartels, up to and including Microsoft. Not long ago I saw something about (I think) a Pioneer portable XM or Sirius tuner that could be set to do something like what we're talking about. The Music Cartels sued and won. The only reason we can "get away" with doing it with TV programs goes back to the Betamax case from the 80s that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Make no mistake, the Movie and TV cartels don't like us being able to record even OTA programs one bit - they just know that they can't do anything about it because its pretty clear that even the most modern of DVRs are still functionally similar enough to VCRs that they'd never win.

But you also have to realize that what the Movie and TV cartels couldn't accomplish through legal channels they are working feverishly to accomplish through technical channels. Things like the Broadcast Flag and making everything on cable digital encrypted QAM except the locals (which by law they can't) are the shape of things to come. It won't be long before all our Clear QAM tuners will be useless for anything but the locals and we'll all need Cable Card tuners to receive ANYTHING else. And this includes even the analog channels on expanded basic. It won't be long before there are no more analog channels on cable, just as OTA has transitioned to all digital. And when that happens The Movie, TV, and Cable cartels will be able to dictate every last facet of what we can do with our Media Centers.

[Edit] I wasn't aware that the word that refers to a certain German political party from World War II is censored here on TGB, so I replaced that word with cartel. Evidently some particular cartel(s) didn't like being referred to by the name of that political party that behaved so similarly. My bad. As you read this, just mentally replace cartel with the name of that German political party and the intended flavor of my original post will be evident again.

Coincidence??? For last Friday night I had the media center set to record Bones and the series finale of Dollhouse. That night Fox changed their programming to carry the Haiti telethon, so I got that instead. I figured I might watch it at some point, so I left it on the machine. This morning my wife tells me that every time she calls up recorded TV and begins to scroll through the programs Media Center crashes. I had never seen that behavior before, so I figured there was a glitch somewhere and rebooted. Didn't help. I then determined that MC was crashing as soon as it scrolled to those programs I'd recorded Friday night. Once I went into File Explorer and manually deleted those programs everything worked normally again and she's now happily watching Project Runway. The Haiti telethon contained a great deal of music by some very big names. Am I just being paranoid or did the music cartel insist that some flag be placed in the broadcast which would trigger a self-destruct? Oh, well - now I'll never get a chance to see all those performances and be convinced to donate to earthquake relief for all those suffering Haitians (sarcasm). Way to go, music cartel. Oh, wait, maybe its just a coincidence. After all, the fact that nothing like this has ever happened to me before and it happened this time during a program with extensive music content doesn't necessarily mean that the music cartel had something to do with it. And the fact that a root kit showed up on some people's computers after playing music CDs from Sony doesn't mean that Sony had anything to do with that, either. Now, where's my Kool-Aid refill?

Hey, relax.... Everyone agrees that the music industry would like to remain in the 1980's, but that's not the cause of your crashes. I've had this a couple of times before. Curiously, both times were on different episodes of the same programme, Lie to Me.

mark1234

...both times were on different episodes of the same programme, Lie to Me.

OK, I'll ramp back the conspiracy theories, but if you're missing the irony in not blaming the RIAA for problems with a show called "Lie to Me" then you're seriously lacking a sense of humor.

 BTW, I watch Lie to Me and enjoy it.