I Purchased My First ROKU Radio A Week Ago In The Form Of A Home Music After Struggling With Reciva Radios. I Liked It So Much That I Now Have The Larger Soundbridge Radio Also.
There Is Only Two Things On My Wish List, Namely, Compatibility With The REAL Format, And An On Demand Feature Within The Menu System To Make It Compatible With The BBC Service etc.
Are These Features Likely To Be Incorporated Within The Soundbridge Platform In The Future?. This Feature Would Really Wipe The Floor With The Competition, I Know Plenty Of People Who Would Plumb For The Soundbridge If It Had These Features.

I too have the IR100 and I like Soundbridge to support the real media format too.

I know that Real Media would probably charge Rokulabs to incorporate their media format, but I for one would be ready to pay a premium to be able to receive BBC3 on my Roku.

For far too long Roku have failed to state if they are to support RealAudio at some time in the future.
My own method to draw their attention to the need was to buy a Roberts WM-201 Internet Radio rather than a R1000. (And featurewise it's a far better product).

jdc1947 wrote:

For far too long Roku have failed to state if they are to support RealAudio at some time in the future.
My own method to draw their attention to the need was to buy a Roberts WM-201 Internet Radio rather than a R1000. (And featurewise it's a far better product).

Real Audio has been one of the most requested features for a very long time - see other threads on this topic.

For those that can't wait (or how have given up), there is the Roberts that you and I have, but that is only in the UK. It has a close cousin, the Sangean WFR-20 which is available elsewhere.

But for hi-fi connection where I use my M2000 and M1000 I really would like Roku to respond to the Real Audio and FLAC requests.

S80_UK wrote:

Real Audio has been one of the most requested features for a very long time - see other threads on this topic.

For those that can't wait (or how have given up), there is the Roberts that you and I have, but that is only in the UK. It has a close cousin, the Sangean WFR-20 which is available elsewhere.

But for hi-fi connection where I use my M2000 and M1000 I really would like Roku to respond to the Real Audio and FLAC requests.

Hello S80_UK,

if you really have blocked internet access for your Soundbridge and don't use it for listening to internet radio, as you wrote in another thread:

S80_UK wrote:

The only method that I am aware of is to block the Roku from accessing the Internet in your router. Of course that's only OK if you don't want use the Roku for radio listening. You would probably also need to set up a time server on your network so that the Roku can get the time of day. I have done this, as have others, and I never see update messages.

then why do you ask for Real Audio support? It's of no use when you only want to stream your own music.

BTW: Most of the Reciva based radios are practically unusable for UPnP streaming (but that's another story). And Reciva are telling the same lies as Roku when it comes to data uploading and privacy protection.

Regards
Klaas

KlaasV
Yes, we all know that Roku have lied about data uploading and have very questionable privacy policies, and any Soundbridge owner who does not select the option to stop the uploading of data must be very stupid - But you now appear to suggest that Reciva play similar games.

As the owner of both Soundbridge and Reciva Internet Radio devices I am most interested to have some outline knowledge on what these people are doing. Surely this is illegal in Europe, and probably also in the USA ?
Soundbridge owners deserve to be made more aware of these disgraceful activities.

KlaasV wrote:

then why do you ask for Real Audio support? It's of no use when you only want to stream your own music.

Because just occasionally I may want to use the Roku rather than my Roberts (they are in different locations) and for my own occasional use it would be no hassle to un-block the router temporarily. The blocking is more to prevent other family members accidentally upgrading.

Hello jdc1947,

although Reciva state here that they collect listening statistics data in anonymous form only, the radios massively upload data to their servers including the serial number of the specific device, its firmware version and additional data of an unknown purpose. This issue had already been raised quite a while ago here, and the explanation of Reciva in their forums apparently was a reaction to that discussion.

This issue IMO is even more alarming than the Roku scenario I described here, as Reciva do neither manufacture nor sell the radios. I doubt that all companies producing and/or selling Reciva based radios inform their customers about the upload function of the devices, so this data gets transferred to a third party without the consent of the customer and/or listener.

Best regards
Klaas

KlaasV
Thank you for your speedy reply to my earlier question. From your response I am going to assume that like S80_UK and myself you not only have a SoundBridge but also a Reciva based radio, hence your esteemed understanding of this illegal activity on their part.

I intend communicating with a contact that I have at 'Roberts' to seek their comments on this matter. Currently I cannot find a way to switch-off the uploading function on my Reciva radio, a facility that at least the Soundbridge offers, which as I mentioned in an earlier reply is something that I feel all Soundbridge owners should do as Roku have enabled it by default in the 'active' mode (very naughty!!!).