Replay Radio 4.x FAQ

This page has the answers to the most frequently asked questions about Replay Radio 4.x and earlier. The newer Replay Radio FAQ is here.

I'm not getting any audio in my recording. What can I check?

First of all, Replay Radio needs to be launched BEFORE you open Real Player, Windows Media Player or another playback program. If you're having trouble, try this:

  1. Close all open browser windows.
  2. Close Real Player, Windows Media Player, WinAmp or whatever program you use to play your audio.
  3. Open Replay Radio.
  4. Open the audio playback program.
  5. Now start recording.

Some playback programs need to be configured to use the Replay Radio sound card drivers for sound output. Click these links for hints on Real Player, QuickTime, iTunes or MusicMatch.

Windows Media Player users: If you're having trouble recording from Windows Media Player, sometimes it is configured to bypass the Replay Radio drivers. You can fix this as follows:

  1. Open Windows Media Player.
  2. Click Tools, Options, Devices.
  3. Choose Speakers.
  4. For the audio device, choose the Replay Radio one.

Another common problem: make sure you can hear the audio as it is being recorded. If the volume setting in your Media Player or Real Player is muted or very low, Replay Radio won't be able to "hear" the audio. If you see "No audio data received..." messages in the Record Log, then this is likely happening.

If you're still having trouble, your PC may not be able to record with the default Sound Card Driver recording source. If you don't get a recording, try using Wave Out Mix, Stereo Mix, What U Hear or Stereo Out as the recording source. (See the User Guide for more on setting a recording source.) These options are available in Replay Radio 3.1 and later.

With Replay Radio 3.0 and later, registered users can use the View Record Log button to diagnose recording problems as well.

Next, some screen savers don't allow Replay Radio and other programs to run when they are active. If your screen saver asks for a password, this may be the cause of the problem.

XP users: Some customers have reported that changing the compatibility mode for Replay Radio fixes recording issues when using Sound Card Driver as your recording source. Here's how to change this:

  1. Locate the icon for Replay Radio, and right click it.
  2. Select Properties.
  3. Click the Compatibility Tab.
  4. Change the Compatibility to Windows 2000, as shown below:



  5. Click OK.


I can't record from Real Player. Help!

Real Player may need to be adjusted do that it records properly as follows:

  1. Open Real Player, and click Tools, Preferences from the menu.
  2. Click Hardware. The Preferences dialog appears as shown:


  3. Click Settings under the Sound Card Compatibility heading. The Sound Card Compatibility dialog appears:


  4. Make sure Disable Direct Sound is checked, as shown above.
  5. Click OK.


I can't record from Windows Media Player. Help!

Click here to see how you may have to adjust Windows Media Player.

 

I'm having a difficult time connecting to a Player or the audio is not playing when it should.

Windows Media Player, Real Player and others can be configured to play certain types of streams. This is done by choosing which file types are associated with the various players. If you want to change which player comes up for a particular stream, then you need to change the file types associated with that player.

Most Online Radio stations play using one of three streaming methods: Windows Media, Real or Shoutcast. For Windows Media or Real streams, you cannot change the default player. Shoutcast streams use .pls or .m3u files, which can be assigned to play (or not play) in different player programs.

Here's how to change file type associations in some of the more popular programs:

To change file types in Windows Media Player:
Choose Tools, Options from the menu, then select File Types.

For Real Player:
Choose Tools, Preferences, then select Media Types under Content.

For WinAmp 3.0:
Open the menu, then select Options, Preferences. Click the Media selection under System.

For WinAmp 2.x:
Open the menu, then select Options, Preferences. Click File Types under Setup.

For MusicMatch:
Select Options, Settings from the menu, then click the General tab.

For iTunes:
Select Edit, Preferences from the menu, then click the General tab. Look at the Use iTunes as default player for audio files check box.

You should also have the most recent versions of Windows Media Player and Real Player. Click the buttons below for the most recent versions.

   

 

My recordings sound distorted or choppy after a while.

This has been observed in Windows Media Player, and is helped as follows:

  1. Open Windows Media Player, and select Tools, Options from the menu.
  2. Click Performance.
  3. Increase the size of the buffer -- make it 10 or 20 seconds instead of 5.
  4. You might also try setting the connection speed manually, rather than the automatic setting.

The choppiness is Windows Media Player not being able to keep up with the stream as you get farther into the show. Increasing the buffer will make it work better.


Why doesn't the audio CD I created play in my CD Player?

Read the CD Burning Guide for the full story on creating CDs with Replay Radio.

I get the message "Warning Replay Radio is not set as a preferred driver. Recording will likely fail."

You need to set the Replay Radio driver as preferred. Here's instructions for Win 2000, but Win 98, ME and NT work similarly:

  1. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Sounds and Multimedia
  2. Click the Audio tab.
  3. You should see the following:
    Sound Playback, Preferred device: Replay Radio Driver playback
    Sound Recorder, Preferred device: Replay Radio Driver record


I cannot record from the Microphone/Line In. Help!

It's likely Windows is not set up properly for recording from Microphone or Line-In. See the Replay Radio User Guide for excellent step-by-step instructions.


I can't open Replay Player on my PC

Replay Player needs version 7.0 or later of Windows Media Player to run properly. If you upgrade Windows Media Player to the latest version, you will be able to run Replay Player.

Click here to download the latest Windows Media Player.


How do I copy MP3 files from my PC into my Pocket PC?

You can do the entire file transfer process from your PC as follows:

 

  1. On your PC, right click the Start button, then click Explore. This opens a window into the file system of your PC.
  2. Find the image files you want to copy to your Pocket PC, select them, and choose Edit, Copy from the menu.
  3. Connect your device to your PC.
  4. Open ActiveSync, and click the Explore button. This opens a window into the file system of your Pocket PC.
  5. Navigate to the folder where you want to put your files.
  6. Click Edit, Paste from the menu, and the MP3 files are copied to your device.


How do I use Replay Radio with a Palm PDA device?

Replay Radio allows you to record your favorite radio shows or music in MP3 format on the following multimedia enabled Palm devices: Palm Tungsten T, Tungsten C ( mono only ) and the Zire 71.

You can listen to your favorite MP3 by storing or downloading them to a memory or storage card. Playback is via the built-in speaker or for stereo sound, using stereo headphones.

Try PocketTunes for a great MP3 player for Palm OS devices.

You need 500KB free space on your device for the Player, and an SD Memory Expansion Card for storage of media files ( sold separately ).


How do I record to play on a Sony Clie?

Starting with version 3.05 of Replay Radio, MP3 recordings saved with FM or CD Quality will play on Sony Clie devices.

I'm having trouble recording from Windows Media Player. Why?

In order for Windows Media Player to work with Replay Radio it is sometimes necessary to do the following:

 

  1. Select Start, Settings, Control Panel.
  2. Select Multimedia.
  3. Select the Audio tab.
  4. Check Use preferred devices only.

Here's some other hints for Windows Media Player:

Windows Media Player doesn't open outside of browser? If you are running a version of windows that opens up a WindowsMedia.com box on the left hand side of the Explorer Browser, you will probably need to follow the directions below to disable it so that you can listen to the live stream:

1. Click on the button on the top toolbar that says "Media"
2. At the bottom of the list, select "Settings".
3. Make sure that "Play Web Media" is not checked or enabled. This should eliminate the problem, and open a WMP window.

Common error when listening with Windows Media- "Windows Media Player cannot play this file. Please connect to the internet"? This issue can be solved quickly on most versions of Windows Media Player.
1. Open Windows Media Player
2. Select "Tools"
3. Select "Options"
4. At the bottom of the menu make sure that "Connect to the Internet (overrides other commands)" is checked. This should solve the issue and allow listening.

I can't tune into any radio stations.

If you've installed WinAmp, you need to disassociate WinAmp from playing .asf and .asx file types. Windows Media should be the program that pops up to play these.

I'm having trouble recording Shoutcast (WinAmp) feeds. Why?

In most cases, WinAmp works fine with Replay Radio. The only potential incompatibility is in using Direct Sound. To make WinAmp work with Replay Radio you should do the following:

 

  1. Start WinAmp.
  2. Right click on the green dot in the upper right-hand corner.
  3. Select Options, Preferences.
  4. If you're using WinAmp version 5, choose Plug-Ins, Output. For version 2 or 3, select the Audio I/O tab.
  5. Look at the Output plug-ins drop-down list. If "NullSoft Direct Sound" is selected, change it to "NullSoft WaveOut".

This should fix the problem.

I don't see the MP3 file. Why not?

After recording stops, it may take a couple of minutes for the MP3 file to appear. Replay Radio saves the recording as a WAV file first, then makes an MP3 in the background once the recording ends. This ensures that the least amount of processing occurs while recording, which might otherwise cause gaps in the final file.


I've recorded a show but I can hardly hear anything when I play it back. Why?

Make sure to set the volume of Real Player or Windows Media Player to a comfortable level, otherwise your recordings will be hard to hear. The same goes for the Microphone/Line in inputs when recording using Microphone/Line In.


When I listen to my MP3 files on the Pocket PC, Windows Media Player stops after 10 minutes or so. Why?

The best solution is to use Applian's Replay Player to listen on your Pocket PC.

If you're using Windows Media Player 7.1, one of our diligent customers offers this advice: " A Microsoft Tech person admitted that WMP has a buffer problem with any high-rate MP3 over 16 meg. It's clearly a bug (intentional or not) in Windows Media Player 7.1. The workaround is to download their free WMP resource kit which contains a batch encoder (mp3-wma) which solves the problem with the iPAQ as WMA files work fine."


Where can I find a list of more stations?

Go to vtuner.com -- they have an excellent database of stations.


I'm having trouble recording from within vTuner.

Check the vTuner FAQ here for hints on working with Replay Radio and vTuner.


I'm having trouble running ActiveSync with Replay Radio installed.

Some customers have reported this. We're not sure why this happens, but here's what we've found to fix this:

  1. Uninstall Replay Radio.
  2. Reinstall ActiveSync
  3. Reinstall Replay Radio.


I'm having trouble with QuickTime or iTunes audio playing garbled

QuickTime and iTunes often default to using Direct Sound, which leads to sound distortion during both recording and playback when Replay Radio is active. To correct this problem, you need to tell QuickTime to use the Replay Radio driver as the default playback device instead.

For QuickTime Version 6:

  1. Make sure QuickTime and iTunes are closed.
  2. Open QuickTime via Start, Programs, QuickTime, QuickTime Player.
  3. Select Edit, Preferences, QuickTime Preferences.
  4. In the dialog that appears, select Sound Out from the list at the top.
  5. Pick waveOut: Replay Radio driver playback. Your settings window should now look like this:


  6. Close the settings window and you're done.

For QuickTime Version 4 and 5:

  1. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, QuickTime.
  2. In the drop down list, select Wave Out, Windows Preferred Device.

 

I can't record when MusicMatch is playing.

MusicMatch needs to be reconfigured to use the Default Sound Card Driver when recording.

  1. Open MusicMatch
  2. Click Options, Settings.
  3. Click the Player tab. The screen now appears like this:



  4. Under Output Control, make sure Default is selected.
  5. Click OK.

I upgraded the Creative Technology sound card drivers from the Windows Update web site, and now I get a message that my sound card drivers are not installed. What do I do?

Simply reinstall Replay Radio. The Creative sound card driver install overwrites the Replay Radio drivers.

 

Replay Radio doesn't work properly with my Turtle Beach Voyetra Santa Cruz sound card.

This sound card has had many problems with Replay Radio (and other software). However, the latest driver, either from the manufacturer or from Dell (if you have a Dell computer with the OEM version), fixes all of the problems.

How do I make a recording bookmarkable on my iPod?

Want your recorded MP3 radio shows to be bookmarkable, just like the Audible audio books? Here's how to do it: (Courtesy of iPodLounge.com's forums)

1. Convert the MP3 file to AAC (Special Thanks to Stensvaag for the a and b steps breakthrough)
a. In iTunes, click on the top menu Edit > Preferences and click on the "Importing." tab
b. At the “Import Using” of the Importing Tab, drop down select ‘aac encoding’
c. Right click on the ‘Book Name’ in iTunes
d. Select ‘Convert Selection to AAC’
e. Go do something else or begin listening to the book. The conversion of a typical length book will take about an hour and a half. Do not interrupt this process. Your book name will continue to show and if you click to listen, it will remove the progress indication from the center top window of iTunes. You can go back to view the count-down progress by clicking on the > of that window.

2. Rename the file
a. After the conversion is complete, right click on the ‘Book Name’ in iTunes Library. Select ‘Show Songs File’
b. Right click the ‘Book Name.m4a’ file and select ‘rename’
c. replace the m4a extension with M4B (Space after B to be safe) to rename the merged and converted file.

3. Remove the old file from the library
a. Highlight the old file, select ‘Clear,’ to remove the resulting file from the iTunes library (be absolutely certain, when prompted, to click on ‘no’ to send to recycle bin so that you do not actually delete it from your hard drive.

4. Add the new M4B file to iTunes
a. Find the new file in C:\Documents and Settings\Default\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Book Name Be sure to go all the way down to the actual file.
b. Click on the file twice to place it in iTunes. If this does not work, use two windows to drag and drop the book name.M4B file to Library line in iTunes.

5. Check that you have deleted all the extra files you created in this process. They are large.

6. You may want to change the importing back to mp3 encoding so that the next time you rip a song, you will already be there.
Other questions?

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