XM Goes Commercial Free! (1 Viewer)

[Dave Scarpa]

Hey Ron and everyone else this might not be the place to ask but I'll give it a go. I'm considering XM radio now that they have gone commercial free. Also theres a deal coming later this year that will allow streaming of XM radio thru the Tivo's Home Media Option, which I own.

My Radio in my car has had the FM portion of it broken for some time. It's a factory unit and I mainly used it with a cassette adapter to listen to my MP3 player. Or on ungodly AM Radio. I'm interesting in the message prior when you guys said you can use XM with a cassette adapter. I'd e interested in if this is possible. I'd like something that would let me use it in the car with the adapter then bring it in the house and connect it to my System. Is this Possible ?

 

[SteveK]

Dave- If you buy the Delphi SkyFi, you can buy a car kit which has a cigarette lighter adapter, a casette adapter and the antenna. You'd also want to buy a home adapter kit, which has an A/C converter, the antenna, and a cable to connect between the line-out and your stereo. The normal price of the SkyFi is around $129, and the car and the home adapter kit are each around $65 or so. They also occasionally run rebate specials, or you might be able to pick up a package deal. You can check out xm411.com for more information (I believe the webstore is called myradiostore.com but I think you can link from the xm411 site.)

Or you can get the Roady, which doesn't require any accessory kits. The Roady runs about $120 and comes with everything you need for the car. If you want to use it in the house, you can order a separate kit for the antenna, etc. The display on the Roady isn't as large as the SkyFi, so you won't be able to display as much information at one time. That may or may not be a factor to consider.

I formerly used my SkyFi in both my home and my car, but I've since upgraded my car unit to a Pioneer XM-ready head unit and XM tuner, so I no longer have a maze of wires in my car.

I've had XM for about 8 months now, and I honestly enjoy it more every day. Enjoy!

Steve K.

 

[TheLongshot]

Mike:

Too bad you missed out on the Sony PnPs that were practically being given away at the end of last year (free after rebate).

I agree with you. I also did the F&F deal, and gradually got bored with all the repitition and lack of depth. For some, it is a good thing, but for me, with a diverse CD collection, I found myself listening to my CDs more and more often.

For the past couple of months that I have had my XM, I haven't listened to my CDs much in my car.

Dave:

It certainly is possible to use a cassette adapter with these radios, since that's currently how I hook up my Sony PnP right now. It is also the default for the SkyFi and Roady as well.

jason

 

[DaveBB]

It's amazing how much less and less I listen to local AM/FM radio anymore. (Especially since going commerical free and adding channel 54/Lucy) About the only time I catch myself listening to AM/FM anymore is for local news, sports and traffic. I guess that will go down even more on March 1st when they roll out the local traffic/weather channels. (St. Louis is included in that group.)

XM Local Weather and Traffic on March 1st

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I just have to decide between the roadie and the Ski Fi kit. I think I'll check them out tonight at Best Buy I have some gift cards to use. Tivo is going to interface with XM in June so I can always get my Home fix that way. I'm leaning toward the roadie Right now but I do like the interface on the Ski Fi a bit more. Decisions, decisions...

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

I have made up my mind.

I will be switching to XM by June. I have Tivo (and the Home Media Option) and that will work out nicley for me once that is added to the XM/TiVo feature list.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I'm wondering how exactly this will work and whether an extra fee will be involved

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

I would hope that there would be no extra fee involved, as I don't think I would pay any more to have this option on my TiVo.

Since we have already paid for the HMO - I can't see how they would expect us to keep paying for more features...but who knows...

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

Crap. Just when I was all set to switch over to XM (from Sirius) I remember that Sirius will offer every NFL game next season.

This is something I will definitely use at least 8-10 weeks out of the season when my favorite team (Indy Colts) isn't on National TV.

Looks like I'll stay with Sirius - simply for the NFL.

 

[DaveBB]

But the only problem is what broadcast team do you get for the NFL games. On TV there's never "home" and "away" broadcast personel; it's always relatively unbiased national people. But with radio that's different.

For example it's a game featuring the Rams vs. 49ers and I'm from St. Louis: do I really want to listen to the San Fran broadcasters?

 

[Jed M]

Lets see, you love the Colts, you like tivo, how about directivo with NFL Sunday Package? Thats what I did for my Chiefs (damn your Colts, but the Chiefs weren't going anywhere anyway. 95 was a lot worse, but thats another thread) and I have never looked back.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I'm actually going to cancel my Sirius subscription
in the next week or so and go back to XM.

Sirius has problems with repetition. They play it
waay to safe with their playlists.

It seems that the service is more interested these
days hawking their Sports and Talk venues than
concentrating on what really matters the most -- the
music.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Ron I was wondering if you might do this. My boss is the one that turned me on to XM. I told him i signed up this week and he was all lamenting about Sirius not having the NFL. It's not a big thing to me. If I want to watch the game I stay home, If I'm on the road I can always tune into my local station that's carrying the game. What I cannot do is hear anywhere the depth of music that I have on XM. It's nice that XM and Sirius are getting more diverse content, But I hope they never forget what lured those million subscribers to their services, and that is variety of Music.

 

[KalaniP]

It's all about the music. I only listen to two or three XM stations, in general, but they're axactly what I want to hear. If I had to wish for more, longer song/artist titles, NPR, and internet streaming would top my list, but since XM went commercial free, I can't think of much more I could wish for.

Except maybe the new Alpine units that let me connect my iPod, too... best of all worlds! Tho truth be told, I usually listen to local NPR stations while commuting to and from work, but I've only hit my trance CDs (chock full of mp3 goodness) a couple times since I got XM...

Ron, I think part of the issue with your Alpine may have been the setup. Spend some time tweaking, and I think you would find it's hard to beat Alpine in the car-audio market. I just wish they would hurry up with their iPod-ready unit so I can kick the temporary low-end Alpine unit I'm using down to my girlfriend's car and upgrade!

http://www.kalani.net/Car/index.html (XM info not yet added...)

-Kalani

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

Jed M

I used to have 3 Direct-Tivo's and the football package. I'm in the Military and over the past year or so a lot has happened in my life (deployments, divorce, you name it...) and I sold all my DIRECTV equipment and moved into an apartment.

Colts shoulda beat that Pats, but that's another thread too I was at Arrowhead in 95' (drove down from Indy) - probably the greatest game I have ever attended in person.

I may be moving into a house later this summer and if I do, I'll be sure to get the NFL package on DIRECTV.

If I do that, I'll definitely get XM Radio at the sime time.

Today's Sirius complaint:

I heard "I Got the Power!" by SNAP on stream 9 a few minutes ago...now that wouldn't have been that bad of a thing if I hadn't already heard that song twice before (once on Wednesday, once on Thursday) in about an hour of listening time combined between the 3 days.

I'm listening to stream 8 (80's) on my PC right now, so far, no complaints...yet.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Keep us informed. People I talk to that listen to that
stream have talked about the repetition and how (for
example) the same three songs by Huey Lewis & The News
get played all the time.

I'll wait to hear your thoughts. Keep us updated.