going crazy!!! trouble with flip4mac / quick time / Sirius radio streaming

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going crazy!!! trouble with flip4mac / quick time / Sirius radio streaming

ok... back in June I posted on here that I was unable to listen to Sirius streaming on the internet with my new Macbook. Thanks to somoene's advice I was able to download stuffit expander, and use Windows Media Player through Safari.

Then the other day, somehow I ended up downloading Flip4Mac since they now have the universal binary one out and ever since then I cannot get my sirius to stream anymore!!!

I have tryed everything:

-I uninstalled flip4mac and went back to my "old way" of listening to it, and windows meadia player would open, but then do/play nothing!

-I have tried checking the box to open it with rosetta and that does not work either.

-I have tried using Rosetta with both windows media player AND flip4mac downloaded

-I have tried using Rosetta and uninstalling the windows meadia player and just using flip for mac.

- And I have tried all of the above without using Rosetta...

Now, I have just flip4mac installed and with Rosetta or without, not it just tells me that "the url is invalid."

And it never worked well in Firefox (always says an "unknown" plug-in is missing, so I don't even bother with that, I always just used Safari)

Can anyone PLEASE help me figure out how I screwed this up, and how to get my radio back on!!!

Thanks!! 🙂

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Sep 25, 2006 1:24 PM

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Answer 1

taraanne81 Author

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Sep 25, 2006 3:04 PM in response to taraanne81

anybody? help? please? 😟

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Answer 2

Sep 25, 2006 4:34 PM in response to taraanne81

I have been listening to Sirius online for months now - with no problems - until today. Sirius just re-did all their software and now people can pay for a subscription to Sirius online, without actually owning a radio. I believe our problem lies within all of the recent changes and updates they have made. They have also updated their FAQ page on the player, and (as of Monday) it now says:

2. What are the hardware and software requirements for the media player?
To listen to our music channels online, we recommend a high bandwidth internet connection (T1, DSL or ISDN line, or a cable modem), Windows Media Player version 6.0 or higher, and either Netscape 7.x or Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher. Unfortunately, we are unable to fully support other browsers at this time.

I wrote Customer Service and asked them if there is a work-around for all Mac users with Safari or Firefox, so we'll see what they say. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed, since my day seems to go by pretty slowly without Howard Stern =)

Please let me know if you find anything out, and I'll do the same.

~Rich

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Answer 3

Sep 25, 2006 8:17 PM in response to Richard Caponi

Ditto. They need to get this fixed quickly!

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Answer 4

taraanne81 Author

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Sep 25, 2006 10:11 PM in response to Richard Caponi

Thanks for the response Rich.... you know I thought it looked different on the player display, like now having a "premium" option, but I wasn't sure if it was Sirius that had changed or something that happened cause I downloaded flip4mac.

My day has also been suffering without Howard!

If you could please let us know on this thread what you hear from Sirius (I'll keep checking it) that would be wonderful... thanks so much 🙂

It makes no sense that they are trying to get more internet listeners while at the same time cutting off the paying ones they already have! I am not in my car enough to listen, and I can't get a sattellite signal in my home, so if I cannot stream over the internet than they just lost me as a customer! 😟

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Answer 5

taraanne81 Author

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Sep 26, 2006 6:38 PM in response to taraanne81

I called sirius yesterday and they said they were updating the online radio and to wait until today to try again, and I am happy to report it is now streaming find through safari, with or without being opened in rosetta.

hooray! 🙂

(I kept everything, like flip4mac, installed, and it actually works better now, in the actual window instead of opening WMP seperately)

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Answer 6

Bertha1

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Sep 26, 2006 6:39 PM in response to Richard Caponi

Has anyone heard anything from Sirius regarding this?

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Answer 7

TopoTone

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Sep 26, 2006 9:27 PM in response to taraanne81

Yeah, I thought it would most likely be a problem with Sirius. Flip4Mac does a great job with most streams, but certain providers either offer their content in weird formats, or they change things occasionally which causes the grief.

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Answer 8

Sep 27, 2006 10:38 AM in response to taraanne81

YES!!! Thanks for letting us know.

~Rich

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Answer 9

taraanne81 Author

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Sep 27, 2006 10:59 AM in response to TopoTone

ok so one more update -

It would stream well for about 5-10 minutes and then skip like crazy and/or stop working all together. So I uninstalled flip4mac and went back to the old way I listened to it (where wmp would open a seperate window, and not using rosetta) and that is working fine now so thats good.

grrrrrr wish they would just make a mac player though cause this is getting annoying!

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Answer 10

TopoTone

Level 4

1,331 points

Sep 27, 2006 11:13 AM in response to taraanne81

You could have set the Flip4Mac preference to open WMP. I still think the content provider has messed things up with a format mod. F4M handles most stuff I run into. You're gonna need it eventually, so I'd say reinstall and enable WMP when you need to.

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Answer 11

Sep 28, 2006 5:42 PM in response to TopoTone

Forgive me if this was already covered. I'm on an MacBook (Intel) and find when using Flip4Mac listening to Sirius, it repeats..... goes back to the broadcast 15 minutes earlier. I therefore uninstalled F4M and went back to WMP. Is this the same skipping problem mentioned above in this tread? Is it a F4M bug or Sirius?

For all my fellow Stern fans, how annoying is it that they created a special Stern player, and its not compatible for Mac. Where is the magic of Steve Jobs when you need him! 🙂 I guess Steve isnt a Stern fan, cuz something tells me this would not be an issue if he was! 🙂

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Answer 12

TopoTone

Level 4

1,331 points

Sep 28, 2006 6:55 PM in response to Allan Fischler

I've tried online listening at Sirius and it won't play at all. It's not actually a problem with Flip4Mac. There are many different formats that streaming sites use to provide their content, and some are just not supported. For the most part F4M does a great job, considering all the varieties out there, but the reality is that there's no ONE format which everyone sticks to. Telestream continues to add new compatibility as fast as possible, but there's too many to comply with all of them.
T-Stream responds to public requests...send an email to support@telestream.net and let them know which site you want them to add compatibility for. I'd have more faith in them than Mr. Jobs doing anything in this area.

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