Darius Wey
07-21-2006, 03:00 PM
<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060721-RescoRadio01.jpg" /><br /><br />Not everyone has a radio card add-on or a PDA with an integrated radio tuner, and so that's where a streaming audio player such as Resco Pocket Radio comes into play. With the growing number of audio streams from radio stations worldwide, Resco Pocket Radio makes it easy to utilise a data connection to listen to a station's tunes and talkback with little fuss. Read on for a quick look at what the application offers and how it performs. <!><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060721-RescoRadio02.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 1: Resco Pocket Radio is landscape-aware.</i><br /><br />Resco Pocket Radio's clean grey/green interface makes navigation a breeze. In portrait mode, ten quick access radio presets appear as finger-sized buttons in a panel occupying the top two-thirds of the screen. The playback controls (<b>Play/Stop</b>, <b>Previous</b>, <b>Next</b>, <b>Volume Up</b>, and <b>Volume Down</b>) are just below it in the bottom-right corner, and the media status information is displayed just to the left of the controls. It's much the same story in landscape mode, although the number of quick access presets is reduced to nine. Selecting a preset results in a connection being made with the server. The preset button highlights green, buffering is implemented (optional), the relevant station and song/program information scrolls in the media status window, and out comes auditory bliss. If you prefer another preset over one of the existing nine/ten shown in the quick access panel, tapping-and-holding on one of the preset buttons will bring up a full list of pre-programmed and user-created presets. Selecting one of the presets in that list will replace the original in the quick access panel, thus making it easy to have your favourites on the main screen in just a few taps.<br /><br />Incidentally, the command bar contains two menus: <b>Open</b>, and <b>Tools</b>. The former brings up the same list of additional presets not featured on the main screen. The latter brings up additional sub-menus: <b>Scheduler</b> (for scheduled recordings; more on this later), <b>Display Off</b>, <b>Sleep</b>, <b>Settings</b>, <b>Get New Skins</b>, <b>Get Update</b>, <b>About</b>, and <b>Exit</b>.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060721-RescoRadio05.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 2: Resco Pocket Radio's presets are well-organised and highly customisable.</i><br /><br />So, a bit about the list of presets. The root level contains categories suitably titled <b>My Favorites</b>, <b>My Radios</b>, and a list of fourteen genres ranging from <b>50s/60s Pop</b> to <b>World</b>. You can, of course, add your own genres if you wish, and further to that, you can add your own radio presets too. Also, because radio stations tend to have more than one stream (the differences usually being bitrate related), you can create and assign additional streams to a single radio preset. If you've downloaded a M3U or PLS playlist file from a radio station's web site, Resco Pocket Radio will happily import the data from these and place them in the <b>My Radios</b> category. All in all, it's quite difficult spotting any faults here. Resco put a lot of thought into the entire radio preset interface, and it shows!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060721-RescoRadio03.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 3: Scheduled recording is a breeze to configure.</i><br /><br />With presets covered, we now jump over to the application's recording feature. It exists in two forms: manual and automatic (scheduled). Both are simple to use. On the main screen, just below the media status information window, there are two buttons: <b>Display Off</b>, and <b>Record</b>. The latter is obviously the one relevant to the recording functionality being discussed here. Using it is a quick four-step process composed of (a) selecting a radio preset and streaming the media, (b) tapping the <b>Record</b> button to initiate the recording process, (c) tapping it again to cease it, and (d) naming the recording and saving it. By default, the application saves all recordings in the <b>\My Documents</b> folder, but this can be modified to the storage card via an option in the <b>Settings</b> page, which is advisable given the limitations of onboard storage and the plummeting costs of storage cards.<br /><br />Resco Pocket Radio records and saves an audio clip in the format and bitrate it was streamed in (in this case, MP3 and AAC; support for the latter is enabled with a <a href="http://www.resco.net/pocketpc/radio/downloads.asp">free plug-in</a>). However, an OGG, while able to be streamed, cannot be saved at all (the <b>Record</b> button is rendered useless in this case).<br /><br />The scheduled recording functionality is configured via the <b>Scheduler</b> menu option I spoke of earlier. You select the day, start and ending times, and one of the ten quick access presets - and well, you sit back and let the magic happen. All scheduled recordings appear in a chronologically sorted list.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060721-RescoRadio04.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 4: The included Resco Update utility makes it easy to check for updates and download them as necessary.</i><br /><br />Focusing on other features, there is a sleep function that operates on a rather limited set of values (30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, and 120 minutes), a screen toggle function that is present as a power-saving measure, a skin manager that pulls skins from the Resco servers (unfortunately, there are none at this stage), and a handy Resco Update utility that appears to be the norm in most of Resco's current set of applications.<br /><br />The <b>Settings</b> page allows you to configure your connection speed (slow - less than 56kbps, and fast - more than 56kbps), buffer times and sizes, the recording location (as mentioned previously), advanced screen toggling options, and hardware button assignments (as seen in most of today's media players).<br /><br />All in all, Resco Pocket Radio is a great application. It's easy to use and offers a great set of features, but despite the praise, there are some areas it could improve on. Firstly, OGG recording support would be nice, and the addition of general WMA support would be a bonus. Secondly, the support for skins, while great, seems overly ambitious at this stage. It would help Resco to release a few extra skins, just so skin support doesn't seem overly redundant, and also because the default skin can become a bore after months of continuous use.<br /><br />If you're interested in trying Resco Pocket Radio for yourself, there is a <a href="http://www.resco.net/pocketpc/radio/default.asp">free 31-day trial version</a>. The full version costs <a href="http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&platformId=2&productType=2&productId=169299">$19.95</a> [affiliate software store link], and in my opinion, is well worth the money spent if you enjoy listening to something beyond your standard music collection.