a few words of explanation
A lot of our listeners have had problems with the recent upgrade to our Radio Streaming. We apologize and were afraid this might happen to some, but not so many of our listeners. We have very good reasons for upgrading and would like to share them with you, plus we have come up with solutions. We've found almost every other media player out there will work, except Windows Media Player default installation: see our <Streamplayer Page>.
WMplayer will work, but needs a codec installed, available from that page.
ok, so1st reason, Cost.
Takilma FM is listener supported and quite frankly the listeners don't donate enough to make ends meet. Free Internet Radio is not free of cost to produce, "it may be free, but it ain' t cheap!". Without Leo, Mar, Epoch and the DJ's spending money out of their own pockets, we wouldn't survive. So we have to cut corners and find the most inexpensive yet effective route for our service. Hopefully FREE works best, but we have learned that is not always the case. The free Microsoft stream encoder (listening technology) we were using was constantly dropping our broadcast, the software proved to be totally unpredictable and we were paying too much for a host server to relay our stream reliably. We were looking to fix those things, and we believe we did.
With Technology.
Technology happens! It constantly changes and in some cases actually improves. We upgraded the listening technology to allow us to increase both quality and our dependability, as well as our audience numbers. The way we did the streaming before was specific to Windows Media software. As a result we could not be heard by anyone that used other players. For instance Mac users had to get the Windows Media Player for Mac. Also we have a lot of listeners who like to play in Second Life and other 3D & Gaming worlds that accept streams for personalized audio feed, yet they could not listen to TakilmaFM because it did not send a compatible stream to the servers needed.
Now they can.
We could not be listened to in Europe because most people there do not use Windows Media Player. It is not included with your purchase of Windows OS in Europe actually, thanks to their courts. We could not stream to Mac users or iPhone's or pods and many portables out there. We could only stream using Windows Media format, which is catching up to, but definitely NOT setting the pace of advancing streaming technology.
Basically we were stuck with one trick to carry the load of spreading our message, and it failed way too much.
More options.
We had to upgrade in order to allow streaming of other technologies for the future. The new format is far superior to what we were using, and is constantly being developed with an eye on the future.
Read about Ogg format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg
We can allow the listener to stream archived past shows on demand straight from us quite soon. Also we can let Music Videos be streamed to your player now. We are working on implementing our own online chat system to allow listeners direct access to the DJ's live in real time. Hanging out in the studio with them in effect.
Yellow Pages:
Under the old format we could not get listed in any of the Online Radio Station Yellow Pages directories, one of the main places used by listeners to find new stations. By the way, favorable listener reviews can help us along the way if you feel so inclined wherever you can.
We depend on your support to continue our efforts!
Community Free Internet Radio Lives Because of You