Listening to Internet Radio

Many real-world radio stations broadcast over the Internet using streaming audio. With streaming audio, playback can start before an entire file is downloaded. Because live radio has no files to download, it has to be streamed to your computer.

Some Internet radio programs are simulcasts of traditional radio stations. Other Internet radio programs are Web-only affairs. You can use WMP to listen to many Internet radio programs.

The first step to listening to Internet radio is finding a station you want to listen to. WMP can access the Internet and display a Web page of compatible Internet radio stations, as shown in Figure 14.8. All you have to do is click the Radio button to display this screen of listings, which is a good place to start when you want to listen to streaming audio broadcasts.

Figure 14.8. Go to the Radio page to view this listing of Internet radio stations.

You can search for stations via the search box at the top of the window, or browse stations by type of programming. When you find a station you want to add to your list of presets, select the station and click the Add (+) button. Your preset stations are displayed at the top of the station list.

NOTE

You have to be connected to the Internet for WMP to find and display this DVD information and cover art.