1 (edited by cbreeze 2008-12-30 16:07:49)

Topic: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Though not ideal, here is a process for playing your Sirius/XM satellite radio subscription on your Chumby.

What you will need:

Sirius web account - http://www.sirius.com/siriusinternetradio
ORB (installed and configured) - http://www.orb.com
uSirius 1.0RC7 (installed and configured) - http://www.millardsoftware.com/usirius?v=10rc7 (look for download link, it is free)
ORB Web Radio Widget - http://www.chumby.com/guide/widget/ORB%20Web%20Radio

Setting up:

1. Make sure ORB is up and running on your PC.

2. Open uSirius and put in your login and password information.
http://www.gochumby.com/img/orb/radio/xm/step001.png

3. Click the "URLs" button.
http://www.gochumby.com/img/orb/radio/xm/step002.png

4. Select a "Channel" from the drop down menu that you would like to add.
http://www.gochumby.com/img/orb/radio/xm/step003.png

5. Copy the URL from the "URL" field.
http://www.gochumby.com/img/orb/radio/xm/step004.png

6. Go to http://www.orb.com and log into your account.
7. From the "Open Application" menu in the upper left, select "Audio".
8. Click "Internet Radio" on the left menu list.
9. Click "Add Custom" from the top menu.
http://www.gochumby.com/img/orb/radio/xm/step005.png

10. Enter a channel name, it can be anything you like (for example "BBC World News").
11. Paste the URL you got from uSirius into the "Path" field.
http://www.gochumby.com/img/orb/radio/xm/step006.png

12. Once ORB has verified the link, on the bottom of the screen, in the info area, add a "Genre" for your Sirius stations (example "XM").
http://www.gochumby.com/img/orb/radio/xm/step007.png

13. Click "OK" to save the "Genre" field.  You must add a "Genre" to get your stations on the Chumby.
14. Repeat the process (steps 3-13) for as many stations as you would like to add.
15. Run the "ORB Web Radio Widget" and select "Genres" from the browse menu.
16. Select your genre folder (example "XM").
http://www.gochumby.com/img/orb/radio/xm/step008.png

17. Select one of your added stations to play.
http://www.gochumby.com/img/orb/radio/xm/step009.png

You must be running ORB and uSirius on your PC at all times (you want access to Sirius/XM) to make this work.  You also get the added benefit of listening to your Sirius/XM radio on any device ORB supports, not just the Chumby.

Maybe one day there will be a better way, but until then...Enjoy!

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Thank you!  However, when I tried streaming a Sirius channel following your directions, I received the following error messages in uSirius 1.0RC7:

16:26:19 - Unsupported user agent: NSPlayer/4.1.0.3936.
16:26:19 - Incoming request could not be completed.

Any ideas?

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Did that happen to be the Reggae channel?  Or all of them?

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

I only tried it with the first and only Sirius station I entered so far: Howard 100.  I tried one of the regular (non-Sirius) stations and it worked but the Sirius stream did not. What are you thinking?

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Hmmm, I only have a trial account at the moment, and it doesn't look like I am allowed Howard for the trial.  I will have to get an account, but I will also look around to see if I can find anything else out.  I hope that certain streams are not banned outside of the web player.  That would be a bummer.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Your suggestion of shutting down the apps and restarting them worked! Thank you so much! One of my motivators for getting a Chumby was to be able to listen to Sirius from it. There have been other attempts (e.g., Squeezebox, TVersity) but this is the first one that has worked for me! Thank you again!

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Excellent!  I am curious though, did you get the Howard station to work?

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

cbreeze wrote:

Excellent!  I am curious though, did you get the Howard station to work?

Yes I did! Again, thank you so much. This has been a frustrating saga that you finally resolved. I KNEW there must have been some way to stream Sirius without Chumby having to support (and license) wma.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

No problem, I am glad your enjoying it.  Don't forget to rate the widget, if you have not already.

Cheers.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

This worked like a charm, thank you!  One question though.  I've got the volume as high as it goes on the orb widget, and I can still hardly hear it on the chumby.  Is there any way to fix that?

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

I'll double check, but I believe that is the highest the actual volume in the widget will go.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

cbreeze wrote:

I'll double check, but I believe that is the highest the actual volume in the widget will go.

I was under the impression that the "10" volume button set the volume at 100% of what was set in the mater Control Panel.  IN other words, if the master volume control was set at the half-way mark, the "10" volume button in the widget would only set the absolute volume at 50%. Is this correct?  When I increased the master volume, all the volume buttons in the widget appeared to increase proportionately in volume.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Hello cbreeze.  If you're itching to create yet another cool widget, are you familiar with http://www.hulu.com/? It's  VOD site for movies and TV shows/

14 (edited by tolax 2008-09-03 15:17:45)

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Great app - nicely done.

And (slightly off topic) I agree that Hulu would be great. Then I could finally watch 'the daily show' on my chumby. smile

Tolax

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

cbreeze.  I've been using your solely for my Sirius Stations.  Is there anything I can do to make the Sirius stations/genre automatically list as soon as I run your widget instead of having to go through Genre --> Sirius?  Also, I find that I'm periodically being disconnected from the Orb network even when my Wifi connection is still good.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

tolax wrote:

Great app - nicely done.

And (slightly off topic) I agree that Hulu would be great. Then I could finally watch 'the daily show' on my chumby. smile

Tolax

I took a look at the Hulu possibilities, the best that could be done at this point in time is that you would need to download the .FLV from the show you wanted to watch (using Orbit downloader for instance) and then play it though ORB.  I tried it, but it just seems like way too much work to be of benefit at this time.  I will jump right on it if anything changes though.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Dr-Freak wrote:

cbreeze.  I've been using your solely for my Sirius Stations.  Is there anything I can do to make the Sirius stations/genre automatically list as soon as I run your widget instead of having to go through Genre --> Sirius?  Also, I find that I'm periodically being disconnected from the Orb network even when my Wifi connection is still good.

I might be able to make a custom widget just for you smile, unless others have this need, then I could make a public one.  As far as the stream dropping, I get that as well from time to time, but I believe it has nothing to do with the actual widget itself, just the hand-shaking that is going on with the desktop components.  Unless you are seeing something consistent that can be pin-pointed out, I am not really sure what I could do at this time.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

cbreeze wrote:
Dr-Freak wrote:

cbreeze.  I've been using your solely for my Sirius Stations.  Is there anything I can do to make the Sirius stations/genre automatically list as soon as I run your widget instead of having to go through Genre --> Sirius?  Also, I find that I'm periodically being disconnected from the Orb network even when my Wifi connection is still good.

I might be able to make a custom widget just for you smile, unless others have this need, then I could make a public one.  As far as the stream dropping, I get that as well from time to time, but I believe it has nothing to do with the actual widget itself, just the hand-shaking that is going on with the desktop components.  Unless you are seeing something consistent that can be pin-pointed out, I am not really sure what I could do at this time.

cbreeze. That's a very kind offer but I could never ask you to make a custom widget just for me ... that's an awful lot of trouble to go through for someone you don't even know! I wonder if there are others with a similar interest, though.  As for the drops, thanks for that insight.  That makes sense.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

cbreeze wrote:
Dr-Freak wrote:

cbreeze.  I've been using your solely for my Sirius Stations.  Is there anything I can do to make the Sirius stations/genre automatically list as soon as I run your widget instead of having to go through Genre --> Sirius?  Also, I find that I'm periodically being disconnected from the Orb network even when my Wifi connection is still good.

I might be able to make a custom widget just for you smile, unless others have this need, then I could make a public one.  As far as the stream dropping, I get that as well from time to time, but I believe it has nothing to do with the actual widget itself, just the hand-shaking that is going on with the desktop components.  Unless you are seeing something consistent that can be pin-pointed out, I am not really sure what I could do at this time.

It makes it a little easier if you make the genre or location aaaaaaaa. that way it shows up fist in the list.

Thanks for this plugin. It's awesome!

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

oranges wrote:
cbreeze wrote:
Dr-Freak wrote:

cbreeze.  I've been using your solely for my Sirius Stations.  Is there anything I can do to make the Sirius stations/genre automatically list as soon as I run your widget instead of having to go through Genre --> Sirius?  Also, I find that I'm periodically being disconnected from the Orb network even when my Wifi connection is still good.

I might be able to make a custom widget just for you smile, unless others have this need, then I could make a public one.  As far as the stream dropping, I get that as well from time to time, but I believe it has nothing to do with the actual widget itself, just the hand-shaking that is going on with the desktop components.  Unless you are seeing something consistent that can be pin-pointed out, I am not really sure what I could do at this time.

It makes it a little easier if you make the genre or location aaaaaaaa. that way it shows up fist in the list.

Thanks for this plugin. It's awesome!

Great suggestion.  I actually named mine 1Sirius, which also moved it to the top of the genre list.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

"12. Once ORB has verified the link, on the bottom of the screen, in the info area, add a "Genre" for your Sirius stations (example "XM")."

Forgive my ignorance, I'm an Orb newbie.  How do I know when the link is verified?

22 (edited by cbreeze 2008-09-23 22:30:25)

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

oldskoolboarder wrote:

"12. Once ORB has verified the link, on the bottom of the screen, in the info area, add a "Genre" for your Sirius stations (example "XM")."

Forgive my ignorance, I'm an Orb newbie.  How do I know when the link is verified?

Basically when you add a link to ORB it will make sure that it is a valid stream.  If you don't see any error, then everything is fine.

Cheers.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

cbreeze, suddenly I haven't been able to get this to work.  I checked uSirius when the Orb streams weren't working in your widget nor directly from Orb.com,  these are some of the error messages I received:

21:39:47 - Channel lineup loaded successfully.
21:39:47 - Starting server...
21:39:47 - Server started.
21:39:47 - Listening at 192.168.1.2 on port 19080.
21:39:56 - Incoming stream request for Sirius 21 - Alt Nation (32 Kbps).
21:39:56 - Incoming request completed.
21:39:56 - Incoming stream request for unknown Sirius channel.
21:39:56 - Incoming request could not be completed.
21:40:53 - Incoming stream request for Sirius 21 - Alt Nation (32 Kbps).
21:40:53 - Incoming request completed.
21:40:53 - Incoming stream request for unknown Sirius channel.
21:40:53 - Incoming request could not be completed.

21:55:32 - Incoming stream request for Sirius 100 - Howard 100 (32 Kbps).
21:55:32 - Unsupported user agent: NSPlayer/4.1.0.3936.
21:55:32 - Incoming request could not be completed.
21:55:32 - Incoming stream request for Sirius 100 - Howard 100 (32 Kbps).
21:55:32 - Unsupported user agent: NSPlayer/4.1.0.3936.
21:55:32 - Incoming request could not be completed.
21:55:32 - Incoming stream request for Sirius 100 - Howard 100 (32 Kbps).
21:55:32 - Unsupported user agent: NSPlayer/4.1.0.3936.
21:55:32 - Incoming request could not be completed.

I tried it with different Sirius channels and even created/added a new channel with the same result. Any ideas?

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

Dr-Freak,

Wow, I will have to take a look.  I hope that Sirius didn't change anything to block the stream.  I'll double check.

Re: Listen to Sirius/XM Radio

I contacted the creator of uSirius and he simply had me click "Reset Session" under Settings and all is well again.