Comments on: NPR Launches Its Ambitious Music Site

By: Ken

Ken — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 04:43:41 +0000

I too live overseas and really don't like the NPR player. I've written to them twice, and they always write back with an expression of regret that I do not like their player. But, they don't change anything. My station (WAMU) offers Windows Media, MP3 and RP format but its only live….

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:37:37 +0000

http://thin.npr.org/

This is the answer for bypassing the NPR Player. That stupid player is the worst joke. It always konks out on me. Keep thinking it's going to get better, but consistently awful.

By: Mateo

Mateo — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:31:33 +0000

I live overseas and the only way for me to listen to NPR is online. As Algebra mentioned above, the previous player choices worked fine. Now my only option is to use their new inferior player. It spends more time buffering than it does playing. Often it will get stuck in buffer-mode and never resume playing. Now it pisses me off and I therefore spend less time listening to NPR. A shame, really.

By: Max Exter

Max Exter — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:36:38 +0000

I actually think that it is a big improvement. Having an online player that can remember what I was last listening to is much better than their previous effort using two extremely crappy formats. And further, most of their current catalog is available in MP3 now.

It needs a lot of work, and a Firefox extension would be nice, but it's a huge improvement.

By: slightlynew

slightlynew — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:09:01 +0000

NRP Player sucks. An awful, clunky, unusable interface. They took a huge step backward forcing this proprietary crap on their audience, and I'm listening to a lot less NPR because of it. Why don't they go ahead and make their own radios as well?

By: algebra

algebra — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:13:00 +0000

NPR's new NPR Media Player SUCKS TO THE MAX!!!

Previously, users had the choice of either Real Player OR Windows Media Player, AND ALSO of launching either of those two players in "Stand-Alone Mode" — all of which worked very well with dial-up, 56-k modem connections!

By COMPLETELY ELIMINATING those former options and unilaterally substituting their new "NPR Media Player", participating NPR programs have, at one fell swoop, RENDERED ALL OF THEIR AUDIO FILES AND ARCHIVES COMPLETELY INACCESSIBLE TO USERS WITH 56k DIALK-UP MODEM CONNECTIONS!!!

(All you now get are split-second sound-bites, "punctuated"(sic) by long, (multi-minute!) periods of "buffering" — or rather long stretches of buffering, punctuated every few minutes by a split-second of audio.)

By: Ubu Walker

Ubu Walker — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 21:30:49 +0000

@Rossum
Well, at least the player is flash based, which means that it can be played on linux, right?

By: Rossum Higgins

Rossum Higgins — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:03:47 +0000

Yech! Another proprietary player? That's a big thumbs-down from me.

I did check out the site, and some of the content certainly seems promising, though.