Pandora users

[davidtwotrees]

Hey. My wife and I use Pandora streamed whole house for background music streamed via my couple of years old Samsung BD2550. Recently, commercials have started popping up for the first time.
Has anyone else noticed this? I thought I payed a licensing fee to have commercial free Pandora when I bought the Samsung unit? I do have a media server with all our music on it, buy Pandora is nice n' easy and is a good way to hear new music. Any thoughts? Perhaps the licensing fee is only good for two years? David TwoTrees
ps. the sammy has performed flawlessly.

 

[GlocksRock]

I get commercials all the time too, but I know you can become a premium user and get commercial free listening with unlimted skips, maybe you should look into that.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Yes, Pandora was forced to start playing audio commercials or would face extinction.
I believe your bdp with also work with Last.fm - which doen't has audio commercials (yet at least) - Last.FM selection algorithm isn't as good as pandora's but it does the job.
You might need to update to latest firmware to get this option.
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads/BD-P2550

Or like GlocksRock said - pay for Pandora's Premium $36/year - http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/archives/2009/05/pandora-one-upg.html

 

[Rickster71]

That's how cable TV started out; pay a fee and no commercials.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

That's how cable TV started out; pay a fee and still get the commercials.

Fixed


....

 

[davidtwotrees]

Just so we are clear, I paid for Pandora commercial free when I bought the unit.
I thought perhaps the paying end of it was going to be commercialized and it would be offical or summat'.

 

[patnshan]

Pandora One is the subscription service and is certainly worth it to me. I listen to Pandora all day and work and most of the day at home. I never have any commercials and it never asks me "are you still listening?". It also has a nice desktop app if you ever use it on a computer. I use iphone, samsung bluray, and Roku XDS primarily.

http://www.pandora.com/pandora_one

For $3 a month, it's a no-brainer for me.

And buying a blu ray player or anything else doesn't "pay a licensing fee" for anything I'm afraid. It just allows you to stream free or paid (if you actually paid) content.

Pat

 

[96cobra10101]

I only get commercials on my Iphone or PC, not my Samsung Blu-Ray player. Its model BD-P3600. I originally bought it for Netflix, but Pandora is what she gets used for mostly, besides BluRays. My skips are limited to about a dozen, but if I switch stations back and forth it does a skip anyway. I have had it for over a year.

If you subscribe to Pandora, does the quality go up? The quality I get now is pretty good, CD quality IMHO.

Does anyone have a favorite station? "Steve Jablonsky" and "Shadow of the Day" are my favorites of late.

 

[yepimonfire]

Yes, Pandora was forced to start playing audio commercials or would face extinction.
I believe your bdp with also work with Last.fm - which doen't has audio commercials (yet at least) - Last.FM selection algorithm isn't as good as pandora's but it does the job.
You might need to update to latest firmware to get this option.
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads/BD-P2550


Or like GlocksRock said - pay for Pandora's Premium $36/year - http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/archives/2009/05/pandora-one-upg.html

lastfm's audio quality is very inferior to pandora as well. i would equate it to a youtube video. even with the free version of pandora running at 128kbps it is still a clean encoding. lastfm sounds all over the place.

I get commercials all the time too, but I know you can become a premium user and get commercial free listening with unlimted skips, maybe you should look into that.

this is not true, you do not get unlimited skips. what it is is with the free version of pandora you get 6 skips a day, with the paid version you get 6 per hour.

i think pandora is a great way to listen to music. i rarely even touch my MP3 collection anymore because i like how pandora plays all different stuff and it's incredibly accurate at guessing what i like to listen to. it keeps things fresh. the paid version also gives you 192kbps instead of 128 which is a huge plus. most new MP3 algorithms sounds transparent above 160kbps.

 

[96cobra10101]

lastfm's audio quality is very inferior to pandora as well. i would equate it to a youtube video. even with the free version of pandora running at 128kbps it is still a clean encoding. lastfm sounds all over the place.


this is not true, you do not get unlimited skips. what it is is with the free version of pandora you get 6 skips a day, with the paid version you get 6 per hour.

i think pandora is a great way to listen to music. i rarely even touch my MP3 collection anymore because i like how pandora plays all different stuff and it's incredibly accurate at guessing what i like to listen to. it keeps things fresh. the paid version also gives you 192kbps instead of 128 which is a huge plus. most new MP3 algorithms sounds transparent above 160kbps.

Whatever the bitrate of the free version of Pandora is, it sounds way better than Sirius, which I pay for, and I like the music better. Even though I have the Sirius in my truck (Built in with the SYNC), I use my Zune more often. If I could get Pandora in my truck I would use it exclusively.

 

[nastynice]

Fixed


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haha, its called bin niss

 

[GlocksRock]

Whatever the bitrate of the free version of Pandora is, it sounds way better than Sirius, which I pay for, and I like the music better. Even though I have the Sirius in my truck (Built in with the SYNC), I use my Zune more often. If I could get Pandora in my truck I would use it exclusively.

Many smartphones are able to stream pandora, slacker, last.fm, etc... so you should be able to get pandora in your ride that way.

 

[JohnA]

I have a Roku box with the Pandora channel, I have the free account with Pandora and have yet to have a commercial.

 

[96cobra10101]

Many smartphones are able to stream pandora, slacker, last.fm, etc... so you should be able to get pandora in your ride that way.

True. But my network overage charges would suck. AT&T doesn't have an unlimited plan any longer.

 

[GlocksRock]

True. But my network overage charges would suck. AT&T doesn't have an unlimited plan any longer.

You could always go with Sprint, their $69.99 plan is very hard to beat for all it offers.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

lastfm's audio quality is very inferior to pandora as well. i would equate it to a youtube video. even with the free version of pandora running at 128kbps it is still a clean encoding. lastfm sounds all over the place.

Thats not true. Both pandora (free) and lastfm stream at 128kpbs. Pandora One (Premium) stream at higher 192kbps.
Last.Fm songs collection still have a lot of normalization issues, but while these are annoying - they have nothing to do with audio quality.

Besides I don't expect HQ audio for background listening anyhow and since Pandora added SUPER annoying audio commercials - I can't stand it anymore (I'm too cheap to pay for subscription - since free Last.FM works almost like premium pandora anyways.

 

[thebard1]

I have a Roku box with the Pandora channel, I have the free account with Pandora and have yet to have a commercial.

Similarly, I bought the Onkyo TX-NR708 receiver, network-ready, & listen to Pandora on that.

I did not have Pandora before I set it up on the Onkyo; I went on the computer once to establish the (free) account, and I pretty much have used the receiver interface to listen, add channels, etc. The stream is 128k, I have not had any commercials at all in several weeks worth of listening.

I don't keep track of how many skips I use, but it's never told me I've used them up. It's asked me once if I'm still listening (when I fell asleep listening to classical music).

Is it going to start slamming me with adverts soon?

 

[Whitey80]

Many smartphones are able to stream pandora, slacker, last.fm, etc... so you should be able to get pandora in your ride that way.

thats what i do as well, works flawlessly. Only drops when I head to the mountaind where 3g coverage os spotty at best

I also use and HP toucsmart pc at home to stream Pandora. It has a dedicated Pandora interface on which ive never had a commercial, but when you try and skip, it wont allow, saying youre limted, even tbough I never skipped.

 

[rnatalli]

You could always go with Sprint, their $69.99 plan is very hard to beat for all it offers.

For now... Just a matter of time before they join the club.