Now that the Satellite Radio Merger has gone thru.....

[Greenguy]

...we're going to see a lot of new technology.

XM hasn't released anything new since the Inno was released 3 years ago - I assume because of the merger & a hold on new products. The Inno fucking rocks - I can walk around & pick-up live shows/channels.

Now that the merger has gone thru, we get to see what they've been working on and my dick is hard

XMp3

• Record up to 100 hours of XM programming
• Pause and reply up to 30 minutes of live XM
• Portable Highlights: See what's playing on XM
• Record up to 5 channels at the same time
• Manage your music with the XM2go Music Manager software
• Store MP3 or WMA files on a removable microSD card

It's $279, which is $120 cheaper than the Inno.

My guess is this was probably ready for CES 2007 (Inno was CES 2006) Just think what they'd be working on for CES 2009 if they were actually working for the last 3 years.

[MrMaryLou]

Nice

[bDok]

Yea I'm thinking I'm going to attach to my brother's service now. Just awesome now that all sports are under the same roof. So now can have football, baseball, and nascar.

[Agent]

I'm miffed at the merger. Before it went through I understood they were going to have a pricing scheme where you could pay-per-channel. I haven't heard anything like that post merger.

But what I find most strange is now that they are the same company, in order to get the other service's channels you have to order a "best of XM" or "best of Sirius" package for an extra $4 a month and it's only available in the continental US. Never once did I hear Howard Stern mention this when he went on his rants about the merger's resistance in government. I understood they would blend the two services together...Not that we'd have to pay more for the other service's channels.

It just doesn't make sense to me as a consumer. If anything, I figured they would slowly integrate into one service and broadcast over each others hardware. Instead we have to pay extra to have "hockey, football, and baseball" on the same receiver (as was a popular argument pre-merger.) Just no one said you'd effectively be paying for extras and not a combined service post-merger.

[Greenguy]

Agent - you Canadians have silly radio laws as well as some deep hatred of Stern. So adding the Best Of stations to your service might put the percent of original Canadian programming below the line.

I drove to Ramster's with Yell last year & we were listening to one of the comedy channels on XM. We turned it down to cross the border & turned it back up once we were thru customs. About 10 min later, we both started to notice that the comedians had different accents & there were a lot of jokes that only Canadians & border people like us would get. They had changed us over to the Canadian comedy feed on that channel We heard 12 moose jokes!

As far as the pay-per-channel stuff, I assume that's still coming - OR - they are going to merge all the similar channels - XM's Lucy & Sirius's Lithium are basically the same channel already. So everyone will get the same music channels (good for them because they can sell ad spots based on a larger audience)

One of the big shit things about this is that the XM people are pretty much all being let go. XM's technology was at least a year ahead of Sirius - just look at the Inno compared to their 5 hours recorder with no portable live abilities. XM was always the better company in the stocks & in terms of users - it just sucks that all those doggy people will keep their jobs while traffic girl Dee Dee and The Mad Mexican & his dog Chicago have to look for work!

[Agent]

Good point about the radio law here. That could delay any additions of new channels. As it is now Sirius carries a bunch of extra CBC stations, English and French, that are already available free on FM (pretty redundant.)

I vaguely remember Stern getting run out of French Canadian markets years back. He mentions it once in a while on the show. During one of his free speech rants he commented on how Canadians hate free speech by referencing his ouster from Canadian markets when he was on terrestrial radio. I thought it was ironic he felt that way because the French Canadians he insulted had only exercised their free speech and got his ass bounced out of the market

Stern mentioned the other day a big XM layoff. He went from treating XM as an equal during the merger negotiations to almost gloating about the layoffs.

Hopefully we'll get a merged service eventually and there will be more to listen to in the mornings than Howard Stern. Indie Talk 110 is currently Sirius' best talk radio channel but the best show on it doesn't air till noon.

Originally Posted by Greenie

Agent - you Canadians have silly radio laws as well as some deep hatred of Stern. So adding the Best Of stations to your service might put the percent of original Canadian programming below the line.

I drove to Ramster's with Yell last year & we were listening to one of the comedy channels on XM. We turned it down to cross the border & turned it back up once we were thru customs. About 10 min later, we both started to notice that the comedians had different accents & there were a lot of jokes that only Canadians & border people like us would get. They had changed us over to the Canadian comedy feed on that channel We heard 12 moose jokes!

As far as the pay-per-channel stuff, I assume that's still coming - OR - they are going to merge all the similar channels - XM's Lucy & Sirius's Lithium are basically the same channel already. So everyone will get the same music channels (good for them because they can sell ad spots based on a larger audience)

One of the big shit things about this is that the XM people are pretty much all being let go. XM's technology was at least a year ahead of Sirius - just look at the Inno compared to their 5 hours recorder with no portable live abilities. XM was always the better company in the stocks & in terms of users - it just sucks that all those doggy people will keep their jobs while traffic girl Dee Dee and The Mad Mexican & his dog Chicago have to look for work!

[NY Jester]

I have Sirius, the only thing I'd like added to my service is the O&A show

[Jim]

How is that a lot different than the STILETTO 2?
http://shop.sirius.com/edealinv/serv...ParentID=45502

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Jim

How is that a lot different than the STILETTO 2?
http://shop.sirius.com/edealinv/serv...ParentID=45502

I could be wrong, but from what I can see, you have to have a WiFi network around if you want to listen to live programs without the unit being hooked up to the docking station antenna.

Looking at it closely, there's is no "antenna" sticking out of it & they have earbuds, where the Inno has special headphones for better reception. I can walk from here to your house with my XM Inno & never loose the signal.

So stop trying to prove me wrong!