[Update] I guess, it is just not meant to be. A reader named Zarkoff pointed out to me that the Internet Radio playlists would not be available if iTunes is no longer running on the computer that the Apple TV sync'd with.

You still have the option to use AirTunes to stream music from your computer to the Apple TV. You can find instructions on how to do this from this article .

I apologize for not researching this thoroughtly.

Now that the Apple TV 2.0 software is here, it's time to ditch your radio. I'm serious! This is because you can now stream Internet Radio right from the Apple TV. And with most live radio stations supporting Internet streaming, there is no need to fiddle around with your radio antenna anymore; just use your Apple TV. However, you still need a little help from your buddy iTunes 7.6 to accomplish this but it is still really easy to do.

You know you can listen to Intenet Radio from various Internet Radio stations via the iTunes' Radio "tab". There, you can find radio stations listed under multiple predefined genres like Alternative, Dance, Rock and Electronic.

But you don't have to rely on iTunes for a list of Internet Radio stations. A site called "US Live Radio " also maintains a comprehensive list of all live radio stations in the US that support Internet streaming. You can pick the stations by State or by musical genre. The only drawback is that iTunes only recognizes streams with either .pls or .m3u extension.

Apple TV itself does not have an Internet Radio menu so you can't actually choose a stream to listen to via its user interface. However, it does support Music Playlists. So what you have to do to get the Apple TV to play your Internet Radio streams is to save these streams inside a playlist. You can then sync this playlist to the Apple TV. To play the streams, just go over to the Music Menu->My Music->Playlists and pick the playlist in which the Internet Radio streams reside in.

Unfortunately, this feature only works via syncing. It does not work with playlists from a computer you stream from. Hopefully, in the next update, Apple will fix this. Or even better, just support Internet Radio from its user interface.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (10)

...
written by Jazz1 , February 13, 2008

Support for Internet Radio is really good news! There are some Internet stations that offer no ad subscriptions and higher sampling rates. They require user names and passwords. I hope Apple builds this into iTunes and Apple TV.

...
written by Anand , February 13, 2008

Err,

Doesn't work for me. Apple TV says "cannot play current song".

...
written by Luck Kanthatham , February 13, 2008

Anand, I would really like to know what stream you used. Would you mind pointing it out to me? Have you tried playing the stream on iTunes before syncing it with the Apple TV?

I was having a problem earlier where the stream would not show up on the Apple TV at all using an old playlist. However, after creating a brand new playlist with Internet Radio streams in it and syncing it to the Apple TV, everything worked fine.

...
written by zarkoff , February 14, 2008

i tried this last night, and when I quit iTunes, the playlist went away. Maybe I have some settings wrong or something..?

...
written by Luck Kanthatham , February 14, 2008

Zarkoff, you are absolutely correct. I found this out too. I will update the document with this information. Thank you so much for pointing this out.

...
written by Henry , February 19, 2008

Has anyone found this method to be unreliable? I've been using my ATV for streaming Internet Radio on and off ever since take 2 came out, but today the ATV is telling me that the playlists I set up to contain my streams "contain no songs". I can't for the life of me figure out why it would sync the contents of these playlists last week but won't do it now.

Henry

...
written by Luck Kanthatham , February 19, 2008

Henry, I know. Hence my updated comment at the beginning of the post. The playlists would only show up if iTunes is running on the computer that the Apple TV syncs with.

...
written by emgee , February 20, 2008

Having the same issues here. Streaming stations in a playlist show up only for the first couple of hours, but eventually dissapear from the list. You have to wonder if this might be Apple's way to discourage users from listnening to free music instead of buying more itune$.

...
written by MattK , February 22, 2008

This hint worked great for me until the iTunes 7.6.1 update. Has anyone else noticed this functionality broken with the update?

...
written by Roger Meier , February 24, 2008

Yeah, I'm having the same problem. Since 7.6.1, iTunes no longer syncs any radio stations in playlists.
I seems like this was never an intended feature, more like a bug. Too bad. I really like it.
At least we can still stream via Airtunes. While there wasn't a way (without hacking) to play radio on the ATV before Take 2, there is one now. So, I'm not too bummed about the removal of this 'feature'.

Write comment

Name

Email

Comment

smaller | bigger

Add Comment