Sony Dash Update: New Themes, Internet Radio
Today, Sony has rolled out an over-the-air (OTA) update for Sony Dash owners with some much needed bug fixes and a couple welcome features. For Dash users, it will tell you that there is an update and will ask you if you want to update now or later.
To start, they have added a couple of new dashboard themes. There is a new “Full Screen App” theme which shows a fully stretched out Chumby app that takes up most of the screen real estate. There is also a new theme called “App Browser” that shows a slider window on the bottom which will show you all of the apps in your current channel. It also has the time, weather and any alarms you may have set up. I have decided to try out the App Browser theme for a bit. I do like to see the progress, so keep them coming Sony!
Speaking of alarms, they have updated the alarm section to include a customized snooze which allows you to select a snooze time for as long as you would like (up to an hour), a welcome addition for the terminally lazy. You can customize this for each individual alarm, which is nice for weekends and weekdays. They have enabled a one-touch alarm dismissal as well.
USB media has been enabled for the Dash as promised as well. You can connect a USB stick or MP3 player for playback of mp3 media or pictures through the Dash. I personally have no idea why you would want to use this functionality other than to quickly sample music or see a quick picture, but I would use my many other devices to do this. It is there if you need it however and will hold out hope that they (Sony) get a clue and enable iPod/iPhone connectivity.
The biggest addition, and widely asked for early on in the Dash forums and that is Internet Radio. It is a bit hampered if you ask me. They let you add your own URL if you happen to know of one. You actually need to type in the URL of the radio station. Why not provide a list of the most popular 50-100 Internet Radio stations as well as allow manual entry? I suppose you could Google them, but seriously, having to type them into the Dash is a major pain. Perhaps in the next update? Seriously, kind of a rush if you ask me and a bit of an oversight. For hardcore users, many already know what radio stations they like and entering a URL won’t be much of a problem. I personally enjoy listening to TWiT and once I enter it, it is there and I don’t have to think about it again. But for new users, I am going to go out on a limb and say, the masses will not know the difference between a M3U and a PLU playlist and why it is important that you select the correct one. (You need to know the type when entering the Internet Radio URL, so be careful. Also, many radio stations make it really difficult to find the stream URL. Unless I am missing something and there was some legal issue preventing them from allowing a drop-down of Internet Radio sites, this kinda blows. You can find terrestrial radio stations as well as a decent list of Internet radio at http://www.radio-locator.com/. Have fun typing in all those M3U and PLU playlists.
Overall, the OS is snappier in my opinion, moving through the menu system seems to go much faster and browsing through the radio, pictures and apps also seems much faster. This was a minor update and was much needed, addressing many of the rush to launch bugs. So, go ahead and upgrade immediately, let me know in the comments if you have discovered any other new features that I did not and I will update the post if I find any new ones.
No related posts.
6-15-2010
Adam,
Have you seen the New News about Best Buy’s NEW competitor to the Sony DASH? :
[] See here:
http://tinyurl.com/267jvjg
[] More info and specs:
http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=5178
Looks pretty interesting…
Look interesting, but much like an imitation Dash. After seeing the video walkthrough, the content leaves a bit to be desired. The forums certainly do make it seem that it will be infinitely more hackable, so there is that. I think I will be sticking with the Dash for now, unless they show that we can hack the crap out that thing and put a lot of great content on it. Thanks for the heads up!!!!
What is the URL you enter for twit live? is it http://live.twit.tv? Is it possible to stream the live twit video feed?
i can’t seem to get it to work.
Thanks!!!!
Hi David, thanks for stopping by!
The link is actually: http://twit.am/listen.m3u
Be sure to select it at an M3u playlist as well.
As far as streaming the video feeds, I will post another reply if I can figure that one out!
Adam
I find many URL’s for Sony Dash at Shoutcast.com
The URL will look like this:
………….
Name: Smooth Jazz
URL:
http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=948
(*) PLS playlist
Press (Save)
………….
Difficult to find alot of URL’s for the Dash, it is trial and error and alot of searching for sure.
** Anyone finding a working “URL” for Sony Dash for KJUL [Las Vegas Radio station] please post it??
Hi there, thanks for the link to Shoutcast.com, it is a great resource.
As for KJUL, it looks like they only support desktop streaming unfortunately.
Cheers!
Adam
Adam,
I have this URL for KJUL:
mms://wms2.mainstreamnetwork.com/kjul-fm
IT DOES work in VLC as a network stream, but if I try using it in SONY DASH… no luck. I must be missing something?? Not sure how to tweak the URL so it will be happy in the DASH’s Internet Radio Streaming. Thanks, great website, keep up the incredible job!!
MMS protocol is used for streaming Windows Media Player only, so it will not work on the Dash, I am sorry to say.