Bit Rates

The bit rates you receive on your Reciva radio are set by the radio streaming service provider, they cannot be altered from your radio. Some service providers may offer a choice of bit rates, this goes back to the dial-up days, so they may offer one connection for DSL users, and another, lower connection for 56k dial-up users. Bit rates can also vary if you get a choice of codecs or different media players.

So what sort of kbs should I expect?

Music - Preferred = 128kbs+ Acceptable = 64kbs

Voice - Preferred = 48kbs+ Acceptable = 24kbs

Don't forget that listening to your Reciva internet radio is the equivalent to a download, so if you're on a metered or capped internet connection, then listening to your radio will affect your download limits.

Bit-rates are normally measured in bits per seconds (bps):

1 kbps = 1000 bits per seconds
1 mbps = 1000 kbps = 1000000 bits per second

Amounts of data are normally measured in bytes (B):

1 byte = 8 bits
1 KB = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits
1 MB = 1024 KB
1 GB = 1024 MB

It's a simple formula (KBS / 8) X 3.6 = MB per hour or for a very, very crude rule of thumb, KBS/2 = MB per hour, this is okay for a very rough idea rather than an accurate figure.

So, if you're listening to your favourite Jazz station putting out 128kbps, and you listen for 3 hours, then you will have downloaded approx. 173MB, which could be potentially expensive on a GPRS connection.

The following lists sizes of downloads for selected listening times and bit rates :

The following lists the amount of data downloaded for common bit-rates, for various periods of time of continuous stream download: