If you aren't satisfied with the stations available on FM, there is a line-in jack that allows the unit to be connected to a separate internet radio or DAB tuner, to widen the recording options. There's also a headphone jack on the rear of the unit.
You can download onto SD card, memory stick or straight to an MP3 player
It's early days for this particular concept, but surely the next logical step is to build Popcatcher into a unit that has FM, DAB and internet radio abilities, although this will jack up the price considerably.
As it stands, the price tag would seem a little high if you couldn’t move the recorded material off the player, but move it you can, and nice and easily too. Apple affectionados are provided with a CD that loads a stack of dummy files onto an iPod into which the transferred songs jump once the USB connection is established. Other MP3 pplayers just connect straight to the machine with no dedicated file space, so users have to identify and name the tracks manually, if that function is available on their player.
Songs can also be copied onto SD cards and Memory Sticks - and others if you have suitable adaptors. Any recording device that is connected to the player takes around 15 seconds to shake hands, then the download is nice and quick.
Control is straightforward, with a single push-button array dealing with everything
Forty songs sounds pretty small when compared to the storage capacity of your average MP3 player. But to appreciate the Rebel for what it is, you have to see it not as a storage product, but a capture device. Used over time to supplement the other ways that digital music can be acquired - at a price or for free - then the unit really comes into its own, providing a good quality and free way to collect music.
But you should hurry before the music industry gets wind of this thing.
Verdict
It does feel a little early to be buying into the concept - a little more functionality or tuner options would not go amiss here. But truth be told this is a fun and useful little friend, which really does gain more of your respect the more you use it.
Intempo Rebel DJ and ad-zapping FM radio
COMMENTS
RDS for track names?
Of course, some stations encode useless junk into their RDS streams, but others are pretty good about naming the track currently playing. It baffles me that this gizmo doesn't tap that data stream to tag the tracks it records.
I, too, would like a "remove the top 40 and save #41-200" option.
Is this true...?
Is this product really for real?
If this is true, then I will by this product as fast as hell. Once you have it, you have solved your music sourcing forever. They say that the product starts with saving the Top40/hit songs and then continues with the less popular songs. This is what I want and I will get mine before the record labels "asks" Intempo to stop selling, as they usually asks in court.
I love it, and if this is not true and the people at RegisterHardware.co.uk is playing a spoof, then I will kick their as for giving me faked news.
It is really true?
Will never fly in USA
If you've paid any attention to FM radio in the United States, they frequently step all over EVERY song with station identifications, commercials and DJ intro/outros. You'll NEVER get the full song, and so the appeal of this device is going to be greatly lost because there's simply no way around all of that.
However, being able to plug in your Sirius or XM Satellite feed, THAT indeed makes this pretty handy. If you have cable or satellite, you could also run an audio feed out from one of the cable music stations which are all commercial-free and don't get stepped on.
I wonder if
a beowulf cluster of these things coul.....oh, wait, wrong forum. Sorry!
Marketing issues?
As I see it, their target market here is freetards who don't mind dropping 70 quid on something they want.
I have a headache from trying to rationalise that little paradox.
(Before the inevitable happens, my tongue is *firmly* in my cheek here.)
