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Hey all, first post.

I am getting close to deciding to purchase a piano with the PianoDisc IQ Ipad system installed and have a few questions about PianoDisc Streaming Radio.

First of all, the idea of PianoDisc Radio is exactly what I want in a player piano. Not having to purchase music and listening to a wide range of curated music. This aligns much more to how I listen to music in general (i.e., Pandora over iTunes).

My questions center around whether or not I can believe in the promise of PianoDisc Radio:

1) How good is the wireless playback? Early reviews I have seen say that playback can be a little choppy (especially for fast pieces) as the system does not have a sophisticated buffering system. Has that improved?
2) How reliable is PianoDisc Radio? Is it really 24/7, where I can turn it on any time I want? Any experiences where the system is down?
3) Do I really need a really fast internet connection? I have my cable company's budget internet. It is good for browsing the internet and streaming videos on Amazon. Will this be good enough for PianoDisc Radio?
4) Are there a variety of stations? I think I saw a classical and a Christmas station. Any others?

Thanks everyone for your feedback!

I don't think digital player files are very large. You could check with PianoDisc directly about this and then search your internet providers website for the data speed capacity.

PianoDisc Radio is just streaming audio with similar bandwidth requirements as Pandora, Spotify, etc. Streaming audio requires less bandwidth than video, so as long as you aren't simultaneously watching a couple of HD video streams at the same time on your Internet connection, you'll be fine.

If they are streaming files to be played on the PianoDisc system, it would use a lot less bandwidth than even streaming audio.

Yamaha's "Disklavier Radio" involves downloading data files and so requires less bandwidth, but PianoDisc's implementation does involve streaming audio (at 256 Kbps).

The PianoDisc Streaming Radio is a novelty, but in my experience (which was last year) the novelty wears thin because the same couple of dozen tracks play on permanent loop. Some of these are cut short or interrupted so it is not a very satisfying experience. In their favour, however, I must say that at Christmas, Pianodisc put on an alternative loop which had some very good tracks which prompted me to buy originals from them.

Likewise, Pianotube is a novelty, but only a dozen videos have been made in recent years.

Far better to have – as I do now – many hundreds of midis playing directly into the piano from the Playlist of a midi app (like QMidi) via a midi cable direct to your piano.

I bought a little-used Pianodisc Grand, secondhand. It has Midi In & Out ports. Initially I was converting midis using MusiConnect.app to play them through the audio connection behind the CD player. The results were barely adequate, and the files were huge in size and vastly inferior in output quality and nuance to raw midi being cabled directly into the piano.

As I replied today to another post on this Forum:

If you are buying a new piano, ensure that it has midi ports. You will get much more quality reproduction from your piano using only raw midi. (See another of my replies to this Forum for details as to why).

I play raw midi directly from my computer into my piano via USB thru a cheap cable which has 2 midi plugs (in & out) running from a USB plug.

To play a midi you will need to open it using a free shareware midi editor such as MidiSwing or Aria Maestosa, covert it to Type 0 then adjust the note velocities down to suit your piano (so the hammers in your piano do not pound the strings too hard). Any and every nuance of playback can be adjusted on screen in real time as you play back directly on the piano through the editor. Once adjusted, these midi files will play your piano perfectly every time.

Thereafter, you can use a Playlist in a mdid app to play any number of midis in any preferred order.

Optimising (as I call it) can be done quickly, but must be done for each midi, as any midi taken from the internet will differ from others in note velocities and midi type, depending on the keyboard or system which created it.