Beggars Group's AVdeck.com goes On The Air with Backbone Radio Pro

(Beverly Hills, QuickTime Live; February 14, 2002).........Backbone Networks Corporation announces that featured QuickTime TV radio station AVdeck.com will begin producing and streaming its audio content using Backbone Radio Pro's software this week. Scheduled for a Valentines Day cutover, the new format includes a fluid mix of live and recorded audio content along with text and graphical media. Listeners may access this site at http://www.avdeck.com, and enjoy the streaming content using the standard, free QuickTime player from Apple Computer, Inc..

AVdeck.com offers pre-release independent music and interviews from artists of the Beggars Group of record labels. The Beggars Group (4AD, Beggars Banquet, Mantra Recordings, MoWax, Too Pure, Wiiija, XL Recordings) includes music from such diverse and ground-breaking artists as The Breeders, The Tindersticks, Natacha Atlas, Cornershop, McCluskey, The Prodigy, and Badly Drawn Boy.

Backbone Radio Pro is a complete radio station application, consisting of a control unit for Mac OS X and an RTP/RTSP standards-compliant server, which stores and transmits the program onto the Internet. The finished audio product, which includes titles and other streaming text information, is rebroadcast around the world by Akamai Technologies, Inc.

"We have adopted Backbone Radio Pro as our primary radio production and streaming application because of its flexibility and ease of use," said Dick Huey, Consulting VP New Media at the Beggars Group. "We feel that we can reach more listeners with a program that includes both live and recorded content, as well as fresh playlists that showcase our variety of artists and labels. Backbone Radio Pro is a tool that makes this task a lot easier."

Backbone Radio Pro allows operators to combine a fluid mix of live and cross-faded recorded material and stream it onto the Internet. Playlists are created by simple "drag-and-drop" from CD tracks or other sources and stored in the server for future play. Program output options include MP3, analog audio and QuickTime compressed audio streaming. A fully automated station may be created by cascading multiple, scheduled playlists, which automatically broadcast at absolute or relative times over the Internet.