Quick Reference Card

Demo Backbone Radio Standard

2006-10-21-rac

Hello. Welcome to Backbone Radio Standard, the most powerful Internet radio software in the world. We hope this document is short enough to read and simple enough to help you.

What This Is

Backbone Radio Standard is the software you use to create, operate and stream your Internet radio station. You will download all the components you need, including your content creation studio, your automation system, your live broadcast console, and your streaming transmitter server.

First: This is an Apple Macintosh application.

For those of you with Windows, you can use your PC for other tasks. To create a professional Internet radio station, you need a professional multimedia computer, and that means a Mac, with Backbone Radio software. Fortunately, Mac computers are very affordable.

The other good news is that all of your listeners can hear you whether they are on Macs or PCs. All they need is QuickTime or iTunes, and who doesn't have either of those!

New in this Version: iTunes Integration with eCommerce

Backbone Radio fully supports not only QuickTime, but also Apple's iTunes(R) and its iTunes Store(R). With this unique interrelationship, you have access to the most powerful music store in the world. Backbone Radio is the only software that:

System Requirements

Download and Get Ready

Download the Backbone Radio Standard Demo dmg for PowerPC or Intel Macintoshes.
Note:Please make certain that you download the proper installer for your type of Macintosh computer (Intel or PowerPC), otherwise you may receive a message that tells you it will not run on your system's architecture.

Drag and drop the three applications into your Applications folder if you are the computer's administrator, or in your Documents folder if you are not.

First: Start backboneServer Application

Double click the icon to open and start the server application.

Open the Studio Application

Then open OnAir Studio application ("Studio"). This is the application you use to create your playlists and schedules, and to manage your content.

Registration Reminder

You will be reminded to buy and/or register your product, but for now, click Demo and have fun.

Studio Preferences

Go to OnAir Studio > Preferences > (Station Tab) to name your station. This will be your station's permanent name, so choose a good one.

Fill in your default URL. This is where you want your listeners to go when they click on your streamed images or text info (artist, title, album "tags").

Also fill in your copyright info. As an Internet radio station you will incur an obligation to treat your and others' copyrighted material properly and to abide by laws and regulations regarding its use. In the United States and Internationally there are evolving governmental and industry requirements, and you will want to keep informed as to how they affect your station.

Backbone Radio software is designed to make it easier for you to comply with the governmental reporting requirements, since it logs your station operation and allows you to easily generate reports that conform to these rules. In preparation for generating these reports later, you will want to look up your transmission category for royalty reporting. You can find out more about this at: http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2004/69fr11515.html

Now go to the Preferences > Annotation tab.

If you plan to stream images with your audio, drop your station's default image into this box. Text tags will, as a result, appear on top of your streamed images. This is the image that will accompany songs if you did not give that song its own image (e.g., cover art). Verify the URL that goes with this image. Also, if you plan to use the iTunes Store for importing album cover art and offering ecommerce to your listeners, you can enable iTunes integration on this page. You will be able to select this for each song upon importing in your Studio application playlist window. You will need to establish an Affiliate identification code through Apple (http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/) in order to earn revenues from songs that your listeners buy and download. Note: In Demo mode, this Affiliate field is not modifiable.

Let's Get Started

Create New Playlist

Now let's load our station. You already have one playlist in your schedule (default playlist). To make your first playlist go to File > New Playlist. A new empty playlist should appear.

Load Your Playlist

Now insert a CD, and drag-and-drop a few songs onto your new playlist. Notice that it automatically looks up and inserts the tag information for you. You can rearrange your song order by dragging the items up and down on the playlist.

Fast Loading from iTunes

Alternatively, you can add songs by using your Add Item button and browsing to your CD, mp3 folders, etc. You can also drag directly from your iTunes playlists, and tags will be added for you, as well. This means that as the new station program manager, you are already prepared to quickly build your station with a vast store of music from your iTunes library. (Note: While protected AAC files are DRM protected and are not permitted to be streamed, you can stream mp3 files, as well as mp4 tracks previously ripped from your CDs.)

If you want to add or change the tag information, or if this information did not import, you can fill it in at the bottom of the window. Use the other tabs to add/change album info; change your text sizes and colors; add images for each song; and fine tune your standard rotation weighting (for automatically creating playlists with a template). If images do not load auomatically, you may manually drag them from your itunes window into your playlist Image Annotation window's image box. You can play with all of this later.

Importing Art and URLs from the iTunes Store

You can optionally import more information from the iTunes Store once you have your artist/song entered. For each song you select, you can click on the "get iTunes store link" button, and if that song/artist/album combination is listed in the iTunes Store, the album cover art image and the iTunes Store URL will be automatically loaded into your song's annotation.

You can verify that the link takes your listener to the proper iTunes location to purchase by clicking the "test link" button. This launches your iTunes application and takes you to the URL location (via browser redirect), as illustrated.

Record Live to Disk

If you want to record your voice, for instance, as a clip, press the "record LIVE" button, and you will begin recording to disk immediately using the audio input specified to the left of the button. When you press again to stop recording, your live recording will appear on the playlist. Insert the proper item information, and then treat it as you would any of your other songs or commercials.

Categories for Rotation

As a default, your added items are categorized as "music". These categories will later become important as you create "standard rotation" playlists. You can change the categories for each. If you need to add or change available categories, you can do this by going to Playlist > Edit Database Types.

Save and Render the Playlist

Now that we have created a simple playlist, we need to save and render it. Do not to eject your CD before you finish this process and your music files are transferred. Later you can learn how to rip CDs to disk and load multiple CDs to create a playlist.

How to Save, the Processing Queue

When you Save and Render, your software takes you to a window called the Processing Queue. This area is like a music processing mill that takes your music, compresses it to the right size for streaming, it adds metadata that allows your music to stream properly, and then it transfers and files your music in your Item Database so your server can access it like a jukebox.

To process your playlist go to File > Save and Render. Name your playlist and save. Now the Processing Queue appears.

Click the Process Items button, and the playlist(s) begin compressing and transferring. When it is complete, you can eject your disk or source material.


Add Playlist to Schedule

The Schedule

Your playlist is part of a schedule that contains other playlists, and each can be floating (one that starts when the previous one has finished) or fixed time. At least one playlist in your schedule must remain floating in case you forget to update your fixed schedule items. You can rearrange schedule items (playlists) by drag-and-drop.

The Item Database

Now that your songs are in the server's Item Database (Playlist > Item Database), you can use them to make new playlists just by dragging songs from the Database onto your playlist.

To quickly find songs in your Database, use the shortcut command-F, and enter your search criteria.

Now it is time to start broadcasting.

Open OnAir Display Application

This application is your DJ interface. This is where you can manually command automated playlists, and itˆïs your console for live broadcasts.

OnAir Display Preferences

For a quick start, there is nothing for you to do in Preferences, since defaults are already selected for you. Your live data rate is set for normal voice quality. You may wish to change playlist color schemes later, and specify a folder for your stub movies (links for your audience to tune in). Unless you choose otherwise, your station will be broadcasting with images. Later we will see how to change your default images for your live broadcast segments.

OnAir Display Monitoring and Controls

OnAir Display Monitoring

Everything you need to know about the station's operational status is on this screen.

Let's see what it tells us, starting from the top of the window.

Controlling the Playlist and Going Live

Controls are shown at the bottom of the window

Note: This will not only control gain for your microphone, but also for any mixer input you use for live broadcasts.

Rearranging the playlist order, adding songs

Even though your playlist is saved with a certain sequence, you can change it on the fly for just this performance. Using drag and drop, you can move items up and down in your playlist. You can also temporarily add songs/items by dragging them to the playlist from your Database (OnAir Studio > Playlist > Item Database).

Creating Rotational Playlists

Keeping your station sounding fresh can be a lot of work. Fortunately, Backbone Radio Standard includes an incredibly easy way to have your computer automatically generate fresh new playlists using a mechanism known as "standard rotation". Basically, this is a rules based method of creating playlists onto your set of play list templates.

To create a rotational playlist, first create a new playlist from the File menu (OnAir Studio > File > New Playlist). Now you will create a playlist consisting of rotation items, each with a specific category (music, news, etc.).

To place these items, select each item's category in the rotation pop-up menu. Release the button, and that item now appears on the playlist. Now repeat until your playlist order is the sequence you want. Drag and drop to rearrange. This is our sample rotation template playlist.

Next we save the playlist, and we will arbitrarily call it "rot-1". Then we add it to our Schedule, under the Playlist menu. To play it immediately after the current song finishes, press the "PLAY playlist TO-AIR" button. OnAir Studio will automatically generate a playlist from corresponding items in your Database just prior to going on the air.

The more clips you have in your Database of each type, the greater the freshness you will get. Generate other templates in this way, and you will have a very attractive station.

Changing Live Image Annotation

In your OnAir Disply application, you may want to use a different image and text set for your live segments than you use as your station default. To make this change, go to OnAir Display > File > Change Live Annotation. Drop in an image, change your text, size and color as required.

Generating Stub Movies

Stub movies are your audience's link to your station. Instead of sending your target listeners a string of characters, your station will automatically generate an object that you can send them. When they click on the .mov "movie" object, it will launch your excellent station. You can embed this movie on your web page, and readers will be able to click and listen. To generate your station's stub movie, go to OnAir Display > File > Generate Stub Movies. Two movies are created, one using port 8080, and an alternate for port 7070 for listeners who may have firewall problems. Most can use 8080. You can find them in the folder you specify.

Podcasting

Using the same techniques, live recording and your Item Database, open a new podcast. Load the appropriate preference items as they relate to your podcast, computer and server. Then drag, drop and record to make your podcast and publish it. To create chapters, each with individual images, you will need to download a piece of software known as a "chapter tool" from Apple.

Enjoy the Demo

We hope you have as much fun with the demo as we have had creating it. There are a lot more features and tricks you will discover, and there are more we will tell you about later.