A new software aims to be the Mac-daddy of streaming audio.
Jason Bernthol, director of business development of Play Media Systems, presented the new downloadable Internet software Friday at Macworld Expo. The software, called AmpRadio, allows users to track virtually all of the approximately 2,500 Internet radio stations, as well as record songs and organize them on a playlist.
"It can turn any Mac into your own home stereo system," Bernthol said. "You can have a house party and put the iMac on the kitchen table. AmpRadio gives the quality of MP3 recording and you can adjust the volume just like on your car stereo, but it's on your desktop."
AmpRadio is downloadable for a US$10 shareware fee at SubBand.
The program categorizes Internet radio stations in a "Tracker," which lists the stations by genre. AmpRadio lists any station registered with the streaming audio Web sites Shoutcast, Icecast, or Live365.com.
"Whatever radio stations are out there, you get," Bernthol said.
The SubBand interface tells you the station's streaming bit rate, how many users can listen to a stream at once, and how many other people are listening.
"You can use that as your own voting palate. It can be a way to find out if it's a good quality sound, if it's skipping, or if there's dead air," Bernthol said.
While you're listening, you can watch AmpRadio's visual component, a bright blue grid that throbs to the beat of the music, and to that you can add balls of light that swirl on the screen. The company plans to add more features to the visual component soon, Bernthol said.
By dragging the radio station to the playlist manager, users can record whatever they're listening to. Or, the user can store ripped or downloaded MP3s.
WiredPlanet, another streaming audio company, licenses music directly from record labels and artists to help people create their own interactive playlists, which can be edited and sent to friends.
"The cool thing that makes us different from ShoutCast and places like that is a lot of those stations are illegal now. They have no license, but they're doing it anyway," said Thomas Hale, CEO of WiredPlanet. (WiredPlanet has no connection to Wired News.)
"You might like that station, but tomorrow it might be off the air. We run our own servers with our own content," Hale said.
Expo attendees liked the AmpRadio model.
"If you're a musician and you need to get ideas for styles and you're dry, you could hop on here and get ideas," said Bob Nafarrete, a keyboardist who watched the presentation at the Expo, and runs his own recording studio in San Francisco.
The software will be a venue for lesser known artists to get airplay, Bernthol said.
"It's tough to make it in this business, and this technology evens the score a bit," Bernthol said.
"And it can be done with practically no investment at all," said Vinay Venkatesh, a graphic designer and webmaster at SubBand.
Bernthol cited the example of the band Creed, which recently booted the bigger-name Garth Brooks down to number two on the charts. Creed made several of its tracks available for free on the Internet, which some say is the reason the band's album did so well.
Bernthol compared burgeoning technologies like AmpRadio to the proliferation of cable TV satellite dishes.
"It's the concept of mass information for everyone. It's not a matter of MP3s but of the latest technology," Bernthol said. "It's fundamentally the causative Radio Free Europe."
