ISE 2018: Barix to unveil music streaming solution
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“For customers wanting to deliver streaming background music and messages across a high number of locations, budget restrictions and price sensitivity have often led them to use consumer-grade players that lack the reliability and usability of dedicated solutions,” said Reto Brader, vice president of sales and marketing, Barix. “Our new Retail Player system shatters those pricing barriers, providing a dependable, easy-to-manage and easily-scalable solution that’s also affordable.”
That cost-efficiency starts with Barix’s new Exstreamer S hardware, running the Retail Player firmware. Powered by the company’s new IPAM400 IP audio module, which is also debuting at ISE 2018, the Exstreamer S provides high-quality decoding of live audio streams and advanced buffer management in an ultra-compact form factor.
Meanwhile, the new Barix Retail Player Portal provides centralised configuration, management, status monitoring and stream switching for Exstreamer S devices across multiple locations. Offered as a cloud-based service or for customers to purchase and install locally on their own servers, the portal lets users quickly and seamlessly switch streaming channels via a web browser or mobile device without needing to interact directly with the receiving decoders.
“Customers with multiple streaming channels often want to switch between them when their audience demographic changes,” explained Brader. “For example, a fitness club may suddenly be crowded with people from a different age group, and want to switch the music to suit that new set of members. With Retail Player, the club’s manager can switch streams through the portal without ever needing to access the hardware.”
(Jim Evans)
