LOS ANGELES- Dec. 22, 2000 -

POPcast Communications Corp., a provider of automated video networking services, announced the availability of their customizable POPblaster software for digital media authoring, conversion, streaming media encoding and automated Web publishing which is optimized for the advanced features of the new Intel Pentium 4 processor.

Similar to POPcast’s popular POPcaster product (which is available as a free trial download from www.popcast.com), POPblaster allows users to capture video through a wide variety of capture devices (including Webcams, camcorders and VCRs) and combine digital video files with text, still images and audio in their finished presentations. Complete files are then uploaded to users’ password-protected personal accounts on the POPcast's Video Network, made up of sites that incorporate POPcast services, where they can instantly be shared with anyone around the world over the Internet.

POPcast’s easy-to-use products support all standard digital formats and offer transitions and frame-level editing of video clips as well as the ability to specify high-speed video bit rates and playback window sizes to take advantage of broadband connections.

The POPblaster software is easily customized and branded for POPcast's service clients (broadband ISPs, telcos, corporations and portals, for example), allowing them to offer their users their own scalable, reliable, cutting-edge personal broadcasting service. Currently, POPblaster is exclusively available to users of personal digital media authoring and broadcasting services available through POPcast’s service clients.

Intel’s new Intel Pentium 4 processor incorporates advanced technology designed to maximize performance of digital media applications and provides innovations specifically targeted to Internet, imaging, streaming video, speech, 3-D, multimedia and multitasking user environments. POPblaster takes full advantage of these innovations.

"With its faster pipeline and Intel's Netburst micro-architecture technology, the Pentium 4 processor will provide an unprecedented digital media authoring and broadcasting experience for POPblaster users," said William Mutual, POPcast’s founder and chairman.

"The Pentium 4 processor was designed from the ground up to meet the needs of consumers who look to use their PCs for compelling applications involving digital media," said Dan Russell, general manager of Intel's Solutions Enabling Group. "By optimizing its software to take advantage of the new capabilities of the Pentium 4 processor, POPcast will continue to be instrumental in transforming the digital media experience."

Streamed and downloadable digital media are ideal PC applications to take advantage of Intel's core Pentium 4 processor innovations including the new 400MHz system bus and Streaming SIMD Extension 2 (SSE2) instruction set. The 400MHz system bus provides a 3.2 gigabyte transfer speed between the Pentium 4 processor, three times the bandwidth of the Intel Pentium III processor system bus and the memory controller. The SSE2 instruction set on the Pentium 4 processor will enable lower processor use at the same bit rate, boosting efficiency and performance for both consumers who want to enjoy digital media activities on their PCs and content developers who want to develop dynamic and rich digital media audio and video content.

About POPcast Communications Corporation
POPcast powers the video Internet as the leading provider of video solutions for broadband service providers, telco's, web portals, e-businesses, cable operators and mobile providers. POPcast pioneered the personal broadcasting revolution as the first service provider to offer branded turnkey solutions for live video broadcasting over a secure, global network scalable for one-to-one or one-to-many viewers. Through partnerships with world-class hardware, software and networking firms, POPcast leads the way in automated video innovative, system deployments, ease-of-use and quality-of-service. The Los Angeles-based, privately held company was founded in 1997 by veteran live-event streaming media service provider ITVnet.