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apologies for forgetting the right url, here is the Helix Community. See the stats they have too.

https://helixcommunity.org/

Not saying they did such GPL crime but, if you look at https://www.helixcommunity.org/ , don't you feel it is a bit surreal?

Such things happen. I call it "nerd coup" ;)

Does anyone actually believe that Microsoft will fund anything which will provide exact or better experience than the same thing on Windows?

Why would people use Windows than? Why does MS create Silverlight at first place absolutely knowing industry will laugh at them? They were so bugged by Adobe changing policy and shipping Flash to all big three platforms at same time. A person enjoying Youtube on Linux is the Microsoft's worst nightmare. It shouldn't work!

Also Flash is way more than Youtube, you can even ship a full feature media player on 3 different platforms just by some Flash/Flex/Air stuff. E.g. Adobe Media Player.

The "Flash Lite 3" plans to ship it for free to multiple handheld platforms must be particularly alerting for MS.

If MS really wanted to race with Flash as a "new option", not "another opportunity to lock people to windows". I tell you what would happen. SilverlightInstaller.i386.rpm _and_ 64bit version (bit to bit, PERFECTLY same as windows) would be available from Microsoft site itself. Man, _that_ would raise alarm at Adobe.

Also, lets not forget Adobe makes money from the Flash creation tools and servers etc. so a future open source flash minus (patented and binary) codecs is not impossible thing. I am speaking about that kind of thing: https://www.helixcommunity.org/ , what would be the meaning of monkeying with open source code to replicate a microsoft technology knowing you will never achieve windows version?

Google can make millions of dollars over Youtube by putting Text Ads to ripped content but when time comes that people actually saves the FLV file they already downloaded, it is a problem. Do you know the solution to prevent regular end user from ripping your (read, YOURS) content? DRM it. It will at least create some hassle and legal responsibility. Not like DRM ever actually worked.

Also targeting Real Networks will really work on Slashdot considering there are thousands of people who types almost memorised things like "Spyware!" when they hear Real Networks, a company who offers entire source in GPL on https://www.helixcommunity.org/

Nice, targeted article which you can only expect from a media professional having a pinpoint target. It wouldn't be wise to target Apple Inc. who offers "Save as source" in their Quicktime Plugin for ages when user pays $30 to their software making it "Pro".

Real Networks gives a commercial quality open source media framework and player for free and those stuff you see (e.g. V10/11) are based on that.

https://www.helixcommunity.org/

Don't ask why they do such a favour while people posting outdated information from 1999 exists.

Helix Player 2.0 (don't know if this will correspond to RealPlayer 11) will support ALSA:

https://player.helixcommunity.org/2005/dev/plans.h tml

https://helix-client.helixcommunity.org/
I rest my case.

"So they should say Windows, Mac and Linux? Or should that be Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD? Or Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD and my toy OS that I wrote in CS class?"

http://www.helixcommunity.org/
http://www.real.com/linux (FreeBSD runs it too)
http://www.realnetworks.com/industries/mobile/prod ucts/player/index.html
http://www.real.com/mac/

Solaris/AIX and other variants exist but huge URLs. I am not even talking about Videolan and how easy to make a custom Videolan player with DRM of my choice.

Point is: If you are actually a media player/server making company, you try to reach ALL available environments. If you are a division of a giant OS monopoly company, you try to alienate all competing OSes and platforms and may even get support from unsuspecting users.

If the BBC decides to only serve their content under, say, Ogg Theora, how long do you think it would take before that HAD "the market penetration"?

Think about it from a end-user point of view:

end-user 1: "I want to watch the BBC on my PC/mobile/microwave oven but it doesn't work anymore" (enlightened) end-user 2: "Click here to download the program that plays it and then it works" Useful information like that spreads quickly.

There are no fundamental reasons why free video codecs, players, and servers should be a pain to install, you know :-) If you can't install the server, hire someone who can. I'm sure the BBC would be able to find such people. The client is probably not an issue because wikipedia says (i quote) "125 millions of helix client empowered mobile phones have been shipped since 2006". It didn't say if all those clients (on e.g. Symbian mobile phones) can also play all of the media formats such as Ogg Theora, and I don't know.

The server seems to be available from RealNetworks under two different open source licenses RCSL and RPSL; I don't know the terms of those licenses but being open source it probably is possible and allowed to add Ogg Theora file format if it isn't provided already. Maybe RealNetworks demands that the modified server and client can always work with their .rm format; that would be a reasonable licensing condition, no?

Have some confidence that useful, non-evil technology can percolate through to mass-use. It happened in the past and it can happen again.

Why bother reverse engineering an open source project you moron.

See here: https://helixcommunity.org/

Then go to this site and improve it:

https://helixcommunity.org/

About 5 years ago they open sourced the entire player and just held on to the codecs.

I think I know the reason why. You must really like Apple.

Jobs didn't want that, though. He didn't want universally compatible music, he wanted ipod-and-only-ipod compatible music, which is why these new higher priced songs are only offered in AAC.

Sony and Archos (at minimum) make players which support AAC. Commercial libraries like BASS and Alarity support encoding and decoding of AAC. FAAD2 is a free/open AAC decoder. The Helix Community has supplied a decoder which supports AAC (and lots of other things.) You can get Cellphone AAC Players for Symbian or Windows Mobile.

Can you please explain again how non-DRM'd AAC audio files create Apple lock-in?

Actually, I personaly doubt they will release it using GPL, in whatever incarnation of the license. They are more likely to get OSI approval for an open source license of their own, just like SUN and IBM did. And considering the stakes here, the approval (or not) should be handled by the OSI board as high priority.

Please open up your own format first before going and opening up other peoples' formats.

They have, AFAIK.

Helix Community offers the open source Helix Player which supports encoding and transcoding of RM along with a bunch of other formats.

Please open up your own format first before going and opening up other peoples' formats.

They have, AFAIK.

Helix Community offers the open source Helix Player which supports encoding and transcoding of RM along with a bunch of other formats.

Yeah, that Helix Banshee sure looks great...except that it doesn't exist.

Anyway, WTF are you saying? They're doomed to fail because they don't include Your Favorite App X? Get ahold of yourself, man!

Actually, Real does produce free/OSS implementations of their software for servers and clients. Helix, anyone?

The proprietary media player just happens to work very, very well, and there is NO reason for there to NOT be a choice in media players. You happen to like Media Player Classic on Windows, but some people prefer Quicktime, Others like (ugh!) Microsoft's media player. Still others prefer VLC. Why should there NOT be a choice for people, or should all other media players be discontinued because YOU prefer Media Player Classic?

I have a windows version of RealPlayer installed which comes with no spyware, no annoying crap in the system tray and it only pops up when I try and play a RealPlayer clip.

If you people cant set it up to do the same please stop posting on a discussion board for geeks as you are obviously an idiot.
I would tell you what I did to get to this state, but the steps involved were so trivial I did not commit them to memory.

On another note, isnt RealPlayer (Helixplayer) now partly open source developed with only the latest Real codecs being proprietary.

Have a look round this site to learn more -
http://helixcommunity.org/

The Real codecs are not open source.

IHBT, IHL, IWTTHAND?

RealNetworks still exists, but their proprietary audio/video codecs are used by nobody other than their bloatware RealOne

I guess the irony is that Real's software is Open Source. I dare you (or anyone) to refute me. Your total ignorance and colossal want of basic knowledge are evident in posts like this.

Congratulations, you're just another ignorant luser. Don't worry, Windows Vista will protect you from the scary world of Open Source and freedom.

I wonder the impact to Helix Platform (not using the name of product on /.) as their Helix stuff will need a HTML engine later for "rich media on 3g".

As Nokia is in Helix board recently https://helixcommunity.org/ , this thing will be ported into Helix player too. It is just a guess.

It means Symbian gets some amazing 3G stuff later. It also means this is news for Microsoft Win CE and Media Player divisions.

Opera will keep going, if I had a $1000 Symbian S60/S80 phone, I would pay that $29 for it.

Great news for Linux and open source developers. Today Real announced it has added a fundamental patent for certain streaming media technology to its portfolio of patented innovations in digital media AND is automatically licensing the patented technology via its OSI-certified open source license for Helix DNA software, as Real has done with its other digital media patents embodied within Helix DNA Software. The recently-issued "Click-to-Stream" patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,985,932) covers the core methods used when a user selects a link to stream audio-visual content. The patent covers Real's groundbreaking technology innovations dating back to November 1994, four months before the introduction of RealAudio, which forever changed the Web by bringing streaming audio to the Internet for the first time. Real is indeed serious about open source software.

Click-to-Stream joins the portfolio of over 35 patents related to digital media, many that are available to Helix DNA Software licensees. As many of you know, over 50 commercial and open source companies, including Nokia, Linspire, Motorola, Novell, Real, Red Hat, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Sun Microsystems, Trolltech and Xandros, have licensed Helix DNA software and its patented technology to build media-enabled products.

So what about the GPL license you ask? Yes, the Helix DNA Client (the FOSS media framework which supports any format and any operating system) is licensed under the GPL license. And what about patents under the GPL? As you may know, the proposed draft 3.0 of GPL contains an express patent license, whereas the current version of GPL being used by Real (version 2.0) does not contain a patent license. There is broad and public discussion about whether and to what extent an implicit patent license is or is not granted under the GPL, and if so, what the scope of such a license would be. Real's concerns regarding the uncertain nature of such an implied license has led Real to expressly disclaim any implied patent license under its GPL license grant, and to encourage Open Source developers who desire an express patent license from Real to take a license from Real under the RealNetworks Public Source License. For those who nevertheless prefer to use the code under the GPL, we assure you that Real has no plans to pursue any abiding GPL licensee of the Helix DNA Client software - We fully encourage open source software innovation and the collaboration among our licensees.

Here is the actual announcement: http://www.realnetworks.com/company/press/releases

Here is the licensing FAQ https://helixcommunity.org/content/faq-licenses

Kevin Foreman,
GM, Real

I think it is time to stop bashing a company for mistakes it has made a while ago. They are trying to correct their mistakes. The free version of their player is easily available from their home page now. If you want more information about Real's Helix efforts, go here

. The fact that you continue to be bitter about something that no longer possibly is true is sad. You may go ahead and flame me now.

https://helixcommunity.org/ (They provide a free,opensource, full feature player/server)

and

http://www.realnetworks.com/company/press/index.ht ml (see how they do lately)

and

http://www.real.com/freeplayer/?rppr=rnwk (see platforms)

But you will get +5 for posting "anti real player bs" and my post will fade -1 eventually. Not that I care.

There aren't good options on Linux because RedHat, Suse etc... aren't in bed with Real

Huh. That's weird. I wonder what all these are for then. Looks like I (or anyone else) can go get binaries for the Helix DNA Server v10 for:
AIX 4.3/5.x on PowerPC
FreeBSD 5.x on IA32
HP/UX 11.0 on HP-PA
Linux on IA32
NetBSD 1.6 on IA32
OpenBSD 3.3 on IA32
Tru64 5.1 on Alpha
Solaris 8/9 on UltraSPARC
Windows on IA32

And v11 for
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 on IA32
Linux 2.6 on IA32
Solaris 9/10 on UltraSPARC
Windows Server 2003 on IA32

You can find more info on the project page.

Also, because a distro includes packages from another company doesn't indicate any kind of partnership at all. Case in point: Xandros desktop 1 where Xandros took the Real Player Linux alpha, fixed it and made it the default media player for XD. It wasn't till XD 3 was in development before they actually had any kind of contect from Real.

There aren't good options on Linux because RedHat, Suse etc... aren't in bed with Real

Huh. That's weird. I wonder what all these are for then. Looks like I (or anyone else) can go get binaries for the Helix DNA Server v10 for:
AIX 4.3/5.x on PowerPC
FreeBSD 5.x on IA32
HP/UX 11.0 on HP-PA
Linux on IA32
NetBSD 1.6 on IA32
OpenBSD 3.3 on IA32
Tru64 5.1 on Alpha
Solaris 8/9 on UltraSPARC
Windows on IA32

And v11 for
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 on IA32
Linux 2.6 on IA32
Solaris 9/10 on UltraSPARC
Windows Server 2003 on IA32

You can find more info on the project page.

Also, because a distro includes packages from another company doesn't indicate any kind of partnership at all. Case in point: Xandros desktop 1 where Xandros took the Real Player Linux alpha, fixed it and made it the default media player for XD. It wasn't till XD 3 was in development before they actually had any kind of contect from Real.

Realplayer is not adware, especially after 10. It was never adware , just annoying.

Helix Project (open source leg of real networks) announced 50 million Symbian S60 installations and 100.000 registered members to their site

https://helixcommunity.org/

They are building an empire on Mobile media. No need to panic, all "standards based"

Realnetworks have more than 2 MILLION PAYING subscribers.
http://www.realnetworks.com/company/press/releases /2006/q405results_8r16Js.html

Also a funny fact is, most of the large content providers may use windows media (MS exclusive deals etc) but the media is served via Helix/Real servers in fact. :)

Q. What players currently support Theora?
Major players like mplayer, xine, helix player and VideoLAN supports Theora. Directshow filters are also available for use on Windows platform.

Why must everyone keep saying that you can't use realplayer stuff (embedded or not) in Linux?

https://player.helixcommunity.org/

Not only does it work perfectly, standalone and as a plugin, it's better than the Windows Real* players.
And, if you don't want to use the plugin, you could just view the html of the page and get the link to it, then open it in a standalone player... mplayer, realplayer, vlc.. etc.

Will Linux users use Real's product?

If you use Xandros the RealPlayer comes as the default media player. This is not a bad deal either, because the Linux player is not crammed full of ads- it does what a media player should: play media. I give the Xandros guys a lot of credit, too, because ever since they started bundling the RealPlayer with their distro, they've been the ones to actually make the install work. Prior to that, Real had (still does I think) it listed as an alpha.

I would think more Linux folks would be attracted to Real, actually, because they have the open source version of the player and server, Helix and last I checked neither Apple nor MS have made their player OSS.

http://www.realnetworks.com/company/press/index.ht ml --> They do real fine in their business,especially portable market lately.

https://helixcommunity.org/ --> They offer open source multimedia platform for free and they respect whatever OS you use including FreeBSD.

http://www.realnetworks.com/company/privacy/ --> They have well documented privacy.

Universal, decided formats are mpeg 4 and its part, h264. MPEG 2 is very fine if you have 10mbit connection to internet. The most "complete" mpeg4 implementation I have seen (which is amazingly free) is 3ivx , its not a divx wannabe, its the mpeg 4 codec.

Nothing on win32 since windows 2000 can make a BSOD since they run in their protected space.

If Real networks died before iPod, you would be playing wma and wmv (IF microsoft allowed now but its a different story.

But keep hating them including 2002 (or 2001?) software brands from Real such as "realone", you will have your +5

I'm doing a similar sort of project at work
Get a good 10/100 switch from whoever. If you feel the need, put some extra ethernet cards in your two main boxes (get the $10 ones instead of the $5). Think about upgrading them in the future too... Anything running Win98 isn't really meant for 24/7 audio streaming, and will probably cause headaches in the near future.
Next, check out http://www.helixcommunity.org/Helix. It runs on Linux, Solaris (that's free now too!) and even Windows (really only server 2003 only though). I'm not totally convinced Real is totally evil, and odds are people will already have the client installed so they can listen online while they're stuck in the basement lab.
Finally, move as many computers to Linux or Solaris as you can. I'd recommend Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora Core, OpenSUSE or OpenSolaris. Whatever you're more comfortable with, but still easy to maintain for the next person. My experience has been that they are all easier to install and maintain than Windows.

A majority of giftware on the market today is malware, the creators "paid" through marketing or market analysis.

Opera should look into a similar strategy as Real Networks, adapting their business strategy with the changing paradigm of software production. If not, evolution will ensure their short lifespan. It really is that simple.

Toontown Online uses plain Python. http://www.toontownonline.com/ (IE only)

It uses the open-source multi-platform Panda3D http://panda3d.org/ engine.

And the SourceForge http://sourceforge.net/projects/panda3d/ link, the Helix community https://panda3d.helixcommunity.org/, etc.

Works pretty well, 10K+ players.

http://www.helixcommunity.org/helix

Since it's a ram file, there's Real Player for Linux or even community based Helix

Why? Helix/Real Player is just fine.

I agree with your assessment. Multimedia on Linux is behind other platforms. Real, Linspire, Red Hat, Novell and others aggressively working to change this landscape. Specifically, we are now working on the Helix Player 2.0 https://player.helixcommunity.org/ which provides for support of Windows Media, MP3, RealVideo, RealAudio, Flash, etc as well as other great features like Ad-free radio and Automatic Bandwidth Detection.

I urge all interested to join us by joining the project mailing lists and letting us know if you encounter and bugs in the product.

Kevin Foreman,
GM, Helix

helix player ;)

It would take years to have Opera functionality in a webbrowser on a smallscreen.

On "mini laptops" named as phones, you have a huge screen. If you can manage to compile it, you can even have mozilla running.

Opera technology is unique and being called "dead" everytime when such news happens, they are actually working on a TV browser, which is fit to set top boxes (OpenTV etc) right now.

Nothing bad will happen to Opera. They have a huge paying customer base like you which ignored "free" solutions. (let me don't get into there is nothing free stuff)

BTW, much larger, important news, months ago is: Nokia is now a full member of Helix project, from Real networks. Prepare to see some amazing breakthroughs on video/audio/3g on any Symbian installed phone. https://www.helixcommunity.org/

I just need a phone with memory card to test those new evil realplayers for symbian, 7650 got 2mb, its compressed and full :) I am not binning a working device of course.

If you got a phone which can run Opera, test those helix players too.

Maybe that depends on what features I need to be productive/satisfied. Personally, I don't need anything iTunes offers that I can't get from XMMS or Helix. Although I don't do music mixing, I would try Audacity as an alternative to GarageBand.

A better example for my situation is Visio; the only alternative I know of is Dia. It has a long way to go, but I am looking into helping out by designing icon sets. For me, I'm frustrated enough by the current state of Dia (added to my desire to be GNU/Linux only) that I'm willing to help to scratch my own itch. That's just how free software should be made, I suppose.

http://forms.real.com/real/player/blackjack.html

Scroll to "Unix" and just see the platforms they support.

For a commercial quality media player, just go http://www.real.com/linux , to support their development if you can code real stuff will make into even 2mb Nokia 7650 running on Symbian 60, go https://www.helixcommunity.org/ , OPEN SOURCE except codecs (they don't want them end in Redmond)

I supported Real just because whatever OS I run, their player actually worked. Others like MS said simply "fsck off" (mplayer is not relevant)

Even Apple being asshole to their own mac customers, forget quicktime 7 if you don't have their latest OS (or 1 less) while they accept that awful anti multimedia OS, windows 2000!

Win2k wasn't intended for home you know :)

Use Realplayer 10.0.2 under linux. https://helixcommunity.org/download.php/806/hxplay -1.0.2.tar.bz2

For Win32 there is a decoder with source but I haven't tested it. http://www.voiceage.com/codecsite/openinit_amr.php

Or you can copy it to a recent Nokia phone and listen to it

I realize you've gotten a lot of responses already, but here's something for everyone else.

The beauty of Theora is that it's completely open source and does have any (known) patent licensing issues. This means that in theory, anything capable of playing a video should be able to play Theora, for free.

On Linux, use mplayer, xine, vlc, or anything based on Gstreamer.

On Windows, download the DirectShow codec or the RealPlayer plugin, or use the Windows version of one of the Linux players.

Now that Theora codec has reached a final state, there should be no excuse for anyone to not be able to play it (barring hardware limitations).

I have good news for you as you are a Nokia customer.

Now Nokia is in Helix community, official member and I bet they started to code already.

Its a good idea to bookmark/rss them to see whats coming next:

https://helixcommunity.org/

This sounds like a lot of hype for something that's out there for symbian phone owners already. With an unlimited data plan in hand, download RealOne for Symbian, find your favorite station that streams using RealAudio (BBC has more than a dozen plus world service in 43 languages) and go.

My favorite is listening to This American Life...I'll be honest, my Nokia 3650 only supports 16khz/8bit/mono, but it's certainly listenable...if only I had an adapter between the the headset port and a 1/8" jack, then I could use it with my car stereo.

There's a forum thread in the helix community on this: Summary of BattleStar Galactica issues