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NPR's Car Talk Dumping RealMedia
olcrazypete writes: "Click and Clack are apparently fed up with Real Networks. They have switched to Windows Media Player format. 'Why? Because, for a long time, we've had tons of complaints about RealNetworks. And the one that ticks us off the most is the perceived trickery they use to sell their premium products. This is just our opinion, mind you, but it's shared by enough of our listeners, that we
finally decided to take action.' The whole story is here . My favorite line: 'It stinks so much that it even makes Microsoft look good by comparison. That's something, huh?'"
Switch to something a little more open minded... like Nullsoft's Shoutcast. I listen to some pretty nice UK radio stations from across the pond with KDE's Noatun whilst I code thanks to Shoutcast. I don't see any reason why its not usable for radio broadcasts like Click & Clack.
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
For those who don't know already, both mplayer and xine play streaming windows media just fine on Linux/FreeBSD/etc.
Not that I would ever endorse anything from Apple, but their streaming media technology seems fairly competent.
We tried to do streaming media with Darwin Streaming Server.. the problem is that you need Quicktime Pro in order to make streaming quicktimes.
Also, DSS doesn't do on-demand. It works like TV, you can't start at the beginning, you have to "tune in" to the broadcast.
As crappy as realmedia is, we can do live broadcasts, as well as let people listen in from the beginning, all with the same stream. Once we find a solution that lets us do both for relatively cheap, we'll switch.
DSS is almost there, they just need the ability to do on-demand streaming.
Go here to get Real Alternative.
a ti ve.htm
It plays Real Audio crap without the need for Real's crapware.
Windows only, I do believe.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Altern
no they did not. they are still playing games.
1 2904realhome_1_3_2_1_1_1
go to http://www.real.com/.
the headline reads: Introducing RealPlayer 10
subheadline: New Powerful Free
with a big image with a big, bright "Free" logo.
click on the free logo takes you here:
http://www.real.com/realplayer.html?pp=home&src=0
there are two big "Download Now" buttons on this site. both lead to the non-free premium player. in the margin on the right, with grey text over a grey background, there is a link to the free player.
that is bullshit. i know the free player is there, and that real plays tricks, so i specifically look for it. the average internet user, on the other hand, may not be that aware.
real are still assholes, and i am glad cartalk is moving away from their format because of their shitty tactics.
But one person finds this reply useful, I'll be happy. :)
There exists an alternative to downloading the horrid Real Player. Try googling "Real Alternative". It is a freely available codec that can work with any standard media player (such as Media Player Classic). Infact, I think it comes bundled with MPC. As far as I know, it works well.
You know you can download the "older" players and then just manually load the newer codecs. . . THEN DITCH THAT POS and get yourself media player classic. Runa all the codecs, has none of the adware.
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
Because they sell archives through Audible. Using a streaming format with DRM at least provides some ass-coverage against redistribution. Remember, Car Talk is not free-as-in-beer. Your local NPR affiliate pays a hefty chunk of change for Car Talk, All Things Considered, and other radio shows you all take for granted.
I'm not going to be an apologist for RealNetworks past actions. RealNetworks is a big enough company, that Jamie Zawinski's quote "[G]reat things are accomplished by small groups of people who are driven, who have unity of purpose. The more people involved, the slower and stupider their union is." I'll admit we've done slow and stupid things. However, there are certain things that can only be done by big companies, no matter how slow and stupid, which is why I haven't written a similar rant.
However, I'd like to point out that, in the "slow and stupid" vein, we're slowly getting better. The RealPlayer 10 beta isn't perfect, but it's better, and I imagine that things will be better in the final release.
Moreover, we've got a lot of really great things going on in the Helix Community. We've got the Helix Player for Linux, which just the won Best Open Source Project award at LinuxWorld. That means that if there's something that annoys you about it, you can fix it. It's based on Gtk, and the engine code is all cross-platform, so someone could theoretically port it to Windows even.
So, we're trying. I'm hoping that folks could cut us a little slack. I'm hoping that the Linux folks out there could help us change Car Talk's mind, since Windows Media is a pretty Linux-hostile format.
Thanks
Rob Lanphier
Helix Troublemaker
RealNetworks
Maybe there will be an open surce equivalent soon that will let you write the whole godam stream to a file before it even starts playing.
mplayer -ovc copy -oac copy -o foo.avi rtsp://whatever
(And what does "disp" mean? News about English slang is tragically lacking over here in the land of the rising sun . . .)
Actually I think he's referring to the excellent "Media Player Classic" a GPL "re-write" of mplayer2, it has all of features that the original did (small size, clean interface) and a heap of extra's such as Realmedia/Quicktime and even flash playback support using the IE plugin controls. http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/
I think though that real has lots of issue.
:D Real player was always better on the mp3s though.
1. its HARD to find the free player. They keep saying "free player here" but then nothing be for sale ones show up, then you find the little link hidden in the corner somewhere.
2. they want email for download. I know you can enter a fake one. But I get tired of it all.
3. They will install loads of *extra* garbage that MS wont. (Or MS is much better and covert-ops)
4. It will take you weeks to learn all the tons of things you need to turn off to keep that thing from harrassing you.
5. if you don't register, it keeps asking you each time you try to play a file. You get choice OK-Cancel (among other issues) which implies either register, or don't play. Quicken does the same horrible thing with their update feature...
I used to like realplayer better than MS. But if they are going to be equally as corrupt, I'll stick with MS since I already have it