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NPR's Car Talk Dumping RealMedia

Posted by Cliff on from the fed-up-and-not-taking-it-anymore dept.

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?'"

5 of 717 comments (clear)

  1. Why not Quicktime? by BWJones · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously though. These guys (Click and Clack) are Macheads so why not quicktime? The Quicktime streaming server fundamentals are under the Darwin open source and free paradigms, there are no licensing fees as there are with Windows, and hey, it's so easy to use. So, what gives?

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  2. Adult Industry by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Back when Real Media was using the adult entertainment industry to get their hold on the streaming media market, they had a special link for adult websites that made it much more obvious how to download the free player. Of course back then finding the free player link from their main page wasn't so hard either.

    Divx.com is guilty of the same thing. They have a free codec package that will work fine with Windows Media Player. But it isn't in their table of their three main products. Also if you do find it, and just go with the install default config options, you'll see a Divx watermark at the start of every video. This can be turned off easy enough from the "Decoder Configuration Utility".

  3. Four words by stox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  4. File Types by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To me file types are like a langauge. They should be free and open. Could you imagine the mess we'd be in if we had to pay a fee to use the english language. Or if someone kept it hidden so that it could only be used with their translators. For the man that could patent it, it would be a gold mine.

  5. Re:This will be modded down by digitaleus · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Slashdot is like any other group of ordinary people - it has it's own prejudices, which may be based in fact but are kept alive by intuitions. Facts are just a tool to validate those intuitions.

    Slashdot is not a research facility, it's not a debtate, it's an informal discussion, and you can't come in and demand that people involved in the discussion be less biased - accept that this is the tone of the group, and if you want to, join in.

    No one's forcing you to read....

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