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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?'"
First you have to hunt down the link for the free player, similiar to what winamp's doing now, then while you're installing the thing it has about 50 screens of email crap you have to tell it not to add you to, and most of those the only options that are checked are way down in the list where you have to scroll down to catch it. They have all the moral turpitude of Gator (its spyware! - only true geeks will get that) as far as I'm concerned.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
Peoples problem with Real Media is not the quality of the streaming media. It is the constant barrage of advertising and popups to get you to sign up for the premium service. Microsoft may no tdo this now but once they have the market cornered they will switch to a pay for play model i'm guessing. I'm surprised that Car talk is moving away from this kind of crap when so many others are moving toward. It seems like half the online newspapers that used to be free are now a charge or register type of thing.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
I used to like Real. Even after the debacle with the spyware in their jukebox, I was willing to give them a second chance. But I learned my lesson somewhere around G2. I was installing their latest player on my wife's Windows box, and up pops a Gator installer!
:-P
Of course it also didn't help my opinion of them that they provided my state with Maria Cantwell.
#DeleteChrome
Chaincast offered KQED "free" streaming and no matter how many times they were contacted they never called back. Too bad for them.
I'm an insane right wing gun nut and I listen to NPR because the profit driven stations in my area (Seattle) mostly suck ass. Yeah, profit motivated stations are soooooooo great, look at the quality of fare offered by Clear Channel.
I'm disappointed that they don't use Shoutcast/MP3 or Quicktime, although Quicktime might piss them off for the same reason as Real Media does as every time you start it Apple ends up trying to get you to shell out some dineros for Quicktime Pro.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
[xman@localhost xman]$ mplayer
bash: mplayer: command not found
[xman@localhost xman]$ xine
bash: xine: command not found
I don't want to have to install a half dozen different libraries in the correct order and compile the latest version of these programs and read 50,000 words of README and INSTALL and newsgroup postings to make it work. I want something that works as soon as I get done installing my distro and no further configuration to the browser either. Click and Clack won't you please stream Ogg?
I used to be an engineer at Real. Most of us got fired a couple years ago. I think the programming is done out of India, or one of those former soviet republics.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
stupid moderator. the cynical post had a point relevant to the conversation. Bill and Melinda give donations to public radio. Click and Clack explained how they disliked Real, but they did not explain how they chose Windows over numerous other streaming technologies.
A while back when we were comparing different formats and players for cross browser compatibility we found that the quicktime plugin was the ONLY one that consistantly worked properly across Netscape 4.x/6.x+ and IE. Windows Media Player 6.4/7.x crashed several times on certain formats and would sometimes lock the browser or the entire machine. Real Media was in second place but still far short of the quicktime plugin. Apple hasn't done everything right, but they certainly haven't done everything wrong.
Sure, the windows player has a $200 Windows tax. And a $200-$4000 PC tax ('cause hey, the files don't do much good if you don't have a PC), and even Linux comes with this tax.
Got a Mac? Guess there's an OSX tax there, along with the inflated hardware tax.
On Linux, you can use MPlayer to play wma files. Completely free. Except for the PC tax.
For some reason, your post reminded me of this.
Hope you don't mind the PC tax required to view that strip....
And it's the best show on NPR, bar none. They started offering this a month or two back, and the next week had a sample from their deluge of "thank you" letters.
Click and Clack probably haven't noticed this -- busy, as they always are, laughing at their own jokes.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
I actually posted a comment to this effect in another thread (and got modded to -1 for some reason, oh well). Why NOT Ogg? It's free for them, free for me, and works under every OS. If they think M$ is good, then Ogg is 100 times better, IMO. Then again, maybe they don't want people saving the stream or something?
Oh well, enough of Car Talk, I guess. At least RealPlayer worked... I can't get it to work in MPlayer OR gxine. Anyone have some pointers?
My other car is first.
Actually, they're both pretty smart.
Tom Bio
Ray's Bio
Tom had scholarships to both MIT and Harvard, worked as an engineer, got an MBA, earned a PhD, taught for several years as a professor, taught international business abroad, started his own do-it-yourself auto repair shop (very hacker like), and has a successful auto repair show. Oh, and Ray, the "stupid" one, went to MIT too.
Also, if you listen to their show, every week they have a math problem for their listeners to solve. The show is great. They're both pretty funny and the show is surprisingly entertaining. Who said gearheads are stupid?
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
I downloaded the "free" Real Media player the other day and was disgusted to see that it loads up advertising. It took forever to load and then when it came up it had this nauseating BMW ad playing.
I promptly uninstalled the garbage.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Embedded/Scripted Windows Media 9 works in Mac default browser Safari AS Microsoft says. Yes, if you believe its product page, it does... But it doesn't!
;)
.... Read user comments.
Wondering if I and hundreds of Mac users are such stupid not to make it work. Hey! I even use a 3 button logitech mouse
Start from version tracker.com to all the way down to download.com
My theory is, the sites admin is a Slashdot fan and as 90% fans, he/she hates Real networks. QT/Darwin combination wasn't used because of $30 QT Pro price? Oh come on!!
While spending that much time to flame Realmedia, he/she could find a more apporiate codec for a TALK show. Wmedia 9, Real9/10 formats designed for music in mind.
As a mac user, it won't effect me but I'll really laugh when ms bounds wmedia 9 to directsound or some other windows only api...
Also, as a mac user, "hate real to be 133t" fashion on Slashdot amazes me. More amazing is, how opensource serving developers who produces the ONLY original, same features media program to Linux/BSD can ignore the Slashdot. I wouldn't code a single line for a community hates me so much. Would spend time on Mac/Win32 instead...
Now -2 me or something...
I'd second that. I love the show, but unfortunatly where I am, they're only on the air when I'm at work. If I could download the show, dump it on my mp3 player and listen to it whenever, I'd be a very happy monkey.
The transition will therefore be as seamless as possible for the listeners -- a simple matter of "click here" and the program will play. No messing around with downloading new clients, configuring, or what have you.
WiMP doesn't play MP3 streams?
I'm not (entirely) facetious here: I really don't know the answer to that question.
iTunes and WinAmp are both quite happy with MP3 streams. There are several free streaming MP3-capable servers available. I think there was a payoff, incompetence, or just plain ignorance involved in this 'decision'.
One defense I will offer for our hardline business folks is that they've figured out how to keep the lights on. The fact of the matter is, we just announced that consumer revenue was 76% of our 2003q4 revenue, up from 70% the previous quarter. "Consumer revenue" is made up of subscriptions to our premium business, as opposed to systems revenue selling media servers. People assume that our business is still about media servers. So, they do get a little zealous about keeping the subscription business growing.
The thing that can't be repeated enough is that RealAudio is a supported format on Linux. Now, Linux users are forced to use jury-rigged solutions to listen to Car Talk. Very sad.
Rob Lanphier
Helix Troublemaker
RealNetworks
PS:
I wrote them a nasty letter. While I was doing so it occured to me...
If what they say is true why aren't they just using an MP3 stream? that works everywhere. Could it be this has something to do with their hosting company being a big Windows 2000 server farm?
http://www.corsis.com
Lets see, last time a big hosting company went all Windows, wasn't that Digex? I wonder what ever happened to them? hehe
Funny their demise didn't make nearly the splash that their switch to Windows did. Oh well.
All you people complaining "I don't see the problem" and bashing the reference to the "average internet user";
In my experience the "average user" notices all the extra icons throughout the average users choice of OS. -Including resource draining (everybody does not own a uber-computer) entries into the start-up group. They never seem to enjoy having their PC's turned into billboards. What's the other one I always find right there with it? It seems both are seen as "crappy" but necessary by the average Joe. So, it still sucks, even if you're fine with their pushy web page. You don't see attitudes like this with Winamp or many of the others.
Quicktime tries the "start-up" registry entry every time you run it! At least Real Player stopped doing that.
I enjoy the look on peoples faces when these junk apps are removed and their PC is running "like it used to".
Naive as it is to say, I'm just disappointed anything on NPR would be associated with Real, being they have such a low-brow sales strategy. I am waiting for "This American Life" (http://thislife.org/) to realize Real does not reflect well upon them either.
I'm trying to understand the licensing of NPR programs. I've written NPR several times regarding the NOVA series and they never get past the standard reply to my questions.
;);)
I would have naively thought that publicly funded t.v. would be, if not free, at least publically available... but it's not. Only a select few NOVA episodes are available for puchase, much less those free on the web.
I have been waiting for years for the day that I can sit down and watch all those *good* old NOVA episodes that I missed over the years... (tired of this "let's reconstruct a pyramid" crap).
They responded to my query once telling me that, basically, it's expensive to stream video over the web... which is not really true...
At the very minimum, it should be possible to get access to any publicly funded program at some reasonable media cost...
Perhaps I can FOIA them
Pat
So the ends justify the means, eh?
...particularly why not QT considering all the Car Talk shows are available in iTunes..... ...we have QT installed in all our XP machines no problem except with MS purposely breaks it --- as in PowerPoint ...there are simple ways to avoid the "update to QT Pro" window---as already stated elsewhere in responses. Even so, is this message *really* any worse than the secret spam/communications that MS does behind the scenes with its passport nonsense. ....and the update is only $29. You spend more on coffee during the week.
The weekend NPR show On The Media recently added a free mp3 format download of their show. I think many npr shows are reluctant to do this because they have an alternative income source by selling mp3s at audible.com.
Perhaps the recent significant contribution to npr by the McDonald's widow, and president Bush's new found appreciation for the NEA, has loosened the noose a little.
You can find mp3 streams of various npr affiliates via shoutcast.com, but I think we would all love to have a national stream, and individual shows in an open format.
The only way to get this is to A) Pledge, and B) Suggest it.
It would also be nice to download official Nova episodes in an open format.