NPR's Car Talk Switches Back To RealAudio

taped2thedesk writes "Today, NPR's Car Talk, a 'call in talk [radio] show about car mechanics', announced they were switching back to RealAudio, after dumping it for Windows Media a few months ago. When the show switched to Windows Media, Real took notice and convinced the show to switch back, by addressing various listener complaints about their player (many of which were fixed in RealPlayer 10). The hosts say: 'We believe [Real have] made a serious and successful attempt to address those things that our listeners complained about most... They even offered to serve the audio for free online, which defrays an expense we'd otherwise have to cover.'"

Comments

Don't Cross The Streams

[andyrut]

From Real: We think our new RealPlayer 10 is, beyond a doubt, our friendliest and best player yet.

Nice to know that I can listen to Click and Clack on my computer without being constantly bombarded with pop-ups from a piece of annoyware.

Oh wait, I've been doing that for weeks thanks to Real Alternative. All the joy of streaming audio without Real's player.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[t0ny2]

Someone mentioned Real Alternative a few weeks ago. It was a godsend, because I now refuse to install realplayer.

Another interesting tidbit I came across was that they also have an alternative for the number one buggy movie player, Quicktime (which I likewise refuse to install). Now I can view both formats with none of the buggyness, and also have only one media player to worry about. Less is more.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[taernim]

Everything people complain about seems to have been addressed.

So what's the point in using a pirated/reverse-engineered piece of software again, except to hurt people who have done exactly what you asked?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't?
Make up your mind...

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Saucepan]

Real's own consultants warned them well in advance about the long-term consequences of their anti-customer behaviour. Real ignored these warnings, and then ignored the resulting customer outrage for nearly five years as they built up one of the worst cases of company bad-will in software history.

While I personally am downloading their new software to see if they have learned their lesson, I can hardly fault others for writing this off as too little, too late.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[jonfelder]

+1 Insightful

Real One was the biggest adware popup piece of crap ever.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[rokzy]

is real 10 available to the public? nothing about the real web page or download file indicate version number...

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[spellraiser]

This is probably a little offtopic, but what the heck.

Interestingly enough, Rob Glaser, founder of RealNetworks, has 'crossed streams' with Microsoft. In fact, he was a top executive there before moving on to found RealNetworks.

So it's little wonder that the battle between Microsoft and RealNetworks is so fierce at times - there are no enemies like old friends.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[snarkh]

Nice to know that I can listen to Click and Clack on my computer without being constantly bombarded with pop-ups from a piece of annoyware.

I thought those guys were a piece of annoyware. Go figure.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[horos2c]

> I thought those guys were a piece of annoyware. Go figure.

Methinks someone doesn't have a sense of humour. Go figure.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Filmwatcher888]

For Media Player's replacement, use Media Player Classic.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[pokeyburro]

Nice to know that I can listen to Click and Clack on my computer without being constantly bombarded with pop-ups from a piece of annoyware.

You think that was bad? I used to listen to them on the radio in the car. You know how hard it is to close a popup on your windshield while keeping your hands at 2 and 10? It's damned hard, I tell you.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[nsanders]

Too bad the same can't be said for the Real Alternative website..

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[UserGoogol]

No, the Car Talk guys are annoying, although rather funny at times. "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" and "This American Life" are vastly superior shows in my opinion, although the fact that I don't actually drive a car probably skews my view a little.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[cgenman]

Because what Real offers is a codec. Real offers a way to play back video streams encoded in their format. By forcing people to use their player they are trying to overstep the boundaries of the product they are offering, akin to making people put their General Motors (tm) car into a General Motors garage. It's unnecessary, and we shouldn't put up with it.

And there is a huge difference between pirated software and reverse-engineered software. Piracy is illegal and immoral, reverse-engineering is generally admirable and is afforded the protection of the law. This gives Real competition inside of their own product line. If there had been an alternative like this in 1997, they would have started cleaning up their act a lot sooner.

If it "hurts" real because they don't receive my e-mail address to spam, my computer to infect (still has a launcher), and my eyeballs to sell on a proprietary music service incompatible with everything else, then good. They should stick to making money by selling the video streaming solutions they are so good at / make so much more money doing.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[dubiousmike]

I really don't think that they switched back to the Rel format from WMP formatt because "everything had been addressed".

It's the free hosting of their content. Do we really think that the "issues" they "fixed" were any of the shady tidbits they include that we all care about here? Nope.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[artifex2004]

Is the Norton On Demand virus scanner on their website copyrighted? Do they have the right to redistribute it?

This makes me suspect the other material on the site.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Cognitive Dissident]

If the hcclnet.nl servers are being slashdotted at the moment, you might try some of the other sources for Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative such as:

Free-Codecs.com
and
CodecsDownload.com

These two domains are mirros of each other, and also good source of many video codecs and even some free/OSS media players.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[dswensen]

Go here and click on the "Free RealPlayer" link on the right. Should start your download automatically.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Moofie]

I certainly believe you're right, but I'd like to read more. Do you have links to news items on this subject?

Thanks a bunch!

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[jovlinger]

for mplayer? or windos only?

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[numark]

I have to wholeheartedly agree with you. Those two shows are the only ones I really ever listen to ("Wait Wait" more than "This American Life"). Sadly, not too many people are into listening to the radio for the purpose of actually listening to it, instead of just hearing whatever the latest drivel that is being shoved through our ears happens to be.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[snarkh]

Methinks someone doesn't have a sense of humour. Go figure.

And who would that mystery person be? Go figure.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[dswensen]

Two great articles on the sordid history of RealPlayer and their lows can be found here: Real Obnoxious and Real Proof.

Included are some testimonials from (allegedly) actual Real co. employees.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[orthogonal]

While I personally am downloading their new software to see if they have learned their lesson, I can hardly fault others for writing this off as too little, too late.

While I admire the parent poster's fair-mindedness in giving Real another chance, I can't advise anyone else to emulate Saucepan (12098).

Why can I not? Because several versions of RealPlayer ago, I recall that Real has also claimed that they'd realized their mistakes and that their then-current version wasn't full of annoyances and spy-ware. So, trying, like the parent poster to be impartial and fair-minded, I installed that version -- only to discover that it hid anti-privacy settings deep in its settings UI, and that it attempted to phone home regardless of those settings, and that it hijacked extensions and ran unnecessary processes and in general was ill-behaved.

And on actually using it, I found that its main UI gave over as much screen real (no pun intended) estate to advertisements as to whatever I was playing, and that it wouldn't start without bombarding me with ads, and that when I actually did play any media with it, the playback quality was abysmal compared to its competitors. Oh, and .... BUFFERING .....

Real has claimed once too often that it has corrected its excesses for me to spend another half-hour installing it, and another week uninstalling it and resetting all the various settings it mucks with to status quo ante.

With apologies for invoking Godwin's Law, I've just finished reading William L. Shirer's The Nightmare Years: 1930-1940, in which he recounts reporting on Nazi Germany first for the Chicago Tribune and later for CBS Radio (in fact, Shirer and colleague Edward R. Murrow pretty much pioneered the format used by radio and TV news to this day, of having an "anchor" in one place with correspondents reporting in from the field).

Naturally, Shirer recounts, as does any history of that period, Adolf Hitler's various speeches, in each of which Hitler would claim his latest territorial demand would be his last: first he wanted nothing more than the Rhineland, then his claims ended with the Austria Anschluss, then absorbing the Sudetenland would settle his claims, then Danzig (Gdansk) and the Corridor, etc., etc. In each speech, Hitler would claim he was working for peace -- and that it could be attained by granting his latest -- and, he claimed, final -- demand.

Real's actions, while nothing compared to Hitler's of course, do seem to follow the same pattern: we are told that each new version is that last we will need, and that each news version "fixes" Real's anti-social and sneaky behavior. But with each new version, we find that somehow, despite Real's protestations to the contrary, the anti-social behavior remains. I'm sorry, but the little bit of content that can only be played using RealPlayer just isn't worth the aggravation -- or the chagrin of finding, on installing RealPlayer, that I've been tricked once again

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Moofie]

Much obliged. :)

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Guppy06]

"Nice to know that I can listen to Click and Clack on my computer without being constantly bombarded with pop-ups from a piece of annoyware.

Oh wait, I've been doing that for weeks thanks to Real Alternative."

I'm happier with my solution: Hook my Sirius receiver up to my sound card.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[fm6]

That's a hacker's toy, hardly suitable for most Internet users. And given the way Real keeps tweaking its codecs, I wouldn't expect Real Alternative to be functional for too long.

I personally have no problem using Real software. Well, not the current version, which isn't quite so buggy as older versions. But I know how to disable all the obnoxious features still left.

But that's not true for most people. Which is why no ethical content provider should require its listeners to deal with Real.

The sad fact is, the car guys have let themselves be bought off. Real is a little less obnoxious then before, but it's still not close to being acceptable. In particular, the click path to the free player is anything but "obvious". And letting Car Talk listeners have a special bypass solves nothing.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Watts Martin]

I did actually install RealPlayer 10 recently to listen to some stream that was only available in that format. I do have to give Real a point back for no longer hiding the free player links, and a run of Ad-Aware 6 with a freshly-updated spyware database immediately after the Real installation didn't show any hits.

I try to avoid RealPlayer in general -- particularly at home, since I have OS X there and the OS X port of their player is pretty abysmal -- but this incarnation of it so far seems to be... uh... the least intrusive one they've had in years, even though it's still got its fair share of annoyances. (Which all the commercial media players seem to -- why can't one just have a straightforward UI using the standard guidelines for its platform?)

The ironic thing is that I still couldn't use RealPlayer to listen to that stream, for the technical reasons that you [Buffering...] outlined. I remember circa 1997-98 it seemed to be the best streaming technology (particularly at low bit rates), but even setting aside all the adware problems, there is something that's just... much... flakier now.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Anonymous Coward]

I just tried the Quicktime Alternative. I get an annoying clicking in the background when I play a QT file in WMP. I don't get that with the Apple player. What media player do you use?

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Anonymous Coward]

Real's actions, while nothing compared to Hitler's of course, do seem to follow the same pattern: we are told that each new version is that last we will need, and that each news version "fixes" Real's anti-social and sneaky behavior.

Substitute "anti-social and sneaky" for "buggy, difficult to use, and insecure" and you have pretty much the history of the commercial software industry (not limited to every slashdotter's favourite bad example).

Another poster notes the similarity to abuse victim psychology. I have long felt that software users display behaviour that is intriguingly similar to that of battered women and other victims of abuse. There's also a sort of Stockholm syndrome, where people develop weird brand loyalties. I suspect that this comparison (abuse) is a closer one than the slightly stretched and premature Godwin's law invocation. ;)

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Endive4Ever]

I'm happier with my solution: listen to Car Talk while out and about having a good time in the car on Saturday. On the car radio.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Endive4Ever]

I haven't checked yet, but I (again) rooted the Real Player tray thing out of the Registry on the Windows 2000 machine here. I suspect as usually that the next time the player is run it will shove a registry key in again to start up the tray applet on the next system boot.

It gets bad when one has to create read-only files with the name of the directory the malware wants to install in to block the malware from installing.

Does Total Recorder still work? I used to snatch audio streams to WAV files using that thing, over in Windows-land.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Anonymous Coward]

I too dislike Real and their wares so I decided to check out Real Alternative. When I followed the link you gave it popped open an activex installer for a browser plugin. I cancelled that and turned browser pop-ups back on and reloaded the page. Again ieplugin.com's crap and this time it also opened a popup for gamesplayground.com and a premium rate dialler. I'd like to try Real Alternative, but if they are in bed with these scumbags I don't think I want Real only content enough.

I'll stick with my Winamp, 5.03a of course;-)

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Teddy Beartuzzi]

Yup. Just installed Real Alternative last night to watch, er, some "educational" videos I downloaded. It automatically installed the latest version of Media Player Classic, installed all the codecs needed for viewing Real stuff without forcing me to install any version of Real. Haven't tried the browser integration yet, but it offered to install it.

This seems to be the official site for downloading, but I found several faster sites in google.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[blair1q]

I was anti-RM for a few years too, but today I DL'ed RM10 and installed it.

As far as I can tell, it doesn't try to phone home, hasn't hijacked a single file format I haven't allowed it to, and only had to reacquire AirAmericaRadio once during a 2-hour live streaming session. The UI can be reduced to a small control panel with no apparent ads on it, and I have received no spam (after nearly 8 hours!)

I'd say if they're smart, they're going to win back the streaming-audio customer base from WMP and Winamp.

However, until I'm totally convinced that Real will add more local-media usability features, Winamp will be my default audio player. And WMP will probably be the default streaming video player for a long time, because when it's in "Classic Skin" mode it operates just like it's supposed to and provides the information I need.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Player has at least one advantage over Real Alternative, VideoLAN, etc: it works with Win95a.

Real Alternative needs the Internet Exploder desktop (SHLWAPI.DLL). VideoLAN client needs Winsock 2. I think they both need Direct X.

I didn't try Media Player Classic because it seems to be the same code base as Real Alternative.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[superyooser]

Why are all the complainers here hell-bent on holding grudges? Real has done a superb job in addressing all of the complaints, and yet you react as if they've poured salt on your wounds.

Some people are complaining that Real waited too long to make the changes. It's like someone posted above (who got modded flamebait by a seething troll moderator), they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. One thing I've learned about on Slashdot: There are certain companies and individuals that people love to hate, and they will keep hating no matter what.

What are the "evils" of Real? They put icons on your desktop and other temporary, minor inconveniences. Gasp! High crimes and misdemeanors!

No, here's what you do: Pay attention to the checkboxes during the installation, and delete the desktop icons when it's done. Is that such a horrible nightmare that four years later you're still kvetching about it? I've been using RealPlayer continuously since it first came out and I haven't had any experiences that were particularly terrible. Just turn off all the annoying stuff when you first start it up, and it's fine. As for buffering problems, QuickTime is much worse than RP in my experience. In recent years, I haven't had any buffering problems at all in RP.

we are told that each new version is that last we will need, and that each news version "fixes" Real's anti-social and sneaky behavior. But with each new version, we find that somehow, despite Real's protestations to the contrary, the anti-social behavior remains.

Anti-social?? Arrgggghhhh!

GET
A
LIFE

You are being totally ridiculous. You're taking this WAY too seriously. It's just a media player!

The Nazis didn't invent lying. The Communists lied. The Trojans lied. The Egyptians lied. All in various and sundry ways. And history, in some ways, repeats itself. There is no point in relating Real, Inc. to Adolf Hitler's regime except to insinuate that they both share some extraordinary kind of evil. Your disclaimer informing us that you were not doing what you so clearly were doing was itself deceitful propaganda more worthy of association with Nazi propaganda than anything Real has done.

I don't mean to be an apologist for Real, but I feel that I must counter the mindless, compulsive bashing going on. There's a true mob mentality in here, and it's scary.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Anonymous Coward]

If you just installed Real Alternative last night, it didn't install the latest version of MPC.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[orthogonal]

Why are all the complainers here hell-bent on holding grudges? Real has done a superb job in addressing all of the complaints, and yet you react as if they've poured salt on your wounds.

Normally I wouldn't bother responding to a troll. But I believe in this case, the poster superyooser (100462) is as much a victim as anyone else, because he actually believes what he's writing. (See below.)

First, let me admit, I do love to hate Real. Well, actually, that's not quite accurate: more precisely, I love to see the opprobrium Real receives.

Why do I so enjoy seeing Real bashed? For two reasons: one, because Real has been continually sleazy in its marketing tactics in ways ranging from the petty (small fonts to hide their free player) to the very serious (uniquely identifying users, and tracking their listening habits). Second, because Real's receiving and continuing to receive such derision serves as a warning to other companies that might otherwise adopt Real's tactics.

Ancient cities (and indeed Mediaeval and early American cities too) made a practice of displaying the severed heads of executed criminals on stakes, usually at the gates of the city; this was not mere barbarity, but a way in a time before mass literacy and 24-hour cable news, of warning potential criminals oft eh consequences of misdeeds. In these gentler times, improved communications means that we can metaphorically display metaphorical heads, and that's precisely what this Slashdot community does with Real.

What are the "evils" of Real? They put icons on your desktop and other temporary, minor inconveniences. Gasp! High crimes and misdemeanors!

No, here's what you do: Pay attention to the checkboxes during the installation, and delete the desktop icons when it's done

This is like saying "Of course Joe the butcher puts his thumb to the scale every time he weighs your purchases, in order to falsely charge you more. But rather than go to another butcher, just pay attention to Joe's thumb, and check your change against the receipt when he's done" No! Joe's a thief, and should be treated accordingly.

Real intentionally makes it extremely difficult to find and change its malicious settings, because Real knows those settings are malicious. As Proverbs Chapter 28, verse one says, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth", and indeed, the guilty hide their works from the eyes of man. The settings wouldn't be buried so deeply and described so blandly if Real's marketers thought anyone actually considered them a feature: if people wanted these "features", Real would proudly trumpet these settings in its main UI window.

I've been using RealPlayer continuously since it first came out and I haven't had any experiences that were particularly terrible.

So your issue isn't what you initially claimed, that we bear grudges despite Real's improvements: now you admit that you've had no problem with Real from the start, even when the were violating privacy by phoning home uniquely identifiable usage data. To you, nothing that Real has ever done has been an issue. That's fine, we're all entitled to our opinions, but you've just made it very clear that you are willing to tolerate much more sneakiness on the part of a company than most of us at Slashdot ever will -- and in the light of that knowledge we must re-evaluate your validity of your other opinions. Such as:

Anti-social?? Arrgggghhhh! .... You are being totally ridiculous. You're taking this WAY too seriously. It's just a media player!

Yes, it's "just" a media player -- but it's also (in the original Real Players, the ones you've never had an issue with) -- software running on my computer, using my computer to advertise to me, running processes in the back

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Anonymous Coward]

uniquely identifying users, and tracking their listening habits

Oh no! Tell me it isn't so!

You mean generating a unique random hash and using that as a cookie to track each stream? Real doesn't track "users"; it tracks hashs. They don't know that #46jnlsd78vxnl323 is Bob Bumfuck, Georgia.

Seriously, just get a fucking life and find something else to worry about. At the very least, please just admit that the only reason you "hate" Real is because "everyone else" does.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[superyooser]

Yikes. Man, chill out. No need for a personal jihad. I just think that you are very prone to make mounds out of molehills. In the grand scheme of things, nothing you mentioned that Real has done really matters. You act as if Real has perpetrated some great scandal. I think your perspective is really skewed to get so upset about it. And I am alarmed that almost nobody here is acknowledging the reforms and improvements Real has made.

Nobody is entitled to software that doesn't advertise. Nobody is entitled to have softare that works exactly like they want it to.

Take life in stride. Appreciate the good things available to you. If you get an offer you don't want, say no thanks (delete the link, disable the notices, uninstall the software, whatever), and be on your merry way.

If Real does something you don't like, by all means, send them a letter with your complaints and suggestions. If they don't change, smile and get on with your life. Friend, it does not matter. That's all I'm saying.

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Anonymous Coward]

Could not make it wotk with Win NT :(

Re:Don't Cross The Streams

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect, neither needs direct x.

Declarifying the topic...

[Monsieur Canard]

It sounds like Car Talk's Complaint Line Operator, Xavier Breath, earned his paycheck this week.

Wow. First Microsoft adds a project to Sourceforge and now Real has admitted that not everyone likes being bombarded by pushy bookmarks and shortcuts of unusual size. What next? SCO admiting that maybe they didn't invent sliced bread?

Seriously though, I'm glad to see that Tom and Ray gave Real a second chance. If it's true that they is dedicated to responding to customer's complaints then this is a good thing for everyone.

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[Anonymous Coward]

How I feel about Microsoft: I don't like them very much, but I recognize their importance and the advances they have made. I hope that *bsd, linux and mac will grow to be true alternatives to re-balance the playing field, that Microsoft has unbalanced.

How I feel about Real: I fucking despise them, may they rot in hell.

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[ackthpt]

Wow. First Microsoft adds a project to Sourceforge and now Real has admitted that not everyone likes being bombarded by pushy bookmarks and shortcuts of unusual size. What next? SCO admiting that maybe they didn't invent sliced bread?

Maybe RealPlayer 10 is crammed with Spyware(tm). I mean, if they give away the player and it doesn't blast you with ads and Real is footing the bandwidth for NPR, what's the business model?

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[phpm0nkey]

I am ceaselessly amazed that Real has held on to such a large share of their market. The RealPlayer installation is barely better than Kazaa when it comes to taking over your PC.

With Windows Media Player already on every Windows desktop, and Winamp just a few clicks away, why would anyone go through the painful ordeal of installing one of Real's products?

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[Monsieur Canard]

I agree that something about this is setting off my spydar, but I'm still willing to give them a chance.

Granted, I don't plan on installing this anytime soon (I get my Car Talk fix on the radio - part of my Saturday morning ritual), but I'll gladly sit back and let others install it ("Tragedy is a paper cut on my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open sewer and die" - Mel Brooks).

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[Michalson]

Because apart from real alternative (which is too low on the radar for most users to ever see) there is no other way to play real content. So when sites like NPR decide to only provide their audio in real format, it forces people to install realplayer for that one site. And because of how the install works most people end up having their system taken over.

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[painandgreed]

Maybe RealPlayer 10 is crammed with Spyware(tm). I mean, if they give away the player and it doesn't blast you with ads and Real is footing the bandwidth for NPR, what's the business model?

Could be advertising. Besides the publicity of Car Talk going back to them, it lets the Real sales guy go to other people and say "look who else uses us." When I used to help with a small local magazine, we gave certain stores free ads just so other stores would read our magazine and see that they were advertising with us. That way they felt we must know what we're doing if the other store was advertisign with ut. Competition would feel obligated to advertise to keep up with the other businesses advertising. Later, after we'd established ourselves, we could go back to the first advertisers and either cut off the free ads or at least work out some kind of deal.

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[someguy]

Maybe RealPlayer 10 is crammed with Spyware(tm). I mean, if they give away the player and it doesn't blast you with ads and Real is footing the bandwidth for NPR, what's the business model?

Well, the concerns and responses as addressed on the cartalk website do mention not installing any software that you don't want installed.

The business model that RealNetworks is fulfilling by footing the bill for the cartalk stream is one where they generate large amounts of good karma with consumers. By getting cartalk to switch back they're going to get the invariably occuring coverage to spread the word about how good those guys over at Real are. In addition, with the cartalk site expounding the changes found in RealPlayer 10 it's showing what's changed to groups of people that were complaining in the first place and re-earning a spot on those users' hard drives for the company's software. Once they've gotten their foot in the door with cartalk listeners it snowballs into more support for a) other sites which use Real feeds and b) more support for the idea of going with Real for streaming audio when a site is confronted with having to decide what format they're going to go with.

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[GarfBond]

Isn't it obvious? Subtler, quieter ads that try to convince you to buy RealPlayer Plus, Superpass, or Rhapsody (the latter of which is the only one I found even worthwhile, as it's pretty damn good at music. Think iTunes store, all of it, streamed for a flat rate. It does have the inherent downsides of streamed music, but eh). The only way they can get you to try these is if you use the program that carries it through.

There's also the sale of their Helix server, but that costs a shitload of money, and it doesn't matter if they're hosting cartalk for free.

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I'd say it gets them PR. They need it badly, and they need to convince people to try Real again.

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[vikman]

There was a time when Real's name was synonymous with streaming music on the internet. While this name over time has gotten blemishes and erosion news such as these are hopefully indications of a change to be more friendly and more fun.
I think by way of business models, I can only guess (since I work mostly on the Mac and the Helix end of Real), that given the continued success of Rhapsody (music as a service)that is where Real might want to head. To be once again, the destination for audio and video on the net is probably motivation enough to put more focus on the content and user experience rather than the software and upsells.

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you assume this was due to customer complaints? The summary has the real reason for the move:

"They even offered to serve the audio for free online, which defrays an expense we'd otherwise have to cover."

It's hard to turn down free hosting.

Re:Declarifying the topic...

[Anonymous Coward]

>Winamp just a few clicks away,

winamp doesn't play cds properly on my system. the docs ramble incoherantly about digital ripping codec aspi number number, but doesn't tell me what i have to do to listen to cds.

what are the pluses again?

[sweeney37]

so wait, we're cheering the fact they switched from one bloated media player to another bloated spyware infested media player?

I realize there are alternatives, but most people are unaware.

Mike

Re:what are the pluses again?

[74nova]

i think i am cheering because real listened to them and fixed it. not to say that real is a good/bad/indifferent company, just the fact that they actually listened to cartalk and fixed some stuff is cool. i didnt know there were alternatives until this thread, but i dont do a lot of realaudio or quicktime stuff.

Re:what are the pluses again?

[BrookHarty]

But the real reason is they got free hosting from Real.

And they even offered to serve the audio for free online, which defrays an expense we'd otherwise have to cover.

We're in no position to ever turn down generosity, no matter how misguided. So, we took them up on their offer, before they could reconsider.

Also they mentioned the "Hidden" free player problem. I mentioned it awhile back on slashdot but the trolls came out and said "Its right there!!!" Well, looks even Real admited the free version was hard to find. ;)

On the issue of the "hidden" free player, they've agreed to provide a direct link from Car Talk to a clear, uncluttered, free player download page. On the issue of pop ups, they tell us they're gone.

Re:what are the pluses again?

[Bobdoer]

Is there an opensource alternative for streaming low-bitrate streaming media? Would people be able to encode an .oog that's streamable? If we want people to stop using the bloated, patented media formats, we need to make them aware that there are alternatives.

Re:what are the pluses again?

[unperson]

On the issue of the "hidden" free player, they've agreed to provide a direct link from Car Talk to a clear, uncluttered, free player download page. On the issue of pop ups, they tell us they're gone.

So now I have to remember to go to the cartalk site when I want to download Real! Its a sad day when you can't even use a companies own site to download there own product!

I hope this also means that we won't have to go to some cookie-needin', popup-infested, unnavigable website to get the those streams that Real has so "generously" decided to host for free.

Re:what are the pluses again?

[SlamMan]

You mean this one?

I think I speak for all of us when I say

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very nice, but I still wish Real would die slow and horrible death, with their marketing department who created StartCenter getting leprosy and plague and being sold into slavery and having to toil 20-hour workdays, and with children of their children being exterminated from the face of the Earth, so that any genetic knowledge that existed of StartCenter and default message preferences being selected for you right beneath the scrollable window would be erased from the face of this planet, and all the other marketers attempting even something close to this would shudder, knowing the fate of Real Networks.

Re:I think I speak for all of us when I say

[Skater]

Don't mince words. Why don't you tell us how you really feel?

--RJ

A simple MP3 download would be nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but then again, what do I expect for my tax dollars?

Click and Clack

[Neil Blender]

Smart but annoying. Like many a Slashdot poster.

Re:Click and Clack

[Anonymous Coward]

You're giving Slashdot posters too much credit in the "smarts" column...

Choose wisely...

[baudilus]

What a choice. DRM Whore or Spyware/Adware hijackery. That's like having to choose whether to be shot in the face or stabbed in the back.

Re:Choose wisely...

[rokzy]

well obviously stabbed in the back.

unless the attack MUST kill you, in which case being shot would be quicker.

Re:Choose wisely...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm lets see. Real FORCES spyware. Period.

WMP doesnt force DRM.

Re:Choose wisely...

[Aphrika]

Thing is, Windows Mediaplayer isn't a DRM whore. Sure, it's capable of DRM functions - much like Quicktime, Real and any media format worth it's salt nowadays. And that DRM isn't there for the consumers, it's there to make large corporation use their media player over others because of it's 'secure' features.

In fact, you strip away the Windows/Apple/Real logos and put the players and capabilities side by side, and they're pretty much like for like. Oh, except for Real's sucky spy/adware...

Re:Choose wisely...

[conan776]

Aw, geez. I was having a pretty nice day too, and then someone goes and mentions Quicktime.

Personally...

[TheRealMindChild]

I liked Real Audio streams back when the Real Audio plugin was an embedded object in the webpage. Same holds true for windows media. I consider this to be a step in the WRONG direction... I dont want a whole app suite firing up, spamming me, just to listen to some audio. My Rant is done.

Re:Personally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Both plugins still exist. It is up to the site developer which they want to use.

Personally I hate it when people force me to use the browser plugins. I don't want to have to keep a web page open just to listen to some audio, or WORSE, watch some video. Please let me put it in its own compact window!

Re:Personally...

[Anonymous Coward]

oh goody, we'll just use your post to support Microsoft's position in front of the EU that: "see, people really don't want a separate player, they want it integrated"

Re:Personally...

[justzisguy]

I actually prefer the separate application to start up. I'm using a Mac running OS X and non-IE-non-Windows browsers don't always put the controls in the right place. For audio, this isn't too much a problem, but video is especially bad. Let's not forget the unavailable double-size or full-screen controls that the stand-alone application has.

Re:Personally...

[SmittyTheBold]

Then maybe the software should start out in the browser window, with an option to pull it out into it's own window. Allow both forms of functionality.

Re:Personally...

[IncohereD]

The problem is embedded players are not what most users want. And you have to design for the common case.

A friend of mine asserted that he things every website should have a 3 minute intro flash movie with lots of loud sound, and then another 5-20 second movie between each page within the site. Which - I think you'll agree - is not what anyone sane would want.

Sure he could argue that they could just put a "skip this flash" button there for everyone else, but you'd be annoying 99.99% of users for a few seconds, to make 0.01% of people a bit happier. Not worth it.

Also, speaking as a former web designer, getting embedded stuff to look/work right in every browser is so hard it may as well be impossible. Especially when there's so many choices of player for each media type.

Sorry, but it ain't gonna happen. Separate players were a step forward, in this case. What you should do is ask for/write a plugin for your browser that lets you have a player bar or tab or something that you could default stuff to load into. I think there's something like that for IE with either WMP or Real. Then it's optional for you to turn on, and doesn't annoy everybody else.

Re:Personally...

[SmittyTheBold]

This is where I'd get into the standard rant about "HTML is for content, not for layout!" but that war was lost long ago...

*nix support at Real

[bobsled]

From the system requirements for RealPlayer 10.0:

"- Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0
with Service Pack 6 or later(playback only), Windows 2000 with Service Pack 2 or later, or Windows XP
- IE 5.0 or later"

I truly wish they would do more to support *nix users - they DO have *nix versions but they are well behind the development of the Window$ versions... I'd like to see a *nix version of their Rhapsody player made available as well.

Re:*nix support at Real

[rgammon_real]

Check out the Helix Player, an open source Gtk-based player based on the same client core technology as RealPlayer 10
https://player.helixcommunity.org/

Downloads are available here:

MS2.1 had problems playing back non-realaudio/realvideo datatypes -- if you need these, M2 is a better bet.

Nightly builds are also available -- see the player webpage for details.

Re:*nix support at Real

[seasleepy]

Tried Helix Player? It's certainly not very far into development, but it's lightweight and still full functional...better than pretty much anything else out there that plays Real (even on Windows), in my opinion. And as you might notice, it's sponsored by Real.

Re:*nix support at Real

[TheSpoom]

Just so you guys know, I think it's a step in the right direction to be listening to customers express themselves in places like this (as your username and email lead me to believe that you are a Real employee). I personally use Real Alternative right now, but I do appreciate that you're actually listening.

Re:*nix support at Real

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that I'd give Helix Player a go since the old version of RealPlayer is incapable of playing audio on my Redhat 7.3 box.

It took ages to find the player download option (sound familiar?). You have to wade through all sorts of garbage about "the Helixplayer community" including 4 different readmes and EULAs (>1300 lines in total).

Eventually got it downloaded and installed (about an hour buggering about total), and finally:

** ERROR **: Gtk+ version too old (minor mismatch)

(at which point I gave up). This is what package managers are supposed to be for - to check this sort of thing before installation! This was January (after the Real 10 release and Real's public self-flagellation over RealOne) so things SHOULD have been better by then.

The EULA does conatain some gems though:
"Because the Helix Player contains a lot of technology, the licensing is a little complicated."
and
" If any provision of this License Agreement is held to be unenforceable for any reason, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable, and such decision shall not affect the enforceability of such provision under other circumstances, or of the remaining provisions hereof under all circumstances."

Leopards and Spots, anyone?

Re:*nix support at Real

[Just Some Guy]

Helix Player, an open source Gtk-based player

Careful there. According to their license description page, while the player itself may be under an OSI-approved license, it appears that their codecs are not:

RealAudio/RealVideo Porting License - for your convenience, this porting and optimization license gives you source code access to portions of the Helix platform which haven't been open sourced, such as RealAudio and RealVideo.

Unless there's another mention on their side of an Open Source codec and they just haven't updated this page yet, it sounds like there is still no Open Source player for Real Media files. More accurately, there's an Open Source player that can accept proprietary executable plugins to decode Real's closed streams.

Whether this is acceptable or not is up to each user. Although I wouldn't touch it, some people may be comfortable with this arrangement. However, it still isn't Open Source in any reasonable sense.

Re:*nix support at Real

[GarfBond]

I actually didn't mind Helix Player. It's everything I would expect a linux version of RealPlayer to be. Minimal, GTK2, and plays back both RA streams and local RV files. Couldn't quite get it to playback Divx or xvid though.

Mplayer has a little problem with seeking in the middle of realmedia files, even if you use -forceidx (not a problem if you just sit down and watch a file the whole way through though :) ). Helix player does it just fine.

Re:*nix support at Real

[jtheory]

If any provision of this License Agreement is held to be unenforceable for any reason, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable, and such decision shall not affect the enforceability...

In all fairness, this line (or something equivalent) is in just about every legal document you will ever see. It's even in my lease (which was hand-typed by my landlord).

FP

[jpBabelFish]

Engaging in floor bugle.

What's so hard...

[NemosomeN]

About offering multiple streams? It's not like it will cause bandwidth problems (You're only going to be listening to one stream at a time no matter what anyway...). I dunno about liscencing fees, but I do know there are free [beer] alternatives.

Re:What's so hard...

[jonfelder]

Real offered to serve it for free...can't get much cheaper than that.

Re:What's so hard...

[blackmonday]

it will double the encoding work. NPR isn't the wealthiest broadcasting organization around, and it will cost more money to encode and serve multiple stream formats. They're trying to keep it simple.

Re:What's so hard...

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

but I do know there are free [beer] alternatives.

Did you say free beer?! I don't normally drink, but if it's free...

Media Player Classic

[bstadil]

Install the Media Player Classic and all the RealPlayer Spyware is a thing of the past.

If you need a test station may I suggest O'Franken Factor

Re:Media Player Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

not trying to be negative, but every WindowsXP crash I have ever had was caused by Media Player Classic. With that said, I use it as my default player still because it plays all kinds of formats correctly which Media Player would either refuse to play or screw up. Its also a lot less bulky. Plus, If you hate Quicktime, and find Real's tactics to be unforgiveable, it's a must have.

Re:Media Player Classic

[Luscious868]

The O'Franken Factor is a joke. It'll be off the air in less than a year. Mark my words.

Re:Media Player Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

With an original name like that, how can it possibly fail?

Something is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just put a link to a .mp3 or .ogg file.

Re:Something is wrong

[emilymildew]

Insightful? They sell their old shows through Audible.com. Of course they aren't going to offer their shows for free in .mp3 or .ogg or whatever else format; that would screw Audible pretty heartily.

You can get around it now with an audio hijacking application, but at least it isn't exactly easy, and you can only do it at the speed at which the show plays.

Re:Something is wrong

[jdunlevy]

Or just streaming mp3 -- which would play fine in both Real Player and Windows Media Player (and iTunes).

they didn't fix the biggest problem, though

[Savatte]

because they are using Real

car talk shows online

[bstil]

The current week's show is available here.

I know the site used to have archived "favorites" of many, many shows when it was hosted by cars.com. However, I don't see the favorite clips listed anymore...

Re:car talk shows online

[MCZapf]

You used to be able to go back to shows several months old, at least, by just changing the show number in the URL on the current show's page. But, since they took all the Real content away, you can't go back that far any more. I doubt they'll put the old shows back, because they want to sell Audible.com subscriptions.

Re:car talk shows online

[bstil]

okay, here is the official car talk response to my email:

Thanks for writing. Yes, we know that some parts of our site have currently gone missing. We're in the process of moving the site to new servers. And like moving, some stuff you throw out, some you toss into boxes to bring with you, and some stuff, the movers break! So there will be more stuff coming back over the next few months. By the way, we surveyed thousands of our most loyal visitors-- our Time Kill Weekly subscribers (see http://www.cartalk.com/ct/maillist.jsp?mailing_lis t=subscribe for more info), and we've started with the parts of the site they told us were most important to them. That stuff is up now, with more to come. For the full details on what's going on, you can see http://www.cartalk.com/changes.html Over the coming months, we hope to steadily bring back some of the missing sections of the site. So, please check back periodically to see how we're doing. It's possible that some of the content you're looking for will be returning. Thanks for bearing with us during this change, and thanks especially for your understanding. Best, Doug Mayer Senior Web Lackey

Software I won't install

[pantycrickets]

I will never again install anything from Real or anything to do with Quicktime. The two worst software packages when it comes to media on the web, in my opinion.

Re:Software I won't install

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you on Real, but Quicktime really has changed over the years. In fact I prefer Quicktime to Microsoft's own Media Player (stupid crappy useless skinning and shit - gimme the old MediaPlayer from Win98, you bastards!)

Re:Software I won't install

[Michalson]

gimme the old MediaPlayer from Win98, you bastards

Start->Run
mplayer2.exe
View->Options->Formats
Select all media types you don't play in winamp.

The only thing I've found that won't play in Mediaplayer 6.4 is Microsoft's latest 6 channel pro audio codec (and I have only seen one file that uses it, since you have to pay for the encoder and it isn't useful for most normal audio). Everything else can be played if you install the codecs (you might need to go to Microsoft and do search for their 6.4 network codec pack)

Re:Software I won't install

[pantycrickets]

I definitely am not into the new style of "chunky" interfaces. I agree, the plain simple window is best. I use ZoomPlayer as my default player. It's nice configurable but simple interface, plus the skipping frames with the scroll wheel has me hooked.

Re:Software I won't install

[zachdms]

Note that WMP6 doesn't handle 'LegacyDisable' properly (and WMP9 uses 'LegacyDisable'), so if you're using WMP9 and want to switch back to WMP6, the steps would be:

Start->Run: wmplayer.exe
Tools:Options:File Types
Uncheck whatever you're changing the association to WMP6 on.
Start->Run: mplayer2.exe
View->Options->Formats
Select all media types you don't play in winamp.

It's probably not too critical, but I thought I'd point it out anyways for the WMP6-lovers. :)

Other sites making the switch unsuccessfully

[slakr]

I subscribe to Liverpool Football Club's liverpoolfc.tv service that provides live streaming audio of all of Liverpool's football (soccer) matches. Based on "user complaints", they switched to Windows Media streaming audio feeds from Real Audio for the first time this weekend. If user comments are any indication, this was a complete failure. Admittedly this was the first major test, but the performance was extremely poor, the audio cut out frequently and the quality of the feed was much poorer than I'm used to.
I hate the Real bundle-of-everything-I-don't-want-with-the-one-thi ng-I-do software packaging as much as the next person, but I think its well worth it for the superior experience you now get with it. And the improvements since Real 6.0 with its leak-buckets-of-memory-and-crash-Windows issues is significant.

Re:Other sites making the switch unsuccessfully

[mankei]

I'm a subscriber too and a Linux user. The most annoying thing about their switch to Windows Media is that it is in the final days of the season, which means that now I cannot access the content I have already fully paid in advance. Granted the fee is very reasonable, but I would have thought twice before I subscribed it if they used Windows Media exclusively at the beginning. Real player for Linux worked like a charm without all the spyware/adware nuisances. I sent them an email complaint and all I get is a stock reply. Hope they get enough complaints to switch back.

Re:Other sites making the switch unsuccessfully

[Anonymous Coward]

I am subscribing to this service of LFC as well. However, they stream is now in WMP format using audio codec [WMA9 voice] which is not decoded by current mplayer and xine versions (debian unstable). When I contacted LFC [at least a week before switch], I was told that all what they can do is to "cancel my ticket". I guess, it was told to all Linux and MacOS 9 users. How do you listen to the feed?

Really, what's Real's business strategy?

[GillBates0]

I would think that Real's main income comes from selling RealServer software to content providers. The other two major players competing with them are ofcourse Microsoft (Windows Media) and Apple (QT) - both of which treat streaming media as a sideshow (Apple even has an opensource streaming server - Darwin).

On the other hand, Real's reason to exist is streaming media....and admittedly, they had a headstart over the others. But is it really feasible for them to survive based solely on RealServer software sales? I don't think any reasonably sane/not abnoxiously rich person would subscibe to their "Real Gold Superpass" etc.

I think that's why they were pushing on advertising, popups and spyware with such fervor - that's about the only means of income and existence they have left - without a reliable business plan.

Re:Really, what's Real's business strategy?

[wankledot]

Server sales used to be the biggest chunk, but they have been eclipsed by the subscription income. Ad sales is a very small piece of the pie, but big enough that they don't want to give it up. The really stupid thing is that the ads and crap are hurting them in the long run... a LOT, but they need that cash right now I guess, to make it look like they're profitable.

Real's subscription offerings are great if you want certain news/sport video, and don't get it from TV.

Nothing a little brib....

[DeepDarkSky]

er...sponsorship wouldn't fix.
Hosting the show's audio for free is as good as paying the show to stay with them.

Re:Nothing a little brib....

[PhxBlue]

Hosting the show's audio for free is as good as paying the show to stay with them.

Since NPR subsists on donations from corporations and private individuals, I don't really see a problem with this.

Re:Nothing a little brib....

[SnappleMaster]

The problem is that the spin is that NPR is selecting Real because it's now the better choice. That may or may not be true but it's pretty tough to trust the opinion of someone who's being paid to use a product.

That said, this is America. People buy shit from companies that pay for endorsement all the time, so maybe there's something wrong with me.

It's actually not too bad...

[dswensen]

I hate to say this, but after staying far, far away from Realplayer for years (I don't think I've used it since 1999), I finally found something I really, really wanted to listen to online that was RealPlayer only. All the alternatives to RealPlayer seemed like too much of a pain to set up (I'm extraordinarily lazy), so I decided, against my better judgment, to give the new player a download and see how it worked.

It's actually really not bad at all. The install is fairly short and lets you pick your media types, what shortcuts to install, etc. and unlike old versions of RealPlayer doesn't just DO IT ANYWAY. ("Would you like your homepage changed to real.com?" "No." "Homepage changed!") It doesn't ask for some obnoxious registration, load itself into my start bar, or do any of that other "helpful" BS that made the old RealPlayer such a dog.

So far it seems to be a small little player that does what it does, and nothing you don't want. Since I still don't really trust Real, I'm waiting for some popup to come up, or wake up one day and find "RealConsole RAM-Fucker Pro" installed on my desktop or something, but so far, nothing.

But for now, it just plays Realaudio files. What a novel concept for an application. It's actually been pleasant to use. (RealVideo still sucks, though.)

Re:It's actually not too bad...

[dswensen]

And, FWIW, I ran AdAware on my machine right after installing the latest Realplayer. No spyware installed either as far as I can tell.

Re:It's actually not too bad...

[doublem]

I agree.

I've found Real to be a better method of loading media onto my MiniDisk player than the "jukebox" crapware that Sony bundles (More stable and supports more media formats)

And the Palm Realplayer is decent too.

I've been impressed with the changes they made in version 10. Instead of swearing at the "God Damn invasive ****sucking bastard" it's just another app sitting on the hard drive.

Re:It's actually not too bad...

[_KiTA_]

I installed it just now, I was pretty clean before -- I use Mozilla not IE, and I run Spybot, and cleaned myself up about Friday, so I should be pretty darn clean.

Ran SpyBot right now. After a full scan in Advance Mode, nothing except a few cookies.

Now, I do notice that RealPlayer uses an embedded Internet Explorer window. So if it got a tracker cookie, that would be a red-flag on AdAware. But, so would going to just about any major website on the planet, so... Are you sure that Ad Aware didn't just report a cookie that Real's website spewed out?

Re:It's actually not too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol @ RAM-Fucker Pro

Re:It's actually not too bad...

[leifm]

Yeah I liked that it didn't drop icons everywhere, and decide it was my new text editor. It still has a crappy UI , though that is a media players in general problem, and it's nowhere near as bad as MusicMatch. If it can do a iTunes-like sync with my Dell DJ than it's my new audio management tool, though from the looks of the options I doubt it even knows what the DJ is.

Re:It's actually not too bad...

[Lumpy]

All the alternatives to RealPlayer seemed like too much of a pain to set up (I'm extraordinarily lazy)

clicking on LESS ok and next buttons than the regular real media player is too much of a pain?

sounds like you never even thought of trying real-alternative.

It's easier to install than realplayer...

Re:It's actually not too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply because these tools have not updated their signature file.

After what Real has done, I would love them to go belly up. But, if they are trying, our goal is to be VERY critical. Make them earn it. If not, the next thing that comes will have something to serve as a warning.

Re:It's actually not too bad...

[orthogonal]

And, FWIW, I ran AdAware on my machine right after installing the latest Realplayer. No spyware installed either as far as I can tell.

You do realize that the AdAware engine is not psychic, right? Nor does it use a heuristic to identify mal-ware.

AdAware -- much like a virus checker --, identifies Trojans and ad-ware by "signature", some array of bytes unique to the annoyance in question. Until somebody examines a program, decides it is mal-ware, extracts that program';s signature and adds it to AdAware's signature database, Ad-ware doesn't "know" about it.

For all we know, Realplayer installs -- or is itself -- mal-ware, but no one from Ad-ware has gotten around to labelling it as such. After all, RealPlayer Ten is rather new.

And people can legitimately disagree about what is ad-ware: surely RealPlayer has claimed that all its versions of Realplayer did nothing illegitimate, as RealPlayer maintained that it wasn't popping up ads, but "informative messages", and that phoning home uniquely identifying information about its users was a positive benefit for those users.

Don't misunderstand me: AdAWare is a useful product, but it's no panacea and it -- like a virus scanner -- will unavoidably always be a bit out of date. In the case of RealPlayer, I'd trust RealPlayer's track-record of untrustworthiness.

Re:It's actually not too bad...

[dswensen]

Yeah, I am aware AdAware is not a catch-all. I downloaded the latest reference file before scanning, but I realize any junk Real installs may not be in Lavasoft's database yet. Thus the "as far as I can tell" disclaimer above.

Believe me when I say I'm skeptical, but so far the player has behaved.

Still Crappy

[Robert Hayden]

As of last Friday at least, clicking on the "Download Free Player" would only take you to their store, which had no links to the actual free player (wanted it for http://www.airamericaradio.com).

Re:Still Crappy

[_KiTA_]

Uh, worked absolutely fine for me just now. Using Mozilla 1.7 beta. Click on "Download RealPlayer" then "Download Free Realplayer" which is in big *bold* blue underlined stuff on the side. Yes, it's smaller than the graphic to the left, but I can't imagine smoeone not noticing that.

Yes, they're going to try and get you to pay for the full version. I see this as no greater or lesser an annoyance as Trillian bugging me every 10,000 hours or so to buy their full version, or a linux distro demanding I go use bittorrent instead of downloading off their FTP since I didn't buy the official CDs.

Remember, they *are* a business, after all. Not only that, they're a business trying to fight back against Microsoft using antitrust monopoly tactics to kill them. Since they lasted longer than Netscape did, I'd have to say they must be doing something right.

Re:Still Crappy

[Robert Hayden]

Yes, it works now.

Didn't work last Friday.

Which was my point.

Re:Still Crappy

[jridley]

Must have been a temporary thing, because I've downloaded Real Player probably 50 times when setting up various machines over the last few years. They alway put it off in a corner of the screen, but I've always been able to find the free player without too much trouble.

Re:Still Crappy

[Anonymous Coward]

I was excited to listen to Air America too. Then I found it wasn't in my city and I'd have to break my rules and install Real. I decided it wasn't worth it.

Now from reading here, I can see that Real isn't as nasty as it used to be. Let's hope Apple pays attention. I'd like to be able to watch movie trailers again without having my computer hijacked.

Whats next

[t0ny2]

Between Real cleaning up their program and M$ putting out opensource, Im going to stock up on blankets- hell should be freezing over shortly.

Re:Whats next

[buford_tannen]

Between Real cleaning up their program and M$ putting out opensource, Im going to stock up on blankets- hell should be freezing over shortly.

It feels like that has already started down here in South Carolina. We had freezing temperatures last night.. BRRRRR! (Which is very, very unusual for this time of year)

Maybe it is hell freezing over. Hell if I know.

Re:Whats next

[someguy]

They have internet access in hell?

Re:Whats next

[operagost]

Nice to meet you, Satan!

Re:Whats next

[tbone1]

They have internet access in hell?

Yes, AOL.

(Okay, that was obvious. Sorry.)

Re:Whats next

[bbdd]

They have internet access in hell?

Yes, AOL.

and, its on 28.8 dialup to boot!

Re:Whats next

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that with or withouth Topspeed technology?

What about the complaint of reporting back to HQ?

[geoswan]

Maybe I haven't been keeping up to date. But wasn't there a problem where earlier versions of realplayer were reporting back to headquarters what its users were listening to?

Does the current version still do this? It is not listed in the user complaints they responded to. Maybe this is the core way they make money. If so I can understand why this might be a complaint they don't want to make changes to please their users.

But some open-ness about it would be a good thing.

Or maybe they made this change a long time ago? Well, a lot of us don't hang on their every announcement...

Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[bjarvis354]

Thats funny...I recently wrote a letter to WNYC regarding their choice of the MP3 format for their streaming audio. I would like to know how others feel about this....

As an avid WNYC listener and member, I applaud the choice to move away from Windows Media format. However, MP3 is a patented format that is not Free (as in Freedom). I am sure that I am in the minority here, but I can't help but feel that in some way I am being slighted. In my opinion, the principles involved in my choice to use Free Software on my computer are much akin to the reasons I choose to listen to Public Radio.

mp3licensing.com states:

"A license is needed for commercial (i.e., revenue-generating) use of mp3/mp3PRO in broadcast systems (terrestrial, satellite, cable and/or other distribution channels), streaming applications (via Internet, intranets and/or other networks), other content distribution systems (pay-audio or audio-on-demand applications and the like) or for use of mp3/mp3PRO on physical media (compact discs, digital versatile discs, semiconductor chips, hard drives, memory cards and the like)."

"However, no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any kind or for entities with an annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000.00."

How does this apply to WNYC? I for one prefer not to have my contributions to be used to pay support this kind of thing, when it is against my social and political ideals. Especially when there are free (as in beer and speech) alternatives such as the Xiph project.

It is my hope to not second guess the current decision to standardize on MP3, but to perhaps begin a dialogue for openness in media formats in the future of public radio. For now I can live with MP3. I will have to compromise and add non-free software to my computer, for now.

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least, MP3 can be used on ALL platforms, unlike WMA and RealAudio.

What's the alternative, Ogg Vorbis?

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[discogravy]

However, MP3 is a patented format [mp3-tech.org] that is not Free (as in Freedom). I am sure that I am in the minority here, but I can't help but feel that in some way I am being slighted.

Yeah, they're only using the de facto standard in digitized audio: they must really be out to fuck you over.

Mp3 has been a standard -- not an agreed-upon standard, but a "well, everyone can listen to it and it works well enough" standard for years; the "decision to standardize on MP3" as you put it, was made ages ago, and just about the only thing that has even come close to putting a dent in mp3 is wma's ubiquitousness and windows not including an mp3 encoder by default (ie, you have to BUY one, because windows media player won't just use LAME -- and 99% of users wouldn't know LAME's use if you explained it to them in 78-point font.)

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[eoyount]

Wouldn't Public Radio go into the second group? I wouldn't consider NPR commercial/revenue generating. Since you contribute to support it (and this contribution might be a tax write-off ?), I don't think Public Radio needs a licenese according to these terms.

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[neurojab]

>I will have to compromise and add non-free software to my computer, for now.

Boo hoo. Yes, Ogg would be cool, but complaining about the station offering MP3 will only make them think "man these open source guys are a bunch of FREAKS. We can't please them anyway, so we might as well work with Microsoft". The idea that "all software should be free" is not the philosophy of the majority of the IT community, or even the majority of the OSS community. I'd say that you definately ARE in the minority. You're certianly entitled to that opinion, as long as you don't ascribe it to the rest of the OSS comunity.

I would argue that being able to sell software is good for the economy, as long as there is free and open competition. MP3 can give us exactly that. Many companies can produce an MP3 player, so there will be no vendor lock-in. There are already a huge number of hardware vendors that support it as well. Quite frankly I fail to see what's so bad about that. Yes, it's not "free as in speech", but it's probably because I don't buy the idea that "all software should be free". I say that free software and commercial software can co-exist. I want my MP3.

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[bjarvis354]

Actually...MP3 is not a de facto standard. It is a legit ISO standard.

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[micromoog]

Actually...MP3 is not a de facto standard. It is a legit ISO standard.

Actually, it's both, and they mean different things.

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[orthogonal]

As an avid WNYC listener and member, I applaud the choice to move away from Windows Media format. However, MP3 is a patented format that is not Free (as in Freedom).

It's because of people like you that I'm no longer a member of the Libertarian Party.

NO WAIT! Before you decide this is an off-topic troll, let me explain. The Libertarian Party tends to attract a lot of people who are unrealistic ideolouges: that can't seem to realize that politics is the art of the possible.

As a result, they can find that they are in agreement with 90% of what a particular candidate or organization or movement or bill proposes -- and then devote their entire time and effort to vigorously fighting against that candidate, organization, or bill because of the ten percent of it that they disagree with.

Because for these (not all) types of Libertarians, the best is always the enemy of the merely good, and they'll damn well prove it by fighting anything that isn't perfect. In fact, they fight those who mostly agree with them far more vociferously and adamantly than they ever fight those who don't agree with them at all.

No matter that ninety percent of the road to freedom is a damn sight better than none at all. No matter that an attainable good is more progress than an unattainable best.

As a result, these Libertarians never make it out into the street to convince non-Libertarians of the value of Freedom -- because they're too busy sitting in Libertarian Headquarters arguing with their fellow Libertarians over the 10% of the Libertarian Platform they disagree on. Suddenly the issue of "What's the proper Libertarian stance on immigration or abortion?" must be settled before such core Libertarian values as free speech or property rights can be defended.

The Open Source movement, too, at times exhibits this willingness or even fetishistic need to ignore common ground in favor of excessive ideological purity: we're all for linux, so let's forget that and argue Gnome versus KDE. We're all against DRM, so rather than fight DRM, let's argue MP3 versus Ogg; Ogg is "more free-er". We're all for Freedom, but the important question is whether to prefix linux with "GNU/".

And so we waste our time and our energy on petty, internecine battles while the people who benefit from curtailing Freedom pragmatically get things done.

In your case, here we have a radio station that has a) avoided the Microsoft Monopoly and WMA and its foot-in-the-door DRM and avoided b) RealPlayers's "sell us your soul and your desktop" for "free" audio, and c) uses a format that doesn't use DRM or locked-to-one OS codecs, and that can be played on any computer an any portable -- including my Zaurus that runs XMMS.

And your response is to write them, bnot to say, "hey thanks for not taking the easy route of one monopoly or another, thanks for producing a stream that works regardless of my OS and doesn't use DRM", but to castigate them for using a de facto standard that doesn't meet your high-and-mighty ideological purity test.

Because as far as you concerned, we shouldn't -- God forbid -- thank our fellow travelers for starting a walk down the road to freedom, we should instead denigrate them for not walking as fast as we think they should.

And when WNYC says, "hey there's no pleasing these zealots, let's just do the easy thing and use WMA or RealPlayer", what then have we won? What example does that set? You'll just sit in your ideological ivory basement and nod sagely and say "see I told you so! Those guys were never ideologically as pure as me!"

Well, congratulations on your ideological purity. That and a buck fifty will buy you a DRM'd song from WalMart

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[AccordionBob]

Hi-

I work for a large public radio network and producer "Where the women are strong, the men good-looking, and the children are above average". We are running into the Real/WinMedia/MP3 problems every day. One important line in the car talk letter that most folks missed is that Real is now providing free hosting for Car Talk's streams. This is going to save the car talk folks thousands of dollars a month!!! Any public radio station that was offered a deal like like would sell their soul to Clear Channel, Howard Stern and/or Paul Harvey to get it.

The PR Flak from Real.com is blowing hot air: if you choose "typical install", you will get all of the undesirable effects mentioned. Also, you have to sign up with Real.com to get a directl, ad-free link to the free player downlonad page. (BTW- we have one of these links, just like Car Talk).

As for MP3, we know it's patented protocol, but it it is one that is supported by both Real and MS. An MP3-encoded file can be streamed with either rtsp (real) or mms (windows media). This is a HUGE advantage to a station that does not want to get caught up in format wars. We stated encoding RealMedia 3 in 1995. That codec doesn't even ship in RealPlayer 10 / RealOne! You have to "upgrade" your system to listen to 9-year old content!

Our ideal audio codec standard is a "standard" that won't change and can be implemented by multiple parties. In the best of all possible worlds, this would be open source, but the costs for MP3 are low enough that we can handle it.

Many of us in the public radio IT community (yes, there is such a thing!) would love to use Ogg Vorbis or soem open-source player, but the fact of the matter is that we mostly rely on an older, less tech-savvy audience than the average slash-dotter.

As a public radio station, we are PO'd by Real and MS's advertising splurges. The defaults for both players take you to ad-heavy pages that have nothing in common with the public radio demographic. We actually get angry calls and emails from folks who tried to listen to some dry public radio show and ended up seeing an ad for 50-Cent or Brittney Spears.

You might be encouraged to know that the second-biggest Public Radio Network's websites are entirely run on linux, mysql, apache, php, perl, slashcode, and openSSL. Wherever possible we try to use open source products whose philosophical goals are close to ours. MP3 is an unfortunate case that isn't a 100% fit, but certainly works better than Real and/or Windows. (We've not transitioned yet, but we are talking about it)

NOTE: My opinions are mine, not my employer's.

PS: We all know that "underwriters" are actually "advertizers". The behind-the-scenes pubradio geeks would like to appologize for that, and think you for your support!

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[bjarvis354]

Uhh...dude...I was just making a suggestion. I really did not mean to upset you.

And just to be clear, I am not a Libertarian. And unlike some people, I don't think everyone should think like me.

Re:Public Radio should not even use MP3 streams.

[bjarvis354]

That is exactly the response I got from my friendly WNYC contact. I am very happy with your well measured comment and fully understand the pitfalls of attempting to appease a diverse consumer base (and one that is ideologically charged). If anything this dialog with Public Radio has made me realize how hard NPR works to respond to its listeners concerns.

Benefit to cellphone users!

[dspyder]

My phone (Nokia 3650) uses RealPlayer... have to test if I can stream yesterday's broadcast. That would be nice. Finally some decent free content!

p.s. T-Mobile unlimited data plans make this all possible, btw!

--D

Re:Benefit to cellphone users!

[Anonymous Coward]

T-mobile sucks. I've been with them for 2 years, and everywhere I go, and whatever phone I use, I loose the signal. And on top of that, they have the worst customer support *ever*.

I'll be switching to something like Verizon soon.

Re:Benefit to cellphone users!

[elrusoloco]

Off-topic, but I must defend T-Mobile. Their customer service has been great for me, both when I was switching from Nextel and ever since for various things. I haven't had any service problems in Mass, NY, California, and Europe.

Re:Benefit to cellphone users!

[dspyder]

Replying to myself... just tried the stream at lunch and it works great!!!! Kind of nice actually for my lunch break.

Only downside is I couldn't get the .ram to work to load all the parts in a row... I had to point to each stream individually. Now if only they would make a decent WAP front-end to it.

--D

p.s. To the AC bashing T-Mobile. Say what you like about the service or their customer support (both of which I've been impressed with), they are the only carrier that offers a $19.99 UNLIMITED DATA plan! That barely buys you 8 megs over at AT&T.

Here's what I think..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think thatBuffering...

Re:Here's what I think..

[Trauma_Hound1]

For your information, every other player out there, buffers, it just doesn't neccasarly tell you, it's doing that. Now go use the buffer in your brain, before you make stupid statements like this.

WindowMedia, Real Player...

[TooTallFourThinking]

What are some free software/open source alternatives to audio streaming, if there are any? Anyone have any experience with them?

Second Chance

[breakinbearx]

It's nice to see Tom and Ray give Real a second chance to get things right. Real made the changes, so I guess some positive reinforcement will set an example... Perhaps this will incite changes in other proprietary software? Also, is it me, or is Real seeming to be changing!? I haven't used the new version of RealPlayer yet, but it certainly sounds less invasive than the old ones. And with the Helix grant to the OGG project, Real seems to be getting nicer every day. weird.

Ogg Icecast?

[steveha]

This made me wonder if they even considered going to Ogg Vorbis streaming with Icecast. Whether they considered it or not, it made me wonder how many Icecast streams are available.

I found a list here:

http://www.icecast.org/streamlist.php

Not as many as I had hoped to find.

steveha

Re:Ogg Icecast?

[numark]

The problem, of course, is that most people won't have a Vorbis-ready player already installed on their computer. Most computers do have Realplayer installed on them, often when it's shipped from the factory. As much as people like to see Ogg as the perfect codec and worthy of having everything converted over to it, the general public just wants to be able to click on a link and listen to their file. You can say "Vorbis is better" all you want, but when it comes down to the average person listening to Car Talk, they just want to listen to the stream, regardless of what is playing it. It happens that a lot more people have Realplayer, so that one is more convenient.

Re:Ogg Icecast?

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon, even my mom can click a link that says download your Vorbis player here...
Besides, they have to do it for Real Player as well.

Re:Ogg Icecast?

[SnappleMaster]

My take on the article: they wouldn't have considered Ogg if they weren't offered free hosting.

Re:Ogg Icecast?

[Unknown Lamer]

Actually, no. Perhaps your mom would do it, but no one I know would. It pisses me off because I hate MP3 (aside from the patent issues, it sucks when compared with Vorbis). Winamp has had support for Vorbis for many years now (Hell, I remember it having Vorbis support in the default install when I last used Windows...three and a half years ago) but the Windows Media Player has pretty much killed Winamp. People are lazy and refuse to install Winamp even though most of them are on broadband and it would take a grand total of two minutes of their time.

I convinced the guy who runs hxcmp3.com to enable Vorbis support in the software the site uses. My former band put all of our music on the site as Vorbis. We had a respectable ranking in the download listings, but I recieved a number of complaints about not being able to play the songs. I put a blurb about installing Winamp, but then I got complaints about it requiring too much effort to listen to the songs.

The Mac is better off; the QT Components for the Mac are easy to install and work right away. For a while after the release of QuickTime 6 they were broken, but now they work again. After being installed, everything which makes use of QuickTime on the Mac or Windows gains support for Vorbis. This is more useful on the Mac than on Windows since pretty much everything used QuickTime.

Now, if Ogg Vorbis had a DirectShow filter, the situation would be different. Simply link to a quick 30 second DS filter or QT component download and even Windows Media Player or QuickTime could play Ogg Vorbis. I don't use Windows, but there has to be someone who would be willing to write the needed code (unless it has already been done).

I wonder if Real Player has support for Vorbis? After all the hubbub about the Helix "Open Source" stuff it would be a shame if it didn't.

Re:Ogg Icecast?

[Xoder]

There is a DirectShow filter for Ogg Vorbis.

However, it is not OSS, if that matters to your Windows computing needs.

Re:Ogg Icecast?

[Unknown Lamer]

I am a card carrying member of the FSF (Associate Member #114) and don't use Windows.

Windows users are already slaves to proprietary vendors...at least they can be freed from proprietary formats I suppose. The better solution is to stop using Windows and switch over to GNU/Linux where Ogg Vorbis is supported by everything ;)

Re:Ogg Icecast?

[Xoder]

I don't use Windows if I can't help it. But the grandparent was asking about a DirectShow filter, and, hark, there is one!

Re:Ogg Icecast?

[Unknown Lamer]

Now that I know of a DS filter which is a far smaller download than Winamp 5 Full (the Vorbis module is no longer included in the non-huge version, feh) and then enables Vorbis support for a lot of apps. Thanks for the link, I'll trick everyone into installing it now :)

There would be no problems if people still used Winamp. When I last used Windows Winamp 2.6 was brand new and came with Vorbis support out of the box. Everyone used Winamp because WMP sucked even more than it does now. Sucks that times have changed so much.

what is wrong with MP3?

[mattkime]

let people choose their favorite player

Re:what is wrong with MP3?

[repetty]

"let people choose their favorite player"

People don't want to choose.

(Slashdot members don't count.)

Re:what is wrong with MP3?

[SoTuA]

you can keep it in your hard drive and/or redistribute at will.

Hurts their business model. (I think another poster pointed out that they sell old shows and all that)

Re:what is wrong with MP3?

[jdavidb]

you can keep it in your hard drive and/or redistribute at will.

If they are sending it over the network to my computer then I can find a way to do that, no matter what application they want to force me to use to play it.

Free player really is easy to find...

[dspyder]

Not only is it right there on the left side of their front page, they also left me with a pop-up (pop-under) offering their free player for download when I closed their site window! hahaha...

Hey, didn't Complaint #5 deal with popups?????

--D

BBC adware-free

[morcheeba]

Don't forget that the BBC made a special deal with real for a "expiry-free, spyware-free and nuicance-free" version. download here - thanks, BBC!

Re:BBC adware-free

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish this were true, but the word on the street is that the "special" version of Real Player for the BBC is not customized in any way. Check out http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/000504/ and http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/000513/ for some recent discussion. One bit of advice from here, if you absolutely, positively, must have Real Player, is to download the Enterprise Desktop client, an unadvertised corporate version that supposedly doesn't have the spyware bullshit. See http://forms.real.com/rnforms/products/tools/red/ and keep in mind that only NT-based Windows OSs need apply...

Re:BBC adware-free

[cmay666]

I remember that post from boingboing.net. Unfortunately, after I installed that I was back into pop-up hell with Real's Media Center giving me 'reminders' to register or perform some other silly action every other day. That RealAlternative sounds like it's worth giving a shot though.

Re:BBC adware-free

[daanger0us]

I bet the BBC version is not based off RP10. When a company annouces they are doing something different, it doesnt mean you can go install older versions of the product and hope those features have been back rolled.

Very close to the edge

[heironymouscoward]

If a mainline vendor like RealNetworks can produce a flagship product that is so close to spyware, consumers can expect rough times ahead.

It's incredible that a company should have to back down from a series of agressive marketing techniques in this way: it suggests they have either seriously misunderstood their market, or that they are under serious pressure to exploit it harder, even at a high cost in credibility.

I suspect that it will eventually become standard procedure for software to become fairly agressive in taking over the desktop, uninstalling or crippling other products, redirecting browsers, etc. The techniques currently used by the most evil spyware trojans (like CoolWebSearch) will probably become mainstream as companies look for a way, any way to keep their software visible on the users' desktops.

Or maybe I'm just being pessimistic.

Re:Very close to the edge

[lemox]

Dude, realplayer has been like that for a loooong time. They practically paved the way for all the invasive crap we see today. There's no "eventually", what you're talking about has already happened, and the backlash is finally catching up to the companies. The fact that RealNetworks finally took the hint and backed off is a good thing.

Re:Very close to the edge

[orthogonal]

The techniques currently used by the most evil spyware Trojans (like CoolWebSearch) will probably become mainstream as companies look for a way, any way to keep their software visible on the users' desktops.

There's plenty of software that stays visible on my desktop without resorting to pop-ups, pop-unders, Trojans or other underhandedness.

These programs do have one technique in common however: they're useful enough that I to keep them on my desktop.

In general, that means they do their job unobtrusively and well. Example include Firefox, ScITE, Mp3BookHelper, FileZilla, Winamp, Kerio Firewall. All but the last two are free and open source. One (Mp3BookHelper) I even allow to phone home, and extraordinary concession my part, because I know it only checks for new versions.

All, even the non-FOSS programs, are unobtrusive and don't phone home (or in WinAmp's case, is a bt obtrusive but can be set not to be), and don't take up any screen real estate for ads or extraneous stupidity (again, WinAmp's a partial exception -- I had to set it first to be unobtrusive).

Things that are not on my desktop include RealPlayer, the latest version of Windows Media Player, and Internet Explorer. Real because it is presumptuous in so many ways, Media Player because its latest version will by default change your Mp3's tags, and IE because it's flashy to the detriment of being secure.

Quality wins out over flashiness -- especially over time. You''l look at hampsterdance.com one time because it's flashy, but you'll make your home page something informative, like the New York Times or possibly even Slashdot, because it's actually useful.

glad they switched back to Real

[weathergeek]

I was pretty close to rebooting my computer to win95 just so I can listen to the show. Been having problems listening to those asx/wma streams for a while, and haven't listened to the show because of it. Now I can listen to those maniacal laughs again :)

realplayer 8

[bstil]

Someone mentioned Real Alternative a few weeks ago. It was a godsend, because I now refuse to install realplayer.

I still have my downloaded REAL PLAYER 8 installer from circa 1999, with REAL JUKEBOX. That's the only RealPlayer I install. It's great, just before the REALONE player. But I still get annoying "a new version of real player is available" messages.

Re:realplayer 8

[BigDumbAnimal]

This is an excellent site for problems like realplayer

Re:realplayer 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, the old RealPlayers have even more spyware than the new ones.

Re:realplayer 8

[Cognitive Dissident]

You can install Real Alternative with RealPlayer 8 installed and it can find the new codecs. At least it did with version 1.20 when I first tried it. So yes, you can have the latest formats with the relatively non-spammy older player. Realizing I didn't have to put up with even the periodic "Upgrade Now!" spasms if I just used the included Media Player Classic I removed it and used Microsoft's own 'RegClean' to make sure it was gone.

Another happy Real Alternative User!

i hate real

[maxbang]

I guess this is could be a troll, but I can't stand them. I could never stand them. The quality is always subpar, their "player" is a chock full of bloated spyware junk, the link to the free player is hidden better than the holy fucking grail, ugh, ugh, and...ogg? Even if they have fixed all of those (and more) problems, their crapware forced me to find a better alternative and I'll never, ever, and I mean never go back to that horrendous software. Seriously, I could shit on a floppy, put it in my computer, and get a better quality product than anything Real will ever put out.

Re:i hate real

[Anonymous Coward]

Do yourself and everyone else a favor, and stop smoking crack. You DON'T know what your talking about. If you actually did anything with streaming, like I have, you wouldn't make stupid statments like this. I've done comparatives between all the major players, and Real's codecs compress/file size ratio is much better than everything else out there.

From closed to closed - what's the point?

[Just Some Guy]

What I really don't understand is why people insist on using closed media servers when there are viable free solutions. So Real threw them a bone by waiving the license fee for a while for some goodwill advertising - why are people impressed with getting something for free that they don't have to be paying for in the first place?

I understand (and sometimes make) the argument that "gratis" doesn't always mean "cheap", since someone has to run the system and in this setting you'd probably have to pay them to do it. Still, the whole reason I love listening to these guys so much is that they are the alpha geeks of the automotive mechanic world. It's not like Tom and Ray are a couple of guys who tinker with cars in their back yard and have no technology background.

Real Player doesn't come with Windows XP, so you can't use the argument that you don't want to make your users install additional software, since they'll have to anyway. The official answer from NPR is that

While other media types may offer technical advantages or less restrictive licenses, the conversion and storage of audio files requires considerable time and resources.

although I'm not quite ready to believe that compressing to Real or WMA format is less costly that compressing to Vorbis.

Re:From closed to closed - what's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

With closed technology, they make it harder for average joe to save the show (security through obscurity). They sell their old shows through Audible.com.

heh....hosting it for free eh?

[Cyberllama]

Translation: Preserving our monopoly by any means necessary.

But I suppose dirty tactics are fair game when you're competeting with Microsoft. . .

Still, I wouldn't let any Real software touch my computer with a ten-foot pole. It's disgusting how it takes over once you give it a foot in the door. I use the Real Alternative.

Re:heh....hosting it for free eh?

[numark]

The fact that they're still competing with Microsoft means that Real isn't a monopoly. Real hasn't cornered any specific market as of yet. Monopolies apply to broad markets, not individual customers.

car talk, not real player

[Anonymous Coward]

hey slashdotters, this is a story about CAR TALK, not REAL PLAYER. :P

Real or WMP, it don't matter...

[Geek_3.3]

...it's still gonna cost you $3 an episode to hear the back issues...

http://www.audible.com/cartalk

What a shame. The only other show that I really listen to on a regular basis (www.splendidtable.org) gives it up for free!

Streaming Audio

[Outosync]

I'm still suprised mp3 streaming audio hasn't become more popular then Real or WindowsMedia. I have no trouble finding quality open source server software to broadcast live mp3 streams and the bandwidth usage(for me at least) is very acceptable.

It annoys me that sites like NPR and Air America Radio use Real, not to mention other news sites.
Thank goodness for RealAlternative :)

Very Good Reason

[Hal The Computer]

The newest version of RealAudio crashes my computer.
Completely. Utterly. Requires a hard reset.
It has the disticntion of being the only peice of software I have ever installed that can do this EVERY TIME I START IT under Windows 2000.
Does that answer your question?

Re:Very Good Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

The newest version of RealAudio crashes my computer.

Perhaps you're not up to the latest MS patch level. But anyway I doubt it, there's probably something funky with your computer.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Ed Avis]

Mozilla people here and on Bugzilla constantly told me it wasn't Mozilla and that it was impossible for an application to crash Windows 2000

This is quite right. Well, it's not impossible as you have found, but if it happens it indicates a bug in Windows 2000 or in some device driver. There may be a bug in Mozilla too - but the bug in the operating system or driver is much more serious and should be addressed first. It will probably be much easier to find the bug in Mozilla, if there is one, once the OS or driver bug is fixed.

Some other examples of the same principle:

'gcc reliably crashes when building this code' => there is a bug in gcc, not your code;

'my web browser crashes when viewing this page' => the fault is with the web browser, not the page;

'my computer crashes when I scroll the mouse wheel in a particular way' => the computer or operating system is faulty, not the mouse.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

And Ive installed every version of Real on every possible Win version on many machines...no problem.
Do you want someone to explain it to you?
Im listening to Pot-Tv.net as Im writing this on Win2000 at work, no crash.

Extrapolating from personal experience gives you...well, Slashdot posts.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Malc]

Bug in the graphics driver or Windows' graphics subsytem is rather irrelevant when Mozilla is the only app on a heavily used system that brings it down, and is guaranteed to bring it down. As it turned out, there was a least one pretty blatant leak in Mozilla that should have been caught years before by either developers who care about their product beyond their own self-importance, or proper SQA.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Ed Avis]

*For you* Mozilla was the application that triggered the OS bug, that does not mean that it was Mozilla's fault. There may well have been a memory leak in Mozilla, however your report that your system crashes does absolutely nothing to help the Mozilla developers debug this. I don't mean to belittle the problem but the sad fact is that a report of 'my particular PC crashes' is of no use to the application developer, unless it's a program that does hardware access or exotic device driver access. It might, however, be helpful to the author of the operating system or device driver, who will have access to the same hardware and may be able to download the application and reproduce the crash.

I have to ask, in all the time you spent asking the Mozilla developers about this problem, did you do anything to report it to the vendor of the operating system or device drivers you are using?

"Bug in the graphics driver or Windows' graphics subsytem is rather irrelevant" - no, the bug is in the operating system. It is not irrelevant.

I'm glad that you were able to stop triggering the OS bug by changing to a newer version of Mozilla, one that is less memory-hungry. I am sure there are many bugs that were fixed in Mozilla that stopped it stressing the system so much. But this means that a chance of fixing the real, underlying bug is lost. It may still exist and be biting some other user running a different application.

You have a too low opinion of Windows 2000 and an operating system's job. If the machine crashes this indicates either faulty hardware, or faulty operating system (including device drivers). Always.

Re:Very Good Reason

[srwalter]

Wow, user apps can crash your OS? Sounds like you shouldn't take out your anger on Real Player just yet.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Malc]

Yeah, I'm glad too that it's been resolved ;) It took too much time and effort though. The kind of time and effort I associate with working in big companies and the lazy people they seem to attract... perhaps I'm too impatient?

Anyway, I think this is something that defines a good software engineer: one who doesn't dismiss a problem by trying to blame others. One who works to make their product/component/whatever work irrespective of whether the fault lies with them or not. Someone who takes pride in producing the best product they can, which means making it work come hell or high water. As it turned out, there was a problem in Mozilla and if anybody involved with it had actually bothered and made a modest effort then they would have found it. On some systems such as mine their bug proved fatal - the only thing that's relevant here is that Mozilla had a bug, which was actually quite serious too whether or not it crashed one's system.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Ed Avis]

If the Mozilla developer had been sitting next door to you he or she could have come over and witnessed the crash, and maybe done something (although to my mind 'something' is most likely to be sending a good report to the operating system's developer). But from halfway round the world, with only a report of 'my PC crashes when Mozilla runs', it is almost impossible to do anything. So it is understandable that they choose to focus on bug reports which show things that are definitely Mozilla bugs (whereas yours _could_ be a bug in Mozilla, but is definitely an OS bug too).

So essentially it's this assertion of 'if anybody involved had made a modest effort they would have found it' - this really is not possible when you can't reproduce the bug. In such cases, you are the only person with access to the hardware and setup that breaks, so rightly or wrongly it is down to you to make the modest effort.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

"the only thing that's relevant here is that Mozilla had a bug, which was actually quite serious too whether or not it crashed one's system."

An OS shouldn't crash. If an app stops responding, and you can't kill it, that's the OS's fault.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you should take your anger out on the Jackass who has to point out the weaknesses of Windows at every opportunity they get, no matter how off-topic it is.

Get a life moron!

Re:Very Good Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, user apps can crash your OS? Sounds like you shouldn't take out your anger on Real Player just yet.

What OS are you running? Betcha I can write a simple user app to crash it. Careful, you might just have take your anger out on GCC (blaming Real is fine as well) :)

Re:Very Good Reason

[Malc]

You just don't get it do you?

1) I didn't say I couldn't kill the app. The app was killing the OS

2) Who cares if there's a problem with the OS? If you develop for a platform where there is a problem with the OS, you work around that problem. You don't point your finger at the OS and say it's not my fault.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Malc]

When I'm presented with a bug that I can't reproduce I spend time looking for things that might cause other people problems, especially when it's a show stopper. If there's a problem you have to review/audit the code. I've worked with lazy team members who don't do this. It's stupid, ignorant, despicable and causes problems. It eventually comes back and bites the team and probably ends using up a lot of somebody else's time.

Re:Very Good Reason

[mayns]

Or to put it in a way that slashdotters accept and understand:

-The program you're running that crashes Windows is made by Microsoft, Real, AOL, EA, etc: it is the program's fault.
-The program you're running that crashes Windows is made by some 17 year olds in Helsinki: it is Windows fault.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Ed Avis]

The thing is that it's not a 'show stopper' for the Mozilla developers. Their job is to find bugs in Mozilla, not to help you personally. If you benefit from the investigation of a bug that is a side effect.

In this case, there is clear proof that there is a bug in the operating system that needs to be fixed, and until it is there is little point trying to debug Mozilla. If you think otherwise you should explain why you think your bug (which cannot be reproduced by anyone else and is certainly due to a fault in the OS) should be prioritized above the thousands of other bug reports which are for definite faults in the Mozilla code and come with instructions to reproduce, test cases or patches.

If you want support, I am afraid you need to pay for it: the Mozilla bug tracker does not exist to provide support to end users. OTOH, if you will help with investigation of a bug and provide the developers with the information they need, they will usually look into it. If you just harangue the developers about a bug in someone else's operating system you are not likely to get anywhere.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Ed Avis]

Who cares if there's a problem with the OS? If you develop for a platform where there is a problem with the OS, you work around that problem.

Sure, if it's a problem that affects many people. It may not make sense to work around a problem that affects just one person. Especially if nobody else can reproduce it and get any idea of how to avoid it.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Malc]

Actually it was reported by others. That's what makes it so much more annoying. Some of the symptoms described before the crash were identical to those exhibited by Windows 95 right before it crashes due to low GDI resources (redrawing issues in all applications). I think this was the bitmap resource leak: that was a problem for everybody, it just didn't crash everybody's systems. Don't you get it ? It wasn't just my problem. *sign* The Mozilla people could learn a lot by looking at the KDE efforts, that's an example of an open source project where in my experience the developers are responsive and caring about the product rather than their personal petty goals, and an example of how to produce a fantastic product quickly. Mozilla development is like it's stuck in treacle... it's too frustrating to deal with.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Ed Avis]

Well - why didn't you say so? From everything you said so far I assumed you had some bug that only crashed your machine and nobody else's. However, there is still a bug in the OS and in an ideal world that would be fixed _first_. The Moz developers may be acting too idealistic in this respect (OTOH, for developing against free software operating systems, such an attitude of 'fix the underlying problem first' makes perfect sense).

Re:Very Good Reason

[reanjr]

Compiler/Browser bugs I'll give you.

But if an application's installer is written to change the OS (as modifying certain regsitry settings can be seen as a form of), and this causes the OS to crash, it is the application's fault. I cannot assure you that this is what is happening in this case, but my point is that you can't always assume it is the OS's fault.

I could write a simple application/shell script that, when run under the root account, could totally trash a Linux OS. Doesn't mean there's a bug with Linux. Means my software is malicious and/or doesn't take care in what it is doing.

Anything that is executable in some fashion has the ability to take down a system. Of course there are extra secure ways to avoid this type of behavior, but there is no silver bullet.

Re:Very Good Reason

[Ed Avis]

I could write a simple application/shell script that, when run under the root account, could totally trash a Linux OS. Doesn't mean there's a bug with Linux.

True, but if you can write one as non-root that causes a _physical_ crash (as in locks up the machine so that the reset button doesn't work, or Alt-F2 doesn't switch virtual consoles, etc) then there certainly is a bug in Linux.

I thought that the crash being referred to earlier in this discussion was a hard failure of the OS. Also I didn't take into account that on WinDOS everything runs with full user privs. I was assuming Windows 2000 or some other NT-based system. I certainly would consider it a bug if any non-privileged executable could hard lock up an NT system for any reason (though it has been known, of course).

Likewise if you can bring down the X server by sending it bad requests (this is perhaps a closer analogy). But I'll admit that for code running in a privileged enough user account (eg local administrator rights on a Windows box) it is possible to do bad things without exploiting an OS bug.

I already get CarTalk w/o ads or Real -- VCR it!

[tmoertel]

I built a simple "VCR" for the radio and set it up to record Car Talk, among my other NPR favorites. Now I can listen to Click and Clack whenever is convenient for me, without having to jump through hoops, download proprietary codes, or bother with streaming. Plus, I get a nice archive of shows that I can take with me on road trips:

car-talk--2004-02-21--Sat--1000.spx
car-talk--2004-02-28--Sat--1000.spx
car-talk--2004-03-06--Sat--1000.spx
car-talk--2004-03-13--Sat--1000.spx
car-talk--2004-03-20--Sat--1000.spx
car-talk--2004-03-27--Sat--1000.spx
car-talk--2004-04-03--Sat--1000.spx

An old radio, a sound card, and a few shell scripts -- that's all it takes.

Or....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use linux, or use real alternative, then you don't have to worry about any of that junk....

But real audio is much friendlier to linux users than wma (Also real audio sounds better!)

Bangs head on wall

[Junior J. Junior III]

ARG! MP3! OGG! Quicktime!

Why do they have to force us to use shitty proprietary players? I could give a crap about Car Talk, but there's some good shows on NPR that I WOULD love to listen to if I could, but I refuse to pollute my Windows box with RealPlayer.

Won't someone please think of the end-users?

Re:Bangs head on wall

[Troy]

I refuse to pollute my Windows box with RealPlayer.

There is something redundant about this sentiment, but I can't quite figure out what it is.

Sorry....low blow :)

Re:Bangs head on wall

[Naelphin]

Am I the only person who thinks Quicktime is the worst choice of formats? Their player sucks and the preloader can only be stopped from autoloading by editing the registry. Even Real had an option to turn it off buried in its options menu.

Why do people like Quicktime?

Re:Bunch of sell-outs

[repetty]

"The almighty dollar swayed them."

I like the two guys, but we just got a dose of how the market REALLY works.

Some people out there think it's about privacy or features or convenience.

--Richard

Nice Quote

[sysopd]

"Real took notice and convinced the show to switch back, by addressing various listener complaints about their player (many of which were fixed in RealPlayer 10)."

It appears they haven't fixed my #1 complaint, which I'd title 'worst interface in the world'. And I'd qualify that with 'most bloated, ugly, nonresponsive, huge, non-intuitive' not to mention 'works like no other software i use'. And I mean that last part in a bad way.

I am genuinely glad!

[haggar]

REal has listened to a collective "fuck you RealPlayer" because of very legitimate complaints. I had a problem sympathizing with Real in it's battle with Microsoft, because of exactly those issues.

I feel that Now Real is back home.

The only thing that spoils my good mood is that it took a media powerhouse (powerful because of it's fantastic popularity (yeah, I love car talk, too)) like Car Talk to make a difference. Obviously, users, no matter how many are, are powersless if they are disorganized.

It could be...

[baudilus]

If it does, it could be some sort of Nielsen type of rating system. Real gets this info, then sells to advertisers based on who is listening to what. [Ever seen a menopause commercial while watching SpongeBob?] It's not exactly bad, but they should tell users what they are doing.

Then again, most people just click 'I Agree' when the EULA comes up during installations...

Re:It could be...

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

But reading the EULA will disallow my pleading plausible deniability when I violate whatever draconian terms are present in the EULA!

riiiiight...

[fuqqer]

My ass! When real creates a download for the FREE version of their player, ON or NEAR their homepage...then I MIGHT install their POS client on a computer NEAR mine.

Re:riiiiight...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess then it's time to move your ass. Check out real.com now as the article says (we know you didn't read it) it's two easy clicks. And yes, the second click starts the download. It took me all of 10 seconds to get it downloading.

You seem to have totally missed the point of this story. Real has changed. We all agree they sucked before. I'm going to give it a try. Mostly, because I want to get it installed before v11 comes out and they start pulling tricks again.

Obvious

[CaseyB]

blah blah blah blah offered to serve the audio for free online, which defrays an expense we'd otherwise have to cover.

That's the only line that means anything in the whole article.

Why is this news? I can walk down to the streetcorner if I want to see whores.

More content I'll be ignoring

[c0d3h4x0r]

Well... here's more content I'll be ignoring entirely because of the choice to use Real technology as the media delivery mechanism.

Real is an unethical company. They use every psychological trick in the book to trick users into "opting-in" for spyware, ads, and spam.

Not only does their software suck to the point that I simply refuse to install it, but I will not even use alternative software to play Real media streams, because that still supports the company on the server side.

The sooner Real dies a miserable death, the better off the entire world will be. I'm eager to do my part to help make that happen.

Helphere ...WTF...

[MisanthropicProgram]

don't they just have a WAV file or something available for download? It's NPR afterall.

I hate Realwhatever!

Here's my marketing info:

Sexual preferance: animals

Favorite color: yes

income: food

Address: whereever you are..

Sex: Go fuck yourself

Political leanings: trees

Here's an even better solution

[LqqkOut]

Why not just listen to NPR on the radio?!

Pros

The worst ad's are sponsorship recognition

You learn something new every day

You become more liberal every day

No spyware

Supported by most AM/FM radios

Better news coverage than Fox News

Less Hollywood gossip induced brain atrophy

None of that [BUFFERING....] [97%][BUFFERING...] crap!

Cons

You still have to listen to the registration notice [Fund Drive] twice a year, even after you've paid the annual support fee! :)

Friends look at you funny when every other sentance starts with "I heard on NPR that..."

Screw you ClearChannel, we don't need that poppy Britney, Timberlake, OMG WTF Celeb shit, or the 57 Minute Non-stop Commercial MegaMixes!! Get your spam off of my radio

Sorry for the rant, Car Talk rulez, keep it real Click & Clack!

Re:Here's an even better solution

[Valdrax]

Why not just listen to NPR on the radio?!

Because my local NPR station plays light string music instead of talk radio 90% of the time that I'm near a radio! ...You insensitive clod!

Re:Here's an even better solution

[user no. 590291]

You still have to listen to the registration notice [Fund Drive] twice a year, even after you've paid the annual support fee! :)

Unless you're fortunate enough to live in an area that can pick up more than one NPR station. At least here, they haven't become smart enough to run their fund drives simultaneously :).

Re:Here's an even better solution

[FallLine]

While I agree with much of what you're saying about NPR, namely that it's a far better newsource than anything else on radio or TV right now, its liberal bent is my biggest complaint about it. That, and those Fund Drives. I'm a generous supporter (despite the fact that I disagree with their political biases), but I find that the repetitive talking during the Fund Drives drives me to turn my radio off. It really drives me up the wall. I grant it's probably necessary the way they do business right now, but I'd think they could find some way at least to allow paying users such as myself to avoid it. Perhaps they could offer a two-tier service using satellite radio or something: one free with fund drives and another where you pay some fee to listen...

Hell, I think even regular old ads would be better. I find them far less disturbing for some reason.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[Quikah]

I have been listening to the new Clear Channel indie/alternative radio station in San Jose, I like it, though they do tend to overplay the songs. I guess they are doing this around the country, there is a CC station in LA that switched at the beginning of the year as well.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[Anonymous Coward]

more liberal(left wing)!=good.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[PCM2]

Ha ha! Too funny ... I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, don't subscribe to cable TV, and my rabbit ears manage to pull in only about three channels: Channel 9, channel 54, and channel 60, all of which happen to be PBS affiliates. And they do all run their pledge drives at the same time!

Re:Here's an even better solution

[jridley]

Because I am not near the radio or I am at work when my favorite shows are on. I like to time-shift so that I can listen to "Wait, Wait, don't tell me" or Cartalk or even (if I'm in the rare mood) Prarie Home Companion while mowing lawn, cleaning house, etc.
In a portable player, it gives me something to listen to on my commute during pledge drive week; since I generally call up pretty quickly with my pledge, I don't feel obliged to listen to them yap after I've given them my CC#.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[jridley]

That's exactly why the online copies are nice. I throw them on my Palm device, and once I've paid my NPR bill, I plug that into my radio for the rest of the pledge drive week.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because the twice a year fund drives on my NPR stations last on average about 6 months apiece.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[gmaestro]

its liberal bent is my biggest complaint about it

I know that's the conventional wisdom about NPR, but I just don't hear it. Perhaps it's the case on PHC or some of the other weekend fare, but as for ATC and morning edition (I commute 2 hours every day) it all sounds fairly balanced to me. I don't agree with every opinion expressed, and that's how it should be. And besides, whenever a story is not presented in a completely equal way, some listener is ready to write in explaining the inequity, and then they read the letter on the air.

I guess my point is, at least they try to be fair, and are ready to air criticism if they are less than fair. I imagine if they really were so liberal, Mr. Franken et al would not feel the need to start their own left-wing radio.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[belloc]

its liberal bent is my biggest complaint about it

I know that's the conventional wisdom about NPR, but I just don't hear it.

Of course you don't; that's the most sure sign that you're just a bit liberal. It's the same reason that conservatives think that Fox news is "fair and balanced". If you're comfortable with what they're saying, if it doesn't grate on you (like NPR does with the parent poster), and like Fox News does with most Slashdot readers, you probably agree with much of what they're saying, and therefore don't notice whatever bent they might have.

If you want to know whether a media outlet is biased one way or the other, ask conservatives and liberals alike; you'll find out quickly.

Belloc

Re:Here's an even better solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, no 36? I guess you're farther north (we never got 60 all that well), but 36 was always fairly watchable even with NO antenna attached. (and 48, but that's all spanish) If you can put up an antenna on your roof, you'll probably pick up at least another 6 or 7 channels.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[lish2]

Some areas have two NPR stations available, one for primarily news and the other for primarily music. Sometimes one is on the AM dial and the other is FM. For example, in central Iowa, 90.1 is WOI-FM (mostly music) and 640 is WOI-AM (mostly talk); in St. Paul, there are two separate FM stations. Recommend checking the NPR website to see if this is true in your area.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[/dev/trash]

I do just this. I set a cron job to record and convert it to mp3, and I listen to it at my pleasure. The 30 second skip that Winamp has is great for all those FUND DRIVE interruptions.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could do what every other country on Earth does, and have the Government fund your public broadcasting.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[FallLine]

Or you could do what every other country on Earth does, and have the Government fund your public broadcasting.

Every other??? With exception of the BBC, who else has a QUALITY radio and news station? Damn few. Who says we need a "public" radio station in the first place? I don't listen to NPR because it's "public" or (relatively) ad-free. I listen to them because their quality tends to be a lot better than everything else on their air (I don't believe that the two correlate that well).

Anyways, that to me is all besides the point. I simply don't want my tax dollars going to fund something that is so far left of center with respect to my views or most of the country. I contribute generously to NPR, even today, but at least when I'm footing the bill voluntarily I can help moderate their behavior to some extent. If they get much worse and take too many liberties, then they'd find a good source of the funding that they depend on dries up. Furthermore, besides the whole political debate, I think having an organization that is responsive to the community's needs and wants over the long run is generally a good thing.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[Anonymous Coward]

NPR really isn't exactly "liberal" in the normal sense of Colmes vs. Hannity. Rather, they address issues and talk about things that aren't allowed to be taken seriously in the mainstream media.

Re:Here's an even better solution

[FallLine]

I know that's the conventional wisdom about NPR, but I just don't hear it. Perhaps it's the case on PHC or some of the other weekend fare, but as for ATC and morning edition (I commute 2 hours every day) it all sounds fairly balanced to me. I don't agree with every opinion expressed, and that's how it should be. And besides, whenever a story is not presented in a completely equal way, some listener is ready to write in explaining the inequity, and then they read the letter on the air.

Well I typically lean Republican (although I do for Dem from time to time) and I listen to NPR regularly (Fresh Air, Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered, Tavis Smiley, etc). I definitely detect a consistent, albeit subtle and not always evident, bias to the left. Sure, from time to time they'll bring in a conservative commentator, but they always make it very clear that they're a CONSERVATIVE (in so many words). Yet they'll bring in people, like say, Paul Krugman (a well known democrat) accomplished though he may be, give him wide and largely unchallenged freedom to bash Bush, and then introduce him as merely an economist. There are a lot of subtle ways that one can slant a story in a way that's clearly unfair to one side or the other. For instance, I've _often_ heard it repeated by various guests and even their regular hosts that the deficit is caused Bush's tax cuts (completely ignoring and failing to mention that the tax cut component is a SMALL component of the deficit). It's also been repeated that Bush rested his case for going into Iraq because he said we had firm evidence that there were massive WMD (when, again, this was never the backbone of the argument--quite to the the contrary. He presented his case on MULTIPLE points and, as far as WMD goes, it was largely based on what we could only GUESS). ... I could go on (although I really don't write these thigns down, I have better things to do...)

I guess my point is, at least they try to be fair, and are ready to air criticism if they are less than fair.

The listenership is predominently liberal so they're not necessarily going to get an even balance in terms of complaints. Those conservative listeners tend to be older professionals who are busy with their careers and lives, so they don't have much time to do things like complain. Speaking for myself, as a young conservative/independent, even though I find something pretty objectionable at least once a week, the only time I do complain is when I take the trouble to contribute. What's more, they clearly don't read ALL complaints (no station has the time or funding to do that), they just pick a sample based on criteria that I can only guess at. To paraphrase Stalin, the only thing that matters is who counts the votes...and who do you think picks?

I imagine if they really were so liberal, Mr. Franken et al would not feel the need to start their own left-wing radio.

Oh come now. That'd be like arguing that because Rush Limbaugh exists there's no space for other conservative radio commentators; yet this is clearly NOT the case (at least if Mr. Franken is to be believed--I don't listen to that sort of radio myself). What's more, NPR is NOT liberal in the same way that Rush is conservative, NPR is more intelligent and more subtle than that. NPR (and their member stations) know that they'd lose a good part of their funding if they adopted that sort of screechy, brazen, and uninhibited tone. In my mind, Franken simply wants to be the liberal (windbag) counterpart to Rush, perhaps with a humorous twist.

Would you deny that the vast majority of NPR hosts or commentators are avowed liberals or members of the democratic party? Do you really believe that you can report the news day in and day out without revealing subtle biases when this is your position?

It's really hard to be "balanced" when you're passionate about an

Not pirating

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in a DRM Crazed company's wet dream is reverse engineering "pirated".

Welcome back to reality.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen..

[MisanthropicProgram]

parent is one of the reasons why I hang out on /.!

Don't worry about it

[swb]

Public radio gets rants all the time from zealots complaining about all the non-PC choices they make in order to remain a viable entity.

I heard one guy complaing that public radio contributed more to smog than many other non-public businesses due to their massive consumption of electricity, almost of all of which comes from non-green sources like coal and nuclear.

At what point is it PC enough?

It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

RealPlayer 10 can be made to be fairly non-intrusive. However, upon launching the player independently, it still prompts for user registration every time. You can click cancel but can't turn off the prompt.

And all that stuff I turn off when first installing Real? That stuff should be off by default. Group all that crap (MessageCenter, Real Guide, etc) together into one place labeled "Extra Features" or whatever. If user wants it, they can turn it on from there.

The GUI just sucks ass. It needs to be cleaner.

Real's done some good things lately - especially with their codec [doom9.org]. If those things were fixed, I might use it as a stand-alone media player. But for now I'll stick with MediaPlayer Classic.

What really made them to go back to Real?

[spidergoat2]

I suspect it may have been their Chief Legal Counsel, Hugh Louis Dewey of Dewey, Cheetham & Howe.

NPR goes both ways right now

[ianscot]

Terry Gross's old Fresh Air interviews are also sold on Audible (and iTunes M.S.) by the show, and I'm pretty sure "This American Life" (Ira Glass) is the same way.

Generally the NPR site had gone with Real for a long time, with free access but only streaming. The news shows, including our excellent Minnesota "Mid Day" with Gary Eichden, are still that way. If you want to hear a call-in show about the Death Penalty, you can go back months for that -- but you'll have to hear it in a stream.

Personally, though, I'd pay for the Audible version if some of those shows were available by the file. I'm not a huge Prairie Home Companion fan, but some of the folk songs from old programs I'd pay good money for -- and you can't do that now. Kind of frustrating that they're giving it away, but I can't listen at the gym or whatever.

So there are pros and cons, is I guess all I'm saying. (Probably Lynn Rosetta Casper isn't a voice you want to carry away in your iPod anyway.)

My reason for WindowsMediaPlayer

[airrage]

For some reason, which someone in the network group at my company would have to explain, is that with RealPlayer I get an access denied message when trying to playing RealPlayer content. However, with Windows Media Player, it asks for "authentication" which already has my NT Account information cached. It almost seems like RealPlayer cannot negotiate with my proxy client ... anyway seems like I can get passed all the road-blocks with WRP.

As an aside, I don't think there's anything special going on in the network group that's blocking RealPlayer, I just think there is something different between the clients.

Real sounds better too

[MCZapf]

The audio quality of Real seems better to me. I listen to Car Talk online frequently, and I noticed that the audio quality was worse when they switched to Windows Media. It's especially noticable at the beginning of the show, when they fade the music down and start to talk over it. The windows media codec chokes on this and makes it sound terrible, but Real handles it just fine. (I use Real Player 8 and Media Player-whatevercomeswithWin2k.)

Re:Great, more ways to spend taxpayer money

[Trigun]

Yeah, car talk is so Liberal.

Car Talk ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is as much a 'call in talk show about car mechanics' as slashdot is about 'stuff that matters'.

mp3 streams

[_aa_]

I know NPR is less of a public service than it is a not-for-profit business. And I know it's probably too much to ask for an Ogg Vorbis stream, but I would happily settle for a mp3 stream.

Luckily the GENIUSES at Science Friday help make it possible by maintaining a rather concise list of NPR streams of various formats, including mp3.

But these are all localized streams, and likely not localized to your location. Would be nice if there was a national stream available for free in an open format.

One would think donations from large organizations like Real Media would make it possible to offer MORE choices, not less.

Re:mp3 streams

[paroneayea]

Actually, asking for an OGG Vorbis stream isn't too far out there.... my favorite classical music station, WCPE, has a wonderful OGG Vorbis stream. If NPR had an OGG Vorbis stream I'd listen to it all the time, I'd be so happy....
What say we bring up a petition for an OGG Vorbis stream from NPR? I'll gladly sign! I'll get all my friends to sign!

Unfortunately I have noticed more RealMedia on web

[Retired Replicant]

I have refused to install RealPlayer for the past several years, restricting myself to Windows Media, Quicktime and of course MPG and AVI. For a long time, Real Media became scarcer and scarcer on the web and it looked like Real was just going to go away and die. Since Real are a bunch of privacy-invading losers, I was thrilled. However, lately it seems like I have been seeing more and more websites that offer Real Media only. This story makes it clear why: Real Media is now so desperate that they are giving their stuff away for free to try and rebuild market share.

I'm still not going to install their crapware, though, no matter what the EU says :)

Doing everything right

[_KiTA_]

Let me get this straight.

1. They start working heavily with the open source community through Helix, including making a free Linux player that handles real (which, btw, is probably where the people who made the Real Alternative got the material to make the codecs).
2. They remove the bloat and ads from their software as a direct result of people's complaints. Not only that, they let you turn off all their popups. Name 3 other free closed source softwares that allow you to do that.
3. They're working with the Doom9 community, which is probably the biggest internet community about audio/video matters.

And none of this is good enough? Christ, that's as pig-headed as idiots who keep chanting that Linux is just a hobbiest server OS and will never be useful on the desktop.

For the record, I hated Real too, but since they seem to be genuinely giving it a real effort, I figured I'd give them another try. So I downloaded and installed Real 10 just now. Fiding the free download off their website was trivial -- it was in big bold blue letters on the side of their downloads page. Who would have trouble finding *that*? Yah, it's not as big as the big graphic showing their pay version, but hey, they have employees to pay. Get over it.

Install was easy -- It did ask to take over all my media files, but I just turned them off, then went into advanced, and turned on DVD playback for Real -- Real does a much better job on DVDs than WMP, for sure. Only other annoyance during install was they asked me to register. This is not unlike other media players that I use regularly, so I did. A quick click to turn off the popups from their quick-launch app, and I'm done. Not exactly the nightmare of previous Real installations.

So yeah. I can see people complaining about Real because of what they did in the past, but jesus, they're giving it an honest effort here, and remember, any time Real wins, Microsoft LOSES. =)

Re:Doing everything right

[paroneayea]

I don't mind Real as a company or as a format... I just think that OGG Vorbis is so much better.

Re:Doing everything right

[kforeman]

KiTA, Thanks for your great post. Every day we put more an more investment into our media players, regardless of OS. Win/Mac/Linux/Symbiam/PalmOS/and several other are being advanced daily. We have a new product development strategy that embraces open source and making it easier for users to work with us. We appreciate your support. Kevin Foreman GM, Helix RealNetworks, Inc.

Re:Doing everything right

[_KiTA_]

No problemo. For the record, I listened to Air America for like 2 hours before leaving for work earlier today on Real10, and it worked great. Never went over 2.5 kb/second, which is good because I'm in a situation where I'm supposed to manage my own bandwidth usage (not throttled, just get a nastygram if I use too much).

I had Everquest (in the bazaar), Mozilla 1.7 (with about 8 tabs open), MIRC (3 servers and about 9 rooms), ABC (with 3 downloads going), and RealPlayer open. Half a gig of Ram, 768 meg swap file. No noticable swapfile access when I switched between them all.

When I do the same thing with WinAmp 5, I experince a bit more swapfile access. So Real 10 appears to use up less ram than Winamp 5 -- but then again, I wasn't loading up 17 hours of MP3s with Real 10, either. I'll try that when I get home. However, I had been alt-tabbing a lot before then, and the majority of the swapfile usage goes away after doing so.

I usually have a lot of buffering when using Winamp and shoutcast, but didn't experience much with Air America on Real. Only buffered one time, and that was after about 45 minutes of constant listening.

This is pretty cool since I'm on a 801.11b wireless broadband connection (tower is about 8 miles away from my house). However, the feed was only 24kbit, so that might have been part of it.

Either way, it's a great imporvment so far over the older copies of Real. I don't intend to ditch WinAMP and BSPlayer, but I'm definately not regretting installing it.

Dumb move IMO

[Wedge1212]

I hate real with a burning passion. It has got to be the worst audio player in the world. Its chalked full of ads and spy-ware. I would much wrather use bloated ol windows media player any day of the week. Like many posts above / below this one i dont understand why more people dont stream MP3 instead of WMA or whatever god awful file type real uses. I fart in Real's general direction!

RealPlayer is a commercial virus.

[mypenwry]

RealPlayer is a commercial virus. No matter how much they have changed it, no matter if they crawl across broken glass to kiss my feet and beg me, I won't ever install it again!

If my only option for a site serving streaming media is RealPlayer, I will just skip on by and not watch / listen. There are too many alternatives on the web; I can always find somethign as good or better that won't force me to install RealPlayer.

RealPlayer lost my trust a long time ago and there are too many options that are far more consumer-friendly for me to bother to give them a second chance.

Fuhgettaboutit.

Re:RealPlayer is a commercial virus.

[bugsmalli]

Brother, AMEN to that! I would like to try the Real Alternative but that would belie the fact that I want Real closed and out of business (I AM pissed at them). What kinda morons are running the company? I cleaned atleast 20 desktops of friends and collegues who were suddenly besotted with popups and whatnots thanks to GAIM installed by RealCrap ONE. Sheesh, talk about pissing customers off. I wish there was a website of all popular websites that use RealMedia without alternatives so we can say, "look, unless you provide an alternative, we shall boycott your site". I wish I had the time to compile that list but if anyone can, I will help.

Re:RealPlayer is a commercial virus.

[nmjon]

You are absolutely correct. I will never install that piece of crap!

Re:RealPlayer is a commercial virus.

[afidel]

God, you people act more like sheeple than geeks. I've had RealOne installed since Oct 02 and I haven't seen a single peep from it since the initial install, other than the videos it's supposed to show me. Do the advanced install, or go through the preferences menu after a normal install and turn all the crap off. It's not like actual malware where stuff is inaccessible without regedit, just click the freaking boxes!

Re:RealPlayer is a commercial virus.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I tried the version 10 beta, it wasn't as bad as others, and doesn't have the same old dumbass blue interface. Btw, on the linux front, I use mplayer with the win32 codecs (from realplayer)... it won't stream, but we all know real is too lame for streaming.

Good, useful post, but disturbing sig

[dnaboy]

I realize that this is totally off topic, but I need to take exception to your sig. I realize that it may be intended to be humorous, or to make a point about the current state of affairs in US politics (trust me, I have serious issues with the status quo also). While I, for one, support your RIGHT to append whatever sig you want on to your posts, I also feel the need to express my RIGHT to say I think it's offensive, and you have lost any general respect I would offer the average person walking down the street.

This is all I will say on the matter, and people, if need be, feel free to mod me down to troll- it's your right.

However they didn't address the biggest problem

[Snaller]

You still have to install real!

Re:However they didn't address the biggest problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are Xvid binaries.

Re:Great, more ways to spend taxpayer money

[CdBee]

US politics may work differently but it's my understanding that Liberalism is kind of opposite to fascism.. can't make your mind up?

Liberal Fascists would be wearing artificial-leather jackboots and forcing jews to march at their own pace to the social services office for a state compensation handout and an offer of councelling while affirming their right to be jewish and to live.

Realistically, its not gonna happen.

WTF?

[Luke727]

Why is becoming more liberal considered a pro? I know Slashdot is Libertarian central, but not all of us are Libertarians. Also, saying that its news coverage is better than Fox News is like saying winning the lottery is better than being raped.

Re:WTF?

[micromoog]

liberal != libertarian

That's about as bad as getting "conservative" and "conservationist" mixed up.

Re:WTF?

[Przepla]

liberal != libertarian
That's about as bad as getting "conservative" and "conservationist" mixed up.

I am going for the first time use my karma bonus to set this straight. In every other place than the US, liberal is very similar to libertarian. Indeed what is called in United States as libertarian in Europe and in political science is called liberal.

Wikipedia Political Liberalism article is saying:
Notable among these are "free market liberalism" (the most common use of the term in Europe) and a broad swath of left-of-center United States politics, sometimes called "American liberalism"..

Also Wikipedia's Liberalism article:
One usage of the term is for a tradition of thought, that tries to circumscribe the limits of political power, and to define inalienable individual rights. This is the most common usage outside of the United States.
See: classical liberalism or libertarianism.

Political Compass is saying in its FAQ:
20 You've got liberals on the right. Don't you know they're left ?
This response is exclusively American. Elsewhere neo-liberalism is understood in standard political science terminology - deriving from mid 19th Century Manchester Liberalism, which campaigned for free trade on behalf of the capitalist classes of manufacturers and industrialists. In other words, laissez-faire or economic libertarianism.
In the United States, 'liberals' are understood to believe in leftish economic programmes such as welfare and publicly funded medical care, while also holding liberal social views on matters such as law and order, peace, sexuality, women's rights etc. The two don't necessarily go together.

Re:WTF?

[micromoog]

Interesting indeed . . . thanks for the insight.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also in Canada, in large part because of the names of the Liberal and Conservative parties (the latter renamed the Progressive Conservative, and now absorbed into a right-wing entity disturbingly called the Alliance). The Conservatives were originally 19th-century conservative, but there's a natural evolution from old-monied social conservative to new-monied fiscal conservative (laissez faire capitalist). The fact that old liberals resemble new conservatives and old conservatives (somewhat) resemble new liberals is taken to be one of the reasons that Canadians have such a sense of humour about themselves and the world.

Nowadays, though, the Conservatives (Alliance) are pretty much wackos and the Liberals are pretty much the right wing. There basically is no left wing, at least not until we switch to proportional representation.

Whoa...

[Anonymous Coward]

CarTalk (64.21.81.15) is hosted at the same place (64.21.81.131) the Irish Spammer went to do his searches...

Real.com has issues

[coyote4til7]

For those of you with access to a Windows box and a Mac OS X box (next to each other is best) try this:

1) Open real.com in a browser on each computer
2) Realize, cool! They've customized it for each browser
3) Download the completely free player

On the windows box it goes like this:
1) Click big orange "Download Now" button
2) When page is through loading, look on the right side of the screen and click "Download Free RealPlayer"
3) Install it. Note: you're never asked for any info to get the installer.

On the Mac:
1) Click big orange "Free Download" button
2) Hmmm... 9.95 per month after trial. Darn it.
3) Hit back button
4) Squint at page and squint and (if you're on a laptop scrolldown). But don't scroll down too fast... you're looking for legalese size and placement text that reads:
Mac OS 8-9.x users click here
Free RealOne Player for Mac OS X
6) Realize that that's two links (and two seperate links) and click on second line.
7) Enter your email address and a password.
8) Go hunh? Why do I need a password to listen to music.

That's when (I)...
1) Realize almost everything I want to listen is also in either QuickTime or Windows Media Player format (both available for Windows and Mac)
2) Wonder why am I working this hard? It took me less time to figure out my iPod (without opening a manual) that I've wasted on this.
3) Decide, heck... I'll just listen to Car Talk on the (get this) radio!
4) Remember that this kind of non-sense is why it's been years since real has part of the software I install when I buy a new machine.
5) Post to Real's site, Car Talk's site and Slashdot on the off chance someone at Real cares enough to listen to why people arn't using their product.

Cartalk's switch let me to Net Transport

[jridley]

If you're a Windows user and haven't checked out Net Transport, go find it now. I had built up an archive of several years worth of Cartalk using Total Recorder. When they switched to WMP I couldn't do that anymore, but a friend (in the same boat as me) found Net Transport; it'll download the original streams, which means no generation loss. It works for both WMP and RM files. Since I just bought a Palm Tungsten with Real Player built in, I'm happy to have the Real files back; though I also think Real are bastards, on the Palm, it's just a media player with no crap bolted on.

I'm hoping curl starts supporting RTSP: and whatever other protocols are needed; I'd rather use curl than net transport; though NT is a cute looking app, I prefer to script and cron so I don't have to remember to download before it's removed from the website.

Real needs to fire their marketing team

[rabbit994]

Serious guys, if your reading this, fire your damn marketing team or at least remove them from the programming discussions. Take a lesson from quicktime. No ads, no popping up, no flashing shit in the bottom. Also, when I turn you off, FREAKING QUIT AND GET THE HELL OUT OF MY RAM. Any additional advice will cost you.

Re:Great, more ways to spend taxpayer money

[bigjnsa500]

to march at their own pace to the social services office for a state compensation handout

And this is different from blacks and hispanics going to unemployment or social security how?

Don't Cross The Streams - A More Complete Thought

[BRock97]

Egon: It would be bad.

Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good-bad thing. Whattya mean "bad?"

Egon: Try to imagine all media players as you set them up stopping instantaneously and every file association on your computer exploding at the speed of light.

Ray: Total protonic reversal....

Venkman: Right, that's bad...OK.. important safety tip. Thanks, Slashdot.

Just NPR ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it can only pick up one station.

Too bad it's NPR. NPR hasn't been cool for about 15 years (and definitively totally uncool since Microsoft started sponsoring them and ATC started doing puff pieces on how Microsoft was helping public schools by getting them addicted to Microsoft).

My Reply to Real

[MediaBoy77]

Since Real provided a "real" email address at the Car Talk page, I decided to install Real 10 and see what happened. This is my reply to Erika Shaffer, PR director at Real.com.

Erika,

I'm disappointed that CarTalk chose to return to RealPlayer for its streaming audio. I'm even more disappointed that Real had to deceive CarTalk's web managers in order to get them to do it.

Specifically:
"Complaint #4: Real was trying to sell me stuff.
RealPlayer 10 lets you turn off all content and sales messages -- those little windows with messages from us that show up in the player or a message window while you are using your computer. You can very easily do this during the initial setup of the player, or later by changing your preferences. If you want to receive some kinds of messages, but not others, you can say so. You can even turn off the message that notifies you that an upgrade of the player is available, though we think you should leave at least that one on."

While it's accurate that I can now turn off the sales messages from the Real Message center, Real is still trying to sell me stuff every time I start up the player.

You neglected to mention that there's a big honkin' ad at the top of the RealPlayer window! *Above* the Play/Pause/Stop controls! Once it's there, there's no obvious way to make it go away. While I realize that ads inside the web content pane may be necessary to pay the bills, it's incredibly obnoxious to move the UI around to make room for ads that sometimes show up and sometimes don't. It's not quite a popup ad, but it's darn close, and it's disingenuous of Real to claim that simply because you can turn off the ads in Message Center, Real isn't trying to sell me stuff or annoy me.

Furthermore, I didn't see anything during the initial setup of the player that let me turn off ads in the Message center. You still have to find an entry point that's buried from most users (Tools > Preferences > Automatic Services > Message Center > Configure Message Center) to make the ads stop. And even if you turn off every single message (including software updates), realsched.exe is still running all the time on my computer.

Real took an industry-leading media product, and instead of continuing to innovate technically, chose to become a marketing and litigation company. In the process, it annoyed millions of users. While Real can claim this upgrade is better for users, it's obvious that upper management still doesn't "get it."

Please pass this on to the decision-makers at Real: Intrusive ads are annoying, regardless of whether they pop up in a new window, or move around the UI in hopes of catching mis-clicks.

I hope that some day soon, Real has an epiphany that users don't like being pandered to. When that happens, I'll come back. In the meantime, I'll be telling all my friends about Real Alternative.

Thanks for your time,
Aaron Weiss
Portland, Oregon

Re:I already get CarTalk w/o ads or Real -- VCR it

[radish]

Which is fantastic, if you only ever listen to one channel (I don't see a robot arm anywhere to twiddle the dial). A better choice may be (a) a digital tuner with an IR remote you can control via Girder or something similar or (b) a radio tuner card (about $20 last time I checked).

If you have not actually TRIED real 10...

[Danathar]

So I was like EVERYBODY else. I hated Realone...I hated the ads...I hated the fact that it felt like they were trying to "sneak spyware" onto my computer.

So I tried Real 10. So far...no crashes, and if you disable the browser feature it's JUST AS FAST AS REAL 8...and for any of you that ACTUALLY have an open mind and want to try it, here is information from the Helix community forums on how to optimize Real 10.

>
>
> I work for RealNetworks, and I am the first to admit RealPlayer is not my favorite media player. For video, Media Player Classic (MPC) is, and yes, I use MPC to play my RV9-EHQ aka RV10 content.
>
> Previous RealPlayers have been pretty impolite to put it mildly, and along with so many other computer users, I have been ticked off by its behaviour in many ways. It has been possible to make it well mannered, but it has included being forced to delete certain files to prevent that annoying Message Center. However, it has not been spyware in a long time, even though one old player did send back some usage information. That's long gone, but it's hard to be forgiven for that mistake.
>
> Considering how past players have created such a bad reputation, this post is probably futile, but anyway... Thanks to those few positive posts though, especially for the Linux and OS X players. It is nice to see someone taking the time to give it a another chance.
>
> This RealPlayer 10 is better than before, it is fast, small, and does not run +10MB services in the background, like one well known example, name withheld. However, this post is not really about performance, even though a lot could be said about improvements in this area. More importantly in this discussion, it is also better in terms of its behaviour, albeit less better than me, many of my co-workers, and all of you, had hoped for.
>
> Here's what you need to do when installing:
>
> * Choose Custom Install
> * Uncheck all the boxes you don't like for stuff on the desktop and quicklaunch bar. There is nothing hidden by a scroll bar, at least not with my computer screen size.
> * Check only the media types you want it to play. This is the only time you will be asked this, it will never try to take back any media types. Now, is this really so bad compared to other software, in regards to media types? It's not as polite as MPC, but I have other media players which take over media types, and there is not even an option to customize this..
> * Start RealPlayer, you may have to create an account. Everybody hates this, and wish it would go way. Agreed, but RealNetworks has to make money somehow, and the number of users is a needed measure to document. So use fake information if you like.
> * Then go to Tools->Preferences->Automatic Services, Click Configure Message Center, then uncheck "Check for new messages". Click OK on the "warning" that comes up. Now you will never be bothered by the Message Center. In previous versions, you could not disable the Message Center completely, without deleting certain files. Minor improvement, it's still opt-out, but at least it's possible. Check or uncheck Auto-update in its sub-menu as well.
> * Go to Tools->Preferences->General and set On startup display to "Player only". That way, no browser, and it starts much quicker.
>
> So to summarize, a few clicks are needed to opt-out, you have to "sign in" the first time. Yes, somewhat annoying, but that's about it. It could have been better, but compared to many other examples, it's not that terrible. Since it has been so very bad in the past though, it clearly should have changed more to make a shining example, but since it is RealNetworks' main vehicle for generating revenue, there is a lot of nervousness about changing things too quickly.
>
> Download the free RealPlayer 10 Beta here, with no re-direction or sales tricks:
>
> http://www.real.com/freeplayer/?rppr=slashdot [real.com]
>
> A

Re:If you have not actually TRIED real 10...

[Anonymous Coward]

But why should I upgrade from Realplayer 8?

Re:If you have not actually TRIED real 10...

[Entropy248]

What's funny is that I wasn't going to download the player until I saw this cross-post. Thanks Danathar!

Without the tricksy gameses, Real is pretty cool now. I'm convinced. The only annoyances are now identical (nearly) to WinAmp and no spywarezez. I'm even going to use it as the default for Windows Media (The enemy of my enemy, right?). Microsoft's MP is far more intrusive now, plays way more games with extentions and the like, is slower than shit because of all the pretty colors and dancing things of bright light, is way less user-friendly, gigantic on my screen until I disable everything, looks like a Fisher Price reject, eats more memory than a fat girl at a pizza place, and gnerally supports a DRM-inclined monopoly. Fuck Microsft, go Real 10!

This post in memory of Kurdt Corbain, April 5, 1994 RIP Nirvana "Don't tell me want to hear. Araid of never knowing fear. Experience everything you need. I keep writing jealousy, until it's fucking gone."

Re:If you have not actually TRIED real 10...

[zachdms]

Whoa - how is MP intrusive? What 'extension games' does it play?

Re:Don't Cross The Streams - A More Complete Thoug

[andyrut]

Har har! Someone actually picked up on the subject. :)

Eerily familiar

[2Wrongs]

I run a much smaller site and recently switched over to Windows Media.

Having worked at a streaming dotcom a couple of years ago, I was shocked how bad Windows Media had become.

The encoder was a lot less inuitive than Real's, plus it failed frequently (every other day) with our 24-7 stream.

Plus backward compatibilty, which was easy with Real, is nightmarish with Windows Media.

If the easy player link works for us too, I might switch back as well.

There *is* only one channel

[tmoertel]

radish wrote:

Which is fantastic, if you only ever listen to one channel ...

It is fantastic because I do indeed listen to only one channel: NPR. Everything else on the radio is crap, courtesy of Clear Channel and its ilk.

industry whoring

[mabu]

This reminds me of something that happened a few years back. We were contacted by a certain very large fast food chain (who shall remain nameless) and they wanted to use some of our technology on their web site. They felt what we were doing with surveys and other systems were superior to everything else out there. The problem? They were in bed with Microsoft and Microsoft offered to provide free programming for their web site. Even so they were willing to pay us to integrate our technology into their web site because they felt it was better than anything Microsoft could offer. The problem was, because MS was willing to whore itself out to a large corporate client, we were forced to low-ball the value of our services in order to get the job to the point of losing money (and whoring ourselves out as well). In the end, we felt it just wasn't worth it.

This kind of practice is rampant in the industry. A company with large resources gives away inferior products and services in order to maintain business. A classic example of how the larger companies intentionally lose money to maintain the status quo, stifle innovation, and keep smaller operations from getting good contracts.

Obviously in the case of Real verses WMP, it's two big companies, but you'd think MS might also jump into the whorehouse against Real, but since WMP is the crux of a lot of suspected anti-trust activity, maybe they won't? In any case, all this stuff is really bad for consumers and the industry.

I don't know what version of Realplayer I have, but if I dare click on a link, when the program launches, it still installs that insideous tkbell.exe "worm" in my startup. I'm sick of Real.

M$ might be losing CarTalk PR/Ad-time...

[zombiestomper]

But they are sure making up for it with the glut of Windows vs. Linux TCO Banner-Ads here on Slashdot!

Cowboy Neal is linining his pockets with Microsoft scratch.

DRM?

[bonch]

DRM Whore or Spyware/Adware hijackery.

What DRM is there in Windows Media Player? Or are you referring to that privacy page that pops up the very first time you install the player, requiring you to go through and decide what you want the player to be sending, and only includes options for grabbing song and album titles as well as acquiring licenes for restricted content--all of which can be easily unchecked?

I guess you meant that DRM Whore.

NPR is clear channel for pathetic old hippies.

[Anonymous Coward]

NPR is so lame. The only good thing on it is that they sometimes have an in-station DJ doing a non-mainstream music show.

Bizarre leftie

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only does this guy have a disturbing sig, but he links to that joke called O'Franken Factor, with that ex-SNL guy who has to rip off O'Reilly to get any sort of attention, since all the claims of his lying in his book were obliterated. Very, very strange.

The two party system has to be the worst thing that has happened to the nation. People who label themselves under a political party label disgust me--they're sheep.

lots of luck with real-crap media.

[cabazorro]

Must admit that in today's fancy cars a do-it-yourself aproach to fixing the brakes can land
you in intensive care.
Computers in the other hand
YOU CAN DO IT YOURSELF.
and save a buck or two and show some out-of-the-box technical prowess.
You can run a Open Source stream mp3 audio server.
Screw .wma Screw .ram gimme .m3u
check http://www.radioparadise.com

MOD PARENT DOWN

[rainman_bc]

They post a link to a site that nails you with a bunch of crappy popups only only has a link to a massive codec pack, not Real Alternative.

Here's a better link to Real Alternative

Re:Great, more ways to spend taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, which are they idiot, liberal (left) or fascist (right). You can't be both. I guess the money is better spent killing people in countries that you shouldn't be in.........

are you cracked?

[Anonymous Coward]

he SAID his system was clean. why are you trying to convince him that what it found was just a cookie!?!?

Re:are you cracked?

[_KiTA_]

Because I was clean, installed, and I'm STILL clean. So I believe he's mistaken.

Re:are you cracked?

[dswensen]

I was clean before and after RealPlayer, too, except for a couple of tracking cookies, which I tend to pick up anyway with as much websurfing as I do. So I'm under the impression Real isn't spyware-addled anymore.

Certainly one of those two cookies could have been from RealPlayer... I didn't look to find out.

true statements often are

[bstadil]

it may be intended to be humorous,

No it is really meant to expose the hypocrisy and for people that read it to reflect of the danger of too much "Faith".

I think it's offensive

The comment is absolutely true I think the problem is that is co-opt a word that you think is useful for your agenda and I find dangerous.

Spybot says I'm clean after installing Real10

[_KiTA_]

So uh, I don't believe they're going that route. Either that, or they're using some new stuff that Spybot updated this morning doesn't catch.

Modus Operandi?

[bstadil]

People who label themselves under a political party label disgust me

Yes MUCH better to post Anonymous.

Yes, I'm still pissed at Real

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the whole format shakeup, I could listed to Car Talk on my Linux machine. Due to Real's ineptitude and poor software, they shifted to WMA voice, a codec that wasn't supported by any players available for Linux at the time, but there was work underway to add it to mplayer. Now they've switched back to Real, but the streams are in some new format that only plays on Realplayer 10 (or so it appears, Realplayer 8 on Linux and RealOne on windows can't play the new streams). Note that the latest version of Realplayer available for Linux is 8. That's four years and two versions behind. the Windows player. Net result of Real's pandering: I still can't listen to Car Talk. Double thanks Real, first for sucking, and second for using a false apology to sleaze your latest proprietary lock-in technology into a popular site.

Re:Yes, I'm still pissed at Real

[Anonymous Coward]

Real's Helix player (player.helixcommunity.org) ought to do just fine.

Offtopic Sig

[cgenman]

(note, this is not from the above poster, but someone else)

You say that you find his/her sig offensive, but you don't say why. Please don't let that be the only thing you say on the matter, because I genuinely don't know why pointing out the connection between government sponsored religious activities of the present and government sponsored religious atrocities of the past would be offensive. Is it that the 9/11 tragedies are too recent? Is it that church groups disown any possibility of a holy war, jihad, or crusade in their name? Are muslim fundamentalists so different from Christian fundamentalists that the comparison of the two is unsound?

I apologize if I sound like a jerk, but being on the outside of the issue emotionally I really don't know why it is offensive.

BTW, my sig has to do with female (and human, in general) empowerment, not regicide. I apologize to all those that might have lost a prince or princess in their lives.

Re:Offtopic Sig

[dnaboy]

First, I want to thank Bstadil for replying and giving his/her perspective. I didn't mean for it to be a personal attack, and I largely agree with your point that faith, especially government sponsored, can be an extremely dangerous thing. Personally I tend to reserve judgment on things which cannot be proven, modeled, or at least looked at in some empirical sense, so my concern is not from a religous ideology, but more the shock value.

In response to Cgenman, I agree that some connection could be fairly drawn between the trend towards polarizing faith based initiatives created and pushed by the US government and the beliefs and actions of other secular governments or organizations.

I have two main issues... First, I do think that September 11th is far too recent, and is an extremely inflamatory topic to many people who have a close connection to what happened (myself included). I'm trying to be really careful in how I word this, as I see both posters' points, but personally, perhaps due to my experiences, my immediate instinct is to get angry towards the poster of the sig line, rather than question the policies of the Bush administration.

Second, my interpretation is that the sig line is comparing the administration to the pilots (and their sponsors) of the sept 11 planes. Furthermore it seems to suggest that this is acceptable muslim behavior (though I will grant you, never says so explicitly). I don't think this is any more true than the statement that Timothy McVeigh was merely exercising his right as an american to freedom of expression. I'm not trying to put words into your mouth, or suggest that any of this is anyone's intended point, but it's how I read it, especially at first glance.

As I said earlier, it's the poster's right to put it there, and I would never suggest that it should be changed. I do feel though, that I need to point out my own feelings on the issue. If you do change it at some point, I hope it's because you decide you want to, not that I or anyone else think any topic is off limits or taboo. Lastly, I will concede that it's an interesting point, and both the sig itself, and the subsequent postings made me question and think through how and why I feel as I due. For that, I thank you both.

Re:Offtopic Sig

[Anonymous Coward]

Why haven't any of you bothered
to quote the Sig which seems to bother you so much ?

Troll but True. Sorry Mods, you have no humor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it. NPR *IS* clear channel.

1) Homoginized Radio.
2) Corporate Control.
3) Gobbling up more and more stations.
4) Pay for play.
5) Advertizing.
6) Greedy, clueless management.
7) Political Propaganda.

Sorry guys, "alternative Radio" has been on internet for the last 7 years.

wake up.

Four stations

[bonch]

That whole network is only opening on four stations...Franken has said his contract his for a year, then after that, in his own words--"Who knows?"

This is just a silly political year thing. Franken's already doing the self-righteous "we're here to battle the liars and cheats" thing, as though Republicans are the only lying scumsuckers ever to have graced the White House. Especially since the Democrats' latest brochure has an outright falsehood in it, claiming that students were kicked off of Pell Grants under Bush.

For unbiased criticism of both sides of the looney bin we call the two-party system, as well as explanation of the falshood described above, visit Spinsanity. This shit like "O'Franken Factor" is a partyline joke that will die quickly.

Good News Garage

[vortigern00]

The Car Talk guys own a garage in Cambridge, MA, and that is where I had my car serviced when I was a grad student at (I shall not speak the name of the evil institution).

The guys in the shop were not what you usually expect a mechanic to be. What I saw in those guys was the same thing I see in my propeller-headed software engineer colleagues. They were car hackers.

The most interesting visual in my memory was the heavy bearded guy welding a muffler with safety glasses on his face (i.e. no face mask) and a cigar hanging out of his mouth, talking about the physics of engine compression and how it is related to the exhaust system.

Re:Great, more ways to spend taxpayer money

[bigjnsa500]

Sure you can, anybody can flip flop like Kerry ;)

Then you should go spend some time in Iraq and speak to people and tell them how sorry you are Saddam is gone and wish he was still in power.

A Letter I sent to a streaming audio provider

[bl968]

Why are you paying big money to Real networks to encode and stream your program when there are tools and software available which allow to do it for free. The only cost you would have is
bandwidth. No licensing fees or royalties required.

Shoutcast: http://www.shoutcast.com
Windows Media
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmed ia/9ser ies/encoder/default.aspx
Ogg Vorbis http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/

The players are free some are even already installed on a large number of people's systems. Two of the most common are

Windows Media player
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsme dia/defa ult.aspx
Winamp http://www.winamp.com

The best part is all of the above softwares are freely available and doesn't harass you to buy their pay version of their software, install spyware on your users systems, or to subscribe
to their subscription based realone service.

Other stations have switched due to the actions of Real Networks in addition as a streaming audio junky I have found that Real Network streams are much lower in quality with a noticeably lower quality audio for conversely higher bandwidth levels.

http://cartalk.com/Radio/windowsmedia-switch.htm l
http://www.clefmusic.btinternet.co.uk/stream2.h tm

In my personal opinion shoutcast may be the best option since you can basically stream in real time with nothing more than a winamp program, the shoutcast plugin, shoutcast server, and
a patch cord running into the line in on the encoding pc's sound card. You stream the feed from the encoding pc to the streaming server. The plus benefit is that you can allow other
people to relay the stream or to provide free hosting for the stream increasing the number of people you can serve and the reach of your broadcast.

Current Shoutcast Statistics:
Listeners - 125,444
Servers - 6,495
775,669,061 listeners served

*Disclaimer: I have no association with any of the software packages, authors, or distributors above. I am just a streaming audio junky who
finds that real networks is obnoxious and a low quality alternative.

O'Franken Factor

[rueger]

Listening to Air America helped me understand one thing. All these years I though that it was the right wing assholes on talk radio that annoyed me.

Now I know that talk radio is intensly irritating, even if I agree with the politics!

Not hidden on Real's site anymore...

[NotClever]

I just went to Real's site to see if they had kept it hidden there, and I'm surprised to say it's not hard to find at all. From the main page, click on the link to download RealPlayer 10, and on the next page, look on the right for the link to d/l the free version. Way better than the way they were before.

Re:Not hidden on Real's site anymore...

[BrookHarty]

I just went to Real's site to see if they had kept it hidden there, and I'm surprised to say it's not hard to find at all.

Not bad, many many years later you can finally get to it in 2 clicks, and they still want to use a crappy web installer.

Sorry Real, too little too late. Real treated the customers like crap. Spam, Popup ads, couldnt find the link to download, application took over your system, file assocications, and the list goes on.

Re:Not hidden on Real's site anymore...

[NotClever]

I agree. I'm still scarred from my previous Real experiences.

Real has been a good company lately

[Compenguin]

Real has been a good company lately. They make a native, open-source (but not free-software) player using native GTK+ widgets for my operating system. Neither MS nor Apple care about streaming to Linux.

Re:Real has been a good company lately

[briansz]

Neither MS nor Apple care about streaming to Linux.

For my money, they don't have to, so long as I can get the w32codecs deb for Xine.

Re:Real has been a good company lately

[Compenguin]

Do you remember how long it took to get reliably working sorenson support?

Re:I already get CarTalk w/o ads or Real -- VCR it

[jridley]

I do the same thing with Total Recorder, except I spent a total of about 10 minutes setting up the schedule.
Any show that has an online version, I grab that, since it's got the local news edited out so I don't have to waste my time or listen to the weather from 14 months ago.

Re:One thing I don't understand.

[SnappleMaster]

The reason is: "And they even offered to serve the audio for free online, which defrays an expense we'd otherwise have to cover."

How to make RealPlayer 10 play nice

[g_adams27]

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to install RealPlayer 10 with all the nagging features turned off. And the guy who wrote it should know - he's a senior engineer for RealNetworks.

Re:Great, more ways to spend taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather have my money go to PBS instead of these fascists.

NPR and PBS are controlled by the same people, which is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. If you think NPR is so Liberal(TM), why don't you contact them?

Don't let facts stand in the ay of a troll, though...

Standards? Sure, everybody needs one.

[Uzik2]

Nearly every computer on the planet will play a .wav file. So why are they using anything except
the most compatible sound format available?
If they're going to sell out they ought to get
Real to PAY them for it at least. It's free
advertising.

Re:Standards? Sure, everybody needs one.

[Bassman59]

"Nearly every computer on the planet will play a .wav file. So why are they using anything except the most compatible sound format available?"

Well, for starters, .wav files are uncompressed and require a fsckload more bandwidth than any of the compressed formats used for streaming audio. Having said that, the uncompressed format sounds best.

Re:Standards? Sure, everybody needs one.

[Uzik2]

MP3 is compressed. It's almost as ubiquitous as wav

Audible.com

[klausboop]

Like many posters here, I think RealPlayer stinks. I installed the new version recently after a multi-year break from their software. While it seemed to have less spyware and stuff, I am still disappointed that I can't just play audio. I don't want to rip CDs with it, or any of the other of its "features," so I wish it just wouldn't put those hooks in my system.

For this particular show it's a moot point for me, because I listen to Car Talk as an Audible.com subscriber. Not that their software or DRM is flawless by any means, but at least I can turn it off and not have it calling home all the time.

MOD PARENT UP!!

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

This needs to be modded up due to the grandparent being possibly false.

People, UPDATE your virus and adware scanners before running them and proclaiming yourself "clean". Damn.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I just said in reply to parent post I updated my definitions first, troll. -d.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you aren't going to cry are you? Oh jeez, please don't cry. Buck up and don't cry too much, son.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed you can talk like that with your mouth full of cock.

Psychology of Abuse...

[Anonymous Coward]

"While I personally am downloading their new software to see if they have learned their lesson, I can hardly fault others for writing this off as too little, too late."

Is this the same principle at work as when battered women keep going back to abusive boyfriends and husbands. "Hey baby! I'm so sorry I beat you; I've learned my lesson. I'll never do it again..."

"OK - I'll give you one more chance..." (for the nth time) "But don't ever do that again..."

Re:Psychology of Abuse...

[reanjr]

... *SMACK* "You don't tell me what to do!!"

Talking Car Radio?

[KlomDark]

My friend got a voice-activated car radio.

You say "Rock", you get the rock station.

You say "Country", you get the redneck station.

You say "Classical", you get Beethoven and friends.

The other day, he was driving around and two kids ran right out in front of his car.

He screamed "Fucking Kids!"

The radio started playing Michael Jackson...

Re:I already get CarTalk w/o ads or Real -- VCR it

[MagnaMark]

You can essentially do the same thing with certain ATI All-in-Wonder cards. Some of these cards include an FM tuner. It's gonna cost you a few hundred bucks, but you can change the channel and get other features too (DVR, etc.)

The scheduling software is not the greatest. It lacks the elegance of the shell script config file in the parent post. But, it'll record to MP3, so you can use lots of programs to play it back.

I don't know about Mac/Linux support for the card.

Annoyed by switch to Windows Media

[GRW]

Since I moved away from Toronto to the smaller city of Kitchener, Ontario, I have only been able to listen to a favorite program on community station CIUT over the net. To my dismay, I discovered that the station recently changed from a RealAudio feed to a Windows Media feed. Since I run Linux, for which there is no Windows Media player, I can no longer listen to this station. This really annoys me. I complained, but the station manager told me that they changed because it was cheaper. I wish there was something that could be done to break the increasing hegemony of Microsoft over Internet media.

I don't know...

[pixel_bc]

I don't know about problems with RealPl

[Buffering... 3%]

obliterated?

[Anonymous Coward]

obliterated where?

Uh, no. Real10 is like 3 months old now.

[_KiTA_]

Actually, the original story of Real 10's release, linked in the article, is dated Jan 08, 2004.

If Ad Aware's team (and Spybot's) could not find any spyware in it after 3 months of looking, than maybe logic should say that there isn't any.

Save the streams with mplayer too

[bender647]

I grab NPR's Real streams with mplayer and encode them to listen to later (after saving the link to the show in my /tmp directory):

# how to capture real audio stream to disk
mkfifo pcmpipe.raw
oggenc -o output.ogg pcmpipe.raw &
mplayer `cat /tmp/realaudiolink.ram` -ao pcm -aofile pcmpipe.raw -vo null
rm pcmpipe.raw

Real Causing crash on w2k, ridiculous!

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be something between you and your windoze.

I've been listening Air America with Real Audio
on windoze 2000 and it has never crashed.

By the way, has anyone recorded
"Rush the magic dragon with the pills that are
red white and blue"?

Brakes? Totally OT...

[cr0sh]

Must admit that in today's fancy cars a do-it-yourself aproach to fixing the brakes can land
you in intensive care.

What do you mean? Have you ever fixed your own brakes on an automobile?

I can guarantee you that brakes are one of the easiest parts on a vehicle to fix - especially disc brakes. I just replaced the pads on the front brakes of my wife's Neon this weekend - about an hour's worth of time for both sides.

Granted, drum brakes are more difficult beasts (all those damn springs) - but if you jack up both sides of the vehicle, and remember that each side is opposite of each other (that is, the parts are located opposite - hard to explain until you look) - and the fact that they typically color-code the springs (and if they aren't, it would do you good to code them yourself for next time 'round) - even those are easy to fix (ok, invest in some brake tools, too - makes getting those springs and other bits on and off fairly easy).

If you do it right, there isn't any danger. Now, if you are doing a master cylinder replacement, or anything where you "break" the system - you need to bleed out the brake hydraulics and make sure there isn't any air bubbles trapped, but they do make one-man bleeder kits for that, which work fairly well. Finally, I always take the vehicle out for a small "test-run" around the neighborhood at slower speeds, then out onto the street - to check it all out before I let others drive.

Try fixing your brakes next time - you will find it is fairly easy, and not too expensive (and damn cheap compared to taking it into a shop)...

Ditto

[mistermund]

Every machine here in the lab. 3gz HT P4's with WinXP SP'd latest. All you have to do is press play and they instantaneously reboot. Real Alternative with MP Classic works great, though.

1st thing: check that it doesn't phone home

[Anonymous Coward]

>only to discover that it hid anti-privacy settings deep in its settings UI,
>and that it attempted to phone home regardless of those settings

With your box disconnected from the net, try to play a file of on your HDD of [filetype associated with RealPlayer].
Let us know the results.

gewg_

I'm glad I complained!

[slasher999]

I complained to Click and Clack via their web-thingie when the original story posted and explained that running Windows Media Player just wasn't an option for us Linux users. I even got a nice reply from - I believe - their producer explaining that they "were working on it". Now if Real would just update their Linux player. C'mon guys - we're stuck at RP8 for how many years now?

EULA leaves no question?

[ChilyWily]

Ok so just now I decided to give this dog a try and here's what was presented to me as the EULA:

8. DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ("DRMs"). a) The Software includes a DRM called the RealSystem Media Commerce Update Software ("Media Commerce Software") and may include third party DRMs as Plug-in components, which are subject to their own license agreements. DRMs are designed to manage and enforce intellectual property rights in digital content purchased over the Internet. You may not take any action to circumvent or defeat the security or content usage rules provided or enforced by either the DRM or the Software. DRMs may be able to revoke your ability to use applicable content. RN is not responsible for the operation of third party DRM in any way, including revocation of your content. RN is not responsible for any communications to or from any third party DRM provider, or for the collection or use of information by third party DRMs.

You consent to the communications enabled and/or performed by the DRM, including automatic updating of the DRM without further notice, despite the provisions of AutoUpdate defined in Section 6(c). You agree to indemnify and hold harmless RN for any claim relating to your use of a third party DRM. b) Content providers are using the digital rights management technology contained in this Software to protect the integrity of their Secure Content so that their intellectual property, including copyright, in such content is not misappropriated. Secure Content Owners may, from time to time, request RN or its suppliers to provide security related updates to the DRM components of the Software ("Security Updates") that may affect your ability to copy, display and/or utilize the Software. You therefore agree that, if you elect to download a license from the Internet which enables your use of Secure Content, RN or its suppliers may, in conjunction with such license, also download onto your computer such Security Updates that a Secure Content Owner has requested that RN or its suppliers distribute. Unless notification is provided to you, RN and its suppliers will not retrieve any personally identifiable information, or other information, from your computer by downloading such Security Updates. c) The Media Commerce Software allows you to receive and playback content that has been digitally secured by a content provider. The Media Commerce Software interacts with your computer in the following ways: 1. Hardware information: In order to download the appropriate software, RealPlayer must send certain anonymous information about the hardware on your computer to the RealNetworks download server. Once the software is installed, information about your hardware will not be stored on any server. Hardware information will also be sent for content passes, as described below. 2. Content passes: When obtaining passes for playback of content (such as a music or video file) in RealPlayer, information about your specific Media Commerce Software installation and hardware will be sent to the content provider for inclusion in the pass. This installation and hardware information will be scrambled a different way each time it is sent, usable only for inclusion in your pass. 3. Personal information: Media Commerce Software will not associate itself with any personal information in RealPlayer or anywhere else on your computer. RealNetworks' use of any personal information is governed by the RealNetworks privacy policy (http://www.realnetworks.com/company/privacy/index .html). RealNetworks does not share with third parties any personal information you provide in connection with our products without first obtaining your informed consent. 4. Financial information: Media Commerce Software does not interact with the process of secure financial transactions, e.g. credit card transactions. These transactions are handled by the website providing the content and are governed by that party's privacy policy. 5. Usage information: RealN

BOYCOTT NPR

[RavinDave]

Boycott NPR until they give Bob Edwards his old job back.

Re:BOYCOTT NPR

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I remember listening to him in the morning. Was he fired for political reasons? Criticizing Bush, perhaps?

Completely on topic...

[Xyde]

Buffering...

Re:Great, more ways to spend taxpayer money

[CdBee]

Why would blacks or hispanics receiving handouts be a problem for you but whites apparently, not?

Social Security is hardly a fascist concept anyway - those who attack it using racist language, however......

I'

[LocoSpitz]

From the Real.com homepage, it takes literally two clicks to begin the download of the free player. Anyone who's too damn stupid to take two seconds and read the page before complaining that it's hard to find the free player shouldn't be on the Internet in the first place.

What's really wacked...

[Anonymous Coward]

..is that no one uses QuickTime. On every page I create, I just put a requirements header at the top with a link that points to:
www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
How much easier can it be?