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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.'"
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.
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.
He took a duck to the face at 250 knots.
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.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
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 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.
I hate the Real bundle-of-everything-I-don't-want-with-the-one-th
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.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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.)
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!
-- In Soviet Russia, radio listens to YOU!
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.