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Real Problems
Universal Nerd writes "Could Real be its own downfall? According to 'Find the Download in a Haystack', it could be. The difficulty folks have in reaching the free version of RealPlayer is forcing Minnesota Public Radio to look towards Windows Media Player as an alternative. I prefer good old MP3 or OGG streaming like the feeds offered at WCPE but I'm sure no 'serious' company would consider it because they don't have their digital rights preserved." See the CarTalk story from yesterday.
Good. I hate Real Player. It's always been the most annoying player out there. Downloading a copy is a bitch (although they've made it somewhat easier recently), that Real Message Center is annoying as hell.
The message here for Real should be really simple. Make your player as easy to get as possible. Require two clicks to download. Content is King. Annoying software is not. Give me a real reason to register. Look at how sites like slashdot and fileplanet work.
Casual Games/Downloads
OGG/MP3 do not remove your rights. Lets me clear.
That people copy (and it's easy with Real and WMP - play it out through line out and record it in whatever you wish) mp3/ogg does not affect "their rights"
You besides having one of the most annoying install processes in the history of computers, hijacking functions the user had no intention of having Real handle, shoving registration down your throat with tons of opt-outs rather than opt-ins, having obtrusive background programs running even when you tell them not to...
I think not being able to find the download link was the best part about it.
I second the recommendation of Real Alternative. Also, grab Quicktime Alternative and Media Player Classic. But codec packs? Hell NO! I learned much about codecs (and formatting and reinstalling) after I installed one of those godawful monstrosities. My advice is install a codec when you need it for the first time, and leave it at that. That K-Lite thing should be classified as a virus.
Sorry but mp3 streams better and is widely accepted. hell windows 98 wil play a mp3 stream out of the box without extra software...
and somepne please explain to me the justification of "preserving digital rights" on a freely downloaded mp3??? that's like a sales flyer maker getting pissed that someone is taking the flyer he made for a special sale and bitching that someone made 100 copies of his sales flyer and gave them to other people... What? you dont want free redistribution and promotion??? that is plain silly..
shoutcast works great, and is damned cheap to host/ licensing fees....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I prefer good old MP3 or OGG streaming like the feeds offered at WCPE but I'm sure no 'serious' company would consider it because they don't have their digital rights preserved."
This argument is rubbish. Anything you can stream you can record (using Audacity or similar) and save; for that matter, anything broadcast over the airwaves you can record.
Ultimately any form of broadcast/webcast can be converted to mp3/ogg with very little work. NPR should do everyone a service (that's why they're around, to do a public service) and just give us the mp3's/oggs.
Their product was good up to and including RealPlayer G2. But now it sucks. And their product sucking has nothing to do with Microsoft. It has to do with being managed by people who do not understand what the users want.
The only reason I still suffer with RealPlayer in any form is MIT's OpenCourseware. The RealPlayer client has always been a PITA and Real has always been it's own worst enemy. They had more than half a decade of opportunity. Microsoft's Media Player has done nothing exceptional; just suck a lot less.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
This is RIDICULOUS! In one corner, we have Microsoft. 'Nuff said. In another, we have Apple-- QuickTime players for Mac OS/Mac OS X and Windows, and "grey market" potentially-DMCA-illegal playing via MPlayer. In another corner, we have Real, who SUCK in every way possible.
.AU for all I care. AND NO ONE USES ANY OF THIS STUFF.
.wma file, but .wma has been extinct for a dozen years, and the only program that will open it will be Foobleblatz(R) AudioMasher Pro(TM), a pro-level audio editing tool "with support for over 500 current and previous codecs and encoding formats", for the equivalent of $999.95 2004 dollars?
... god, it's going to be a nightmare. The nightmare is already beginning, in fact...
And then, in the virtually ignored fourth corner, we have the stuff that isn't totally assraped by big (or not so big, in Real's case) corporations. MP3. Ogg. Freaking gzipped
No, we have two choices: (1) Run Windows and/or Mac OS X and download some spyware-riddled bloatware from Apple, Real (ugh) or Microsoft (DOUBLE ugh), or (2) run any other OS and use a probably-illegal tool like MPlayer. (Oh, MPlayer isn't illegal, you say? Who the hell are you kidding? At the first nastygram from any big patent-wielding corporation, MPlayer's going bye-bye. As far as I'm concerned, thanks to our pal the DMCA, it's just another DeCSS waiting to happen.)
This is FREAKING RIDICULOUS. Who benefits from any of this? It doesn't even seem as if MS and Apple benefit. Certainly, the "consumer" slash "end-user" slash "listener" doesn't.
This is fucking asinine. I am getting truly disgusted by all of this ridiculous pushing of proprietary standards. SCREW THIS. What will happen in 20 years when someone needs to open a
Audiovisual works are our cultural legacy. And we're blindly allowing corporations to seal up the standards used to encode these works to digital form. What the fuck is our problem? "Consumer groups" and publications like Consumer Reports should be screaming for open standards... but they don't even know or care what the problem is... Nor will they until around 2010 or so, when they try to play their old files and find that they can't...
Imagine if Gutenberg's printing press was available only on license from Gutenberg Ltd., and that everything it printed used a special ink completely invisible unless you wear the patented Gutenberg Glasses(R), available for a MERE sum of 10 shillings. Think that sounds ridiculous? We're doing the very same thing today. Eventually, "dead tree" media will die, and the media used to replace it will be completely corporate-controlled, proprietary, and
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
A lot of companies seem to feel that if people aren't listening to their advertisements, they should make their advertisements louder... if people aren't paying attention to their advertisements, they should make them more intrusive... if people aren't buying the upgrade, they should nag them oftener.
When my son was three years old, he used to act the same way. If you didn't pay attention to him, he thought the answer was to yell. Or pester. Or throw a tantrum.
My three-year-old was wrong.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Quicktime hits me up for bucks every time I run it too. Fuck apple.
The only streaming media player that works, without popping up ads, without asking for a credit card number, without a time-delay nagscreen, is.... Windows Media Player.
And when it dominates streaming content, watch Real and Apple and Vivo - or whoever else exists - cry foul and sue MS about it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I'm sure "Best video and audio quality ever" means "Best video and audio quality ever in a RealPlayer product". That is, they're comparing Real Player 10 to Real Player 9 and earlier, not to WMA, OGG or any other competitor.
At some point people are going to have to accept the fact that digital data is copyable and you cannot change that.
Accepting this fact will let them move on to a business model that uses copying and free distribution to make a profit.
Perhaps shameless "Wayne's World" style product placement?
Perhaps old early TV style adds done by the personalities?
Then tell your advertisers, "we had X downloads and our projections say they will share it Y number of times."
"Now pay us for X+Y viewers."
Oh, MPlayer isn't illegal, you say? Who the hell are you kidding? At the first nastygram from any big patent-wielding corporation, MPlayer's going bye-bye. As far as I'm concerned, thanks to our pal the DMCA, it's just another DeCSS waiting to happen.
Just because the US legal system is owned by big corporations doesn't mean the rest of the planet is in the same mess as the US. I see no credible threat to my use of mplayer. I don't live in the US and I didn't download it from the US and for that matter, it wasn't developed in the US.
The rest of your comments seemed sensible.
Soon you'll start seeing Message Center popups. You'll get random notices that a new version of Real is available. You'll get spurious requests to register.
Oh yeah, then go "uninstall" it. That will appear to remove it. Then later you'll get Message Center popups.
Then go remove any reference to Real from HLMS\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. You'll still periodically see crap.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Well, but Windows Media Server charges CALs to the streamer to serve content, so they hit the providers on the back-end.
QTSS is the only one that's free TO stream. And it's also available as open source (Darwin Streaming Server). And it broadcasts standard MPEG-4, so you can watch it in any MPEG-4 compliant player (e.g. Linux), genius. By far the most open and standard format.
I would think public Radio and the Free Software movement have a lot in common. Its depressing to see then use such a restrictive mehod for distributing their content.
As broadband becomes more prevalent the tech I.Q. of the average user drops. I really hate to blame the BOFFs (wait, no I don't!) but sometimes a little common sense and a little reading go a long way.
Most folks don't read web pages anymore. They look at the bright and shiny widget graphics and click away, click click click until they are "Somewhere They Don't Want to Be" TM or can't figure out where they missed the boat. As it sits now, hit up real.com and you are literally two clicks away from downloading the free player. I think I installed it a few days ago before this news item hit, and believe it was three or four, but still no big deal. Now, had I not read the links I was clicking, or clicked blazing MEDIA PLAYER graphics that were on display I'm sure I would have gone down a more difficult path, and cause me many more clicks to get the free one.
Remember, it's Real's right to sell their premium player. We don't have to like it, and we don't have to buy it. Frankly, I'm surprised they even still offer a free version. They can set their site up however they want to encourage downloaders to buy the premium player as opposed to the freebie. I've visited sites that offer free applications and have done a much better job of hiding the goodies behind the curtain than real.com.
And to say they shouldn't sell their application at all and just subsidize it's expense off the greenbacks of the server side applications is just crazy. Even the free player is more than a simple "viewer" that other companies give away (Adobe, Crystal Reports, Microsoft). It's an actual full blown application. The premium player also offers content that costs money.
"A senior engineer from Real explains how to get RealPlayer 10 to act nicely on one's system." Explain to me why a "senior engineer" is needed to help us make the Real player work properly (by properly I mean in a simply and unobtrusively)? It is refreashing to find that other people are as annoyed with the "hide the free player" game that Real has been playing -- I thought I was the only one.
At home I have an FM alarm clock radio tuned to NPR, with the headphone jack plugged in to my sound card's line-in jack. At the appropriate time, a scheduler program starts recording from the line-in jack and encoding to an mp3 file in my p2p client's "Shared files" folder. Thus every NPR program is available to me in mp3 format as soon as it goes out over the air. And they are worried about their digital media rights? The horse is out of the barn folks.... let it go.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
If you think the OS X version is obnoxious, you presumably haven't tried the Windows version.
The Mac version is positively polite IMHO and lacks all the message centre horror.
The pot calling the kettle black.
I couldn't find the Linux download in the hastack for Windows Media or Quciktime. Real: 1, MS, Apple: 0.
At some point at Real, someone noticed they had a payware player and a freeware player. "Hey, maybe if we hide the freeware one, people will buy the payware!" That's real ethical guys. Maybe you'll trick a few people (a lot of people) into paying $29.99 for NOTHING, but I guarantee no one will pay ever again. Quicktime has the right idea with licencing if you ask me. Real is a trashy piece of spyware that contributes nothing to the Internet as a whole. I'd like to see an open standards audio streaming solution be used, but at this point I would just settle for seeing Real file for Chapter 11. (Coming any day now).
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
Copyright, copyright. Why should ANYTHING that NPR does be copyrighted? WE paid for it, damn it!
I can find it pretty easily, but I know what I'm looking for. I know that it's there. I know that I'm going to have to look for the right link. Most people don't have these advantages. It's the same story at DivX.com, or even QuickTime. There's people that believe they're watching movies illegally because they aren't using QuickTime Pro.
But enough with them - Real has always been the worst offender here. And I'm not suggesting they're bad people, just stupid.
Real could have been a contender, but they couldn't decide on a business model - sell client or sell server - so decided to try selling both. You just can't do that - you have to get one, and use it to get the other.
Maybe have a sideline selling a fancy client, but your bread and butter is getting your client installed everywhere and then milking content providers. Look at the success of MacroMedia. They made it "dead easy" to install Flash, and it pretty much just isn't an issue for most users. Their good plan, and decent software, means they're making money.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...