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Real Problems

Posted by michael on from the monetization dept.

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.

22 of 481 comments (clear)

  1. well ... by B3ryllium · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Well, if Real is listening, they'll hopefully make a big prominent link to the free version on their front page.

    I remember four years ago when I had to dig through the site to find it; what a pain in the butt.

  2. Re:Good... down with Real by Sporkinum · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would venture to say that a lot of Public Radio listeners are Mac users. Wouldn't going with Windows Media format cut off all of those users?

    What generic format is cross platform friendly other than Real? Bear in mind that complete noobs have to be able to install it.

    --
    "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
  3. Sometimes it's near to impossible to find the DL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I've had increasing difficulty to locate the free version of Real Player over the years because the link seems to be hidden. In fact I had to argue the fact with a freind who wanted to view some real player content that there even was a free version. She spent almost a week going back to the Real Player site looking for the free player version that I knew was there before she came back to say Real Player just would not work with her computer.

    Also it is getting difficult to locate the Real Player for Linux.

    Sure the Real Player folks need to make money - but I just don't have so much to give these days. I also don't really need all the extras the paid version has.

  4. Correct by broothal · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Real is indeed its own worst enemy. The technology behind the product is great! But:

    The hiding of the free player

    The non-standard installer

    The annoying "messages" that cannot be turned off
    are all reasons why people don't use their product any more. If they woke up and smelled the coffee, they could easily win back market shares.

  5. Re:Good... down with Real by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Adobe Reader development is subsidized by sales of Adobe Acrobat software. RealPlayer seems to be subsidized by advertising sales. What business model would you suggest?

  6. Re:Good... down with Real by MrChuck · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Yeah, I dumped Real when it turns out that my illusions of privacy were clearly illusions.

    Windows? Nien, danke.

    Open Format with Open Tools and I'll be there.

    Stream it with multicast? Great, I'll be all over it.

    Sell my information to anyone with a quarter? Thanks Real, but no.

  7. MP4 (via quicktime) by norwoodites · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What about some standards, MPEG 4 is very standarized and should be used. Quicktime plays it, IIRC Real also plays it so people have choices of what player they can use.

  8. version 10 for OS X? by trillian42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    After reading some of the positive feedback on the newest Real free player in the last story about this (the Car Talk one), I decided to give it another shot. The last time I thought about installing Real's player (probably a year or two ago), the whole process was so obnoxious that I gave up long before finishing the installation.

    However, to the best of my ability to figure it out, the new, less-obnoxious Real player must not have been ported to OS X yet. The free player I downloaded was still as obnoxious as ever, and I once again gave up before even letting it install itself enough for me to check the version number.

    Where are the quicktime feeds? O:)

  9. Re:Time for something new? by cascino · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Similarly, I used to think chopsticks originated in Asia, at least until someone made me aware of their creation as an enticing gimmick by immigrant restaurant owners in American mining communities in the 1800s and subsequent exportation to the Far East as a unique dining tool.
    This is offtopic - but are you sure about that?
    A quick google search yields many sites that report otherwise...

  10. Realplayer is annoying! by gringo_john · · Score: 2, Interesting
    It's no surprise that the use of Realplayer has declined. As mentioned in the Wired article, Realplayer installs a lot of *additional* software onto your computer.

    We used to have a Apache proxy server running on campus that allows authenticated off-campus users access to on-campus electronic resources. When users have their proxy server settings set in their browser (IE) to point at our proxy server, installing Realplayer will take these settings and use it for itself. From looking at the Apache log, it looks like Realplayer will try to *phone home* about once every 10 seconds...since it can't auththenticate through the proxy server.

    The logging of the Realplayer requests must have taken about 5-10% of the entire proxy log... It was a Real pain to look at the log for something when every few lines was a realplayer phone home request.

  11. Digital Rights Management Management... by pla · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    Do a Google search for "Net Transport". Only runs on Windows, AFAIK, but it allows you to download almost all MMS (WM) and RTSP (Real) streams. Not exactly easy to use (unless you use MSIE, in which case it integrates seamlessly - But personally, I'd rather suffer through it's awkward interface than use MSIE), but it works.

    Also, you might want to look into Real Alternative and QuickTime Alternative. These don't always work, but when they do, you get to play the content through WMP classic (6.something), which doesn't disable the "save" option.

    Finally, for those difficult newer QuickTime streams, set your TMP and TEMP environment variables to a network share on a Linux box - Although Windows will lock the files so you can't copy them, Linux won't honor that lock (meaning, from a shell on the Linux box, you can just watch as the file appears, wait for it to finish, then copy it to "blah.mov" to keep a copy.


    And, AFAIK, none of these violate the DMCA. Simply by virtue of having the ability to play such files over the net, you already have "access" to them. This just enhances the flexibility of what you do with that access.


    Okay, I've shared my Tips of the Day... Now, anyone know a way to save RealOne streams? I have yet to find a way to do so...

  12. For everything MS does wrong.... by BladesP9 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have to say that for everything that I feel Microsoft has done wrong, they really have done pretty well by windows media player in terms of streaming content. I used Windows Media for most of the streams that have it and I'm on a Mac. I don't have to worry about pop-ups, banners, or any of the other annoying set up things that I do with RealPlayer and almost everyone is carrying a Windows Media Stream. I still think that Windows Media is inferior to iTunes for downloadable music and content, but that's another discussion.

    For streaming radio and television - I really prefer windows media. Now if I could just find a way to stream windows media files from Linux.... :-D

    1. Re:For everything MS does wrong.... by dillon_rinker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      True. And in Nazi Germany, the trains ran on time. There's a silver lining in every cloud, I guess.

      If Real had $45 billion in cash reserves and could bundle their player on almost every PC sold in the world, do you think they'd work so hard to be annoyware? Or do they do it because Microsoft has taken away almost every other opportunity for Real to make money from their products?

      The smart response to this is "Real should make a sleek clean player and make money on the server software." Right. Look where that got Netscape when Microsoft began bundling an HTML viewer with Windows. I suspect the folks at Real are embarassed about the annoyances they built into their product but feel they don't have any other choice if they want to make a profit. And profit's what it's all about, unless you want to pay the bills by enriching some other enrepeneur instead of yourself.

  13. Installation by TeachingMachines · · Score: 2, Interesting


    I just downloaded and installed the "free" player... Wouldn't be surprised if they recently changed their site to make it easier to download the free version.
    The problem that I saw was that it tried to take over my machine:

    1. It wanted to change my registry defaults so that real would be the player for any and all media that I use (.mp3, .mpg, .wav, DVD, etc., etc.).
    2. It wanted to put icons everywhere (startup, taskbar, etc.)
    3. It asks for a bunch of personal information (WTF? Why do I need to give them that so that I can play their files? Should be illegal.)

    Any newbie would be too scared to not change all of their defaults, not put icons everywhere, and not give out their personal information. It doesn't matter if the "free" Real is now easier to install. The player takes advantage of the fact that most people don't understand that all of the above tasks are completely optional. The only free media player out there is MPlayer, and that's the one I'll be using from now on. Let me go and listen to my music in peace.

    --

    The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
  14. Re:I don't see a problem. by LS · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There are problems with your implied statement that getting the real player is not so difficult:

    1. You are a slashdot reader, not a typical user.
    2. You know that there is a free version of the player, and were specfically looking for it.

    All I know is that my 73 year old dad almost whipped out his credit card to watch a video someone sent him. Thankfully he called me first about it. Fuck Real.

    LS

    --
    There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
  15. MP3 Streaming by corinath · · Score: 2, Interesting
    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.

    Actually, some radio stations do. One of my favorites, WLS, in Chicago, offers streaming in Windows Media, Real, and recently they added MP3. They are a very big and popular AM station, they claim they are the most listened to AM talk station on the internet. So there is at least one very large, or serious, company that is willing to use MP3.

    Of course, one company doesn't mean everyone is willing, but it certainly is a start. I expect this is easier for talk radio because they own the rights to everything they broadcast (syndication aside) so they are free to let people copy it at will. Of course, a music station has to make an attempt to prevent copying, so even though it would be nice, I don't see them using MP3 or OGG ever.

    --
    Hockey - Canada's gift to the world
  16. Re:Buffering.... by nelsonal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think real's compression was one of the first to do a decent job with about 8k on voice data. It's got about 50% of the market for converence calls which usually stream at 6 or 8 kbps. Not sure if a streaming mp3 at 8kbps would have sounded as good in 1998. Either that or Real went in and compared file sizes with an 8kbps rm file and a 64kbps mp3.

    --
    Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
  17. Instead of bitching on slashdot... by bjornc · · Score: 2, Interesting
    ... I emailed them.
    To Whom It May Concern,

    I am writing to express a viewpoint on the issue of the digital media format used by Minnesota Public Radio for its streaming programming. My impetus for writing was an article on the web site Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/06/17122 36&mode=thread&tid=141&tid=188), which referred to an article on Wired (http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,62617,0 0).

    According to the articles, MPR staff are considering switching the streaming and archived digital audio format from RealAudio to Windows Media. The article indicates that MPR is frustrated with the difficulty of locating the free player, that the free player is getting more confusing, and Real's aggressive marketing practices.

    I would argue that Windows Media Player is no better, and both share other problems as well: they are more closely tied to the Windows platform, and are not available at all on the Linux platform.

    I believe that MPR, with its interest in serving the public, should instead consider streaming MP3 or Ogg Vorbis technologies, which allow end users the ultimate choice in which software they use to hear content (among many free, often pre-installed packages as well as commercial ones), require less licensing investment on your part, and have no obtrusive advertising or marketing strategies to pay for them. These technologies are typically easier to deploy, more stable and robust, and require little to no infrastructure or software investment beyond the proprietary technologies you are considering.

    Almost every modern computer on the most common platforms (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, UNIX) come with a free player capable of handling MP3 and Vorbis streams. This is not true for Windows Media nor Real content.

    I have for years been an NPR/MPR listener and supporter. I am dedicated to both the concept and reality of public radio, and consider it a blessing that I live in an area where I can receive the quality programming that MPR has to offer. I believe that MPRs use of proprietary streaming media technologies is bad for listeners specifically and bad for the Internet in general, and that MPR has the power to make a major positive change in how it reaches its listeners. For me specifically, I don't listen online because it would require using RealPlayer.

    Thanks for listening,
    Bjorn Christianson
    --
    i have no legs.
  18. Re:Do people want to register with Real? NO! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I think webmaster@real.com and postmaster@real.com would be better...

  19. Re:Good... down with Real by joaorf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Multicast is excellent for streaming on local networks. You can use high bitrate content without saturating the network.
    Real has multicast support on all its players.

  20. RealNetwork's Fundamental Mistake by mhotas · · Score: 2, Interesting

    RealNetwork's fundamental mistake is in trying to control their users, and being slippery in dealing with their users. Everyone understands that they need to make a buck or two to stay in business. But that doesn't mean it's ok to extricate consumers from the driver's seat. Many companies have figured out how to sell with integrity -- why not Real? Examples are Google (Adwords), Salon (Click-through ads or pay subscriptions) and the DivX video codec(3 versions / models) all of which allow users to easily make an informed choice.

  21. Re:Good... down with Real by Chester+K · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They got the message on the download, anyway. I can get an .exe for the free version only two clicks from the front page.

    They got the message on being an annoying and intrusive player too. RealPlayer 10, even the free version, has no ad popups, doesn't sit in your system tray, and spyware detectors say it's clean. From my initial glance over the preferences, all the "phone home" options are off by default too.

    I had to download it because of trouble I was having with Real Alternative and streaming settings; and I was very pleasantly surprised. There's no real reason to avoid having to install it anymore.

    --

    NO CARRIER