100% Open Source Helix Player 'Alpha' Available

kforeman (Kevin Foreman, Helix GM at RealNetworks) writes "Helix Player 1.0 and RealPlayer 10 Alpha are now available. The Helix Player is 100% open source, and includes support for Ogg Vorbis and Theora, as well as SMIL 2.0 so that you can combine Theora videos with JPEG, GIF, or PNG images and RealText. The RealPlayer 10 alpha is a superset of the Helix Player alpha, and adds support for RealAudio, RealVideo, MP3, and Flash. See the release notes to find out about the rest of the enhancements and give the players a whirl. We love your feedback and comments as always, so use any avenue you are comfortable with (forums, email, bugzilla) and let us know what you think! The team has tried hard to get all the bad bugs out, but remember that it's alpha and constantly improving with your feedback and help. Enjoy the player!"

Comments

warning,

[Quai]

Both bz2 files extract to the working dir..

Re:warning,

[phoxix]

Both bz2 files extract to the working dir..

Hrm, I just DLed the source file and it didn't do that.

Anyways, you should always use:

tar xvjf foobar.tar.bz -C $extraction_dir

To prevent from this sorta thing

Sunny Dubey

Re:What's the point?

[pe1rxq]

You don't have to miss out on real content... mplayer plays it just fine. Infact it plays it infinitly better than real's own open source player...

Jeroen

Re:So...

[Feztaa]

Right now -- just use mplayer.

Helix Player doesn't compile

[Anonymous Coward]

I have GTK 2.4.1 and Gnome 2.6 but Helix doesn't compile. It bails out after a while on /player/common/gtk/hxplayer.cpp (or something like it) because it uses gtk functions that are deprecated. GTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED is set to 1 on the header file, but it seems that the Real engineers are using an even older version of Helix.

Guys, if you are reading this, please try to compile your player with a newer GTK+.

And another one, there is no "make install" facility, how do you install that thing (if it compiles?)

Re:Helix Player doesn't compile

[Anonymous Coward]

I just found a patch to fix the compilation problems with GTK 2.4:
http://lists.helixcommunity.org/pipermail/pl ayer-d ev/2004-May/000439.html

The Real/Helix engineers should have TESTED with gtk 2.4.x before releasing the 1.0alpha version. I mean, they didn't even bother downloading a GTK+ version released 2 months ago already before they unleash their cr@p on us and having the compilation fail consistently!

And btw, why there's no "make install"? How do you install that thing indeed?

Re:Helix Player doesn't compile

[robla]

Uh...that's why it's called an "alpha". ;-)

We appreciate you pointing out the fix to the problem. However, contrary to popular belief, just because we're a "big" company, we don't have infinite army of developers to apply to this, and one of the things that drives us crazy about Linux right now is the practically infinite combination of compilers, libraries, and so on that all tend to break backwards compatibility on a frequent basis. With respect to company size, I say "big" because in the grand scheme of things, IBM, Sun, Microsoft and Cisco are big companies. We, on the other hand, are not (under 1000 employees).

As far as "make install" goes, we're not using automake, so we don't have that system. We've got our own build system that we've been using since 1996 (well before open sourcing). Though it's not what folks are used to, it is open source as well, and it's very powerful in its own right. It's written in Python, and it's religiously cross platform, capable of generating GNU make make files, as well as Visual C++ nmake files, CodeWarrior build files, etc.

Rob Lanphier
Development Support Manager
RealNetworks

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get yourself a copy of this, and install the real alternative, though you might perhaps need a copy of this

Re:screenies?

[richie2000]

didnt think they made open source projects without screenshots anymore

They don't.

Re:So...

[spacefight]

There is a special Realplayer made for BBC out there.

Great!

[TheSurfer]

My overall first experience feels good. All the video and audio examples are working perfect now. But I still have some problems:

• Xlib: unexpected async reply errors. I had this problem since the early hxplayer versions, and it's still here.
• Flash is not working in RP10alpha, I get a "general error" dialog. Too bad, because I'm searching for an alternative to the Macromedia Flash player/plugin (that thing is darn slow).
• The tarballs layout is plain crazy. Please archive your files inside a directory. It really suck to extract a tarball and find the files all over your home dir.

But looking at the whole thing, I can only say one thing: keep up the good work :) The player interface is really nice, and I'm sure the remaining bugs will be fixed soon.

Re:No windows port...

[pe1rxq]

Why do some many open source developers limit their program to just the linux world?

Most programs are more limited to the posix world than to the linux world and will run (maybe with some minor tweaking) on anything that resembles unix.

For a lot of open source developpers its a hobby... Why should I care about windows? It is such a pain it is just no fun....
I am not a big corporation wanting as many customers as possible, I don't car about windows users.... I like programming and if someone finds my stuff usefull than great, but it wasn't the reason for writting it.
But the source is available, if someone wants a windows version its possible (just don't wait for me doing it for you).

Jeroen

Re:Record from realmedia stream?

[motte_fra]

if you use mplayer with the -dumpstream option on an rtsp:// url, the dumped file is then readable with realplayer (and probably others, but I haven't tried)

Re:What's the point?

[pe1rxq]

I do use a x86 system (atleast the one I use for mplayer) but I don't have any windows codecs on it... So it seams they don it nativly. (Might still be x86 specific though)

Jeroen

Re:So...

[martin-boundary]

There's two problems with streaming, the quality and the pauses during streaming. The quality you can't do anything about, but you can get rid of the streaming pauses quite easily:

Using mplayer, record the .rm file to disk as it is being streamed:

mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile xxx.rm rtsp://where/the/stream/is

Then, using Linux, wait for 5 minutes and start playing the file from disk in a separate console:

mplayer xxx.rm

This way, you have 5 minutes worth of cached stream, and you'll never see the "buffering" message or other pauses ever again.

Re:What's the point?

[TA]

The mplayer I have doesn't use any windows codec,
it does however use a real plugin (for linux).
Doesn't seem native to me.

Well, at least now they support OGG...

[lotsofno]

If they're planning on touting Real Player's supported formats, they've got a long way to go.

Out the box, Winamp can play MP3, MP2, MP1, AAC, WAV, VOC, VOX, AIF, AIFF, AIFC, AUD, AU, SND, SVX, MIDI, MID, KAR, RMI, MUS, HMP, HMI, MSS, CMF, GMD, XMI, MIDS, MIZ, HMZ, MOD, XM, S3M, STM, IT, MTM, ULT, 669, FAR, AMF, OKT, PTM, OGG, CDA, MP4, M4A, WMA (lossless and pro, drm/no drm), AVI, MPEG, MPG, M2V, WMV, ASF, OGM, NSV...

If you have Real Player/Alternative installed, you can even just play the Real audio or video files through Winamp. Same goes for Quicktime. You can just stick with the good stuff.

FLAC, SHN, MPC, M4P/M4B, and many others are supported easily supported with plug-ins. And I'm SURE I've forgotten to list a couple formats that should've been mentioned.

Re:Helix player is retarded

[bhtooefr]

What the hell are you talking about, troll? Go to the link, click your preferred package format, and go. It's easier than a SourceForge download, because SF DLs ask you to pick a mirror - this doesn't.

Also, I thought you ALWAYS had to have permission to simply drop a patch in. If you don't like the way it's going, grab Helix Alpha 1, and throw your own crap on, and call it Protein Media Player 0.1 or something.

License is here

[peope]

There are two licenses. One is commercial and the OSI-approved is here.

https://helixcommunity.org/content/rpsl

Open source or free software? An evaluation would be nice.

Re:What's the point?

[pantherace]

There are 3 ways mplayer can play realaudio/realvideo files:
1. Native ffmpeg or mplayer-only (I seem to recall it being libavcodec based (in other words: ffmpeg) but ffmpeg's online docs don't show realvideo just realaudio.) realvideo support. It has drawbacks: doesn't always play things correctly, and only is rv10 and rv20 (real video 1 & 2, and not 3 & 4)
2. Native Linux real codec. It uses the files that install with realplayer to play realaudio/realvideo. It is the native decoder made by real, so it works nearly as well as real ever works.
3. Windows dll codecs. Similar to the Linux codecs, but it uses the windows codec via a loader that branched from wine years ago. Same advantages as #2, but drawback of having to have windows dlls, and the even thornier legal questions.

Please note that #3 is available only on x86, while #2 is available on alpha & x86 (might be more if realplayer ran on other versions of linux) and that #1 was at one time (and still may be) limited to x86 due to problems with the code, though it should work on other archs. (That last I looked DID affect ffmpeg's sorensen video codecs, they are/were x86 only.)

Install on non RPM based distros

[mmport80]

Lots of people know this, but for those who don't a program called Alien can convert packages from RPMs to DEBs etc. http://www.kitenet.net/programs/alien/

Re:What's the point?

[Coocha]

There isn't much point, unless you're a developer. Now I finally have an open-source solution to developing and testing SMIL content. Real is still a company not to be trusted, but when you're in a corporate setting where you've been locked into using Real codecs and SMIL for content creation, personal choice gets thrown out the window.

never illegal to decrypt something if you can prov

[dpilot]

I believe you're unfortunately wrong on this one, under the DMCA. There is some work underway to fix this to work as you say, but I'm under the impression that it's going to get buried by the best legislators the ??AA can buy.

Mix streams using SMIL

[robla]

Yes, you can do that. It's not through pipelining, but there's many points in the audio/video path where you can insert filters and such. We also have full SMIL 2.0 support, which allows for mixing multiple streams, and with this release, just open sourced our RealText implenentation for subtitling in a SMIL presentation.

Moreover, the Helix DNA Producer (also open source) has the sort of pipelining functionality you are talking about.

Rob Lanphier
Developer Support Manager
RealNetworks

Re:What's the point?

[vikman]

Technically RealPlayer10 for Linux (which gives you free RA/RV/MP3/Flash etc. playback) is HelixPlayer plus those codecs. Seperating out a completely opensource player makes licensing easier to deal with.

This FAQ talks about this differentiation in detail.

Re:Quit bitching.

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"Real needs our support, not our scorn."

Any company which develops software that spies on its users and interferes with the operation of their computer deserves our scorn.

RealPlayer (on Windows):

- Runs on login
- Displays ads in the "messege center" (even when you are not running RealPlayer)
- Sends the URLs of the websites and clips you view back to Real
- Sends a unique ID so Real can track your habits
- Takes over file exensions
- Resets the auto-run-at-login registry key if you delete it
- Displays advertisements all over the interface
- Misleads individuals into purchasing subscriptions
- Attempts to conceal the fact that they offer a free player
- Displays advertisments in the player after 30 seconds of inactivity
- Requires personal information and an internet connection to "activate" it

Why would a company which produces such crapware deserve anything *but* our scorn.

Real has been doing this crap for *years*. Their software was the first major product to contain spyware, and it set a benchmark for scum matched only recently by Gator and friends.

Being polite isn't going to get anything done. Real's product is crap and their policies are crap.

My problem with their business model is that they are a bunch of con-artists. I had to spend TWO HOURS on the phone with them after my grandmother accidentally signed herself up for a subscription to their "SuperPass". Real lured her in with a big sign that said "free" and small text that described what she was really doing (signing up for a 14-day "free trial" which auto-bills after 14 days and can only be canceled by calling Real).

Not to mention the advertisements for "full screen high quality video". Yeah, that will work great over my Grandmom's 56K modem. Yet the disclamer ("Broadband required") was in 6 point type at the bottom of the page.

Oh, and the advertisement she got to upgrade to the "Free!" RealOne player (actually just a free trial that auto-billed) was in her older version of RealPlayer - integrated into the plugin, so it looked like a part of the NPR page.

I WILL NEVER USE ANOTHER REAL PRODUCT EVER AGAIN. OPEN SOURCE, CLOSED SOURCE, FREE OR PAID, EVEN IF THEY CORRECT ALL OF THE ISSUES IN THEIR SOFTWARE, I CANNOT AND WILL NOT USE PRODUCTS FROM A COMPANY WHICH ENGAGES IN SUCH MORALLY REPREHENSABLE PRACTICES.

Re:What's the point?

[i_rabbit]

But what a positive the 'NEGATIVE side' is!

This Alpha RealPlayer for linux has more features than RP8, is OS, and pretty stable for an alpha. It DOES have Mozilla plugins too. They should 'just work' but you may have to copy them over manually depending on your system and where things are installed. This is explained in the README located in the install directory which defaults to /usr/local/RealPlayer with the .rpm and /whereYouRunItFrom/RealPlayer with the .bin

Re:No windows port...

[i_rabbit]

There are windows downloads available on the nightly build page: http://forms.helixcommunity.org/helixdnaclient/ These dont have the same GTK UI, but all of the nightlies pull from the same HEAD code base. The RealOne player, on Mac and Windows, uses the same core engine and adds proprietary extentions and a different TLC.

Re:short answer no

[zot o'connor]

Yes, I am listening to triple J right now:

No need for realplay:

Goto Linux Radio Timeshift HOWTO and read up, but ignore all that about vsound.

mplayer -cache 512 -osdlevel 0 -nojoystick -nofs -slave mms://media4.abc.net.au/triplej

Plays the station

Then dump the file:

mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile triplej.mms -cache 512 -osdlevel 0 -nojoystick -nofs -slave mms://media4.abc.net.au/triplej

Now with memcoder you can get clever an covert the ASF file you are saving to mp3 if you need.