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

Now all that

[TCaM]

remains for my life to be complete is for Gator to OpenSource their wares.

Re:Now all that

[Wolface]

But since helix is 100% open source, how can it have spyware??

Re:Now all that

[no longer myself]

I'm primarily an end user, not a developer. If someone wanted to release OSS with some sort of obfuscated spy-code then I certainly wouldn't know it. Sure, someone out there would probably discover it, and shriek about it, or just rewrite it, or deal with it in their own personal way... Open Source Software just means you can see the source code, (modify it, recompile it, etc...). It doesn't necessarily mean you can understand it.

Even if I could comprehend other people's source code, it's pretty dry reading, and far too many lines for me to sit down and emerse myself in the plot.

Personally I'm surprised that you don't see more spyware under OSS... But then... How would *I* know?

Re:Now all that

[arkanes]

It's happened, actually. Some guy took the open source (BSD-style) CD ripper CDex and repacked it (with nothing more than a simple string replace on the name, no less) into a new installer that included mounds of spyware.

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

What's the point?

[dmayle]

Not to troll or anything, but what's the point? I've avoided Real Player like the plague because I feel I can't trust them as a company. This means that I miss out on the content that is Real only, but I've made my peace with that. So, given that, why would I want to install Helix, given that it doesn't provide the only major codec that I'm still missing, namely, Real?

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:What's the point?

[eclectro]

So, given that, why would I want to install Helix

Maybe to take advantage of unique promotional offers, special "member" content deals, opportunity to buy the deluxe version, discounts on merchandise, and news about regular updates.

What more could you want???

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:What's the point?

[asciono]

Actually I think Real is atleast trying to do something for the community. Why they do it, I'm not really sure. But I'm pretty sure it's not 100% evil intension to try to gather around the OSS flock and storm Microsoft.

You question is almost like asking "Why install mplayer w/o any w32 codecs when there is xine (or whatever player you'd like) that does the same?".

I'm pretty sure that Real would've gotten alot more attention from the community if they've been doing this a few years earlier. Back then, when there were just a few players that never worked, people would've probably tried to help out.

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.

Re:What's the point?

[pointwood]

So, who do you trust? Microsoft? Apple? That's the 2 other major players and I honestly don't trust them more than I trust Real. The difference here is that the Helix player is open source. That's a big plus in my book

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.)

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.

Re:What's the point?

[zcat_NZ]

Well, almost. I can't seem to skip back and forth in my realmedia clips. But then I also have the same problem with some avi's, perhaps I just need to rtfm :)

Marginally offtopic;
I tried installing realplayer under Redhat/Gnome a long time back. Somehow, it managed to steal file associations for just about every media type, even things that it was barely capable of playing (swf, etc)

AND it screwed up Mozilla's config too, so even after I sorted out Gnome's associations Mozilla was still trying to launch Real for all the media types Real thought it might like to have a go at..
the whole mess took me HOURS to sort out (and since realplayer has to be installed as root, it had fucked things up SYSTEMWIDE too!)

AAAAAAAAARGH!

NEVER AGAIN. It's shit like this that just pushes me further towards being totally open-source.

(Technically not 100% yet; I have a bunch of win32 codecs and an NVIDIA card still, but I'm getting there :)

Re:What's the point?

[a_karbon_devel_005]

I'm not sure why people are so anti-real player to be honest. It's the only player for linux that I know that legally plays all the different codecs.

They've started an open source project that further strengthens their commitment to linux, though I would like to see more, but how can you fault them? Here's a market that regularly uses questionable codecs constantly, yet Real is trying to make itself available legally in our market. Do you see Windows Media player for Linux? iTunes for linux? If you do, tell me because I don't know about them.

Also, this is a company who has been snubbed out of a market by MS's desktop domination... I mean .. lets see 99% of computers come with Microsoft WMP, and you're Real... what would YOU do?

And on another note, most of my friends in the AV industry have said that the Real codec is, if not the best, in the top two ( next to MPEG-4 ) in quality/compression. ( of the formats in relatively common use today ).

Now.. on the NEGATIVE side, this is VERY very alpha type stuff (Helix) from what I've seen and I'm not aware of a Real Mozilla plugin, but then again I've not googled for it.

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: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:hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm.. let's see..

One is full open source (Helix Player, no support for Real codecs...)
One is not (Supports Real Codecs...) Real does not open up their own codecs for obvious reasons.

Standalone players ...

[ciupman]

... are neat, but i like media frameworks better. I 'm eagerly waiting for a final (stable api) gtreamer

Re:Standalone players ...

[Delirium 21]

The Helix Platform is a "media framework." According to their own page:

The Helix(TM) DNA Client is the universal playback engine designed to support the decode and playback of any data type desired ... The Helix DNA Client is designed as an open, comprehensive platform that enables playback of digital media products and applications for any format, operating system, or device. [It] supports any audio or video codec through well-defined file format and decoder APIs.

Re:Standalone players ...

[ciupman]

I might agree that it might be somewhat of a framework ... but looking at their schematics i couldn't figure out if it has any pipeline capability, like gstreamer, or even directshow, that so, applications made on top of that, would have only basic funcions (playing, decoding etc). It's also very "Player" oriented.. and a framework should do more that that.. Imagine i want to split a video file in two respective streams (1 for video and the other for audio), then apply a red filter to the video and a reeverb effect to the audio plus a delay.. and then join those streams back but now in a ogg container plus some subtitles ... Does this "framework" let me do this? I know gstreamer might .. and directshow too ..

So...

[BenBenBen]

So when can I watch a .rm without filling my system full of nagware, adware, spyware and bloatware?

Re:So...

[Feztaa]

Right now -- just use mplayer.

Re:So...

[spacefight]

There is a special Realplayer made for BBC out there.

Re:So...

[magefile]

The Captioned Media Project, a service provided for free to the deaf/hard of hearing by the Department of Education, only uses streaming Real because of copyright issues (i.e., they need to be able to track how many times you watch something). They're switching to Windows Media in the next few months though, since it now has DRM, and they say that Microsoft is contracting with someone now to do a Linux version. As long as MPlayer or similar can still play it, I'll be fine, but now I have to go do another codec hunt. Dammit.

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:So...

[PurpleFloyd]

Assuming you're running Windows (the .exe files are kind of a giveaway)...

1. Start -> Run -> regedit
2. Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \CurrentVersion \Windows \Run
3. Lean on the Delete key until satisfied.

Admittedly, there are still some damnable apps that will reinsert their startup program into your registry. If they don't have an option to disable their run-on-startup crap (note that even Realplayer and Quicktime do) I would suggest uninstalling that app unless it's absolutely essential to your system. Even if you have one or two apps that skirt the malware line in this fashion, though, it's still not too hard to get rid of 90% of the crap that infests the average system.

I do agree that I don't need every app on my system to have its own autoupdater. It's sad that my Windows 2k box, when all my apps have their systray crap on, can have a systray that takes up a good THIRD of a 1024x768 display's taskbar. Programmers everywhere should realize that their apps are never going to be the only ones running on a machine; they need to learn to share effectively. Perhaps too many programmers didn't pay attention in elementary school.

No windows port...

[arduous]

So it looks like I will be sticking with Real Alternative

Why do some many open source developers limit their program to just the linux world? On my main workstation (XP box - don't work, I have linux servers just about everywhere), I have Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, FileZilla, Nvu, OpenOffice, VideoLAN, GAIM, Dev C++, and many more.

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:No windows port...

[Mr Europe]

Com'on join in !
You can join and start to maintain Windows port on any of those Open Source softwares !

The original developers probably use open source systems (Linux/...BSD) and they develop the system starting their own needs. Yet they give anyone opportunity to port the software to other systems if someone is willing todo it.

Re:No windows port...

[canavan]

It's not just windows, the various unices (including *BSD, and linux on non x86 platforms) are also not as well supported as I would like them to be. I've looked into porting helix to Irix - it can be persuaded to compile with some effort - but I find their ribosome build-system not very encouraging to say the least.

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.

Codename HXPlayer?

[Quai]

In the about-dialog on the realplayer its named "About hxplayer" :P

Re:Codename HXPlayer?

[Plug]

"RealPlayer 10 for Linux" is the open source Helix player with the propriatary Real codecs.

Like Mac OS X is an open source layer with stuff on it. You can install Darwin if you want, but it's more interesting as the open source base for other things. In this case, hxplayer (the eight character abbreviation) as a media framework.

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:screenies?

[richie2000]

didnt think they made open source projects without screenshots anymore

They don't.

thanks for nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

seeing as the player is useless without the closed source binary only codec why should i download this player ?
there are plenty of open source players that do what this player does, we all know no-one is interested in the player and everyone wants to see the codec source and Real isnt going to do that so the offer of "100% open source" is worthless

of course this isnt really about the player but the codec and the server, we all know that if JoeSchmoe needs to play realAudio (because your server is serving it up (hopes Real)) he will download the spyware infested nagware RealOne not the helix player

Real must think us developers are stupid if they think we cant see through their helixcommunity as a fake "wannabe" project staffed by employees, Real are no more interested in Open source as Microsoft is

Re:thanks for nothing

[pointwood]

Not that I want to defend Real, but AFAIK, the player supports many, if not all of the Xiph.org codecs, so...

Re:thanks for nothing

[ajs318]

Back in the DOS days there was a programme called "DEBUG" which took a binary file as its input and displayed the corresponding assembly language source. You had to do a lot of guesswork; but when you had written Spectrum machine code using no programming aid more sophisticated than the character chart in the back of the manual, that wasn't as bad as it sounds. Surely a binary-only codec could be probed with something similar?

Extended disclaimer, for the paranoid: Pentium assembly language isn't a secret, reverse engineering for the purpose of creating interoperable products is explicitly permitted, and it's never illegal to decrypt something if you can prove you are the intended recipient.

Re:thanks for nothing

[dorward]

It is only useless without a closed source binary if you do no consider playing Ogg Vorbis and Theora and SMIL 2.0 content 'a use'.

Re:thanks for nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok - I'll make an initial statement here: I avoid Real products, so I don't really know what I'm talking about.

"of course this isnt really about the player but the codec and the server"

Isn't it actually the reverse of that? The problem with putting Real Player on your computer (historically) is that you get a bunch of other crap in the bargain. You go to watch some Real video and then Badness 10,000 happens and you cry yourself to sleep.

Well, that's the player right? The player has all sorts of spyware. The codec is just encode and decode. I'm sure there are AV flavored geeks out there who would love to look at the codec code, but I guess I figure most people aren't that interested.

I've read here (what?! trusting what you read in /. comments?) that the helix player is just the real player w/o the codec... So doesn't this get around the most common complaint?

"I don't like the spyware in real player!"
"OK, so run helix w/ the closed source real codec - helix is open source and all the crap can be / has been removed."

Is this not the case?

Re:short answer no

[craigmarshall]

I'm trying to think of a way to do tivo-style recording and time-shifting with an Australian radio station (Triple J) which is broadcast via both RealAudio and WMA, I want to set up a system that'll record the breakfast show from Australia at Australia times, and play it back at breakfast time here (etc.). It'd only have to record the latest 9-11 hours of data, which wouldn't take up that much room if it were ogg-vorbis-encoded.

I'll take a look at that Streambox VCR program, but if anyone has any further ideas, please post 'em here!

</off-topic>

Craig

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: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)

The first one is free says the shadowy man...

[Raspberry]

where's the obligatory "registration required" notice in this Post?

Login with this ID:

Username: raspberry
Password: wedontneednostinkinpasswords

enjoy.

Re:The first one is free says the shadowy man...

[Duncan Howard]

I chose to suspend this account. I did so to protect ourselves from people uploading/posting inappropriate material and having not the faintest idea who the source is. Not (as many people may have assumed) to prevent people from accessing the public portions of our site/content/binaries/source. Au contraire, we've gone to great lengths to make anonymous access to all of these things available. Today we rolled out viewcvs which lets anonymous visitors browse our public CVS repositories.

In short we allow anonymous read access where we can, but users who want to post or otherwise contribute (write access) are required to register.

Regards,

Duncan Howard
Helix Community Program Manager
http://helixcommunity.org

Re:hmmm...

[madsenj37]

There are many uses for it. for one, competetion is a good thing. The more the better. It forces innovation and evolution in products. products have a reason to become better. Also, you are belittling their open source efforts. Soem open source is better than none. They are off to a good start. Apple and Sun both contribute to open source, but do not release eveything that way, why cant real?

Re:short answer no

[fucksl4shd0t]

Ummm, mplayer? Seriously! You have to install the Real codecs, but it does fine with them, provided the website hasn't totally obfuscated the link (I can view the source on 90% of pages and get a link MPLayer can hit).

Mplayer will stream to hard disk, and iirc will also just output to stdout, and you can pipe that directly into oggenc, if you'd like.

Debian packages ?

[Mr Europe]

Anyone knows if Debian packages exist already ?
If Helix is 100 % free it should find its way to the official Debian servers soon.

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.

Install the RPM

[Anonymous Coward]

If you install the RPM it automatically enables the plugin in Mozilla which works great on sites like News.com, MTV.com, and BBC.co.uk. This is the first time I've been able to view streaming content from these sites in Linux without numerous problems. I think a big congrats is in order to the Helix community who do offer the 100% free Helix player for download. It is only RealPlayer which contains the proprietary components. I see a lot of people bitching here who are obviously uninformed. Anyway, congrats to Helix, hurray streaming media on Linux!

-5, Not Informative

[anti-NAT]

The Helix / Real Player being talked about is for Linux / Solaris or Symbian OSes. So why compare it to WinAmp, when WinAmp doesn't run on any of these OSes, nor is the source code available ?

Re: So when can I watch a .rm without filling my s

[RedLaggedTeut]

So when can I watch a .rm without filling my system full of nagware, adware, spyware and bloatware?

Just do rm -rf /.

I'd prefer a codec

[Nermal6693]

I get frustrated when I need to start up RealOne in order to play a RealAudio or RealVideo file. While it's nice for Real to offer a binary Linux player, how about releasing some system-wide codecs that any player can use? I'm clueless as to how the Linux media system works, but it shouldn't be too hard to make a system-wide codec, should it?

I use OS X, and I'd love to be able to drop a Real decoder into my QuickTime directory and have full access to Real files in any QT-capable app (which is most of them). They've released an encoder, but no decoder yet.

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/

Cool! A Symbian version! :)

[motown]

I'm going to try this out on my Nokia 6600. :)

That phone already contains an older version of Realplayer, but according to the site, you can simply install this version on top. :)

People, stop bitching about Real and remember the fact that they are still the only one of the big three media player providers (Mediaplayer, Quicktime, Realplayer) who have ever taken the Linux platform seriously.

Even with opening a major part of the source (though not the GPL), they went a lot further in openness than the others ever did.

Also, A recent remark from someone working at Real (in response to Apple's Itunes patent) pleased me: "In the ten years that we've been developing and offering Realplayer, we never patented any part of our GUI". :)

Of course, that doesn't mean they never patented anything else in their software, but at least they've thrown their full weight behind open patent free codecs such as Vorbis and Theora in addition to their own technology!

Real, you are hereby forgiven for all your previous adware/nagware crimes! :)

Download this player and help to maintain Real's (still considerable) market share to keep Microsoft at bay! Real has seriously reached out to our community and we need all the allies we can get. We would be fools not to accept them on our side.

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.

Once a-f*cking-gain:

[Qbertino]

RealPlayer is *not* Spyware. And it's not shoddy and it does *not* bloat your system.
Lots of Ads at startup? And a crappy website for years on end? Ok, I'll give you that. But anything else is just plain baseless FUD!
I must say that I am gratefull for Real actually offering a Linux Player for their stuff long befor any other company had the amount of braincells to grasp the concept of alternative OSes.
It works, doesn't look to crappy, even on Motiv-only systems (which is quite an achievement, admit it) and SMIL is actually a very nice thing and was an official, fully XML compliant open standard long before SVG even crossed the mind of any one at Adobe and Macromedia still was f*cking around with a crappy Flash 4 that couldn't even get it's own IDE sorted out. Not that they have been able to do that up to date.

That this OSS Helix Player is bound to be the first one to support SMIL 2 is an impressive thing and could actually use some moral support. Real back in the dot-boom days was the only thing you actually could do dynamic rich media media with. I was doing SMIL with an EDITOR back then. Try that with any other 'open' standard even today.
As soon as this works I'm outta Flash 2k4 Pro again in an instant. Unless Macromedia gets a grip and sorts out their serious IDE problems. They actually should do that before they semi-port stuff for Linux with Wine, imho.

Bottom Line: Quit the Spyware Legend and support a working streaming media standard that isn't half as nazi about DRM than Mickeysoft.

Re:Once a-f*cking-gain:

[BenBenBen]

I'd say that a program that installs itself and runs constantly without my asking it to, that can't be disabled or stopped from within itself, and which includes a built-in SMTP engine for mailing out stuff to HQ counts as Spyware.

Maybe we just have differing definitions.

Re:Once a-f*cking-gain:

[Anonymous Coward]

And obviously you haven't used the Helix Player or RealPlayer 10 for linux.

1) the last player for linux was realplayer 8... are you saying rp8 has an smtp engine and spyware? It runs without asking and you can't stop it? then you obviously have never used realplayer8 on linux and dont know how to use your linux system. I've never had rp8 add a run level 3 start script.
2) I just tried realplayer for linux and I had none of the issues you speak of above.

Do people not realize that this is a good thing? I for one am happy we have the beginnings of another player on linux that's open source to boot.

Quit bitching.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Damn buncha Slashbots and their anti-Real groupthink. What is it that's always being said? "It's the applications." Here we have Real, an ISV that has finally committed to supporting Linux ... and y'all are bitching about it.

RealPlayer 10 (alpha) was an easy install ... I just plugged in the RPM and went on my merry way. I didn't even have to go find some eastern European web site where software patents haven't been legalized, to get a player with actual codecs in it. Sure, everything can play OGG. Big deal. Go find me a media site that has OGG feeds available. RealPlayer is a great way to output not only Real's own formats, but stuff like MP3 as well.

Real needs our support, not our scorn. If you have a problem with their business model, or the 'extras' that are installed on the Windows platform, it would behoove you to politely tell them what your problems are. You are, after all, a customer. But please, for the sake of all of us, shut off the Slashbot hive mind for a couple of minutes and consider that Real is one of the VERY FEW things standing between Microsoft and a total WMA/WMV monopoly.

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:Quit bitching.

[robla]

Speaking as a RealNetworks employee, we do care about desktop users, even if they aren't traditional customers. Our goal for this year is to do our part in making desktop Linux a viable platform for delivering subscription services. Can't do that without a legal player, so we're starting there.

That said, as a publicly traded company, we've gotta make money, so you are essentially correct. Our revenue comes mainly from subscriptions these days, with really great growth around our RealRhapsody service. Last quarter, business products and services was $13.9 million out of $60.4 million in total revenue, so the traditional customers that you are thinking of make up a smaller part of our business than many realize.

That said, we've done our part to listen to those customers, and we think our product is much better today.

Rob Lanphier
Development Support Manager
RealNetworks

Helix Player not supporting Real formats?

[Random BedHead Ed]

Right, what does this mean?

The RealPlayer 10 alpha is a superset of the Helix Player alpha, and adds support for RealAudio, RealVideo, MP3, and Flash.

Does this mean that Helix does not support RealAudio and RealVideo? I downloaded a development release a while back, and it's not a bad player. I used it to listen to a streaming radio station. If I can't do that with the new Helix Player, what's the point? I'd need to download the bulky RealOne (easier, yes, since they stopped HIDING it on their site, but not open source). Why wouldn't they add this basic codec support to it?

Can someone clarify this? I was kind of excited about this project, but now I'm starting to wonder ...

What you have to look forward to with Helix

[raistphrk]

Buffering...

Please cooperate with Gstreamer

[daemonc]

Gstreamer is a complete open source media framework. It is being adopted by the KDE and Gnome desktop projects, making it the defacto standard for media applications in Linux/*BSD.

Gstreamer's plugin system is ideal for making a proprietary codec such as Real available to open source players, without having to open source or give up control of your codec. The benefit to you is that all of the codecs supported by the current Gstreamer plugins would be available to Helix player, without any additional work by your developers.

Gstreamer developers have approached the Helix developers and offered to cooperate in the past, but received only an absurd response about "splintering".

Cooperation between Helix and other media frameworks would be mutually beneficial. Lack of cooperation only ensures that Real's codec will marginalized on Linux and eventually obsoleted.

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

mplayer as alternative RealMedia front-end?

[jbn-o]

If mplayer did this on non-i386-compatible platforms, and if it did this with a program for which there was complete corresponding source code available under a free software license, I'd say you have made an excellent point. However, I believe that the only reason mplayer plays RealMedia is because mplayer calls the same library Real's player does. Which makes mplayer little more than an alternative RealMedia front-end; the library which does the actual decoding work is no more trustworthy because it being called by mplayer than if it were called by Real's own front-end.

When mplayer is just another RealMedia front-end, mplayer's programmers effectively become a buttress of the RealNetworks monopoly (to borrow an excellent phrase from the FSF). This is precisely the point I was warning against in another thread.

Helix Player is RealPlayer

[robla]

This wasn't an architecture change...this was a branding change. That's all. The RealPlayer 10 is nothing more than the Helix Player + binary components + Gtk app theme to add RealPlayer branding.

The source code + binary add-ons for the RealPlayer 10 alpha for Linux are available from our CVS repository, and will be available soon as a tarball.

Rob Lanphier
Development Support Manager
RealNetworks

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.