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Helix Player and RealPlayer 10 Released

Posted by michael on from the get-your-drm-on dept.

kforeman writes "The RealPlayer 10 for Linux and its underlying 100% open source Helix Player are now both finalized. The RealPlayer 10 for Linux has many new features including a Mozilla plug-in, so you can now enjoy all those embedded media clips, as well as the latest RealAudio 10, RealVideo 10, MP3, Flash, and Ogg Vorbis and Theora support. The Helix Player is 100% open source, (now including the GPL!) and includes support for SMIL 2.0 and open source codecs Ogg Vorbis and Theora. Our goal is to make the Linux desktop a first class citizen and we think today's releases are a good first step in that direction."

6 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. RealPlayer 10 Does Play RealOne Files! by dduardo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I just downloaded realplayer 10, but I get this message when trying to play a realone file:

    "The content you are trying to play uses an audio codec that is obsolete and no longer supported. Please contact the content provider about using a supported codec."

    What's up with this? I got the file from Cdnow.com.
    ---------

  2. Re:Good news by erick99 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I used to dislike RealAudio as much as anybody else but the most recent release of their player is actually very good and does not assault me with ads or offers to upgrade anywhere near the extent that the older ones did. I have used MS MediaPlayer quite a bit but recently found that RealPlayer seemed to have more codecs or was able to auto-install them with greater ease than MediaPlayer. Hell, I could be wrong about how that works. But, my user experience is that Real's player is a pretty nice "product" at this point and, at times, has helped me listen/watch something sooner that I otherwise would have. This is just my two cents worth, a personal opinion at best. I am far from a Real Audio "apologist." I understand Real's history and was as annoyed as anyone else in the past. But, I don't mind revisiting something once in a while to see where it's at and I have found the current RealPlayer to be a good product.

    Cheers!

    Erick

    P.S. Yes, I know I should look at some of the other non-MS/Real players out there and will do so.

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
  3. Poisened Waters by augustz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The sad thing with Real is that they've done such a good job of poisening the waters with previous releases.

    When they thought they could play with the big boys (apple, microsoft) they would spam the living daylights out of people, they would load up their player with so much junk it blew your mind, they tookever system settings, popped up message center windows with marketing "alerts".

    For a lot of early adopter folks in the open source space it's hard to forget the horrors of real's "customer friendly" policies.

    Now they are realizing that they are unlikely to beat Microsoft at it's own game. So they have deceided to try and play with the nice kids. I wonder if management has changed. This feels to me less like a top down thing then someone in the company evangalizing a new approach.

    If they had played clean from the start, with their branding etc they would have rocked as a linux player.

    I think Novell actually is going to show how a clean playing company can leverage the open source world. They've really done the right thing so far through it all (SCO etc).

  4. Re:Good news by ralphart · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hmm...Since Helix has been open-sourced, what's to stop someone from porting it to Windows, so one could dispense with RealPlayer and all the goop it installs? Is it just me or does that makes some kind of sense? Not that I'm advocating running Windows or anything, mind you!

  5. Re:Going against code. by DMadCat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Funny, I've noticed that too.

    Nearly everyone in the Linux community agrees that the way to get Linux on the desktop is to entice the big-name software developers to write more programs for Linux.

    Then, when one of the most well-known (even if not well liked) companies jumps up and does it, everyone cries and whines about it. Frankly Realplayer didn't do anything a dozen or more other software companies did/still do. They just got caught.

    As for Realplayer, my advice would be to download it even if you don't install it. When a company like that supports Linux it's a good idea to at least look like we're supporting them back as a flag to any other companies that may be watching from the fence.

  6. Re:Going against code. by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Yeah, yeah, I know it's slashdot code to hate Real, but they've finally done something good. They continue to support Linux, and gave us the core of their player (which, IMO no longer sucks ass) and we're still criticizing them? Has anyone here even used Realplayer 10 Linux or Helix?

    Heaven forbid one would hold Real accountable for it's past behavior. Real didn't become a Slashdot pariah by giving us the core of their player. They got their reputation from introducing spyware, playing hide-the-link, and assorted other annoying behavior. If you feel that these criticisms are invalid, please jump in and point out the errors.

    Having said that - I do think that some of the criticism I've seen under this thread is invalid. I'm glad Real is trying to do some Good Things. And I'm willing to see what they're doing these days.

    Just don't expect this behavior to instantly wipe out years of previous history.