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Helix Player and RealPlayer 10 Released
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."
Thats...buffering buffering...great!
Slashdot uses Slashcode running on Apache with a MySQL backend. All of these packages are OPEN SOURCE, and therefore the odds of errors occurring are VIRTUALLY ZERO! On top of the impecable software, this site is maintained like a finely tuned machine by some of the most brilliant administrators and programmers the human race has to offer! I'm sick of these rumors about server errors! THEY ARE LIES!
I hope to play with this later.
Could this be the beginning of a multimedia framework for GNU/Linux?
Join the Free Software Foundation
Now I don't have to use that pesky, non-intrusive, non-commerical, non-irritating, non-email-address-asking Xine!
AccountKiller
Okay, this is all well and good. But I've been wondering:
Why bother with Helix when there are other freely-availble, open-source alternatives (e.g., mplayer, xine) that appear equally capable of supporting a variety of player formats?
haha suckers I got **BUFFERING**
RealPlayer 10 supports RealAudio, RealVideo 10, MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Theora, H263 and AAC
I'd be very concered about hidden spyware/trojans in these programs based on Real's past releases. Is the RealPlayer/Helix relationship similar to Mozilla/Netscape?
Do we hate Real today or do we love them?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
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?
For christ's sake, you're all like one of those Windows users who will never touch Linux again because "it's all command line" or a Mac since "longhorn will have a 3D UI". Give the company another fucking shot, it's not every day we get a decent media player that supports Theora, Vorbis or their own codecs.
Two words: IBM.
My Systems
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.
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How is Linux suppose to be ready for the desktop if developers/users continue with 'patents be damned' attitude?
Xine and MPlayer aren't legal in many major markets. That rules them out for many of us.
Helix is legal and backed by RealNetworks legal department.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
I recently tried RealPlayer 10's beta for Linux. It's actually pretty slick (well, it was beta, so it was a bit unstable at times, but hey...) and plays Icecast streams in Ogg Vorbis pretty damn well (and you can get just plain Helix Player for that too, without RealVideo support). It was small, not too slow (Linux versions of RP are never ever slow!) and there's no trace of ads!
Yeah, Windows players are probably hell, but the *NIX players have the history of ruling, at least to small extent =)
But to be perfectly honest, the real reason I switched from RP8 to RP10beta was the support for XVideo extension and actual support for fullscreen playing. Makes watching some videos far less annoying when you don't need to maximize the window and fullscreen mode doesn't eat all processor. And, yuck, RP8 was a Motif app and RP10 uses GTK+2.
Anybody else get the plugins for mozilla to work? I copied them from the
audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin RealPlayer Plugin Metafile rpm Yes
in the about:plugins, but nothing from news.bbc.co.uk loads.
First, it doesn't require any kind of email registration. Second, it based on GTK - that's great, no more outdated Modif GUI. Let's see how it will be handled. I would like to point out that if we would have two descent Media frameworks - Helix and GStreamer (which still has to mature), then it would be very good. It's nice to see that Real learns something from their past.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Now there's no reason not to get it in Debian!
Someone please put up a Debian-package !
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).
Interesting, when I try to listen to an audio clip on Amazon.com with Real Player 10, I get an error about the codec being too old and no longer supported.
Microsoft, Apple and Real are the major commercial players in the media player and streaming video market. Microsoft for obvious and Apple for less obvious reasons won't support Linux, so it's a good opportunity for Real to become the dominant player here. At the moment, Linux desktop use doesn't amount to very much. The hope for Real is that it will accellerate in the coming years, especially since they seem to be losing the Windows desktop. Maybe they will become the Mozilla of media players?
It's propably their last chance. If Linux succeeds as desktop OS, their player is the only one (at least the only mature one) available.
Windows comes with WMP (QT also beeing scusessfull) and Mac OS comes with QT.
There are only Linux and other unixy OSes left for Real to be the default Player.
I saw a statistic a few weeks ago. According to that, Windows Media and QuickTime are more or less tied with a litte less than 40% market share.
Real had a little more than 20%.
BTW: HelixPlayer is only developed for Linux/x86 and Symbian (other ports are untested).
I don't see a full Helix Player for Windows or Mac OS. (Windows has a very simple Helix Client) Users of these OSes should - according to Real - get the full RealPlayer.
That's all.
The Raven
Yes, it supports fullscreen playback. It isn't as fast and clever as, say, mplayer, but it's there and it works.
Hello? Did I just read what I thought I read!? Full support for Flash, and it's open-source!?!?? This is a first!!! This means that virtually any Un*xlike operating system, running on virtually any CPU, can now play Flash-- right?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Just to give one example, KPlayer at version 0.5.1 is already light years ahead of any Real stuff and plays RealMedia just like any MPEG, AVI, MP3 or Ogg Media. It's MPlayer based, and its KDE interface is absolutely awesome.
Bye-bye Real!
Perhaps that's because you're logged into Mozilla/Firefox, but you're not in IE? I'm finding that being logged out makes me not get 503's..
EVEN NOW THE ERRORS ARE COMMITTING SUICIDE AT THE GATES OF SLASHDOT!!! THE INFIDEL 503 ERRORS WILL ROAST IN THE BELLIES OF THE SLASHDOTTERS!!!
Vote CmdrTaco for Slashdot Information Minister in '04.
People Like Me [tm] who have convinced our significant others that broadband is more important than cable or satellite television!
I'm quite happy with Real Player.
I do however need something to watch or listen to from time to time. I've always listened to Air America Radio with it. I just moved into a new place and can't really afford cable television right now. However for less than 20 bucks a month I do get a whole bunch of media and get it on demand. (SuperPass, however I'm on the trial now)
I watched the Convention with it, listen to Jazz with it - all with "Tivo" like control. Right now I'm listening to Al Franken and listening to it from 30 minutes ago. A feature many streaming audio clients don't support.
If I can use the Helix DRM module I'll use it. Sure, DRM is scarry for a lot of people. But when it allows me to download 100 movies from Starz! a month for just $14... that is cool. (Live streams of Starz! also) Also I hate being forced into Windows. Just don't force me to run the DRM features as root, we're cool.
VoIP from the cable company? Nah... TVoIP from the phone company.
With 3Mb/s from the phone company for $45 a month you can get all of your "living room" needs from your computer.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Those of you who haven't browsed through the material that the BBC offer really should check it out. One of the best areas is the "Listen Again" section of BBC 7, which repeats some of the best comedy and drama in their radio archives.
No, this isn't a paid advert for the BBC -- I'm just a very happy licence fee payer :).
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
That work is already underway
And what, I'm supposed to believe that they won't put them back in when its convenient to them? I don't think so.
Why don't you wait till they do, and stop using it then?
As it is, you are providing them no incentive to correct their past mistakes.