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RealPlayer 11 Is a Real Rip Contender

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the making-enemies-on-all-sides dept.

rishimathew writes to tell us TechNewsWorld is reporting that the new RealPlayer 11, not even out of beta yet, has a lot of great new features including the ability to easily rip streaming videos from sites like YouTube, Revver, and Heavy.com. "With the release of RealPlayer 11, the company is boldly moving into another dicey realm: ripping streaming video. Sure, there are lots of means out there to capture video from sites like YouTube Latest News about YouTube, Revver, Heavy.com and such. There are programs like WM Recorder (US$49.95) and Replay A/V ($49.95), as well as Web sites like Keepvid.com and Mozilla Latest News about Mozilla Foundation Firefox add-ons like VideoDownloader. I've tried some of them. Few, though, can match the slick ease of use of RealPlayer 11 -- and it isn't even out of beta yet."

23 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Yea but if history tells me anything by DustyShadow · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...it will be the worst hijacking player of all time. I've never used Real Player because of the sole reason that it would never let me disassociate it with file types. Don't play nice, fine...you don't get installed...ever...again. Some reputations just can't be fixed, and Real ruined theirs long long ago.

    1. Re:Yea but if history tells me anything by Otter · · Score: 4, Informative
      From TFA:

      With the latest version, installation was trouble-free and surprisingly well-mannered. In the past, Real had an irksome habit of planting icons on the desktop without an owner's permission, as well as making a power grab to associate all multimedia file extensions with the player.

      This release of the software is very scrupulous about modifying a system that it has been invited to enter. What's more, the program, by default, will only claim as its own files not associated with any other applications on a computer.

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    2. Re:Yea but if history tells me anything by Angostura · · Score: 4, Informative

      "What website uses real media these days anyway?"

      The BBC for one. And the free version for the Mac is excellent. Don't know about the Windows version.

    3. Re:Yea but if history tells me anything by everphilski · · Score: 3, Informative

      /shrug. Sucks to be you then. The rest of us will enjoy. I have the latest version (non-beta) at work, no popups, no annoying links, no annoying file associations. My CD's play in Windows Media Player, as do my MP3's. Just because you can't change, or comprehend that a company can listen to customers and change, doesn't mean they won't change.

    4. Re:Yea but if history tells me anything by cbhacking · · Score: 4, Informative

      As somebody who, back in the Win9x days (I forget, 95 or 98) installed a early version of RealPlayer that hijacked my entire sound card while in Windows (neither system sounds nor sound from other players would play, whether RP was running or not, although I could get sound in other programs like Warcraft 2) I can certainly appreciate your view on this. That was, however, roughly a decade ago, and while I still don't care for the company and certainly won't claim they've been perfect angels since then, every now and then you should give somebody a second chance.

      RealPlayer 11 is actually a pretty good product, considering its beta status (the version I downloaded had a couple showstopper bugs on Vista, mainly involving volume control, so I don't use it much). RP10 is absolute garbage on Windows - huge, slow, bloated, ad-filled, and aggressive system changes set by default (although they can be unchecked) that I really don't care for. The version for Linux is actually a good product though - I prefer Amorak for casual listening, but for some video formats RP is a better bet than anything else I have installed.

      Also, Real has recently begun selling DRM-free MP3s through their Rhapsody online music store. The tracks are ripped at 256kbps (same as their DRMed versions) and cost the same as well. Most of their catalog is still DRMed, and the Rhapsody player itself isn't going to win any awards from me for being great software, but moving even a little away from DRM earns them big points IMO. Now, if only they would make it possible to purchase MP3s on Linux it would be even better...

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
    5. Re:Yea but if history tells me anything by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Informative

      Real Networks gives a commercial quality open source media framework and player for free and those stuff you see (e.g. V10/11) are based on that.

      https://www.helixcommunity.org/

      Don't ask why they do such a favour while people posting outdated information from 1999 exists.

  2. Change in tactics? by jma05 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Amusing, given that they sued companies which made software that ripped real streams back in 2000.

  3. Alternative: by UncleTogie · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wait for Gutsy and use clive...

    --
    Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
  4. cut-n-paste by PadRacerExtreme · · Score: 3, Informative
    The submitter just cut-n-pasted from the article. Which had links. It looked like this on screen

    sites like YouTube (magnify glass), Revver, Heavy.com but when you cut-n-paste the (magnify glass) turned into

    sites like YouTube Latest News about YouTube, Revver, Heavy.com
    So not only are the editors not reading the submissions, the submitters aren't reading the submissions!
    --
    Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
  5. I think RealPlayer 11 rocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have been using the RealPlayer Beta over the past month to download videos from Youtube, Yahoo Video & Google Video. Sometimes when the video gets too long, it is a better idea to store them to disk so that you can time-shift the viewing.

    One additional feature that I like is the way rewind and fast-forward works. Very close to a full DVD like experience. Plus the ability to play back almost all relevant formats makes it the best player available today.

    One request would be to allow me to move my videos to the video Ipod or phone. I think that would make this a killer.

  6. Ease of use? by VE3OGG · · Score: 3, Informative

    Now, surely you jest... I find unplug works very well, and is quite reliable, and is very easy. If you have access to a unix box, you can even issue a simple conversion (or write a simple script):

    ffmpeg -i filename.flv filename.mpg (or ogg, or mp3, or...)

    If no Linux box is available, then you could always just watch it straight through VLC. And the nice thing about all of this: it is free (as in beer and as in choice). And of course you get to not support a company that has (rightfully) earned the ire of many IT people the world over...

  7. Re:A Real(tm) Comeback by Constantine+XVI · · Score: 3, Informative

    And their Linux version is pretty good (not fantastic, but pretty good). It's built off the Helix DNA backend (headed by Real themselves) which is open-source. The major difference in the closed-source version (RealPlayer) is the DRM "support"

    --
    "I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
  8. Saving YouTube videos by ThePyro · · Score: 5, Informative

    Am I the only one who just copies the videos directly from the FireFox cache folder? It's pretty easy to find them - they're huge compared to the other cached stuff. Just copy the file, rename to .flv, and you're ready to play it.

  9. So...... by demachina · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...you work for Real don't you rishimathew. It looks like all three of your Slashdot submissions are about Real. Nice free advertising for them, good work /. editors.

    --
    @de_machina
    1. Re:So...... by BigDukeSix · · Score: 2, Informative

      At least you can't say he's hiding.

  10. All is not well... by Herms · · Score: 5, Informative

    Few, though, can match the slick ease of use of RealPlayer 11 -- and it isn't even out of beta yet.
    Also, few can match the problems caused to completely unrelated software by simply installing it. The mechanism they use for flash video ripping is (as far as I've been able to tell) pretty much undocumented and, as it currently stands, breaks lots of stuff. My company's product breaks in a couple ways, even though our product has nothing to do with Real Player and doesn't serve video. Here are some links with info on the problems: I also created a wiki page on the osflash site to document them and workarounds/fixes if they're found: http://osflash.org/flashcoders/realplayer_bugs I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Real gets sued by someone over RP11. Either for stream ripping or simply for breaking Flash related products.
    --
    ~Herms
  11. just save the stream buffer by joejor · · Score: 2, Informative

    After all, the stream has to be buffered somewhere on your system. It doesn't get deleted until you navigate away. For example, with YouTube, I just save the /tmp/Flash????? file to watch later with xine. Maybe this only works with linux ...

  12. Re:It's closed, so it's dead by rishistar · · Score: 2, Informative

    Helix also supports OGG, which RealPlayer 11 Beta doesn't. The web recording facility doesn't go with Opera either. Although it is slicker and seems less evil than previous stuff, lack of Ogg and Opera support mean I personally won't use it as my main player.

    --
    Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
  13. Re:And the company are still die-hard spammers, no by seebs · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ahh, yes. It was "her" address (actually, a /dev/null box, as they later confirmed) that was put on all the spam, to give the impression that they gave a fuck whether it was bouncing or not. They didn't. I think it's funny that they apparently never complied with the law that she claimed was a good anti-spam law. I mean, it's bad enough that she was involved with legislation that was utterly worthless; so far as I know, their spam never even complied with that worthless legislation. Insult to injury, that.

    --
    My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
  14. mplayer by giorgosts · · Score: 2, Informative

    $ mplayer /movie.rm -dumpstream -dumpfile movie.avi

  15. Re:Holy Fucking Slashvertisment, Batman! by Propaganda13 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was going to download, but then I realized that the rip would be in a native proprietary format. Unless, of course, you pay them.

  16. Re:It's closed, so it's dead by joeljkp · · Score: 2, Informative

    Helix Player 2.0 (don't know if this will correspond to RealPlayer 11) will support ALSA:

    https://player.helixcommunity.org/2005/dev/plans.h tml

    --
    WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
  17. Re:Holy Fucking Slashvertisment, Batman! by Ilgaz · · Score: 3, Informative

    I am following your blog, they say actually secured (e.g. DRM) content can't be ripped and the people from industry should already use a secure media format (doesn't have to be Real) if the content was such precious.

    Digging the file from your browser/quicktime/flash cache is already possible and I don't think Youtube will go after them since half of content there are ripped from commercial TV and they make money from it already. What Real does is to make it more practical for average user.

    Before Real we should speak about a certain company who advertises their "Pro" version of player when user clicks browser plugins menu to "Save as source" (rip!). They have a file metadata/flag (in spec) to disable that option in plugin but it mysteriously gets ignored. This is going on for years now.