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New G2 RealPlayer Alpha
The Rebel writes "It appears RealNetworks has an updated Alpha G2 RealPlayer for Linux.
Its dated 9-29-99 and you can get it
here." Yep. Fresh dates on the files. Anyone tried this "new" version? Is it really any different from the old one? Should we all run and download it or wait for the beta?
I just downloaded this one a few hours ago after I got a notice that my old version had expired. My main complaint with this version is the CPU usage. 95%?! And that's only because more important things are taking up the other 5%. I don't remember the previous alpha being this slow. The audio quality seems about the same, it works with esddsp (I don't think it did before), and it hasn't crashed on me since I've gotten it (used it for a grand total of 15 minutes, though). But the CPU usage gets to me. I don't think the Windows version uses 95% of my 300mhz processor. Then again, maybe it does and I just didn't notice it before. But the sound gets choppy if I try to multitask while it's playing, which I haven't noticed before.
"Many Linux users found that their Real Player G2 programs stopped working this morning. Apparently Real Networks encoded an expiration date in the code. After some quick calls to Real Networks and some fast foot work by their technical people, the Linux G2 player has been patched so that it will not be expired. "
from linuxtoday
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
Contrary to what you'll read in the comments after the linuxtoday article, the red hat rpm version is also fixed, though they did break a symlink.
.deb package for realplayer, and it will appear in debian unstable this afternoon.
It also appears to have some new features, like playing a little sound clip on startup. And a new "presents" menu.
FWIW, I've uploaded the updated debian
see shy jo
- Input gain is a lot lower, so I don't have to crank down the master volume every time I want to play a clip (this could have been an oddity specific to my machine with the earlier version).
- Subjectively, overall sound quality is significantly better, with much higher a signal-to-noise ratio. Plus, video quality and stability is much, much better.
- CPU usage is insane, as noted by at least one other person. I have an SMP box, and it's hogging one whole processor, according to "top."
- The "Lowest CPU Usage Best Quality" adjustment in "Preferences" seems to have an effect on quality in this version, with no apparent effect on CPU usage.
Testing environment:I'm curious about the results others have had. It seems like Real just tried to get stuff working with the last version, and has activated optimizations (or something) with this version -- just speculation.
*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring bohemian. ***
For example, many radio stations (e.g., NPR) are archiving their broadcasts on the web; this is a situation where ``play the file from the beginning'' doesn't quite cut it. The fact that, with RealAudio, you can skip around in the stream, so that the archive file can be six hours long but you can still find the part you're interested in without listening for six hours straight (or downloading the whole thing to your local disk first) is incredibly important.
As far as I've seen so far, you can't do this with MP3 streams: you can only listen from the beginning. Is that true?
Is there any work being done to make random-access of MP3 streams possible?