Real Problems 481
Universal Nerd writes "Could Real be its own downfall? According to 'Find the Download in a Haystack', it could be. The difficulty folks have in reaching the free version of RealPlayer is forcing Minnesota Public Radio to look towards Windows Media Player as an alternative. I prefer good old MP3 or OGG streaming like the feeds offered at WCPE but I'm sure no 'serious' company would consider it because they don't have their digital rights preserved." See the CarTalk story from yesterday.
Real alternative (Score:5, Informative)
It plays Real files, and if you download the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack, everything else too (Quicktime, Divx, Ogg, etc.).
It also includes Media Player Classic, which is a very nice player that picks up where Windows Media Player 6 left off.
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:2, Informative)
Eric in Seattle
I'm no Real Player fan... (Score:4, Informative)
I believe that it has been more complicated in the past, but it's not particularly difficult (unlike searching Slashdot for a particular story).
The most pertinent point is the Real-NPR deal. If the clickthrough for public radio listeners is making a free download difficult, then NPR has a legitimate complaint. Their users want a convenient and inexpensive way to access content. If Real can't accomodate, then screw them.
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:5, Informative)
1. Big, orange "Download RealPlayer" button
2. Little blue text link in the lower right
Voila!
Re:FP (Score:2, Informative)
Audio streams are one thing... (Score:4, Informative)
In the other hand, Real could go open-source with all their client software and provide their existing infrastructure to host some web TV and radio stations, for a fee. This could encourage many people to accept RealMedia as a standard, seriously extending Real's market share, while not killing their profit.
I don't see a problem. (Score:5, Informative)
I went to the website and glanced around for about 5 seconds, then clicked the link that said download. The next page was slightly confusing for about three seconds, before i saw the segment that said 'download free version'. Clicked that, then started my download.
No problem for me.
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:4, Informative)
BTW: Disabling the updates is easy as going into the preference, changing to update manually and disable update notification on startup.
Re:Time for something new? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Time for something new? (Score:1, Informative)
Chopsticks were developed about 5,000 years ago in China. It is likely that people cooked their food in large pots which retained heat well, and hasty eaters then broke twigs off trees to retrieve the food. By 400 BCE, a large population and dwindling resources forced people to conserve fuel. Food was chopped into small pieces so it could be cooked more rapidly, thus needing less fuel.
The pieces of food were small enough that they negated the need for knives at the dinner table, and chopsticks became staple utensils. It is also thought that Confucius, a vegetarian, advised people not to use knives at the table because knives would remind them of the slaughterhouse. Chinese chopsticks, called kuai-zi (quick little fellows), are usually 9 to 10 inches long and rectangular with a blunt end. By 500 CE, chopstick use had spread from China to present-day Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. The chopsticks to the left, while Japanese, are rectangular in the Chinese style.
In Japan, chopsticks were originally considered precious and were used exclusively for religious ceremonies. The earliest chopsticks used for eating looked like tweezers; they were made from one piece of bamboo that was joined at the top. By the 10th Century, chopsticks were being produced in two separate pieces.
Japanese chopsticks differed in design from Chinese chopsticks in that they were rounded and came to a point; they were also shorter (7 inches long for females and 8 inches long for males).
The Japanese usually made their chopsticks out of wood. To the lower right are chopsticks with a characteristic Japanese style. Starting in the 17th Century, they were the first to lacquer these wooden chopsticks, making them slippery but usable. The Japanese were also the first to create disposable wooden chopsticks (called wari-bashi) in 1878.
Traditionally, chopsticks have been made from a variety of materials. Bamboo has been the most popular because it is inexpensive, readily available, easy to split, resistant to heat, and has no perceptible odor or taste. Cedar, sandalwood, teak, pine, and bone have also been used. The wealthy, however, often had chopsticks made from jade, gold, bronze, brass, agate, coral, ivory, and silver. In fact, during dynastic times it was thought that silver chopsticks would turn black if they came into contact with poisoned food. It is now known that silver has no reaction to arsenic or cyanide, but if rotten eggs, onion, or garlic are used, the hydrogen sulfide they release might cause these chopsticks to change color.
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Buffering.... (Score:3, Informative)
Get Streambox Ripper
(you'll find both on P2P networks, although Real successfully sued to have both products crippled or killed)
Download and convert to your favorite format
Don't forget to share!
Open source RealPlayer (more or less) (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:5, Informative)
Linky: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/audiohelp.shtml?help [bbc.co.uk]
You get an ad-free, nag-free, spyware-free version of Real Player, thanks to the good old BBC and their unique deal with Real.
Because the BBC is publicly funded, it couldn't justify using a third-party app that pesters BBC licence fee payers for more money - so they threatened to pull out of the Real deal (pardon the pun) if real didn't offer a nag-free version of the player.
Re:Buffering.... (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that it would be easier for me to have a file locally playing instead of having to deal with the "BUFFERING" issue.
Real, WMP, QuickTime and Macs (Score:4, Informative)
WMP for Mac's streaming ability works fine. But this player, unlike the one built-in with Windows, only plays WMA streams and files, and lacks the iTunes-ish MP3 player features.
Of course, aside from the free RealPlayer (which, if you look at this link on a Mac browser that IDs itself as a Mac browser [real.com] shows a simple link in the right corner to the free RealPlayer), there is QuickTime, which also plays streams well, but there are few sites that use it (one is Cartoon Network's Star Wars: Clone Wars [cartoonnetwork.com] site).
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:4, Informative)
Click on the "Download RealPlayer" image
Click on "Download Free RealPlayer" link on the right
The download starts right up without asking for any other info
Re:Is Real their own problem? (Score:5, Informative)
A senior engineer from Real explains how to get RealPlayer 10 to act nicely on one's system. I followed the instructions, and it works quite nicely. However, if one has Real Alternative installed previously, one has to remove it completely using instructions found further down the page.
Re:The whole streaming audio/video field's gone cr (Score:5, Informative)
Um, you do know that Mplayer is made by a merry band of coders from Hungary, don't you? They have a great deal less regard for US copyright concerns than Norway.
I share some of your concerns but I don't think this is one we really need to worry about. In fact if by some perversion of nature, law and justice F/OSS were to be banned in this country it would move to places like Hungary and Taiwan, and flourish there. And yes, it would make criminals out of a lot of us.
Re:Is Real their own problem? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It was the best of advice, and the worst of adv (Score:4, Informative)
It's a very convenient way to get the most used codecs and even some of the more obscure ones.
Re:Is Real their own problem? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:1, Informative)
Except for ones with DRM, of course.
Re:Do people want to register with Real? NO! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:5, Informative)
Read this. [jogin.com]
Memo's from people that use to work at Real or still work there. In one of them, she says the bbc player is exactly the same as the other one.
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:1, Informative)
Now message center can be completely turned off and is by default opt out during install. No more does realplayer take over your file associations. Come on..accept that itunes is extremely bitchy in this aspect. It just takes over your file associations whenever you open itunes and yes it does run two huge services as a daemon..
Chk out the latest realplayer and I am sure you wont regret it. oh..I am no more a fanboy to realplayer than I am to winamp
Get your facts right...
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:2, Informative)
You should use someone@example.com instead. Whoever gets stuck with me.com is going to be pissed at all the spam they get. :-)
Speak of the devil... (Score:3, Informative)
RA Alternative (Score:1, Informative)
Contact Minnesota Public Radio (Score:5, Informative)
* It's pulbic radio, it's funded by taxpayers and supporters, so it's a public resource. All the content should be freely available using open standards
* Open standards like MP3 are supported by the most applications
* Open standards like MP3 are best supported across platforms
* Free software can be used to implement streaming
* They will support the good will of the technically astute in their audience, who are also a source of funding
* Any other good ideas? Here's the contact info, from their web site [publicradio.org]:
EMAIL
mail@mpr.org
TELEPHONE
General Inquiries: 651-290-1212 or 800-228-7123
An MPR Member/Listener Services associate will answer your call between 8:30 am and 5 pm CT Monday-Friday. Beyond those hours, you may leave a message and your call will be returned within two business days.
MPR Newsroom line: 651-290-1424
News releases may be faxed to the newsroom at 651-290-1295. News tips may be e-mailed to newsroom@mpr.org. E-mail addresses for individual reporters may be found on the newsroom look-up page.
Midmorning or Midday call-in shows: 651-227-6000 or 800-242-2828
We are not able to include emails to shows in progress. If you would like to leave comments for Midmorning, call 651-290-1171.
MAIL
MPR Member/Listener Services
45 East Seventh Street
Saint Paul, MN USA 55101
MEDIA INQUIRIES
Andrea Matthews, 651-290-1303 or amatthews@mpr.org
Suzanne Perry, 651-290-1276 or sperry@mpr.org
LS
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:3, Informative)
the download is findable if you're patient and know how the real psyche works, but if you've never been to the pages before you're probably tricked into wasting some serious time on the pseudo-free download(that asks all information about you).
Re:You Will (Score:2, Informative)
Where is the download for a Sun Solaris version? (Score:3, Informative)
The last one I was able to find was 6.0.4.216 (Beta), on their "community supported" subsection, which I installed in May of 1999.
Darned thing doesn't support most of the stream casting sites these days, and even the workarounds that used to work (digging the URL out of the file droppings in
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:3, Informative)
For live broadcast audio, that's exactly what you want.
direct link (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good... down with Real (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Buffering.... (Score:3, Informative)
Your search - "Real Player ate my dog" - did not.. (Score:2, Informative)
You sure?
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&i
Re:Your search - "Real Player ate my dog" - did no (Score:3, Informative)
Acrobat is a hog (Score:2, Informative)
the acrobat reader ... does what it is supposed to and nothing more
I wouldn't say that Acrobat reader does only what it's supposed to do. It's one hell of a resource hog. Upgrading from Acrobat 5, I find that 6 takes approximately 3X the time to load because of all of the default (read: useless) plugins.
Fortunately, you can disable most of the unused features [mozillazine.org] and get it almost as fast as previous versions.