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Music Media Announcements Software Linux

Helix Player and RealPlayer 10 Released 323

Posted by michael 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."
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Helix Player and RealPlayer 10 Released More

Helix Player and RealPlayer 10 Released

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  • Good news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:06AM (#9869281)
    Thats...buffering buffering...great!

    • Re:Good news (Score:5, Interesting)

      by erick99 ( 743982 ) <homerun@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:43AM (#9869557)
      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.

      • While I've always had a love/hate relationship with RealPlayer (love the streaming format, hate the business practices), there's always been one thing that's made them useless on the Linux/Unix platform. It didn't support fullscreen play!

        Does this new version support fullscreen playback? That's really the only feature I care about.
      • > ..and does not assault me with ads or offers to upgrade anywhere near the extent that the older ones did

        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.

        Real's product/company image with technical users is trashed, and there's a *damn* good reason for that.

        I can only speak for myself, but I will *never* use another Real product or support any website/organization that uses their products.

    • Re:Good news (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ralphart ( 70342 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:01PM (#9869708)
      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!
    • Mine goes :

      "
      the following components are required:
      html

      URL:
      mem://http://videos.tf1.fr/video....
      "

      trying to watch any of the videos from the TF1 [tf1.fr] site. I want to train my french.

  • THERE ARE NO 503 ERRORS!! QUIT SPREADING LIES!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:06AM (#9869283)
    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!

  • Helix! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by byolinux ( 535260 ) * on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:07AM (#9869288) Journal
    I hope to play with this later.

    Could this be the beginning of a multimedia framework for GNU/Linux?
    • Could this be the beginning of a multimedia framework for GNU/Linux?

      Try Gstreamer [freedesktop.org] for that.

    • Re:Helix! (Score:3, Informative)

      by LightStruk ( 228264 )
      Could this be the beginning of a multimedia framework for GNU/Linux?
      Is the existing multimedia framework [freedesktop.org] not good enough for you?
    • This could indeed be a good thing - note however that applications like xine and mplayer, when properly configured and installed, already provide a full multimedia experience for the savvy linux user, but it's good to get something with the commercial visibility of real into the picture - let's hope it attracts enough interest to gain critical mass.

  • Awesome! (Score:2, Funny)

    by cytoman ( 792326 )
    The best news so far today...

    Does this mean Real will release how it hacked into iTunes/iPod?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:07AM (#9869299)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:excellent! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:13AM (#9869358)
      Xine tends to lose sync when I use it for RA, especially if I am doing something else on the PC at the same time (placing the PC under load). The Real player can handle that.

      The effect is: whatever I am listening to comes out completely garbled. I have to terminate and restart Xine.

    • Re:excellent! (Score:5, Informative)

      by groomed ( 202061 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:22AM (#9869417)
      RealPlayer 10 doesn't ask for your email address anymore. I just installed it. It looks decent enough.

      Also support for playing Real media formats in Xine/mplayer still isn't quite as reliable as the real thing. Not to mention the browser plugin support. Finally Xine/mplayer can be a bitch to install.

      I like what Real's doing. RealPlayer 10 is like the RealPlayer 1.0 that never was.
      • It also seems impossible to skip forward or back in a Real stream played with mplayer, unless you quit and restart with an adjusted URL ("http://wherever.ram?start=00:12").

        I have not tried Helix yet, but this could be a godsend when playing back radio shows of the BBC websites. No more cutting and pasting the contents of RAM files into the command line to start mplayer.

        K

        • Re:excellent! (Score:4, Informative)

          by groomed ( 202061 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:44AM (#9869565)
          I saw some patches coming by on the mplayer-dev mailing list that purportedly implement seeking for Real streams, but I don't know if they ever made it in and/or how reliable they are. Other than that there are sync problems (as the other poster mentioned), connection problems (with rtsp:// in particular, yes, the live.com libs sorta work, no, sorta isn't good enough), stability problems, and assorted minor brokennesses.

          I love mplayer but of all the formats it supports, Real is perhaps the worst.

    • Let me know when EFF clears Xine.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kunta Kinte ( 323399 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:41AM (#9869545) Journal
      ...then you may have a point.

      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.

      • Re:Let me know when EFF clears Xine.... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:55AM (#9869654)
        that's not an excuse. just buy (e.g.) a SuSE Linux box and install that on all your computers. being a legal product it has all the questionable components removed.

        applying your logic, how can Windows be ready for the desktop when a huge fraction of users have illegal copies of Windows, Office and other software?
        • well, according to the dutch site tweakers, (www.tweakers.net) the linux kernel itself is possibily violating 286 patents, including 27 owned by Microsoft and 98 from 'Linux friendly' companies like the 60 from IBM, 20 from HP and 11 from Intel, and NO, it wasn't SCO that searched this stuff out. patents are one big mess, it's very nearly impossible to create compatible (as in, windows send file, linux users uses it, edits, send back, windows users uses it) open source products without violating patents. pa

      • Re:Let me know when EFF clears Xine.... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 7-Vodka ( 195504 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:04PM (#9869732) Journal
        The patent system seems to work ok for mechanical inventions, but is terribly broken for software.
        I would bet it's probably impossible to write *any* software which does not violate patents that have been given out and for every valid patent there's probably 1000 invalid ones.
        These being the conditions, it's much better to ignore the broken system, that way *if* you ever get sued and *if* you loose, you won't have to pay tripple damages.
        Not to mention that most of the world does not care about software patents. Only one country cares with 1/12th of the population on the planet. Worse, probably only 0.1% of that country would actually benefit or want software patents.
        So, only about 1/12000 of the worlds population cares about software patents. They just happen to also be among the richest and most powerful and manage to buy ridiculous laws and "free trade agreements".

      • Wrong ... (Score:5, Informative)

        by vlad_petric ( 94134 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:10PM (#9869781) Homepage
        xine/mplayer are hardly illegal. They are indeed covered by mpeg4 patents (which only apply if you sell a certain number of units), and furthermore it is illegal (DMCA ...) to distribute them with libdvdread.

        That's all.

        • Re:Wrong ... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Homology ( 639438 )
          , and furthermore it is illegal (DMCA ...) to distribute them with libdvdread.

          Erh, US law does not apply outside USA. But with Bush Jr. in power, I suppose you can be forgiven this misunderstanding.

    • Re:excellent! (Score:4, Informative)

      by andreyw ( 798182 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:54AM (#9869645) Homepage
      RTFA. Helix is non-intrusive, non-commercial, non-irritating, non-email-address-asking.

  • wow I'm confused! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Can a company that used to be so evil (spyware, user statistics reported without knowledge, etc) suddenly be doing good things like open source?

    Maybe it's an honest new attitude... stranger things have happened!

    • Re:wow I'm confused! (Score:5, Funny)

      by SoTuA ( 683507 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:35AM (#9869492)
      You new around here?

      Two words: IBM.

    • Re:wow I'm confused! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Bulln-Bulln ( 659072 ) <bulln-bulln@netscape.net> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:09PM (#9869774)
      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.

  • Neat. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:08AM (#9869305)
    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?

    • Re:Neat. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AirP ( 99063 )
      And along those lines... why linux when we have windows!

    • Re:Neat. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:47PM (#9870017) Homepage Journal
      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?

      Have you actually tried HelixPlayer, or the RealPlayer for Linux? They are, in fact, very nice, with simple clean minimalist interfaces using GTK. No ugly skinning, no bizarre file selection dialogs (just plain GTK file selection dialogs), no relying on keyboard shortcuts.

      I like Mplayer, and I use it a lot, but HelixPlayer really is very nice, and I'm using it more and more. Don't knock it until you've tried it. Real seems to have turned a corner here and gone open source. HelixPlayer is a great open source project, and the RealPlayer based on it is not the intrusive email collecting mess that one used to associate with Real.

      I know many here hate Real, and it's understandable given their previous efforts, but they do seem to have changed, and I think they're worthy of a second chance here... now if only they'd free up their codec...

      Jedidiah.

  • First Post (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:08AM (#9869307)
    haha suckers I got **BUFFERING**

  • features (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:08AM (#9869312)
    RealPlayer 10 supports RealAudio, RealVideo 10, MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Theora, H263 and AAC

  • Spyware (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:09AM (#9869316)
    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?

    • Re:Spyware (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LordK2002 ( 672528 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:30AM (#9869456)

      I'd be very concered about hidden spyware/trojans in these programs based on Real's past releases

      And just how long do you think that they would get away with that in an open-source project?


      K

      • Re:Spyware (Score:2, Interesting)

        by cynic10508 ( 785816 )

        And just how long do you think that they would get away with that in an open-source project?

        Indefinitely if they're clever [wbglinks.net] about it...

    • RealPlayer/Helix Relationship (Score:5, Informative)

      by Roguelazer ( 606927 ) <Roguelazer AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:38AM (#9869509) Homepage Journal
      "The Helix Player is the Helix Community's open source media player for consumers. It is being developed to have a rich and usable graphical interface and support a variety of open media formats like Ogg Vorbis, Theora etc. The RealPlayer for Linux is built on top of the Helix Player for Linux and includes support for several non-open source components including RealAudio/RealVideo, MP3 etc."
      From the helix site itself. :D

  • Oggabonafidemediaplayer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grunt107 ( 739510 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:09AM (#9869318)
    It's about time RP10 came out. Although I did not see a screen shot, the purported UI integration should help it seem more polished. Support for Ogg & AAC are definitely welcome.

    Will reserve overall judgement to after the installation and operation of this, however.

  • We're so conflicted (Score:5, Funny)

    by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) * on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:31AM (#9869460) Homepage
    Do we hate Real today or do we love them?

    • Re:We're so conflicted (Score:4, Informative)

      by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:26PM (#9871590) Homepage Journal
      Well, after a week without access to ComedyCentral.com after I made the mistake of trying RealPlayer10 on my PowerBook, I certainly wouldn't use the word "love".

      OTOH, I did just manage to re-install the RealOne Player that came with the machine, after a lot of stumbling around through pages that told me it was no longer supported. Now I can finally see their coverage of the Democratic Convention without waiting til 11 pm and hoping they rebroadcast it on TV.

      Yes, google found lots of discussions of the problem. Even some suggestions for fixes. None of them worked. Eventually I stumbled across explanations of why this and a long list of other sites don't work. Maybe the next release will fix the problem.

      But next time, I'll do a thorough google search before attempting to install anything of theirs. They seem to believe in letting their users do most of the testing. (And you might note that the download file has the string "beta" in its name.)

      I might mention, though, that RealPlayer 10 comes with its own browser, and it's actually a fairly nice addition to my growing list of browsers. But even their own browser didn't show Comedy Central, or a number of other less important sites. Those it did show, worked much better than their older players.

      (I've started seeing quite a lot of claims that the best coverage of the American election is at ComedyCentral.com, and I think I agree. If you really want to know what's going on, check them out. Unfortunately, they only post videos in Real format.)

  • Going against code. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:35AM (#9869488)
    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.

    • Re:Going against code. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DMadCat ( 643046 ) <dmadcat@@@moondans...com> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:09PM (#9869770)
      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.

    • Re:Going against code. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:24PM (#9869864)


      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.

      • Re:Going against code. (Score:2, Insightful)

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

        History of what, killing children? Just because a couple of years ago they made a shitty product does NOT mean we should avoid them now. It was horrible, so what?

        A bad product can be forgiven, and I don't see why all of a sudden "It's different" with Real. Netscape had a horrible product, they come out with Mozilla, we embrace it. But as for Real and Helix, avoidance is continued like they have the plague or something?

      • Re:Going against code. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Just Some Guy ( 3352 ) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @01:58PM (#9870711) Homepage Journal
        playing hide-the-link

        As someone who had to dig through the site numerous times to install "hidden" versions, I can understand being annoyed at Real, but I can't understand holding it against them. I mean, their business model has always included selling a "premium" player. It seems to me that the fact that they were giving away a gratis version should mitigate the fact that it wasn't prominently linked on the front page of their site.

        Should we be angry at department stores for not putting their brand-name clearance racks immediately inside the front door, or is it understandable that they make you walk past the regular-price goods in order to get to them?

        There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike the old Real. Making you dig through their site for a free version of their flagship product isn't one of them.

        • The "hidden link" comment has a double-meaning.

          In the days of yore, not only did you have to tromp through phantom links to find the free version of the player.

          Once you actually downloaded the software and went to install it, you would be presented with a page full of "opt-in" crap. I say "opt-in" because Real cleverly had all the options you could see on the screen deselected by default.

          The evil part: they made it hard to see that the screen could actually scroll, and there was additional crap hidden b
  • I recently downloaded Free Real Player Enterprise (argh, what a mouthful), which doesn't _seem_ to have any spyware at all:

    http://www.realnetworks.com/products/rpe/index.htm l [realnetworks.com]

    btw, i put bogus personal info into the form and it did not require me to reply to an email in order to download the product.
    • Thanks for the heads-up on this. However, I have some unfavourable comments. When I installed RPE it claimed it would give control over file associations, however this isn't true. It stole the associations for Realmedia files from Media Player Classic (RealAlternative) and flatly refuses to let them be unticked !

      So, it gives more choice, but is still a typically Real product in that it seems to think it knows better than I do what I want.

  • RealPlayer 10 Does Play RealOne Files! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dduardo ( 592868 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:40AM (#9869533)
    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.
    ---------
  • I'm not going to install it quite yet ... so can someone tell me how well it works? When I tried RP9 for Linux (and the Helix beta), it was slow, crash-prone, buggy, and video generally didn't display right.

    If it is as good as claimed, I'll be thrilled - there are several organizations I belong to that (for various reasons) only use RealMedia. I'm skeptical for now, but a stable RealPlayer for Linux would be wonderful (no, xine/mplayer are not perfect!).

  • Getting the plugins to work? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Isldeur ( 125133 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:50AM (#9869609)

    Anybody else get the plugins for mozilla to work? I copied them from the /opt/RealPlayer10/mozilla dir I installed into and I get a:

    audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin RealPlayer Plugin Metafile rpm Yes

    in the about:plugins, but nothing from news.bbc.co.uk loads.

  • First Impression (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pecisk ( 688001 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:51AM (#9869614)
    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.

  • Yes ! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr Europe ( 657225 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:51AM (#9869620)
    Now there's no reason not to get it in Debian!
    Someone please put up a Debian-package !
  • Looks clean but reminds me just a BIT of totem [hadess.net].
  • 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.

    I can attest to this, as they royaly fucked my Windows system the last time I installed Real player on it.

  • Poisened Waters (Score:5, Interesting)

    by augustz ( 18082 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:56AM (#9869671)
    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).

    • Well, if you want to talk about 'early adopter' folks, I remember the very first RealAudio beta.. it ran on Solaris/SunOS, back before there was much of a Windows TCP/IP customer base (back in 1995, yo!).

      And no, there wasn't anything in the way of commercial spam or hide the link or whatever.. it was just a binary streaming audio player, and it actually worked.

      So I'll forgive Real for their recent transgressions and thank them for supporting Linux.. especially considering their Linux client never did an

  • It doesn't work with Amazon's music clips (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jonfelder ( 669529 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @11:58AM (#9869686)
    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.

  • Real's Linux gambit (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mst76 ( 629405 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:07PM (#9869751)
    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?

  • symbian (Score:2, Informative)

    by jford235 ( 677581 )
    got it on my n-gage qd. works well, other than the real video clips need to be very small quality. but regardless, i have video on my phone.

  • OPEN-SOURCE FLASH PLUGIN? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:32PM (#9869902)
    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?

  • Thanks, but no, thanks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by er_col ( 664618 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:36PM (#9869928)
    Why would I even consider using Real stuff when there are so many excellent free players?

    Just to give one example, KPlayer [sourceforge.net] 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!

  • Helix player for Windows (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @12:49PM (#9870034)
    As I understand it, Helix was a community-led project to design a cross-platform media player framework, the Helix Player, which is then used by Realnetworks to make their RealPlayer application with the addition of closed-source codecs and probably a degree of Real's nagware added in

    So: Where.. or when, can I download Helix Player for Windows? I don't want or need Real's codecs on my system, but if the player is as good as people say I may consider using it instead of Windows Media Player for watching my downloaded movie files
  • Does it offer FLAC [xiph.org] support?
  • about wolves attacking his flocks...untill one time it REALLY happened and no one believed him anuymore.
    Now it's the same story for RealNetworks, No ONE believe them anymore after their dark past.

  • What about the EULA (Score:3, Informative)

    by internic ( 453511 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @01:00PM (#9870161)

    I stopped using Realplayer even under Windows a while back because the EULA [ncns.com] for the newer ones, like Real One, had some seemingly nasty clauses with respect to third party apps and DRM [gripe2ed.com]. I think the one that got me was:

    "DRMs may be able to revoke your ability to use applicable content. RN is not responsible for the operation of the third party DRM in any way, including revocation of your content. RN is not responsible for any communications to or from any third party DRM provider, or for the collection or use of information by third party DRMs. You consent to the communications enabled and/or performed by the DRM, including automatic updating of the DRM without further notice, despite the provisions of AutoUpdate defined in Section 6(c)."

    Now maybe that's harmless, but it wasn't at all clear to me. Suffice it to say that I don't like software trying to invade my privacy and play policeman in my home. It also seems like such a system is an inherent security vulnerability and could cause technical problems even with legally licensed but un-DRMed content (like my emusic mp3s or rips of my own CDs). I think DRM is a dumb idea, but I don't mind if the software has such a feature, as long as it's not enabled unless I specifically enable it to be able to get DRMed content.

    So how is the EULA on the new realplayer? Is it any better?

  • Yay! Now I can listen to BBC radio in Linux! (Score:3, Informative)

    by jonathan_ingram ( 30440 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @01:05PM (#9870211) Homepage
    I've been waiting for a decent non-beta version of Helix/RealPlayer for Linux for a while now -- and now I can finally listen to all the output the BBC [bbc.co.uk] provide while working.

    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 [bbc.co.uk], 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 :).

  • Ok, so the installer lets you put the head of the directory tree where you want it, so that's a start. But they create the executables in the root of that tree, and leave an empty "Bin" (yes, with a capital B) directory. So once again I will be forced to waste time trying to fix up their install and hopefully make it functional.

    At least it doesn't have to be installed by individual users any more...

  • Didn't work for me. I run RedHat 7.3 on a PC. I had been running RealPlayer-8.0-1 (rp8_linux20_libc6_i386_cs2.rpm). I got the new RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm and this is what happened:

    # rpm -Uvh RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm
    Preparing... ...##### [100%]
    1:RealPlayer ...##### [100%]
    # realplay
    /usr/local/RealPlayer/realplay.bin: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
    # rpm -e /tmp/RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm
    error: package /tmp/RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm is not inst

  • This whole percentage thing is annoying (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DevilM ( 191311 ) <devilm@ d e v i lm.com> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @02:01PM (#9870739) Homepage
    100% open source? Is that better than 80% open and 20% free? Can we start applying open source percentages to commerical software, so that we can know which software is 100% closed vs. maybe something that is 16% open.

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