RealPlayer

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RealPlayer

RealPlayer 11 on Windows XP
Developed by RealNetworks
Initial release 4.0
Stable release 11.0.2 (Windows),
11.0.0.876 (Mac OS X),
11.0.0.4028 (Linux/Unix),
1.6.1 (Palm)
  (March 14, 2008 (Windows)
May 29, 2008 (Mac OS X)) [+/−]
Preview release none  () [+/−]
OS Cross-platform
Available in English,Simplified & Traditional Chinese, German, French, Korean, Italian, Japanese as well as Portuguese.
Genre Media player
License Proprietary
Website www.real.com

RealPlayer (briefly known also as RealOne Player) is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.[1]

The first version of RealPlayer was introduced in April 1995 as RealAudio Player, one of the first media players capable of streaming media over the Internet.[2] Version 6 of RealPlayer was called RealPlayer G2; version 9 was called RealOne Player. Free "Basic" versions have been provided as well as paid "Plus" versions with additional features. On Windows, version 9 subsumed the features of the separate program RealJukebox.

RealPlayer 11 was released for Windows in November 2007. A beta release of version 11 is also available for Mac OS X. In addition, stable versions of RealPlayer are also available for Mac OS X, Linux, Unix, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian OS.[3] The program is powered by an underlying open source media engine called Helix.[4]

Contents

[edit] Features

RealPlayer, beyond its function as an audio/video player, also contains additional features such as:

  • Media Browser based on Internet Explorer which allows web browsing while playing media.
  • Playlist editor similar to other media players, supporting "drag and drop" and playlist randomize.
  • Theater Mode (full screen mode) video playback. The paid version offers a skinnable Toolbar Mode which uses less desktop space.
  • Visualizations - graphical animations or "light shows". Five are included with RealPlayer set-up. Others are available from RealNetworks, including a 3D Visualization Plug-In Surreal.FX.
  • Continuous Play (Loop multiple songs) and Shuffle Play (Play tracks randomly, however realplayer will select the random tracks in sequence eg Track 1, Track 5, Track 2, Track 6, Track 3 etc.).
  • Stay on top while playing option.
  • Favorites menu to save and recall media locations for files or streams.
  • Equalizer and Video controls. Crossfade and Gapless playback are included in RealPlayer Plus.
  • Media library allows organization of media through track tagging and editing. The Premium version adds Audio Converter to convert between RealMedia, MP3, AAC, Windows Media, and WAV formats, and others.
  • Recording audio, (RealPlayer Plus only) which records audio via a sound card.
  • LivePause pauses streaming video clips without having to stop the buffering.
  • Version 10.5 included Harmony technology, making the Music Store compatible with iPod and Windows Media DRM-compatible players.
  • Both the basic and the plus version can burn CDs. The current burning technology is powered by NPI; formerly it was powered by Adaptec (Roxio). The free version can burn audio and data CDs; the premium version burns MP3 CDs.
  • CD ripping into AAC (in MP4) (32 kbit/s - 320 kbit/s) (default), Real Audio 10 (32 kbit/s - 320 kbit/s), MP3 (32 kbit/s - 320 kbit/s), Real Audio Lossless, WAV (1411 kbit/s), Windows Media Audio (Requires Windows Media Player 10 installed) (64 kbit/s - 192 kbit/s) formats.
  • RealPlayer Music Store allows users to locate, preview, and purchase songs, which cost $0.49 to $0.99.
  • SuperPass - paid access to premium recorded and live video broadcasts. In the U.S., content like CBS Big Brother 24/7 is provided for a fee of around USD$39.99. For Europe (except UK), this includes live broadcasts of BBC World Europe, Al Jazeera English, CNN International Europe, Euronews in seven languages, BBC News recent news clips, MTV UK music clips, and custom content from SportsNews TV, RealTV, Vidzone, and Comedy Time. Costs 17.50 € per month.
  • Video Download - version 11 for Windows allowed users to download videos from sites such as YouTube and store them on their computer in mpeg or mp4 format.

[edit] Supported Media Formats

  • RealMedia formats: RealAudio (*.ra, *.rm), RealVideo (*.rv, *.rm, *.rmvb), RealPix (*.rp), RealText (*.rt), RealMedia Shortcut (*.ram, *.rmm)
  • Streaming: RealTime Streaming Protocol (rtsp://), Progressive Networks Streaming Protocols (pna://, pnm://), Microsoft Windows Media Streaming Protocol (mms://), Real Scalable Multicast (*.sdp), Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (*.smil, *.smi)
  • Audio: MP3 (*.mp3, *.mp2, *.mp2, *.m3u), CD Audio (*.cda), WAV (*.wav), AAC/aacPlus v1 (*.aac, *.m4a, *.m4b, *.mp4, *.acp, *.m4p), Apple Lossless, AIFF (*.aif, *.aiff), AU Audio Files (*.au), Panasonic AAC (*.acp)
  • Video: DVD (*.vob), Video CD (*.dat), MPEG Video (*.mpg, *.mpeg, *.m2v, *.mpe etc), AVI (*.avi, *.divx), Windows Media (*.wma, *.wmv and etc) (requires Windows Media Player 9/10), QuickTime (*.mov, *.qt) (Quick Time Player must be installed), Adobe Flash (*.swf) (Flash or Shockwave Player must be installed), Flash Video (*.flv).
  • Playlists (*.rpl, *.xpl, *.pls, *.m3u)
  • Graphics: Bitmap (*.bmp), GIF Images (*.gif), JPEG Images (*.jpeg, *.jpg), PNG (*.png)

[edit] Formats supported by a plug-in

[edit] Plug-Ins

RealPlayer has wide variety of plug-ins. Some of the plug-ins are listed at the RealPlayer accessories page, but most are not. There is no official plug-in page.

Audio Enhancement
There are four audio "enhancers" available for the latest version of RealPlayer. DFX, iQfx, Volume Logic, and Sanyo 3D Surround. Lake PLS, created by Lake Technologies, works only with RealJukebox, and has limited use. There are some registry tweaks which allow Lake PLS to work with RealPlayer 10. Lake PLS is still available on the RealPlayer website.
RealPlayer Skin Creators
RealPlayer has had two skin creator plug-ins: SkinsEditor for RealJukebox -- an easy to use skins creator made by DeYoung software. The second application, RealJukebox Skins Converter, converts Winamp skins into RealPlayer skins.
Playback Plug-Ins
Please see section File formats supported by a plug-in.
Radio Tuners
vTuner Plus and HMRadio are radio tuners specially created for RealPlayer.
Visualizations
The available visualizations from the RealNetworks site are: FrequencywurX, FyrewurX, FlamewurX, XFactor, Spectrl View, FluxWave, Puddle, Paint Drops, Polka dots, StickSterZ 1.0, Circle, On the road, Real Logo, Hubble Bubble. There are some more visualization plug-ins like Surreal.FX by RealNetworks, G-Force and WhiteCap by SoundSpectrum and SticksterZ 1.1 by Eric Metois.

[edit] Editions

[edit] RealPlayer for Windows

RealPlayer for personal use includes audio CD burning capabilities, DVR-style playback buffering, multimedia search, Internet radio, a jukebox-style file library, an embedded web browser (using Microsoft Internet Explorer), and the ability to transfer media to a number of portable devices, including Apple's iPod, MP3 players, and Windows Media devices. Since version 11, RealPlayer also includes Flash Video support, DVD, SVCD, VCD burning and video recording (DRM is supported). The free version is not currently available for Windows x64. The BBC offers an advertising-free version for users of its website.

RealPlayer Enterprise is a free lightweight advertising-free version for business. It can be administered by RealPlayer Enterprise Manager. Most consumer features have been removed from this version, and some plug-ins are not supported. Its RealSched.exe can be disabled in two steps, and it is not reinstalled upon running the player.

The current stable release for Windows is version 11.

[edit] RealPlayer for Mac OS X

RealPlayer's browser showing the RealPlayer Wikipedia page.
RealPlayer's browser showing the RealPlayer Wikipedia page.

The user interface of RealPlayer for Mac OS X was written from scratch as a Cocoa application. It encompasses both Real's Helix playback engine for RealAudio and RealVideo, and Apple's QuickTime for other file and stream types. RealPlayer 10 for Mac OS X is distributed for free. It includes a 10-band equalizer and video adjustment controls for RealMedia playback, and a full-screen, resizable "theater mode" for video playback, as well as many features found in its Windows counterpart.

RealPlayer for Mac OS X supports web browsing via Apple's WebKit, meaning RealPlayer and Safari share cookies. RealPlayer 10.1 is a Universal binary.

The interface of RealPlayer is similar in feel to other Mac OS X applications. It provides an AppleScript dictionary and locally-shared favorites via Bonjour.

The current stable release for Mac OS X is version 11.

[edit] RealPlayer for Linux/Unix

RealPlayer for Linux/Unix is developed separately from the Windows and Mac versions[citation needed]. The client is based on the open-source Helix Player which can be found at the Helix Community Website. It supports RealAudio/Video, MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. The interface depends on the current GTK+ theme.

[edit] RealPlayer for Symbian

The Symbian version of RealPlayer allows mobile phones to play Real Audio, Real Video, MP3, 3GP, AMR and other media formats. It is provided as freeware.

[edit] RealPlayer for Palm

RealPlayer 1.6.1 (US) or RealPlayer 1.6.0 (worldwide) is available for free for PalmOne-made Palm OS 5 devices, such as the Palm Tungsten or Zire series. http://www.real.com/realmobile/palmone.html It is also compatible with RealPlayer Music Store tracks. However, they will neither install nor run on non-PalmOne-made devices like Sony's Clie line of PDAs. They also do not support modern Palm smartphones such as the treo 700p, 755p, or Centro, although the treo 600 and 650 are listed as supported devices. Their Web page regarding PalmOS support (shown above) gives no indication if support for those devices will ever be provided.

[edit] RealJukebox

RealJukebox was a computer program released by RealNetworks that allowed users to organise their digital music. It was first released in May 1999. By late 2001 the functions of the program had been integrated into the Real's core media player program, RealPlayer.

[edit] RealNetworks Scheduler

realsched.exe (RealNetworks Scheduler, also found as Evntsvc.exe or TkBellExe) is a background process, bundled with the installation of RealPlayer. It is intended to provide users with information about critical RealPlayer updates, and as such is only functional when a computer is connected to the Internet. It is non-essential to Windows and to RealPlayer. The process generally takes 136k of system memory. Realsched.exe has been known to exhibit excessive CPU usage[citation needed]. The file can be disabled with Windows software tools and moderate computer skills.

[edit] Criticism

In 2006 PC World Magazine named RealPlayer (of 1999) as #2 in its list of the 25 worst products of all time, writing that RealPlayer "had a disturbing way of making itself a little too much at home on your PC--installing itself as the default media player, taking liberties with your Windows Registry, popping up annoying 'messages' that were really just advertisements, and so on."[37] In 2007, it placed RealPlayer (of 1996-2004) at #5 in its list of the 20 most annoying tech products.[38] In 2008 StopBadware.org called RealPlayer "badware" due to failure to completely disclose software components it installs as well as those it leaves behind after being un-installed.[39]

[edit] Music files loaded into RealPlayer from CDs

Music that is loaded from CDs into RealPlayer is automatically encoded in RealAudio format. RealPlayer makes its users purchase an upgrade of RealPlayer to convert the music files into other formats such as MP3 or WMA. Therefore, users of the free version of RealPlayer must use RealPlayer to play the files if they have not saved them in any other format, and if they no longer possess the original CDs.

[edit] Message Center

RealPlayer 10 is configured to run the Message Center program automatically at system startup and RealPlayer shutdown. The Message Center has generated controversy because it features advertisements for bands, and for material that may be considered unacceptable for children, such as "Hottest Hollywood Sex Scenes," featured on January 27, 2007. Although there is an option to turn the messages off, RealPlayer 10 will automatically turn some message options back on. As a result, the Message Center will almost always pop up with new messages, in an adware like behavior.[40] However, since version 10.5, it is possible to turn the Message Center off completely.[41]

[edit] Privacy

In 1999 security researcher Richard M. Smith dissected some of RealJukebox's network traffic and discovered that it was sending a unique identifier with information about the music titles to which its users were listening.[42][43] RealNetworks acknowledged this, and after an outcry, removed it in version 1.02. Their download page stated RealJukebox included privacy enhancements and gave a link to the privacy policy.[37]

[edit] Interference with Windows startup

RealPlayer changes the startup settings in Windows so that the application starts up every time the system is booted (even though the application is only needed when playing realmedia content). If the user fixes the startup settings Realplayer changes them again the next time the application is run. This adds to concerns over spyware and the fact that the program is using system resources unnecessarily and therefore slowing down (particularly older) computers. The software doesn't offer the user any option to prevent this behaviour.[44][45]


[edit] Interaction with other sound applications

RealPlayer commands Windows' Wave volume control.[46][47] Up until and including version 10.5, if RealPlayer was muted, other Wave sound sources (system sounds, VOIP applications, screen readers, etc) would be muted. However this issue was fixed upon the release of version 11. Two commercial solutions exist for previous versions of the software:

  • The Volume Logic plug-in addresses this bug by disabling RealPlayer's sound control and using its own.
  • The Sanyo 3D Surround plug-in has the same feature, but does not disable RealPlayer's sound control.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Supported Formats by RealOne Player [1]
  2. ^ Release History[2]
  3. ^ RealPlayer - Multiple Editions[3]
  4. ^ Helix Community License[4]
  5. ^ AT&T A2B[5]
  6. ^ Adobe SVG[6]
  7. ^ Audible Audio[7]
  8. ^ DiamondBack Vision Partners With Media 100 To Explore MPEG-4 Internet Streaming Solution For Cleaner(TM) (Object Video)[8]
  9. ^ eBeam Presenter Download[9]
  10. ^ Digital Bitcasting[10]
  11. ^ Envivio Announces MPEG-4 Support for RealPlayer[11]
  12. ^ Even Technologies - PSI Decoder[12]
  13. ^ LearnKey RealCBT [13]
  14. ^ RealPlayer supports Liquid Audio[14]
  15. ^ VP5 Plug-In Download[15]
  16. ^ a b RealPlayer to support VP5[16]
  17. ^ Supported RealPlayer Formats[17]
  18. ^ rNSV for RealPlayer Formats[18]
  19. ^ Crescendo Forte Plug-In Info[19]
  20. ^ Camtasia for RealPlayer info[20]
  21. ^ Xiph OGG for RealPlayer Download[21]
  22. ^ Pulse Player Detection[22]
  23. ^ RichFX Plugin Download[23]
  24. ^ Mode2Real Info and download[24]
  25. ^ Mimio boardCast Info[25]
  26. ^ Mimio Plug-In Download[26]
  27. ^ Be Here To Debut Its iVideo Plug-in At Real Conference 2000[27]
  28. ^ iPix Plug-In Download[28]
  29. ^ ScreenWatch Plug-In Download[29]
  30. ^ RealNetworks Acquires Vivo[30]
  31. ^ RealPlayer to support MJuice[31]
  32. ^ RealPlayer Supported Formats (Blue Matter)[32]
  33. ^ OZ.Com announces fluid3d for RealPlayer[33]
  34. ^ RealNetworks backs IBM digital music system[34]
  35. ^ VP4 for RealPlayer is available[35]
  36. ^ ImagePower's JPEG2000 Technology Compatible with RealPlayer[36]
  37. ^ a b Tynan, Dan (2006-03-26). The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time. PC World. Retrieved on 2007-01-01.
  38. ^ Tynan, Dan (2007-04-16). The 20 Most Annoying Tech Products. PC World. Retrieved on 2007-04-17.
  39. ^ StopBadware.org
  40. ^ http://www.stopbadware.org/reports/reportdisplay?reportname=realplayer01282008
  41. ^ http://www.udel.edu/UMS/itv/realplayer/install.html
  42. ^ Richard M. Smith (1999-10-31). The RealJukebox Monitoring System. computerbytesman.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
  43. ^ Amy Borrus (2000-02-14). The Privacy War of Richard Smith. businessweek.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-05.
  44. ^ Taking care of 'trash apps' that bother you on start-up
  45. ^ Startup Monitor - RussellBeattie.com
  46. ^ Nillagoon (2006-03-30). Real Player sets system Wave volume inappropriately. Real Customer Support Forum. Retrieved on 2007-02-09.
  47. ^ pixeltierra (2006-09-26). wave master volume changing by itself. webmasterworld.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-09.

[edit] External links