I would have to agree with BillyBoy’s first point. Real Media is seen by lots of folks (including me) as spyware and that ain’t good. I just had to install the Real One version to view someone’s file and the little parasite was all over my system adding things to my startup, system tray, services, etc. All the stuff I told it NOT to do. I don’t want all this junk running on my system and I don’t want to answer all their registration questions because they want to know far more than they should. As a victim of identity theft I am real sensitive to what someone needs to know about me just to use their player. I hate Real Media and avoid it like the plague.

~jr

Agreed, Real is sneaky in its install. BUT if you do a custom install and watch what you're installing you can get a clean install. Just to double check no spyware made it use one of the free utilities that check for it like Spybot.

I currently use VV3 and have Real One Player Installed - Yet I don't have the option to encode for the latest format - is this only available in VV4?

The host provider I use has a Real Media server as a part of my hosting package and want to utilize this feature for my site.

TIA,

Cliff

I've used it a long time and remember it was part of version 3 of Vegas also.

Look for rm as the file type.

Billy,

I've also done a custom install, several different times (so I could create and test the format for a project). However, RealOne keeps popping up asking if it can be the default player and...after awhile, it doesn't ask again, it just becomes the default player. I wouldn't mind except it is a terrible mpeg2 player and has too much junk on the screen to be a good mp3 player.

RealOne used to be great. I lost all respect for them when their program kept taking over my system and have shut them off ever since. The marketing folks who allowed this to happen are incompetent and are not paying attention to their prospects (although the CEO may be overriding them (I've seen this happen)). I used to root for them, but now their product deserves to die.

Sorenson Squeeze 3.5 allows you to render an .avi file from Vegas to any number of Real Media file sizes. Lot's of webhosts like RM because it plays on both MACs and PCs.
I find the quality to be very good. But I'll never install more than the basic player that came with my PC.

The only way I would ever choose to have any RealMedia product on a computer that I own is if I am being paid to produce something that needs it.

And even then - I would soooooooo try and talk the client out of using RM.

Sure, years ago RM became linked to low quality, Dial Up video's. I found a free download of a Ed Wood movie on some obscure multimedia website. It was one of the one's with Boris in it (before he died). Anyway - it was an RM file....and it sucked!!

But that isn't RM's fault. Heck, I could compress a 28.8 kps WMV file and it will suck as bad.

But WMP doesn't hijack my PC. WMP doesn't concern me that it is (or was) spyware.

Since there are about a gazillion other media players and media formats out there - once you get a "bad name"...most folks just move on to something else.

Personally, if any on-line content is only offered in a RM format - then I don't need it.

FWIW... Haven't had any prob. with real one player at all. Options allow turning off most everything undesireable, like the web page view, or checking to see if it's the default player. Taking over file assoc. is something just about every player I've installed has done, but easy enough to fix in wmplayer. Generally when the real one player complains about file assoc., there's a box on the dialog that say something like don't check again or don't show this in the future or something.

Real media producer is available as a command line app for free at https://www.helixcommunity.org/ & there are a few front end guis that work with it. The free gui version of helix works fairly well, though you have to go thru the minor hassle of editing audience files to change bitrates etc. And there is a realmedia splitter here (along with the matroska player if you'd like) http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/ . Not what I'd consider a hack in any sense, check out discussions on it at doom9.org, including contributions by a current lead real media codec developer. The splitter allows some extra editing options, though real video files like most others in the genre don't edit very well, including wmv. Real has a free command line editor installed with the free gui Helix producer, that can be handy & is more accurate and dependable then the wmv command line stuff. Winmedia's newer gui editor does have it beat though.

[in theory wmv 9 should be highly editable, but there's nothing out there I'm aware of to take advantage of stuff like editing without re-encoding. Moviemaker 2 offers it of a fashion, but you have to use one of their canned templates. ]

Realmedia 9 video encoding has some different characteristics then wmv, blurring the background a bit to avoid crawling artifacts - something SOFO has emulated with their wmv encoding plugin (compare it to the stand alone). The free player if set right has a smaller footprint on your screen then anything possible in wmplayer - one of the biggest complaints I have seen about wmplayer 9. With a downloadable plugin from real, the real one player can also play wmv files.

Winmedia 9 on the other hand can do 5.1 (or greater) audio, which is something possible but not generally easy in the real one player. It's also much easier to create subtitles or captions for wmv. For a quality comparison between several codecs check: http://www.doom9.org/codecs-103-1.htm

Still a moot point though, if your intended audience won't use real. Then again a LOT won't use wmv, and mov is in kind of last place when it comes to installed base.

If anyone's worried about spyware, check out the free adaware prog... A lot of firewalls will block that stuff too - you *are* using a firewall aren't you?

About Real Media Player and file associations...

Way back (about a couple years ago) it wouldn't ask, and just force itself. Still easy enough to change it back anyways.

About it being the default player.

Again, simply say no to ALL the file associations when you install (you need to uncheck them) and it won't nag. I assume they do this because of course they like every other company want you to use THEIR software, it is setup to play file types it can, but like I said, simple enough to defeat.

I can't recall if I did or not but I think I ran spybot right after. This or Adaware or other
similar tools easily finds and removes so-called spying software even if its just a Registry line.

So what I'm trying to say is Real is a nice little player, the free version is nice to have on your system that can be made to behave and not phone home. I think mostly its one of the guilty by association things. Once it was a bad boy, now it really isn't anymore.

"Once it was a bad boy, now it really isn't anymore. "

Prob'ly could be said for a lot (most?) of us... ;?P

I specifically was wondering since all I see available to me is version 8 for a Real Video option in VV3. Am I better off using their seperate encoder to encode my files to their latest version?

TIA,

Cliff