I haven't used RealPlayer in a while. I've tried all free versions since 8 or so, but I've eventually uninstalled each. Namely for the following reasons:

- Slows down the machine considerably. I know you don't want to believe this to be true, but it's the #1 reason I dislike RP. Happened to me with each version that I used.

- You say it plays every format available. Well I do recall having to resort to WMP to play Windows Media files (audio and video). Does the most recent free version of RP play Windows Media files? What about DIVX and XVID files?

- I don't remember when it was that RP acquired the new, awful interface, but I've to say it's utterly unbecoming. It looks to me like something made in Flash or Java, and falls in the same category with Netscape 6. Functionality is important, but appearance is a good #2 to me. I've neve tried to skin RP...is it possible? You can even skin WMP, after all.

- I've never seen a good quality RealMedia clip, but I've to admit I have not seen enough of them in my life to really make my mind about that. Streaming over 56k isn't a joy anyway.

- Realsched.exe or whatever it is. When I last installed RP, I found myself having to manually kill that process each time I restarted Windows. Fun, fun, fun. I seriously dislike software that plants something to be automatically started when Windows starts. Sure, WinAmp does this too with the WinAmp Agent, but at least I've found that easy to disable.

- RP takes over the file extentions automatically. I don't like this feature. You did say that RP assumes it is supposed to play media since that is its job. Sure, but in this day and age people tend to have several players on their computers, and there is the freedom of choice. Anything that tries to interfere with that can go.

- I hate ads, I seriously do, but the company's gotta make money somehow. The price tag of the Plus version seems to be around 20 bucks, which isn't bad, but RP would have to offer something unique and special for that money, considering how many free apps are out there that do what it does.

- I hate subscriptions to networks. I'm not buying a car and wanting to make monthly payments. I'll pay for the software ONCE, and that's it. Don't offer me subscriptions I've no need for. I'll look them up myself if I feel inclined to spend money on something.

I'm glad you've taken it upon yourself to hear people out and answer their questions. Even if there is a lot of dislike towards RP that must be frustrating to take when your own faith in the product stands strong. This has encouraged me to download RP again and give the new version a shot. I'll let you know what I think of it, and yeah I'll be sure to reboot a few times.

Good - and important - thread, IMO.

Btw...what is the difference between RealPlayer, RealOne and RealJukebox?

Those aren't the reasons I hate it. I hate it because it just doesn't work, and it doesn't tell me why it's not working. I'll click a link in my browser to a RealPlayer clip. RealPlayer opens, but nothing happens. I can't get it to play no matter what, it just sits there looking at me doing nothing. This is how it goes about half the time I try to use it for anything. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Windows Media Player either since it is another Microsoft Monopoly Approved(tm) product. But at least it works (usually, and with a few security exploits here and there). What I really want to see are standard formats like MPEG2/4 that I can play with ANY media player that supports them. Real formats and WMA need not apply.

guess I'll toss my 2 cents in as well:

I havent used any Real product in several years. and unless, or until Real offers something that other players dont, I wont be in the future either. I had all the typical "trouble" with RP and RO as mentioned previously in this thread. On top of which, once I decided to uninstall the product, I discovered that its nearly impossible to get rid of it completely. And that, more than anything else, is why I dont want the product on my machine. It clings to the system more tenaciously than the face-sucker in Alien. That is not only bad business, but bad programming, IMO.

Im a multimedia type of user. I have tried nearly every media player there is, and the ONLY one I ever wanted off my machine is Real. That right there should tell you something.

heres a list of the players that are on my system:

wmp 6.4
winamp 2.8
coolplayer
bsplayer
divx player
irfan view
avipreview
quicktime
powerDVD
media player classic (ie real alternative)
and possibly one or two more that I forgot

there are strengths and weaknesses in each of these, but none of them have ever caused me to want to uninstall, the way RP did back in the day. now, you admit to Real's past mistakes (good for you - honesty is something that is rare in todays business world) and you say that Real is taking steps to correct/eliminate those mistakes. ok, thats all fine and dandy. but, I have yet to see anything in what you have said that would make me want to try the new version. what can it offer that these other players dont?


oh, and by the way, slightly off topic but, what is the deal with some of these new media players having a web browser? why does ANY media player need a browser? IMO, they do NOT. I HAVE a browser (two actually). so when I want to view a website, it use IE or Mozilla. am I the only person who sees this as unneccessary and unwanted functionality? the ONLY time a player should even try to access the internet is to attempt a codec download in the event it encounters something it cant decode.

Wow, I forgot this entirely. I had been wondering about the same thing. WinAmp has one too nowadays I think, and I think WMP has something similar... I find it annoying and distracting.

I still don't know a good media player, I use Media Player Classic, it's good, but not perfect. I havent read all the posts, but I don't understand what makes RealPlayer good, if it isn't bad.
I think you have to consider user-friendlyness (i don't mean simplicity, really, but customizability). But what do I know. Maybe someone could find a comparison between players. I don't know where they do good reviews on software though.

I second what others have said, PLUS:

The RealOne interface just annoys the crap out of me. Windows provides a perfectly decent user interface that millions of people are comfortable using. So, I know... Let's screw with 'em!!

This is the same reason I'm annoyed with Trillian and any of the other High Concept Design apps. Don't fuck with what my close button looks like, ok?

Why do I hate it or not use it anymore?

Two words: Download Manager.

Granted it may not come with it anymore but that left a sour taste in my mouth.

Take out the ads and make it more like Winamp and I'll consider it again.

I read the post and I still don't like it. I had two Real media clips I wanted to watch so I installed it. Custom install, making it the default player for Real media and nothing else. I'm not a computer guru or programmer, so I don't know all the details of how software interacts with each other, but I am an above average user. When the other media players didn't play movies after that I can't help but be annoyed.
Now I can understand Real being at a competitive disadvantage to Windows Media Player, Quicktime Player, and Winamp, since they all have companies with other products paying for their development, and Real has to rely on subscriptions and ads for revenue. I can understand a Real employee defending their product. I have spent plenty of time in the motors forum defending General Motors, since I used to work in their dealerships. However people are going to have their feelings about a product, and I just don't and wont like Real Player, or Real One, or anything else that Real comes out with.

I had uninstalled RP a while ago, recently I re-installed it because a site needed it. I had RP alternative, but it had a conflict with some other software, so my only option was RP10. I wasn't surprised with anything...it takes too long to load because of all the other crap it's trying to load, ads and the like. The bottom line is, if a there is a link to any RealMedia, I just don't click it. It's too painful a process to watch something for 2 minutes only to have it "buffer" for a minute and a half. Whether it's a newscast or something else (you know what that means), it's just too much of a pain in the ass to wait for the video stream to catch up.

Having said that, the quality of the stream and quality of the audio has gotten much better.

I tried to watch A's games with real since real alternative wouldn't work with mlb's webcast. East coast games were so bad that I couldn't even watch.

...


buffer this....









still buffering...
etc.

Is it MLB, real player... or both?
Guess its better than any streaming media that I could design. Don't know why it could possibly take so freakin' long to load though... even with all the bloat.
Its like theres a common sense gene missing in all of the designers.

I just saw this posted at another forum i go to:

I just finished installing Winamp5 for the first time on this machine, and just after I finih, I get a screen opening, asking if I wanted to restore the associations for MP1 files to back Realplayer.
And I'm like, WTF???
You mean Realplayer has been watching the file associations the whole time, and that often?
I can understand if programs want to check during startup (until I tell them not to), but to find that Realplayer has been running in the background for months really irks me. (yes, I know, I should have checked taskmanager for a process. Would I have found one, or was it running as a service?)
I uninstalled it.


one more vote for Realplayer==Bad.

I dislike RealPlayer as much as the next guy, but let's not get overzealous here. Winamp and other media players also watch file associations and every one of them gives you the ability to turn that "feature" on or off when you install. I've never had such a problem with media players and all it took is paying attention when I install so that Winamp is the only player of mine that watches associations.

I only skimmed this thread so forgive me (or bite me) if this has been said, but the OS X version of RealPlayer is pretty good. No installer, 1 icon to drop in the Trash to uninstall, only defaults to play Real media, and it works.

Okay, irrelevant for most of you. Sorry, carry on.

"RealOne" by Black Sabbath

Finished with RealOne 'cause it couldn't help me with my mind
People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time
All day long I watch you buffering but nothing seems to satisfy
Think I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify

Can you help me bloat my system?
Whoah yeah

I need RealOne to show me the things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness, I must be blind

Start buffering and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel and free RAM to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life I wish I could but it's too late

thats waht i was thinking! u made some well made precise points, but eh..i still hate real!

Sorry guys (and gals?) that I haven't responded yet to some of your posts. I've got some personal business that is keeping me away from my computer. I care a lot about this topic, though, (go figure) so you can be sure that you will all get your reponses as soon as possible (next week probably).

Until then a few notes:

1) This thread isn't to make you like RealPlayer- it is to make sure that if you dislike it, at least it isn't based on false information.

2) RealPlayer (and others) has a built in browser so that it can offer an integrated browse and consume experience. If you don't like it, you can close the media browser and it won't load (and by "won't load" I mean the DLLs containing the webbrowser code are not loaded and are therefore not taking up any system resources- unless you care about the hard drive space- which at $1/GB I think you'll live).

3) The user interface - some people like it, some people hate it. We do extensive user tests during every release cycle and their feedback is reflected in the final product. If you are the type of person that likes RealAlternative, then no, you probably won't like RealPlayer (and visa-versa). BTW, it is skinable- there is a link to the download site in the "View" menu. I can't say that the skins are all that fabulous, but it hasn't been a big request.

4) In case you didn't notice, RealNetworks is a public company that has to answer to their shareholders. The bottom line matters, sometimes more than you all would like*. It is a fine line to walk. When Microsoft started giving their servers away for free, the company couldn't rely on server sales to subsidize the player anymore.

5) Subscriptions are the way of the future. Some of you may go kicking and screaming, but you'll go. You already subscribe to Cable/Satellite TV, Satellite Radio, Internet Service, Web Hosting, ... you'll eventually subscribe to RealPlayer (or something else like it). It makes more sense for users, and for media companies. Users because they pay one (low) monthly fee and get access to vast libraries of content, and media companies because it is a new, high margin distribution channel (that is resistant to piracy). I have a Rhapsody subscription that I use at home and at work to listen to a catalog of over 500,000 tracks- I pay $10 a month. Try that with iTunes- you'll have spent more money than me in the first two hours. (if you are getting your music from kazaa, then I'm really not talking to you. I should probably start a new thread for that conversation :) ).

OK, I've gone on far longer than I intended. I need to go to bed. Before I do, though, I have one request- for those of you insisting that RealPlayer slows down your system- try to get a screen shot of the process in Windows Task Manager that is "using up your system resources" while RealPlayer isn't running**. Then, after you have tried and failed, do me a favor and post a message here that you ran your mouth without checking the facts and that you are sorry. I'll forgive you.***


*I work for Real, but I'm not speaking for them. Everything written here is based on my own opinions using publicly available information.

**I'm assuming you have RP10 installed and that you've modified your message center preferences so that realsched.exe is not running.

***karma is so going to find a way to punish me for writting when I'm tired and annoyed. I've racked my brain trying to think of any other processes that could possiblly run in the background and I can't think of anything..... but karama always finds a way...

Serious question - I know nothing about Rhapsody but I do use the iTunes Music Store.

Can you?

1) Continue to listen to your downloaded tunes if you don't continue your subscription?

2) Put the tunes on a portable device without additional charge?

3) Burn the tunes to a music CD without additional charge?

If you can't, I'm not interested. Music is fundamentally different than TV because for me it must be portable. I listen to my music library in my car, at work, while I'm working in the yard, etc, or sitting in my living room. I almost never listen to music while I'm in front of my computer.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bodypainter
[B]

Quote:

1) Continue to listen to your downloaded tunes if you don't continue your subscription?

Nope.

Quote:

2) Put the tunes on a portable device without additional charge?

Nope.

Quote:

3) Burn the tunes to a music CD without additional charge?

Nope.
But right this minute I'm listening to an "Emerson Lake & Palmer" album that Rhapsody said was influenced by Pink Floyd. The album is OK, but I would never pay the $.99 for each track that you would have to pay just to listen to an album once.

Quote:

I almost never listen to music while I'm in front of my computer.

I'm not listening to my home computer. My laptop plugs into my home stereo. And if I decide and album is worth burning to a CD (so I can listen to it in my car) only then do I purchase the tracks for $.79 each.

And oh, in case you don't want to plug your laptop into your stereo, there are several UPnP enabled devices that support Rhapsody.

Take the shittiest Quicktime stream and compare it to the best Realplayer stream.

If you still think that your company makes a good product then you've got issues to sort out.

p.s. buffering shouldn't take longer than the clip you're trying to watch!

I'm not a fan of real. actually, I rather hate it. But I appreciate this thread, and what you are trying to do with it.

I also commend you for starting this thread. While I'm still very wary of Real, I may give RP 10 a try.

Okay, read this thread and thought I'd give Real one more chance since there often is alot of streaming content I would like to see in RA format that I miss out on. Pleasantly surprised, it's faster, if you do a custom install it doesn't change assosciations, and you seem to be able to easily disable some of the more annoying autoupdating features. Matter of fact I was so happy I bought a UEFA season pass for 40euros so I can watch all the football I miss here on TV. It's a great service. Hey, not often am I impressed, but Real has really come a long way.

My issues with it:

1: After "fully" uninstalling it, it took me two hours to weed out components that had been left around.

2: What the hell is "realsched"? Why do I have to pull up task manager to close it? Why does it run itself on startup no matter how many times I disable it in both msconfig and Real Player itself?

Here's the thing: Nowadays, simplicity is elegance. The days of content-less, flashy websites are gone. Look at the #1 visited site on the entire world wide web: Google.
If you root through all the garbage that Real has going for it, maybe, just maybe, it could be a feasible media player. But it's not. It's bogged down with so much garbage that no one could ever conceivably use (you're not alone in that boat, you see it all the time. Worse only than Real is MusicMatch Jukebox).

Look at Winamp 5. Copy their source code, rebadge it, and call it your own. Then you'll have a successful media player. Play, pause, stop.

Simpler still, and more popular still (<- key phrase) is QuickTime. Play and pause. That's all people want.

Bottom line: People don't want Realplayer to make us breakfast. We have kitchens for that. I don't want Realplayer to schedule my meetings until 2007. I have a day planner.
Just make a program that will play movies, nothing more, and nothing less. Then, maybe one or two people will use RealMedia. That is, if they can get past your reputation.

I have refused to install it for years now, no matter how badly I want to see a movie. It's all been downhill since RealPlayer 7.

http://members.rogers.com/snakeyes415/noreal.jpg

Edit:
Oh yeah. I forgot all about that. There is nothing on the face of the earth that enrages me more than a program that takes over file extensions, ESPECIALLY without asking. Worse still is a program that takes it back once you reassociate it with your favourite program!
I have a simple, 1.5 megabyte program called Winamp 2 to play mp3's, which is only the size of about 10% of my screen. It sits happily in my system tray, taking next to no resources and interfering with nothing. I don't want your program to play my MPG's, mp3's, avi's, or do my taxes. The only thing I would **EVER** install RealPlayer for is a RealMedia file that I would kill a family member to see. Even then, I'd uninstall it right after.

Mr Fenton-J-Cool, I suggest you to look into "Real Alternative".

You can play them real files with windows media player classic now. :)

Going back to RealPlayer would be like installing an 8-track player in my dashboard. Why bother, when there are so many kick-ass media players out there? What has Real ever done for me? Nothing but make me angry. I don't care how much they may have improved, because I've spent a lot of time and effort finding the media players that work for me.....and Real has never been one of them.

2 hours? What did you have to do that took 2 hours? The uninstaller is written to be cautious about what it deletes (better to delete not enough than too much).


realsched.exe is the background process that watches for device arrival messages, does upgrade checks, watches for stolen media types,... All of these things can be configured in the preferences. If all categories are disabled, realsched.exe will automatically shutdown and not restart unless needed*.


*there was a bug in the original RP10 beta (early January) that prevented realsched from shutting off when it wasn't needed. The bug has been fixed and would only affect you if downloaded the player in the first week or two that RP10 beta was available.

You have got to be kidding! WinAMP5? I can only assume you are talking about the lite version because I just installed the normal one and I'm sitting here watching it use 30MB of memory and between 25% and 60% of my CPU to playback an MP3. The same clip in RealPlayer is using less than 10MB of RAM and less 10% of the CPU.

And oh, one more thing- Installing WinAMP5 put an AOL icon on my IE shorcut bar, in my IE favorites, on my Desktop, on my Start Menu, and it steals MP3 associations (silently) everytime I start it! Get your facts straight. You've haters out there have your heads so far up your asses that your bullshit doesn't seem to bother you.

Real is garbage.

If I go to a site that offers a video in Real format, and some other format (.wma, quicktime, etc) I never choose Real.

If it's only available in Real, then it probably isn't worth my time anyway. I don't even have Real Player installed at all. It's been too crappy for too long.

As usual, I have to agree with Lasereth. My comp craps the bed when this thing is running. The best thing that I got out of this thread is the fact that there is something called RealAlternative. Great news. Ever time I have installed real over the years, I have to spend the next 10 minutes trying to figure out what this version does that I don't like. (Stealing file extensions, task bar thingy, scheduler that eats file extensions etc.) I thought there was no way around playing RAM files.

I am glad though that you are at least trying to defend it. Good luck with that. I am in the MEGA-bloatware camp with most everyone else (as well as the spyware camp and the WTF do I have to use a download manager to get this thing . . . )

So CNN, ABCNews, NBA, NFL, and many others aren't worth your time? You must be pretty expensive.

The only reason I have realone is to play files that can only be played on real players. With anything else, I use Windows Media Player

From : http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...aseball10.html

I thought this was interesting to anyone reading this thread. Seems like tough ground to defend. I am a subscriber to the MLB feed for $14.95 for the whole season of audio (Go Yanks!) and have to use the realplayer to do it. The real question that I have is WHY? Why would MLB use WMP to do it's spring games? Is Real that much of a pain to use that they decided that they would use WMP for the few games a year that are not a part of the "regular" season? I don't see it being worth it for MLB to do this even if Real is a pain in the ass.

I've been using WinAmp5 for a couple of months now. It didn't add any AOL crap to any part of my computer, gave me the choice during installation of what associations I would like to make and has never tried to steal any associations I didn't specify.

I'm currently running it as I type. Playing an .mp3 gives me 2%-11% CPU usage and uses about 7.5 Mb of memory.

Maybe you should take your own advice before becoming a hater yourself.

As many of the others have stated.....Real Player still sucks....
As a long time devotee of Winamp... It has become knit with habit...plugins and all.....through many operating systems and computers I have never liked ANY version of Real Player.......Go Die!

Now I can't say that I've read all of this thread, but I did read your initial post before voting. I can't think of anything you can say to make me even - consider - installing realplayer again. If I see that a media file is only available in real format, I move on. I will not ever install that piece of $hit again, sorry.

Honestly, if you want people to use real's format, offer a self installing codec that will enable other media playes to play the files.

i read the post. you're lying. i still hate real.

though real is useful for certain types of video that can't be played by other free media players (.mov being my biggest peeve) i still don't like real at all. it isn't as customizable as other media players, and anything ad-ware supported is fairly useless anyway. who wants to see a "get rid of spyware" ad for spyware you agreed to install in the midst of a movie or other visual media? real is bad, all about kaffeine for linux here.

Yah, and you get the same choices with the RealPlayer, yet nobody seems to care. Have you read this entire thread? Has anyone? I'm disgusted with the level of intelligence from some people on here (not you, your post was only mildly irritating :) ).

nofnway, what the fuck is wrong with you?

35% of the people who responded to the poll have answered that they think I'm lying, yet not one single person has refuted any of the facts I've layed out (except sipsake, whose CPU is obviously faster than mine, and who probably didn't have the WinAMP media library open when he checked the memory numbers??. I'm just not seeing the same data as you).

I thought that this thread would be a good way for me to clear up many of the misconceptions about the RealPlayer that I've seen floating around TFP, but it seems that most of you are just content to be ignorant.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
-- Albert Einstein

ok ive got winamp5 with mmd3 skin, pretty looking and also a few plugins in the background to clean up the sound, add some cool effects to make it sound cooler basically.

system resources used, 12megs ram, 0% cpu usage, yes 0%

real player does give you the option to not associate files, but unlike winamp, in my experience it didnt actually care what you said, it took the files anyway.

and ive not tried since the early days of real one because

1) it hardly ever worked
2) it installed spyware, or atleast what adaware called spyware.

and just out of curiosity i open the winamp media libray, and lo and behold the mem usage dropped to 8 megs.

I'm not sure what winamp5.0 you are using, but to even dare say its that bad is just rediculous.

Winamp 5.0 open - idle - 1068K - PROOF
Winamp 5.0 w/media lib open - idle - 1452K - PROOF
Winamp5.o PLAYING - 2428K - PROOF

Now lets see Real do anything near this, and this isnt even going near how Real steals file extensions w/out permission.

If for some reason you want stats, here you go:
AMD 2500+ Barton @ 2.01Ghz
2x512MB Corsaid XMS LL Pc3200
Abit NF7-S (So yes I am using onboard 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound when that was playing.)
XP Pro

Thats about all that should matter in this case...