The RealPlayer doesn't suck thread
 

I've seen a lot of RealPlayer bashing going on around here and it is starting to bug me. I happen to work at Real and kills me to read all of the comments about RealPlayer "being a virus" and that it "takes over your system" and I'd like to set the record straight.

So is this an advertisement? Absolutely not. I don't work for the marketing dept. and I don't want you to buy anything. I just want to offer a different side (the truth) to all of the stories I've been reading around here.

Is RealPlayer spyware? No. It doesn't report any usage details that can be tied back to any individual. So does that mean it reports my details anonymously? Sort of- but wait, don't blow your lid- when you rip a CD it uses an online database to fetch Artist/Album/Track info for you so that you don't have to type it in by hand. Is data about your music being transmitted? Yes. Is the software spying? No- every other jukebox app does the same thing. So then where did the spyware rumor start? About 5 years ago RealJukebox had a feature that sent a users playback info and an ID unique to them up to our servers so that we could offer a "music suggestions" service. By knowing that you listen to Metallica, we might try to offer you a CD from Soundgarden? Was the info ever used? No. We never implemented the feature. Did it cross the line? Yes. Was it sinister? No.

Does RealPlayer "take over your system"? yes and no. Yes- it does register as the handler for most media types when you perform the default install, but no it isn't trying to get away with anything. It is a media player- you're installing it- it assumes you want it to play your media. A few years ago it had a feature that would automatically reclaim media types taken by other apps- why? Because other apps did the same thing. Was there a way to turn this behavior off? Yes. Should this behavior have been op-in rather than opt-out? Yes, but read the comment about adware before you pass judgement.

Is the RealPlayer "bloatware"? No. I hear this all the time and it drives me up the wall. Run it along side any other media player with similar features (Windows Media Player, Music Match, new versions of WinAMP,...) and the stats are the same (or RP is better).

Is the RealPlayer addware? Yes. I can't argue with you about that (instead I argue with the marketting folks :) ). Consider this though: when Microsoft is bundling their player AND server with their OS for FREE what is the company supposed to do? The short term answer was to leverage our large userbase to sell adds in oder to survive long enough to put together the long term plan- to get the player on devices not controlled by Microsoft (i.e. cell phones), and to sell subscription content and music downloads. The plan is working and if you visit www.real.com you'll notice that there are no adds. :)

What about XYZ? Ask away. I'm not privy to all the info all the time, and I'm certainly not speaking on the company's behalf, but I do know a lot of the history and I'll answer as best I can.

Thanks for letting me rant,
--goof

I read the post. You're lying. I still hate Real.

I don't like real, never have.
If anybody wants a good alternative try out MPC or RA.

I didnt really like the choices for votes since the one I'd like to choose is mid-way between two of them.

I voted: I read the post. You're lying. I still hate Real.

I dont want to say you are lying, but I want to say from my own first hand experience with many versions of Real Media software, waaay back they were once good. Slowly I've just seen them become more and more useless. RealOne was the final step for me to even blink twice towards RealMedia, that software cause almost as much problems with other media players as Norton does with other virusscanners and firewalls.

Good post, really was. Had a nice "PR Lecture" feel to it, but went against most everything I've experienced first hand.

That excludes the spyware part, I actually never heard about it, or even thought it. That was more of news, and a valid argument to me.

I read the post. You're lying. I still hate RealPlayer. :mad:

I now use Real Alternative, and I will Never use RealPlayer again. :D

The "I'm lying" choice in the poll was intended to a) be funny, and b) weed out the people who are going to be haters no matter what I say.

The only thing I could lie about (and get away with) is the spyware explanation- everything else can be easily refuted by somebody installing the player and testing it.

As for the the "PR Lecture" comment- I'm sorry if it came out that way; for me, this isn't about generating good PR, this about setting the record straight. I don't mind if people hate the software I've built, I just don't want them to hate it for the wrong reasons. ;)

That being said, if you hate the RealPlayer for reasons I didn't list, please post them. I'll try to explain anything I can, and I'll try to fix everything else.

*edit* my last post got submitted twice.

Out of curiosity what aspect of the program were you associated with?

Development of the Windows client.

Well, to be honest, I can't explain it specifically. I just don't like the "feel" of RealPlayer. I don't think it's as evil as everyone else does, but Winamp doesn't have ads, and it's always "felt" better to me.

Thanks for the explanations though - doesn't change my mind in not liking RealPlayer, but it's interesting insight. :)

I read the post, but I'm still not convinced........of what?

That Real Player sucks, or that it's not spyware?

I known Real Player isn't spyware, you guys couldn't get away with that for long. But with personally experiences, Real Player just doesn't do it for me. The buffering takes too long compared to other media players (why? hell if I know) and my computer just seems to lag itself out whenever I run it. RealOne player is definitely a step up from the usual though.

I am thankful that I saved the old versions of Real Jukebox and Real Player.....you could run them as two seperate things...and it was so simple to record a disc onto your PC,,

This new Realplayer takes over everything....and I suppose if I had designed the damn thing I could find everything I need...or maybe not...there seems to be a lot that I can not find....and NO I am not signing onto their network or registering the damn thing---so.....

I am going to uninstall Realplayer and put my old versions back on.......I like life to be simple, and unintusive....:mad:

I work in IT and Real Player has given me many administrative nightmares over time. I initially voted before even reading the thread so I guess my vote on the poll would now change, but I still abhor RealPlayer. I absolutely refuse to install it on anything *EXCEPT* one of my Macs since there seems to be no pain in removing it from the machine. I thought things had changed when Real One came out - and I stopped cringing when I saw people launching it - till I tried it on one of my machines for a while and tried removing it. Oh, how I regressed into my "hater" mentality but it truly was a bad experience. I don't describe RealPlayer as any sort of Spyware - I knew those types of features were removed long ago and many other applications did this (even creative's drivers) - however, I do often find myself describing it as a virus. Your post was an interesting read and reminds me that no matter what you think about a company there are really just people behind it. All people are different - some better than others - and you are not near as abrasive as the company you work for :) BTW - I felt that the die die die option on the poll was humorous as well - therefor I chose it before reading the thread :)

Yeah, its an interesting insight, but I *still* hate RealPlayer, and wont be installing it on any of my machines, ever. Im not trying to be an ass about it, but after one has had as many consistently bad experiences with a program, one doesnt tend to like it.

goof7ball, that's a brave stance ya got going on. I'm glad you defended a project you're working on, and I'll let you know that most users don't hate Real Player because they think it's spyware or adware -- they hate it because it slows their computers down. I'll be honest with you, the Real Player isn't too bad of a media player -- it works when it's supposed to. There's just no getting around the fact that once I have it installed, if Real Player is running in the system tray or if Real One is installed at all, my PC becomes a slugfest with everyday uses becoming much slower.

Don't ask me why it does it, because I really don't know -- but it does. Every computer I've installed it on slows down when Real Player is running. If Real One is installed, they go haywire with virtual memory errors and this and that.

Simply enough, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, DivX (blatantly adware), and even Quicktime don't slow down my PC, and Real Player does. If this problem was fixed, the reputation would be fixed. Thanks for your time explaining the other view, however. Just lettin ya know that most people don't consider it spy/adware, it's just the fact that the Real programs make computers slow.

-Lasereth

Bottom line is I've never experienced


buffering........

any good quality

buffering........

audio or video streams

buffering........

from anyone using real.


The sound sucks and the video is trashy.

I prefer Quicktime over anything.

I can assure you that is not the case. I've got RealPlayer running right now and a quick look at taskmanager shows that it is utilizing 0% CPU (I'm currently running my PIII-500 mhz Laptop running WinXP).

If when running RealPlayer you notice your system getting slow- it isn't the player- it is that you have a slow computer. ;)

A word to the wise- if you do choose to install RP10 to see if I am full of shit, take note of its performance characteristics after running it a few times- for one, the player does a lot of initialization tasks the first time it runs, and two, on WinXP the OS preloads parts of the application after you run it a few times. If you compare a freshly installed RealPlayer to the media player you use all the time you won't be getting an apples to apples test.


In my next installment I'll talk about the realsched.exe background process and I'll talk about what (from an annoyance standpoint) makes RP10 different than all previous products.

And finally, a comment about RealAlternative: the program is using the Helix Platform (our open source/cross platform media engine) just like the RealPlayer so for those of you who plan to "never use Real again" you are using it now. Also, I decided to try it before I bashed it- installing the program broke RP10 in such a way that even an RP10 re-install didn't work. I had to uninstall RealAlternative and THEN reinstall RP10 to get it working again. Spare me the jokes about that being a feature, and I'll spare you the jokes about your mother. :)

I've used RealPlayer since the days of yore, and I still think its a stinking pile of code.

Ok, maybe the code is good, but the app itself is trash. The only thing I'd ever use RealPlayer for would be to play RealAudio or -video. And I don't ever need to listen/watch those formats, so I never install Real.

Winamp does an excellent job playing all of my audio needs, and Windows Media Player play all of my video with the help of a few codecs. And both do it simply, quickly, and without adds.

Maybe the porn sites you are watching don't encode the content well? :)

RealPlayer is a universal media player- it plays every type of media. Are you sure it was playing back a Real Networks codec? I just played a couple of videos from the RealGuide and I got 0 buffering (I'm at home on my cable modem, not a fat corporate pipe) glitchless audio and glitchless video. Before blaming the player you should consider the source of the content. If the authors use a crappy codec/insufficient bit rate, or if their server can't handle the load then your experiece will be poor no matter which player you use.

While I agree with you on the "porn sites" thing (if the quality of the video is bad, that's pretty much the encoder's fault)....you are definitely fighting a losing battle with the bloatware thing. It's hard to convince us (and by "us" I mean basically the entire freakin' USA) that something isn't a bloatware when it simply IS on our computers. And it's not that our computers are slow. Mine is fast. And it just takes longer than other media players to play stuff and open. You can't argue something that is already set in stone.


And Real Player being slow as long as I've used it is definitely concrete.

How dare you insinuate that I look at..... aw hell, no denying it, a lot of the porn content is bad.

But, nothing I've ever watched through Real has been any good.



btw, I like how you left the little buffering joke out of my quote. Face it. Everybody who's ever used Real gets that joke.

Geez...I'm a systems admin and if I had a dollar for everytime a software vendor/rep told me

"It's not our software, you need to upgrade your hardware"

I could freakin' retire.

I laughed uncontrollably when the Car Talk website ditched RealPlayer due to the number of complaints about the software.

Car Talk boots Real Media

Please stop blaming the consumer for Real's piss poor reputation. Real has no one to blame but themselves.

Yeah, that comment really pissed me off. My computer is too slow? Ok, me and my friends with our Athlon XP 1900+, 2500+, 3200+, and P4 2.4 GHz will go buy new processors because Real Player slows them down. No, you can't blame it on slow computers -- the program slows down computers.

Of course it is slower the first time you install it...well, how come other media players AREN'T? Other media players NEVER slow down my PC, even when in the system tray *shudder*. If a damned Athlon XP 1900+ won't run Real Player smoothly, then I guess it's time to upgrade to the Athlon 64 FX-51!

-Lasereth

Dude, I get that joke. I make that joke, the difference is that I know it is a joke. Like encoding quality, buffering is largely a matter of network qaulity. Also, if you notice buffering when you are connecting to a stream that you think should play without problems, go to the network settings preferences and switch from UDP to TCP (assuming you are using broadband). Some routers choke on UDP.

Only against the closed minded, my friend. Compare it to products with similar feature sets (i.e. Windows Media Player, Music Match, iTunes) and you'll see that you are wrong. I'll accept a lot of criticism about RealPlayer, but not that it is bloatware.

user claimed that installing RealPlayer caused their hardware to fail I'd retire too.

Quote:

Please stop blaming the consumer for Real's piss poor reputation.

I'm not blaming the consumer. No doubt, Real has done a lot of things that piss people off, but a lot of things are changing around here and this thread is my attempt to point them out to people who otherwise wouldn't notice.

Visit real.com and you'll see that the free player is available in two clicks- no trickery whatsoever. Is there marketting? Yes. Is it intrusive? Not in my book.

A word of warning: if you do try to download the player and you are asked to install an activeX plugin, just say no and the installer will start downloading. The plugin is a download manager that allows you to pause/resume the download- (installing it will only affect downloads that specifically request it), but you don't need it so don't bother.

I'm not talking about your computers. I'm talking about somebody with a PII running WinXP with 128MB of memory. If you are running an Athlon XP, RealPlayer is not slowing down your computer. I'm running it on my 500mHz laptop and it isn't slowing down my computer.

Quote:

Of course it is slower the first time you install it...well, how come other media players AREN'T?

Like Windows Media Player? Maybe because Microsoft built it into their OS?? The precaching I referred to is an issue with ANY program you install on WindowsXP. Install a new app, run it a few times, reboot and run it again. It will start faster.

HOLY SHIT! GoofBall, dude, majority wins here! Real Player has to be the worst media player out there for quality. Buffering like a mother fucker, piss poor quality, and if you say its my system then please direct me to a decent stream of anything other than a still picture that doesnt remind me of the days of dial up. I am not a big fan of Windows Media Player but the quality is god like compared to Real Player. I honestly do understand your side to some point, you work for them, you believe in the product but face it, when you have a whole board of computer savvy people here saying Real Player is shit, some light has to go off in your head and make you think outside the cubicle!

<---------------------------------------------

See, heres the thing. You keep saying that Real made mistakes in the past, and are now correcting them.

The problem is that so many people have had so many problems with those mistakes in the past, that no one wants to go back to Real. There are *plenty* of alternative media players that have never had these issues. People no longer trust Real, and are moving to other players.

I ahve a question. Why cant I shut the damn thing off. I tried to download some files for a friends Linux machine. Instead of letting me save it to a drive, Real Player kept trying to show it as a video stream. I was in my programming class and tried it again. It became a big laugh at how that real player could not be turned off and was trying to run Linux programs as streaming video. Thanks to incidents like that our lab no longer has real player and the college is looking at removing it from everything.

Ok, fine. You think Real's better? Prove it. Put the same video on the same two machines, have to other same machines connect, one with Real, one with something else (Apple, MS MP), and stream the video.

If the server's the same, the networks the same, the end machines are the same, and the clips the same, then Real should, according to you, be faster, right?

I just want to say, goof7ball, I looked at real.com and you're right - the free player is available in 2 relatively obvious clicks. That's a BIG improvement from the crap they used to pull hiding the link in starnge places and such.

Nonetheless, like others have pointed out, sure, maybe Real is getting better - maybe they're acting more responsibly - but with so many other media players out there that already work just fine, what does RealPlayer have to entice people to start using it again?

I've found this to be an very entertaining thread.

It's amusing to see the violent reactions to the Real Player. I also 7applaud goof7ball for posting his defence of the product.

Me? Well, as usual, if I use an application for any decent amount of time, I pay for it. So I have a registered version of Real One. It's not great, but it works fine for playing Real media streams.

I don't like the RealSched (or whatever it's called) process that works in the background. In fact, I'd like more info on exactly what it is and why it's needed.

Mr Mephisto


PS - Is this new version, Real Player PLUS (the premium $19.95 version), replacing Real One? If so, I'm pissed...

I despise realplayer as well.... I disabled all the realplayer applications at startup so they do not slow down my system.

I've disliked Real for a while... but I'm willing to give you a chance, goof7ball. Your post seems to make sense, and you admit past flaws.. which is good. I use Linux generally, but next time I'm on Windows and need to play something, I'll try it over Media Player or Real Alternative.

I'd try the Linux version, but I'm still bruised from the last try. It locked up my gnome session. Plus.. it's not opensource :)

That said.. it's going to take a while before you have the public's trust back again. Until then, you'll be fighting a hard uphill battle (as shown in this thread).

Be careful uninstalling that from the Windows machine Latch :)

hehe. I said I would give it a shot again, so I won't complain too much as I haven't tried the absolute newest version.. but I do remember trying to Uninstall RealOne.. I know how painful it can be hehe.

i votewd that i did not read and i still hate real...

well i read the post, and i still do not like real. all was cool for me up until the point where i actually PAID for like realplayer 5 or something it was waaay back in the day, im thinking ive got myself something nice here. well all was good until it asked me to pay again in like 3 months to extend my subscription, no way in hell im gonng keep paying for software every few months just to have a newer version no thanks uninstalled never used again. later on i began to notice people using realplayers and did not like how jukebox was all combined with it along with installing by default as the media player for everything in their systems that is not called for, however in reals defense every other media player does this too.

now i see realone and it just seems to have TOO MUCH stuff wirtten into it. and then added onto the fact that im not impressed with the quality of real vs yea i hate to say WMP video/audio i gotta pass on it.

so my initial vote would have to change

i have read the post, useful still not convinced

Not convinced. I hate the horrible pixelation (cubing) you get from real videos. If every pornographer is making them look like this obviously it's not just the person encoding. Tons of home users make MPGs or divx or Xvids with very nice quality. I can't recall ever seeing a really nice looking and sounding real file. AFAIK you can't use other codecs for audio either so it's functionality is very impaired if this is true. Every other codec can use practically any audio codec except MPG. Thing is Real made too many mistakes in a very unforgiving Internet. You say they kep usage stats...to me any app that monitors my usage is spywre. They knew ppl don't like spam and spyware and they did it anyway.

Let's get on the app now...I never installed any Real after 8 but the GUIs of old were very clunky, with no playlist or anything unless you bought the whole thing. Is there a million skins like winamp? Does it have numerous plugins like winamp? Can you take advantage of the millions of winamp skins in Real like xmms can?. Sorry man but Real is very closed off and has little extensibility and compatibility compared to the king, Winamp. If Real were a superior product, it would have a good market share and a large usebase to support it with plugins and skins. I never use just one player for vids anyway since WiMP won't play one well while BS Player will.

I appreciate your intent and applaud you sticking by your company, but I think you're preaching to Satanists on this one. Even if Real had none of the flaws and past mistakes that have been covered exhaustively in this thread, I still wouldn't use it since I have absolutely no reason to...it can't beat Winamp. Period.

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...

When I said it took two hours to clean up after uninstalling, I had to delete files (some of which required a boot to safe mode, could be an O/S issue rather than Realplayer) and about 8 dozen registry keys.

Don't misquote me- I don't think that WinAMP is bad- I actually like it. My point is that WinAMP does many of the same things that you (all) rail on RealPlayer about and it shocks me that in WinAMP's case you don't care.

The performance specs you showed are a little lower that what I would expect from a media player, while the ones I saw on my computer were a lot higher. Hanabal's computer was using 12megs - go figure. Maybe the default install (that is the one I ran) turns on extra options that you have turned off??





RP goes through usage swings (as does WinAMP) and I'm sure I could screenshot taskman when it is at low point (like you did), but who cares? The numbers I quoted earlier were after usage stabilized, which are the ones you should be looking at too.

As for file extensions- WinAMP is the one that silenting taking them. Why don't you try installing RP10 and see for yourself? I already said that it doesn't take extensions without asking, but apparently you don't believe me.

This is interesting:
http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/0...real/real.html

Both winamp and realplayer 10 are on my crashbox and I do not think highly of them at all.
>just my opinion<
- Bloated interfaces that force me to have a seekbar and buttons on display constantly wasting space when I have no use for them.
- Basically zero support in RP for many of the files on my systems which include Wavpack, FLAC, Ogg-Vorbis, Musepack, MP4/raw AAC, APE and then finally some older MP3s and RA files

The only program I can tolerate personally for any length of time is Foobar - recently upgraded to 0.8 for the superb diskwriter - with the original interface from the first release and the "STFU/Jump To Time" seekbar and all play controls, diskwriter, playlists control, etc. called via hotkeys.
>/just my opinion<

I'm no expert, but I don't think the ideal way to persuade the masses is to spew venomous insults at them. Again, I'm no expert.

I haven't made up my mind one way or the other. I've had my own "experiences" with RealPlayer, but maybe there's hope in the new one.

However, if lots of different people give the same excuses and examples of the pervasiveness and the horror that is RealPlayer then I'm likely to believe the masses over one man preaching the gospel about a company he works for.

Of course, then again my head is so far up my ass bullshit doesn't seem to bother me in my quest to be ignorant contentedly. ;)

Real Alternative ownz.

End of disscussion.

Did you read the whole thread? If you did and you still can't understand why I would get a little frustrated then I don't know what else to say. Yes, it makes me angry that everyone is so energetic in their trash talk on a topic that they know nothing about. How do I know they are full of shit? Because they are complaining about features that don't exist anymore (and in some cases haven't existed in 4 years), and because they praise other media players that are more agressive about filetype hijacking/resource utilization/icon litering/....

Look, I know that I'm not going to win these people over- even in the best of worlds everyone has their own preferencecs. I did, however, hope that I could dispell many of the myths that I see repeated over and over. My rant about the ignorant people was out of sheer frustration that nobody is interested in the truth.

goof7ball, the issue for many of us doesnt lie in Real's current performance. The issue is that Real (like you admit), used to suck, HARD. Bloatware, a bitch to even download, screwed up your system, and with almost no benefits. Things may be fixed now, but for me--and I suspect many other TFPers--that is irrelevant. They lost my trust, and there are plenty of alternatives out there. I dont want to completely kill on Real, but I know that I wont be voluntarily using their player for anything.

Of course I read the whole thread. I don't comment unless I do. :)

I understand the frustration, but the ideal way to win the "hearts and minds" of you audience isn't by insulting them, eh? The best that you can do is refute their objections with calm assurance and knowledgeable replies. Sometimes you may have to make your point more than once (I know, it's hard to believe, but some folks don't read the whole thread....)

All that being said, it's about perception. Some people have had a hard time with the product in the past and that skews their perception for the future. Not to mention that computer systems are as unique as fingerprints. Different types of components, all loaded with different drivers, all interacting with different software, and all on systems that have been modified and customized to the individual running the keyboard. You would be hard pressed to find one program that runs flawlessly on every system in the world.

There are some you will never convince; it would be folly to try. Otherwise, you claim to know your shit, start backing it up. Give 'em hard data, screenshots, links to information that supports the greatness that is RealPlayer.

Otherwise your just a guy with an opinion and everybody knows what they say about opinions and assholes....:)

"Look, I know that I'm not going to win these people over- even in the best of worlds everyone has their own preferencecs. I did, however, hope that I could dispell many of the myths that I see repeated over and over. My rant about the ignorant people was out of sheer frustration that nobody is interested in the truth."


someone (cant remember who, sorry) here on TFP has a signature quote that reads "When faced with the choice of changing one's mind or proving that there is no need to do so, most people immediately get busy working on the proof." (also cant remember who said it). I think this little bit of wisdom is particularly relevant to this discussion.