Real player

[Joe Delaronde]

When I want to listen to audio clips the site wants to download some version of Real Player or whatever is required. I already have the latest version, plus a few other player things I don't think I'll ever use except for some particular oddball sound file. Why do I have to download the player MOSTly every time, and along with this is a steam of advertising. Isn't there one software program which will serve all the files? Also, I'm asked to purchase a full blown version. If I do this, tomorrow a new version will be out and I'll be back where I started...Any advice???? Joe

[Everett Cox]

Joe-- Are you sure the web sites are not just giving you the OPPORTUNITY to download player software? Most usually indicate some player is required but, if you already have it or a compatible one installed, you don't have to dl another. Windows Media Player with the optional RealAudio patches will handle most audio formats. --Everett

[Jim Smith]

<SMALL>Windows Media Player with the optional RealAudio patches will handle most audio formats.</SMALL>

Where can these patches be found? I've always hated RealAudio but thought I had to have it to play .ra files.

[Al Marcus]

I would just as soon go back to just Windows Media Player...these other programs want to take over my computer, whether I like it or not!....al

[Jack Stoner]

I'd like to know about the RP plug in for the Windows Media Player, too.

[Graham]

I've never run across any plug-ins for Windows Media Player which allows you to play Real Audio. Even their latest player, version 7 does not play Real Audio. Does play just about everything else.
Microsoft is really pushing their own .wma music compression files so I can see why they would not encode their program with codecs to handle Real Audio.

------------------
Rebel™
ICQ 614585
http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

[Mark Ardito]

I have installed and downloaded a lot of multimedia programs and players. I have found that Windows Media Player is the best. All of the other players want to take over your computer. I can't stand that and have never taken the time to figure out how to stop it.

In my opinion, go with Windows Media Player.

Mark

[André Sommer]

Hi all,
Realplayer contains so called "spyware" that phones home. For more info
on this subject look here: http://web2.airmail.net/buzz/faqlinks.html http://grc.com/faq-optout.htm http://www.infoforce.qc.ca/spyware/enknownlistfrm.html

If you want to check if your computer contains spyware, download
"Ad-aware" (freeware) here: http://www.lavasoft.de/

Several independent tests have shown that Winamp is still one of the
best players around.BTW, there is a new version 2.7 out.
Make sure you disable the following settings in
Options/Preferences/Setup:
"Check for new versions of Winamp at startup"
"Allow Winamp to report basic, anonymous program usage information"

Somebody wrote a RealAudio plugin for Winamp.
For more info take a look at this thread: http://forums.winamp.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002344.html
To download this plugin(freeware,63K) go here: http://myhome.shinbiro.com/~ddongper/innoreal/index.html
If any of the links given wrap, please copy/paste them into your
browser.

I hope my first post here was informative,back to playing steel.

Regards,

André

[Everett Cox]

To all-- Sorry folks. I just checked the MS knowledge base and see that Windows Media Player no longer supports the Real file formats. That applies to MP versions 6.1 and newer. I'm running version 6.0 and it does fine with most, but not all, of the Real files. I may be able to upload the MP 6.0 install file to a hosting site if anyone is interested. --Everett