Real will be distributing its RealPlayer 10 for Linux with both Red Hat and Novell/SuSE desktop Linux distributions. In other news, RealPlayer 10 for Mac OS X will be out this week.
Real will be distributing its RealPlayer 10 for Linux with both Red Hat and Novell/SuSE desktop Linux distributions. In other news, RealPlayer 10 for Mac OS X will be out this week.
Why don’t they design an open standard for spyware?
They could do a kernel module that collects all the information spyware companies might need.
This way instead of spyware running several memory resident applications, all it would have to do is modift the /etc/spymod.cof file with the IP address of it’s tracking server and options for the information it needs sent.
I am just kidding, but I thought Real was on “The Bad List” ™ with Intel, MS, and Rambus?
What is wrong with Totem and XMMS, or are ethics only OK when it is also convenient for your personal agenda?
Gstreamer isnt mature enough
Mplayer has major legal issues. Any Debian users out there, should try using APT to install mplayer and see how crippled it has to be included in the APT repos
Xine seems OK to me
Well atleast now we have some sort of standard. If Mandrake jumps aboard then every major commerical distro will be using the helix backend.
The part of this news that disturbs me isn’t so much the ethics of it (after all, companies can change and if they GPL everything it’s no big deal) but rather quality issues.
I haven’t tested Helix player, but in the past I have been very much put off by the terrible quality of Real’s products. They have been extremely crashy, and media encoded in Real’s formats have been for the most part almost unviewable. A GPLed QuickTime from Apple would have been much better news IMHO.
Maybe the community can make Helix into something better, after all, look what it has done for Mozilla.
You should really try it. I just downloaded Real 10 and its fantastic. Even has a mozilla plugin!
https://player.helixcommunity.org/2004/downloads/
*You want the Real Beta not the Helix beta(no codecs)
Helix player is a now a GPL licensed one which will support the ogg vorbis(audio) and theora (video). Real player builds on top of this and uses the proprietary real audio and video codecs along with this. It does not have any spyware or adware stuff in either windows or Linux now.
Gstreamer will still be the main media framework being used in gnome and kde might adopt this too in version 4.0.
Mplayer is not a media framework and is legally encumbered if you use the proprietary codec stuff
Xine, MPlayer, and GStreamer all have the same problem. Their codecs don’t have proper licensing of patents (MP3, MPEG, etc. – at least here in the US). RedHat and Novell can’t legally ship these codes without licensing these patents. I’m not sure about the legalities, but using Helix player probably gets them an implicit license (though the codecs are probably not open-source).
Does anyone have any experience with Helix player? Is it as obnoxious as RealPlayer for Windows?
I am just kidding, but I thought Real was on “The Bad List” ™ with Intel, MS, and Rambus?
Helix player is not Real player – it’s open source player, very elegant, no bloat, and no ads.
Exactly what do they mean by “Red Hat has signed a deal with RealNetworks that will see the Linux firm bundle the open source Helix Player with its desktop products.”
What kind of “deal” is needed for GPL’ed products?. You just take GPL’ed products if you like to put them in your distro. So far no one has inked any deals with Xine, Mplayer or XMMS. They just took and added it to their distros.
Do we know how much money exchanged hands or is this just a “PR” deal. I’m ok if Real paid Redhat to bundle their player but if Redhat paid Real, that’s a slap in the face of Xine, Mplayer and XMMS developers who could use the money.
RealPlayer has full support for SMIL 2.0 and SMIL 1.0, which is better than just about anything else. SMIL is a markup which allows you to do everything from full-on interactive dmedia applications down to showing the user a picture while the movie loads.
Quicktime has some support for SMIL 1.0, but it’s incomplete and poorly documented.
Personally I’ve had no trouble at all with the Real codecs, and have been amazed how fast and effective the encoder (realproducer) is compared to those for other codecs.
I was also happy to see that RealPlayer 10 isn’t annoying like the earlier ones were, and doesn’t have lots of adverts and things like that.
–ralpht
“Do we know how much money exchanged hands or is this just a “PR” deal”
redhat doesnt pay anything. just a PR move.dont worry
https://player.helixcommunity.org/2004/draft/screens.html
I’ve been using the realplayer 10 beta on Linux, and it is quite nice. The front end GUI is written in gtk2, and it is very simple and elegant and not at all bloated (I doubt the actual video screen widget is written in gtk2).
It still doesn’t support user login (rmx:// protocol) so I could not use it to view Euro2004 highlights on http://www.euro2004.com. Damn, I wish it did because I was forced to use win98 under win4lin.
Realplayer beta or helix player can be downloaded from https://helixcommunity.org.
As a Linux user I want to have the capability of viewing Real media content beause so many sites are using it. So I think this is a very good thing.
The real problem now is how to deal with the microsoft media format on Linux (mms:// protocol).
Real was once the thriving hotbed of new and exciting audio and video technologies. After years of being struck on two sides with Microsoft with it’s WMA format and Apple with it’s QuickTime-related technologies, Apple’s success with iTunes and iPods has sent Real trying to get any partners it can. I’m sorry, but bundeling RealPlayer with a few Linux distros that have total less than 3% of the desktop market share isn’t going to help Real get back on it’s feet.
>Do we know how much money exchanged hands or is this just a >”PR” deal. I’m ok if Real paid Redhat to bundle their player >but if Redhat paid Real, that’s a slap in the face of Xine, >Mplayer and XMMS developers who could use the money.
Helix DNA (the framework) and the Helix Player are currently open source, and will soon be GPL. They support free codecs like Ogg as well as non-free. This deal is for the inclusion of the non-free Real codecs (i.e., Realplayer 10).
There is no slap in the face to other free players or frameworks, as they have nothing similar to offer – at least, not legally (I strongly disagree with the DMCA, software patents, and so on – but in the US anyway, they are currently the law of the land).
The real question is: where does this leave Gstreamer, and more importantly to the wallets of those developing it, where does this leave Fluendo? Looks like up a creek without a paddle.
Since the announcment came from Real, I’d assume simple PR.
That aside, just why would the XMSS, xine and mplayer folks be upset if RH had paid Real? They aren’t charities. RH is not a philanthropic society. It was their decision to use the license they’re using. If they want money for their products, they should sell them.