This is GOOD NEWS
We serve up over 100 hours of Real audio on a non-Real server (non streaming server). It works well. Some of our users have had trouble getting REAL installed and working on their machines. We always recommend that they download the *hard to find* link to
the FREE (not TRIAL) version of the player. Initially there were
some problems with the newest player "REAL ONE" playing our stuff and
I still keep the install file of Real 7 'cause it is less "ad-dy" and
in your face than Real 8 and Real One.
I have another machine with Real One (FREE) on it and just last week I wanted to play a wav file in an email, and Real One said it needed to contact the website to get some missing component. It wouldn't connect so I did the whole unin/reinstall again and still it wanted to get the missing component to play wav's and again it failed... I gave up and installed WinAmp. I suspect but cannot prove that they left this wav component out so that they can get me
to buy their player...
AND I am looking for another NonReal player to recommend to our users that is free and easy to install. Steve Gibson the shields up guru of grc.com really dislikes REAL because they were harvesting user
info and denied it.... Steve proved they were harvesting... AS a result his stuff is served with Microsoft's Media Player. NOW I just read (infoworld?) that the license agreement with the Newest version of Microsoft's Media Player allows microsoft to delete files from my harddrive as it sees fit, particularly ones that *may* infringe on some copyright and likely to be MP3.... WAY too invasive....
So much for a rant... Any suggestions for a Free Real Audio format player that works on Win, Mac and Linux that I can recommend to our users?
-Bob
