Real Player Alternative

[Big Booger]

1) Alternative to RealPlayer
I recently exchanged mail with reader Phil Freed, who was having
trouble
with RealPlayer:
Hi, Fred. Love the newsletter--- not to mention that the Plus
edition is the best bargain in town (but don't tell your
accountants!).

I have a question about audio players. I'm hoping that you or
your readers can give me a hand. Before I reloaded my laptop,
I used to play RealAudio songs on it for my daughters. When I
went to download the latest free version (RealOne), the
license agreement made me stop. In part, it says:

"Once you log into the Software, user information including
your user id will be sent in communications with RN's servers.
This information is used to access your regular account,
premium content, non-premium content, services, features, and
other personalized services. RN may match the user id to
personally identifiable information in order to provide you
with products, services, and software that you're entitled to
and to provide you with relevant information."

Good gracious. All I want to do is play some music for my
daughters! I don't mind trading usage information for free
software, but the phrase "user information including your user
id will be sent" is a little too broad. Given Real's less than
stellar privacy record, I'm disinclined to install their
software.

I'm willing to pay for a product that protects my privacy, but
I have been unable to find any Windows-based alternatives for
playing RealAudio. I know that past versions of the Real
player have allowed users to disable most of the more
intrusive "features" of the software, but it's not clear
whether this is still true. So:

1) Are there alternatives to RealOne for playing RealAudio
files? I've found WinAmp and Innover, but this combination no
longer seems to be supported.

2) Can the spyware aspects of RealOne be effectively
disabled?...
I agree that RealPlayer has become obnoxiously aggressive in their
marketing. In fact, I'm amazed that we don't hear more about it from
the
privacy mavens who love to pillory (say) Microsoft for even minor
infractions. RealPlayer---like AOL/Netscape--- is, if anything, much
worse than Microsoft in aggressively scooping user data, yet few seem
at
all alarmed about it. Makes no sense.
Anyway, I simply avoid using RealPlayer, so I didn't have a good answer
for Phil. But he kept digging:
Usenet comes to the rescue once again! I would have tried
there first, but I hadn't yet reinstalled my newsreader.

There's a freeware product called JetAudio that seems to fit
the bill perfectly: http://www.jetaudio.com
It plays .RA, .RAM, and .RMI files (which isn't all RealAudio
content, but it meets my simple needs.) It appears to be free
of spy-, ad- or nag-ware, and (outside of some initial
twiddling with the file associations) it appears to work
perfectly. I tested the software on Real's test site:
http://service.real.com/test/index.html
It even supports ripping and burning audio CDs, with some
extra MP3 features in the non-free "Plus" version.

For a bit more info, see the discussion in "alt.comp.freeware"
with the subject line "Real Audio Codecs". It began on
4/15/2003. This link might get you there:
http://tinyurl.com/a8un
Thanks again for your wonderful newsletter.

From the Langalist.

I am having problems connecting to the JEtAudio site, but if I find another site to download from, I will post the link.

Ok found a site:

http://www.soft-ware.net/download.asp?l=1&code=cibce&verz=v00202&pro=p03290&file=JAD5.exe

Enjoy,

If it doesn't work, try this site instead:
http://www.soft-ware.net/download.asp?l=1&code=cibce&verz=v00202&pro=p03290&file=JAD5.exe

[efc]

I also read the Langa List this morning and downloaded Jet Audio to give it a try. So far I like it.

[Jackpot]

Thanks for this one Big boog - I've been hoping for an alternative for Real Player
for ages... thanks!


Have a nice weekend..!

Cheerz...

[Big Booger]

glad to have helped. I hate realplayer.. it gets too involved in yoru system, and is in my opinion prying into your personal life.. it's none of their business what we watch.. IMHO.
:D

[lynchknot]

I've been using Jet Audio for several months and I like it alot. :D

[rstryker]

yea I hate RealPlayer.
anybody know of a way to convert Real Video files to something else...anything else?

[efc]

I have been using Jet Audio since 4-28-03. I like it. It does its job without getting in the way.

I have uninstalled RealPlayer.

[Big Booger]

rstryker,

You need TINRA. It converts realmedia to AVI, but it doesn't work 100% of the time. And it takes a long time. but if you want to convert, use it.

http://www.divx-digest.com/software/tinra.html

Hope that helps.

[Thor]

Eo Video say they can convert any format to avi/mpg.
http://www.eo-video.com/overview.htm

I found this message which warns of getting huge file sizes.

Yes there is a program that can convert real audio and real video to avi. It is called TINRA and you can find it at http://evc.to/tinra/ the program is a little sketchy though. The avi file ends up becoming a heck of a lot bigger than the rm file... so if you want to convert a 40 to 60 meg real file, you'll need about 1 to 2 gigs of hard drive space. But the point is, after the file is in avi form, you can then convert that into an mpeg file which will bring the file size back to normal and then create your vcd.

[rstryker]

cool...thanks for the info

[Rags]

I am (very!) new here so I don't know of this is the right place to post this.

When my PC connects to RealPlayer to play a video, sometimes the pic is OK but most of the time the pic is in psychedelic colours. :(

I have downloaded 'Real' help but can't find anything about this problem.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks :)

[Curio]

There is also one called simply Real Alternative which installs the codecs allowing you to use any player to view the files.
http://www.iamnotageek.com/a/56-p1.php