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Re: [ARSCLIST] RealNetworks -- a horrid format from a horrible company
Hi Tom!
You could try real
alternative. http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm
and this for quicktime:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm
It worked for the files i tried to play. I refuse to install the
"real" real player or quicktime on my computer.
Hope this helps.
Erik
At 08:12 AM 10/27/2006, you wrote:
OK, now it's time for a short rant, one user's viewpoint.
Archivists, please avoid using this awful format for your
public-available content.
My favorite over-Internet radio show, Riverwalk Jazz, had a bonus
thing -- excerpts from a 1973 WRVR
interview with John Hammond:
http://tinyurl.com/yd6s2e
Unfortunately, no playback options except RealAudio. I smelled
trouble immediately. Real player launches and
demands to be updated. No playing the clips unless it updates. OK,
sigh, now I know there's trouble
coming.
Download takes 5 minutes. Install takes another 5 minutes. Then the
post-install process, where Real
shows itself as the most goniff-y, classless company out there. I
think all websites should be
strong told by their users and patrons not to use this format. I
always send messages to webmasters because I feel that Real is truly
a horrible company.
You have to UNSELECT all the formats you don't want Real to take
over. Instead of telling it what to
do, you have to take 5-10 minutes of CAREFULLY telling it what NOT
to do, or you'll find that Real
takes over all audio and video formats -- and throws its bloated
player and ads all over your
computer. Plus, you have to go into buried menus to turn off
auto-update, and if you don't register
it under a fake e-mail, they will spam you whether you uncheck all
the spam options or not. HATEFUL!
Oh, and they also default select the pay-to-use player on the
install, so if you don't pay attention they'll be asking for credit
card info. Yeah, over my dead body! And these goniffs sued Microsoft
over alleged "monopoly" issues! At least Microsoft provides a player
as part of the OS on 95% of desktops, not as some bloated, ad-laden,
invasive, spamming option.
I sent a very strong e-mail to my friends at Riverwalk about using
this format. Real should be
driven out of business or forced to change their
spamming/invasive/toxicware ways.
By the way, Quicktime is the same kind of setup -- you have to
carefully go thru several steps or it will also take over all your
media formats. Big strike against Apple on that. Also, Quicktime
used to be toxic to some Windows computers, although that's improved
in recent versions. But I wouldn't have Quicktime on any of my
computers if it wasn't required for iTunes.
-- Tom Fine