Performance & The New RealPlayer

Ben Rotholtz, General Manager Web Services & Syndication

The performance of RealPlayer has been dramatically improved. But what is performance and why should you care?

Ultimately, performance enables you to use your time more efficiently and get more out of life. To begin with (there’s always a beginning) performance can be measured in many different ways, such as installation, startup, workflow, video playback, bandwidth negotiation and reliability.  Performance can be thought of as the synchronized combination of these functions.

The first impression of RealPlayer performance is how quickly we can get you into the driver’s seat through an installation process that is just four clicks easy – and doesn't leave you with interfering or confusing defaults. No need to restart your machine after installing (though you will need to close your browser during installation to enable the “Download this Video” plug-in). Then hit the ignition and RealPlayer starts up much faster than previous versions, first time and every time. The benefit to you is that you don't have to wait to play.

We've improved workflow. Features and controls are in a logical place at the logical time.  You spot a piece of video on some web site, the content looks interesting but it’s not convenient for you to watch it at that time.  No need to start-up the RealPlayer. Hovering above that video is the “Download This Video” button.  Hit the button. No need to watch the entire clip while you download.  You can navigate to a different site or even close your browser and the clip will be downloaded (or recorded) in the background faster than you could watch the clip itself.

Time-shifting video from tens-of-thousands of web sites with one simple interface translates to an enormous time-saving benefit.  The new RealPlayer puts you in control of web video so that’s it on your schedule and in your lifestyle – offline, burned to a DVD and by the end-of-the-year available for transfer to portable devices. This is one more faceplate of performance.

Behind the scenes of web video time-shifting are workflow enhancements that you don't ever need to know about but that are constantly working for you. You don’t have to care about what format is being used (Flash, QuickTime, Windows Media or RealMedia), what player is used and what method of delivery is being employed (on-demand streaming, live streaming, progressive). Our goal with this release was to rationalize video content across the web and make it as effortless as possible for you to easily play back web video in your own environment when and where you wanted.

Then there’s the video playback itself within the RealPlayer. You can play videos back in RealPlayer full screen theatre mode. There’s no need to wait for Mr. Buffer to navigate around some interminable network router that is mindlessly tossing packets overboard because it’s overwhelmed.  We've tuned the video engine to deliver smooth, full motion, playback.  As the inventors of streaming we applied these video performance improvements to video streams as well so your on-line experience will be better.

We've also strived to make this a much more reliable RealPlayer which will always save you time.  Put another way, we've fixed a lot of bugs. That said, we are in beta as a consequence there are still bugs that will occasionally get in your way and impede performance. We've staked our reputation on providing a great experience with the new RealPlayer and we'd like to enlist your help to identify any problems that you encounter.  Let us know what you think.

Here’s to better performance.

Comments

[Drew]

Please, allow for Opera 9 support in coming betas. I love Real 11's download video option!! Sadly, I recently changed to Opera from Firefox and found out this doesn't work here anymore. Thank you!

[King InuYasha]

Too much timeskipping to keep in synch. New skin looks a hell lot better than the old one. Nice usage of space, but menus should be skinned or moved to a icon where they can be accessed, similarly to WMP11. Noted that the RealPlayer icon for Linux was used for this, which is surprising, since RealNetworks seems to like changing their icon each release... :D

Include Xilph Ogg formats support in the Windows version please! You will get some FOSS support for being the first widely used Mediaplayer with official Ogg support. Ogg Vorbis, Theora, FLAC, and Speex should be supported at least. Dirac is optional, but should be considered!

For some odd reason, the visualizations seem to pan out wide instead of square even though I am not in a widescreen resolution. This needs to be fixed. And it shouldnt assign the mimetypes for RPM = RealMedia. RPM != RealMedia.

[John Russell]

I love the new Player except for one thing. The video capture will work from Internet Explorer; but not from AOL. If I go to YouTube from explorer I can download the video. If I go to You Tube from AOL I do not get the button to download the video. Any way of fixing this?

[Matt Spragins]

We currently do not support the AOL browser or Opera. We currently do not have plans to support them.

Matt Spragins, Director of Product, RealPlayer

[Brian]

This new player is really useful for travelers like me! I downdload a lot of videos on my laptop and watch them offline! How I wish that you will put a feature that i could sync into my ipod! are you guys planning to put this feature on the final release? i would pay for this feature!! Thanks and keep up the good work!!

[Matt Spragins, Dir of Product, RealPlayer]

Brian,

Yes we are adding the ability to transfer to iPod to the next beta release. That will happen later this year.

Matt Spragins, Director of Product, RealPlayer

[Jeff Mc]

Posted this on a previous item, but don't know if you saw this:

Bought the Beta Plus so that I can burn my many RM files to DVD. The only problem is that it will only burn about 71 minutes (306mb) on a 4.7 GB DVD+R 120 minutes. These are accurate numbers because an 18 second (8mb) file cannot be added.

Also, will future versions handle recording DVDs at various qualities automatically like Roxio does?

[JOe]

SO far, the only problem I've had with realplayer beta is that while the Download Video plug-in is enabled in firefox, some flash applications won't work, like purevolume. The flash files load, but every profile says "No tracks available" but if I disable it, it works just fine! But so far thats my only problem

[Rodger Thompson]

I juat purchest realplay and it will not let me login. All I get is I have no account. I'm not able to get any help. I hope we can resolve this matter. I have everything downloaded. I'm unable watch tv or moves.

[Rob]

Apple's Safari browser is the fastest and most reliable one available on Windows XP. I use it all the time now instead of IE. But, Realplayer does not support this browser. Since you plan to support Apple products like ipod and maybe iphone - than it makes sense to start working with Safari now.

[Matt]

I'm on Windows Vista and Realplayer wont let me burn a flv video to dvd and i have beta plus.
It wont get past "scanning movie".
I went away and watched a movie and it still said "scanning movie". Please Fix,
Sincerly,
Matt

[Denny Nelson]

Since I downloaded the latest Realplayer, I don't have any sound.

[D.mitchell]

Since I downloaded the latest Realplayer, I don't have the ability to see a linked video in a swf file?

Im using firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080311 Firefox/2.0.0.13 (LATEST)

but works in fine in IE???

[Pravin]

Hi,
I earlier had a RealPlayer with download button appearing on videos. Recently I noticed that this download button is no more appearing. Subsequently I uninstalled and reinstalled the RealPlayer from net and followed all necessary instructions, but still I don't see the Download button.
Can anybody help please

[Vectorpedia (Rick)]

I have always considered RealPlayer top of the line and never have had any problems with the software.......thanks guys !

[peggy jones]

can't get the video to show in realplayer

[peggy jones]

the download button in realplayer won't pop up

[omid]

download button does not show up, even after re-instaltion

[Ramin]

Someone help with this prob.
Does Real Player work with Windows Vista 64 bit? because I downloaded lots of videos from Youtube and now all of them are gone and whenever I click on my library the program does not respond anymore.

[eddy]

i have win vista explorer7 and real player its enable for the download button but its not showin
plz help

[Arabbible]

I've had great performance with my RealPlayer download.......no problems

[Irina]

I also had some troubles with several flash applications, but overall, my experience with Beta was quite positive.

[Paula]

The "download this video" button does not appear; I've set it up correctly in preferences; but it still does not appear; when I right click on a video (ex at youtube) I don't get a download option; I get a box with two options: "Settings..." and "About Adobe Flash Player 9...".

I use IE7; this stopped working a few weeks ago so I downloaded and installed RealPlayer 11. Still no luck.

What can I do?

[Ruth Burcham]

I have had lots of trouble with RealPlayer suddenly changing the resolution and locking up. I have Vista.