RealPlayer Beta Update Released

By Matt Spragins, Director of Product, RealPlayer

Good news all! We’ve just posted a new RealPlayer Beta build to www.realplayer.com that resolves several bugs that have been reported to us over the past month. To those of you who are active participants on this blog, we thank you for your feedback and keep it coming. This is the first of several beta updates that we plan to do over the coming months.

Note – if you have already downloaded the RealPlayer beta, you will need to download the new build for these fixes to take affect.

One piece of feedback I’d like to address at this time relates to how the RealPlayer browser plug-in interacts with Flex applications and Shockwave files. This specific issue was also recently posted here on John Dowdell's Macromedia blog.  

Here are the facts as we know them today regarding this issue:

1. Real does not replace or modify anyone’s flash/swf files.  The RealPlayer browser plug-ins do run their own swf’s beforehand in certain cases to properly determine where videos are placed on a web page.

2, There have been some reported compatibility issues with our implementation (in particular with flex applications) - most of which were just addressed with this recent software release. 

3. Because RealPlayer is still Beta software, we will continue to monitor user feedback and provide updated builds in the coming weeks.  Please report any issues to the RealPlayer feedback form. 

It is our mission to ensure RealPlayer is a great software application that provides a great user experience and allows people to watch video whenever, wherever they choose.

Comments

[John Dowdell]

Cool, thanks for the word, Matt.

I had searched the site but not found documentation of the implementation. You say "Real does not replace or modify anyone’s flash/swf files", but I'm still not sure what it actually does, or how the SWF's context menu is changed.

Is the page-rendering process described anywhere on the site? Does the beta Real engine interrupt the browser's rendering of the page? If not, then how does the engine get invoked when a site owner displays a SWF?

(And if "most Flex issues were addressed", then what problems might people expect to see today? What symptoms should they look for?)

tx, jd/adobe

[Matt]

Thanks for the update. I'll let u know if the dvd bug is fixed or not.
Thanks,
Matt

[Matt]

It's Fixed :).
Thank you for being so quick on fixing this bug.
Ty,
Matt

[Jay Charles]

I downloaded and installed the most recent version today, but the Realplayer still seems to be interfering with variables passed from Flash to Flash Media Server in the arguments of the NetConnection.Connect method. The variable data is not included with the connection reqest.

Any chance of the folks at Real posting a whitepaper about just what the Realplayer is doing with our connections?

[Matt Spragins]

John,

RealPlayer uses publicly documented Web Browser APIs to determine when a video is rendered on a page and add a menu item to the swf's context menu. It loads its own swf before other swfs are loaded in order to determine where videos are located on a web page. No swfs are modified or replaced.

As with any browser plugin like Flash or RealPlayer, there might be some compatibility issues on some web sites. Our recent release addressed issues where some flash content was not loading properly on certain sites that use the newly released Actionscript 3.

Thanks for the questions. We're committed to addressing issues as they arise so we welcome feedback.

Matt Spragins, Director of Product, RealPlayer

[Jay Charles]

Matt,

This comment:

"As with any browser plugin like Flash or RealPlayer, there might be some compatibility issues on some web sites."

isn't really a fair answer to this matter. If the Realplayer is broken and causes real media to fail, that's one thing, but Realplayer is now interfering with other plugins, and the only word I can come up with for that is "offensive".

As I see things, the only honorable solution here is to stop distributing the player until the problem is fixed (not partially fixed, not almost fixed, but fixed), or at very least, move the download to a specific beta page instead of the real.com top page..

"It's beta" is not an acceptable answer to releasing a product that poisons other applications. It's an affront to Flash/Flex developers, and it's a major violation of the trust between Real and the people downloading the player.

[Jay Charles]

Well, a new week is upon us, and Realplayer 11 is still breaking AS2 NetConnection requests coming from the Flashplayer (I've been uninstalling and reinstalling daily).

Russ Ryan commented on my blog acknowledging my rant about the problem (sort of, anyway) and requested a link to a page that exhibits the problem. Since I can't provide access to a complete test environment (you'd really need access to the FMS admin console for that, and I can't provide such access), I replied with code for a sample application. Here's the text of that reply:

Here’s a simple flash/FMS application that will illustrate the problem (obviously, you’ll need to build the .swf and set up an FMS server to test it):

Flash client side actionscript:

var nc = new NetConnection();
nc.connect("rtmp://myfmsserver.com/testapp", "Bob Jones");

Flash Media Server side actionscript

application.onConnect = function(clientObject, userName){
trace("The user name is "+userName);
}

In this simple application, we are passing a single value ("Bob Jones") to FMS in the client side NetConnection.connect constructor. When realplayer is not installed on the client machine, we will see the following trace to the Flash Media Server Admin console:

The user name is Bob Jones

With Reaplayer 11 installed, the variable data is not sent to FMS, and the trace in the admin console looks like this:

The user name is undefined

I do hope we'll see a resolution to this problem this week.

[Russ Ryan]

Thanks for the information, Jay. It was sufficient for our engineers to isolate the problem and find a fix over the weekend. We will be posting an update in a few days (once it passes our own QA) and adding your situation to our QA matrix.

[Stefan Richter]

Interesting. I'll be watching this space closely.
I got to say I'm equally annoyed that many companies use the Beta umbrella these days as an excuse to push out premature software.

[latoya]

when am i going to see some action

[Keith Peters]

Stefan, "premature" is being kind. Having spent many hours trying to fix a major client's broken web site, I'm tempted to use the term "malicious".

[Arby]

"It loads its own SWF before other SWFs are loaded in order to determine where videos are located on a web page. No SWFs are modified or replaced."

UGH, you cannot do that! If a SWF file is not specifically coded to work when loaded into another parent SWF, it will break! You cannot expect the gazillion pieces of Flash out there to be re-coded just to suit this desperate hack!

(To be specific, any actionscript using _root or _level0. type paths risk breaking!)

[Arby]

"It loads its own SWF before other SWFs are loaded in order to determine where videos are located on a web page. No SWFs are modified or replaced."

UGH, you cannot do that! If a SWF file is not specifically coded to work when loaded into another parent SWF, it will break! You cannot expect the gazillion pieces of Flash out there to be re-coded just to suit this desperate hack!

(To be specific, any actionscript using _root or _level0. type paths risk breaking!)

[Jay Charles]

Hmmm... seems that the definition for "hijack" isn't in the Real Networks corporate dictionary.

Beyond references to object paths... is your .swf modifying anything? Are you instantiating any of your own classes? How are those classes namespaced and what naming conventions do you use for your methods? Are you adding methods or properties to any of the flashplayer's built-in classes? Modifying any of the flashplayer's classes or loading up your own classes can have an effect on how other people's apps perform, and how the player performs in general.

You really ought to consider getting the source for your .swf's into the hands of some people who really understand the flashplayer runtime (I bet the folks over at Adobe would be happy to help you stop stepping all over their stuff).

We [flash devs] need to know exactly what your software is doing. If you're going to dick with our runtime, you can't be quiet about it.

[Russ Ryan]

I am Russ Ryan, the General Manager for Product Development for the Real Player.

After the report from Jay Charles that the Real Player 11 Beta broke
applications using Flash Server when the Flash 9 NetConnect API was used, our
engineers discovered that we were not handling optional arguments correctly
when we installed a proxy for the API. A fix has been posted to the realplayer.com site today.

We are very concerned about places where we might break existing and future
applications. We would like to invite anyone in the Flash development
community that is interested to help us test early versions of each of our
releases by making sure that it works well with their applications. If you
are interested, please send email to rp-product@real.com indicating your
interest.

[Mike]

You still need to fix that Windows Media problem. Windows Media Screen works fine, but the rest of the codecs fail.

[Zoltan Herold]

During the playback (mp3) it stops for milisecs if I borwse the web or go to an other programwindows, and it can be very annoying....
I run it on a Hungarian XP SP2 with all winupdates.

[Jay Charles]

Bah... you still don't have your flash issues sorted out.

http://blog.jaycharles.net/?p=13

[Larry Wileman]

Why do I have to have Rhapsody along with real player?

[motazmekkawe]

fantastic

[Jay Charles]

I just received a comment on my blog that lead to a rather disturbing question... Is Realplayer is also setting the WMODE of the Flashplayer object to transparent?

Matt... doing that breaks the player and has varied results in different browsers. If you're setting the WMODE to transparent to show your "download this video" button, you need to get rid of it and find another approach.

Please, please, please... take this beta off the market and roll back to version 10. You're killing me with extra testing, and it's going to start damaging my business.

[Jay Charles]

And the problems continue to mount. Turns out that your player is breaking the LocalConnection class as well

http://blog.jaycharles.net/?p=17

Enough of this, enough being nice about it, and enough being civil about. It's quite clear that Real has no interest in being respectful of others, and cares not about fixing the problems (that damned broken player is still available for download). Now I'm gonna say it.... it is my theory that you have done all of this on purpose, with intent to sully the name and reputation of Flash. Shame on you.

I understand that you're trying to keep your dying company alive by leeching off the efforts of others (your server sales certainly can't be paying the bills these days). Is Real Networks so full of of idea-less people that you can't come up with something useful on your own? Maybe making some improvements to your products so they can compete? At very best, you are now a mere provider of theivery tools, and nothing more.

I do hope Real Networks gets what it deserves from this. I hope lengthy court battles bring your company to fiancial ruins and your investors to loss, and I hope you end up with a govornment official or two crawling up your collective ass.

[Medusa]

Well-- I don't know if it's related but I must mention that around the time that I updated to the newest version I started suffering from computer freezes several times a day, where before I never had any at all. Now granted there are a couple other programs I updated around the same time so I'm not necessarily blaming you, but am curious as to whether anyone else has experienced this issue as well.

What I can say is that despite the Real rep telling me I would not lose my saved playlists (though he didn't talk me through the fact that I was supposed to tell my computer not to delete that info-- but it didn't matter because even though I figured it out myself and thought I did what I was supposed to to save the folder, my playlists did not turn up in the new version). Also, my playlists from other media players refuse to show up although I thought you were supposed to be able to transfer those as well. So back to square one there.

Then, strangely, I've also noticed that certain songs have listed themselves 5 or 6 times in realplayer, where others show up once. Sure, there may be instances where I have the same song loaded more than once in my music folder, but not 6 of the exact same version, same title, same length, etc. Can't figure that one out and hope it doesn't mean that every time I 'add media' those particular songs will add themselves again and again?

More importantly-- WHY, WHY, WHY does this player still refuse to allow you to play your songs from the burn list?!? A rep told me two years ago that this issue would be fixed "soon". It makes no sense-- I know, I can make a playlist in order to arrange all the songs (like all the playlists that disappeared when I updated, for example?) but why should I have to do that for every CD I want to make? I use this program to make Cd's for dance performances on a weekly basis-- I need to check and see how the flow from one track to the next is and whether I want to move something up, down or whatever. Some days I might use a playlist I already have but want to re-order the songs a different way for the burn. But I can't, unless I mess up my playlist or make a whole new one, because I cannot hear the songs once I move them to the burn list.

Also, the main reason I even spent money -TWICE- to upgrade to realplayer plus, was to have the option to crossfade the songs which I couldn't do in WMP-- but over there I can not only hear and reorder my songs in the burn list, but the whole program doesn't change over to the burn list page every time I add a song- it just opens a list on the side (like your now playing list?) which is much quicker- then I click on 'burn list' when I want to go to that area instead of jumping back and forth incessantly. Is there some setting where I can get this program to work that way as well?

I must say that over the years I have probably thrown away about 100 CD's because burns were not successful in Realplayer. I have continued to try to use it due to my preference for having the crossfade feature. So far I've only used the new version a couple times so I don't think I've had a faulty burn yet, but I'm kinda bummed to find that these other issues have not been addressed. And I sure hope it doesn't turn out that these freezes have anything to do with it, because I have spent three weeks trying various methods to figure out what is causing this and so far no luck.

[Jeff Lindsay]

My experience with the "upgrade" to Rhapsody 4.0 forced me to cancel my subscription after being a loyal customer for 4 years. The software has ridiculous flaws - just try viewing the offerings for Johann Sebastian Bach. I describe only part of my painful experience with Real's software and questionable tech support at SharpIP.com.

[Ron Kane]

Hi... I'm checking to see what the exact latest build for Real Player 11 is. I have the build version 6.0.14.544 currently. Is there a way to know which current build you have available for download and how to update it? The "update" feature on my version doesn't allow me to search for updates. Please help.

Thanks!

[Chuck Jaeger]

I was hoping for just 1 bug fix in this release and it is not included.

RealPlayer still commands the system Wave volume control.

This is so egregious that it is included on the wikipedia page for this product.

[amit]

its permorm exceelently

[enfamara cassama]

I like so match

[S.V.]

dmp4.dll keeps crashing when playing MPEG-4 content. Not good.

[JC]

You guys at Real should be ashamed for doing this, regardless of whether there were bugs ornot. As a developer this is extremely troublesome, and as a user its also offensive in that its presumptuous. You should not being fooling with the Flash plugin whatsoever; if you want to mess around with Real content thats fine but dont spread your software issues over to other products.

[Paul]

I downloaded the patches exploited security hole today. Tell me after installing this patch I am no longer able to download videos.
When you go to a video site a little Icon use to pop up and ask if you want to download this video. This No longer happens. Did You Guys eliminate this function?-Paul

[Paul]

patches exploited security hole: Statement I Made Yesterday about not being able to download videos after installing the securty patch was an error on my end. I forget I disabled the manage add on on in my ie7 browers. By enabling realplayer ad on I am now able to download videos. My Mistake =Paul

[Del]

Why is realplayer overiding basic and essential swf 'no loop' and 'play onClick' actionscripts?
I had a page holding 13 swfs as mp3 players ready to play onClick, next thing I knew I went to the page and got 13 songs start on me!!!
Is there no way to control this?!?

[Nishantha]

Update my real player

[Tom]

I'm also having the problem where my computer freezes while using Rhapsody. First I thought it was just while downloading large numbers of songs, but sooner or later my computer -- not just Rhapsody, but everything -- will freeze if I am running this latest "upgrade". What really bothers me is that we're forced to take the upgrade, and then it doesn't work. Why can't we just choose to keep our nice, stable version that we're happy with? I have many songs downloaded to my hard drive in Rhapsody's format, so it will be very sad if I am forced to switch to a different service. I loved the original Rhapsody, and I'm equally happy -- not more but equally -- with the later versions WHEN THEY WORK! But this is the second time that a new version has made me feel like I'm just wasting my money. The previous version of Rhapsody worked badly with my old laptop, but better with a new one. The new version freezes on my now not quite as new one.

[peter]

Real player 11 doesn't work respect to downloading youtube videos, but Real player 11 beta did work fine. Real player 11 is much worse than real player 11. I would like to install real player 11 beta instead of real player 11, but I can't.

[Andrew Dickinson]

I downloaded realplayergold11 and clicked "Install". I was surprised to see that it would only work while online. No other video player I have tried requires being online during installation.
And, because I am on dialup, it is taking ages. I gave up at 25%.

This is bullshit, guys ! Give me a full version to install. I am quite happy to go to an internet cafe to download a large file, but I expect it to load as a standalone product after that.

[abdu]

help

[Vectorpedia(Rick)]

RealPlayer is a great software application

[رورو]

hi

[Stores Open on Christmas]

thank you for your quick updates to get rid of this bug. that is why i stick with real player. thanks again.

jay
http://www.storesopenonchristmasday.com