RealPlayer Blog

The RealGuide and the Best of the Web

Adam Dubov, Sr Dir Media Properties

Over the past five years the RealGuide has been the place to promote the latest and greatest in the world of entertainment, celebrities and the best audio and video content to more than forty million RealPlayer users. The RealGuide is immediately visible as a tab within the RealPlayer.

With the release of the new RealPlayer we’ve launched a new section of the RealGuide to bring our users a daily compendium of the best and most compelling downloadable and recordable video from across the web. The RealGuide “Best of the Web’ video hub now brings you the best online video content to download or record with the new RealPlayer.

We recognize that the underlying format of web video is much less relevant to consumers these days than the content itself. With the explosion of web video content there is also a decided move to better quality, both in terms of subject matter and production value. We believe that the RealGuide “Best of the Web” video hub in the new RealPlayer can help you find the best of both.

You can spend (waste) many hours trawling through the seemingly limitless amounts of web video on the big aggregation and UGC sites and never be truly satisfied with what you’ll find. Automated popularity or mass ratings alone do not guarantee that a clip is worth your time to watch. A savvy editor’s pick, in conjunction with an active feedback loop from the audience, can craft an experience that weeds through the dross and presents the most entertaining daily gems from the truly staggering volume of web video that’s out there.

We also believe that over time consumers will continue to expect better and better web video content. Cell phone clips will always be compelling when they capture the truly unexpected or newsworthy events, but if you’re going to take the time to download or record content to view at a later time you’ll want to ensure that you’re experiencing the very best audio and video quality in your “must see, must have” clips. This will become increasingly important for offline video content burned to DVD and transferred to high resolution portable devices.

The RealGuide “Best of the Web” video page features a growing range of online video content: We’re interested in bringing our users the best funny stuff, crazy moments caught on tape, cute critters, unbelievable stunts and pranks, all manner of vehicular mayhem, bloopers and for lack of a better term, what we call WTF?! moments. If we find it entertaining, enlightening, amazing, unbelievable or absurd we believe that there’s a high probability that you will too. We’re also offering vintage and cult-classic full-length movies at two bandwidths – 300kbps for easy streaming and higher quality 700kbps to watch, enjoy and record using the new RealPlayer.

The RealGuide also provides content from trusted content partners who support RealPlayer 11, such as Metacafe, Stupid Videos, with new content partners joining us online every day.

Our goal is to create an entertaining, compelling web video “newspaper” tossed onto your virtual doorstep every morning filled with recordable video content best enjoyed with, and brought to you by, the new RealPlayer.

At RealNetworks we’re in the process of reinventing the Guide and we’re very interested in what you, the engaged, smart, discerning Internet consumer is interested in from the world of entertainment, information and most particularly, in the exploding world of web video. In the coming months we’ll be building in more interactivity, enhanced commenting, sharing, publishing and subscribing functionality around our “Best of the Web” video offering. We also welcome your feedback. We’re most interested in what web video sites you’re going to, what sites and video you like, what excites you and how we could improve the Guide. The one constant with the Internet, and with the exploding world of web video in particular, is that it’s always changing. We want to continue to bring you the “best of the best” so please, enjoy the show, keep checking back for what’s new and remember to hit the feedback link and let us know how we’re doing and what you’d like to see.

 

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.

Installations Gone Awry

By Ben Rotholtz, General Manager, Web Services & Syndication

Previous versions of the RealPlayer delivered uneven experiences over the years for some consumers.  “Uneven,” ah, that’s so ‘PC’ -- must be a Seattle thing. Let’s be blunt, “Uneven” is too kind for some of the loops and hurdles that got in the way of the very basic value-proposition of RealPlayer: “Let me play.” Consumers just wanted the unimpeded ability to play a clip they found on the Internet, not wade through an installation sequence that just lingered on-and-on.

It may have seemed like some malicious plot on our part to wreck the consumer experience of what was fundamentally a very useful piece of software. The RealPlayer was one of the Internet’s most revolutionary applications and ignited media on the Internet.

Real did not design installation to be a series of frustrating experiences. It was more like a number of experiments that got away from us. Too many cups of coffee mixed with too many agendas.

Installation: It’s the heart of the first-time experience. Will this software meet my needs? Will it meet my expectations? Do I trust it as a guest on my machine? Will it be a fundamental part of my lifestyle?

The new RealPlayer, available at the end of June, approaches installation in a very different way from previous versions. The new RealPlayer is all about the unimpeded zero-to-sixty ability to download and record video clips across tens–of-thousands of Internet sites. The new RealPlayer is our video platform. It’s our priority to make installation transparent.

We’ve got four installation screens for the Windows version (the Mac version will be available later this year and we’ll update you on any variants). There is the license agreement:

Then we provide the ability to set the location for the RealPlayer install and provide an option to add a desktop icon (you can uncheck it). Note, there is not even an option for putting RealPlayer in the system tray anymore). You can disable the “Download this Video” button from your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser: If downloading and recording is of interest to you leave option this checked. Lastly, “Make RealPlayer the default player for any media-types not currently associated with another application.” What’s that mean? If another media player hasn’t taken a media-type (that is, open X player when you see Y kind of video file) then we’ll attempt to play it back with the RealPlayer. Remember the media-type wars where QuickTime, Windows Media and RealPlayer would battle for playback? We’re not playing anymore.

The third screen enables consumers to opt-out of software that we distribute for partners. We think this software is of great benefit to consumers (for example, the Google Toolbar or the Firefox browser) but it’s your choice and you can uncheck installation. 

The last screen of the installation sequence won’t affect anything unless you check boxes. If you want to sample other products that Real creates, such as RealArcade or Rhapsody, you can check the box and we will install a desktop icon you can click to find out about these products. If you want to be notified about movie trailers and clips, new music or highlights from the Guide you have to check the boxes. The message center is off by default. If you want to be on a mailing list you can supply us with an email address.

 

Hit “Finish” and start playing.

Ben Rotholtz, General Manager, Web Services & Syndication