RealPlayer Blog

Realplayer Gold Version Released

By Matt Spragins, Director of Product, RealPlayer

On Thursday, November 15th, we launched the new RealPlayer Gold version simultaneously in 10 languages as well as the Mac Beta version.  Now, around the world, consumers can control their internet video viewing experience and even transfer it to an iPod with the Plus version.

This commercial release version includes many customer experience improvements identified through the beta experience as well.

Please visit http://www.realplayer.com to download the new RealPlayer and upgrade to Plus to transfer your videos to DVD or your iPod.

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.

New RealPlayer is Now Available

By Matt Spragins, Director of Product, RealPlayer

The new RealPlayer beta is now available for download.

Please visit http://www.realplayer.com to download the new RealPlayer.

After using it, please come back and give us your feedback.

New RealPlayer Announcement

By Ben Rotholtz, General Manager, Web Services & Syndication & Matt Spragins, Director of Product, RealPlayer

On May 31^st at “D” we announced the new RealPlayer. The beta version of the new RealPlayer will be available by the end of June. That’s ’07.

How is the new RealPlayer different from previous versions? Let’s touch on a few highlights: The most notable difference is visible across tens of thousands of web sites immediately after installation. On-demand and live streaming and progressive video in the four major formats – Flash, Windows Media, QuickTime and Real – is now downloadable through a very simple download button that temporarily hovers near video content as it plays. You don’t need to worry about format. You don’t need to worry about the media player. Just hit the download button and your own Internet-wide personal video recorder from within Internet Explorer and Firefox (Safari and Firefox on the Mac to follow this year) will download or record non-copy protected Internet video directly to your hard disk, enabling you to watch the video content in wholly new ways – when and how you want to view it. What’s that mean? Full screen playback, playlists immersive video that allows you to lean back and discover video on your PC or burn it to a CD or DVD to rediscover web video through your television. By the end of the year we’ll also provide direct transfer to portable devices so that web video content can become part of your lifestyle no matter where you are you’ll have your own collection of Internet Video as you want to see it.

The new RealPlayer rationalizes multiple formats, multiple players and multiple playback experiences into one very simple interface that gives you the power to build, organize, view and transfer your own personal video clips. It’s that simple.

The new RealPlayer is completely easy to use. Install the new RealPlayer. Open your browser and find a site with video that interests you. If the content is not protected and the video is available in a format that the new RealPlayer understands then a download button appears. Sample a few seconds of the content to see if it’s something you might be interested in and then hit the download button and move on to another piece of content, to another site or close your browser to start another task. The video is rapidly copied or recorded to your library while you surf, play or work. Once the video arrives you can easily watch offline without internet bandwidth congestion (goodbye buffering), watch full screen (hello quality and detail) on your PC, television or portable device (welcome flexibility).

Add your own ratings and comments to your video downloads and recordings. If it’s a video clip you like you can easily share the links to original content you found so your friends can play it back with whatever player it was originally created for – they don’t need the RealPlayer (of course we think they’ll have a more rewarding experience if they’ve got the new RealPlayer so they can also download or record a copy for their own personal use as well).

There are numerous fine details across the new RealPlayer that make this one of the most exciting pieces of software to hit the Internet in a long time.

Please join us on this blog to talk about RealPlayer. Feel free to discuss features, industry trends and product direction to help us build a better experience for you.

Thanks for the feedback, the recommendations, the tirades and the non-stop encouragement that has driven us to create the new RealPlayer. We can’t wait to turn you on!

Welcome to the RealPlayer Blog

This site is dedicated to the new RealPlayer. We’d like to have an open conversation with you about what we’re developing and to gather your feedback about what we need to do to better your expectations for the world’s first truly universal media player.