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Comments on news posted 2004-04-05 17:32:04: Real Networks has taken a serious popularity beating over the past year as users complained their player has become ever more bloated and cumbersome. ..
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SKYHN
Lu.. Lu.. Lulululu
Premium
join:2001-09-16
99999 | It doesnt make sense With so many formats that are better quality and filesize compared to real media, I dont understand how real networks is still in business. You've got Xvid, Quicktime, even WMV9. Theres no reason to be using real media, no reason at all. | |
| rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| Real Player Bloated... I must agree but isn't this the case with just about every piece of software today? My first PC had a 20MB Miniscribe disk drive. When I bought my second PC with a 130MB drive and added a 540MB drive, I thought I'd never run out of space.
Today even the friggin' Acrobat reader takes what, 50megs!
I just don't understand why some of these programs require so much memory and disk space. Granted, we all have the memory and disk space but does that mean developers are free to just bloat their products? Is it just laziness?
Another example is MusicMatch. What a slug. | |
| | jsmithxxx
join:2002-10-04
2 edits | Winamp Style It would appear that Real might be working towards this, but yeah, everyone in the world needs to take a lesson from Winamp and offer a "lite" version of their software that only includes the necessary tools and nothing extra. | |
| jacour
join:2001-12-11
Ypsilanti, MI
 ·Comcast
| Updates are annoying If RealMedia wanted to clean up their image, they would stop trying to install executables that run when I start my computer. I don't mind them doing it once, but if I delete your startup files for goodness sakes don't keep reinstalling it without the user's permission.
Last time I checked, it wasn't your computer. If I want an update, I will ask for one. | |
| 
FDisk
O.O?
join:2003-08-18
Israel
| ROTFLMAO People, leave "EasyNetwork" alone. Don't you see he is one of those 3 people that has a Real Gold account. 
ROTFLMAO at all his comments. Denial seems to be contagious.
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Guns don't kill people, stupid mother's with guns kill people. | |
| jekler
join:2000-11-23
Cincinnati, OH
clubs:
| My Reasons I previously used Real Player pretty regularly until about 2000? At first it was one of my required installs whenever I'd format or upgrade my system. I think that ended with Real Player 6. By then I was done with Real Player. There were so many problems I can't list them all.
It was bloated, it took over files, and they hid the link to download the free player. (At one point I thought there was no more free player because I couldn't find the link).
Real Media files were low-quality, endlessly buffering, garbage. I did like the User Interface, being able to scroll through the channels and pick the ones I liked, such as a Video Game channel and Comedy Central. But eventually Comedy Central stopped updating it with the latest Daily Show and Dr. Katz clips, and it just started showing the same one. (It wasn't so much a channel anymore as it was a prepetual 'come watch our TV programming' advertisement), and the Video Game channel got cancelled. After that I sort of lost interest.
Real One wasn't the downfall (the downfall started much sooner), but it was the coup de grace. At that point, Real Player lost all familiarity, the interface where I could choose the channels was replaced with a few thousand links that said 'To view this please buy a subscription to Real One'. I removed it and didn't care about Real Player anymore.
If Real Networks is changing their tune, I'm game. But I'm not going to buy a subscription. My requirements for a subscription service are insanely high, and NOTHING short of a gaming service has ever met them. What they need to offer me to get me to pay a monthly price is the same quality as my TV, with more customizable content (a la carte programming). Basically, I need to be offered something I just can't live without. Real One's advertising was "For the same price that you pay cable, you can watch short clips in a 320x240 window with garbled audio and low-quailty video, with no garauntee the links to it will even work!"
Bleh | |
| jekler
join:2000-11-23
Cincinnati, OH
clubs:
| Installed RealPlayer 10 Okay, so how's this any different from Real One? It's the same crap as before. 320x240 pixelated video, low-quality audio, and a bunch of links to crap content with no stand-alone value, it's only really there to try to convince you to buy a subscription (and to serve as positioning markers for the ad banners). The images that serve as links are much higher quality than the actual video that plays when you click on them.
You lose. Try again Real Networks. (makes the pacman dying sound [wonk-wonk-wonk-plink-plink]) | |
| | 
dadkins
Can you do Blu?
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
·Comcast
1 edit | Real Player 10? I still use Real One Player, and about 10 other players. When I click on a Real Media file on a website it opens and plays on Real One. A Quicktime file opens and plays on Quicktime, Windows Media...WMP9. DVDs, I have several different DVD players. DivX...DivX Player.
As it stands, I can play any media file out there, on several different players each...or any combination thereof.
All of the "Phone home" BS has been disabled or blocked by my firewall, so no worries. 
EDIT: Real One served another purpose once for me. I had an AVI file that would not delete even from Safe Mode. I had Real One add it to a playlist, played 10-15 seconds of the file, and had Real one delete it from my computer...it was gone then. | |
| 
PL11x15eq165
join:2002-07-05
Ladera Ranch, CA
clubs:
| Real does really suck. The thing that sucks the most is when you just HAVE to have a real player, finding the link for the "free" real player is like reading the small print in a contract - totally hidden, takes forever to find it the first couple of times. Then, when you DO get the guts to put that bloated piece of crap streaming spyware adware engine on your system, it constantly pops up telling you that you need an update to the current version, AND THEN THE FRIGGIN' THING TRIES TO UPSELL YOU AGAIN!!!
I hope real networks just curls up and dies. What we all need to do is send email to the sites that force us to use them (nasa jpl, airamericaradio, stuff like that) and plead with them to change to a different format, preferably one that doesn't advertise, although I'm not sure which one that is, they all seem to - but real is like a high-pressure used car salesman, or the telemarketer that keeps calling at dinner, or the site with 3000 popups because they get a nickel for each pop-up they send... | |
| Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
| I like Real 10 I like Real 10. I liked Real One also. I recently uninstalled WMP9 off my XP box and reverted back to WMP 6.4. Versions above that you can't turn off the calling home. Real has a far better privacy policy that WMP and there is no DRM. I never used WMP on this XP box since I got it last November. I use Real Player all the time along with Winamp. In fact, to play Netscape Radio Plus in Winamp, I have to have Real Player and Netscape Radio Plus is by far the best group of radio stations for streaming audio. I don't think Real is particularly bloated...no more so that WMP and Real doesn't call home if you don't want it to, whereas, WMP calls home and you can't stop it unless you do so with a software firewall which I don't want because I am behind a router.
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"Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's destiny." Victor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning | |
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PL11x15eq165
join:2002-07-05
Ladera Ranch, CA
clubs:
| Re: I like Real 10 Huh?
said by Mele20  :
I recently uninstalled WMP9 off my XP box...
How did you uninstall WMP? All I've been able to do is remove the start menu item to it (that's all you can do via "Add/Remove Windows Components"). In XP, uninstalling WMP would be like removing your ears from your head...
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Where's the "Any" key? | |
| | | Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
| Re: I like Real 10 You can remove WMP 9 and 8 from Windows XP. Version 6.4 is buried in Version 8 which is the version that all XP boxes come with. After removing versions 8 and 9, version 6.4 becomes default on an XP box. So, you are correct that you cannot totally remove all versions of WMP from XP but you can revert back to a version that allows you to stop it from automatically calling home to check for updates. You can even move up from 6.4 to 7 which I think also does not call home unless you choose to let it.
The uninstall string is from Microsoft support. The trick is in doing this in these exact steps. It doesn't work right otherwise.
Install WMP9 if you don't already have it. Reboot. Go to add/remove programs then Windows Components and uncheck WMP (which you have already done). Next, open WMP 9 and unassociate all extensions. Then use Explorer to get to your WMP8 files. In there you will find a file for WMP6.4. Open that and associate the extensions. Next, run this command:
RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %SystemRoot%\inf\wmp.inf,Uninstall
Windows will uninstall versions 8 and 9 and will leave you with version 6.4. I did this on an XP Pro Sp1 box and it worked beautifully. I now have only version 6.4 on this box. I do still have the setup.exe and .exe files for WMP9 in the WMP folder and Windows doesn't want to let me delete them. I imagine there is a way, but I don't mind that much that those files are there as WMP 9 is NOT installed now on this box and WMP8 is completely gone with no files left to show that it ever was on this box. WMP 6.4 works fine except I do get an error if I try to play radio stations in it, but I use Winamp for streaming audio so I don't mind.
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"Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's destiny." Victor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning | |
| neftv
join:2000-10-01
Broomall, PA | Are they really awake?? Or just in a catatonic state to make us believe? | |
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Realplayer- No redeeming qualities