« Previous post
Next post »

June 4, 2007

Try The New RealPlayer: We Have Twenty Beta Accounts

Michael Arrington

59 comments »

Update: The accounts are long gone.

Real Networks announced their new RealPlayer last week at the D Conference in San Diego. There was great coverage from a number of blogs and major news sites: see Beet.TV, Robert Scoble and the Wall Street Journal for more.

The new player effectively lets users bookmark and download video clips that they find on the web. Those clips can then be viewed offline and ripped to CD or DVD.

The beta version, to be released later this month, will work with Firefox or IE, but only on Windows machines. A Mac version will be available later this year. Future versions of the player will also support devices, so users can download video directly to their iPods or other gadgets.

The player will not be available for download at RealPlayer.com until later this month. However, the company has given us a beta account, which we are now testing. And they’ve given us twenty more accounts to give out to readers. If you want one, email us at realplayertechcrunch@gmail.com. The first twenty will get credentials and the URL to download the player.

Real wants me to emphasize that the product is still very alpha and there may be hiccups. That’s understandable, given that this is pre-release software.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 3:50 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. Deep Jive Interests » CONTEST: Want to Try Out The “New” RealPlayer? (I Have An Extra Invite)

    June 7th, 2007 at 9:50 pm

  2. New Real Player Launches

    June 26th, 2007 at 2:25 pm

  3. Ajax Girl » Blog Archive » New Real Player Launches

    June 26th, 2007 at 3:13 pm

  4. Tech Nology Blog » Blog Archive » New Real Player Launches

    June 26th, 2007 at 3:35 pm

  5. My GotChance » Blog Archive » New Real Player Launches

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:40 am

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. Frank Cefalu

    June 4th, 2007 at 6:26 am

    Very Exciting.

  2. Paul

    June 4th, 2007 at 6:38 am

    I haven’t used RealPlayer in at least a couple of years. It was like a virus on my machine, couldn’t get rid of it. I wonder if it’s changed. Hmm, I’ve been way too put off to find out!

  3. the logo homepage

    June 4th, 2007 at 6:38 am

    email sent, hopefully, you’ve still got some left

    thanks

  4. Paul

    June 4th, 2007 at 6:47 am

    I agree with the first Paul. Most people I know in the tech business so dislike Real Networks products that they won’t even try them. If they’ve ever done business with Real, their dislike is doubled. Count me out, but thanks for the offer.

  5. Matt

    June 4th, 2007 at 6:49 am

    Sorry, I am not interested in any product that this company releases. RealPlayer was such a PITA.

  6. Concrete Stain

    June 4th, 2007 at 6:52 am

    Yeah - the only plus on this is the Youtube Ripper /

    - but doesn’t everyone already have this? … via your old TC link..

    (what ever happened there? anything?) -RB

  7. Steve S

    June 4th, 2007 at 7:02 am

    Consider the old RealPlayer was more than a little painful, I’m hoping that this new one at least is usable. I’ll hold off on trying it until it goes live, Real has let me down before I want to see this new one at its absolute best before trying it out.

  8. Chris

    June 4th, 2007 at 7:03 am

    I would like to have one, sounds interesting.

  9. daodao

    June 4th, 2007 at 7:18 am

    wow~it sounds very interesting, could i have one?

  10. dave

    June 4th, 2007 at 7:28 am

    NO WAY! I’ve tried Real Player before and it put pieces of itself all over my hard drive. I’ve wiped my drive clean since then and it’s the best thing I ever did to get rid of it. Marketing ploy is all this is.

  11. numlock

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:00 am

    Does it popup a “Get Real Player Pro for only $19.95″ window every 5 seconds, write over my home page every time I run it and re-assign all my media files?

    Not that I’m skeptical or anything of course..

  12. trevo

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:02 am

    Yup, same sentiment.

    Real leaves a REAL sour taste in my mouth.

    Many years ago it tried to surreptitiously take over ALL my file preferences INCLUDING FTP(???) when I tried to install their software. Then suddenly when I click on any FTP link their ad-filled FTP client pops up which completely pisses me off.

    Whenever I have the option, I always pick Windows Media Player… at least with MSFT, its the devil you know.

  13. Steve

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:06 am

    buffering…

    seriously though. with any experiences i’ve had with Realplayer, i’d rather stay far far away.

  14. TDavid

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:19 am

    I enjoy trying out new things, but have no further interest in the Real Player based on past experiences. For those who do, best of luck to your systems :)

  15. Ed

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:21 am

    I agree with the majority here. Real sucks and have left a bad taste with many. They were so sneaky about having Realplayer put addn’l crap on your machine. It’s not even worth it.

  16. Bob

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:35 am

    Real is still in business? Seriously?!

  17. Anif™

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:35 am

    I just bought a new Vista machine this yr…no thanks!

  18. Tom

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:36 am

    I’ll never ever use it again. It annoys me that BBC use it for streaming their radio

  19. berklee

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:39 am

    Real needs to do a name change or something, seriously.

    Half the battle in releasing this product is going to be handling their severely tarnished reputation.

    Beta software from Real is like a casual encounter with Paris Hilton. Tempting at first, but reality sets in and reminds you that the consequences will greatly outweigh any reward.

  20. jeremy

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:51 am

    ehhhhhh… no thanks. No interest in any product from that company.

  21. Ryan

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:59 am

    Hey can I get one of those inv*buffering… buffering…*

  22. Jimmy

    June 4th, 2007 at 9:07 am

    Well for what it’s worth, rhapsody doesn’t do any of the aforementioned things, and that’s a real networks product. I love rhapsody, actually.

    Rhapsody is coded like crap (especially the new version), but still works. Real Networks needs to hire some real product designers. I’m not saying that to be mean, Im’ sure their programmers are capable but this windows-only shit has got to go.

    In this day and age theres no reason for 100% custom GUI and windows-only operation.

  23. numlock

    June 4th, 2007 at 9:10 am

    I just gave them the benefit of the doubt and went to download their latest free client. The first page asked for my credit card details.

    FFS Real, get your head out of your money grabbing arse!

    You had a chance to turn things around with the Helix open source stuff and actually had a bit of a following when it was the only player that had a Theora codec, even the Linux crowd was giving you a break.

    Here’s some tips:

    Sort your shit out, give the player away free (as in FREE), dump the monthly fee based crap, get a loyal user base *THEN* start thinking about how to make money.

    Even us sub-Arrington-radar startups know more about what our customers want.

  24. Brian

    June 4th, 2007 at 9:31 am

    I hate even having that Word on my screen. My PC shuts down automatically for fear I might download it.

  25. Justin

    June 4th, 2007 at 9:34 am

    Real is still around? When is that whore of the spyware industry going to just accept the fact that they lost?

  26. Gregg

    June 4th, 2007 at 9:42 am

    I will never install a Real product on my computer again. There stuff was worse than spyware. They no longer deserve to be trusted.

  27. An Alternative

    June 4th, 2007 at 9:43 am

    Don’t forget Realmedia is playable using the wonderful Real alternative:

    http://www.free-codecs.com/dow.....native.htm

    It is amazing how much antagonism Real generated with their horriblly invasive software…

  28. carl

    June 4th, 2007 at 9:57 am

    I LOVED the first version of Real Jukebox (circa 2000). It was much easier to use than even the current iTunes, by putting the navigation on the left in typical web-navigation style. You could also re-classify your tracks by dragging them onto the category names in the navigation, ahh that was so nice, so much better than the iTunes “Get Info” box (yuk).

    I even wrote a script to synchronize my mp3 player (Archos, yet another product that was earlier, and cheaper and better in many ways, than the winning product with better marketing)

    Then in ‘01 or ‘02, Real came out with a new version that removed everything that I liked, and a bunch of stuff that I still don’t understand, and business practices that annoyed everyone. What a shame.

  29. Andy Fox

    June 4th, 2007 at 10:30 am

    I don’t think its a secret that Real Player’s user experience was horrid for most users except those family members of yours who (still) use America Online and have 6,000 shortcuts on their desktop.

    Can anyone even say which media player they do like? Winamp used to be good but never seemed to come along with the times. I tend to just use itunes for playlists and WMP for single songs or videos but I wouldn’t say I think either are great. I’ve had so many connection, nag screens, uninstall/file association BS problems with real player and just picturing that gigantic blue disaster staring at me is scary.

    That being said, maybe they deserve another chance. The screenshots ( http://tinyurl.com/2palmz ) look pretty nice actually.

    Somewhat on point: according to their front page their in the anti spyware business now too.

  30. Markus

    June 4th, 2007 at 10:35 am

    Think of the accumulative total man-hours of TC readers time wasted by Real Networks over the years. I know they owe me a couple days of my life back for all the times I’ve had to deal with their crapware.

    So many decent companies when down the tubes in the crash, yet this piece of sh*t excuse for a company survived. So sad.

    At least Microsoft is happy there’s another company even more despised than they are.

  31. netmuse

    June 4th, 2007 at 11:38 am

    Hmmm I really like how sites like Joost and Realplayer offer these limited private betas when in fact they’re using us as testers… rolleyes!

  32. Gerard Sorme

    June 4th, 2007 at 12:28 pm

    Real Networks will have to do something REALLY extraordinary to ever get my attention again. Horrible experiences, pesky software, I swore: Never Again.

  33. Maxim

    June 4th, 2007 at 12:31 pm

    I would like to have one

  34. Coleman Hines

    June 4th, 2007 at 1:50 pm

    prepare for your computer to be assimilated

  35. Craven Moorehead

    June 4th, 2007 at 2:28 pm

    i would feel safer barebacking paris hilton and nicole ritchie while eating a steak from a mad cow while riding in a pinto with a full tank of gas driven by billy joel thru compton wearing a KKK hood.

  36. Nezo

    June 4th, 2007 at 2:40 pm

    How desperate can they get

  37. aw

    June 4th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

    real has blown since there was the first alternative to watching video. i always am bummed when i hit a site that uses reallousyplayer. i wish them well but jesus what planet have they been living on for the past 8 years?

  38. David Kobia

    June 4th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    R.I.P Real Player - I almost thought you guys were dead until I saw this. What you need are 20 Omega testers, not Beta testers. Omega because its probably the last we’ll hear of it.

  39. Dale Dietrich

    June 4th, 2007 at 4:14 pm

    Years ago Real was my preferred player. When they started shunting off their new features to the “pro” version, started resetting my system viewing preferences without my permission and started trying to sell me something with every new version … I had enough. I switched to Windows Media Player and never looked back.

    This new release seems to be solving non-existant problems. With Firefox now I click on a video clip I want to download and it downloads in the background - as many as I want.

    I love his “we fully support DRM” schtick and then immediately after that says they’ve done everything they can think of to benefit the end user. Oh ya!? What planet are you on when you think DRM helps the end user? :) Quite funny!

    …Dale

  40. netmuse

    June 4th, 2007 at 4:49 pm

    LOL #35 and #38

  41. Ben Rotholtz

    June 4th, 2007 at 4:52 pm

    This is Ben Rotholtz, General Manager, Web Services & Syndication, Real

    It is absolutely true that RealPlayer has been over-loaded with too many agendas that damaged the consumer experience. The product that created the revolution of Internet media way back in April of 1995 took some awkward side-steps around the turn-of-the-century and alienated many of our early proponents. We are addressing the issues head on — see http://rws-blog.rhapsody.com/r.....ons_g.html

    During installation and after installation there were very serious knife fights in the back-alleys of the operating system: Most directly with the operating system itself (life can wear cruel shoes) and sometimes other media players, such as QuickTime. Ultimately every application had to preserve the ability to maintain the playback of media-types: Losing the media-types meant that you were deep-sixed and no longer visible to the consumer.

    The territorial knife fights were all about maintaining various forms of consumer visibility and discovery. Playing common media types such as MP3’s was one thing but everyone also employed cheap tricks: desktop icons, memory hugging system tool tray icons, etc. Some of us even employed theoretcially useful methods, such as breaking news alerts, to promote card-carrying, ad-waving reminders of RealPlayer’s existence through the Message Center.

    The player-wars had a deep and negative impact on the faceplate of the RealPlayer – how the application installed and how it functioned. In retrospect, there had to be better ways to function when diplomacy broke down. It may have seemed like an evil plot, but it wasn’t: the need to survive could and did outstrip the consumer experience on Windows: By contrast our Linux and Macintosh versions of the RealPlayer have not been controversial. Similarly, Rhapsody and RealArcade do not have sullied histories.

    Over the past few years we have thought long-and-hard about our legacy and our responsibility to the Internet community. With the launch of the new RealPlayer at the end-of-June, the new RealPlayer becomes our video platform. Many of the same installation and consumer friendly functions from Real’s other consumer products, such as Rhapsody, are being actively applied to the new RealPlayer. More importantly, many of the targeted complaints and diatribes from the early supporters we lost have been taken-to-heart and best practices for transparency are being actively applied. We recognize that we must re-earn your trust.

    Hope you take Michael up on his offer for a beta and please let us know what we can do to create a better consumer experience.

  42. MG

    June 4th, 2007 at 5:33 pm

    The content providers or video sites could always opt to use flash protection services like http://www.enscramble.com that would effectively limit their exposure.

  43. Rahul

    June 4th, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    I always refrained myself from realplayer and was a Wimamp fan but the new version is pretty cool specially in consolidating all the music, video files lying all around the pc.

  44. Paul

    June 4th, 2007 at 7:55 pm

    Have RealNetworks learned their way? I despised their player with all of their hidden check-marks in the install program. Anytime you have to trick your customer your product isn’t worth 2 bits.

  45. Jeff Orlando

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:18 pm

    Wow, I thought it was just me who hated Real. I wouldn’t use it even if they paid me.

  46. Tof

    June 5th, 2007 at 1:47 am

    Real is not dead ?

    Real player is more like a virus or a spyware than a cool app…

  47. Wade

    June 5th, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    Guess what? EVERYONE HATES REAL PLAYER! They screwed everyone over too many times. I hope they are reading these comments. Please go broke.

  48. Ben Rotholtz

    June 5th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

    Over one-and-a-half million installs of RealPlayer are made every day and Nielsen Net Ratings has reported that RealPlayer was one of the top two Internet applications in the last ten of twelve months.

    We are taking a very new direction with the new RealPayer: as noted above, a direction that is much more aligned to what we have done on Linux and on the Mac as well as in our other consumer applications such as Rhapsody.

    Ben Rotholtz, General Manager, Web Services and Syndication, Real

  49. Gal

    June 6th, 2007 at 3:14 pm

    Waiting until some other poor schmoe crashes his system before I try it. See you guys about 6 months after the shipping version comes out.

  50. Lance Fisher

    June 7th, 2007 at 3:05 pm

    Real, why won’t you die?!

  51. desik

    June 10th, 2007 at 10:09 am

    I’ve tried out the new Realplayer app and it is a bit of a baggy monster - kinda more to do with how clumbsilly and ruthlessly RP tries to promote itself and cash in on its product - but the browser embedded online video ripper, the star feature, is unobtrusive and functional and seamlessly saves videos downloaded to the multimedia library for playing later or burning. RealPlayer has got that right and if it gets Joe and Jane public downloading videos off YouTube, TechCrunch or wherever without screwing about with Firefox plug-ins thats ok by me.

    Not so sure about the SuperPass or store features ( the latter doesnt work outside the US yet anyway ) as other firms already offer similar household name services for free or without the baggage - including the dire AOL-like ‘ virus masquerading as a service ‘ reputation.

    Maybe RealPlayer should be looking to trim down ,background this beast and figure out how to work in a quieter way with more established partners .

  52. dadkins

    June 10th, 2007 at 5:50 pm

    RealPlayer is just that - a player!
    It has not once ever tried to take over any of my machines.
    Remember people, you need to be smarter than the software you are installing.

    The last install I did, was trying to install some crap software… Firefox and Google toolbar!
    But, since there was a box that I could uncheck, the nasty softwares weren’t installed!

    When it is finished, RP *ASKS* if it can be the main player or if you wish to assign file types manually.

    I assign file types manually(I’m able to do this).

    For the record, RealPlayer plays MOV files better than QT.
    Y’all need to pay attention when you are installing any software… it would save us all a headache from reading FUD posts.

  53. Fernando

    June 14th, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    I’m sick and tired of reading all the supposed techies out there blaming Real for “past sins”.

    Yes, earlier versions were a pain. The “last known good” was RealPlayer 5, then it entered a period where it started adding useless features and the player increased in size and it had annoying defaults.

    ALL THAT was gone, however, when Real decided back in 2003 to open source its player (and thus HELIX was born), and thus the name of the commercial media player switched from “RealOne” (which was the peak of the worst) to REAL PLAYER 10.

    Real Player 10 was, unlike past versions, both slim, nice on the eye, and it is free from all the nasty “features” and defaults of past versions.

    In other words: all the kids above who are saying that Real is crap have surely NOT TRIED RealPlayer 10.

    Not only that, RealPlayer 10 has a very nice Linux version, with Mozilla/Firefox plug-in. It’s so good that I end up installing Real 10 for Linux on every new Linux installation that I setup.

  54. Ben Rotholtz

    June 26th, 2007 at 6:46 pm

    The new RealPlayer was released today at http://www.realplayer.com We would appreciate your feedback.
    thanks,
    Ben Rotholtz, General Manager, Web Services & Syndication, Real

« Previous post
Next post »