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Share videos easily with RealPlayer Cloud
I'm old enough to remember when Real Video was the only game in town for streaming video. Once upon a time, everyone had some version of real on their computer. Then it went out of fashion or was overtaken by others, perhaps YouTube? I honestly do not remember. I was shocked to discover that RealNetworks are not only still around but introduced (about a year ago) a new app and service: RealPlayer Cloud. RealPlayer Cloud could be described as yet another video sharing app, but, unlike others, which mostly seem geared towards broadcasting videos to the world via Vimeo, YouTube, and the like, RealPlayer Cloud is also about sharing videos with specific people across multiple devices. After you create an account and grant the app all of the necessary permissions to access various services on your iPhone or iPad, it automatically populates its library with every video it can find on your phone in your camera roll. If you also run the companion Mac or PC app, both of which build your library from every video it can find on your hard drive (excluding those in iTunes, iPhoto, Aperture or iMovie libraries), then the library you view on your phone and on your PC or Mac contains every video from both sources (provided the app is running on your Mac or PC at the time, once you quit the app, the phone's library only shows items local to the phone). It does not attempt to figure out duplicates so my own library consists of two copies of many videos, one from my camera roll, and one scraped from Dropbox where I back up my pictures and videos on my phone. Each video gets a helpful icon depicting whether it is from the computer's library (a Mac icon), the local library (a camera icon), or the cloud (a cloud icon). If you tap on either a cloud-based or a computer-based video, it begins downloading the video immediately. As the data plans for RealPlayer are not free, it would have been nice to be given a dialog confirming that I was ok with this, perhaps even letting me know where I was in using my data plan. Videos themselves play smoothly, but I would expect no less from a company who has been doing this as long as RealNetworks has. AppleTV is also supported via AirPlay. When a video ends, you are given the choice to upload it to RealPlayer Cloud or to share it with friends. If you tap out of this screen, you have to rewatch (or scroll to the end of) the video to get those back or use the share options on the home screen. There are three menus on the home screen, the left menu denoted by the now-standard three lines that slides open a left panel giving you access to your camera (to shoot new video), your account information (including data used so far), and the free space on your iPhone or iPad (very handy). The middle menu lets you filter your library (camera roll vs. cloud vs. downloaded vs. Computer). The right-most menu is a mix of functions confusingly grouped under the older, pre-iOS 7 sharing icon (a rectangle with a curved arrow, now a square with an upward arrow since iOS 7). This icon generally calls up a menu where you can send selected content. In this case, you cannot select content until after you invoke this menu and tell it what you choose to do. Not every choice in the menu is about choosing and sharing, some of it is about sorting your library and choosing how it displays. These would make much more sense in the center menu. But I digress. Once you choose what you want to do (upload, download, add to a collection, delete, rename or share) you can then select the videos you want and start whatever process you wanted to start. I think the basic iOS Photos app handles this much better letting you select first and choose operations after. Videos may be shared with people on social networks or directly via Messages, Email or by copying a link and passing it to someone else as you wish. They do not need to have a RealPlayer Cloud account to watch the video but unless you are a paid member, you cannot upload HD quality video and the results are less that optimal. RealPlayer Cloud provides access to popular online videos in three categories: Daily Top 5 (though I do not know what criteria this is based on), Facebook videos posted by your friends, provided you have connected your Facebook account, of course, and Videos you have bookmarked from the previous two screens. RealPlayer Cloud is a free universal app for iPhone and iPad requiring iOS6 and up. Storage plans are available in-app as monthly subscriptions at US$1.99 for 10GB, $4.99 for 25GB and $9.99 for 100GB. Plans renew automatically and can be managed via your iTunes account as you would any other iOS Subscription. The obvious question is whether this is worth it. With iOS 8, I can share videos with members of my family easily enough with iCloud Family Sharing as well as to various social networks. What is harder to do is to share videos with various friends who are not in my iCloud Family Sharing group and that's where this app could come in handy. Also, because it scrapes video from the device it is on, it is a great way to collect everything in one central location quickly and easily. (I discovered some older videos I'd completely forgotten about on my Mac by doing this.) From there you can decide what you wish to upload and how much data you need or want to pay for. For me, the most important feature is what it does for you if you have a smaller device: upload your videos into the cloud and get them off your phone. With RealPlayer Cloud you'll have room to shoot new video and you'll have access to many more of your videos to share and play for people.
RealPlayer Cloud fuses video player and cloud storage, launches on Android, iOS, PC and Roku
RealNetworks is trying something a little different with its attempt at launching a cloud service in a very competitive market. It's combined its upgraded player app with 2GBs of free cloud storage, allowing users to move videos across devices, stream or download them and beam them out to compatible TV sets (via Roku). The new service also means you can share "long videos" from your Android / iOS device to any other video-capable device, and the end-user won't need to download an app to play it. This is possible through RealPlayer's new 'SurePlay' tech, which auto-formats outgoing videos to the suit screen-size, available bandwidth and storage space of receiving devices. There's no shortage of compatible hardware, either. Alongside apps Google's mobile OS and iOS, videos can also be shared or viewed through Windows PCs, Roku TV units and, in fact, any device that can use a web browser. If 2GB sounds a little tight, subscription plans will start at $5 per month for 25GB, and up to $30 per month for 300GB, for those that really can't stop sharing. We've added RealNetwork's Consumer-facing Matrix (read: price chart) after the break.
RealPlayer leaves beta, becomes fully-fledged Android app
RealNetworks has decided to roll out that old internet chestnut, RealPlayer, to a fresh-faced generation of smartphones that are screaming out for one more media player. This one reckons it can handle your music, video and photo content al in the same blueish hue and while the player has a basic flavor out for free, there's a $5 app for those that like the finer things in life. Extra features in the paid-for version include a graphic equalizer with save function, Gracenote database compatibility and manual metadata editing for those with more esoteric music tastes. Naturally, advertising is nixed in this version too. Now out from beta testing, hit the source for the download.
Intel bolsters video patent portfolio with purchase from RealNetworks
Silicon juggernaut Intel has inked a multi-million dollar deal with RealNetworks, agreeing to purchase scores of video-related patents and annex an entire software team. Specifics of the accord have Intel shelling out $120 million in exchange for 190 patents, 170 patent applications and a video codec development squad. In addition, the two companies have signed a "memorandum of understanding," agreeing to collaborate on future development of the licensed software. RealNetworks states that the sale "will [not] have any material impact on its businesses" and it will retain "certain rights" to the sold technologies. Intel says the sale will improve its ability to "offer richer experiences and innovative solutions [...] across a wide spectrum of devices." The full PR is queued up for you after the break.
Real Networks' GameHouse division finds a home on the App Store
On our way around last week's CES ShowStoppers event (where we met up with none other than T-Pain), I was surprised to see that Real Networks had a booth. They were big time back in the days when RealPlayer ruled internet streaming, but these days, I haven't seen much of them around. Turns out they're still kicking, though -- in addition to the streaming services, the company has been running an acquired arcade site called GameHouse (basically the successor to the old RealArcade), and that division has been releasing games on one of our favorite platforms: the iOS App Store. Sure enough, the popular Sally's Salon game is a GameHouse title, and Tiki Towers is another popular title from the company. We were shown two new iPad games from GameHouse -- the first was called Bad Air Day, and it has a pretty nauseous premise. You play as a hotel elevator bellhop with a farting problem, and as your little guy cuts the cheese, it's the player's job to swipe the touchscreen and direct the green gas around. Aside from the bathroom premise, the game has some interesting almost physics-based gameplay, as you need to clear the gas past the customers and into a ceiling fan, or onto a fart fairy who actually likes the smell. The other game we saw was Table Twister, a word game with rotating letter tiles on a table, that requires up to four players to drag the tiles off and create words as quickly as possible. Both were simple, but fun, and they were pretty polished -- GameHouse seems to know what its doing after quite a bit of iOS experience. "Games is a core business" for the company, the representative told us. As I said, I was surprised to see the old familiar Real logo (and those of us who counted on web streaming years ago can still see it spinning in our dreams and/or nightmares) at the show, but it's interesting to know that the company is growing well on the iOS platform.
iTunes overtakes RealPlayer
Even though Apple's stock prices are in the slumps, iTunes usage is certainly not! Website Optimization posted that iTunes has surpassed RealPlayer usage in terms of online streaming -- for the first time in history. They cite that iTunes was the only online streaming player that had a positive growth over year 2007. Here's how the online players break down as of December 2007: iTunes - 35,664 QuickTime - 12,787 RealPlayer - 27,565 Windows Media Player - 75,865 iTunes is now the second most popular streaming player behind Windows Media Player. Web Optimization also stated that iTunes has an annual growth of about 26.8%. There's no doubt that we will hear about this more when Steve takes the stage at a future music-related event.
Aigo's 2GB F965R PMP support Real Audio, MP5
Aigo's latest PMP smells like more hype that substance, but regardless, this 2GB player certainly has the look. Internally, you'll find a 600MHz processor, a 2.8-inch panel, Class-D digital amplifier, and support for a wide array of formats including Real Audio, JPEG, BMP, GIF, MP3, "MP5," WMA, FLAC, and APE. Additionally, it's equipped with an SD / MMC expansion slot for loading up excess media, and while we don't exactly envision this one escaping China anytime soon, those in the neighborhood can grab one for CNY999 ($132).[Via PlayerBites]
Ask PSP Fanboy: Volume 12
Every Saturday, PSP Fanboy will answer your burning questions. If you have a question for the team, send an e-mail to andrew @ pspfanboy.com with the subject "Ask PSP Fanboy."Q: Is there any way to watch YouTube (or a similar website) directly on my PSP with the web browser?A: No. Sony hinted that the functionality would arrive in a later firmware upgrade, but that hasn't happened yet. You have two options with YouTube: you can convert the videos and save them to Memory Stick, or you can use Remote Play. If it works for you, the Remote Play internet browser is able to stream Flash video to your system.Q: Are there any free programs which can change Real media files to be played on my PSP?A: People still use RealPlayer? The format, to my knowledge, is pretty much obsolete. You can use Media-Convert to try to use them, but remember: you can't convert DRM-protected files, nor can you convert files that have no video data in them. If your .rm file looks really tiny (just a few bytes), it won't convert.Q: Do you have any suggestions for any good games that utilize my router?A: The big one to get is probably Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. Other candidates include SOCOM, Medal of Honor, Ratchet & Clank and Killzone: Liberation.
Real Player goes universal
Real Player 10.1 has been made available, and it's a universal binary! Hooray, now I can stare at "Buffering..." without relying on Rosetta! Forgive me if I rate this one a big "yawn."Real Player 10.1 requires Mac OS 10.3.9 or later.[Via Cult of Mac]
