Real Player Tips and Tricks

The RealPlayer goes beyond the capabilities of the standard video/audio players. It offers a lot more than that. RealPlayer 10.5 for Windows contains audio CD burning capabilities, PVR-style playback buffering, multimedia search, Internet radio, a jukebox-style file library, an embedded web browser (using Microsoft Internet Explorer), and the ability to transfer media to a number of portable devices, including Apple's iPod, MP3 players, and Windows Media devices.

Considering all the things you can do with it, you can safely guess that there are a lot of tips and tricks available at your disposal for using RealPlayer and this will try to enlighten you on some of them.

The fist tip follows the usual maxima “Try before you buy”. Use the chance to download the free version and give the product a shot before you spend your money. The chances that you won’t like it are definitely not big, but still it is a good idea to see beforehand if the product meets your demands.

Now, once you start using the product, there are a lot of bells and whistles that you can play it. You will immediately notice the sharp looking interface and all the different views that you can play with. Just don’t forget that you can always return the normal state of the interface by pressing F7.

To start with the tricks, you will see the built-in Media Browser (based on Internet Explorer) that is contained within the application. Use it to browse internet pages while listening to your music. The whole RealPlayer is an entertaining system on its own.

The playlist on the lower left side of the screen works just like any other playlist, it supports drag-and-drop and also can randomize the tracks you're currently listening, instead of just playing them as they are ordered. A very cool thing about Real Player is that it you can choose from about 1000 skins using which you can manipulate the interface of the application. This is available under View-Choose Skin-Get More Skins… Choices are plenty, although a slight downside is that most of them have some kind of a sponsor logo attached.

RealPlayer also has some Visualizations. Annabelle the Sheep, Cosmic Belt, Fire, Audio Analyzer and Nebula visualizations are included in the RealPlayer set-up. There are a lot of other visualizations which one can download from the RealNetworks site, including the 3D Visualization Plug-In Surreal.

An interesting feature of the RealPlayer is the ‘Burn CD’ section. Both the basic and the plus version can burn CDs. The current burning technology is powered by NPI, formerly it was powered by Adaptec (Roxio). With the free version you can burn audio and data CDs, the premium CD burning allows you also to make an MP3 CD.

There is also CD-ripping available on all versions, you can use it to get the download the tracks from an original CD onto your hard drive in MP3 format. By default it's set to rip CD-Tracks into .m4a (AAC).

RealPlayer has also a wide range of plug-ins. Some of them are listed at the accessories page, but most are not. There is no official plug-in page.

The included Real Music Guide gives the user detailed artist information, presents reviews, recommesndations and the most popular charts.

The vTuner Plus and HMRadio are radio tuners specially created for Real Player so that you can listen to hundreds of online radio stations.

There are four audio "enhancers" available for the latest version of RealPlayer. DFX, iQfx, Volume Logic and Sanyo 3D Surround. DFX dramatically improves the sound quality of Internet and digital audio. Whether you're listening to downloaded audio tracks or live Internet radio streams, DFX will greatly enhance your listening experience.

Here is how you can launch the DFX. Start playing a given song. On the RealPlayer menu, select Tools and click on the DFX Audio Enhancement icon. You will momentarily feel the difference. And also, DFX allows you to change your sound enhancement settings to best suit your music type, listening tastes, and listening environment. You can change how much enhancement you would like for each sound effect by moving the individual sliders for precise control.

There is an enhancer called Lake PLS (created by Lake Technologies) but it is limited and works only with RealJukebox. In fact, there are some registry tweaks which allow you to use Lake PLS with RealPlayer 10. You may still be able to find some more info on that topic at the RealPlayer website.

RealPlayer has an integrated search engine that crawls the Web for relevant media content in all formats and organizes it for easy access. You can see it on the bar right next to the Burn/Transfer section.

Something that generates a lot of buzz about RealPlayer 10.5 is the music store. The developers from RealNetworks joined Apple and Napster in offering 99-cent music downloads. The trick here is that virtually all MP3 players, including the Apple iPod, are allowed to play songs purchased from the integrated RealPlayer Music Store. For example, you can play Real files on your iPod. This is possibly trough the so called Harmony technology that allows the player to manage Digital Rights Management (DRM)-protected tracks and work with various music players, including Apple's iPod. The only limitation is that doesn't let users put protected music meant for one device onto another: For instance, you can't put iTunes Music Store tracks on a Samsung Napster player.

Tracks go for 99 cents a pop, and you can grab albums for $10. The current catalog contains nearly 500,000 song. Just as with the competition, certain tracks are available only as part of their whole album, and some albums aren't sold in their entirety. In addition to browsing the store, you can make playlists, rip CDs, burn custom mixes, and listen to thousands of online radio stations. Real has finally added MP3 encoding at bit rates up to 320Kbps for free; in the past, you could encode only at a paltry 96Kbps unless you paid for the Premium version.

A nice little trick you can do with the RealPlayer is to transfer songs right on your iPod, as the software will detect that you have an iPod, then transfer a compatible file. You will be able to transfer and play back the songs purchased off the Music Store without a hitch. These songs will show up as 192Kbps AAC files on the iPod, and they sound excellent.

Here is what you need to do to transfer MP3 files to your handheld. Connect your handheld to your computer using the USB sync cable. Start the Real Player on the PC. Select palmOne Handheld from the Current Burner/Device drop-down list. Select the songs you want to transfer: Drag the song files you want from the My Library window on the left into the palmOne Handheld window on the right. To start burning, click Burn/Transfer.

RealPlayer 10.5 supports a 5.1-channel sound for DVDs. RealVideo 10.0 offers HDTV-caliber video at less than 5Mbps, so output is better, with less pixelation and warbling.

An annoying thing about RealPlayer is that it uses the System Wave volume control. This means that if you mute RealPlayer, you will mute the computer sound speakers. This issue has not been fixed even in the latest 10.5 version. Tip: install the Volume Logic plug-in to correct this bug. It disables RealPlayer's sound control and uses its own.

Here is another useful tip. Visit http://www.on2.com, the website of The Duck Corporation, the industry leader in compression technology which released VP5, one of their latest advancements in video compression. They also got VP7. You can install this new compression method as a plug-in to your RealPlayer to take advantage of the provided “true broadcast-quality, real-time compression of difficult live material such as sports and action footage at sub-megabit data rates.”

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