Audacity Forum

So could the propriety format be on individual files ?? like I said, some work and some didn't.

These are old files that I got a few yrs back, is there a way around this ?

My guess is that some are RealAudio v. 1.0 files (supported by FFMpeg) and some are RealAudio, but a later version, and not supported.

Right, that makes sense I guess, certainly is a possibility, just seems strange that they would change that much.
In particular since ffmpeg is supposed to be the ultimate converter....

Update;
I've tried a few converters, some based on the ffmpeg code.

They worked fine, for half of my files, and didn't for the others.
These were all .ra files, with some I think there is a proprietary issue ?


In any case I'm wondering if I should just try installing Real Player itself
and try that.

Any updates, tips on RP ?
The reason I stopped using it (a few yrs ago) was because it always tried to
be the default player etc....

What are the pros/cons of RP now ?
If I could just install it and then uninstall it (when I'm done) I would,
just don't know if it would cause problems or other issues...

Have a look at "Real Alternative" from free-codecs.com
Real Player was banished from my computer many years ago and is never to return. On the odd occasion when I've needed to play an RA file I've used Real Alternative. I prefer to not use Real Media at all.

What were some of your issues with RP ?
What I'm mostly wondering about is the uninstall of RP if I wanted to
use it temporarily.... something don't uninstall nicely.

As far as Real Alternative , I did look into that a bit, but got mixed reviews here.

http://download.cnet.com/Real-Alternati ... l;1#rateit

All of this might be for nothing, even if I were to get RP, maybe it wouldn't play these files
either ? Since I'm not sure what the issue is.

Like you, my view of Real Player is based on experience of old versions.
The main reasons why I stopped using Real Player:
I dislike the "hard sell".
I don't want a program to set itself as the default application for all of my media files without asking.
If I manually deselect a file association for a program then I expect it to stay deselected. I don't want the program to change its preferences settings without asking, specifically when I have already set the options that I want.
I don't like nag ware.
I think programs should provide a simple means of uninstalling. I don't like programs that make it unnecessarily difficult to uninstall them.
At one time Real Media was a leader in high compression, but has since been over-taken by better formats.

cowboy wrote:As far as Real Alternative , I did look into that a bit, but got mixed reviews here.

I've not used Real Alternative for a quite a while (I was previously a Win XP user but now use Linux). Previously I used Real Alternative on Win XP and found it to be a good alternative for my needs. I simply wanted to play some Real Media files without all of the hassle of Real One Player.

I've not tried the current version, but I notice that most of the negative reviews on CNet show a clear lack of understanding on the part of the reviewer:

If the download is corrupt, then that is not the fault of the software. I would always recommend downloading programs from the official source, which for Real Alternative is free-codecs.com

One review complained about the size, but it is far smaller than Real One Player.

There are complaints that it does not play streaming media, but this is clearly explained on free-codecs.com

Several people complained that it did not work on (64-bit) Windows 7, but the version for download on cnet is not the 64-bit version, it's a 32-bit version that is only intended for Windows 2000/XP/Vista. There is a 64-bit Win 7 version available from http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/download- ... ic-hc.html

I agree that reviews can be useful, but if the reviewer is talking rubbish then their review is likely to be misleading. If I were in your position then I think I'd give Real Alternative a go. If it doesn't work then it is easily uninstalled (unlike old versions of Real Player).

Right, I understand about the reviews, to be taken with much salt....

Not sure RealAlternative or any other converter is going to resolve my issue anyway.

Apparently, the remaining files I have to convert, are either a unsupported version of .ra or
some other issue that prevents conversion.

So I assume my only choice is to install RP, (and maybe that won't even play them ??)
and then Uninstall....

Any other options ?

Jet Audio player is the only other player on Windows that I know of that supports Real Audio. http://www.jetaudio.com/download/
At one time Jet Audio player was a nice little player, but last time I looked it had become very bloated with features that I did not want.