h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For someone who's firewall does not like BBC real media streams...

I'm afraid not. RealPlayer (as far as I'm aware) is the BBC standard. And that's what we've got here. I'm very sorry about that.

Is the following link any good to you?:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/help/help_av.shtml

Sam.

Yup, that's what I'd guessed... I'll just have to access it later from a more friendly network... This one never has been able to get through to any of the BBC real servers

Sam, you are probably not the right person to say this to, but as a Mac user, RealPlayer can be next to useless (when streaming), BBCi as a whole should consider using Quicktime too. Power to the Mac World!?

concur

I wouldn't say that - the latest version (RealOne Player) is not only out on OS X but is tuned to use he G4 velocity engine and quartz graphics - it's certainly no worse than the windows counterpart. Quicktime streaming isn't that good.Neither is Realplayer, but there we go

Edd

I too dislike Real Player. Quicktime's better. I even prefer windows player over it, and that's saying something!

realplayer's quite buggy for us pre OS Xers. plus they seem to want you to not download the thing, making it very hard to find and all.

From the BBC:

"What's the problem with Windows Media Player?

When the BBC began publishing audio and video content Real Media was the most secure form of streaming. Unfortunately Microsoft no longer supports Real content. Consequently, many of the later versions of the Windows Media Player will not play our clips. This may change in the future.

NB: Some World Service clips are also streamed for the Windows Player."

I'm so far down the food chain here I just nod and agree.

i hate real player...
i've tried using it because i want to listen to bbc radio etc online, but it's almost as bad as AOL in terms of taking over your computer
that's what i've found anyway...
^. .^
= ' =
Guru
CommunityArtist

get macOSX or failing that, a better computer. It works fine on mine - takes up very little processor time - I can do all sorts of things while it happens

Edd

i can't remember precisely what happens, it's not the processor time really, it's just an annoying little program that wants to be the solution to everything and isn't (ie everything slightly related to media opens in real player)(which annoys me)
^. .^
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Guru
CommunityArtist

I also desire quick Time as a default stream. Many other web-based protocols I simply can't operate. The current difficulities may be more due to the nature of the web-connection, however:
I'm on a cable modem at 512/sec. Anyone on dial-up 56K might have a terrible time with this kind of material.

Having heard the lecture, I have two comments:

1)why is it broken into 7 parts? Is that for the 56k crowd?

2)When can I see the slides he was presenting on his Mac laptop?

Fruitbat

Gotta say I'm with the Realplayer hating crowd. Everytime it runs it sets an annoying little update programme to start when Windows loads, and for some reason this makes my firewall (which loads just after) crash.

Being on a 56k, I dislike the whole streaming thing in general. Much prefer to just download and run, especially with segmented stuff like this.

that's what it is, it's the 56k-ness of my connection
(grr @ real player )
^. .^
= ' =
Guru
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i dunno if this fits here, but i was wondering if i could sample this and put it in a song i'm making...

anybody know?

> wants to be the solution to everything

I can understand that - the wondows version particularily is just like Windows Media and the Mac verion of Interntet Explorer in that it gives you a screen saying "do you want this to be your default app for blah blah blah blah" and you firmly click "no" - then it replaces all your protocols automatically ANYWAY. The way to get round it is spend hours going through your Browser "helper app" preferences (which I think reside in the "Internet" control panel on windows) changing everything the way you want it, although with Internet Explorer there are some things you can't change, for instance in MSN messanger if you click on a link, it will not goto your default browser. It will go to Internet Explorer. If you don't have Internet Explorer, then it won't work. Microsoft are anal like that.
Re: rest of thread - I have a 56k connection and no real complaints about streaming - in fact I'm overawed at the quality of streaming at 56k. I do prefer streaming in some instances, downloading in others - streaming allows live TV for instance, like on the BBC news site, which is absolutely brilliant.

Edd

I can't begin to tell you how much RealPlayer annoys me, with it's advert-plastered interface and its desire to be noticed everywhere, in the apple menu, on the desktop, in explorer favourites...

There are probably legal reasons for this, but why can't quicktime play real media stuff?

you haven't got the latest version - download realOne player from their site - it doesn't have any ads or anything on it - it's just a very simple player.

Edd

Thanks, I'll have a look later - is that for the Mac as well as PC now?