Technologizer » RealNetworks

Real Loses RealDVD Case

Harry McCracken — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:54:57 +0000

RealDVD, the DVD-copying software which I reviewed and sort of liked during the five minutes in 2008 it was actually for sale, is dead. Real has settled with the Motion Picture Association of America and a permanent injunction bars it from ever selling the software again.

Bad news for Real, and equally bad news for consumers. Bad news for copyright laws that aren’t kind of a joke, too: Real tried to make Hollywood happy and its product was sued into extinction, but with Handbrake alive and well, bootleg movies are at least as commonplace as bootleg hooch during Prohibition…

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Rhapsody is Coming to the iPhone. Let’s Hope!

Harry McCracken — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:51:55 +0000

RealNetworks’ Rhapsody is a very nicely done music service. But like all subscription music offerings it’s been profoundly hobbled by the fact that it’s incompatible with iPods, the devices that dominate portable digital music. That’s about to change. Sort of. Maybe.

Over at its corporate blog, RealNetworks its reporting that it’s submitted a Rhapsody application to the iPhone App Store. The app would bring Rhapsody to the iPhone and iPod Touch, letting owners of those devices pay a monthly fee ($14.99, apparently–the price of a Rhapsody to Go account) for unlimited access to the millions of tracks in Real’s catalog.

Here’s a video from Real showing the app in action:

Rhapsody for iPhone is missing one key feature offered by Rhapsody to Go on other devices: It can stream music (over both 3G and Wi-Fi) but can’t store it locally. That means it only works when you have an Internet connection. Real says it may add local music storage later, and that an upcoming Android version of Rhapsody will store music locally.

But even without the ability to store albums on the iPhone itself, Rhapsody could be what none of the many third-party music apps for the iPhone have been to date: a plausible full-blown iTunes substitute. Might a meaningful percentage of folks who spend $15 a month for 15 iTunes tracks prefer to invest the same amount of money in a service that lets them listen to everything it offers, for as long as they keep paying the monthly fee? We’ve never really had the opportunity to get an answer to that question, since iTunes and Rhapsody have never been available on the same portable device. Now they might–but only if Apple approves the Rhapsody application.

You can certainly imagine a scenario in which it declines to do so: After all, Rhapsody would definitey duplicate some features provided in the iPhone’s built-in iPod and iTunes applications. And like Google Voice, it would use its own interface for a core iPhone function (music listening, in this case) rather than “the iPhone’s distinctive user interface.” Oh, and it would just happen to compete directly with iTunes for iPhone owners’ dough.

Google Voice was kept out of the App Store–or, if you prefer Apple’s spin, not immediately allowed in–before the world knew it had been submitted. If Apple ends up accepting it, it’ll involve some combination of backpedaling, adjustments to the app by Google, and/or interference by the Feds. You gotta think that Real has announced it’s submitted the app not just to whip up the standard anticipatory enthusiasm–but also to make it tougher for Apple to reject it, especially in the wake of the Google Voice kerfuffle.

And just to show it’s not treading gingerly, Real’s blog post (by Lacy Kemp) gets a little snarky about iTunes:

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve wanted to hear a song on my iPhone and guiltily plopped down $.99 to iTunes to please my impatient self. When I first used the Rhapsody app it seriously felt like the sun shone a little brighter that day. Music matters that much.

It’ll be a thoroughly good thing for iPhone and iPod Touch owners if Apple quickly and quietly approves Rhapsody, and a lousy sign for the future of the platform if it doesn’t. Boy, do I ever hope that the next time I write about Rhapsody, it’s because it’s available in the App Store.

(Related note: I’m also still waiting for the impressive-looking iPhone edition of the excellent LaLa service, which I got a preview of ten months ago.)

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RealDepressing: RealDVD Loses a Round in Court

Harry McCracken — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:05:58 +0000

The New York Times’ Brad Stone is reporting that U.S. Federal District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has ruled against RealNetworks in the lawsuit filed by the movie studios against RealDVD, its software for copying DVDs to your hard drive. Judge Patel granted the studios a preliminary injunction against Real selling the software, which seems like kind of a formality given that she stopped Real from selling it almost as soon as it went on sale last September.

RealDVD isn’t a tool for pirates. Actually, it adds an extra layer of copy protection to prevent you from doing anything except copying a movie to one hard drive for viewing on one computer at a time. (You can’t even put the movies on a shared drive to watch them from multiple computers on one network.) The court is apparently inclined to look askance at even a fundamentally hobbled (albeit easy-to-use) DVD copier.

Meanwhile, tools like Handbrake let large numbers of people copy DVDs without any of RealDVD’s measures against sharing the digital copies with friends or tossing them onto BitTorrent for the world to download. I also remain unclear on why Telestream’s Drive-in–which is, basically, a Mac version of RealDVD except that it also comes in a multi-user version–is still around when RealDVD is apparently too dangerous to be let onto the market while Real waits for a final ruling. Maybe it has something to do with RealNetworks being a relatively large company that might actually succeed in getting ordinary folks to use its software?

Meanwhile, the RealDVD site lives on in forlorn limbo, complete with a woman gamely smiling on the home page and a guided tour of the product. The site says the app is “temporarily unavailable” and that Real “will continue to work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of your DVDs for your own use.” I hope that means that the company will soldier on with both this case and the countersuit it filed against six Hollywood studios on antitrust grounds. Whether or not you ever use RealDVD–or even if its limitations would drive you a little bonkers–any victories it scored in court would be great news for consumers. And if it loses, the message will be that there are absolutely no circumstances under which law-abiding consumers can make a copy of a DVD they’ve paid for in order to enjoy it in a new way.

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New RealPlayer Moves Web Video to Devices

Harry McCracken — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:01:34 +0000

Want a reason to check out RealPlayer SP, the new beta of the next version of RealPlayer, a media player that most of us have used at one time or another but which is no longer omnipresent? It’s got a new feature that’s pretty cool: the ability to easily download video from YouTube and other sites, convert it, and then get it onto a bevy of devices.

There are many, many ways to convert Flash video into formats that are suitable consumption on various gadgets, but most do only part of the job–RealPlayer itself has been able to download videos, but not covert them until now–or are painfully geeky, or both. RealPlayer SP is pretty darn straightforward. Hover over video on the Web, and you get a Download This Video link….

You can watch the video download in a window (and queue up multiple videos at once), and send links to it online via Twitter or Facebook, and watch it within RealPlayer if you so choose…

The most interesting thing about RealPlayer SP is what comes next. The downloading utility lets you convert videos for phones, media players, and other devices, and the range of supported gadgets is impressive: iPods, iPhones, BlackBerries, Zunes, xBoxes, PlayStations, Apple TVs, and more. It converts the video into the proper format for the device in question, and either lets you download it directly to the gizmo from within Real’s software (which it can do BlackBerries) or gets it as far as it can (as with iPods and iPhones–it can put videos in your iTunes library, where they can be shuttled to your Apple device the next time you sync).

I used RealPlayer SP to move clips of 1960s pop music performances off YouTube and onto my iPhone, and it required fewer clicks and complications than the various methods I’ve been using to date. (Although I’ve been doing the job on a Mac and RealPlayer SP is a Windows-only beta right now; Real told me it plans to release an OS X version later this year.) As usual with RealPlayer, there’s a free version and a $40 one; the later can convert H.264 video and play and burn DVDs.

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RealDVD: Still in Limbo

Harry McCracken — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:01:44 +0000

Here’s a ZDNet story which nicely summarizes what’s up with RealNetworks’ RealDVD DVD-copy software, which was released last week only to instantly become the subject of legal warfare between Real and Hollywood. The basic question: Does RealDVD’s copying, which duplicates a DVD’s contents to a PC’s hard drive while maintaining all copy protection and adding an additional layer to prevent piracy, violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?

RealDVD has been unavailable since Friday, when the studios won an emergency restraining order which forced Real to stop sales. A Federal judge is hearing arguments on RealDVD’s fate today. I hope the restraining order is lifted; more important, I hope that RealDVD’s legal status is cleared up quickly, and in Real’s favor. The manner of copying it provides is fundamentally limited: You can’t put a movie onto an iPod or a home network, let alone release it to BitTorrent. It’s designed to let consumers get a little more out of the entertainment they’ve already paid for. And if even that runs afoul of current copyright law, it’s pretty darn depressing.

So I’m hoping for the best today. But for the moment, the RealDVD site’s smiling lady is still the bearer of bad news:

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The T-List: RIP, iPhone NDA

Harry McCracken — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:53:57 +0000

Last week was one of comings and goings. iPhone NDA? Gone! Windows Cloud? On its way! RealDVD? Here, then gone! Windows XP? Six more months before it might be gone! And iTunes? Still here, thank heavens!

Apple Ends NDA, Doesn’t Disclose All
The blanket non-disclosure agreement that prevented iPhone developers from discussing the platform in public ended last week, when Apple published a statement saying that the company had put it in place to prevent its ideas from being ripped off, but conceding that it was more trouble than it was worth. The change in policy followed increasing discontent over the NDA and its effects and side effects, such as how it had discouraged anyone from publishing books about programming for the iPhone. The end of the iPhone’s all-encompassing NDA is good news indeed, but it doesn’t mean the end of the era of Apple secrecy, or the end of controversy over the company’s iPhone-related policies: As far as anyone can tell, it still maintains that it’s wrong for anyone to develop iPhone apps that are sort of like Apple’s own. But Apple hasn’t explained such reasoning publicly, let alone convinced anyone of its validity. I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again: I still kind decide whether to be giddily optimistic or resolutely pessimistic about the fate of the iPhone as a software platform.

Read more at: Daring Fireball

Here Comes Windows Cloud, Whatever That May Be
At a UK IT conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, casually mentioned that Microsoft is working on something code-named Windows Cloud, and would have more news in a month or so. He apparently didn’t really explain what it was, but it seems reasonable to guess, at least, that it might be a portfolio of platform services for Web developers akin to Amazon’s Web Services. I have one prediction: Windows Cloud won’t be a version of Windows that consumers need to think about, any more than they need to keep tabs on Amazon’s services or on Microsoft’s own .Net tools. (Okay, scratch that: I’ve occasionally tried to install software applications and been told my PC needed a .Net update first.) I also have one request: Please, Microsoft, call it something other than Windows Cloud, a name which is destined to sound silly and retro by the middle of 2009 or thereabouts.

Read more at: Mashable, InfoWorld

RealDVD Arrives, Departs For Limbo
I kind of like RealNetworks’ RealDVD software, which was designed to let consumers copy DVDs to their PC’s hard drive without breaking any laws. And now I’m really, really rooting it–because it got ensnared in duelling lawsuits between Real and Hollywood the moment that Real released it last week. At the moment, a court has told Real to pull it off the market altogether, supposedly only until Tuesday. If Real wins its lawsuits, it’ll be only a minor victory for consumer rights–RealDVD both retains existing copy protection and layers on more of it–but if it loses, it’ll be a major setback.

Read more at: NewTeeVee

Windows XP: Not Dead. Again!
It was released in October, 2001–and it’s increasingly feeling like it may outlive us all. Windows XP, which major PC manufacturers still ship as a “downgrade” disc with Windows Vista computers to avoid the wrath of Vista-disparaging businesses, got another new lease on life last week when Microsoft extended the downgrade option’s supposed termination from January 31st of next year to July 31st. Is there any business other than software which regularly pits manufacturers against their customers, with the manufacturers trying to kill off products which the customers still want to buy? The tension between Microsoft and Windows users over XP’s replacement with Vista has felt almost like the New Coke debacle played out in slo-mo.

Read more at: Computerworld

The Day the Music Didn’t Die
Would Apple really shut down iTunes–the country’s largest music purveyor of any sort–rather than raise its prices? It was supposedly willing to when it looked like royalty rates per song might go from nine cents to fifteen. But the Copyright Royalty Board has set the fee for digital downloads at the same price as that for traditional media through 2012, so iTunes lives on, as does 99-cent music. (Although both Amazon and Wal-Mart routinely undercut Apple’s prices while presumably paying the same royalties.) The good news on the iTune front leaves us with more time to worry abou the fate of Pandora and other streaming music sites; they still need a signature from President Bush to avoid royalty hikes that might put ‘em out of business. Sign that bill, Mr. President, and let us move on to other matters!

Read more at: Yahoo Tech

Like the T-List? Read it as a feed.

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RealDVD is in Real Trouble. No, Really.

Harry McCracken — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 04:59:15 +0000

Why is the woman in the above image from RealNetworks RealDVD site smiling? You’d think she’d look just a tad glum given that the software, launched just last week, has been pulled off the market. According to NewTeeVee, a court has told Real to stop distributing the company’s DVD copying software until Tuesday while it reviews the case. That’s the latest development in the legal tussle that has Real suing Hollywood, Hollywood suing Real, and most consumers, I suspect, rooting for Real–except for those who think that the company is a bad guy itself for selling software that not only preserves DVD’s encryption on the copies it makes but adds additional DRM.

I sure hope that Real prevails, and quickly; RealDVD is a small but real positive development for consumers who want to get more out of media they’ve paid for, and it doesn’t let anyone put copies on BitTorrent or otherwise engage in mass piracy. If even its limited functionality is forbidden or stuck in legal limbo, it’s going to be really depressing.

I’m not a lawyer, though, so I’m not going to make any predictions about RealDVD’s fate. You’d think that Real wouldn’t have gone to the expense and bother of developing it if it wasn’t reasonably confident that it could sell the darn application, but perhaps it gambled and gambled badly. (I do regret declaring that the software was “clearly legal” in my review: I was…clearly wrong. Or at least not clearly right.)

Oh, and Technologizer gave away ten license codes for RealDVD yesterday to members of our community, so I’m rooting for the current RealDVD takedown to indeed end on Tuesday so those winners can make use of their codes.

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RealDVD Giveaway Winners

Harry McCracken — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:24:05 +0000

We have winners! Our giveaway of ten copies of Real’s RealDVD software is now complete. The software was released earlier this week and has already inspired legal warfare between Real and Hollywood–I know who I’m rooting for–so it’ll probably stay in the news for awhile, and its fate remains unknown. But the following lucky Technologizer Community members get the application for free, and license codes are in their inboxes as we speak:

Matthew
Azeem
Tuxedobuford
Jamil Caram Jr
Warren
Brian Winking
Sammy Brence
The Human Yawn
Samuel
John99

Congrats to the winners–and thanks to everyone who took the time to enter.

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