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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Thursday, August 26, 2004

A Music Player for All Formats

PC Magazine: "Harmony, which is incorporated in [RealPlayer] version 10.5 (and will also be in the next version of the RealRhapsody music service), allows the player to manage Digital Rights Management (DRM)-protected tracks and work with various music players, including Apple's iPod ... With this version, you can house DRM-protected AAC, WMA, and RealMedia tracks all in one library. You can also transfer songs bought from Real's online music store to more than100 devices, including those that use Apple's FairPlay, Microsoft's Windows Media, and RealNetworks' Helix DRMs (songs are converted on the fly to the new format during the transfer) ... For the most part, RealPlayer 10.5 worked well in our testing. The song conversions aren't speedy — it took a few minutes to transfer an album, compared with the typical 15 seconds — but the process works as it should and is simple enough for any user. We transferred songs purchased from Real to an iPod with no problems ... The other new development in RealPlayer 10.5 is called progressive downloading. This lets users listen to songs or watch movies while downloading. It's handy for Real music purchases, but essential for Real's new Starz! movie service. The Starz! service was released in mid-June, after RealPlayer 10.0. For $12.95 per month you can view 100 movies from the RealPlayer's Starz area (that could mean watching 100 different movies once or one movie 100 times). Downloaded movies delete themselves from your computer once their license is up and the movie is no longer available on the site. The site rotates titles, with 25 new movies available each week. When we looked there were 80 movies up, of greatly varying quality (Smokey and the Bandit 3?). A subscription requires a 600Kbps broadband Internet connection. With all the proprietary formats around, we're glad to see someone is making the management of online music easier for the average user. Apple might not like the RealPlayer 10.5, but we bet plenty of music fans will."

[ Posted at 9:18 AM | Permalink ]