BBC Real Player - please discuss..

mary anne hobbs · Post by **mary anne hobbs** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 8:39 am

hello

i know many of you are having serious problems with the BBC Real Player.. on the Radio1 website..

it's of paramount importance to me to keep the Listen Again hits up on the BBC site to demonstrate that the scene i'm supporting is vibrant...
but i get the sense that more and more of you are being driven straight to other sites that host digital downloads of the show..

can you give me some constructive feedback here about the Real Player that i can pass to the BBC management?
get angry and frustrated if you want to, but keep it articulate so i can pass it on..

the new version of the Real Player crashes on me repeatedly, and i will often have to abandon my attempts to listen to my own show and others... so i feel the same frustration... trust me..

it's time to try to get something done about it..

your help is very much appreciated...

much love
m/a.. x

epithet · Post by **epithet** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 8:45 am

Real player is an insidious piece of shit that sux balls. I wont install it for love nor money.

unknown soulja · Post by **unknown soulja** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 8:56 am

the real player is irritating, the fact that it only gives you the option to skip forward in slot of 5/15 minutes and not to rewind is particularly annoying, means that you cant get ot the bit you want to hear efficiently and that if you go past it you have to start again. alongside this its slow to load and crashes pretty often. i would be tempted to listen to a lot more shows if it was better, specially ones i know im not gonna be interested in listening to all of....

bennyprofane · Post by **bennyprofane** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:05 am

unknown soulja wrote:the real player is irritating, the fact that it only gives you the option to skip forward in slot of 5/15 minutes and not to rewind is particularly annoying

Word. Also no pause.

DFRNT · Post by **DFRNT** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:26 am

I also refuse to install realplayer, however for those like me, there is a program called 'Real Alternative' which brings functionality to the realplayer plugins, but without the infestation that installing realplayer brings.

I've used that till now, but many more people on the web use the Flash plugin. It has a far bigger saturation worldwide.

It's also a more flexible platform for the host. It allows for much more server-side, and there's options to incorporate video, and more. It's just a better platform.

I can make-do for now, but that's not to say that everyone will be happy to find alternatives, or ways round - and those who install realplayer - well... unlucky! It's on par, if not worse than iTunes for infesting your machine!

dirtycash · Post by **dirtycash** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 10:13 am

if other people are offering a direct download of the show, the punter is always gonna go with that option.

skrewface · Post by **skrewface** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 10:24 am

How about a flash player, it only reaches to 99% of the world wide web population.

dubluke · Post by **dubluke** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 10:25 am

skrewface wrote:How about a flash player, it only reaches to 99% of the world wide web population.

this

irv · Post by **irv** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:25 am

Hi mary anne,

You've hit the nail on the head really - why would anyone listen to a low audio-quality player that you have to install a very poor piece of software for, that can only skip forward 5 or 15 minutes, can't rewind, crashes all the time and is only there for a week when you can get a perfect quality rip in minutes, usually no longer than a few hours after the show is broadcast and that you can keep? As someone I know on another forum mentioned, offer an inferior product and people will go elsewhere.

The only reason you'd want to is for the obvious reason you mention of giving you hits on your show to show its popularity. It's very unfortunate that this is the way that the popularity of shows is decided though, your show gets 100s of downloads elsewhere that never get recorded. You know a system is messed up when you yourself have to encourage people to click on the listen again feature, even if they're not going to even listen to it that way, just to prove that people like your show.

Cheers,

irv

nesslei · Post by **nesslei** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:39 am

bennyprofane wrote:Also no pause.

i have found this very frustrating.

legend4ry · Post by **legend4ry** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:51 am

I personally hate real player although I have all the codec packs you could possibly want so it lets all my apps run the real player format I'd much prefer a podcast to listenback to than a week-long bad quality repeat. If I don't lock into live to BBC shows I don't tend to listen back or even get the rips. Though say..Rinse &subFM are a different thing, I tend to get their podcasts if I don't lock in live.

sand leaper · Post by **sand leaper** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:01 pm

irv wrote:why would anyone listen to a low audio-quality player that you have to install a very poor piece of software for, that can only skip forward 5 or 15 minutes, can't rewind, crashes all the time and is only there for a week when you can get a perfect quality rip in minutes, usually no longer than a few hours after the show is broadcast and that you can keep? As someone I know on another forum mentioned, offer an inferior product and people will go elsewhere.

This becomes even more true when the slot for your show is from 2 till 4 in the morning.

One way to be able to compete in this area could be to offer your own high-quality podcasts, and register the downloads of these in the same manner as listen back-clicks. The question then is whether people will put up with the dozens of stings and jingles that the station no doubt will pepper the show with to protect its material.

rob_booth · Post by **rob_booth** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:09 pm

Irv's hit the nail on the head in my opinion ... ^^^ couple posts above !!

I know a lot of people who make your show available on their pages ...

A very good site gets 1,000 downloads on the essential mix each and every week and always a consistent 200 - 300 a week on your show, and that's only on one website.

I hope your able to convince the suits at the beeb to change to a better version and soon.

Its good to know that dubstepforum encourages the listen again player for the week long duration, but people don't want to install inferior apps.

relaks · Post by **relaks** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:20 pm

I have listened to it a couple times on an old computer. No way I'm installing the player on my new one.

I reckon the majority of the people here hit listen back because they realize the potential that it has for you and the scene in general, or find their own link to download it and out of respect don't spread it.

I think a more usable player would be a great idea.

captain easychord · Post by **captain easychord** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:21 pm

Agree that you need to ditch RP asap, it's 2008. Get them to build a little flash widget instead.

pk- · Post by **pk-** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:21 pm

just out of interest, why does the bbc insist on streaming-only archives of their radio & tv programmes?

slowlygoingdeaf · Post by **slowlygoingdeaf** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:02 pm

it doesnt even work for me in firefox. i press play but nothing happens, even after i skip 5 mins

definitely needs to change into a flash player or something else. surprised its still there really.

thesoulbrother · Post by **thesoulbrother** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:24 pm

I don't even think a flash stream is good enough these days. Just put the file up as a download.

I can understand why this is not possible for something like the Top 40, but i'd have thought all of the artists you play on the show would be fine with it.

blizzardmusic · Post by **blizzardmusic** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:25 pm

There should me a Windows Media option, a Winamp option, and there should me something you click to load the mix from that week into the Windows Media Player interface so you can skip to parts you want, not 5 minutes or 15.

ashley · Post by **ashley** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:42 pm

thesoulbrother wrote:I don't even think a flash stream is good enough these days. Just put the file up as a download.

I can understand why this is not possible for something like the Top 40, but i'd have thought all of the artists you play on the show would be fine with it.

You can stream using flash. Requires a whole flash media server though and not entirely sure how it works as its still quite a new area unlike the RTSP protocol.

Real Player is a bit shitty, dosent come pre-installed and is hassle to install if you just want to listen thats all.

Statistics wise, not sure how flash side of things work.

BBC Real Player - please discuss..

BBC Real Player - please discuss..

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