RealPlayer

Help

RealPlayer lets you stream video and audio files directly from the Internet to your desktop, eliminating the often long delay incurred by having to download an entire file before you can begin playing it. Just double-click on an A/V file in a Web site; this opens a RealPlayer window that plays the file on your desktop. If you have files already downloaded, you can drop them on the RealPlayer icon to open a window and play them.

RealPlayer supports various real video and audio file types, along with mp3 and mpeg audio. For a complete list of supported file types, right-click on the real icon and choose Add-ons > FileType from the context menu; in the middle of the window that appears you'll see a scrolling list of supported file types.

Window Controls

You can play video with audio or audio alone on RealPlayer. The window you'll see--with or without a viewing screen--depends on the file you choose to play, although the controls are the same for both windows. In the top of the two bars at the bottom left of the window are, from left to right:

On / Pause button
Stop button
Time line bar. The upper and lower red arrows show the progress of your file as it plays. Some files let you drag the arrow slider back and forth, which makes it possible to seek while streaming, although there may be several seconds' delay for the seek to take effect. If the file you're streaming is not seek-enabled, the arrows will remain at the right end of the time line.
Volume slider. Gives you volume control in the RealPlayer window that reflects your underlying system volume settings.

Lower bar indicators, from left to right:

Buffering. When you click on a file to begin downloading it, the lower bar in the RealPlayer window indicates initialization and buffering of the file as it starts streaming into the window.
Kbps download rate. The download rate of the file you're streaming in kilobytes per second.
Play / Pause indicators. Changes to a right-facing arrow, two vertical bars, or solid box to indicate play, pause, or stop mode. The G2 to the right of the indicators is the version of the file you are listening to.
Time elapsed / total running time of file. This is self-explanatory. It may be useful if you want to seek back or forward to a certain time point in a file.

The video window has a resizable screen--just grab the lower-right corner and drag it out.

Menus

The menus duplicate some of the window's manual controls and also give you access to Preferences, Statistics, and this Help file.

File menu

The File menu has an Open command that lets you open a previously downloaded file via a selection window. Additionally, you can Pause, Stop, and Quit a file by selecting from the menu or using the appropriate keyboard command.

View menu

Two View menu commands, Original Size and Double Size, let you set the RealPlayer viewing area in two standard sizes; for finer control you'll want to use the resize feature in the window's lower-right corner.

Preferences. The two protocol settings--Use RTSP proxy and Use HTTP proxy --may apply if you are operating outside a server's firewall. Some servers require you to enable a proxy to access the server. If this is true for you, ask your network administrator how to set the proxies. The bandwidth settings range from 14.4 modem to 10 Mbps LAN. Normal bandwidth reflects the bandwidth of your current download; many servers will scale this bandwidth automatically. Maximum bandwidth is the maximum capacity allowed by your server connection, so your setting may not exceed that maximum; for example, if you have a T1 line, set it for T1.

Statistics shows you the current download rate. Under the Bandwidth heading, if the Encoded at number is higher than the Average download number, you'll get skips in your download as it streams. If that happens, refer to these numbers to reset your bandwidth preferences. The Packets numbers show you the progress of information received as packets in your download.

Help menu

The Help menu's Contents command brings up this brief descriptive guide to using RealPlayer.