RealAudio

by Vaibhav Mangrulkar

The obstacle in the past was the fact that all music and video files had to be downloaded in full before the web browser would spawn the proper "helper application," such as Quicktime movie player or Sound Recorder, that can playback the file.

Progressive Networks' RealAudio Player solves this problem by eliminating the need to download before execution. This way, the file is played as it is being received. The RealAudio Player automatically pops up when a .ra or .ram is cl icked on. From then on, the Player takes the responsibility of downloading, and the browser can go elsewhere on the Web.

For live broadcasts, this method obviously has its advantages. The audio is delayed by a negligible few seconds, as many live events on television are. Currently, many radio stations broadcast through RealAudio, which means that you can hear music and talk shows from across the nation, even though some AM or FM waves wouldn't normally be within accessible range. There are also many special events d aily on Audionet's home page to suit almost everyone's interests. For example, there is the GOP Presidential Debate, the NCAA Basketball Tournament, NHL games, rock music, and much more.

The RealAudio Player can produce mono FM quality sound on a 28.8k or faster connection to the Internet (or mono AM on a 14.4k connection) and works in all Windows environments, in 16- and 32-bit modes. In the future, synchronized mult imedia is planned for RealAudio, which would allow real-time audio and video to be broadcast in a similar way. Microsoft and Progressive Networks recently announced a streaming media agreement, in which Progressive Networks agreed to include RealAudio in Microsoft's upcoming ActiveMovie Streaming Format. This software, which will be bundled with Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser, will attempt to give Microsoft the edge over Netscape in mult imedia broadcasts over the Internet.