What Happened to RealVideo? -

[Amy Madison]

There are many different video files, one of them of which, is RealVideo. it was first introduced in early 1997, and it was used on Email, FTP sites, Usenet, P2P Networks, and various websites for download. it had a very common use during the late 1990's and early 2000's.
It was also for streaming media, It was used for 2D and 3D animated videos, Trailers and teasers, Movie clips and, Full episodes of TV shows.
RealVideo came along in early file sharing sites since early file sharing sites mostly used MPEG or MOV, But due to the advent of YouTube, Early file sharing sites were closed. RealVideo was used less and less, until it wasn't used anymore afterwards, Some of them either weren't working or the audio wasn't working at all.
It wasn't used in any websites anymore, since people used other video files, and HTML5 players.
So, What even happened to RealVideo?

 

[lemmiwinks]

It was a proprietary codec and better, open-source codecs killed it off. IIRC, it could only be played in a special player which was free to end-users, but sites had to pay for embedded use.

According to Wikipedia it still exists, but it seems the format uses open standards. There were other similar situations with early online Video players/codecs in the 90's (xvid/divx situation).

Edit: to add links. I'm phone posting now, but later I may look into it further and update this post.

 

[Joey Caruso]

At one point Realplayer offered slightly smaller file sizes in exchange for having to use their crappy bloated proprietary player, but then better codecs were invented so they (thankfully) went the way of the dodo

 

[lemmiwinks]

At one point Realplayer offered slightly smaller file sizes in exchange for having to use their crappy bloated proprietary player, but then better codecs were invented so they (thankfully) went the way of the dodo

RealMedia still exists. It looks like the company itself is leaning into AI and the RealMediaHD codec is targetted for proprietary telephony usage.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

At one point Realplayer offered slightly smaller file sizes in exchange for having to use their crappy bloated proprietary player, but then better codecs were invented so they (thankfully) went the way of the dodo

I think Flash animation was one of the things that helped kill RealVideo in the late 90's and especially early 2000's. Flash animations could look and sound great(for the time) at a very small file size and people started to get very creative with what they produced.
Flash also had a video container format(.flv) and sites like Youtube were using it for several years.

 

[Amy Madison]

At one point Realplayer offered slightly smaller file sizes in exchange for having to use their crappy bloated proprietary player, but then better codecs were invented so they (thankfully) went the way of the dodo

The proprietary players didn't look crappy, but rather bloated at times.

 

[Shovel Mech Pilot]

RealVideo was RealShitty.

 

[Bins]

At one point Realplayer offered slightly smaller file sizes in exchange for having to use their crappy bloated proprietary player, but then better codecs were invented so they (thankfully) went the way of the dodo

For a point of reference, an eps of South Park.rm was somewhere between 30-70mbs for an entire episode (if I'm remembering correctly), which back in the hey day was pretty fuckin sweet. There was a website that uploaded new episodes the day after they aired. This was all before torrents were a thing or got really popular, and for South Park it worked since the animation was garbage anyway. That's the only real positive I have to say. Thank you for reading, G-d bless.

 

[SSF2T Old User]

I hope, for everyone's sake, that you don't unironically still use this dinosaur software

 

[Amy Madison]

I think Flash animation was one of the things that helped kill RealVideo in the late 90's and especially early 2000's. Flash animations could look and sound great(for the time) at a very small file size and people started to get very creative with what they produced.
Flash also had a video container format(.flv) and sites like Youtube were using it for several years.

Okay, Flash didn't kill RealVideo, But, Animated videos were on RealVideo whether, It's 2D or 3D.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Okay, Flash didn't kill RealVideo, But, Animated videos were on RealVideo whether, It's 2D or 3D.

RealVideo wasn't as good for animation as something made in and for Flash because RM compressed it as a video stream instead of rendering shapes while playing audio. Convert a flash animation(or a video stream of animation)+audio to realvideo and it would 100% be larger in size and look worse.

 

[Amy Madison]

RealVideo wasn't as good for animation as something made in and for Flash because RM compressed it as a video stream instead of rendering shapes while playing audio. Convert a flash animation(or a video stream of animation)+audio to realvideo and it would 100% be larger in size and look worse.

Okay it wouldn't look worse, but There was such thing as RealFlash, IDK that RV is not good for animation or not, but hey, Most animated videos back then used on MPEG or MOV files.

 

[Pee Cola]

The official RealPlayer software was massively bloated. I may be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure it contained malware/crapware at one stage as well.

Eventually I ended up using RealAlternative. That did a pretty good job of playing RM videos without all the RealPlayer crap.

 

[Amy Madison]

RealVideo was RealShitty.

RealVideo wasn't RealShitty, it wasn't the best but, it was okay.

 

[serious n00b]

I hope, for everyone's sake, that you don't unironically still use this dinosaur software

RealPlayer (Formerly RealAudio Player's)

 

[Amy Madison]

For a point of reference, an eps of South Park.rm was somewhere between 30-70mbs for an entire episode (if I'm remembering correctly), which back in the hey day was pretty fuckin sweet. There was a website that uploaded new episodes the day after they aired. This was all before torrents were a thing or got really popular, and for South Park it worked since the animation was garbage anyway. That's the only real positive I have to say. Thank you for reading, G-d bless.

God is not a curse word, But I take the joke. also, spell it like this: G*d

 

[Thumb Butler]

I convert all my multimedia to realvideo and realaudio. Realplayer don't like fancy formats like MP4 and FLAC.

 

[Amy Madison]

I convert all my multimedia to realvideo and realaudio. Realplayer don't like fancy formats like MP4 and FLAC.

MP4 and FLAC aren't fancy formats, but great formats, only RealVideo is fancy.

 

[Kosher Dill]

I convert all my multimedia to realvideo and realaudio.

I used to do that, but then I decided to convert all my Real files to Quicktime.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

MP4 and FLAC aren't fancy formats, but great formats, only RealVideo is fancy.

No no no, IV40 is a fancy format. It is very exclusive, very rare. VLC doesn't play it, K-Lite doesn't include a codec, same with CCCP.