Listening on Real Player Problems

[NFR85]

I'm not sure if this is the right fourm or not but i've talked with someone else and they have the same problem as me, when I listen to an area on RP it cuts in & out or it shuts off, but if i use WMP or anything else crystal clear. Is there something i can do to fix this problem?


Thanks.

 

[blantonl]

I think the solution is to not use real player. In all seriousness - real player is a real mess.

 

[kilowa22]

I think the solution is to not use real player. In all seriousness - real player is a real mess.

True. On my Mac when I attempt to play an audio link or file like MP3 Realplayer can't connect to the audio device, but when I play a video file the sound works flawlessly.

 

[ibagli]

If a feed is provided with Scannercast, then Realplayer will have issues with it:

ScannerCast Configuration and Usage Guide

If you play back a stream created by ScannerCast using any version of RealPlayer, the resulting audio will contain periodic pops, clicks, screeches, and noise. This happens whether you directly listen to a ScannerCast stream, or you listen to a stream created by ScannerCast that's being relayed through a SHOUTcast/Icecast server.

This problem occurs because RealPlayer incorrectly handles the SHOUTcast metadata interval parameter, causing it to attempt to decode the metadata as MP3 audio data. This bug was first reported to the RealPlayer developers in 2005, and applies to any SHOUTcast or Icecast stream that doesn't use the default metadata interval of 16K. Real Networks (the for-profit company that owns RealPlayer) hasn't fixed the bug in all these years, and my attempts to report this problem to the RealPlayer developers, or at least hear their side of the story, received no reply.

While ScannerCast could be changed to use the default metadata interval, that would seriously degrade tag/audio synchronization. I have no plans to change the way ScannerCast works to make it work with a third-rate, broken, media player.

 

[SCPD]

I think the solution is to not use real player. In all seriousness - real player is a real mess.

I'm surprised its still around!

 

[ProScan]

we're dedicating a lot of time and effort right now with the icecast developers and on our end to really step it up to solidify our audio server infrastructure.
We have the largest icecast implementation in the world - so we're pushing the code to it's limits and uncovering stuff all the time. The good news is that I've got a direct line of communication to the developer and we're communicating and working together daily.

It should be easy for the Icecast developers to fix the Real Player problem on there end. They would need to detect the type of media player with the HTTP UserAgent header.

If HTTPRequestHeaders.UserAgent.Contains("RealMedia") = False Then
'set flag to disable Metadata
End If