The Real 10 Platform

[karl_lillevold]

What is the Real 10 Platform?

You are already familiar with some components of this release, but now with new names:

RealVideo 10 : This is the new and official name for RV9 EHQ, which has been in Beta since a few months back and released for testing here, with various improvements added along the way, much based on feedback from this forum. RealVideo 10 corresponds to the latest version of RV9 EHQ discussed here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66132), but with a slightly different way to choose codec and encoding complexity. Since it is RV9 EHQ it is fully backwards compatible with older players which has the RV9 decoder. It is an encoder side improvement, where as you know we gain quality by letting the encoder spend more time making wise decisions.

RealProducer 10 : This is what was developed as the Helix Producer 9.2 in the Helix Community. What is new since the latest Milestone is that the most recent RV 10 encoder DLL is included (as discussed above), AAC has replaced ATRAC3 as the high bitrate audio codec, and a GUI version of Producer is now finally available! (as a Preview release, the Producer team has been very busy). The Producer SDK on Windows also includes HE-AAC encoding.

NEW:

RealAudio 10 : This is a family of audio codecs. New codecs are AAC, RealAudio Lossless, and RealAudio Multi-channel. RA8 (cook) is used for 96 kbps and below. HE-AAC in the form of aacPlus from Coding Technologies is included on Windows.

RealPlayer 10 : The next version of RealPlayer, now back to the name everyone recognizes, with many improvements, and friendlier than before. I will probably start another thread on this topic by itself, since I am sure there will be plenty of feedback. It includes full support for AAC ripping, and AAC and HE-AAC playback. RealPlayer 10 includes a new audio and video guide, as well as an integrated music store. Download the RealPlayer10Beta (http://www.real.com/freeplayer/?rppr=d9) for Windows 98/NT/2000/XP.
See How to make RealPlayer 10 behave nicely (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68399) in case you have doubts ;)

RealPlayer Music Store : The music store integrated in RealPlayer 10.What is different about this compared to the other stores, is that it uses 192 kbps AAC for the best possible audio quality, while other stores use 128 kbps of various formats. At the launch it includes 300,000 songs and more added every day.

Helix DRM 10 : Our latest DRM technology.

For more information, see The Real 10 Platform (http://www.realnetworks.com/info/real10_platform/) on realnetworks.com.

FAQ

Producer 10

Where can I download Producer 10?
RealProducer 10 Basic Preview (GUI) (http://www.realnetworks.com/products/producer10/index.html)

Helix Producer 10.0 Beta from helixcommunity.org (https://www.helixcommunity.org) in the Binaries section (Binaries -> (click here for distribution binaries) -> Helix DNA Producer -> Command Line Application)
If you have older RealProducers installed, be aware that your PATH environment variable may be set so that the wrong producer.exe is called when try to use Producer 10 cmd line. You will then get very confusing errors.

I hate the limitations in RealProducer 10 Basic. What can I do?
Personally I agree, and your feedback has been forwarded. Making the Plus version free is now being considered. In the meantime, the command line Helix Producer 10.0 has all the features of RealProducer 10 Plus, except the GUI. Use Helix Producer 10.0 with one of the soon to be updated front-ends, or be part of a small l33t and use the command line directly.

RealPlayer 10

Where can I download RealPlayer 10?
The free RealPlayer 10 Beta, English version, can be found here, with no re-direction or small font links: http://www.real.com/freeplayer/?rppr=d9

Is it available for any other platforms than Windows?
No, not yet. OS X is planned, no ETA. For Linux, we have focused on the open source Helix Player (https://player.helixcommunity.org).

Is this any better behaved than previous RealPlayers?
Yes, but please read How to make RealPlayer 10 behave nicely (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68399).

RP 10 looks almost the same. What are the improvements?
Please see this post (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68399). It also includes information about some of the improvements.

I am having trouble installing RealPlayer 10. The installer does not work.
Maybe .r1pclean.exe (http://www.lillevold.com/files/r1pclean.zip) will help. Did you ever install a 'codec pack'? This should remove all remnants of old players, codecs and reg keys, as well as RealProducers and RealServers, hopefully also codec packs, which may be causing this problem in the first place, I don't really know.. Use at your own risk.

I have tested that it does clean up after RealAlternative and allows RP10 to be installed. It usually reports "Cannot load setu3260.dll", but still does registry cleaning. Without running .r1pclean.exe first, RealPlayer 10 fails to run after installation, when RealAlternative is installed.

RealVideo 10

Is it true that RV 10 is the same as RV9-EHQ
Yes.

So it's fully backwards compatible with RV9 decoders then?
Yes, it even has the same FourCC code 'rv40'. When playing RV10 in RealPlayer 10, we added some special bits that identify the format, such that it displays RV10. Older players will display RV9.

How do I encode with the best possible quality?
Choose rv10 as the codec. It defaults to the best possible quality. For lower quality but faster encoding, choose rv9, or for backwards compatibility with certain mobile devices, rv8. Separately, each codec has three encoding complexity levels, 'high', 'medium, and 'low'. For the details please see this post (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=425131#post425131). Also see the encoding advice in the main RealVideo Information thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40392) and the thread on RealVideo 10 'Elysian' (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71022) for a completely new 2-pass rate control.

RealAudio 10 : AAC and HE-AAC

Is aacPlus (AAC+) the same as HE-AAC?
Yes. HE-AAC (High Efficiency AAC is the name used by standardization in MPEG). aacPlus was Coding Technologies' name for their technology while developing it.

Which file format is AAC wrapped in when encoded in Producer or ripped in RealPlayer 10?
The current file format for AAC is RM (.ra). RealPlayer Gold will instead rip to ADTS .aac, but the feedback concerning the preference for MP4/M4A has been forwarded, and for Gold the format will most likely change.

Why is not HE-AAC encoding supported in RealProducer, or why does not RealPlayer 10 rip music to HE-AAC at 96 kbps and below?
RealPlayer 10 does not currently rip to HE-AAC, because we did not license it for general encoding, as well as lack of HE-AAC codecs for many devices we need to support.

What are the new 4CC codes for the AAC codec flavors when wrapped in RM?
raac: AAC or HE-AAC
racp: HE-AAC
The player's AAC decoder, raac.dll, can decode both AAC and HE-AAC.

Which file formats for AAC and HE-AAC are supported in RealPlayer 10?
RM of course *). Raw ADTS (.aac) plays back without problems. MP4 wrapped AAC and HE-AAC files also play, but auto-update does not work for mp4. To get the components needed, try to open .aac file in RealPlayer. RealPlayer will auto-update with plugins for H.263 Video and 3GPP. Don't worry, this also means AAC. Also read the question below re auto-update and .mp4 files.

Playback problems with HE-AAC in RealPlayer 10
RealPlayer 10 can not currently play back HE-AAC in RM due to two bugs: 1) the AAC renderer plugin does not recognize the 4cc racp for HE-AAC, triggering an auto-update request. Hex-edit to raac is possible. However, then 2) raac.dll will crash, due to another bug. Both bugs have been fixed, and will be included in the Gold release of RealPlayer 10. In the meantime, you get obtain a fix here: HE-AAC (racp) fix for RealPlayer 10 Beta (https://helixcommunity.org/beula/download/). Note that neither of these bugs affect how Media Player Classic plays back HE-AAC in RM, even when it uses the buggy raac.dll. You need the latest release of MPC: 6.4.7.6 or higher.

When I try to open .aac or .mp4 file in RealPlayer 10, it opens the web browser to play the file, instead of running auto-update
This is caused by the .aac or .mp4 filetype being registered on your system. It is unfortunate that in order to get around this, you have to delete the filetype you are trying to open (AAC or MP4). It is easy to re-create though afterwards, with whichever is your player for this format.

Is it possible to encode HE-AAC in Helix Producer 10?
Yes *), at least in the command line version of Helix Producer. However, the HE-AAC encoder does not ship with Helix Producer 10 or RealProducer 10, but instead the Helix Producer SDK as an add-in. The AAC codec name is 'raac', the HE-AAC codec name is 'racp'. The codec flavors (bitrates) can be found in Producer's documentation and in this post (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=424167#post424167).
*) No, currently, due to a bug. Will be fixed in next Milestone, you can also get a fixed DLL here (https://helixcommunity.org/beula/download/).

Does the RealAudio 10 AAC codec support 5.1?
No 5.1 for AAC encoding. Perhaps later. The Multi-channel Producer 10 codec is RA8 based. AAC 5.1 playback works.

What are the plans for file formats and HE-AAC in RealPlayer 10 and Producer 10 Gold?
This is still being decided.

How can I trans-mux AAC in RM losslessly to another AAC format, for instance iPod compatible M4A?
that's easy. all you need is mkvtoolnix from
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64548

1) Then run
mkvmerge -o mkafile.mka rmfile.ra

2) before
mkvextract tracks mkafile.mka 1:aacfile.aac

3) finally, if you need iPod compatible M4A, just run
mp4creator60 -aac-profile=4 -optimize -create=aacfile.aac ipodfile.m4a

You can also use graphedit with Gabest's RealMediaSplitter and a muxer. I know it works with Gabest's Matroska Muxer.

I have an AAC file of format Y. It does not play in player X.
I did some testing of various file types and containers. Here are the results. You can download the samples in my aac_samples (http://www.lillevold.com/files/aac_samples) folder.

MPC 6.4.7.5 +
RM RP10 raac Core 3ivx
rm_aac128.rm | ok | ok | ok | ok
rm_aac256_51.rm | ok | ok | ok | ok
rm_he-aac32.rm |ok 1)| ok | ok | ok
rm_he-aac96_51.rm |ok 1)| ok | ok | ok
ADTS
adts_aac64.aac | ok | - | ok | ok
adts_he-aac64.aac | ok | - | ok*| ok
adts_he-aac160_51.aac | # | - | ok*| ok
MP4
mp4_aac64.mp4 | ok | - | ok | ok
mp4_he-aac64.mp4 | ok | - | ok*| ok
mp4_he-aac160_51.mp4 | ok | - | ok*| ok

MPC chooses decoders and splitters automatically, but can be configured. With RP10 installed, it prefers raac.dll for RM files (raac = Coding Technologies decoder), otherwise uses DirectShow decoder, if available. Configure in MPC in options, filter, over-rides, which DS filter is preferred, if many are installed.

DirectShow parsers:
.aac : AAC Parser Filter
.mp4 : 3ivx Media Splitter
DirectShow decoders:
Core = CoreAAC 1.0b9
3ivx = 3ivx D4 4.5

# = no go, usually crash
1) : requires fix, see question on HE-AAC playback problem
ok*: appears to decode SBR info, but does not display AAC+SBR

More...

I have answered many more questions in several posts further down in this thread, if you still can not find the answer to your question, please post it.

[Tuning]

Now with HE-AAC RV10 will be the ultimate compression platform.
Karl, Thanks for the info!.:)

[Atamido]

I presume that the Real container bitstream has not changed? (Still on 1.0?) I was just wondering if any of the extraction tools would need to be altered.

[Dark-Cracker]

does the rv-aac codec support 5.1 output ?

++

[datascab]

Hey, How long before us mere mortals can enjoy Real 10 (audio/video) without shelling out for the plus version.

Does the new AAC based encoding still require the downsampling to 44.1kHz?

Has rmeditior been changed at all, specifically allowing lossless cut and join? :)

Real is still my encoder of choice :)

Keep up the good work!

Data

[LiFe]

Hmm, enough features to make a Real 9.5 platform. w/o a new video codec it's not Real 10.

Amusing that after spending all that money advertising the RealOne concept, it's dumped in a single version upgrade...

Amusing that we get a new video codec every 4 years, and every alternate 4 years we get an audio update, hehe.

Really looking forward to upgrading asap!

R.
LiFe.

[iwod]

I think sirber would still remember my post about Rv9 EHQ being Rv10.

Not it seems it wasn't all my rumors. It is now a FACT!

Vp6 is currently leading the game in Low Bitrate encoding where RealVideo has nearly NO serious competition at all in the past.

However i would always think that Karl would have something up his sleeve.....

It is also good to know the AACPlus is included. BUT, just to remind all that accPLUS is slightly different to HE_AAC. Whichever is better it will be still be better than the good old cook @ 64 Kbps.

Not to mention that there is still quite a bit of room for aacplus to be tweaked. ( Not that means we will get it.... )

On the Video Side and producer side. I think it is the marketing and the head who make the decision for naming it as Real10. I really hope that apart from the planned much updated version of PP in Realplayer, there will be some other major improvement as well. And I would still like to see a decoder only pack for Rv10 to be used with MPC.
Since with all these Real Store thing i think RealPlayer will be as bloated as it use to be.

[iwod]

Here is a quick view on RealPlayer 10.

It is basically an updated RealONE. I would call it RealONE V2.1
It is 9.33Mb Dowloaded compare to 8.27Mb of RealONE v2
It is a new features Called Perfect Play which basically cache some file when playing Streaming clips on internet and provide smoother playback.
It has new option that allow you to set message centre to not update itself and may be not to pop up.
It has a new play list, that looks abit like winamp style playlist.

[Latexxx]

Originally posted by iwod
BUT, just to remind all that aacPLUS is slightly different to HE_AAC

No it isn't. AacPlus is just a marketing name for Coding Technologies' HE AAC encoder which was originally competing against Dolby Aac for the position of HE AAC.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?showtopic=13841&

[DAvenger]

Downloaded, installed, got error message about missing uninstaller :confused: Run, didn't start at all, when uninstalling got uninstaller not found error message :scared:

You better check your install scripts ...

[Sirber]

Will AAC and HE-AAC works in Matroska?

[bond]

karl:
(how) will real support the .mp4 container?

Originally posted by Latexxx
AacPlus is just a marketing name for Coding Technologie's HE AAC encoderexactly
he-aac = aacplus = aac+ = aac+sbr

the official notation in the mpeg-4 standard is he-aac (aac is part of the mpeg-4 standard) and it is also most widely used afaik (you will find the most results by searching for he-aac on doom9 and hydrogenaudio i guess)

Originally posted by Sirber
Will AAC and HE-AAC works in Matroska?of course it already works for a long time

[Sirber]

even the AAC(+) from RMVB? :)

[bilu]

Originally posted by bond
karl:
does this mean he-aac encoding is possible? or only decoding?
(how) will real support the .mp4 container?
"It includes full support for AAC ripping, and AAC and HE-AAC playback.", probably not HE-AAC ripping :confused:

By MP4 container do you mean audio-only MP4 streams?


Bilu

[bond]

Originally posted by Sirber
even the AAC(+) from RMVB?sure if there is a way to unpack it from the container real uses (this excludes drm'ed he-aac files)

sirber
thats the beauty of an open standard like mpeg-4 (which aac is part of):
many suppliers can offer different implementations of the open standard and they all are compliant with each other!
the same goes with mpeg-4 video (like xvid, divx5, 3ivx, nero digital are all mpeg-4 codecs)

but to be 100% spec compliant you would have to use the container defined in the mpeg-4 standard and thats mp4 (also not avi)!
i guess real will use their *.rm container, but the aac bitstream in it is 100% complaint with a he-aac bitstream produced by nero for example (and i am pretty sure coreaac will handle it)
the great thing with an open standard is you can choose which implementation you like best (as both will not produce the same quality for example)

and thats why i dont like proprietary formats like wmv9 and rv9, as they dont follow an open standard, which everyone can follow and everyone can build a codec following this standard

Originally posted by bilu
By MP4 container do you mean audio-only MP4 streams?yes as a first step
as rv9 and rv10 isnt mpeg-4 complaint they cant really put such realvideo streams in mp4, which means that mp4 could only be used for aac audio in real

[Sagittaire]

Very good news karl ... ;-)

[Happygolucky]

I got tired of RealPlayer when it began hijacking your computer on install. I tried RealOne Player to see if it still ran roughshod over your system. It did and does. So, is Real's newest player equally guilty of an attempted coup of your computer? With the advent of RealAlternative and the fact that I now encounter a Real Media file only rarely, I'm not taking the chance that installing this new RealPlayer will corrupt my computer and force a complete reinstall of the operating system just to get rid of it and its bugs and spies.

[Sirber]

@bond

I don,t see that beauty at low bitrate :D

[bond]

sirber ;)

[karl_lillevold]

Thanks for all the good feedback and questions! Enough to start a small FAQ already..

Some answers, hopefully I did not miss too many:

@AAC enthusiasts: AAC and HE-AAC questions
The current ripping format is AAC wrapped in RM (.ra), but raw AAC and HE-AAC (ADTS) play back without problems. AAC wrapped in MP4 also used to work, but it was decided to not include it in this Beta version, since we do not currently also play back MP4 video, due to licensing issues. If you happen to obtain our MP4 renderer, MP4 wrapped files will play back. RealPlayer 10 does not currently rip to HE-AAC, frankly because it was too expensive to license it, as well as problems obtaining HE-AAC codecs for all devices we need to support.

@Pamel:
I presume that the Real container bitstream has not changed? (Still on 1.0?) I was just wondering if any of the extraction tools would need to be altered.
container format should be the same, I have not yet tried much AAC encoding, or extraction, but will.

@D-C:
does the rv-aac codec support 5.1 output ?
No 5.1 for AAC. Perhaps later. The Multi-channel codec is still RA8 based.

@datascab:
How long before us mere mortals can enjoy Real 10 (audio/video) without shelling out for the plus version.
A "Helix" Producer will be out shortly. Personally I wish they did not have a Basic/Plus differentation even for the commercial version of Producer. The Basic version is crippled enough to not be useful for anyone but the most casual user.

Does the new AAC based encoding still require the downsampling to 44.1kHz?
I think so. Will check.

Has rmeditior been changed at all, specifically allowing lossless cut and join?
No.

@LiFe: Historically, we have released a new video codec every two years, but there is nothing to stop this trend from changing with for instance RV 11. What's new with RV 10, is that it uses the same bitstream as the previous codec. This is a great advantage for content creators who do not like to change formats that require a player update, as well as hardware device porting.

@iwod:
Vp6 is currently leading the game in Low Bitrate encoding where RealVideo has nearly NO serious competition at all in the past.
In terms of PSNR in Sagittaire's latest test, VP6 leads by a small margin, yes. In general, as you know, subjective opinions vary greatly, and other views have been posted. Personally I think VP6 is RV10's closest competitor in terms of compression efficiency. On2's very skilled codec developers have made great progress.

@DAvenger: Install (uninstall) problem. How to remove old players and codec packs
Weird problem. I am sure QA ran the installer uncountable number of times without running into this, or it would have been fixed. Sounds like it tried to uninstall old RealPlayer(RealOne), but uninstaller was missing. Codec pack, perhaps? Not sure what I can do, since I really need some more information to file a bug report. Maybe .r1pclean.exe (http://www.lillevold.com/files/r1pclean.zip) will help. This should remove all remnants of old players as well as RealProducers and RealServers, hopefully also codec packs, I don't really know.. Use at your own risk.

RealPlayer improvements..
Yes, the UI looks very similar, with perhaps too few changes IMHO, but there are plenty of improvements under the hood. Better and more accurate video playback with less jitter. LivePause and fastforward. Much improved music library. Everything is smaller, faster and quicker, but it was never meant to be a video only player, which MPC and others do so well.

Despite its many features, uses less memory than WMP and iTunes, and does not run +10MB of background services like one of these, name withheld. MPC already works with the new DLLs included in RealPlayer 10. Oh, and did you know you can play the songs purchased from other music stores in RealPlayer 10? I just played a song I bought from iTunes. And of course integration with a long list of h/w devices, as well as the new RealGuide and Music Store.

RealPlayer 10 does not do any attempts to "hijack" your computer. It asks to be player for filetypes once, you make a selection, it never asks again, or tries to recover filetypes. You can turn the Message Center completely off, as well as all auto-updates. I know how annoying previous versions were. This is not perfect, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

However, as has been the case for a while, no one is forcing you to ever run it to play back RealVideo and RealAudio, since there are alternatives for video enthusiasts, but I fear that codec pack installers do not install or uninstall properly, and may really mess up your system. If you want to use another player, install RealPlayer, perhaps run .r1pclean.exe (http://www.lillevold.com/files/r1pclean.zip) first, if you have a lot of old Real DLLs or codec packs around.

[S_O]

This sounds really great. I would like to see a complete overview about the new codecs and flavors, unfortunately this file isn´t updated yet:
https://helix-producer.helixcommunity.org/specs/Producer9.2/AudienceFile/AudienceDefaults.xls
Or is a new version somewhere else?
does the rv-aac codec support 5.1 output ?
No 5.1 for AAC. Perhaps later. The Multi-channel codec is still RA8 based.Does that mean both, encoding and decoding is not supported?
If not, please do not make a general error message like "An error has occured while opening the file". I really like QuickTime here it says something like "This file uses ... Quicktime doesn´t suppport yet: MPEG-4 Video: MPEG Quantization"
A general error message is making people angry, because they don´t know why it´s not working.
Does the new AAC based encoding still require the downsampling to 44.1kHz?
I think so. Will check.But the decoder plays all samplerates/bitrates or only the one the Producer can encode?

I remember Real had a deal with Xiph about Vorbis support in RealPlayer? Does RealPlayer support any kind of Vorbis yet? I guess the possibility to mux it into rm is not even started. Or is this completly old and Vorbis has been replaced by AAC now and all started Vorbis support will be removed again?

...is that the most recent RV 10 encoder DLL is included...My first thought: What?? Why the hell do they plan to add encoding support for RealVideo 5 (FourCC: RV10)???? The difference in the numbers in FourCC and the name is sometimes a bit misleading. But this is still RV40, right?

[Blight]

karl:
Which direction is Real heading toward? Codec or Playback? I mean, why not release your codecs under a DirectShow setup, at least for the un-ecrypted stuff, or implement your own directshow based DRM. Using a fixed player limits user exposure to your content and the currently available RealAudio/Video wrapper is not perfect and is certainly not future-proof.

[RadicalEd]

RealProducer Basic 10 still has max startup latency capped at 25, not sure if this was overlooked or just one of the Basic version handicaps.

edit- also, lossless audio doesn't seem to be in the audio codec menus.

[Sigmatador]

karl: just thx for your work (and to other devs too)


hs: vp6 and rv9 seems to have been improved using doom9 forum feedbacks. I hope this public beta-testing tendance will keep on :D

[Wilbert]

Hi Karl,

I was reading Ars, and they formulated the following questions:


There's one last observation to be made. RealPlayer supports iTMS songs (only if iTunes and thus QuickTime 6 is installed on the local computer). Is this a tip of the hat to Apple's 30 million song accomplishment and 70% market share? Maybe so, but Real didn't crack Apple's encryption, but rather goes through iTunes (computer authorization) to decode the files (QuickTime) and play the content. If iTunes (and QuickTime in particular) can function as a free programming interface for Apple's own DRM, there's nothing to stop Winamp and friends from using Apple's DRM as well (we,, aside from telling people that they need to install competing software). So, the question is, did Real find this free "backdoor itself," or is Apple licensing it and staying quiet about it, or is this just a further extension of QuickTime's API? The latter option is most likely true, which leads me to ask: who's next?

I was just curious about the answers :)

[slavickas]

Does registry tweaks works with new basic producer ? and what is complexity for 1rst pass?

[Sirber]

The Producer SDK on Windows also includes HE-AAC encoding.Does that mean we can encode HE-AAC?

[karl_lillevold]

some more answers:

@S_O: Audience specs with codecs and flavors on hc.org
The hc.org audience spreadsheet has not yet been updated. Included with RealProducer in the docs folder are HTML docs with a table with all the latest codecs, including AAC (raac).

64 Kbps Stereo Music - RealAudio 10 raac 0 44.1 kHz
96 Kbps Stereo Music - RealAudio 10 raac 1 44.1 kHz
128 Kbps Stereo Music - RealAudio 10 raac 2 44.1 kHz
160 Kbps Stereo Music - RealAudio 10 raac 3 44.1 kHz
192 Kbps Stereo Music - RealAudio 10 raac 4 44.1 kHz
256 Kbps Stereo Music - RealAudio 10 raac 5 44.1 kHz
320 Kbps Stereo Music - RealAudio 10 raac 6 44.1 kHz

Multi-channel AAC encoding vs playback
There is no multi-channel AAC encoding. Multi-channel playback? Perhaps.. If not I will file a bug report. Let me know. I don't have any multi-channel .aac files to try.

Improved error messages in RealPlayer
Good advice. RealPlayer's dreaded "A general error has occurred" has bugged me many a time.

AAC playback at 48 kHz
The AAC decoder should play all sample rates. I have no test clips for 48 kHz though. If you have a location where I can get both 48 kHz and multi-channel AAC files, I will be happy to test and file bug reports for whatever does not work.

Vorbis support in RealPlayer
This does not appear to work. It is for sure included with the open source Helix Player though.

RealVideo 10 FourCC code
RealVideo 10, being fully backward compatible, still has FourCC 'RV40'.

@Blight: Codec or playback
Good question, much bigger than I can answer. Certainly not codec only, but there is the codec aspect (See http://www.helixcommunity.org/realcodecs ). There is work going on to better document and make available the codec interfaces. Not sure about ETA.

@RadicalEd: MSL capped at 25 in GUI and missing RA Lossless in menus.
Thanks for finding these bugs. They have been filed and will be fixed.

@Wilbert: Playback of iTMS purchased songs
I can not imagine there being a backdoor.

@slavickas: Does registry tweaks works with new basic producer ? and what is complexity for 1rst pass?
Yes, registry tweaks all work, but with RealVideo 10 being selected as the codec, the only complexity related setting that's needed, is the firstPassComplexity setting, since the current default is to use the same complexity in both passes. When RealVideo 10 is selected as the codec, this corresponds to RV9-EHQ at complexity level 85.

@Sirber: HE-AAC encoding in Producer
The HE-AAC DLL (racp.dll), with codec name 'racp', is not distributed with the Producer Application for licensing reasons, but it is included with the Producer SDK.

[snowcrash]

Just downloaded the new Producer 10 Basic to check out the GUI tool. Looks pretty nice. I tried to enable resizing for my video.

"You must upgrade to RealProducer Plus to enable this feature."

What does the Plus version cost, 200 bucks? No thanks. Microsoft provides a free GUI encoder to their users with all the features enabled. This thing is useless to me without resizing.

[karl_lillevold]

@snowcrash: Yes, I know. :scared: It does not make sense to me either, and I am trying to change it. A "Helix" version of Producer 10 will be out soon though, command line version, but full-featured.

[Sagittaire]

EHQ with quality mode is enable ... ???

[iwod]

@Karl

Is the new PP included in RealPlayer 10? Or is it still currently being developed?

[karl_lillevold]

@Sagittaire: I am not 100% sure I understand your question, but let me try to illustrate. Remember it's all really the same codec.

85 RV10 high
75 RV10 medium
65 RV9 high RV10 low
57 RV9 medium
50 RV9 low

Both RV9 and RV10 default to 'high' unless you specify otherwise. The encoding mode (CBR, VBR, Quality) is not related to encoding complexity. As you can see from the above chart, 'RV10 low' is the exact same as 'RV9 high', and 'RV10 high' = RV9-EHQ with 85.

You can still use the reg key. Set it to 75 or higher and you will get RV10, set it to 65 or lower and you will get RV9. Both RV9 and RV10 are encoded by the same encoder, and the encoder complexity is really what determines the "codec name".

[CruNcher]

hehe i don't know what to think about this marketing gag but it's very odd especialy the Producer Plus and Basic thing lol but i think that's the american way of life to fool customers ;) Ehhh Karl you didn't sugested to get the Warez version of RealProducer 10 Plus did you :D

[Sirber]

Can we still use the number if EHQ instead of his name and don't bother with this RV9/RV10 thing? :)

@snowcash

use other GUI. all functions works :)

[satori]

Karl:
Realnetworks will rerease tools to convert RA10 to AAC or mp4?

Please say your boss DO NOT ask mail adress and personal info at the end of install realplayer.
I hate real want to collect personal info.I always put fake adress and info.

[Sirber]

Is dropdupe included with priducer 10?

[LiFe]

Too bad level 2 partners don't get betas. I'm sure there's plenty of crap I could complain about before it went gold : )

LiFe.

[Sirber]

what is level 2 partner?

[lazyn00b]

Shame on LiFe! The first rule of Level 2 Partners is "There are no Level 2 Partners" ;)

[bond]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
@Sirber: HE-AAC encoding in Producer
The HE-AAC DLL (racp.dll), with codec name 'racp', is not distributed with the Producer Application for licensing reasons, but it is included with the Producer SDK.yummie :)

when will the sdk be available? and will this dll be usable in realplayer or helixproducer than?

[Sirber]

is ATRAC3 still avalible? or it was replaced by AAC?

[bilu]

Originally posted by Sirber
is ATRAC3 still avalible? or it was replaced by AAC? Read the first post, "AAC has replaced ATRAC3 as the high bitrate audio codec"

Bilu

[karl_lillevold]

I really need to move some of my answers to the first post, in an FAQ section. Will do shortly. In the meantime:

@iwod: Is the new PP included in RealPlayer 10? Or is it still currently being developed?
If you are asking about the minor improvement to add back some high frequency spatial information.. sorry, not complete in time to be included.

@CruNcher: hehe i don't know what to think about this marketing gag
I rather liked my RV9-EHQ name :rolleyes:, but marketing wanted to collect all the new developments into one main '10' release. It is also RealNetworks' 10 year anniversary coming up.

@Sirber: Can we still use the number if EHQ instead of his name and don't bother with this RV9/RV10 thing?
Yes, when Helix Producer 10 is available, do change to using 'rv10' as the codec name in the audience file. Like I mentioned, without any encoding complexity, you will then get RV9-EHQ @ 85. The cleanest and preferred method is to use 'rv10' + high, medium, or low encoding complexity (-eco switch to Producer)

@satori: Realnetworks will rerease tools to convert RA10 to AAC or mp4?
No, but I am sure someone else will. Gabest is working on a splitter update right now. For Gold, I think RP 10 will rip to .aac as well, but this has not been finally decided yet.

Please say your boss DO NOT ask mail adress and personal info at the end of install realplayer. I hate real want to collect personal info.I always put fake adress and info.
Yes, me too, and most others, but RealNetworks has to generate revenue somehow. RealPlayer is its main instrument for this, and we need to document the number of users. Use fake info if you like.

@LiFe: Too bad level 2 partners don't get betas. I'm sure there's plenty of crap I could complain about before it went gold
I am sure too, but it's available for free for everyone here:
http://www.real.com/freeplayer/?rppr=d9
This is for Windows only, for now, top link, the others are older versions.
Linux playback of the latest formats is via the open source Helix Player (https://player.helixcommunity.org/).

@bond: SDK availability?
Not sure. will let you know.

Oh, on slashdot this morning, there was the usual flurry of negative responses to kforeman's Real 10 announcement (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/08/0238251&mode=thread&tid=141&tid=188), where he even referred to Doom9 : "In developing RealVideo 10, our codec team has been working closely with the Doom9 community".

I posted this reply (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=91989&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=188&mode=thread&cid=7916039), but it was probably too late to be read by most :(

[iwod]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold

Oh, on slashdot this morning, there was the usual flurry of negative responses in response to kforeman's Real 10 announcement (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/08/0238251&mode=thread&tid=141&tid=188), where he even referred to Doom9 : "In developing RealVideo 10, our codec team has been working closely with the Doom9 community".

I posted this reply (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=91989&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=188&mode=thread&cid=7916039), but it was probably too late to be read by most:(

WOW!. That is lots of reply.... but at first sight it is all negative post. It seems these people still don't understand how good is RV9EHQ
or now RV10. I now understand that what sirber is saying about Vp6 encoding @ low bitrate. Rv10 is still the best on Anime on low bitrate.

@Sirber
you need to join in the slashdot message chain to convince them now... :devil: :D

[S_O]

Helix DRM 10 : Our latest DRM technology.
AFAIK Helix is an open-source project (everything except the codecs), does that mean your DRM is open-source (I´m yust hoping, but I think I know the answer)?
If not, is there at least a dll which is useable for Gabest´s filter for example like the codec dlls?

(so it can be decrypted with a valid license like iTunes m4p or M$-DRMv2 and saved unencrypted without decoding)

[zedude]

i just found realplayer installed a directshowfilter on my system, it's called RealPlayer Audio Filter : is it meant to play ra10 files with every dshow based player or an internal filter for RP ?

any date for helix producer 10 ? ( i only use jobfiles and producer basic wants 200$ for this :D )
it's out , nice !! let's give it a try :)

[karl_lillevold]

Helix Producer 10.0 Beta is available
from helixcommunity.org (https://www.helixcommunity.org) in the Binaries section (Binaries -> (click here for distribution binaries) -> Helix DNA Producer -> Command Line Application)

This includes all the latest updates, including the SDK.
Command line only.

It would be great when the various front-ends get around to updating, since this includes the latest improvements that until now has been available only via a separate DLL (1st pass speedup).

If you have any questions, let me know. The encoding complexity settings are now finalized. It is as simple as choosing 'rv9' or 'rv10' as the codec name. RV10 will be EHQ (85), RV9 will be good ole' RV9. All the old settings and tweaks still work. The only improvement that needs to be enabled with audience file or reg key, is the 1st pass speed-up.

Thanks to all the front-end GUI programmers! I apologize things have been changing, especially the encodingComplexity setting, but this has been un-avoidable considering how this community has helped test and improve during the development.

[RadicalEd]

Originally posted by karl_lillevold
This includes all the latest updates

Everything that was done with the 9.2 series dlls? The improved twopass and high frequencies, and b-frame control? Just making sure.

[RadicalEd]

Oh, something I just remembered, I recall talk of implementing EHQ into RV8, don't remember whether it went through or not. Either way, what's the status of that in the new producer series?