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RealPlayer to Support One-Click Video Ripping

Posted by CowboyNeal on Sat Jun 02, 2007 08:11 AM
from the easier-than-ever dept.
Software Movies Media Upgrades IT
Aditi.Tuteja writes "RealPlayer is coming up with a free version in June which will allow one-click video ripping. This free downloadable video player will allow anyone to save and organize video files in all major formats including Flash, QuickTime, RealMedia and Window Media and will support video ripping from websites like YouTube or more. The new RealPlayer will not download or record video that is DRM-enabled."
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[+] Technology: RealPlayer 11 Is a Real Rip Contender 226 comments
rishimathew writes to tell us TechNewsWorld is reporting that the new RealPlayer 11, not even out of beta yet, has a lot of great new features including the ability to easily rip streaming videos from sites like YouTube, Revver, and Heavy.com. "With the release of RealPlayer 11, the company is boldly moving into another dicey realm: ripping streaming video. Sure, there are lots of means out there to capture video from sites like YouTube Latest News about YouTube, Revver, Heavy.com and such. There are programs like WM Recorder (US$49.95) and Replay A/V ($49.95), as well as Web sites like Keepvid.com and Mozilla Latest News about Mozilla Foundation Firefox add-ons like VideoDownloader. I've tried some of them. Few, though, can match the slick ease of use of RealPlayer 11 -- and it isn't even out of beta yet."
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RealPlayer to Support One-Click Video Ripping 50 Comments More /

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  • Cool! (Score:5, Funny)

    by sharkey (16670) on Saturday June 02 2007, @08:17AM (#19362605)
    Cli...

    *buffering*
    *buffering*

    ...ck!!

  • Windows Only For Now (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WrongSizeGlass (838941) on Saturday June 02 2007, @08:18AM (#19362611) Homepage

    The new version of RealPlayer will be released in June. Sorry Mac users, no Real enabled ripping for you until later in the year, Windows only at this stage with support for Internet Explorer and Firefox.
    Sorry Mac users? I guess lack of Linux support doesn't even warrant a mention (let alone an apology)? I'm sure glad there are no other browsers out there except for FF & IE.

    I see they're trying to avoid becoming the middleman in content lawsuits by avoiding "DRM infected" content, but that won't protect them from the copyright owners suing them the very first time the MPAA downloads a clip from a movie.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by XSforMe (446716)
      I don't get it... why would anybody be interested in having this piece of crapware native in their platform? I for one, avoid it like the plague: no machine under my wing gets touched with Realplayer.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Bemopolis (698691)
        I absolutedly need this new version. That way I can convert those Real Player movies I have into a usable format and shitcan Real Player!
      • That's what VMs are for. Install to a VM that you use to have it perform what you want, then store the VM 'til the next time you need it. The host runs TOR or something similar to route your traffic once 'round the world and you're set.

      • Re:Windows Only For Now (Score:5, Insightful)

        by squiggleslash (241428) on Saturday June 02 2007, @10:24AM (#19363283) Homepage Journal

        The funny thing is that it's only ever been the Windows versions of RealPlayer and RealOne that have been crapware. The GNU/Linux and Mac OS X versions have always been beautifully minimalist.

        I think the assumption has always been that people running Mac OS X and GNU/Linux are content creators/managers, and Windows users are consumers. You don't want to piss off the former two groups.

        • Lack of bloat in the Linux version is related to apathy, lack of resources, and an older codebase on Linux rather than any intelligent design or insight from Real.

          • Lack of bloat in the Linux version is related to... an older codebase on Linux rather than... intelligent design...

            Are you claiming that Real evolved from a single command-line tool like sox? Preposterous!

      • Re:Windows Only For Now (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jZnat (793348) * on Saturday June 02 2007, @11:15AM (#19363633) Homepage Journal
        Because Real seems to be the only company that makes cross-platform media players one of their top priorities. Also, Helix is pretty good (their open source player). They are also one of the easiest ways to get proprietary codecs legally on Linux. And for some reason, their Linux version of Real Player isn't nearly as bad as I remember the Windows malware version from back in the day.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Angostura (703910)
        I really don't understand the continuing antipathy to the basic, free version. I'm running the basic version on OS X and it is great. It lets me watch and listen to the BBC stuff I want, it integrates nicely with other apps, it installs itself cleanly and it doesn't incorporate unnecessary bling or bloat. It works well, it's unobtrusive. What's not to like now?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ash Vince (602485)
        Why does everyone whine about realplayer so much?

        It has improved enormously of late. It runs on linux, it doesnt install any spyware and the actual player is open source.
        To playback RM clips you need the proprietary codecs but let compare this to the other most widely used streaming media frameworks.

        WMV / ASF

        Windows only. I know you can get players that play the non DRM stuff but most sites seem to embed the clips in a webpage and try and force us to Windows Media Player.

        Quicktime

        Windows / Mac Only. No full

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by zlogic (892404)
      Fedora used to include Helix Player as the default mp3 playimg app in Core 2 (I use Ubuntu so I don't know about later versions). And Helix is essentially an open-sourced version of RealPlayer (although some functions are missing). I'd say that Real supports Linux better than Adobe or nVidia.

  • So it will rip "questionable" material (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Overzeetop (214511) on Saturday June 02 2007, @08:18AM (#19362613) Journal
    ...for which you're not sure whether you have permission (but isn't protected), but it still won't rip the DVD I purchased. Nice. Thanks.

    • DownloadHelper plugin (Score:5, Informative)

      by cpuh0g (839926) on Saturday June 02 2007, @08:22AM (#19362633)
      The "DownloadHelper" extension for Firefox already does this, without all the bloat and adware that RealPlayer delivers. It works great for downloading videos embedded in websites like YouTube, etc.
      • The "DownloadHelper" extension for Firefox already does this

        Not a bad little extension!

        However, it unfortunately only rips videos that most geeks could already have gotten to (though it certainly saves the time of going through the cache, finding what you want, and manually grabbing that!).

        I'd really like to find something that can rip videos from the "hard" sites that stream-only, like video.msn.com, that don't actually send the video as a proper file. Although StreamRipper used to work for those,
      • without all the bloat and adware that RealPlayer delivers.

        Please name some. It never seems to install anything I dont ask it to on my system, either under windows or linux.
    • ...for which you're not sure whether you have permission (but isn't protected), but it still won't rip the DVD I purchased. Nice. Thanks.

      Oh, but it WILL rip material downloaded from pirate sites! OH the irony... B-)
      • Seems to me that items downloaded from Pirate sites are already conveniently ripped for you. Generally speaking of course.

  • Big Yawn! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Greger47 (516305) on Saturday June 02 2007, @08:29AM (#19362677)
    The Flash plugin has always allowed you to rip streams.
    1. Open your %TEMP% folder.
    2. Start playing todays 15 seconds of fame clip on YouTube's frontpage.
    3. Notice the flaXXX.tmp file that just appeared in the temp folder.
    4. When the clip has finished playing, copy the file somewhere and rename it to HE_iS_BURNiN_HIMS3LF_LOLZ!!!.flv

    /greger

  • RealPlayer? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by suv4x4 (956391) on Saturday June 02 2007, @08:31AM (#19362685)
    What the hell was that? Wasn't it a piece of ad/scam-ware that filled your desktop with crap and had misleading purchase options?

    Didn't it die eons ago? I wouldn't know.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MMC Monster (602931)
      Yeah. I didn't realise they still existed. Now, when they say that the new realplayer "will not download or record video that is DRM-enabled", they surely mean that it will not play anything that is DRM-enabled. (Because they surely know that anything viewable on my computer can be copied as well.) It's a pretty bold move considering that noone even knows that realplayer exists anymore.

      Unfortunately, they no longer have the clout (if they ever did) to push content providers to produce content that is no
    • The other day I played an old .rm file, first time I'd used the Real player in years. From that point on, every time my computer would reboot I would get the RealMedia Message Center popup telling me to update. No options on disabling it, and it didn't appear in the Startup folder. I had to run msconfig and disable tkbell-something-or-other to get rid of that. Annoying as hell.

      So, are there any other players out there that support .rm format?
    • I dunno about the current state of their Windows version, but the Linux version is MILES (possibly light-years) better then it's Windows bretheren. It's even open source.
      • I was doing an ethnomusicology project a couple of years ago on the music of Trinidad and Tobago, and I got half of the music samples off of websites offering "samples" that were actually just low-bitrate full-length songs. But get this: every single one of them was in RealAudio format! Guess it's still got a pretty big stronghold in some parts of the world.... Also a point of interest: After my sometimes harrowing but nonetheless workable efforts to download the files from the streaming media links, I was

  • What about OGG? (Score:5, Informative)

    by saibot834 (1061528) on Saturday June 02 2007, @08:52AM (#19362801) Homepage
    in all major formats including Flash, QuickTime, RealMedia and Window Media

    What about Ogg [wikipedia.org] (+Vorbis/Theora)?
    Flash and Windows Media are just as bad as RealMedia. No improvement this far, in my opinion.
    • What about Ogg [wikipedia.org] (+Vorbis/Theora)?
      Flash and Windows Media are just as bad as RealMedia. No improvement this far, in my opinion.

      That's not a pissing contest about quality. It's a pissing contest about industry support and userbase, availability.

      In other words, where on Earth am I to go for lots of good OGG content? What can I find in OGG format? Some training Linux video?

      Flash is about being 98% coverage, and light, small, easy to use. It uses MP3 and On2 6 for video. Not the best, but no one n
      • Flash also uses H.263+, and since encoding to that is supported in FFmpeg [mplayerhq.hu] (and not On2 VP6), that's what sites like YouTube use.

        Ogg Vorbis is gaining support in all sorts of places (e.g., tons of videogames, Wikipedia et al., some online music stores, etc.), and once Ogg Theora is fully standardised and better supported by other open source codecs (like FFmpeg), it can become more ubiquitous.

        Oh, and if you were trying to praise On2's VP codecs, note that Theora is based on On2's VP3 (which they generously p
    • Any format that Mplayer [mplayerhq.hu] can play can also be saved. Just use the -dumpstream switch. For example, if there's a realplayer stream you like, use this:

      mplayer rtsp://host/path/file.rm -dumpstream -dumpfile 'local.rm'

      This is particularly useful to get rid of the "buffering" message. Just open an xterm and stream the file as above, then wait half a minute and open a second xterm and start playing the *local* file while it's still downloading at the same time:

      mplayer local.rm

      • Games that use Vorbis (Score:4, Insightful)

        by tepples (727027) <slash2006&pineight,com> on Saturday June 02 2007, @09:47AM (#19363019) Homepage Journal

        I'm sorry to dissapoint you, but Ogg is not a MAJOR format. Only nerds ever heard about it, let alone use it.
        True, Theora is still in the nerds-only stage, but do only nerds play these computer games [xiph.org]?

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          That only proves that some game programmers know about it, gamers won't know or care about what format the audio files are.
        • Lots of music releases on the net are also made in (and sometimes available only as) Ogg Vorbis as well. A few indie net radios offer Ogg streams for much better quality than the regular MP3 encoding on lower bitrates. I doubt that "nerds" would be the only consumers of those.
          • A few indie net radios offer Ogg streams for much better quality than the regular MP3 encoding on lower bitrates.

            This is getting beside the point of the article (ripping), but unless something has changed in the last year or two ogg sucks for streaming. Sure you can listen to something via an ogg stream, but the indexing/seeking features of the format are either underdeveloped or completely missing.

  • Wow, a ripper that doesn't actually rip anything useful or desired. I can see that Real Player is still right on top of technology these days and probably why it isn't anywhere on my computer. Now a program that would allow me to rip my cd's, dvd's and mixed media cd/dvd's - that would be something to Slashdot on about. Thank you Easy CD-DA Extractor for part of that solution.

  • Argh (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bradavon (1066358) on Saturday June 02 2007, @12:02PM (#19364003)
    I wish RealPlayer would just die. It's such atrociously bad software in every way and always has been. Dreadful quality, constant buffering, proprietary format that barely works in any other software, bloatware to the extreme and to makes matters worse crud all over your system.

    Just do us all a favour and go bankrupt.
  • Please select the proprietary DRM crippled format you wish to save the video in..

    Flash [ ]
    Quicktime [ ]
    WMV [ ]
    None of the above [x]

    • CowboyNeal has never touched a boob
      That's not true ... he's touched mine. He does have soft hands for a guy though.
    • I think Amazon's patent only covers users. You have to pay royalties if you only click something once.

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