Welcome to RealSystem, the most sophisticated system for streaming multimedia files across a network. This manual will help you produce your multimedia presentation, whether you want to stream a video from your home page or create a multimedia extravaganza with video, audio, animation, still images, and text.
This manual tells how to assemble a RealMedia presentation. Although it gives tips on producing great content, the more you know about producing audio, video, and graphics, the faster you'll put together a great streaming presentation. If you know the basics of HTML, you'll find it easy to pick up SMIL, the language used to assemble a RealMedia presentation.
If you're familiar with previous versions of RealSystem, this chapter will give you a quick update on the many aspects of streaming that have changed in RealSystem G2.
This chapter walks you through the steps you take to put together a streaming multimedia presentation. It also explains how to target a bandwidth connection.
This chapter gives you pointers on capturing and digitizing high-quality audio. It then gives you the background you need to encode the audio source for streaming.
Read this chapter to learn how to capture high-quality video and optimize it for RealMedia streaming.
Macromedia's Flash animation paired with a RealAudio soundtrack produces dazzling animated presentations. This chapter tells you how to create RealFlash content.
After you create your multimedia files, you write a simple file that pulls the presentation together. This chapter tells you how to write this file to specify when and how each part of your presentation plays.
To integrate your presentation seamlessly in your Web page instead of playing it back in RealPlayer, follow the instructions in this chapter.
Using RealServer, you can insert ads into your streaming presentation. This chapter explains how to prepare your advertising media and set up ad rotation.
This chapter provides step-by-step instructions for moving your presentation files to RealServer and linking your Web page to them. It also tells how you can use a standard Web server for simple media streaming.
Refer to this chapter if you plan to broadcast an audio or video event live.
Look here for guidelines on using RealMedia logos on your Web pages.
This appendix provides a simple reference for file types used in RealMedia streaming.
The following table explains the conventions used in this manual.
In addition to this manual, you may need the following RealNetworks resources, available at http://www.real.com:
This manual explains how to create streaming text. You can use RealText, for example, to create a live stock ticker feed or provide video subtitles.
With RealPix you can create streaming slide shows of still images. RealPix Content Creation Guide tells you how to put a slide show together and use special effects such as fades.
The basic reference for the RealServer administrator, this manual explains how to set up, configure, and run RealServer to stream multimedia. You need this manual only if you are running RealServer yourself.
The RealMedia SDK lets you integrate applications with the RealMedia system. You need the SDK and its documentation to create a new plug-in for RealServer or RealPlayer. A knowledge of programming is required to use the SDK.