Progressive Networks, Inc. RealAudio Player Release Notes For the latest information see http://www.realaudio.com Contents * General * Quick Start * System Requirements * Software Requirements * Supported Web Browsers * Accessing RealAudio through FireWalls * Reporting Feedback * RealAudio Setup * RealAudio Player * Sound * TIA (The Internet Adapter) * Known Problems * Upgrading your World Wide Web Browser * Manually Configuring the RealAudio Player * Problem Reporting Form --------------------------------------------------------------------- General This document describes Progressive Networks' RealAudio Player. Our web site is http://www.realaudio.com please check it for the latest information. Please see http://www.realaudio.com/help.html for help and more information. The software and documentation is provided to you in accordance with your license agreement. The RealAudio Player provides real time sound over the Internet. Once you have installed the RealAudio Player, RealAudio will play automatically when you select any RealAudio clip on a World Wide Web page. You do not need to load the RealAudio player first. The RealAudio Player only plays RealAudio files. It does not play .au or .wav files. To use your RealAudio Player, connect to a World Wide Web site that has RealAudio. Click on a link and the RealAudio player will open and start to play. The Player first contacts the host computer that contains the audio. It then briefly buffers some audio. If you are curious about the audio packets comming into your computer, please pull down the "View" menu and select "Statistics." ------------------------------------------------------------------- Quick Start Follow these steps to install the RealAudio Player for Windows: 1. Download the file RAWIN100.EXE. You can do this by going to our home page http://www.realaudio.com and following the download links. If your web browser asks "How would you like to handle this file" choose "Save to Disk.". If you web browser displays the text of the file instead of downloading it, configure it to save the MIME type "application-octet-stream". You can find instructions for configuring your web browser on our site. Start at http://www.realaudio.com/help.html and choose FAQ. From the FAQ, choose the "Downloading the RealAudio Player" entry. 2. Run RAWIN100.EXE. o From the Program Manager choose File - Run, and Browse to find where you had your Web Browser save RAWIN100.EXE OR o You can use the file manager and double-click on RAWIN100.EXE. OR o If you have Windows 95 you can choose Start - Run, and Browse to find the directory where you had your Web Browser save RAWIN100.EXE 3. Follow the instructions. Use "Express" setup unless you want to control where and how the player is installed. At the conclusion of the setup program, the RealAudio player will launch and play a Welcome to RealAudio message. If this message sounds distorted, please see the "Sound" section of these Release Notes. -------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Your system needs to have the following in order to run the RealAudio Player: * 486/33 SX or better PC running Microsoft Windows 3.1x, Windows NT or Windows 95 * 8 megabytes RAM. * 2 megabytes free disk space. * A sound card with a Windows Sound driver. (The RealAudio Player is not compatible with the PC Speaker program or other software programs which emulations a sound card.) * An Internet Connection. Either a direct connection or a 14.4K Baud or better modem with a SLIP or PPP connection to an Internet Service Provider ------------------------------------------------------------------- Software Requirements In order to install the RealAudio Player, you will need * Microsoft Windows 3.1x, Windows NT or Windows 95 * Standard Sound Drivers for your sound card * A TCP/IP Protocol Stack (Winsock or equivalent) In addition, to get the most benefit from the RealAudio Player, we recommend that you have a World Wide Web browser installed. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Supported Web Browsers The following World Wide Web Browsers are currently supported: * AIR Mosaic (Internet In a Box) * Booklink InternetWorks (also known as GNNWorks) * Cello WWW Browser * CompuServe connection using AIR Mosaic * EINet WinWeb * InternetMCI Navigator * Microsoft Internet Explorer * NCSA Mosaic * Netscape Navigator * Quarterdeck Mosaic * Spyglass Mosaic and Enhanced Mosaic If you have a NetCom (version 1.60 or later) account or an America OnLine(version 2.5 or later) account, you will need to use a different Web Browser than the Web browsers supplied with your account. We have tested both of these connections with Netscape Navigator available from http://home.netscape.com or ftp://ftp.netscape.com. To use a third party browser, first establish your network connection by dialing into NetCom or Ameria Online and logging in. Once you are connected, minimize the NetCom or America Online window and start Netscape Navigator. For example, if you were using NetCom, you would login to NetCom first. Once your connection has been established, minimize the NetCom window and start Netscape. When you are done, quit Netscape then quit NetCom. Be sure to run the RealAudio Installer (RAWIN100.EXE) after you install Netscape on your system. Otherwise, you will have to manually configure Netscape. If you are using IBM's OS/2 Web Explorer then please see our on-line Configuration Instructions. Go to http://www.realaudio.com/help.html and choose "FAQ". In the FAQ, choose OS/2 Web Explorer. The RealAudio Installer does not automatically configure Web Explorer: you will need to manually install the RealAudio player by following the instructions on our site. RealAudio is not supported by * Lynx * Chameleon Web Browser (Note that you can use the Chameleon Stack with an alternate browser.) * Prodigy dial up Connections * Pipeline browser ----------------------------------------------------------------- Accessing RealAudio through Firewalls RealAudio uses port 7070 for TCP and ports 6970 through 7170 inclusive for UDP transmission. If you are accessing RealAudio through a firewall, your firewall administrator will need to authorize these ports. You can point your administrator to our firewall page, http://www.realaudio.com/firewall.html for details. -------------------------------------------------------------- Reporting Feedback We are very interested in your experiences with our products. Please use the problem reporting form located at http://www.realaudio.com/problem.html or the copy attached to the bottom of these release notes to report problems. If you have comments or suggestions, please e-mail them to support@realaudio.com . ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sound Audio is transmitted to the RealAudio player in the RealAudio format. The transfer rate for RealAudio is approximately 1 Kilobyte/second. The player then by default produces 16 bit 8 Kilohertz sound. If you hear garbled audio then you can change the kind of sound the RealAudio player produces. To change the kind of sound produced, please pull down the "View" menu and choose "Options". Select "Advanced" and you will see toggle boxes for "use 8 bit" and "use 11 Khz": * 16 bit 8 Kilohertz (default) * 8 bit 8 Kilohertz (select use 8 bit) * 16 bit 11 Kilohertz (select use 11 Khz) * 8 bit 11 Kilohertz (select use 8 bit and use 11 Khz) If you are not receiving AM quality audio, please see our FAQ entry on audio quality by going to http://www.realaudio.com/help.html and choose FAQ. From there, select the "Audio Quality" entry. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internet Adapter (TIA) The RealAudio Player does not currently work with TIA. TIA does not transmit UDP packets to client connections. If you connect using TIA you will receive everything but the audio. A TIA version that supports UDP is expected later this year. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Known Problems * Having large applications open may prevent the RealAudio installer from executing. If this happens, please close all other applications and then install. * Starting or quitting large applications while playing RealAudio can cause some brief disruption of the playback. * Playback on some 486/25 SX computers does not work properly. * The RealAudio Player is not compatible with Netscape Navigator 1.1 Alpha Release. There are no known compatibility problems with the Netscape Navigator 1.0, 1.1 or later releases. If you are experiencing problems with using RealAudio Player with the 1.1 Alpha version of Netscape, please upgrade to the 1.1n release version. Netscape is available from any of the following ftp sites: * ftp://ftp.netscape.com * ftp://ftp.cps.cmich.edu/pub/netscape/ * ftp://ftp.utdallas.edu/pub/netscape/netscape1.1/ * ftp://unicron.unomaha.edu/pub/netscape/netscape1.1/ * ftp://SunSITE.unc.edu/pub/packages/infosystems/WWW/clients/Netscape/ * ftp://ftp.orst.edu/pub/packages/netscape --------------------------------------------------------------------- Browser Upgrade After you upgrade your browser, you may lose the configuration information for the RealAudio player. The easiest way to re-configure your browser is to re-install the player. Alternatively, you can manually configure your browser: * Viewer name: c:\RAPLAYER\RAPLAYER.EXE * Mime Type: audio * Mime Subtype: x-pn-realaudio * File Extensions: .ra, .ram * Homepage URL: http://www.realaudio.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- Audible Defects There are occasional audible defects that are evident when playing audio clips. To help our continuous quality improvement plans, we would appreciate it if you could submit a problem report telling us which clip and where in the clip the defect is. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Manually Configuring the RealAudio Player In the event that RealAudio Setup was unable to find a Web Browser, the following steps will allow you to use the RealAudio Player. Please be sure to send us a problem report if you have to manually configure the RealAudio Player for a supported Web Browser. Configuring RealAudio for the Netscape Navigator To install the RealAudio Player as a helper application (also called a viewer): 1. Start the Netscape Navigator and from the Options Menu select the Preferences menu item. 2. On the preferences dialog, select the entry "Helper Applications" in the combo-box (pull-down list box). 3. Press the New button and enter "audio" in the Mime Type field and "x-pn-realaudio" in the Mime subtype field. 4. Enter "ra,ram" in the extensions field. 5. Press the "Launch Application" radio button and find the directory in which the RealAudio Player was installed (default is c:\RAPLAYER) and select RAPLAYER.EXE as the application to launch. To use the RealAudio Web site, enter "http://www.realaudio.com/" in the Location field on the main Netscape Navigator Window and press enter. You can save this entry as a BookMark by going to the Bookmarks Menu and selecting the "Add Bookmark" item. The following information can be used to configure other WWW Browsers: * viewer name: RAPLAYER.EXE * Mime Type: audio * Mime Subtype: x-pn-realaudio * File Extensions: .ra, .ram * Homepage URL: http://www.realaudio.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- Problem Report Form Your Name: Your E-Mail address: Your telephone number: The Problem: Computer * Model: PC or Mac, Manufacturer * CPU: 486 or Pentium, SX or DX * RAM: Base Memory in Machine * Operating System: MacOS or Windows, Version number * Sound Card Internet Service Provider * Name: Provider Name * Method: PPP, SLIP, Direct * TCP/IP Software: Microsoft TCP/IP, Chameleon, Trumpet, etc. Version of RealAudio (see Help - About): Date/Time: Date and Time that it happened Audio Clip: Specific Clip that it happened on, if any. Please include the URL, if playing over the Network. Is the Problem Repeatable? Copyright 1995 Progressive Networks, Inc.