listening to RealPlayer archives

[JoshFromOrlando]

Hey FOTs! How can I hear the 8 years worth of archives saved as .ram files?

I tried a converter. I signed up for RealPlayer in the cloud. Neither one worked.

I'm on a Mac. Is it hopeless?

[yesno]

If you can figure out how to download the actual files (which should be many many megabytes not just a few Kb) there are ways to convert them, but you need to be a bit technical as there are no user-friendly tools. A few years ago I downloaded and converted the complete archive to mp3, but I no longer have the files, and the method I used to access to raw RealMedia files no longer works.

[erg79]

Not sure if this will be any help, as I haven't tried this method. I'm on a Mac also, so hopefully this works for you!

http://swen.antville.org/stories/735413/

[grantium]

You can open the .ram files as text files and get access to the direct streams. Might be a good idea as a place to start. I tried VLC (on a Mac) and it would barely play the first one, which stinks, because I was coping to cross code them to mp3. It played the first couple minutes than started skipping.

I'll try Real Player Alternative tomorrow with Audio Hijack and see if I can get something reasonable for relistens. I joined in about 2008 so most of the RealAudio stuff I'd be interested in hearing without the RealAudio clunk.

I doubt I'm the only one trying, so if folks want to coordinate I'm in.

[mackro]

Here's what I'll say about the RealPlayer stuff...

While I have not worked at Real Networks, I did recently work for a company that *used* to be part of Real Networks.  (And I quit this job around a year ago.)  While I had amazing co-workers, I can say with certainty that the future of Real Networks is really grim.  You can ask almost any tech person in Seattle, and they'll say the same thing.

So, I would concentrate more on getting *something* that plays the RAM files to work, even if it's RealPlayer or equivalent itself, and recording it out to *another* recording device.  I'm sure this can be pulled off with minimal degradation.

Sure, ideally, converting the RAM files themselves to something without DRM will be easier if a way is found.  But I would concentrate on just getting those files converted to SOMETHING, even if it's a secondary recording mechanism, as soon as possible, because if RealPlayer is no longer available in the near future, then archives encoded with Real technology will have a tougher time being converted.

I wish I had something to contribute to this thread other than urgency. :/

PS I never had to use nor wanted to use RealPlayer for my job at that company. Nobody did. So my knowledge about it is, ironically, zero.

[erg79]

I can't believe that Real is still around, honestly. It was horrible technology back in the 90s.

[Joe Rogaine]

The article says dbpoweramp can convert the files to mp3 but it doesnt explain how. I still have that on my computer but im not sure how i would use it to convert the real audio file to mp3.

[JoshFromOrlando]

I tried using realplayer in the cloud and that, unbelievably, will not play .ram files. I was unable to find a stand-alone realplayer. I don't think it exists anymore.

[Joe Rogaine]

I tried that Zamzar site where they will convert it for you and email you the mp3 but it only did the first 20 minutes i guess you have to pay for a bigger file.

[BadGuyZero]

The reason it only does 20 minutes is because the file doesn't contain the entire show. There's a playlist embedded; when you listen Real Player is fetching segments of varying length from elsewhere on the internet and playing them in the order determined by the playlist. The converter is not able to read the playlist info and therefore unable to fetch and convert the audio not contained in the main file.

[Joe Rogaine]

The reason it only does 20 minutes is because the file doesn't contain the entire show. There's a playlist embedded; when you listen Real Player is fetching segments of varying length from elsewhere on the internet and playing them in the order determined by the playlist. The converter is not able to read the playlist info and therefore unable to fetch and convert the audio not contained in the main file.

So even if i had Real Player and everything worked correctly it would still only play the first 20 minutes? 

[Bryan]

I helped gather some of the sound clips for the final sound collage, which involved installing the latest version of Real Player for Mac. It worked very well for me. I had no trouble at all with it.

[Joe Rogaine]

I helped gather some of the sound clips for the final sound collage, which involved installing the latest version of Real Player for Mac. It worked very well for me. I had no trouble at all with it.

So you were able to listen to more than the first 20 minutes of the first episode?

[Bryan]

To be honest, the exercise involved a lot of skipping around through the shows, but I'm reasonably sure that I listened to chunks longer than 20 minutes at a time. I didn't experience any unexpected behavior with Real Player SP, though I couldn't get any other applications to play the files correctly.

[BadGuyZero]

The reason it only does 20 minutes is because the file doesn't contain the entire show. There's a playlist embedded; when you listen Real Player is fetching segments of varying length from elsewhere on the internet and playing them in the order determined by the playlist. The converter is not able to read the playlist info and therefore unable to fetch and convert the audio not contained in the main file.

So even if i had Real Player and everything worked correctly it would still only play the first 20 minutes?

You should be able to listen to an entire episode with RealPlayer. If you're trying to convert the .ram files to mp3 that's where you're going to run into the issue of only having twenty or so minutes of the episode.