Wednesday, June 30, 2004

IPIX has updated their Interactive Studio software to version 1.2, and it now supports the Fuji Finepix s7000 and S20 Pro cameras, and has new image editing and hotspot tools. The new version is a free upgrade (because they have a yearly subscription model). From TMCnet. 7:32:35 AM

Intrigued by the new RealPlayer 10 for Mac OS X, I visited Real's webpage (http://www.real.com/mac/) where I saw an interesting statement: "QuickTime Playback. Use RealPlayer to watch and listen to all your QuickTime files." That's interesting -- ALL my QuickTime files, even my thousands of QuickTime VRs? No other non-Apple media player has been able to do this before (other than Java programs). I downloaded the new RealPlayer 10 for Mac beta, and noted that in order to do so you have to surrender a credit card number, even though the screen says it is a free download (in small type, it explains that it is actually a 14 day free trial). Then before you download, they direct you through a page urging you to buy a bunch of Aladdin products like Spring Cleaning. Finally the download begins. They say you should delete all previous RealPlayer software. OK, that's fine, they're gone. The download results in a single file inside a disk image, the new player. No readme file to explain what to do. Well it is a beta. So when you put it in the Applications folder and double click it, it then continues the setup process, and finally presents a readme type of document. Still maintains that it provides QuickTime playback. It then lists media types that the player will be responsible for playing, and QuickTime is not listed, although SMIL is. Finally it quits all your browsers (albeit with a warning) and launches. So I dragged some QuickTime video files onto the RealPlayer 10, and it played them as expected. I tried double-clicking on the QT movie file, and it opened in the QT Player. So far so good -- they didn't try to take over playing all QT media. QT movies on the web seemed to remain owned by the QT browser plugin. The big test -- dropping a VR on the RealPlayer. I fell off my chair -- it does playback VR files. I wonder if it is calling QuickTime to do that. It is a relief that Real decided not to hijack playing all QuickTime media like the Windows Media Player. By the way, if you decide to cancel your RealOne subscription, you can't do it online. No, you must call a phone number, and they won't even tell you the number until you have passed a gauntlet of pages on their website. The phone number to call in order to cancel is 1-866-715-5911, and they are only open 9am to 9pm eastern time. 7:07:39 AM

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