QuickTime & Real Alternative vs. the actual thing

[Kuo]

For those that know about these two codec packages, it allows you to play both quicktime and real files with WMP so you don't have to get QuickTime & Real Media Player, respectively.

Does anyone have experience with these alternatives and can comment on them? Traditionally I've always liked to let the actual application handle the association, but Real Media Player does annoy me at times, and I don't like how QuickTime lives in my Sys Tray.

Will the alternatives allow me to do everything having the actual player lets me do? Will I have any conflicts w/ QuickTime Alternative if I use iTunes for my iPod?

Is it really "better" to make WMP play them all? WMP is definitly conveniant, but I was never a huge fan in general.

 

[ne1wantaride]

I used both. Never any problems with Quicktime Alternative. Though if you have iTunes you might as well just use Apple's Quicktime. Turn the system icon off. It's in the properties under advanced. The real Alternative works but sucks. It won't do any streaming formats. So only local files. So as much as it sucks your stuck with the real thing.

 

[Shadow2531]

When embedding with Real Alternative the status bar of the plugin object looks like it's missing a realplayer icon (next to the bitrate). It looks like the Real Alternative installer doesn't have one of the icons from the actual Real Player install.

Also, the actual Realplayer only installs rpcl3260.zip for netscape 4.x, but it is needed for Opera for plugin scripting. I don't remember if Real Alternative manages to actually install rpcl3260.zip in the Real Alternative directory so browsers can use it if needed or if it sucks just as bad as the actual RealPlayer installer.

Besides that, the only difference is that the actual RealPlayer comes with the crappy Realplayer app where as the alternative comes with MPC. I used to have problems streaming with real alternative, but things seem to work better now.

I *think* the netscape plugin that comes with real alternative is modified so that it reports that it supports ram and rm files. (Normally it only reports that it supports rpm files and sites that incorrectly try to embed a ram, rm or ra file don't work.)

As for quicktime alternative, everything's the same except you use Media Player classic instead. (You can turn the real Quicktime icon off in the preferences.)

The alternatives use files from the the actual installs of RP and QT, so they do the same thing as long as you're comparing the same versions.

I install the actual apps instead of the alternatives. That's fine because I need to do testing with non-modified installs. Plus, I don't actually use the players for each anyway.

 

[hity645]

I use quicktime alternative and like it alot better than quicktime. Never even attempted to get nor play anything real player.

 

[Nazo]

Hmm. I've had troubles with QuickTimeAlternative and RealAlternative. For me both end up failing to open modern encodes. I absolutely hate QuickTime and abhor RealMedia, but, it seems like I'm stuck with QuickTime (realmedia I just refuse to use no matter what. It's an ancient outdated codec anyway. At least quicktime seems to have properly modernized.) Anyway, any chance you get to use the alternatives, use them. It's just so much nicer to use a GOOD player like Media Player Classic. QuickTime and RealPlayer are so bloated and just plain designed wrong.

I think they aren't installing new enough splitters or something. QuickTime probably changed something when they switched over from their old QT codec to a MPEG4 based setup inside a MOV container. All I know for certain though is I just get an error that the player can't open the file and I'm left without it working until I open in QuickTime where it works 100%. (RealMedia files give a similar error. I haven't tested them in RealPlayer because I refuse to install RealPlayer on my system ever again.)

EDIT: BTW, choose not to install MPC when installing those two alternatives. Last I checked they still used a pretty outdated version. In fact, you can get some pretty recent CVS compiles from http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/Media Player Classic/ If you aren't brave enough to use CVS, I think the official ancient compiles on Guliverkli's project pages are still newer. At least they were last time I actually bothered to look (been a while since I know my copy of mpc is newer than that installed with either alternative.)