RealPlayer is a proprietary multimedia player developed by RealNetworks to support its various RealMedia formats. The first version, released in April 1995 (under the name ``RealAudio Player''), was one of the earliest players to support streaming audio, and RealPlayer remains one of the oldest audio players with an ongoing history of development. There are full-featured versions of the player for Windows that play back DVDs, download tracks to portable digital players, rip and burn CDs, and provide an iTunes-like catalog of audio tracks as well as an integrated web browser,. RealNetworks charges a fee for the full-featured versions of the player. For simple playback of audio and video, however, there are free ``basic'' versions that are better suited for a library setting. This basic player is available in versions for Windows, MacOS, Linux (and other versions of Unix), as well as several handheld and mobile devices. The Helix community also offers a basic player, known as Helix Player.
RealNetworks maintains an archive of ``legacy'' versions of the player, which is valuable to users searching for an audio player that is compatible with older versions of Windows and Mac OS.
Audio formats supported: for encoding: WAV, MP3 (32 to 320 kbps; variable bitrate also available), RealAudio (32 to 320 kbps), RealAudio lossless, MPEG-4 AAC (96 to 320 kbps), and WMA (64 to 192 kbps); for playback: MP3, RealAudio (including RealAudio lossless), WMA, AAC.
URL for download: http://www.real.com; Real Legacy Software Archive: http://forms.real.com/real/player/blackjack.html; Helix Player: http://player.helixcommunity.org