Proposal: Version History For Realplayer

[tstockma]

I am very frustrated with RealPlayer's invasive qualities, but also still really want to play RealAudio. (I did see a previous post on RealPlayer8, that talked about a plug-in for WinAmp...might just do that!)

And I recall previous versions of RP that weren't nearly as invasive.

I'd love to see a page that describes the various versions of RealPlayer. Does anyone know of one?

Also, a suggestion for oldversion.com: add a section to the web site that does "version history" for all the software on the site!

[Tom]

I might be able to help out with a brief history of RealPlayer's versions:
Version 3 was the first version I heard of, and at it was a player for Audio only.
Version 4 must have been either unpopular or never released since I've never seen it.
Version 5 was the last version that was released in both 16-bit (for Windows 3.1) and 32-bit (for Windows 95 and up). It supported video, but currently it is difficult to find videos that it will play.
Version 6 was named G2, and with it came a new type of RealMedia file, that was incompatible with version 5. (It would still play older files, of course). With this version came the RealStart Center, which was annoying and quickly disabled by most people.
Version 7 was, in my opinion, the most stable, and not as invasive as 8 (yet more invasive than previous versions.) This is the version I currently use.
Version 8 was pretty similar to 7, although it seemed to crash more (for me anyway.), it also was the start of the RealVideo 8 format.
Version 9, a.k.a. RealOne, is incredibly invasive (think of the RealMessage Center which cannot be disabled, only postponed to display every 30 days), and although it has a new look and feel to it, I have found that it will sometimes make strange beeps and clicks while playing older RealAudio files (these files worked fine on previous versions).

By the way, you CAN get RealVideo 8 videos to play in RealPlayer 7. If you try to open them with RealPlayer 7 it tells you that you must upgrade. But, if you install WinAmp, and the Tara RealAudio Plugin (for WinAmp), then open the RealVideo 8 file through WinAmp, the Tara plugin will download the RealVideo 8 codec from RealNetworks, and it will work anyway.

So for the Tara Plugin: http://www.musiclivesonline.com/software/watara.html
I believe that the Plugin only works for WinAmp 2.X (I use version 2.80)
(By the way, I use version 1.02 of the Tara Plugin, let's hope that the current 1.03 works just as good.)

You can get earlier versions of WinAmp and RealPlayer here, at OldVersion.com