What is RealAudio?
The RealAudio System allows the playback of audio in real-time over the Internet. The RealAudio Player (which your computer must have) plays files encoded in the RealAudio format. The controls are much like a CD player’s with play, stop, pause, reverse, and fast forward. Project BIO has the RealAudio Server which will deliver the sound to you. The server will hold the connection open as it delivers a continuous stream of audio. This way you don’t have to deal with long download times.
The RealAudio System allows the playback of audio in real-time over the Internet. The RealAudio Player (which your computer must have) plays files encoded in the RealAudio format. The controls are much like a CD player’s with play, stop, pause, reverse, and fast forward. Project BIO has the RealAudio Server which will deliver the sound to you. The server will hold the connection open as it delivers a continuous stream of audio. This way you don’t have to deal with long download times.
“RealAudio” is a registered trademark of RealNetworks (formerly known as Progressive Networks). RealAudio consists of three software components: a player/plug-in, an encoder, and a server. The RealAudio files have the extensions “ra” for RealAudio, and “rm” for RealMedia – these are usually video files. RealAudio uses several encoding schemes for audio and video, which optimize the file for 14 k modems, 28 k modems, ISDN etc., respectively. Each encoding scheme produces files that are small enough to stream on the targeted Internet connection. The slower the target connection the worse the sound. There are two ways to play a RealAudio file: You can use an external player application, the RealPlayer. This brings up a small window with the player controls on top of the browser window. Once the RealPlayer is launched you can minimize its window or just click on the browser window to bring it to the top, and the RealPlayer will operate in the background. You can continue to browse, and the
