For Seattle’s RealNetworks, the premiere media network on the Internet to bundle video programming in a package that was actually easy-to-use, a new age of video convergence has arrived — and in biblical proportions. Not only does RealNetworks new Cloud Player have the power to carry Real into the “promised land” of consumer video delivery systems, but the new Real solution solves the biblical Tower of Babble dilemma. What to do about video storage and streaming in a multi-platform, multi-format, multi-device world?
As Web video creators and consumers, all of us compose and collect a diverse medley of video, across different standards and formats (Mac, PC, ACHD as well as compressed H264 and MP4 for videocams, for starters). Then we want to watch it on an Apple iPhone or iPad, a Google Android device, a PC, Roku box or the Web. With Real’s new cloud offering, no matter what the platform you’ve created the media on, no matter where it comes from or is streaming to, RealPlayer Cloud will get it to you, translating the complicated babel into a compatible video stream.
“People still have no confidence that they can play their videos easily across devices,” said RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser in an interview with the WSJ, who noted that video usage had still exploded. “We see it as an important problem to solve and also a huge opportunity.”
The service will be free for up to two gigabytes of cloud storage to users in the U.S. and Canada. Additional storage will cost more. The good news is that your videos do not have to be reformatted or encoded to be played.
Glaser hopes he has awakened the pioneering spirit of RealNetworks which he founded 18 years ago.
The company is focused on strengthening its three principal units which include the RealPlayer service, mobile media and entertainment offerings and its GameHouse gaming unit.
Real also recently rolled out a Facebook social casino game known as Casino Plus, which offers a monthly $100,000 Golden Dreams cash sweepstakes to entice players to play more for the chance to enter the contest.
Walt Mossberg reviewed the system in the Wall Street Journal and gave it genuine praise.
“RealPlayer Cloud worked very well on every device except the Nexus 4. The apps are free, but the catch is that, like a lot of cloud services, RealPlayer Cloud charges for storage. You get 2 gigabytes of storage free, but must pay $49 a year for 25 gigabytes; $99 for 100 gigabytes; or $299 for 300 gigabytes.
The company stresses the product is “designed to help consumers move, watch and share videos they have created.” So to discourage piracy of TV shows and movies, there’s a 15-minute limit on videos shared from PCs or the Web. There’s no limit on videos shared from the camera rolls of iPhones or Android phones because it’s assumed those were taken by the user.”
Though it went live on Tuesday night, some users may have to wait a few days or even a week to get it. That’s because Real wants to guard against its servers getting overloaded and crashing. Check out the Real Cloud Player for yourself! [24×7]
