| Sunday,
December 19, 1999
I leave this up just as it happened: do read to the
end because there is a happy ending.
RealAudio has got some problems. I found one of mine through a horrible
series of events, but in doing so found out just how weird it is to do
business with that company.
First they send you a serial number only in email. Don't lose it. When
they send you a CD the serial number is not on it. I found that out when I
uninstalled the silly program hoping that reinstallation would fix the net
timeout problems. It only took about an hour to make me realizes this was a
drastic mistake: the serial number is available if the program is installed
but not otherwise, and that includes with the CD.
Eventually I got it reinstalled. Then I found that the settings are
interesting. There is a server timeout setting and a network timeout
setting. If the network timeout setting is low, and you have a net server
as I do, you are doomed: this thing seems to believe that you aren't
connected to the web if you go through a net server. It doesn't really
matter: the normal result of anything you do it "net congestion,
buffering" for a very long time, followed by a timeout. If you set
things to download the whole program before playing, it will almost
certainly time out. If you set for 30 second intervals, well, you will get
choppy segments, and even then you will probably be timed out. I have set
the timers to 900 seconds, but I have yet to hear one of my own
broadcasts.
It may be that I am in a particularly noisy environment, or that
RealPlayer discriminates against Earthlink. Whatever it is, I can't get to
their tech support, and it is all pretty well unusable. Their buffering
doesn't work, their timeouts are inevitable, and for me the whole
experience is a bust. Without a fast connection, this is useless to me. I
have readers who say they have no problems, so may I don't hold my mouth
right.
Hours later...
So. I killed, reinstalled, and let it update. It looks entirely different
now. Doesn't work any better. IN fact, TechWeb and most other channels
return with improper URL: it can't find anything but CNN. This is
really really stupid. If you like to see "net congestion,
buffering" followed by "timed out" get Real Player and try to
listen to news on it. If not, this doesn't seem a very interesting way to
waste time. Clearly, peasants with modem connections aren't going to get
much. I can't wait for DSL.
The new system won't accept more than 300 seconds for timeout. I have put
that in. Net congestion, buffering.... I have told it to download
entire clip before playing. Perhaps I would do better to have 2 minute
intervals? Net congestion, buffering... At least it's not timing out.
Just doing nothing. Do they hate Earthlink?
Net congestion, buffering. 209 seconds. I don't think it is going to make
it under the 300 seconds I can max it to. This does seem to be one of the
more useless ways of doing things...
Net congestion buffering: 350 second. So the timeout didn't happen
at 300. Interesting. I am connected at 36.o Kbps according to the Real
Player. The player looks somewhat different from what it did, so
uninstalling, reinstalling, and updating does seem to have changed
something, although what it changed is not clear to me.
Net congesting, buffering, 453 seconds... It is clear that anyone who
really wants to listen to my broadcasts needs a LOT of patience...
Net congestion, buffering, 689 seconds.... There's a tiny little gauge
off to the right and it does not seem to be filling. The problem is with
the server, clearly. It is not net congestion, it is the inadequacy
of the tools Real Audio has allocated for the job. Maybe they ought to
hire Pair.com to provide server service. That would work...
I am going to let this run until it times out but in fact I don't
really want to listen to the broadcast any more. And since the problem is
probably their silly server, I doubt that DSL is going to make it better.
This is about as useful as the Channel Bar which Microsoft spent so much
time and gained to much ill will to dominate...
At 1000 seconds I gave up. the fuel gauge isn't filling, and nothing is
happening. Attempting to get the TechWeb channel gets the message that it
doesn't exist. This is one of the more useless ways to spend time.
1305: tried again. Techweb has moved, and RealAudio doesn't know it, so
getting to the Week in review wasn't easy. This time we got a bit of
intro; net congestion and wait; part of what I said; then into the
dialogue; then net congestion. It's pretty hard to follow the conversation
this way. Now it's aback on again. But this isn't a very great deal
of fun...
And stopped in the middle of an interesting exchange of views, and
halted for minutes. Net congestion, buffering...
When I get DSL we'll see if this works -->
The upshot is that today at least, of four tries, one managed to get
the entire Week in Review, and that with three interruptions of from 50
seconds to three minutes. Not precisely the best experience...
There is considerable mail
on this; I don't have a real solution to the problem.
But see below: apparently it was all my fault. Interesting. See below.
My guess is I have made MAIL even slower on download, so I'll try to
revamp the template again. What I can do is use the VIEW template and
change it so that it become MAIL and see if that works.
I have done that, I think. The new format will begin next week.
Well, Mr. Dobbins seems to have solved one of my problems. I have found
in the Real Player connections a way to set the "proxy", and by
telling it to use 192.168.1.1 as proxy most of the RealAudio problems seem
to have gone away. This time. For the moment. There is also an "autoconfiguration"
button you can use to let RealPlayer try to find the best way to work. If
any of this is in the instructions I have not seen it, but it does seem to
have a happy ending, and thus can go into the column. If you use
RealPlayer through a Linux Netserver (or any other netserver I would
think) you need to let RealPlayer know what you have done. Trial of
two, so far, but I am listening to myself now, and there have been no
breaks in the speech bar a long period first of buffering, but that you
can live with.
If you do get RealPlayer, be certain you keep your serial number in a
safe place. But apparently my problems were caused by me, and not really
by RealAudio or the servers. Maybe. More tests later.
In my defense, I had these problems before I ever installed the
Rebel.Com netserver; adding it has in fact solved the problem once I told
the system how to use it, but I had a lot of problems before this. Or, who
knows? Could it be that tonight is just good conditions? I will experiment
by turning off that proxy setting and see if that makes a differerence.
"I do all these silly things so you won't have to..."
It is not my net connection that is the problem. I can cause glitches
by doing an ftp while playing a (formerly unplayable) RealAudio clip, but
even then the glitches are SHORT, not minutes long like I was getting.
This is very interesting. And I am even getting some video. Using the
Netserver properly has made the RealAudio system much more
reasonable.
I will leave all this up as an indication of how one stumbles to a
solution. In my case, by posting the problem, I can draw on a huge pool of
expertise, some familiar with the problems in general, others with my
particular system. It's an enviable situation to be in. Tends I suppose to
make me lazy sometimes, but I hope not too often. Anyway, that's the
RealAudio story for the moment.
Later: it is still working, so the settings for the rebel.com box turn
out to be critical. It is now quite usable, so it is pretty clear that the
problem was more my fault than anyone else's; on the other hand, there
sure wasn't much in the way of instruction about how to do this, and if
Mr. Dobbins hadn't pointed me in the right direction I would still be
getting "net congestion". It isn't precisely net congestion,
it's "YOU SET IT UP WRONG STUPID!" that it ought to be saying...
(Later: well, sometimes you get
congestion no matter what the settings...)
Over in mail is a
long letter about digital vs. analog in theatre movies. It is
interesting, and I invite opinions from those who know something on the
subject. Speculations I can make myself; what I need here is
information...
I have done a minor update to Work
in Progress...
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