RealNetworks’ New Media Player Sends Online Videos To Your Phone

RealPlayer SP's Send Video to iPhone

RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) released its latest media player today, called RealPlayer SP, which stands for “social” and “portable.” It makes it easier to record online videos to a computer and then send them to social networks and devices, such as mobile phones, iPods or the Xbox. The free version is available for download starting today at www.realplayer.com. The new features build off of the previous version of RealPlayer, which allowed users to download and record any DRM-free online video to their computer.

Now, in addition to recording videos, users can easily move them to other platforms, which can ordinarily be a very complex task that involves transcoding to fit various screen sizes and resolutions. Sometimes the complexity is on purpose with carriers, handset makers or content companies, charging for a mobile version of content that’s free on the web today. Jeff Chasen, Real’s VP of video product development said moving video files between devices today is similar to transferring music digitally in the 90’s. Chasen: “Videos present a whole new set of challenges.”

How it works: When downloading RealPlayer SP, it will install a plugin to your browser that will alert you to any online videos that can be recorded — this includes news sites, like CNN.com, and YouTube, but not content for sites like Hulu.com. Once a video is downloaded, a box pops up showing the progress. Once completed, a person can choose to send the video to Facebook, Twitter, or send as an email. Likewise, they can select from a drop down menu of devices, which includes a number of BlackBerries, the iPhone iPod, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android, Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, and a number of Nokia (NYSE: NOK) devices. There’s also non-phone devices, like the PSP, the Zune, Playstation 3, Xbox and AppleTV. The phone must be plugged into the computer to transfer, and the RealPlayer software will automatically convert it to the correct version, and send it over. When a user sends it to Twitter, it will automatically write in the dialog box: just downloaded [insert title here], and attach a shortened URL.

Upcoming Features: Chasen said they will continually add devices and phones that will be supported, and by the end of the year will create a version for the Mac. He also said that they’ll look at sending videos to the phone over Wi-Fi, or over the air, using the cellular network, however that can be costly and slow. It would also require software to be loaded on to the handset, which is not currently the case.

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