Before you can listen to the radio you need to have a number of resources, and that’s what I intend to begin on today.
BBC radio like a number of other radio stations transmits in a format which is called Real Audio. Some people like this format, and some people don’t, but we need to understand it. And this means that first of all, you must have a media player that is capable of playing Real Audio files.
Real Audio files normally have extensions which end in .ra. or .ram.
The media player recommended by the BBC and the one that I’m going to concentrate on is known as Real Player.
Real Player is what is sometimes known as a freemium product. That is, it comes in two versions – a free version and a premium paid for version.
As free audio books are concerned, we’re only interested in the free version.
Many people don’t much like Real Player they have all sorts of problems with it. However, I think that the latest version, which is number 11 at this time has more or less got rid of the problems.
The only thing is that you need to be very careful when you download and install it.
First of all, make sure that you’re downloading the free version.
Real media is a commercial organisation, and they will invite to to take a trial of their premium version. My advice for listening to the radio is, don’t.
Secondly, when you install Real Player, don’t simply click the buttons automatically. Read all the information carefully. You may be invited to subscribe to newsletters from companies recommended by Real Player. I suggest that you don’t.
At some point you may be asked to give an e-mail. There’s nothing wrong with this and I have never had problems from any spam from Real Player, but nevertheless this is a very good example of where to use a free disposable e-mail address such that Gishpuppy or Kasmail. You can subscribe directly to Gishpuppy on this site.
The third thing to be clear about is that at some point you will be invited to make Real Player your universal media player.
This is a real problem. You may have no media player, at all, you may have several different media players on your computer, but my advice is to agree only to have Real Player as your media player for Real Audio files – that is files ending with .ra or .ram.
If you do this, I don’t think you’ll have any problems with Real Player.
If for one reason or other you are adventurous, or you don’t like Real Player, you may do what many other people do, which is to try the Real Player Alternative, which is a much smaller download, or you could even try the Videolan player, which is a universal player which will play almost anything.
However for the purposes of this blog, I’m going to concentrate on how to use Real Player, as the media player for real audio files.
Download details are on the resources page
Once you’ve downloaded and installed Real Player you can listen to the BBC online and many other radio station.
To make this easier and give you more control I’d suggest also download these two free programmes:
viddiradioplayer
and
Solway’s Task Scheduler
Details are available on the resources page
2 Responses to “Free Audio Books on the Radio – Playing Real Media Files”
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“If for one reason or other you are adventurous, or you don’t like Real Player, you may do what many other people do, which is to try the Real Player Alternative, which is a much smaller download”
I would say it in reverse. Download Real Player Alternative; if for some reason you feel adventurous, download Real Player and fight with a company that has a long history of pushing undesired behavior on your computer.
Yes, It’s a bit of half full/half empty really. I like Real Alternative too and Videolan works for me sometimes – my thinking is really based on some of things i mght talk about later and i really do feel the latest version of RealPlayer is better. Of course if you were to go to Quick Time alternative …. Joe, Thanks a lot for your interest, cheers John