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FOR COMPANIES THAT want to stream multimedia content on their corporate Web sites, RealNetworks' RealSystem G2 is a streaming media solution that is difficult to beat. RealSystem offers flexible security options and browser-based administration. Further, it is compatible with Mac OS and all Windows platforms (support for various flavors of Unix will be added by year's end). All of these factors underscore RealNetworks' position as the market leader.
In the streaming media market, there are really only two choices: RealSystem and its closest competitor, Windows Media Technologies (WMT, formerly called NetShow), from Microsoft. Although WMT offers similar features and functionality, RealSystem offers a wider array of content creation and management tools.
RealSystem is composed primarily of a server, a client, and encoding components. RealServer G2 is the server component; for the client, you have a choice of RealPlayer G2 or RealPlayer Plus G2. You can also choose from three encoding components: RealProducer G2, the midtier RealProducer Plus, or the higher-end RealProducer Pro. (See chart, above, for prices.)
For my tests, I worked with RealServer G2, RealPlayer Plus G2, and RealProducer Pro G2. I used a dual Pentium server with a 3GB hard drive and 128MB of RAM, running Windows NT Server 4.0, as my primary encoding and media server.
Real-time flexibility
Notable enhancements to RealSystem include browser-based administration, which puts it on par with WMT, and support for the RealTime Streaming Protocol. In addition, RealSystem is backwardcompatible through its continuing support for RealNetworks' proprietary Progressive Networks Audio URL protocol.
I liked the collection of tools for content creation and editing offered with RealSystem -- particularly the RealProducer G2 Authoring Kit, which offers comprehensive content creation manuals in HTML and .pdf formats. In addition, RealSystem, like WMT, includes encoding tools that convert source files into encoded files streamed from their respective media servers (or via a Web server over HTTP).
During my tests, encoding speed proved significantly faster when using RealProducer Plus compared with its predecessor, RealPublisher 5.1. For example, I encoded a lOOMB .avi file with RealPublisher using the highest-quality...