In order to organize the storage of media files on your computer, you will need to install a high-quality and functional tool that makes it easier to store different types of files: music, video and images. And one of the best solutions in this area is the RealPlayer program.

Real Player is a free high-quality media processor for Windows, which has not only a stylish interface, but also high functionality.

The main purpose of the RealPlayer program is the systematized storage of media files on a computer. All files will be available in one place and submitted in a convenient form.

Cloud storage

The second important function of the program is the cloud storage of media files, allowing not only to protect files from loss, but also to access files at any time and from any device. But this feature is already available for a fee.

Burning a CD or DVD

If necessary, the available media files, whether it be video or music, can be written to an empty disk.

RealPlayer allows you to download videos from the Internet that were previously only available for viewing online.

Video recording setup

By default, the quality of the picture and sound in the video may not suit the user. In this case, the program has built-in tools that will allow you to correct the situation yourself.

Broadcast recording

Watching, for example, TV online, you can record your favorite TV shows, saving them as files to your computer.

Recently opened files

Turning to the program menu, you can see a list of files that have been recently viewed (listened to) in the program.

Music Visualization

When listening to music, it is not at all necessary to watch a blank screen on the monitor when the program provides several visualization options.

Advantages of RealPlayer:

1. Simple and user-friendly interface;

2. A handy tool for storing all media files in one place;

3. The program has a free, well-functioning version.

Disadvantages of RealPlayer:

1. During installation, if not canceled in time, additional advertising products will be installed;

2. Registration is required to use the program;

3. There is no support for the Russian language.

RealPlayer is a file storage and playback media processor with cloud storage functionality. And if the program itself is available for use for free, then you will have to pay for the functions of the cloud.

This method is interesting because it allows you to use Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to download online video. In addition, it allows you to download videos from any web pages, regardless of whether they belong to a particular video hosting. We need RealPlayer, the basic version of which is free. RealPlayer is a multimedia player designed to play streaming video hosted on the network or the Internet. But we are not even interested in the player itself, but in the plug-in that is added to the browser when installing the RealPlayer program. It is this plugin that allows you to download online video from web pages.

• Download www.real.com

• Find the download button for the free version of the player on the downloaded page and click it. The program installer will be downloaded, an executable file that controls the download and installation of RealPlayer from the Internet.
• Run the downloaded file. The program installation wizard will start.

• In the first window of the installation wizard, click the Options button. The window for setting the player installation options will appear.
• Make sure the Enable browser download button checkbox is checked. Actually, just for the sake of this button, we install RealPlayer.
• The rest of the parameters can be left unchanged.
• Click the Accept button. The installation process of the player will begin. All program installation components are downloaded from the Internet, so installation may take several minutes.

After downloading the necessary components, a window will appear on the screen in which you need to select the version of RealPlayer.

• Everything we need is in the free version, so set the switch to Basic RealPlayer.
• Click the Continue button. A registration form will appear.

• Fill out the registration form, then click the Continue button. The program will be installed and launched. The RealPlayer window will appear on the screen.
• We don't need the RealPlayer itself, so close its window.
• If RealPlayer was installed while the browser was running, restart it (close and download again).

Now, if you open any page containing an online video, when you hover over the player, a Download This Video button will appear above the latter. Clicking this button will download the video to your hard drive.

If this button does not appear for you, you need to enable the RealPlayer extension in your browser settings.

In this chapter, we have covered several ways to download online video from web pages. All of the described methods are good in their own way, but they may also have their drawbacks. Which one to choose is up to you. Most likely, the best solution is to use several of the methods presented, depending on the situations, conditions, and browser used.

It so happened that I had several videos with the .rm extension, which the on-duty player flatly refused to play, pleasing with a detailed description of the problem that had arisen. Shamanism with reinstalling and updating codecs, or rather the codec, did not help, errors stubbornly popped up. After all the experiments, there was nothing left but to install a native player for this file format RealPlaye r, at least there was a free version, which turned out to be extremely strange.

You don’t see that the installation file here is less than one megabyte, it’s just a shell that will download everything you need and make the initial settings, so an Internet connection is required. We are immediately greeted by a very beautiful window, I recommend that you immediately go into the options where you can specify where to place the application files, uncheck the boxes so that it does not become the default player and does not embed your add-ons into browsers. Then, in general, chip off the number, offering to install Norton Security Scan (checks how secure your computer is), an absolutely useless thing for people who are interested in the player, therefore, with a firm hand, uncheck the box and click on. After that, we lean back and wait for the files to be downloaded and unpacked in order to see an offer to buy a paid version of RealPlayerPlus, which is why we refuse, continuing the installation further. The final chord was the request to enter an e-mail address and password, where you can enter all sorts of nonsense, most importantly, more or less plausible, and so this has not found a useful application except for mailing lists and notifications of updates. After all this torment, RealPlayer is finally ready to go and starts automatically.

Before starting the review of RealPlayer, you need to delve a little into the history of this player. At one time, video streaming over the network began to spread, there was a need for a format that allowed rewinding to the desired episodes of the video, low bandwidth requirements and minimal processor load during playback. The only working solution at that time was the closed RealMedia streaming standard, for playback of which they offered the RealPlayer player, which added its extensions to play video in the most popular browsers at that time. It was then that Flash Player and other alternatives appeared, and for some time RealPlayer became a monopoly that reigned supreme on the Internet.

The further history of the development of RealPlayer is nostalgia for the past greatness, the desire to make money, heaps of errors, the release of half-baked versions of the player and the stubborn unwillingness to do localization, but most importantly, they are trying to position themselves as a player for streaming video.

Having launched RealPlayer, we get a rather unusual picture as for a player, more reminiscent of a multimedia center, under the roof of which they try to collect all the video and audio files stored on the computer, well, and additionally sell a subscription to channels and watching movies for money. Let's switch between the individual sections using the panel located at the top in the very center, where you can find:

- "Now Playnig" is not surprisingly fully consistent with its name, this player, with all the necessary buttons like start/stop/pause, rewind and volume control. To stretch the image to full screen, you need to move the mouse cursor over the image and a miracle happens, an additional panel appears, on which you can select the desired item on top, which will help stretch the image. Additionally, you can share a link to multimedia for friends on social networks, send a laser disc for recording, convert or cut the desired scene. Let's take a closer look at the last two points below.

- "Library" here, according to the idea, we should be able to quickly access movies, music and photos stored on our computer. We choose which folders or drives to scan, the type of files and we can sit back, waiting for the program to add everything you need to the library. If the music is sorted by tags (unless, of course, you filled them in) and ratings, then with the video everything can be arranged much more spartan only by alphabet, date of addition and source. Moreover, everything can be displayed as a list or as preview pictures. In general, everything is done without imagination.

- "Burn" - here you can burn CDs with data or music by converting the added sound files to AdioCD, but what do you think, this is a universal combine for all occasions. The funny thing is, DVD discs can only be burned in the paid version, so the usefulness of this feature tends to zero. It would be better to cut it out altogether so that it does not take up space than to put such a useless stub.

- "Online Guide" for us, this section belongs to the category of useless. It is from here that RealMedia developers offer to watch movies, clips and listen to music from the network. True, free access to the most interesting is only 14 days, then you will need to pay a monthly subscription fee, otherwise you will get by with promotional materials (movie trailers, interviews with actors) and a very meager set of short videos, a miserable semblance of what can be found on YouTube.

Now let's get back to what I promised to talk about. First, about converting video and audio files. Here everything is impossible, just at first we choose which files we need to overtake, then for which devices we want to prepare the material (they offer a couple of smartphones and game consoles) or we make custom settings, if you wish, you can specify the folder where the finished file will be copied and press start. Everyone can go to make tea, the procedure is long and takes at least a couple of tens of minutes and these are relatively small files. Here I was struck by a small selection of file formats into which you can convert: your native RealMedia, WMW and 3GP, as well as a couple of audio formats, it’s good that there was a place for MP3. It looks like it was done in order to allow users to convert files to RealMedia, and the rest is a makeweight that burdens developers, but it had to be added. By the way, the result is disgusting, when rewinding the frames are frozen while the timer runs and only after a few seconds the picture comes to life.

Cutting the necessary scenes is also not a particularly difficult task, set the start and end points, if desired, specify the folder where the finished file should be saved and press start. Everything goes pretty fast, but in RealPlayer's corporate style, at the start of playback and after the file is reshuffled, the picture slows down for a few seconds.

Finally, in order to confirm its reputation as a player, primarily designed to work with streaming video, RealPlayer can download videos posted on sites on the Internet by embedding its add-ons (plugins, extensions) into browsers. It is enough to move the mouse cursor over the video and a button pops up, by clicking on which the file will start downloading, immediately adding to the library. As always, there were some nuances, in the free version, the speed is cut down quite a lot, and you can wait until long videos are downloaded to your computer for a couple of tens of minutes, which is quite enough to watch online several times. To make life more fun, he is friends only with some formats and portals that host videos (experiences have shown that he is definitely friends with YouTube).

To access the menu and settings, press the disguised button in the upper left corner labeled RealPlayer. By and large, there is nothing special to configure there, for which files the player should be launched by default, network settings and buffering, integration into browsers for downloading files, well, that’s all. From there, we even start rescanning disks, add files to the playlist, and so on.

RealPlayer can and does work as a player with a bunch of useful add-ons, according to the developers, but it's very clumsy and buggy. Plus, some of the features are greatly curtailed in order to interest users of the paid version. Usually for any program you can find at least a few kind words, but after a couple of tens of minutes with this player one negative is typed. Although the interface looks very original and some controls are implemented in a very unusual way.

There are a lot of shortcomings here, but there are truly masterpieces. As it turned out, with the bad position of the stars and the cunning selection of codecs, RealPlayer plays some of the video files like a broken record in slow motion and nothing can be done about it, third-party codecs and hardware acceleration are not for it. The speed of downloading from the Internet is touching to the core, it’s better to opt for more convenient free alternatives. The speed of work simply kills, opening new windows for several seconds does not fit into any framework. These are just a small fraction of the shortcomings that are striking and especially annoying.

Works great in 32 and 64 bit operating systems. The program interface is only in English, no other languages ​​are offered here anymore, so everyone who wants to use this player picks up dictionaries and understands the functionality using a scientific poke method.

Page for free download http://real.com/

Latest version at the time of writing RealPlayer 15

Program size: installation file 676 Kb.

Compatibility: Windows Vista and 7, Windows XP

We put Real Player in browsers

Now on the Internet, video on websites is a common thing. Moreover, often you don’t want to watch it right away while online, but you want to first download the video from the site and save it to your computer to watch later.

A couple of years ago I wondered how to do this. And I found a great extension for Firefox and Google Chrome browsers - RealPlayer, which allows you to download almost any video from sites, for example, from Youtube, In contact with and others. By the way, it also successfully downloads audio.

This plug-in was installed only in the above browsers, with the rest (Opera, Explorer, Safari) something went wrong, but this is not scary.

To install the RealPlayer extension, you first need to go to the manufacturer's official website - Real.com (via the Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browser). If a panel pops up at the top (click on the picture below), then you don't have this plugin installed.

RealPlayer plugin for Firefox and Google Chrome

If you now click on "Install Plugin", then the plugin most likely will not work. In order for it to start working for sure, you must first install RealPlayer on your computer. To do this, press the large green button and download the free version (it is more than enough):

Download the free version of RealPlayer

Next, run the downloaded installer and during the installation process select what is shown in the picture below (although you can buy a paid version, but, in my opinion, you don’t need as many features as there are in a paid one):

Well, in principle, that's all, you can download the video from the site.

Now go through Firefox or Chrome, for example, on Youtube (Vimeo.com, Facebook, Rutube ...), select some video and hover your mouse cursor over it - an invitation to download this video should appear in the upper right corner of the video. Also, when you right-click on the video you are watching, the following menu will pop up:

Download Youtube video using RealPlayer plugin

Download video from Contact in Firefox:

Downloading videos from Vkontakte.ru via Firefox+RealPlayer

It is also worth adding that by default all videos are saved in the folder "Libraries=>Video=>RealPlayer Downloads"(at least for Windows7 it is).

This method is interesting because it allows you to use Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to download online video. In addition, it allows you to download videos from any web pages, regardless of whether they belong to a particular video hosting. We need RealPlayer, the basic version of which is free. RealPlayer is a multimedia player designed to play streaming video hosted on the network or the Internet. But we are not even interested in the player itself, but in the plug-in that is added to the browser when installing the RealPlayer program. It is this plugin that allows you to download online video from web pages.

1. Download www.real.com.
2. Find the download button for the free version of the player on the downloaded page and click it. The software installer will be downloaded, an executable file that manages the download and installation of RealPlayer from the Internet.
3. Run the downloaded file. The program installation wizard will start.
4. In the first window of the installation wizard, click the Options button. The window for setting the player installation options will appear.
5. Make sure the Enable browser download button checkbox is checked. Actually, just for the sake of this button, we install RealPlayer.
6. The rest of the parameters can be left unchanged.
7. Click the Accept button. The installation process of the player will begin. All program installation components are downloaded from the Internet, so installation may take several minutes. After downloading the necessary components, a window will appear on the screen in which you need to select the version of RealPlayer.
8. Everything we need is in the free version, so set the switch to Basic RealPlayer.
9. Click the Continue button. A registration form will appear.
10. Fill out the registration form, then click the Continue button. The program will be installed and launched. The RealPlayer window will appear on the screen.
11. We don't need the RealPlayer itself, so close its window.
12. If RealPlayer was installed while the browser was running, restart it (close and download again).

Now, if you open any page that contains an online video that explains what ultrasonic facial cleaning is, when you hover your mouse over the player, a Download This Video button will appear above the latter. Clicking this button will download the video to your hard drive.

Let's take a look at some RealPlayer settings related to downloading online video.

1. Launch the installed RealPlayer program.
2. Click the RealPlayer button in the upper left corner of the player window that appears. The program menu will appear.
3. In the menu that appears, select the Preferences command. The program settings dialog box will appear on the screen.
4. In the list located on the left side of the dialog box, select the Download&Recording settings category:
   • The Save Files to field specifies the folder where downloaded files will be saved. You can click the Browse button and select a different folder in the dialog box that appears.
   • The switch at the bottom of the program's settings dialog determines whether the Download This Video button is displayed. On page load for - The Download This Video button will be displayed for the time specified in the box to the right (in seconds), after which it will turn off. Only on mouse over - The Download This Video button will appear when you hover your mouse over the online player. Don't show (do not show). The Download This Video button will not be displayed under any circumstances, but the command to download the video will be present in the context menu that appears when you right-click on the player on the web page.
   • If you want to disable the RealPlayer video download feature, you must uncheck the box above the icons of installed browsers.

In the download articles, we have covered several ways to download online video from web pages. All of the described methods are good in their own way, but they may also have their drawbacks. Which one to choose is up to you. Most likely, the best solution is to use several of the methods presented, depending on the situations, conditions, and browser used.