Talk about software that has lost its luster - Part 4

Last time we looked back at the retired Flash plugin. Today, let's see the RealPlayer that's stuck in own ways. 

The previous article mentioned something about some web browsing related software, so let's talk about multimedia related software. 

RealPlayer is an exclusive player for RM/RMVB, but both RM/RMVB and RealPlayer have fallen out of fashion, in the first two years, if you were looking for 720p movies, you can find  RM/RMVB, but now video is almost extinct, and the Realplayer is just a legend. From the glory of the absolute mainstream of the network, to now disappear, Why did Real lose its multimedia voice?

We know that the most important thing about video is coding, which largely determines the volume and mass of video. In the video format of RM/RMVB, the package is RealMedia, which has a good picture quality and compression ratio in the era. Even if you use dialup Internet access, you can still play part of RM video. Although the quality is not good, RM is enough to carry people's expectations for the initial experience of video. 

However, with the advent of new technologies and Real's lack of initiative, RM/RMVB slowly lags behind others. Compared to the MPEG-2 encoding in the DVD era, RealMedia has the advantage of volume and still retains the passable picture quality, but in the BD era, h. 264/AVC encoding has become the mainstream, RealMedia is no longer dominant in terms of volume and picture quality. Real, however, has long made a profit by charging royalties for video coding. However, as an industry standard, h. 264/AVC is relatively open in coding and decoding. With neither technology nor cost advantages, RM/RMVB is losing out to the competition.

In addition, Real is not sensitive to the market either. The father of the iPod Tony he in order to achieve the idea of "portable players and online music store", find the Real company seeking to invest, even in the Real, Real, however, did not seize the opportunity, finally went to the apple - then he leaves things we all know, with apple iPod ashes, and Real can only continue to destruction. 

The decline of RealPlayer and RM/RMVB video is mainly due to the stagnation of Real. Rather than build a sustainable and profitable content platform by taking advantage of a temporary technological lead, Real has chosen to live on royalties. Closed technology has collapsed under the impact of open standards, and RealMedia has adopted some of h.264's technology in the late years, but it's too late - and it's H.265/HEVC. A generation of classics, let it stay in the memory.