Help with realaudio streams

Hi all,

I have two machines, which we'll call A and B. A is a P4 3.2GHz, B is an
AthlonXP3200+, both have 2GB RAM and identical installations of Debian Lenny
for i386 (Gnome desktop). Both have the default Gnome browser (epiphany).

With just the default flash player installed (swfdec-mozilla), both get the
same error when I go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_radio_four
and try to play anything. The error is "To listen to this station please
install RealPlayer". Neither machine will play TV streams from the same site
either (endless rotating white dots).

On A, I added the debian-multimedia repository and installed
flashplayer-mozilla and realplayer. Still no joy playing TV streams, and a
different error playing radio 4: "Not yet supported". So the BBC are saying
that the debian-multimedia version of realplayer is not the real realplayer,
as it were.

On B, I ignored realplayer altogether and installed the latest flash player
from the Adobe site. Not only do TV streams work perfectly, but radio
streams do too!! I asked a friend with the same setup how this could be, and
he tells me that Totem is playing the realaudio streams quite happily. I
don't understand why it wouldn't do so until the Adobe flash was installed,
but I'm not complaining.

So, I went back to A and purged both flashplayer-mozilla and realplayer.
Then I installed the Adobe version of flash. The TV streams work fine ...
but the radio streams are still saying "To listen to this station please
install RealPlayer"!! So somehow the installation and removal of realplayer
has prevented Totem from playing the streams as it does on B.

I'm guessing that this is something to do with the internal configuration of
epiphany - about what external helpers it calls for different media types.
Presumably the realaudio type is now set to "nothing" after I purged
realplayer, whereas on B it has always been set to "Totem", and this now
works. I don't know how to re-set epiphany to its default settings. There is
nothing in /etc/alternatives about realaudio streams (compared with several
entries for flash players).

Can anyone help me solve this problem? I have two machines with identical
software, one of which will play BBC radio and the other one won't. (I have
tried installing the proper RealPlayer11Gold for Linux from the realplayer
site, and I get the same "Not Yet Supported" error as when I tried the
debian-multimedia version of realplayer.)

Very grateful for any tips.

Regards,

CC

Magnate wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have two machines, which we'll call A and B. A is a P4 3.2GHz, B is an
> AthlonXP3200+, both have 2GB RAM and identical installations of Debian
> Lenny for i386 (Gnome desktop). Both have the default Gnome browser
> (epiphany).
>
> With just the default flash player installed (swfdec-mozilla), both get
> the same error when I go to
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_radio_four and try to play
> anything. The error is "To listen to this station please install
> RealPlayer". Neither machine will play TV streams from the same site
> either (endless rotating white dots).
>
> On A, I added the debian-multimedia repository and installed
> flashplayer-mozilla and realplayer. Still no joy playing TV streams, and
> a different error playing radio 4: "Not yet supported". So the BBC are
> saying that the debian-multimedia version of realplayer is not the real
> realplayer, as it were.
>
> On B, I ignored realplayer altogether and installed the latest flash
> player from the Adobe site. Not only do TV streams work perfectly, but
> radio streams do too!! I asked a friend with the same setup how this
> could be, and he tells me that Totem is playing the realaudio streams
> quite happily. I don't understand why it wouldn't do so until the Adobe
> flash was installed, but I'm not complaining.
>
> So, I went back to A and purged both flashplayer-mozilla and realplayer.
> Then I installed the Adobe version of flash. The TV streams work fine
> ... but the radio streams are still saying "To listen to this station
> please install RealPlayer"!! So somehow the installation and removal of
> realplayer has prevented Totem from playing the streams as it does on B.
>
> I'm guessing that this is something to do with the internal
> configuration of epiphany - about what external helpers it calls for
> different media types. Presumably the realaudio type is now set to
> "nothing" after I purged realplayer, whereas on B it has always been set
> to "Totem", and this now works. I don't know how to re-set epiphany to
> its default settings. There is nothing in /etc/alternatives about
> realaudio streams (compared with several entries for flash players).
>
> Can anyone help me solve this problem? I have two machines with
> identical software, one of which will play BBC radio and the other one
> won't. (I have tried installing the proper RealPlayer11Gold for Linux
> from the realplayer site, and I get the same "Not Yet Supported" error
> as when I tried the debian-multimedia version of realplayer.)
>
> Very grateful for any tips.
>
> Regards,
>
> CC

If you look at:

about:plugins

where you would enter a URL from Firefox/iceweasel, it will tell you
what program your browser is using to play realaudio streams. You will
find some difference between A and B.

Robert