RealNetworks opens up to serve all

Companies looking to deliver streaming media content in multiple formats from one source have a new alternative from an unusual source: RealNetworks.

The company announced last week that its Helix Universal Server, part of a new open source code-sharing initiative, can natively provide content encoded in Real, Apple QuickTime and the newer MPEG-4 standard format, and the proprietary format of its rival, Microsoft's Windows Media.

In most circumstances, a company wanting to deliver content in the three popular proprietary formats (Real, Microsoft and QuickTime) would need servers for each content type or some type of caching product or service provider option. With Helix Universal Server, the three formats can be served simultaneously along with more than 50 other types of media from one box, reducing the amount of hardware needed to serve a diverse array of content types.

Another potential benefit for corporate users is the fact that Helix Universal Server runs on 11 platforms, meaning Windows Media can be served from non-Windows 2000 operating systems.

"Helix Universal Server represents our new products moving forward," says Brad Hefta-Gaub, the vice president of product development for media systems at Real. "We will also offer a version of the server that supports just Real audio and video for customers that want it."

As part of the server announcement, Real says it is releasing Helix Producer, which is used to encode content into the RealVideo 9 format. The new version of the producer supports only the Real format.

Helix Universal Server and the producer application are the first products under Real's new Helix open source code and community initiative designed to spur development around one encoding, delivery and playback platform. At the center of the initiative will be the Helix DNA, code used for running Real's server, encoding and player client software.

There will be two types of licenses - the RealNetworks Community Source License (RCSL) and the RealNetworks Public Source License (RPSL). Products developed under the RCSL have to be compatible with Helix, while software developed under the RPSL has to be open source, Real says.

Real plans to make the source code of its Helix client available within 90 days, and the server and encoder source code by year-end, the company says. Real plans to submit the RPSL to the Open Source Initiative for certification as an open source license.

While the company is making some of its technology open source, it is withholding the technology and algorithms behind its codecs used to compress audio/video content.

"What they're doing is releasing code up to the point of the actual codecs. That's where it stops," says Maximilian Flisi, a research analyst at IDC. "If they did that they would be fully open source . . . they would be naked."

One potential hurdle for Real could stem from its use of Windows Media technology. The company did not license it from Microsoft. Rather, it used "clean room" (figuring out how something works without seeing the source code) techniques to determine how a Windows Media-encoded file is delivered from the server to the player. It is mimicking the techniques in Helix Universal Server.

Microsoft would not comment on potential legal repercussions until it saw more of the Real implementation.

Real and Microsoft are locked in a battle over which has the best streaming media technology. Microsoft's advantage is that it gives away its player software with every version of Windows sold and its server software with the Windows 2000 operating system. Real says it hopes Helix can persuade developers to pay for a server that can deliver multiple formats and not be limited to just the Windows platform.

Helix Universal Server is available now with pricing based on the maximum server capacity measured in megabits per second. A free version of Helix Producer is available for Linux and Windows desktops.

Material from the IDG News Service was used in this story.

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