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Real reveals Helix code

29 October 2002 14:28 by Petteri "dRD" Pyyny

RealNetworks finally released the much-anticipated source code of its new media player, Helix DNA Client, which works on Windows, Linux, Symbian and Mac OSX.

New player was released as an open source product and under variety of licensing arrangements. For research and development for noncommercial use, the licensing is free of cost, but for commercial bundles that include RealNetworks' propietary codecs, licensing cost is $0.25 per player. For commercial products using Helix, but not Real's codecs, the first million players are free and cost $0.10 a piece after that.

"We actually are going to allow people to build essentially their own version of the RealOne Player," said Dan Sheeran, vice president of media systems at RealNetworks. "You can grab this code and port it to your platform as quickly as you want," he said.

The product will support "out of the box" MP3, MPEG-4, 3GPP (mobile phone video standard) and various other formats. By adding the Real's own codecs, software will automatically support also RealAudio and RealVideo.

Real however didn't -- and so far wont -- release its codec's source code, but licenses ready-built binaries for free for all noncommercial projects, allowing free RealPlayer-compatible players to appear.

The number of companies who announced their support for Helix in the official press conference today, was rather impressive. Biggest name was probably the Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia and others included Hitachi, STMicroelectronics, Intel and Texas Instruments.

More information:

HelixCommunity.org
ITWorld.com

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