Real Player 10 was released Tuesday night 1/6/04 in beta and based on my unreal download/install experience anyway, I would recommend downloaders proceed very cautiously until this one settles some more.

In defense of Real, beta software is traditionally not all that stable, though in the last year or two beta releases have come to be more the standard way of getting public reaction. Walmart released its music store in beta last month, the P2P voIP client Skype has been in beta for months, and there are plenty of other examples where vendors have released beta software where they wanted and expected people to download and use.

Real is even providing a 10 cent incentive for the very first download when users try out the new service along with:

- 30 day free trial of GamePass, which is a monthly game service ($5.95/month) to the realonearcade.com and provides a free game every month and includes a free game during the free trial. This includes 150+ games, with a heavy diet of addictive puzzle games.
- 14 day free trial of Real SuperPass which provides access to special audio and video content (full benefits list here). I was able to watch the ABC News segment, sans commericials, about Pete Rose’s confession that he did bet on baseball and a 90 minute video of MLB Hall of Fame inductees coverage (also without commecials). Sweet for sports fans.
- 14 day free trial of RealRhapsody which for me was worthless because I already have Rhapsody. I was hoping that this would be an integrated version with Real Player 10 instead of separate Real-branded version. Why didn’t they make this an integrated version?

So here’s what happened to me with Real Player 10 beta:

1) the download will default you to death, a tired installation trick to make you be signed up by default for additional services (notably the free trials of Gamepass and Real Rhapsody). Also, several newsletters will be setup as default so if you are already burned out on spam, pay special attention to this. Lastly, watch the file associations as well, because the default — at least in my installation — was allowing Real to take over almost every audio file association. No thanks.
2) once you login you will have to “enable” the music store to be able to buy tracks which can be done from within the HELP->MANAGE MENU menu suboption. If you are expecting to have Rhapsody mixed in with the Real Player 10 interface, then expect to be really disappointed, it is still a separate downloadable interface. For that matter, so is the Realone Arcade. In fact, it is so separate that just to cancel the service you have to download the separate player/interface, then login and select MY ACCOUNT and cancel from within there. But wait, you don’t only have to do that, so read on.
3) I couldn’t get any 30 second previews of music to play, it only crashed the interface and locked up in Windows XP for me. I couldn’t even CTRL+ALT+DELETE it. It was go for the power switch only on three separate occasions.
4) I couldn’t get the radio to play, where before I could get Real audio files to work reliably before, I had only trouble after installing Real Player 10. Later, after two more installations, I would successfully get the radio to play and found that the streams were of marginal quality (24k - 64k). I would expect much better quality for a package that cost $14.95/month (after the trial). On the flipside, the video quality was good and not choppy at 350K on the tested DSL connection.

5) When I went to cancel the radio service, it took me to a screen which said I had to call them (see screenshot).

Here’s my call log for the time and energy spent trying to get rid of this Free Trial that forces a renewal if you don’t cancel before the trial is up.

Call #1: 1/7/03 2:19p PST - 2:35p  had me on hold for 16 minutes on hold and
only to have the system hang up on me. Grrr.
Call #2: 1/7/03 2:36p PST - 3:12p while waiting I tried launching some other Real
files that used to work and none of them worked.

Message onhold (2:46): “Thanks for holding, your call is very important to us …” Deciding I would try downloading one more time to see if it worked, I retried
the download process.

In the meantime, a friendly operator came on the line (2:49pm) which was 30 minutes later and she cancelled the Superpass option but then had to transfer me to confirm that the RealRhapsody part was cancelled.

I hung onto the GamePass option because that was the only thing that was working and I was going to see how that went for awhile. The Real Customer Service rep transferred me at 2:51pm and I was waiting on hold again … 2:55p … I’m thinking that here they are wasting $$$ with me on hold and I’m wasting $$$ in my time just trying to make sure they cancelled something that didn’t work.

3:00pm: I must reboot for the old (RealOne) installation settings to take effect and am still on hold. To my delight the old Real would play the radio and links would work again, so my system was back to new. However, upon exit the application encouraged me to update to the “newest version” (Real Player 10 Beta) which I tried one more time anew. This second installation would be more successful, but after nearly an hour of phone time, my experience was REALly frustrating.

Shannon answered at 3:08p and very politely issued me a cancellation number. Call ended 3:12pm. Based upon my experience I would recommend setting aside an hour that you can do other things and wait on hold to cancel this. A disturbing method of cancellation. You’d think that they would make it automated. I will give them credit for not trying to sell me anything during the cancellation process as AOL historically has done but having to call to cancel, unless there is almost zero on hold waiting time is an annoyance for netizens at best. To save folks who try this Free Trial out and are equally disgusted with the experience, here’s the steps for how to rid yourself from this service:

  MENU OPTIONS TO CANCEL:
  1) call (866) 238-4228 
  2) press 4
  3) still within free trial period press 1 (outside free trial period, press 2) –
     you will need email address that you signed up with or credit card

Now, here’s the good news. After reinstalling the old RealOne player and then upgrading from within that I was able to get Real Player 10 to successfully function — at least in part. The 30 second preview clips in the Music Store still would not play (error finding temporary file), but the videos would play and stream links would work again. This, I guess, is the best I could hope for. I noticed that after my cancellation the interface still promised to offer me the full trial instead of cutting me off immediately, so I could continue to check out the service in more detail. During baseball season I have purchased a subscription to mlb.com through them because it’s like 20 bones purchases a la carte for the entire season for every team, every game, which is a heck of a deal if you like to listen to baseball on radio while you work. I believe that the SuperPass subscription does include this during baseball season, so sports fans might find this SuperPass worthwhile.

I have enjoyed my subscription to the listen.com product Rhapsody (detailed review), but the Real Player as a whole continues to be a disappointment to me. I hope when they come out of beta that they fully work out most of these issues. I hope your experience, if you dare, is a lot less surreal. Grade: F

• Companies and/or websites requiring a phone call to cancel / quit service
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• Review: Buymusic.com
• Don’t have machines call your customers, Sirius
• Windows Media Player 10 Technical Beta released (detailed overview with screenshots)
• Skype to go to release status in summer with SkypeOut paid service