And it does a nice job of concealing the complexity unless you want it.īeyond the new video conversion features, RealPlayer SP’s other major addition is a social sharing option: When you come across a video online that you want to tell your pals about, you can post a link to it via Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace. In short, it offers as much stuff aimed at conversion nerds as it does for folks who just want to watch Web video on a variety of devices.

You can also convert videos in batches, and even created more than one file–say, a high-res one to watch on your Mac, and a low-res one for your phone. If you don’t like RealPlayer’s defaults or own a gizmo that’s not in its list, you can tweak the conversion settings yourself (including using an option to create audio-only files from videos you’ve downloaded). For instance, it dumps video destined for an iPod or iPhone into iTunes, so it’s transferred the next time you sync. RealPlayer chooses a format and settings, does the conversion, and even places the resulting video in the proper location for syncing when possible. But now you can also transfer them to forty-plus gadgets with a couple of clicks. As in RealPlayer 11, SP’s predecessor, you can download video files to your Mac for later playback in Real itself. A utility runs in the background and watches as you view videos at YouTube, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, and others that offer DRM-free content. It took a little longer than the company thought, but a beta version of RealPlayer SP for OS X is available for download now–Real gave me a sneak peek last week–and is largely similar to the Windows version. At the time, RealPlayer SP was a Windows-only product, but Real said it would bring it to Mac users by the end of 2009. Instead of primarily being about playback, it served as a hub for easy conversion of Web video for playback on a bevy of devices–MP3 players like the iPod, smartphones, gaming consoles, and more. Last June, I wrote about RealPlayer SP, a cool new version of the venerable, not-universally-beloved media player that shifted its emphasis.

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