Word: realaudio
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...have to start off this week's column with a confession: if you had asked me two years ago whether RealAudio would still be around in 1997, I probably would have laughed...
...RealAudio was the first application of streaming media to be commercially viable on the Internet. Introduced in mid-1995 by Progressive Networks, RealAudio was supposed to bring audio to the Internet without long download waits...
Progressive Network's RealAudio technology, on the other hand, allows Web surfers to listen to sound as it's downloading. Click on a RealAudio link, and a few seconds later you're listening to news, sports or music from your computer's speakers...
Unlike previous sound formats, which emphasized quality at all costs, RealAudio was designed to sacrifice some sound quality for the sake of expediency. By using compression and special client/server software, the delays of the past disappeared. Instead of the Internet sound restricted to short sound clips, multiple-hour programs and even live broadcasts were now possible; you only download as much as you want hear...
...complaint about RealAudio 1.0 was that sound quality was sacrificed too much. Progressive Networks claimed that the sound quality was as good as an AM broadcast radio. Unfortunately, it sounded like WBZ 1040 sounds when you're driving through the Sumner Tunnel...