RealPlayer SP Rips and Converts Internet Video

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RealNetworks have produced a brand new addition to their media line today – SP, which stands for social/portable and should give you quite a bit of a clue as the idea behind the application.

Essentially, what SP hopes to do is make it easier for people to take movies from the net, transfer them to their portable devices and then enjoy them wherever they go. This would be incredibly useful for people that use iPhones, Blackberries and other large screen PDA/phones with some sort of media capacity.

You might be wondering why you want to rip videos off of YouTube when you can play them live on the iPhone and friends anyway, but the problem with apps like that is that you have to rely on an internet connection, which means unless you happen to have Wi-Fi coverage when you want to watch clips you’re out of luck.

The real goal of RealPlayer SP is to simplify the process. It’s not a new concept – people have been downloading and transferring video content to portable devices for years – but SP provides a way that’s easy even without much knowledge of video formats. You simply choose the video, the make and model of the device and wait.

Of course, while the program is useful it suffers every bit as much from the usual bloat that is associated with RealPlayer. The program can do about a million things but doesn’t really do any them particularly well, and uses a huge amount of system resources doing so. It’s also pretty slow compared to other video conversion software.

Regardless, RealPlayer SP will still be helpful if you don’t really know your way around video technology and just want to stick a couple of YouTube videos on your phone so you can show friends and family.

The beta version is free, although you can pay an extra $40 (£25) and get a version that includes H.264 conversion and DVD playback and burning.

Posted on June 26, 2009 | Filed Under Tech