Clinton Collins wrote:
> Bill Schwab wrote:
>> NASA offers windows media, real, flash and quick time. Is
>> there a clear lesser of evils?
>>
>>
> I'd rank them in this way (from less evil to more evil):
>
> Flash
> Quick Time
> Real
> Windows Media
>
> I'd be interested to know what others think.
>
My ranking:
Real
Flash
Quick Time
Windows Media

simply because real is part of the helix player community.

Now to the real answer, you don't have to install their official player to play real audio/video. Just install the third party codec, depending on your distro that is various degrees of hardship.
In Ubuntu just go to: http://packages.medibuntu.org/pool/non-free/w/ and download the codec depending on your architecture, it should just work if you have any questions let me know.
- Eldo