Timely analyst thought pieces on issues pertaining to digital media, home networks, and consumer electronics.

Real Networks claims that 500 million Real Players were downloaded last year, but I just can't see it. The Real format itself has been in decline for almost as long as the current U.S. President has been in the White House, and while its multi-format streaming capability is nice, I (and I imagine a lot of folks) hardly need another desktop player anymore for Windows Media content since most is played in-browser nowadays.

So when Real announced their new player, I, like most, thought it was a non-event. But I think I was a bit premature, since the features on it have got me to think it may actually fill a need for me personally for media acquisition and management, and I have a feeling I'm not the only one.

The feature that appealed to me and many others - and which is, not coincidentally, the most controversial feature - is the ability to download video clips in most formats directly to my hard drive. Real walked me through a demo today and from what I saw, its very easy to do. Now I have and can download videos from the likes of YouTube and Google Video, but other sites are much more of a hassle, but with the Real Player you can do it with a one-click download button that hovers above the video window when it pops in your browser. The player then allows you to download multiple clips simultaneously, which you will have on your hard drive for later playback. While the player doesn't allow you to transfer the file to other devices within the player itself, the files can easily be then copied as you would normally within the typical Windows or Mac OS file system to a device over the network or through a USB connection.

Which leads me to comment on the legality of it. When asked about downloading copyrighted content, which Real did for me in the demo as they skimmed from Comedy Central (Colbert download) to ABC.com (Good Morning America) to MSNBC (can't remember, but it was in Windows Media format...), they said what they did was covered under the personal use rights afforded under the DMCA. I thought he is probably right, that unlike Grokster and P2P type of solutions, this isn't a distribution software, even if it does make downloading video that many content owners probably never intended to let consumers have their own copy of much easier.

So what that probably means is that DRM vendors will likely see a boost in business, whether its turning on Windows Media DRM, Adobe's forthcoming Flash DRM or using a solution from a vendor like Widevine.

But all that is besides the point to Real. What they have done is create an app that actually fills a need (including DVD burning in their premium version), and they've done it in a player stripped of many of the annoying upsell features they packed into Real Player 10.5.

That makes me think I need to give the Real Player a look with fresh eyes for my own personal use, and I have a feeling I might not be the only one.

Keep an eye out for thoughts on Real and other players in our new report coming on Broadband Video...

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