Hello. I recently had to do a clean reinstall of Windows XP Home Edition, and am now having a problem with real audio streams, which I didn't have before. Whenever I try to play a stream, it connects OK, buffers up to 50%, then stops buffering. I feel fairly certain the problem is with my system rather than with the stream providers, but I can't figure out what the problem could be. I don't have Real Player installed, instead I have Shao Hao's real codecs, which have always worked fine. In addition I use the Tara input plugin, either in QCD (QCD plugin) or in XMPlay (Winamp plugin). Everything is configured correctly as far as I can see.

Can anyone offer me some advice, please? Here is an example of an URL where the stream behaves in this way:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/ram/newshour1200.ram

Many thanks.

Try installing Real Alternative to see if it works.

If not try installing the RealOne player to make sure that it is your system
The Real audio compression I've noticed does not always play on non-real players 100% of the time.

Forget codec packs. They'll only do harm. Install latest Real Player 10 and during the installation untick everything which you don't want to install. No extra crap will be installed by the newer Real Players.

Considering all the crap that previous RealPlayer installed I would be very hesitant to install it again even if they do say nothing else is put in. Realplayer has to be (at least in previous versions) one of the most invasive programs I ever installed considering all the 'extras' and signing up so they can send you more crap. maybe by now they see the light that there are other options which don't involve going through their software and are having to finally adjust!

I give you my word. The is no special crap in latest Real Player. You only need to sign up with Real Networks but they haven't sent me anything per email this far.

Many thanks for these thoughts. It turns out that the problem related to my firewall (ZoneAlarm Pro 5). I had recently set the program control within ZA to deny server rights to all programs, but it seems that QCD and XMPlay require server rights in order to play real audio streams (or at least, the ones I'm interested in). Thats's the bad news. The good news is that the server rights don't involve any of my first 1,056 ports, which all remain stealthed according to Steve Gibson's port probe test. So I guess I just have to live with this compromise if I want to go on listening to these streams!

What harm do real codecs do, please? I understood that they are the same codecs that are embedded in RealPlayer software. I haven't noticed any bad effects of using them.