What About the Server?
Of course, RealNetworks has to make their money somewhere. They make it off of Plus versions of their software and the RealServer. Real does offer a Basic Server G2 which is free and supports 25 streams (simultaneous users) at a time. For many smaller organizations, that might actually do the trick. Basic Server Plus G2 software currently retails at $695. That will support up to 40 streams. If you want to stream Macromedia Flash animations using Real's RealFlash, throw another $295 on the pile. 100 users will cost around $6000. 400 will cost about $24,000. If you are more serious than that, you had better give a Real salesperson a call. I'm sure they'll be very happy to talk to you.

One of the advantages of the G2 server is that it supports a new RealNetworks technology called "SureStream." This wonderful technology dynamically adjusts the quality of the signal during playback. For my audio presentations, I typically encode a file for LAN to 28.8 modem speed. That is quite a range and the files get large. But the server will send the signal that makes the most sense depending on bandwidth. If the available bandwidth drops, the signal quality shifts down to match. The transition is usually very smooth and does not disrupt the user experience.

Don't Have a Server?
Most streaming formats support "psuedo" or HTTP streaming. RealNetworks G2 is no different. So if all you have to experiment with is a normal Web server, you can still stream your Real G2 content. To get it to work, you might have to ask your server administrator to configure a data-type so that the server knows how to handle the streaming files. Pseudo streaming G2 is not as robust a solution as a dedicated streaming server. With Real G2, there will be a delay while the server buffers enough information to begin playback. If the user wants to skip the playback slider ahead, RealPlayer will have to play the file off the server in real time until it reaches the point where you have "skipped ahead" to. As you can imagine, this defeats the purpose of skipping ahead. So why pseudo-stream? If you are beginning to experiment with RealMedia, it is a great way to test it out. Once you have tried it out, invest in a server and reap the benefits of more user control and SureStream.

All SMILs
Of course, there is far more to streaming media than audio and video. The future of streaming is in offering the user a sophisticated multimedia experience. Here, RealNetworks is ahead of the pack. Ever since the G2 technology rolled out, RealPlayer has support the W3C's Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL). Look at SMIL as HTML for multimedia and you aren't too far off. SMIL is an XML-based language that allows you to time and position media within the player window. While RealPlayer G2 is not the only SMIL capable browser, it is by far the most popular. Real adds to SMIL with their own RealPix and RealText variants that allow the streaming of still images and text. Simple SMIL is relatively easy to write. Much like HTML, a text editor and SMIL browser are all that is required to author the language.

SMIL is not perfect yet. Much like early HTML, it has a long way to go. Current SMIL authoring tools are usually buggy. But as the language develops, it should become an important word across the lips of many a Web designer. Finally, a richer multimedia experience is possible on the Web.