Unit 65 Assignment One

Banner Ads

A banner ad is a form of advertisement on a webpage that are delivered by an ad server, banner ads
are usually found above, below or on the sides of the websites main content, these banners are
linked to a particular page on a different website these adverts are put up by an ad server. Banner
ads are relatively simple pieces of HTML code, but their presence on the web and their importance
in internet-based business is immense. Banner ads are usually more image based than text based
because generally images tend to grab the readers attention more easily than text. These banner
ads are generally basic images that are in formats such as JPEGs, PNG and GIFs, however they can
also be flash based with formats such as flv., swf., and Java which allows the user to interact with it.
Banner ads come in various different sizes, medium rectangles which are 300x250, rectangles which
are 180x150, leaderboards which are 728x90 and wide skyscrapers which are 160x600.
Banner ads are usually placed in high traffic websites that have more or less the same intended
audience. Banner ads are used to generate traffic to a website by linking it to the ad. Banner ads can
function as regular, print advertisements to inform/notify people about a new product or to increase
brand awareness and so on. However, most banner ads are clickable and their main purpose of
being on a website is to be clicked on.
Online advertising via banner ads is much more advantageous over traditional ways of advertising,
through newspapers etc. as their effectiveness can be easily measured, this can be done by finding
out a banner ads click-through rate (CTR), the banner ads CTR is calculated by dividing the number
of users who clicked the ad by the number of times the ad was displayed (impressions). For example,
if a CTR of an ad banner was 10% that would mean that if that ad banner had been displayed to 100
people only 10 of those people clicked the banner. So the higher the CTR is, the more effective the
advertisement is.

http://science.opposingviews.com/google-adsense-text-vs-banners-5036.html

Animated interface elements

An animated interface element is a web page or design that is not static, but can interact with the
user, for example it can be something that can be changed on a screen by clicking something or
hovering a mouse over it.

Usually the interface element is done through flash and its usually something like a rollover button
because it reveals something else when you roll over or click on it. An example of animated
interfaces can widely be found on iPhones or android smartphones with the menus used on the
phone or the buttons that can be found on a website where when you hover over the buttons they
will have a drop-down menu or be highlighted.

Some examples of programs that can be used to create these interfaces are Adobe Bone Tools or
you could use Adobe Flashs invisible buttons and having one of the layers have a particular colour
when the user highlights over it, the result of this are interfaces like global map interfaces that
highlight particular countries using colour indicators.
Linear animations
Linear animationed are animations that you cannot control and instead are just there to be watched
and then the user has the choidce to click on the animation or link if the product advertised
interested the user. Linear animations are often viewd by a lot of people since the animation starts
automatically without the user having to press play. Therfore people wouldnt have a choice but to
watch the animation and that might lead to a lot more people clicking the video to see what the
animation was about.
Youtube ads are a good example of linear animations as they have a clear start and end and you
cannot skip to a certain point and they have to be
watched before the user has access to the video
that the user initially wanted to watch.
Linear animated ads are a very good way to give a
product exposure and make sure that the advert is
watched.
Interactive Animations
An interactive animation is a Flash animation that allows people to interact with the animation on a
webpage. They are used to engage the audience and to allow them to interact and participate with
the animation rather than just watching it. An interactive animation allows the user to click, control,
choose and take part in activities throughout the animation.
An example of Interactive animation can be found on The
Hop Yards website, when the user hovers their computer
mouse over the category of their choice the heading and
picture of the logo enlarge and change colour.
Promotion
Website promotion is a method of making people aware of a product or an organisation to increase
the sales of said product or organisation and to increase their public
awareness. For example, the Midwest Animation Promotion Society are
trying to promate the development if manga and anime as a valid art
form to North America and to get more people to learn about eastern
culture and traditions.
Animation can also be used as a form of promotional advertisement and can
be best found in MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) games, especially in
anime styled games.
Instruction
Instructions, in animation, are when an animator instructs and imports
orders into a program to help the user do a certain task. An example of this
is SAM Learning, an online education service for the use of schools in the

United Kingdom that supports personalised learning through a self-assessment method (SAM) of
interactive revision and examination practice.
The way instructions work are by having different commands such as click here or click for more
on an interactive window and will usually have some sort of category system that includes a range of
various options of subjects. From this the user can then pick a subjects through an interactive
question answer session instructing the user on how to do certain things.
Information
Information is facts and data that can be given out to people, sometimes this can be done through
the use of animation, such as an animated trailer
or
advert which could have detailed information
included in it which would then be transmitted
to
an audience. An example of this is from the
website howstuffworks.com, as there are many serperate information links that surround the
webpage, for example the advert about 10 bizarre circus Sideshows inform the reader about 10
bizarre circus Sideshows, and because the link has an extract about the topic under the link it might
give the user a higher likelyhood of being drawn in and wanting to know more.

Entertainment
Entertainment is used in various different ways when it comes to animation.
For example, some adverts entertain the viewer as the advert may be
commical or includes a game that can be played. Animation has been a form
of entertainment in many different ways, for instance, hand
drawn cartoons such as older versions of South Park or The
Simpsons were animated and are a form of entertainment, also CGI movies like
Disney: Frozen or Minions and computer generated cartoons can be seen and
mostly found in the majority of cartoons today.

History of Animation
Hand-drawn (cel)
Cel (short for celluloid) animation is a traditional form of animation which is used in the production
of cartoons or animated movies in which each frame of the scene is drawn by hand. A cel is a
transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation.
During the first half of the 20th century actual celluloid was used, this consisted of cellulose nitrate
and camphor and was highly flammable and dimensionally unstable and so it was largely replaced by
cellulose acetate.
Cel animation was generally done by having characters drawn
onto cells and then laid over a static background drawing; this
reduces the amount of times an image had to be redrawn and
enabled studios to split up the production processes to
different specialised teams making producing films more cost
effective.
Older versions of cartoons like the Simpsons and South Park
were originally produced by using cel animation, but moved to
digital animation as cel animation requires thousands of handdrawn drawings and years of hard work while animation that

some may consider to be of better quality can be achieved relatively faster and cheaper with the use
of digital animation.
Flipbooks
A flipbook is a small book with a series of printed images which create the
illusion of motion when the pages of the book are rapidly flipped. Usually, a
flipbook is held in one hand while the thumb of the other hand flicks the pages,
and the user concentrates on each page. The flipbook relies on a basic optical
principle known as persistence of vision to create an animated image. In addition
to being amusing, flipbooks also laid the groundwork for motion pictures and
therefore could be considered as one of the earliest forms of animation.
The first ever flipbook was released in 1868 as a kineograph. The developer of
the kineograph realised that images could be presented in a linear sequence, rather than being
mounted on circular drums or discs and rotated. The idea rapidly caught on and many companies
started releasing flipbooks for children and adults alike. Although many modern flipbooks are now
given away for free, earlier flipbooks were considered miraculous by many people.
Animated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a film for the cinema, television or computer, which is made by using
sequential drawings as opposed to animations in general.
Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenom of motion into a still drawing can be found
in paleolithic cave painting in which animals were often depicted with multiple legs in superimposed
positions, clearly attemting to convey the perception of motion.
The phenakistoscope, zoetrop and prazinoscope, as well as the
common flipbook, were early animation devices that were used
to produce movement from sequential drawings using
technological means, but didnt develop further until the advent
of motion picture films.
Animation process
Half of the process of creating a computer-animated feature film has absolutely nothing to do with
computers. First, the filmakers will write a treatment, which is a rough sketch of the story. When
theyve settled on all of the major plot points they will begin to create a storyboard of the film. A
storyboard is a 2D comic-book-style rendering of each scene in the movie along with some jokes and
snippets of imprtant dialogues. During the storyboarding process, the script is polished and the
filmmakers can start to see how the scenes wil work visually.
The next stop cwould be to have all the voice actors come in and record all their lines (if the film
uses voice). Using the actors recorded dilogue, the filmmakers assemble a video animated only
within the storyboard drawings. After further editing, re-writing and re-recording of dialogue, the
real animation would be ready to begin.
After this, the art department would then design all of the characters,
major set locations, props and colour palettes for the film. The characters
and props would be modeled in 3-D or scanned into the computes ffrom
clay models. At Pixar, each character is eequpped with hundred of avars,
little hinges that allow animators to move specific parts of a characters

body. Woody, from Toy Story, had over 100 avars on his face alone.
Then teams of animators are assigned short snippets of scenes. They take the clocking instructions
and create their own more detailed key frames. Then they begin the tweening process. The
computer has to handle a lot of interpolation - calculating the best way to tween two key frames
but the artist often has to tweak the results so that they look more lifelike.
High quality animated films are produced at a frame rate of 24 fps. For a 90 minute film thats nearly
130,000 frames of animation. In Pixar, an animator is expected to produce 100 frames of animation
a week.
The next step is giving characters and props surface texture and colour. Theyre dressed with
clothing that wrinkles and flows naturally with body movements, and fur that waves in the virtual
breeze, and skin that looks real enough to touch, depending on the style of the animation. Lighting is
then added, using ambient, omnidirectional and spotlights to create depth, shadows and moods.
The final step of the process is rendering. This is done by using powerful computers to assemble all
of the digital information that the animators have
created character models, key frames, tweens,
textures, colours, sets, props, lighting, digital matte
paintings, et cetera into a single frame of film. It takes
an average of six hours to render one single frame of
film in Pixar, even with the incredible computing
power they have, however they are able to render
more than one frame of film at a time.
GIF
The GIF format, also known as a Graphics Interchange Format is a lossless format for
image files that supports both animated and static images. Because GIFs use lossless
compression it does not degrade the quality of an image. However, GIFs store image
data using indexed colour, which means that each image can only include a maximum of
256 colours. Since GIFs can only contain 256 colours, they arent an ideal format for
storing digital photos, such as those captured with a digital camera.
DHTML
DHTML, also known as Dynamic HTML is a hypernym for a collection of
technologies used together to create interactive and animated web
sites thhrough the use of a combination of a static markup language
(such as HTML), a client-side scripting language (such as JaveScript), a
presentation definition language (such as CSS), and the Document
Object Model. The application of DHTML was introduced by Microsoft
in 1997 with the release of Internet Explorer 4.
XHTML
XHTML, also known as Extensible HTML, is a hhybird between
HTML and XML which is specifically designed for Net device
displays. XHTML is a markup language written in XML and is
therefore an XML application. XHTML uses three XML
namespaces, which are used to qualify element and

attributes names by associating them with namespaces. Namspaces prevent identically customnamed tags theat may be used in different XML documents from being read the same way. The
three XML namespaces used by XHTML correspong to three HTML 4.0 DTDs: Strict, Trannsitional,
and Frameset.
Java Applet
A Java applet is a small spplication which is written in Java
and delivered to users in the form of bytecode. Java
bytecode is the instruction set of the Java virtual machine.
Each bytecode is composed by one, or in some cases two,
bytes that represent the instruction (opcode), along with zero or more bytes for passing parameters.
The user launches the Java applet from a web page, and the applet is then executed within a Java
Virtual Machine (JVM) in a process separate from the web brower itself.
Animation
Optical Illusion of Motion (Persistence of Vision)
Persistence of vision refers to the optical illusion where multiple
discrete images blend into a single image in the human mind and
believed to be the explanation for motion perception in cinema
and animated films. Persistence of vision is produced by certain
characteristics of the visual system. The human retina retains an
image for a breif instant. When a series of images are rapidly
presented to the retina, it smooths out gaps and creates a
streamlined animated image. This principle is what allows people
to perceive the series of frames in a motion picture as a movie, rather than a set of still photographs.
Changes in frame rate and illumination may change the way the animation appears, creating a flicker
which can be quite distracting.

Claymation
Claymation or Clay Animation is one of many forms of stop motion animation. Every animatated
piece, whether it be a character or a background, is deformable made of a malleable substance,
usually Plasticine clay.
Traditional Clay Animation is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital
media and then playing those recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer which
create the illusion of motion, this is due to the persitance of vision.
Claymation can be a very strenuous form of animation as each object, character and background is
usually sculpted from clay or any other similar malleable material and is then hand moved ever so
slightly in each new shot. Also the shooting environment must remain consistant in order to
maintain the illusion of continuity, meaning that objects must be consistanly placed and lit, and work
must proceed in a calm environment. It can take a very long time for a claymation to be complete
since each second of film usually consists of at least 24 frames meaning that each minute of film
usually takes 1440 images.
An example of claymation is the comedy series Wallace and
Gromit. Nick Park, the creator of the show, first began the series

during the time when he was studying at the National Film and Television School in
Buckinghamshire. Nick created a bald inventor and his intelligent dog assistant for his graduation
project, and used traditional stop-motion techniques to bring his characters to life. However, the
labour-intensive nature of creating an animation in this way meant that Nicks film wasnt complete
when he finished his film course.
Stop Motion
Stop motion animation, also known as stop-frame animation, is animation that is captures one frame
at a time, with physical objects that are moved between frames so thtat when you play the
sequence of images back rapidly, it creates the illusion of motion. The basic process of stop motion
animateion involves taking a photograph of an object or character, moving them slightly, then taking
another photograph, once this process has been repeated a number of times if the producer was to
play back all the images consecutively, the objects or characters appear to move on their own.
Stop motion animation can be found everywhere in commercials, music videos, television shows
and feature films. While commonly people associate stop motion with just one specific style, such as
clay animation, the reality is that stop motion techniques can be used to create a wide range of film
styles.
The film Corpse Brideis an example of stop motion
animation. A dozen animators/puppeteers were put to
work when production began, but that number had tripled
by the end of production. The film's images were stored on
a 1GB image card that was capable of holding
approximately 100 frames of animation. Eight roving
camera teamseach team including a lighting cameraman,
an assistant, a lighting electrician and a set dresser to deal
with any art department issuesworked with the
animators to set up shots.
Computer Generation:
Frame Rate
Frame Rate, also known as frame frequency , is the frequency
at which an imaging device displays consecutive images called
frames. Movies create the illusion of motion by showing still
images in rapid succession. The number of images
photographed per second is reffered to as the frame rate of an
animation and it is measured in frames per second (fps). Frame
rate describes both the speed of recording and the speed of
playback. The more frames recorded per second, the more
accurately motion is documented onto the recording device
and the less choppy and more smooth the footage looks.
The term applies equally well to film and video camers, computer graphics and also motion capture
sytems. Frae reate can be expressed in progressive scan monitors as hertz (Hz).
Frames

A frame is defined by a combination of the image to be displayed and the time the image is to be
displayed. A sequence of frames makes an animation. Each frame is displayed on the screen until the
next frame overwrites it. Since each frame remains displayed on the screen for a tiny but finite time
period, one can think of an animatio as frames displayed at discreet intervals of time in a continued
sequence.
Any scene change happens by drawing a whole new frame. Even changing
a single pixel requires drawing the next frame in its entirety. Furthermore,
even if the image of the scene remains constant, identical content must be
drawn in subsequent frames as long as the still scene is needed.
Key Frames
A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing that
defines the start and end points of any smooth transition.
The drawings are called frames because their postion in
time is measured in frames on a strip of film. The movement
which the viewer sees is defined by the sequence of these
key frames, whereas on a film,video or animation, the
postion of the key frames defines the timing of the
movement. Since only two or three key frames over the span
of a second doesnt create the illusion of movement, the
remaining frames are filled with inbetweens.
In non-linear digital video editing, as well as in video compositing software, a key frame is a frame
used to indicate the beginning or end of a change made to the signal. For example, a key frame
could be set to indicate the point at which audio will have faded up or down to a certain level.
One way of creating an animation is to create a first frame by hand and then create another frame a
few frames away that is significantly different different from the first frame, manually. Then use an
automatic process to create the in-between frames. The manually created first and last frame are
the keyframes.

Onion Skinning
Since frame-by-frame animation can be difficult when working on one
frame at a time with no reference for the previous or next frames, Flash
has an option called onion-skinning which can be turned on to then
show a range of frames both before and after the current frame , which
are progressively fading out as if the were layered on translucent paper
on top of each other, or onion-skinned. In computer software, this
effect is achieved by making frames translucent and projecting them on
top of each other. This technique helps the animator to be able to draw in
the in between frames to make an animation run smoothly. Using this
process, animators can draw each frame based off of the last. This effect
can also be used to create motion blurs, like the ones features in The
Matrix when the characters doge bullets.
Tweening

Tweening is the process in which the content of the frames in-between (which tween is
short for) the keyframes are created. This can be done autoatically by
the animation software. This process is necessary is important so that
the animation glides smoothly from one keyframe to the next.
Tweening is a key process in all types of animation, including
computer animation. Sophisticated animation software allows the
user to identfy specific objects in an image and define how they should
move and change during the tweening process. Software may also be used to manually render
oradjust trasitional frames by hand or may be used to automatically render transitional frames using
interpolation or graphic parameters. In the context of Adobe Flash, inbetweening using automatic
interpolation is called tweening, and the resulting sequence of frames is called a tween. The free
software program Synfig also apecializes in automated tweening.
Digital Animation:
Vector Animation
Vector animation refers to animation in which the art or
motion is controlled by vectors ratther than pixels. Vector
animation usually allows a cleaner, smoother animation since
images are displayed and resized using mathamatical values
instead of stored pixel values. A comonly used vector
animation program is Adobe Flash.
Vector graphics consits of paths that are defined by a start and end point. These paths can be
anything from a line to a series of lines that create a shape like a square or a circle. Despite the
simplistic nature of a vectors building block, paths can be used to create extremely complex
diagrams. Each path object carries its own mathematical statement that defines how the object
should be displayed.
While some vector editors (computer programs that compose and edit vector graphics) support
animation, the most popular programs for animation creation, like Adobe Flash, are specifically
geared for that purpose. Most use only vector-based graphics because they scale better and typically
take up less space. These vector animations generally have a clean graphic appearance as compared
to their alternatives.
Raster (Bitmap) animation
In computer animation, the term raster graphics refers to animation frames
which are made of pixels rather than scalable components, such as vertices,
edges,nodes, paths or vectors. Storing images as pixels rather than vectores or
vertices enabled much deeper and more realistic lighting and colour because
the computer doesnt have to render each frame in real time s it does in a 3-D
video game.
Raster animation doesnt only refer to 3-D graphs, however demand for 2-D
raster animation in movies, TV video games, and commercials has decreased
since processing power has become more affordable to render 3-D aniamtions
on a small budget. A raster image is just another word for a bitmap , or pixelbased image.
Compression (file size, download speeds)

A lossless quicktime codec completely preserves the data they compress and are usually used to
transfer footage from one editing suit to another. Lossless codecs can require high data rates and
high end computers with specialised hardware. Some examples of lossless codecs are the Animation,
8-bit and 10-bit uncompressed 4:2:2 codecs.
A lossy quicktime codec returns only an approximation of the data and are usually used to deliver
the finalised video to an end user. The level of approximation is determined by the quality of the
codec. Usually theres a tradeoff between the output quality of the codec and its achievable level of
compression. With some codecs, a compression ratio of at least 5:1 can be reached without visible
degradation.
The FLA file format is the master document format for Flash projects. When you create a new Flash
file in the Macromedia Flash authoring program, you create an FLA file. This contains all the
elements which make up the finished product, including graphics, animation instructions,
actionscript code, comments, etc. FLA files can only be opened in Flash (not the Flash Player).
The FLA file is roughly equivalent to the PRPROJ file in Adobe Premiere.
The FLA file does not play or execute. Instead, you export an SWF (or EXE) file
which is what end users see. You can preview the resulting SWF file at any time
from the FLA file.
Scalability
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a text-based graphics language which describes images with vector
shapes, text, and embedded raster graphics. SVG files provide resolution idependant, high resolution
dots per inch (HiDPI) graphics on the web, in print, and on mobile devices in a compact format. The
ability to style SVG with CSS and the support of scripting and animation makes SVG an integral part
of the web platform.
File formats eg .fla, .swf, .gif, .mng, .svg
Flash:
Adobe Flash (formerly called "Macromedia Flash") is a multimedia and software platform used for
authoring of vector graphics, animation, games and Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) which can be
viewed, played and executed in Adobe Flash Player. Flash is frequently used to add streamed video
or audio players, advertisement and interactive multimedia content to web pages, although usage of
Flash on websites is declining
Flash manipulates vector and raster graphics to provide animation of text, drawings, and still images.
It allows bidirectional streaming of audio and video, and it can capture user input via mouse,
keyboard, microphone and camera. Flash applications and animations can be programmed using the
object-oriented language called ActionScript. ActionScript is an object-oriented
programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (now dissolved into
Adobe Systems). It comes from HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard.
Adobe Flash Professional is the most popular and user-friendly authoring tool for
creating the Flash content, which also allows automation via the JavaScript Flash
language (JSFL).
Adobe Flash Player makes the Flash content accessible on various computer systems and devices
and is available free of charge for common web browsers (as a plug-in) under a few of the major

operating systems, some smartphones and tablets, and a few other electronic devices using Flash
Lite.
Swish:
SWiSH Max is a flash creation tool that is commonly used to create interactive and cross-platform
movies, animations, and presentations. It is developed and distributed by Swishzone.com Pty Ltd,
based in Sydney, Australia. SWiSH Max primarily outputs to the .swf format, which is currently under
control of Adobe Systems.
SWiSH Max is generally considered to be a simpler and less costly Flash creation tool in comparison
with Adobe Flash. SWiSH Max does not support some Adobe Flash features such as ActionScript 3.0,
shape tweens, and bitmap drawing capabilities. It does, however, include general Flash creation
features such as vector drawing, motion tweens, and symbol editing. In addition, SWiSH Max
incorporates a number of automated effects and transitions, which make building certain Flash
elements such as buttons, advanced transition effects, and interactive Flash sites simpler. One
drawback of SWiSH Max is its inability to open or save .fla files, which limits exchanges between
other programs to final .swf files.
The scripting used in SWiSH Max is a variation of ActionScript, commonly known as
SWiSH script. SWiSH script contains most ActionScript 2.0 functionality, including
support for ActionScript 2.0 classes in SWiSH Max 3.
SWiSH Max was designed for the Windows operating system and can run on a PC with a
Pentium III 300 MHz processor, 64MB RAM, and a monitor capable of 1024x768 screen
resolution and 16-bit colour display.
Web animation software:
Authoring:
Authoring, in terms of computing is the process of creating and composing a courseware, web page,
or a multimedia application with test, sound, still and video pitures as well as animation. Web
authoring is also a category of software in which a user is able to use to develop a multimedia
product.
An example of a web authoring tool is Dreamweaver since it is
used to create a web page which can contain text, images,
animation, videos and sound files through the use of HTML
and by dragging different elements into place.
Director:
Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director) is a multimedia application
authoring platform created by Macromedianow part of Adobe Systems. It
allows users to build applications built on a movie metaphor, with the user as
the "director" of the movie. Originally designed for creating animation
sequences, the addition of a scripting language called Lingo made it a popular
choice for creating CD-ROMs and standalone kiosks and web content using
Adobe Shockwave. Adobe Director supports both 2D and 3D multimedia projects.
Players:

The Adobe Flash Player is freeware software for viewing multimedia, executing rich Internet
applications, and streaming video and audio, content created on the Adobe Flash platform. Flash
Player can run from a web browser (as a browser plug-in) or on supported mobile devices, but there
also exist versions running directly on an operating system intended both for regular users and
content developers, denoted with the Projector (or Standalone) and Debugger name suffixes,
respectively. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash Professional
authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other Macromedia and third party tools. Flash
Player was created by Macromedia and now developed and distributed by Adobe Systems after its
acquisition.
Flash Player supports vector and raster graphics, 3D graphics, an embedded
scripting language called ActionScript executed in ActionScript Virtual Machine,
and streaming of video and audio. ActionScript is based on ECMAScript, and
supports object-oriented code, and may be compared to JavaScript. Flash Player
has a wide user base, with over 90% penetration on internet connected
personal computers, and is a common format for games, animations, and GUIs
embedded into web pages. Adobe Systems, the developer of Adobe Flash
Player, states that more than 400 million of total more than 1 billion connected desktops update to
the new version of Flash Player within six weeks of release.
Adobe Shockwave (formerly Macromedia Shockwave) is a multimedia platform used to add
animation and interactivity to web pages. It allows Adobe Director applications to be published on
the Internet and viewed in a web browser on any computer which has the Shockwave plug-in
installed. It was first developed by Macromedia, and released in 1995 and was later acquired by
Adobe Systems in 2005.
RealPlayer, formerly RealOne Player (and at various times RealAudio Player, RealPlayer, and
RealPlayer G2), is a cross-platform software product created by RealNetworks primarily used for the
playing of recorded media. The media player is compatible with numerous formats within the
multimedia realm, including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of the
proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats. RealPlayer is also
available for other operating systems (OS) and Linux, Unix, Palm OS,
Windows Mobile and Symbian versions have been released.
QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of
handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and
interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well
as Mac OS X Leopard and later operating systems. A more recent version, QuickTime X, is
currently available on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion.