Frequently Asked Questions

       Maybe.  The most frequent cause of problems in watching
       broadcasts is the use of older, buggier client players.
       Therefore, we strongly recommend upgrading your player
       if you have anything older than Real Player 8 or Windows
       Media Player 7, and have the ability to install software
       on your computer.  You can upgrade your Real player here,
       and the latest Windows Media Player can be found here.

        We suggest that you install the latest stable version
        of the media player you prefer, and disregard 'Release
        Candidates', 'beta', and 'alpha' versions of both Real
        and Microsoft products, as they often contain bugs.
  

       This is almost always the result of firewall configuration issues.
       If your site runs a packet filtering router WITHOUT a proxy,
       ask your network administrator to open TCP ports 554 and 7070.

       For RealPlayer:

       Real uses TCP port 554 (RTSP) or port 80 (HTTP) to try and communicate
       with your computer.  If either port is blocked, it tries the other.  If
       port 80 is being filtered through a proxy, performance will suffer, and
       large delays in buffering and receiving content may result.

       If your site uses a firewall WITH a proxy to access external content, 
       you will want to instruct your player to tunnel everything through
       HTTP, which any site that you can see the web from is allowing.
       Click on View->Preferences... in your RealPlayer, then under the Proxy
       tab's HTTP Proxy options, select "Use My Web Browser's HTTP Proxy".
       Before closing the dialog, select the Transport tab, and under the 
       Network transport items, choose "Use specified transports:", and click
       the RTSP Settings... button.  A dialog box will pop up; select the 
       "Use HTTP Only" option and click OK, then click OK again in the parent.

       Finally, ask your network administrator about using an RTSP 
       proxy or enabling Real proxy support in your existing firewall.
       Adding true RTSP support will enormously improve performance and
       picture quality for streaming presentations, and will decrease the
       amount of bandwidth used to access the content through the Internet.
       Many popular firewall products include a built-in RealMedia proxy,
       and only require enabling the feature.  Have your network administrator
       contact the vendor or consult your firewall's documentation about this.


       For Windows Media (Netshow):

       Windows Media Services uses TCP port 1755 (MMS) or port 80 (HTTP) to
       try and communicate with your computer.  If either port is blocked, it
       will fall back to the other.  Caching or proxying on port 80 will 
       severely impact performance, as it does for Real content, and will 
       result in similar lengthy delays to start and buffer.

       Ask your network administrator to open TCP port 1755, especially if your
       site firewall architecture includes a proxy.  An excellent resource 
       for both Real and Netshow firewall issues can be found here.  If the
       above link does not work, a Microsoft-specific document is available
       on Microsoft's site.