One Resource For Your Questions

Many companies and organizations have connected their local area networks, wide area networks, and the Internet together in what is commonly referred to as a global area network. While extremely beneficial in terms of communication and access to information, this interconnectivity can expose a company's network and mission critical information to unauthorized entry and access. A firewall is used to prevent unauthorized accesses.

Firewalls are security devices used to protect companies from unauthorized access to their servers. Many companies use firewalls to control access to their networks and proprietary information. The firewall's role is to ensure that all communication between an organization's network and the Internet conform to the organization's security policies.

• Instructions for RealPlayer G2
• Instructions for RealPlayer 4.0 & 5.0
• Instructions for RealAudio Player 3.0

AOL and other common ISPs

If you are connecting to the Internet via AOL, MSN, Earthlink, Sympatico, Mindspring, Geocities, Sprynet, Compuserve, Prodigy Internet, or another common service provider, you should not need to configure your Player for use with a firewall. If you are having problems reaching most RealAudio or RealVideo content, contact RealNetworks technical support.

HTTP Proxy/Firewall Support:

If you access the Internet through a proxy server (through a firewall) you will need to make the following settings in order to get HTTP streaming to work.

1. Start the Windows Media Player from Start/Programs/Microsoft Windows Media Player.
2. Select File/Properties/Advanced.
3. Verify that at the bottom of the page the HTTP option is checked.
4. Under HTTP, check the Use a proxy for HTTP streaming option.
5. In the Server field, enter the name of your proxy server (Note that the proxy server setting should match your browser's proxy server setting. For example, Proxy Server settings under Options or Network Options in your browser).
6. In the Port field enter 80.
7. Select OK and close the Windows Media Player.
8. Windows Media HTTP streaming through your proxy is now enabled.

If you continue to experience problems, try this. With the Windows Media player open:

1. Go to View, click on Play Settings.
2. Click on advanced.
3. At the top, under Buffering, select the second option Buffer and enter 30 in the box.
4. Under Protocols, unselect everything but the http option, then click ok.

This should handle the firewall issues. The 30 second buffering will take a little longer to load, but will assure virtually no dropouts.

There are a couple of causes for this. Most often this happens if the codec is not installed or sound card drivers are bad or missing.

1. Play the Windows Media content.
2. While it is playing right-click on the Control Bar or the video window if the controls are not visible (the Control bar is the gray bar with the VCR-style buttons and the slider control).
3. Choose the Codecs tab.
4. Check to see that YES appears in the installed column. If YES is displayed, go to the next section on this problem. If you see NO, then you do not have the proper codecs installed to either view or hear the content. Check with the author or host of the content for the source of the Codes they are using and install the proper codecs.

You can also install mpfull.exe, which contains several popular codecs, and attempt to resolve this issue by uninstalling the existing player, rebooting your machine, and installing mpfull.exe.

If you get hissing, pops, static or garbled sound, this is most frequently caused by either damaged codecs, sound card drivers, improperly configured sound devices, or using the wrong driver for your audio hardware/operating system.

1. Open Sound Recorder.
2. Open the Microsoft Sound (found in the Media directory under your Windows directory).
3. Play the sound. If it sounds OK, you can proceed. If it does not play, check the directions for installing your sound device.
4. Choose File/Save As.
5. In the Save As dialog box, choose Format and pick the same Codec and sampling rate that the source is using.
6. Click OK to accept the new format and save the file under a different name or in a different directory (do not overwrite the existing file).
7. Open the file saved in the previous step.
8. Play the file. If it does not sound OK, check the drivers you are using to ensure that they are the most recent and the proper drivers for your sound card.

If the sound does not play properly in steps 3 and 8, you need to check that your sound card drivers are installed, that your sound device is configured properly, and that you are using the proper drivers for your Operating System. If the sound plays in steps 3 and 8, check the audio source or consult the content author to determine if this is a content authoring issue.

This has been reported in various configurations along with the following symptoms:

• The level indicator on the Volume control applet indicated that the feed was overloading the audio system (level into the red zone on the VU meter).
• Turning down the master and wave volume controls did NOT correct the problem.
• The audio distortion was in both the audio-only samples as well as the audio of a video feed.

In all cases that have been investigated, it was determined to be caused by unsupported sampling rates on particular hardware devices and/or improper or misconfigured sound card drivers.