The More You Know

MIT has an awesome open (e.g. free) set of courses online. Some of these courses include videos of actual course teachings! This is simply amazing and I’ve spend the last few days listening to as many lectures as I can, even if I think I know the material.

The only issue is that the videos are in Real Video format (RV40/44) denoted by the file extension *.rm. The only known way to watch these types of videos to most people is by using Real Player. Since no one actually wants to use/install Real Player what are our choices?

The solution for Linux users are many as there are binary packages all over to obtain/play the *.rm format. For windows users there is only one other option Real Alternative.

However it has one pitfall, it can’t play videos over RSTP. So we are left trying to obtain the full *.rm file (not the RSTP description). However MIT stores these files in some other place that isn’t easily discernible. Never fear though, All Streaming Media has a description of where the real *.rm files are and I wrote a GreaseMonkey script to automatically find and fix all the URLs on the MIT OCW website.

1) Use FireFox
2) Install GreaseMonkey
3) Install this GreaseMonkey script
4) Install Real Alternative
5) Profit!

Special thanks to All Streaming Media!!