RealAudio
<tool, communications> A program from Real Media for playing
audio over the
Internet, and the
lossy audio compression format it uses.
The system is implemented as a
client/server architecture. The RealAudio server incorporates an
encoder which compresses sound into RealAudio files.
The client side is a
web browser plug-in or add-on (a recent version of
Internet Explorer apparently has built-in support for RealAudio) which allows the stream of data sent from the server to be uncompressed and output using the normal sound facilities of the computer, such as a
sound card.
A 14.4
KBps or better
modem is required, and a 28.8 KBps connection is recommended for music-quality sound.
Home (http://www.realaudio.com/).