Off the Clock: RealPlayer SP downloads and converts web videos (even SFW ones!)
There are still glimpses of the past, of course. The installer does offer a toolbar (at least it's Google and not Ass...er, Ask). It also offers the pro version and a 14 day trial of something, but I can't tell you specifically what it was. Instead of reading, I quickly located the "leave me the hell alone" button and closed the screen.
The plugin works with all major browsers, which is great for me since I could be using IE, Firefox, Opera, or Chrome at any given time. RealPlayer recognizes just about any embedded Flash video - not just the ones on major sites like some downloaders do.
That means you can grab videos from other sites that might not be quite as SFW as YouTube. You know which ones I mean - they typically include either "you" or "tube" in the name, just with other words mixed in. Mostly words like "porn."
To cap it all off, RealPlayer SP also does mobile conversions to iPhone, Blackberry, the G1, PSP, and many others. Even in the free version the conversion quality is very good. For iPhone and iPod Touch conversions, the video is automatically zapped into your iTunes library when complete.
The app does other things, too. The player and media manager are actually fairly good as well. All in all, this is a far cry from the craptacular versions that made me walk away from Real years ago.
