This may be a dumb question (I’m new to ibiblio) but here goes. I’m trying to listen to some things that are said to be hosted on ibiblio. But the links offered allow me to download a .ram file, and there everything stops! I’m talking about the links on Hollerin' History
Can anyone help me?
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Not a bad question at all! I’ll let somebody else speak to the history of Real Media player, .ram and .rm files, etc. For now I’ll stick to playing your downloaded files. The best answer I have for you is to get the VLC Media Player from videolan.org. With that installed, you should be able to open those files and play them locally. Some of them won’t play, and you’ll get a warning window with an error like:
Connection failed VLC could not connect to "audio.metalab.unc.edu:554".
Your input can't be opened VLC is unable to open the MRL 'pnm://audio.metalab.unc.edu/hollerin/noise/hearsome.rm'. Check the log for details.
At some point in the future work might happen to make this less awkward, but until then, you can take everything after the “edu” and copy it, then put https://www.ibiblio.org at the front. So in the above example error, your link would be https://www.ibiblio.org/hollerin/noise/hearsome.rm, and if you have VLC installed, you should get a prompt to play that (and actually hear some)!
I tried VLC first, then installed Real Player thinking that might work better, but it didn’t. What I get is a notice that I am opening: 5note.ram which is: RealPlayer Presentation (52 bytes) from: http://www.ibiblio.org.
I am given the choice of Open with (RealPlayer, Audacity, or "something else), or saving the file. If I open it, nothing plays (I get an error message similar to what you described).
If I save the file, it is a 1 kilobyte file. Somewhere along the line something told me it was a link to a playlist, but I don’t have the files on my computer, and apparently it is not connecting to ibiblio or anything else, so…nothing plays. (I can put together a screenshot of the error messages if you like.) I wonder if I have a firewall blocking something? Can YOU open the files?
Hi Martha,
I was able to open the files by using this link
https://www.ibiblio.org/hollerin/noise/hearsome.rm
to download the .rm file, and then opening that with the VLC player. I get a 53 kilobyte file.
Thank you, sarahwh! It looks as if it’s a several-step process for me:
a) I need to first download the .ram files,
b) then try to open one in VLC, That will let me download the .rm file to my computer.
c) Then I have to plug each of THOSE (.rm files) into the expression (e.g., https://www.ibiblio.org/hollerin/noise/duet.rm) and “Open with” my player!
It actually took me awhile to get the sequence all figured out - but between you and cmpalmer, I’ve done it.
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