RealNetworks Inc. today announced that Helix DNA Client source code is now available to developers in the Helix Community. The core engine powering the award-winning RealOne Player, the Helix DNA Client, is now available for software developers, consumer electronics companies, and mobile phone manufacturers to use in building their own digital media applications and products. For the first time ever, developers can easily access the code of a commercial grade media player, integrate support for the industry-leading audio and video formats, RealAudio and RealVideo, as well as other formats, and create a robust media player for their own specific needs.

Over 2,000 developers and companies have joined the newly created Helix Community since July to create digital media products and applications on a standardized platform. With server, player and encoder code, the Helix Platform will enable companies to create applications that interoperate and support a wide variety of media types. The Helix DNA Client being added to the community today includes Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X-based clients that developers can use to support a wide variety of medial formats including RealAudio, RealVideo, MPEG-4, MP3, H.263 and 3GPP formats for PCs, mobile, and consumer electronic devices. Available for both open source and community development projects, licensing terms for commercial use are more affordable than the announced MPEG-4 licensing. Server and encoder code will be added to the Community later this year.

Helix DNA Client Source Code

The Helix DNA Client code in the Helix Community includes media players designed for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems. Twelve Community-based projects currently underway using the Helix DNA Client code include ports to the Palm and Symbian operating systems as well as creation of browser plug-ins for Mozilla and Opera. For a full listing of code elements and projects, please visit www.helixcommunity.org. Some specific elements included in the source code include:

• Example user interfaces for Windows and Motif
  
• Cross-platform, multi-project Python Build System in source code
  
• Support for MP3 (made available in source code form) and the mandatory 3GPP codecs, NB-AMR and H.263 (H.263 made available in source code form)
  
• RealAudio and RealVideo codecs in object code form
  
• RTSP, RTP, RTCP and SDP network playback
  
• Multicast, UDP and TCP support
  
• RTSP/RTP cloaking support
  
• Local file and multiple source playback
  
• Multiple audio/video source mixing
  
• HTTP authentication and Proxy Auto Configure support
  
• RTSP authentication and Proxy Auto Configure support
  
• More than 600 exposed APIs for building media playback applications as well as custom data types

See www.helixcommunity.org for license and pricing details.

About Helix

Helix is a platform and a community for the standardization and expansion of digital media. The Helix DNA platform consists of source code developed by RealNetworks over the past eight years for the creation, delivery and playback of digital media, as well as a set of interfaces for building media-enabled applications. Helix Community members use this source code to build media-capable products with industry-leading technology, intellectual property and commonly used interfaces. The Helix Community offers source code of the Helix platform under commercial community and open source licenses available at www.helixcommunity.org. The Helix Community software infrastructure is powered by the CollabNet SourceCast environment. RealNetworks has also released a family of products built on top of the Helix Platform, including the Helix Universal Server available at www.realnetworks.com/products.

 
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