Do I have to use RealNetworks "RealPlayer" to play your videos? I read on the Internet somewhere that RealPlayer is not to be trusted.

I'm having a problem placing an order at our video store? CONTACT ZENO

You say there is a downloadable "free" player to watch the videos. All I see is one for $30.00!

Question: Why do you only feature US aircraft videos?  What about copyright?

Question: I am a serious gamer. Will RealPlayer hurt my frame rates, even if it is turned off?

Question: I have heard that the RealPlayer is "spyware." Is this true?

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F A Q

Question: Why do you show most of your videos in the RealVideo format?

"My Brother/Son/Geeky Friend/IT Guy told me the Windows Media Player/QuickTime Player is way better and more reliable."

Answer: In fact, the "experts" are unanimous in picking the RealVideo 10 format for best quality video playback. That is the number one reason why I use it. I have been following web streaming video technology since it's inception. I have almost 25 hours of digitally encoded video on my site that I encode myself, and I have done many direct "A/B/C" comparisons between RealVideo, QuickTime, and Windows Media. RealVideo has won the quality test every time, especially at the low bandwidths I have to use on my site. The video quality on my site would be significantly degraded if I had encoded everything for Windows Media or QuickTime. Any video format looks good in full screen, broadcast quality broadband, but that is cost prohiibative. RealVideo 10 is simply the best quality streaming media format for the bit rate we can aford to broadcast.

Having said all that, I have recently added some Windows Media clips and will probably be adding some Quicktime clips in the future so first timers who roll into the Drive-In for a quick look can get a taste of the films without downloading a new player. (Back to the top)

Question: You say there is a downloadable "free" player to watch the videos. All I see on RealNetworks web site is one for $30.00!

Answer: As a for profit business, Real Networks would really like to sell you the $30.00 player, rather than give away a free one. That's why they emphasize the premium player on the download page. But, look carefully, and you will always also find a small link to a "free" or "basic" player on the same page. That is the one they give away. And The RealAlternative Player is also free and easy to find. (Back to the top)

Question: Why do you only feature US aircraft videos?  What about copyright?

Answer: Believe me, there is nothing I would like to do more than adding Allied and Axis aircraft to the Drive-In. But....

Availability. The only surviving pilot training film/videos I have found are for American aircraft. I think this is probably due to a combination of the incredible instructional output of WWII Hollywood, fairly good archiving here in the US, and the lack of production (or destruction) of such films abroad.Hollywood cranked out thousands of instructional films during the war, and the US government compiled tens of thousands of detailed manuals for just about every piece of government issue equipment. While there was no concerted effort at the time to preserve these artifacts for future generations, shear volume of production combined with bureaucratic filing excesses have ensured the random survival of a significant number of such materials.On the other hand, good source materials from Axis and Allied sources are sparse indeed -- at least here in the US. The only German pilot training film I have seen excerpted in documentaries is one for the ME-262 -- in German, of course. I have not seen a copy of it available for sale commercially. Someday, I may have the National Archives in Washington make me a copy of the copy of the 262 film they have, but for now, that's too expensive for our meager budget.

Copyright. All the original films that the videos on my site are taken from are, under US law because of age and or origin, "in the public domain" and therefore royalty free. That is the only way I could afford to post them and that "public domain" status is a prerequisite for all the material on my site. That limits the universe of what I can show.That means that, contrary to the suggestions I occasionally get, I can't just video tape a program about the Bf-109 off the Discovery Channel, digitize it into real video, and post it on my site. Even if the Discovery Channel allowed this, their royalty charges would be cost prohibitive.

I can and do copyright my RealVideo encoded and DVD versions of the films so they can't be freely copied or redistributed, but those copyrights are only on my particular digitally encoded files and the restored and re-edited videos on our DVDs, not on the original archival films. So, even though the original films are public domain, the videos on this web site and on our DVDs cannot be copied or redistributed in any way without our permission. We license our footage for a reasonable fee, which is much less expensive than having your own copies of the originals made from the National Archives.

Films seized from the Axis are probably also in the public domain, but other than those "Marching through Poland" type newsreels, not a lot has turned up. Copyright laws in Britain are different from the US, so even if I could find a Spit film, I might not be able to show it.

If you know where I can obtain a copy of an aircraft video that meets all the above criteria, please contact Zeno

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Question: I am a serious gamer. Will RealPlayer or RealAlternative player slow my frame rates, even if it is turned off?

• I have occasionally heard from gamers who are concerned that RealPlayer might slow down frame rates and game performance, even if it has not been launched. I have done a fair amount of testing on this on many flight sims I use and have never detected a significant difference in FPS with a properly installed RealPlayer. As a gamer myself, I occasionally go through that "get every last fps from this slow %&$* box" phase. I have never found the RealPlayer to be a problem in game performance. IMO, the occasional whines you hear from gamers about RealPlayers are a combo mindlessly repeated Net myth and blaming some unrelated dweeby miss configuration done by the user himself on the RealPlayer. It's amazing how badly us gamers can screw things up in the search for that last speck of performance <G>.
• If you are still concerned, turn off the automatic features/preferences in the player like auto updates, news headlines, special offers or messaging that could conceivably run in the background. All automatic communication features on the RealNetworks RealPlayer are user defeatable. Even better, The RealAlternative Player has no communication features at all. If you are a FPS freak and paranoid about getting every last frame out of your system, I would recommend it.
• Remember, if you are uncomfortable installing the Real Networks RealPlayer, please try The RealAlternative Player media plater instead. This bare bones independent freeware program plays the RealVideo files on my site just fine, but has nothing to do with RealNetworks.
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Question: I have heard that the RealPlayer has "spyware." Is this true?

There is a fair amount of miss-information out on the Internet about RealPlayer & "spyware." Most of it is based on an ultimately benign error in judgement commited more than 10 years ago by RealNetworks that was quickly rectified.

• First, don't confuse the RealPlayer itself with some of the *optional* software downloads RealNetworks have offered for Windows users like "RealDownload" and "Comet Cursor." Those are separate applications that have included non-defeatable adware. I tried both and didn't think much of either.
• Second, like many web pages, the RealPlayer does include some reporting feature cookies, a.k.a. "spyware,' but these are easily defeatable by the user in the Preferences/Options control panel.
• As a general rule, I would recommend that you carefully go through the preferences panel features of any new piece of 'net aware software you install on your computer and carefully examine your options.
• Remember, The RealAlternative Player has no communication features at all. So if you are uncomfortable installing the Real Networks RealPlayer and are worried about spyware, please try the "RealAlternative" media player instead.

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