RealPlayer 9 on OS/2

Getting Started

ODIN is a working target and its known that RealPlayer is broken on newer ODIN builds. I didn't want to go much in detail but some users reported that build 20020627 is the last known version of ODIN which can run Realplayer. I also wasn't successfull with newer ODIN builds but I kept the ODIN build dated 01/19/02 which runs RP just fine.

I like to use the win32k.sys loader instead of PE.EXE because you can launch win32 programs the same way like any other OS/2 program. There are some requirements to get ODIN with RealPlayer working, its very important to use a current fixed OS/2 system and a sound driver which supports the DirectSound interface from ODIN. This is true for the sbliveos2, C-Media CMI8738 and UniAud(io) driver, for more information see OS/2 Sound driver matrix. In the table below you can find the recommend fixlevel for use with ODIN:

OS/2 Version	OS/2 Warp4 with Fixpak 15 or better
Kernel	current testcase kernel (32bit) and os2krnl.sym for use with win32k.sys
TCP/IP Stack	TCP/IP 4.1 (32bit) with Fixpak UN_2001 or better
video driver	Scitech Display Doctor or SNAP!
sound driver	sound driver with DirectSound support

Install ODIN

This is a short description for the ODIN installation (ODIN build 01/19/02). On request I can send you this version, all required DLLs are included. On default you unpack the ODIN ZIP archive in a directory e.g. C:\ODIN. Afterwards you add the system directory C:\ODIN\system32 to the PATH and LIBPATH statements in CONFIG.SYS. The ODIN loader win32k.sys is also enabled with CONFIG.SYS, add the line DEVICE=C:\ODIN\system32\win32k.sys.

For win32k.sys you have to install the latest testcase kernel with kernel symbol file in root of your boot drive, in my setup I used kernel revision 14.096e. Because of the outdated ODIN runtime the included win32k.sys won't recognize newer kernel, but you can easily replace the driver from a newer ODIN build.

To complete the ODIN install run odininst.exe from the ODIN system directory, this will create some windows registry keys, windows directories within the ODIN root and the odin.ini in \odin\system32 directory. Edit the odin.ini file to adjust some settings, enable the DirectSound interface if you have an appropriate driver but disable OS2Look.

[ODINSYSTEM] OS2Look=0 [WINMM] DefVolume=50 DirectAudio=1

Restart the system for changes to take effect.

Install RealPlayer 8 Basic

You are now able to play MP3 and other files from hard disk or live streams from the Internet. However for some unknown reasons you may can't connect to some streaming server or load files from disk.

Create a program object on the WPS with program template, REXX or ..., a RealPlayer icon is available on request. You can also setup RealPlayer as "helper application" in Mozilla, the MIME type settings can be found here. There is one drawback, RP has to be closed before you pass a URL from Mozilla.

Install the RealVideo9 Codec

On Windows you have to use the RealONE player to play RealVideo9 streams but on OS/2 you can't get the RealOne player to work with ODIN.
Theres a way to update RP8 with the required codec, you only have to install it. The codec consist of two dlls, these are drv43260.dll (audio) and rv403260.dll (video), copy them from a RealOne install on Windows to the \Program Files\Common Files\Real\Codecs directory on your RP8 install drive. Then register the new codec in the system registry, you can add the settings by hand or use this registry profile file to add the values, import this profile with the OS/2 Regedit2 registry editor. Keep in mind that all files are located on drive C: in the standard directories. For manual registration you can also use Regedit2, create two new keys called File8 and File9 and the sub-key version, fill in the values below, the complete path of the keys can be seen at the bottom of the screenshot.

Conclusion

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