[tlug] playing real video with an open source player

[ben konrath <ben@example.com>]

Hi y'all,

I'm trying to find an open source real video player for linux. My
school, the University of Toronto, is having an open source / free
software conference and are only putting the archives up in .mov, .rm
and .wmv formats. I asked them why they weren't using any open source
codecs and they told me that real video was open source.

Here's where I'm confused. I have found other references to the real
codecs being open but when I went to download the client from real, I
only got a binary. I know that I had to install windows .dll files to
see some other .rm files with mplayer, but neither solution is open
source. So is real video actually open source?

If not, is there a video format that I should recommend to them? I was
thinking the xvid codec or theora, but any thoughts / sugestions are
welcome.

Cheers, Ben