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Quick time and Real Player

14 years ago

My question is: Do I need both Quick time and Real Player on my Laptop? I have Vista, IE 9.0, Microsoft Essentials, etc.... ...and my laptop is running smoothly...because of all the advice I read on this forum and follow. I am just curious to know what you think...Thank you for any information you may have on this subject.

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Comments (6)

ravencajun Zone 8b TX
14 years ago
I personally use and like VLC player which will cover just darn near every type of file type. What you choose to use is up to you.
there are alternatives if you want to keep quicktime like quicktime lite or quicktime alternative same for real player.

or just use one player that does them all

VLC playback Features
VLC
kudzu9
14 years ago
You don't "need" either one. They have nothing to do with your computer running smoothly. They simply handle certain types of video formats you may encounter. As ravencajun points out, VLC (and some other free players) can handle many different formats. There is no problem having a number of video players installed on your computer as they don't take up a huge amount of space on your hard drive, and they don't typically interfere with one another even when they are both running. You just want to make sure that they don't run at startup because having programs running in the background that you don't always need slows down your computer's performance. As I recall, when you install RealPlayer and QuickTime, they are automatically set to run at startup, and you have to go into the settings for each one to toggle that off.

Now, why would you want more than one video player? Because not all players play all formats, or one player may occasionally have a problem playing something it's supposed to be able to play due to some quirk in a particular video. So, sometimes if I can't get something to play right with one player, I'll try to open it up with a different one.
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Cricketm
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you....Kuduz9 ....your explantation was great. How do I go about and toggle off....??You said "As I recall, when you install RealPlayer and QuickTime, they are automatically set to run at startup, and you have to go into the settings for each one to toggle that off."....please advise....Thank you
kudzu9
14 years ago
cricketm-
It may depend on the version you have installed, but it will be something like this:

For Quicktime:
Start Quicktime; click on Edit / Preferences / QT Preferences / Advanced. There should be a checkbox relating to Show Tray Icon. I believe that, if it's checked, the program begins at Startup; if it's not checked, it doesn't.

For RealPlayer:
Follow the directions in the link below...which are generally good for stopping other things too. Don't uncheck things if you don't know what they are, but obvious things like iTunes, or Adobe Acrobat can be unchecked. This is also another way of stopping QuickTime from running at start up if my directions above don't work for you.

When you prevent things like RealPlayer from starting up, you do no harm. If you need them, you can always start them like any program, or sometimes clicking on a video will cause the program to start up. All you are sacrificing is having to wait a couple of seconds longer for something to start playing. But by not letting it run every time you boot up, you are freeing precious resources. Sometimes I don't use any video player for days, so I don't want it sitting there occupying my RAM on the off-chance that I'll be using it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Prevent RealPlayer Running at Startup
Cricketm
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you Kudzu9....you are always so helpful and clear with instructions. Thank you again...I appreciate it.
kudzu9
14 years ago
Thanks for the feedback. I remember what it was like years ago when I was learning this stuff!

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