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Download videos on Mac with these RealPlayer alternatives

Mac users may have noticed problems when trying to download videos using RealPlayer, a lot of which can be attributed to confusion between RealPlayer Gold and RealPlayer SP. Despite all the confusion, however, RealPlayer downloader for Mac stopped working altogether after numerous incompatible updates to the software and to Mac’s OS X. Fortunately, there are video downloading alternatives for Mac which work much better than RealPlayer to help you download videos. I’ll go through three alternatives below.

MacTubes

MacTubes lets you download YouTube videos onto your Mac, a function which never worked with RealPlayer downloader. MacTubes downloads YouTube video files directly to your desktop, where you can create playlists based on what you’ve downloaded or what videos you’ve searched.

If you’d rather not download Youtube videos but still want the convenience of watching them from your desktop, MacTubes also functions as a handy YouTube player that lets you create playlists and subscribe to video channels to watch directly from your desktop.

MacX YouTube Download

Designed specifically for Macs, MacX YouTube Download works as a separate, YouTube-only browser window. You can download YouTube videos and save them as FLV, MP4, AVI, MP3 or HD files. All you have to do is search for a video in the browser window and hit the ‘Download Now’ button in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen.

The ‘Preferences’ option in the top-left hand corner of the screen lets you specify where you want to save files, in which format you want to save them (and in HD where possible), and also checks for automatic updates.

Flash Video Downloader

If you plan on downloading a lot of content, Flash Video Downloader is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that downloads videos from almost any Flash streaming site, including those that require a log-in or have video advertisements. The only requirement of using the tool is that the video be set to Autoplay, meaning that the video must be streaming as its being downloaded. This tool is good if you’re really eager to download videos, as the maximum batch download rate is five videos at one time.

Do you use any other software to download videos on your Mac?

RealPlayer Gold and RealPlayer SP on Mac explained

Remember when Prince went through that phase of changing his name a thousand times? One day he was “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (TAFCAP)”, then he was “The Artist”, then he was “Slave” etc. Well sometimes developers also seem to do their utmost to confuse users with version numbers and names. None more so that RealNetworks who have confused Mac users by changing the name and version number of RealPlayer.

There are two versions of RealPlayer currently available for Mac – RealPlayer Gold and RealPlayer SP. RealPlayer Gold is the original version of RealPlayer which went “Gold” after beta testing was finished between versions 10 to 11. RealPlayer Gold stopped at version 11.0.0.

However after that, confusingly RealNetworks dropped the “Gold” bit and went back to version 1.0 again and re-branded it RealPlayer “SP”.

Even more confusingly however, RealPlayer SP is labeled as version 12.0.0 in the program’s “About” section:

But version 1.0 on the RealNetworks download site:

All this has lead to quite a bit of confusion for Mac users over exactly what version of RealPlayer they should be running. RealPlayer SP is the most recent version but RealPlayer Gold remains very popular because it offers extra features – mainly CD burning – that have been removed in SP and you can still download it here on Softonic even if it’s not on the RealPlayer site.

For those that haven’t upgraded to RealPlayer SP, it’s definitely worth it if you like to transfer videos to your mobile device as RealPlayer Gold doesn’t offer anything like the mobile features you get in SP. However, for those that just need a simple version of RealPlayer with CD burning capabilities, RealPlayer Gold is still more than enough.

RealPlayer 11 soon available in Beta

The beta version of RealPlayer 11 will be available to the public in June. You can enter your email address on the RealPlayer site to be notified the day it is released. So what does this long awaited version have in store for us? We managed to get a hold of the new version 11 and had a quick look around.

The new interface, shiny and dark, looks cleaner than the previous one. Unfortunately though, it seems that Real has gotten rid of the miniplayer view, and only opens the player at a full screen size. The window integrates the basic Real elements like Library, Real Guide, Music, Super Pass and Burn/Transfer. The process bar has been improved and you can drag exactly to the position in the clip that you want.

Cosmetic changes are not the most significant aspects of the new version though. The center point of RealPlayer 11 is downloading online video instantly. As Real puts it on its blog:

On-demand and live streaming and progressive video in the four major formats – Flash, Windows Media, QuickTime and Real – is now downloadable through a very simple download button that temporarily hovers near video content as it plays.

For the time being, “Web Download and Recording” is only supported on Firefox and Internet Explorer. Once you’ve clicked the download button, a progress window will appear to let you keep track of your download. When playing any video in RealPlayer you can also mail the link to a friend or add a rating or comment. The video in playback can also be resized by dragging the screen and you can set 3 different playback speeds. The new RealPlayer will also let you burn media to CD or DVD and is expected to “provide direct transfer to portable devices” in the future. Among the list of models supported are the Nokia 3300, Sony Networks Walkmans and the Rio players, but no sign of iPod or any mobile phone per se.

Naturally though, not all of the new features will be open to the public and you’ll have to dish out for the Plus version if you want to enjoy all the capabilities of version 11.
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