The music on Elephant Tape has been encoded for use with the Real Audio G2 RealPlayer, available as a free download.

Real Audio has released FINAL PC and Mac versions of the free G2 player. You will get an error message if you try to play these G2 clips with an older player.

If you obtain an "Error Message" when attempting to play a file (i.e. "Error 79"), visit Real Audio's Explanation of Error Messages. There is a section which provides diagnostic information for each specific error message.

About G2

The most recent version of the Real Audio RealPlayer is the G2 , also known as Real Player 6. The previous version was RealPlayer 5. The new player is called G2 instead of RealPlayer 6, but it will still play all Real Audio and Real Video clips recorded for earlier versions of the RealPlayer.

There are now several versions of G2 RealPlayer available. Netscape Navigator 4.6 comes with a G2 RealPlayer built into it. And Real is offering several different models for that are available as free downloads. Their most advanced model includes a Real Jukebox, which can also play MP3s, WAVs, and CDs from your Cd-ROM. One useful feature of the Real Jukebox is a slider control that allows you to instantly move anywhere within a CD track, instead of having to hold down a button to scan through a selection.

The new G2 system offers significantly better sound quality than did the old Real 5 system. However, the system requirements for G2 are higher than those of Real 5. Real Audio maintains that the minimum system requirements for playing audio with the basic free version of the G2 RealPlayer are a 90 Mhz 586 processor with 16 Mb of Ram. The requirements are higher if you use the $30 Plus version of the G2 player.

You must have a G2 player installed in your system to access the tracks marked as G2, or you will get an "Error: Not a Real Audio document" message.

Each Real Audio track is presented as streaming or as a download. If your net connection is 40 Kb per second or faster, click on "Streaming" to hear the music instantly without having to wait for the file to download. The RealPlayer will begin to play the track as the file data is downloading. In some instances internet congestion or a slow server may delay the flow of data to the Real Player while it is playing a track, and this will cause the sound to stutter or stop.

E Tape also presents tracks in our streaming AutoPlay Jukebox. If you click on the Jukebox link, all the tracks on the page will automatically play. If you want to skip a track, under the "Clip" menu of the RealPlayer you can move to another track. Sometimes a track in a playlist may be temporarily down, and you will get an Error message. You can just click "OK" on the message box to move on to the next clip, and you can also use the "Clip" menu to skip any clip that stalls during play.

If your net connection is slower than 40 Kbps, click on "Download", and then play the track after the entire file has downloaded.

You can always try to stream a track. If your connection is not fast enough, the sound may stutter. The track will play smoothly if you download it as a local file. It may be more convenient to download a track if you intend to replay it several times. The streaming tracks have to be restreamed each time you want to replay them.

Most of our tracks are encoded to play back at the rate of 32 Kbps. Data has to stream into the RealPlayer at a faster rate in order to play without stuttering. Those with net connections faster than 40 Kbps will be able to instantly stream the tracks, but the sound may stutter for those on slower connections. The tracks will play smoothly if they are downloaded and then played as a local file. In some instances, the server that stores a track may not be able to deliver the data fast enough for a track to stream without stuttering. It is also possible for a server to break off a track as it is being downloaded. When playing back a broken file that is stored on hard disc, the sound will suddenly cut off, but the minutes and seconds counter will continue to advance in silence. If you download the track again and receive the entire file, it will play all the way through.