RealMedia Analyzer FAQ


v. 0.00.04 (rma v. 0.30.00)

Written by Alexey Pavluchenko (alexeysp@yahoo.com)
Last updated 17.May.2003


0. Q. I don't understand it at all. What is a "command line"? What
      should I do with it? What the heck?!
   A. Command line is a place where you type in the operating system
      commands. If you're asking this question then most likely you
      are a Windows user. By design, in Windows command line is hidden
      from user. It's not a bug, it's a feature - because, you know,
      Windows is made to be easy to use, and of course it is much
      easier to type in the OS commands when there's no command line
      available. Ok, jokes aside. There are two regular ways to get
      a command line prompt in Windows (I'm talking about Win9x here,
      the same should apply to the later Windows avatars): 1) from
      "Start" menu, choose "Run..." - the thing you get is actually
      a command line prompt; 2) from "Start" menu choose "Programs"
      and then "MS-DOS Prompt". You will get a console window with the
      command interpreter running in it. However, I'd recommend you
      to get some Win32 file manager which gives easy access to the
      command line, like FAR (www.rarlab.com) or Total Commander
      (former Windows Commander, available at www.ghisler.com). The
      two mentioned are shareware, but in fact you may find some free
      alternatives, just ask around at the appropriate forums or
      newsgroups.

1. Q. rma does not understand wildcards, how do I process multiple files?
   A. Use shell's loop command. For command.com it will be something like
      for %i in (*.rm) do rma -cv "%i" >> rma.log

2. Q. When I try to fix the file with -f command, rma says something like
      "Could not open file. Error 255: Undefined error".
   A. The file you're trying to fix probably has "read only" attribute set.

3. Q. When running rma on files created with -s or -x commands, it says
      something like "Warning: some sections are corrupted or missing".
      What's up?
   A. It is normal. It's because newly created files do not have an index
      section.

4. Q. Seek with position bar does not work with files created by rma with
      -s, -x or -j commands! What's wrong?
   A. Nothing is wrong. Newly created files do not have an index section.
      You have to explicitly build index with -i command (with -j command
      you also may use 'i' option).

5. Q. When autofixing, rma seems to be stuck at one packet and only can be 
      stopped by Ctrl-C.
   A. Disable timestamp checking with -ft command.
      Note: to fix this file you will probably need to cut out broken part
      with -xdt or -xdtk command and remultiplex it.
   A. For rma 0.23.00 and later: decrease maximum allowed timestamp
      difference with -fd command.

6. Q. Files processed by rma can not be loaded by RealMedia editor (GUI
      version). Why?
   A. Actually, it's a bug in rmedtgui, not in rma. Prior versions of rma
      used version 0 of the file headers, while newer versions of
      RealProducer use version 1. It seems that rmedtgui does not check
      header's version but always assumes it to be 1 (or later). In rma
      0.30.00 it is possible to explicitly specify which header version
      to use in the resulting RealMedia file.

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