RealAudio

File Format
Name	RealAudio
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Audio and Music RealAudio
Extension(s)	.ra
MIME Type(s)	audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-pn-realaudio
PRONOM	x-fmt/278
Released	1995

RealAudio is set of proprietary audio formats, and related technologies, developed by RealNetworks, Inc. (known as Progressive Networks until 1997).

The term "RealAudio" has a number of subtly-different meanings. This article is mainly about the older file formats that begin with the signature ".ra". For more information, see RealMedia#Disambiguation.

See also

• RealMedia
• RAM (RealAudio)

Identification

The older RealAudio formats begin with bytes 2e 72 61 fd 00. The first three bytes are ASCII ".ra".

See RealMedia#Identification for the newer RealMedia-based formats.

Specifications

• MultiMediaWiki page for RealMedia, includes information about the Real Audio format

Software

• VLC

Sample files

• https://samples.ffmpeg.org/real/RA/

Links

• real.com What is Streaming Media and how does it work?
• Article by former RealNetworks employee about why they did stuff consumers hated (from archive.org)
• RealAudio, AAC and Archivy
• Wikipedia: RealAudio

See also RealMedia#Links.