Helix DNA is a project to produce

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

that can play audio and video media in various formats and aid in producing such media. It is intended as a largely

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

digital media framework that runs on numerous

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

s and processors (including mobile phones) and was started by RealNetworks which contributed much of the code. The Helix Community is an open collaborative effort to develop and extend the Helix DNA platform. Helix DNA Client is a software package for multi-platform multi-format media playback. Helix Player is a media player that runs on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

, Solaris,

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian ...

and

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

and uses the Helix DNA Client. The Helix DNA Producer application aids in the production of media files, and Helix DNA Server can stream media files over a network.

Licenses

The code is released in binary and source code form under various licenses, notably the proprietary RealNetworks Community Source License and the

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

software RealNetworks Public Source License. Additionally, the Helix DNA Client and the Helix Player are licensed under the popular

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ulti ...

(GPL) free and open source license. Use of the RDT, the default proprietary Real data transport, and of the

RealVideo RealVideo, or also spelled as Real Video, is a suite of proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks – the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and was at version 10. RealVideo is supporte ...

and

RealAudio RealAudio, or also spelled as Real Audio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fi ...

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

s requires binary components distributed under the Helix DNA Technology Binary Research Use License.

Helix DNA Client

Helix DNA Client powers many digital media applications, including

RealPlayer RealPlayer, formerly RealAudio Player, RealOne Player and RealPlayer G2, is a cross-platform media player (software), media player app, developed by RealNetworks. The media player is compatible with numerous container file formats of the multime ...

for MS Windows, Mac OS and Linux (since version 10), RealPlayer Mobile, and Helix Player. It is used on

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finlan ...

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

and

Sony Ericsson Sony Mobile Communications Inc. ( ja, ソニーモバイルコミュニケーションズ株式会社) was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Ericsson. I ...

mobile phones. According to https://helixcommunity.org, 800 million mobile phones with the Helix client have been shipped since 2004. It is also being used in embedded devices like the

Internet Tablet OS Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to co ...

from

, which is found on the

Nokia 770 The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is a wireless Internet appliance from Nokia, originally announced at the LinuxWorld Summit in New York City on 25 May 2005. It is designed for wireless Internet browsing and email functions and includes software su ...

, N800 and N810 Internet Tablets.

Cingular AT&T Mobility LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless services in the United States. AT&T Mobility is the thi ...

Video is also based on the framework. Other projects that use the Helix framework include RealNetwork's Rhapsody online music service, the

Banshee A banshee ( ; Modern Irish , from sga, ben síde , "woman of the fairy mound" or "fairy woman") is a female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member, usually by screaming, wailing, shrieking, or keening. Her name is ...

and

Amarok Amarok may refer to: Music * Amarok (band), a Spanish progressive rock band * ''Amarok'' (Mike Oldfield album), 1990 * ''Amarok'' (Nargaroth album), 2000 * ''Amarok'', 2010 album by Francisco López (musician) Other uses * Amarok (wolf), in In ...

music players, and MediaReady 4000. Helix DNA also manifests itself as the RealPlayer on Mobile Internet Devices (MID) and on Netbooks. Developers from the Open Source Lab announced in 2007 they would use Helix technologies for content creation applications and collaboration in the One Laptop Per Child project. Helix DNA client contains support for the following media formats: * Audio formats:

Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression. Vorbis is most commonly used in con ...

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New York * American Aviation, a company from Cleveland, ...

AAC+ AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New York * American Aviation, a company from Clevelan ...

, M4A,

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Orig ...

, AMR-NB, AMR-WB,

, WMA,

a-law An A-law algorithm is a standard companding algorithm, used in European 8-bit PCM digital communications systems to optimize, i.e. modify, the dynamic range of an analog signal for digitizing. It is one of two versions of the G.711 standard ...

, u-law and audio containers

AIFF Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices. The format was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988 based on Electronic Arts' Interchange Fil ...

, WAV, AU * Video formats:

Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container ...

, WMV,

H.263 H.263 is a video compression standard originally designed as a low-bit-rate compressed format for videotelephony. It was standardized by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) in a project ending in 1995/1996. It is a member of the H.26x fam ...

, H.264,

VC-1 SMPTE 421, informally known as VC-1, is a video coding format. Most of it was initially developed as Microsoft's proprietary video format Windows Media Video 9 in 2003. With some enhancements including the development of a new Advanced Profile, ...

, H.261, MJPEG and container formats RealMedia file format,

3GP 3GP (3GPP file format) is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones. 3G2 (3GPP2 ...

, 3G2,

AVI Avi is a given name, usually masculine, often a diminutive of Avram, Avraham, etc. It is sometimes feminine and a diminutive of the Hebrew spelling of Abigail. People with the given name include: * Avi (born 1937), Newbery award-winning Americ ...

, ASF * Description formats: SMIL, SDP * Image formats:

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and im ...

, GIF, PNG * Protocols: RTSP, RTP,

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

Multicast In computer networking, multicast is group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution. Multicast should not be confused wit ...

, RDT

Helix DNA Client for Android

Helix DNA Client for Android provides an HLS, MPEG-DASH, Verimatrix DRM and Microsoft PlayReady DRM media player for Android 2.2 to latest devices. Supporting H.264 and AAC codecs with Adaptive Bit Rate support (H.264 / AAC) including audio only. Armv7 and Armv6 supported using Stagefright media platform. Helix SDK is supplied as a library which is included within Android Java applications for over the air installation. Helix DNA client contains support for the following media formats: * Audio formats:

* Video formats: H.264,

and container formats RealMedia file format,

* Protocols: HLS (Version 4),

MPEG-DASH Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), also known as MPEG-DASH, is an adaptive bitrate streaming technique that enables high quality streaming of media content over the Internet delivered from conventional HTTP web servers. Similar to Apple ...

( ISO BMFF MP4)

Helix DNA Server

The Helix DNA Server, first released on 22 January 2003, supports streaming of following formats: * RealVideo, RealAudio (.rm, .ra, .rv) * MP3 It supports streaming to any device or application that supports

, RTSP/ RTP, TCP, UDP

unicast Unicast is data transmission from a single sender (red) to a single receiver (green). Other devices on the network (yellow) do not participate in the communication. In computer networking, unicast is a one-to-one transmission from one point in ...

and UDP

multicast In computer networking, multicast is group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution. Multicast should not be confused wit ...

streaming protocols. There is also a commercial version called Helix Server, which has more features and supports more media formats. It was originally called the Helix Universal Server when it was announced in or before 2002.

Helix Player

It is based on the Helix DNA Client. It is available for Linux, Solaris, Symbian and FreeBSD. Users of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X can use RealPlayer, which has similar capabilities.

Helix DNA Producer

It is a media encoding engine for creating streaming broadcasts, on-demand streaming content, and downloadable audio video files. The Helix DNA Producer runs on MS Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.Helix Community
Helix Producer Category FAQ
Retrieved on 2009-08-02 The Helix DNA Producer contains output support for the following data types: * RealAudio 10, 8, G2 * RealVideo 10, 9, 8, 7, G2 *

Ogg Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression. Vorbis is most commonly used in conjun ...

Developers who want

encoding can license the code from RealNetworks for a fee. There is also an add-on package for Helix DNA Producer SDK with

or aacPlus encoding support. Helix DNA Producer is also available in a commercial, closed-source version - RealProducer Plus for MS Windows and Linux.RealProducer Plus Specifications
, Retrieved on 2009-08-02

References

External links

* {{Compression software Free media players Linux media players Multimedia frameworks Symbian software RealNetworks