Real.com is the home of Real Player, one of the most popular multimedia players on the Web. Like the video and music player, the website is professionally designed and easy to operate. Real.com features links to movies, music, games as well as the latest free downloads for the Real Player.

Though much of the content on the site is free to use, the site vigorously promotes Super Pass, a subscription feature that provides access to games, movies and other multimedia. Additionally, the Rhapsody, a music application, is another subscription product featured on the homepage.

Features

The site features a wealth of multimedia options. First and foremost, you can check out the Real Player updates and make sure your PC is running the most recent Real Player. The download is free and finishes quickly.

Kids and the young-at-heart will want to click on the gaming software, Real Arcade, at the bottom right of the homepage. The download is free and a promotional offer gets you two free games as well. After that, a subscription is required to continue playing.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much – other than the player download – that’s free on Real.com. It’s basically a catalogue for the products they offer. If you’re looking for good multimedia it’s great, otherwise it’s a fairly boring site.

Tips & Tricks

The Rhapsody MP3 store is a must for any IPod fanatic. Download rates are reasonable and the sound quality is what you’d expect from Real – excellent.

If you aren’t really fond of the Real.com homepage – and we weren’t – check out the link to Real Guide at the top left of the page. This takes you to a second version of Real.com which is more appealing and contains the same features.

A must-see is the Real Networks Blog. The link to the blogs is at the top right of the homepage. The blogs highlight all the latest happenings at Real and excellent tips for enjoying your experiences with their products.

Newbie Friendly Rating

The site is easy to use, so it fits the primary criterion for being “Newbie Friendly.” What we didn’t enjoy was the sales pitch feel of the site. Next to nothing is given away at Real.com. Promotional trials of all the featured products are offered, but unless you have money on hand you want to spent, you won’t have much fun at Real.com. We’d give Real.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 5.

Truveo.com has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “the best web-wide video search engine I’ve seen.” That’s exactly what Truveo is; a huge library of web videos from full-length movies, to television shows to sports highlights and music videos. A simple navigation bar at the top of the homepage takes the user to one of several video topics.

The quality of the videos is terrific. The videos are shown in a screen that takes up about one-quarter of the monitor, similar to what Youtube provides. What sets Truveo apart from other video search engines is the aforementioned resolution and overall quality of the videos. Other video sites may show videos that are grainy and distorted, but Truveo only archives videos of the highest quality.

Truveo started as a commercial video search engine that worked with companies such as Microsoft and AOL. In 2006, they made the site open to the general public and quickly become one of the top online video search sites on the net.

Features

Truveo presents a user-friendly format to the beginner. The homepage is easily navigated and a search bar at the top of the homepage makes finding a specific video painless.

Links at the far right of the homepage list categories of videos as well as specific television stations that are home to popular shows. If a user missed their favorite show last week, you are guaranteed to find it on Truveo.

The site also features a “popular today” section towards the bottom of the homepage. That provides users with quick links to the videos that are the hottest requests for that day.

The videos operate much in the same way they do at other video sites. The player clearly displays volume and play controls and allows the user to scroll forward and backward throughout the video.

Tips & Tricks

New users will want to check out the Frequently Asked Questions section at the bottom of the homepage. The section provides tips to parents on how to set filters to prevent underage users from browsing the site’s adult content.

Newbie Friendly Rating

Truveo presents a self-explanatory format and is very easy to navigate. Download times can be a bit slow at times and somewhat frustrating. Overall, the experience at Truveo is similar to using other video search sites. What sets Truveo apart from the others is the overall quality of the videos. We give Truveo.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 8.