A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the folks at Real, to get a sneak peek at their newest Mac player, Real Player SP. The first question from John Schussler, Real's Group Program Manager, was whether I had used the previous version. Frankly, I wasn't even sure if I had Real Player installed. I have a feeling I might not be alone in that sentiment. A new feature set might just make you take a second look at Real.

Real Player SP for Mac is being released in beta today, and as you would expect, it's a multi-format player. Unexpected, are new media conversion tools. With Real Player and Real Player converter running in your dock, when visiting a site with, Flash, for example, you can quickly download and save the file. This was once the turf of sketchy utilities from small developers. Additionally and most usefully, the program will also convert those files for a wide range of devices.

Visit a YouTube page for example, and the embedded video will show up in the file list within the Real Player Downloader window. You can then choose to download the file and convert it. The program uses a device model, where you pick the device you want to watch the video on, rather than changing a bunch of settings. You can also choose to convert only the audio, if you find a video podcast that you'd rather simply listen to than watch.

In our tests across three sites, four of five videos successfully encoded to either AppleTV or iPhone format, and all five downloaded successfully. (One clip created an error in the iPhone version, but encoded to AppleTV properly.) Conversion time took about 1.5 times the length of the original clip.

While there are plenty of device presets, and there is a custom option, this is an h.264/263 tool focused on media consumption, not creation: you cannot save the clips as DV, AVCHD, or other formats that would be conducive to editing into longer projects. Another minor issue: Embedded clips tend to be given the name of the site on which they appear, rather than the clip name, meaning it can get confusing to figure out which clip you wanted. Grabbing the video directly from YouTube or Blip for example, names the clip properly.

If you've been following Real for a long time, You might remember the paid "SuperPass" option for the player, and indeed that's the origin of the "SP" in the name. However, Schussler says these days those letters stand for social and portable, as you can take the content with you, and also share it immediately on facebook, twitter, etc. More importantly those features are now free.

You probably have a media player you're quite happy with, but if you want to save videos you find online for personal playback on your phone or other H.264/263 device, Real Player is a simple, unobstrusive way to do it, and it works across browsers.

There was something missing from this year's Super Bowl. No, it wasn't a Manning; there was one of those. It wasn't played out GoDaddy ads, there were more than enough of those. No, missing this year? Digital Media ads.

In the past we've seen Apple partner with Pepsi for music giveaways, buymusic.com take on Apple, and Microsoft's Zune. It would've been logical to expect Amazon to push the Kindle, or Barnes & Noble to promote the nook. No Droid ad, not even a hulu ad. What does it mean? Has Apple conquered digital media so thoroughly, and has the e-reader industry so frozen in their tracks, that no one bothered to compete?

With the exception of FLO tv which is only a competitor to Apple in a vague sense, and an ad for fifth/sixth place Boost mobile, (and we'll throw in the google search ad) it was the first Super Bowl in maybe ten years to not feature any direct competitor to Apple. Is it the biggest sign of Apple dominance, or merely the calm before the storm?