Real audio to disk

[John Lapeyre <lapeyre@physics.arizona.edu>]

   (Please CC me)
   1. Can I save real audio (streamed)  to disk, for later playback ?
      Many reasons for this. eg, avoid the annoying buffering on a slow 
      link.
   2.  Are there any tools available for realaudio (conversion programs,
      etc.) other than the player availble from the company ?
   3. Why do half of the sites fail to play ? (Player comes up but,
      shows 0.00 seconds of content, or player comes up, does not draw
      widgets and hangs.) (Just because the player is "alpha" or
       can I get the content with another tool ?)
    I am using the RH rpm, and Joey H's debian installer (If you
    download the deb, and try to install it, it will fail and tell you
   how to get the rpm and how to install it)

    4)  Does the fact that content providers use this proprietary format and
     that we a are stuck with one piece-of-crap,  sourceless, tool really
    suck ?

-- 
John Lapeyre <lapeyre@physics.arizona.edu>,  lapeyre@debian.org
Tucson,AZ     http://www.physics.arizona.edu/~lapeyre