The brief instructions given to those that were solicited for help were as follows ...
We are studying the performance of Internet video played out all over the world. We built a customized video player, called RealTracer, that plays streaming Real.com video clips and measures their performance. We need your help to run RealTracer from your part of the world. To help with this study, you'll need to download RealTracer and run it on your computer. It will take about 5 to 15 minutes of your time. (The video playout will take about 2 hours but you don't need to be present while it runs. Your computer does have to be connected to the Internet during this time. If you can't stay connected during this whole time, whatever time you can give will be helpful.) RealTracer will in no way cause your computer to crash, install a virus, corrupt your hard-drive or in any other way harm your computer. All results obtained are for academic use only. So, if you are willing to help: 1. Make sure you have RealPlayer installed on your computer. If you do not already have it, download and install RealPlayer 8 Basic (it's free) from: http://www.real.com/player/index.html 2. Download the RealTracer support file. If you are running Windows 95/98, download http://perform.wpi.edu/real-tracer/Aux98.dll. If you are running Windows NT/2000, download http://perform.wpi.edu/real-tracer/AuxNT.dll. 3. Then download http://perform.wpi.edu/real-tracer/RealTracer.exe. 4. Double-click on RealTracer.exe. You're off! a. Enter the information about you and your computer and click on the "OK" button. b. In the main window, click on the "Play" button. c. Watch the video clip. d. Click "Yes" to rate the clip. e. Supply a rating between 0 and 10. The next clip will play automatically. f. Repeat for 3-10 video clips (as many as you'd like). g. Let the remaining video clips play out. It will take approximately 2 hours. That's it! The data you provide will help better understand Internet video performance. We will be collecting data from June 4th - June 15th, 2001.