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Image MIME Reference
NAPLPS

North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax

image/naplps
VS

RealNetworks RealFlash

image/vnd.rn-realflash
RealFlash

A complete technical comparison of North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax and RealNetworks RealFlash — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature NAPLPS RealFlash
Transparency (Alpha) ✕ No Yes
Animation Support Yes Yes
Progressive Loading Yes Yes
HDR Support ✕ No ✕ No
EXIF Metadata ✕ No ✕ No
ICC Color Profile ✕ No ✕ No
North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax
image/naplps
Extension
.nap.naplps
Container NAPLPS Byte Stream
Compression Uncompressed (Tokenized ASCII Commands)
Algorithm
None (Coordinate encoding)
Color Depth 16-color palette (Indexed from larger color spaces)
Developed by ANSI / CSA (Based on Canadian CRC's Telidon)
Released 1983
Magic Bytes
1B (Variable / ESC sequences)
Full NAPLPS reference →
RealNetworks RealFlash
image/vnd.rn-realflash
Extension
Container RealMedia / SWF
Compression Vector (Flash) / RealAudio Compression
Algorithm
Macromedia Vector CompressionDeflate (Zlib)
Color Depth 8-bit, 24-bit, 32-bit
Developed by RealNetworks & Macromedia
Released 1997
Magic Bytes
46 57 53 (FWS - Standard Flash) or 2E 52 4D 46 (.RMF - RealMedia Container)
Full RealFlash reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser NAPLPS RealFlash
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
NAPLPS

NAPLPS Strengths

  • Extremely bandwidth-efficient, enabling colorful graphical interfaces over early 300 baud dial-up connections
  • Resolution-independent vector scaling allowed the exact same file to be displayed accurately on varied early PC monitors and television sets
Limitations
  • Completely obsolete and unsupported by modern web technologies
  • Relies heavily on stateful parsing and terminal emulators rather than straightforward file decoding
  • Easily misidentified by MIME sniffers as plain text or generic binary streams due to the lack of a standardized file header
RealFlash

RealFlash Strengths

  • Allowed complex, interactive vector animations to stream smoothly over 28.8k dial-up modems
  • Perfectly synchronized streaming audio with timeline-based animations, which was revolutionary in 1997
Limitations
  • Heavily reliant on proprietary browser plugins (RealPlayer), which were notoriously bloated
  • Completely obsolete and unsupported on the modern web
  • Tightly coupled server-client architecture required expensive RealServer licenses to host

When to choose which format

NAPLPS
Use NAPLPS when…
  • 1980s Videotex Services
  • Prodigy Online Service Graphics
  • Historical BBS Terminal Graphics
  • Legacy Teletext Broadcasts
RealFlash
Use RealFlash when…
  • Historical Dial-up Web Animation
  • Late-1990s Interactive Music Videos
  • Streaming Vector Graphics

More comparisons

NAPLPS vs ACES → RealFlash vs ACES → NAPLPS vs APNG → RealFlash vs APNG → NAPLPS vs AVCI → RealFlash vs AVCI → NAPLPS vs AVCS → RealFlash vs AVCS → NAPLPS vs AVIF → RealFlash vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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