Platforms available: OS X 10.4.7 & up

Current version as of writing: 1.1.4

If you’ve had issues with VLC or are just a big fan of QuickTime, Perian could be what you need to unlock the true power hiding within QuickTime. It’ll help you open just about any kind of audio or video file you’ll come across right within QuickTime.

QuickTime has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, in its stock configuration, that potential is hindered by a really narrowly defined set of codecs. Codecs are what tell a piece of multimedia software how to deal with (i.e. COde/DECode) the various audio and video formats it encounters. That’s why, for example, when you throw an MKV file at QuickTime, it tells you to take a hike.

But that’s where Perian comes to the rescue! Think of it like a giant plugin that frees QuickTime to play all of the most common video formats, and even most of the truly eclectic ones out there, along with a handful of audio formats, like WMA, that Apple tends to want to marginalize.

Normally I hesitate to just copy and paste things from a program’s site, but it doesn’t get much more efficient for showing what Perian can handle than this handy-dandy bulleted list you’ll find at Perian.org:

• File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
• Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
• Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
• AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
• Subtitle support for SSA/ASS and SRT

So if you’re in need of unleashing QuickTime on some video files you’ve collected, Perian is hands down the way to go. Of course, if you haven’t already tried VLC Media Player and you’re not averse to trying something new, it’s featured as a “FreeLoader Pick” in the book, and its awesomeness just can’t be overstated!