14 September 2009 Tips 8 Comments

Daily Tip 4: Add broader video format support to QuickTime X

Daily Tip 4: Add broader video format support to QuickTime X

QuickTime has always come with support for a limited number of formats out of the box and the new version QuickTime X is no exception. For even decent video format support, Apple recommends that you download codecs individually.

There is an alternative, Perian: the swiss-army knife of Quicktime components. Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component (for those of you coming from Windows: a codec pack) that adds native support for many popular video formats.

Quicktime supports a limited number of formats

The latest version, 1.1.4, now supports QuickTime X and adds support for the following formats:

  • 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
  • imrik

    Perian+Flip4Mac and everything aside Real Media can be played with QuickTime.

    Latest Flip4Mac beta add support for QuickTime X

    PS: does anybody know a way to use Real with QuickTime? At the moment I use VLC 1.0.1 for real media and files QT X has problems with.

  • jamiedoofus

    Hi,

    I'm running QuickTime 10 in Snow Leopard, and I installed Perian in order to play the movies from my camcorder that I encoded as .divx (to save space) in Leopard.

    However, even though they used to play in QuickTime on slow Leopard, they don't play on Snow Leopard anymore… their icon is no longer a movie icon, and I can't open them!

    What do I do?

    Should I wait for an update for Perian, or QuickTime? Where's the problem?

  • jamiedoofus

    Hi,

    I'm running QuickTime 10 in Snow Leopard, and I installed Perian in order to play the movies from my camcorder that I encoded as .divx (to save space) in Leopard.

    However, even though they used to play in QuickTime on slow Leopard, they don't play on Snow Leopard anymore… their icon is no longer a movie icon, and I can't open them!

    What do I do?

    Should I wait for an update for Perian, or QuickTime? Where's the problem?

  • zaxe

    thank you! i had upgraded to snowleopard, and i didn't realize perian had updated as well. this is just awesome. thanks for telling me.

  • Jamesson

    I also have the same problem, files like “example.divx” dont open anymore.. even with the v1.2 update!

    What do I do?!

  • Pingback: TIP: Play Windows Media Video (WMV) in QuickTime X with Flip4Mac Beta | Snow Leopard Tips

  • cmarinmx

    gracias

  • http://twitter.com/insidetonismind Anthony

    Thank you. :)