Quicktime Video Codecs were never so easy to enable as they are with Perian, your Quicktime Video Codec Swiss Army KnifeThere are a few utilities that I count as must haves on the mac. And Perian is one of them, whenever I start using a new mac it is one of the first utilities that I ensure is loaded so that all my Quicktime Video Codecs are available for use.

So what is Perian, and why does it’s icon look similar to a swiss army knife? Well the short answer is that like a swiss army knife it is an indispensable tool. Perian allows you to easily enable many new Quicktime Video Codecs, many (if not most) of which are not natively supported on the mac. But this quicktime component ads some more efficient codecs that make virtually any video file “sing”.

Supported Quicktime Video Codecs

What Quicktime Video Codecs and Formats does Perian support? Here’s a short list:

  • 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, VBR MP3 and more
  • Subtitle support for SSA/ASS, SRT, SAMI

And the list of Quicktime Video Codecs that are supported is expanding all the time. So take a quick moment download the super simple install package, double click to install the preference pane and you will be up and running. Now you will be able to watch virtually any video format right in Quicktime.

So download Perian today and give it a whirl, what do you have to lose, it’s free. I promise it won’t disappoint.

Get More Information

Perian Website

Download