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Softonic rating:
Excellent
9/10
License:
Free
Added:
October 2, 2006
Updated:
December 21, 2009
Publisher:
Website
File size:
3.6 MB
Downloads:
117,539
Cyril Roger

“A swiss-army knife for Quicktime”

by Cyril Roger

If Quicktime is your default media player, then Perian is the tool you need to make sure it plays any media file type you want.

This discreet little component adds support to a wide range of formats including MKV, FLV, DivX and WMA or even less known formats like Xiph Vorbis or Flash ADCPM. It also offers subtitle support for SSA and SRT so you can enjoy films in their original version in Quicktime. Users also like that Perian offers AVI support for H.264 and audio files like MP3 or AAC.

Perian is very easy to install and works automatically once it's set up. While VLC is usually the recommended media player on Mac because of its wide support for all sorts of media file types, having Quicktime with Perian is also an excellent choice to play any sorts of media.

Some users have complained that Perian 1.1 happened to crash with Quicktime 7.4.1 but apart from that Perian performs seamlessly. We encourage you to install to be able to enjoy all sorts of videos on your Mac.

An excellent and free Quicktime component, Perian lets you enjoy almost any media format, including subtitles and a number of audio files. Highly recommended.

Languages:

English

Perian supports the following formats:

AVI, FLV, and MKV file formats, MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), MPEG Layer II Audio

Recent changes in Perian:

  • Many including:
  • Matroska cover art is now imported as iTunes cover art [r1149]
  • Video tracks now have their colorspace set based on the size of the video [r1170]
  • Mac OS X 10.6/Snow Leopard compatibility fixes:
  • QuickTime Player 10 refused to open some files due to missing type identifiers [r1126]

OS requirements for Perian:

  • OS: Mac OS X

Minimum requirements:

  • Processor: PPC/Intel MHz
  • Mac OS X 10.4.7 or later
Pros
  • Support wide range of media files
  • Subtitle support for SSA and SRT
Cons
  • Can crash with QT 7.4.1
Did you like this review?
130 of 191 users liked it (68%)

Perian Softonic Rating: 9Featured program

Softonic gives special recognition to software of exceptionally high quality. More information

From the publisher of Perian

Perian is a free plugin that enables QuickTime to play almost every popular video format. With Perian installed, any OS X application that uses QuickTime can now use these additional media types:

  • Divx, XviD, FLV, AVI
  • MS-MPEG4 v1, MS-MPEG4 v2, MS-MPEG4 v3, DivX 3.11 alpha, 3ivX, Sorenson H.263, Flash Screen Video, Truemotion VP6
  • h.264, mpeg4, AAC, AC3 Audio, and VBR MP3 (when they are inside an AVI)

User opinions about Perian (5)

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Reviews for Perian in other languages

  • Perian (Opinião do editor em português)
  • Perian (Testbericht auf Deutsch)
  • Perian (Análisis en español)
  • Perian (Le test en français)
  • Perian (Recensione in italiano)
  • Perian (Recenzja po polsku)
Softonic rating:Excellent
9/10

User Rating

10 ratings
Usability
  • Currently 9/10.
Stability
  • Currently 9/10.
Installation
  • Currently 9/10.
Functionality
  • Currently 9/10.
Appearance
  • Currently 9/10.
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