Perian | |
Developer: | The Perian Team |
Discontinued: | yes |
Latest Release Version: | 1.2.3 |
Operating System: | macOS 10.4.7 or later |
Platform: | PPC, Intel |
Genre: | Multimedia framework plug-in |
License: | LGPL |
Perian was a open-source QuickTime component that enabled Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on macOS.[1] It was a joint development of several earlier open source components based on the multiplatform FFmpeg project's libavcodec and libavformat, as well as liba52 and libmatroska.
Before it was discontinued, it has been featured as the "Download of the Day" on Lifehacker,[2] as well as on several popular blogs includingArs Technica[3] andThe Unofficial Apple Weblog.[4]
On 15 May 2012, the Perian project managers announced on their website that they are shutting down support for the project.[5] In the announcement, they recommended that users look to other products, such as Niceplayer, VLC or MPlayer OS X. They indicated that Perian's source code would be posted online for any developer who wanted to continue with the project. One continuation based on the source code is actively maintained but does not support QuickTime for OS X Mavericks or later.[6] [7]
Perian lent support for many combinations of video, audio, text, and container formats to QuickTime, including the following:[8] [9]
AV codec support for the following:
Subtitle support for the following:
Container format support for the following: