Media-Player Drive-Thru
A One-Stop-Shop for everything to do with media-player software on your Mac. This page has been created to help you download and test all the latest Mac media-player software; all from one single bang-up-to-date webpage.
If you can see anything we’ve missed, is incorrect or unclear, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
TMG
Media Player Family
Adobe Flash Player is a web-browser plug-in that enables Flash multi-media content to be played within your preferred web-browser. Flash Player supports: graphics, animated graphics and A/V content. Entire websites can be created in Flash.
MPLayer
Entended
Description
Supported Codecs
Adobe SWP is a web-browser plug-in that enables SW media-content to be accessed from within your preferred web-browser. SWP is different to Flash mainly because it has better interactive capabilities. Very popular for online-games.
QT is OS X’s native media-player. It runs as a stand-alone player but also installs a plug-in to all installed web-browsers, this facilitates access to streamed web-content. QT also has its own plug-in architecture to extend compatibility. e.g. Perian
RealPlayer is a stand-alone player but also installs a plug-in into all web-browsers present on your system, this enables playback of streamed web-content. RealPlayer 11 beta does not work properly with Dashboard Widgets. Use Real 10.1.
Flip4Mac is a software plug-in that gives Apple Quicktime the ability to playback Microsoft’s ‘Windows Media Files’. (WMF) It does NOT support content that has been protected using Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM).
Silverlight is Microsoft’s answer to Adobe Flash Player. Silverlight content is rare but becoming more common. It uses the MS VC-1 codec.Like Adobe Flash, It also supports interactive graphics.
DivX is one of the products that started the user-generated-content revolution. Sadly, it has been squeezed-out by the success of Flash Player. Like Quicktime, DivX comes as a stand-alone player and also installs a web-browser plug-in.
UK Only. The Download Version of BBC iPlayer is PC only using MS VC-1 codec and MS DRM. The streaming version is fully Mac compatible and is based on Adobe Flash using the H.264 codec. The BBC now stream some iPlayer content in HD.
Adobe Media Player is geared towards managing downloaded HD movie content. Think of it like iTunes for your HD movie files, with Sony providing commercial HD movie content. AMP is not essential at the moment but keep an eye on it.
VLC is a free, open-source, stand-alone media-player that is capable of playing back an enormous variety of video codecs including DVD’s playback from any region. Now Intel 64bit ready.
Adobe
Shockwave
Player
Adobe
Flash
Player
Apple
Quicktime
Player
RealMedia
Player
Flip4Mac
Microsoft
Silverlight
DivX
Player
BBC
iPlayer
VLC
Media-
Player
WMV9, (VC-1) WMV8, WMV7, WMV Standard, MP3
See here for a full list of supported codecs.
Far too many to list on this page.
Try watching a DVD or (S)VCD.
Only available as a streaming version for the Mac. BBC iPlayer requires the Adobe Flash Plug-in.
UK ONLY
Upgrades available: Quicktime Pro also QT MPEG-2 Codec for $29.99 each
Now runs in 64bit for Snow Leopard in new Quicktime X version: 2.3.0.14
Video:.AVI, .ASX, .ASF, MS Motion JPEG .MJPG, MPEG-4 V2 (MP42) MPEG-4 V3 (MP43) MPEG-4 V1 (MP4S) MPEG-4 V1.1 (M4S2) WMV7 (WMV1) WMV8 (WMV2) WMV9 Standard, (WMV3) WMV9 Advanced (WMVA) Audio: WMA9, WMA, MP3, MS G, MS IMA ADPCM, MS G 711
RM, RA, RAM, RT, RP, PNG, GIF, JPG, MP3, SMI, SMIL, WAV, MPG1, MP2, Some .AVI AIF, .AU, AC3, and .ASF, MID, MIDI, RMI, MOV, .FLA
3GPP, 3GPP2, AIFF, AMC, AMR, GIF, AU, AVI, BMP, CAF, Cubic VR, DLS,, DV, FLC, GSM, JPEG/JFIF, MIDI, MPEG-1, MP3, MPEG-4, H.264 iTunes A/V, PDF .PS, MQV, PICS, PICT, PLS, PNG, .MOV, QT Image, SDP, SDV, SF2, SGI, SMIL, Targa, TIFF, QTVR, Wave. AAC,
.SWF
Video: Sorenson Spark, On2 VP6, H.264, (MPEG-4 Part 10) AAC, AVC, ISO/IEC 14496, 3GPP, Audio: ADPCM, MP3, HE-AAC (MPEG-4 Part 3)
Video: Sorenson Spark, On2 VP6, H.264, (MPEG-4 Part 10) AAC, AVC, ISO/IEC 14496, 3GPP, Audio: ADPCM, MP3, HE-AAC (MPEG-4 Part 3)
Now that the quality of streamed iPlayer content has been dramatically improved, there is no need for the download version to be ported to the Mac. Streamed iPlayer content can be downloaded using: iPlayer Grabber or iPlayer Downloader.
Divx, Mpeg, Mpv, Mpa, Mp3, Mp4, Avi, Asf, CDA(Audio-CD), DAT(Video-CD)
Download
Test
MPEG-1 (VCD) and MPEG-2 (SVCD/DVD/DVB) MPEG-4 ASP in all variants
inc. DivX. OpenDivX (DivX4), DivX 5 (Pro), Xvid, MPEG-4 AVC aka H.264,
Windows Media Video 7/8 (WMV1/2) Windows Media Video 9 (WMV3)
RealVideo 1.0, 2.0 (G2) RealVideo 3.0 (RP8), 4.0 (RP9) (using Real Libraries)
Sorenson v1/v3 (SVQ1/SVQ3), Cinepak, RPZA + other QuickTime codecs,
DV video, 3ivx, Intel Indeo3 (3.1, 3.2), Intel Indeo 4.1 and 5.0 (using x86 DLL
or XAnim codecs) VIVO 1.0, 2.0, I263 and other H.263(+) variants (using x86
DLL) MJPEG, AVID, VCR2, ASV2, FLI/FLC, HuffYUV
Audio Codecs: MPEG layer 1, 2, 3 (MP3) AC3/A52, E-AC3, DTS Dolby Dig,
AAC (MPEG-4, WMA (DivX Audio) v1 & 2 WMA 9 (WMAv3) Voxware audio
ACELP.net, RealAudio: COOK, SIPRO, ATRAC3, RealAudio: DNET + Older.
QuickTime: Qclp, Q-Design QDMC/QDM2, MACE 3/6, ALAC, OGG, VIVO
(g723, Vivo Siren) alaw/ulaw, (ms)gsm, PCM, APCM + many older codecs.
MPLayer is an Open Source ultra-compatible media-player very similar to VLC. It doesn’t support quite as many codecs as VLC but just occasionally it does a better job. If you play a lot of PC generated AVI and DivX content, it may be worth installing MPLayer as a backup for VLC. There are several versions of MPLayer available, but MPLayer Extended is the only one being actively developed for Mac OS. It also supports a great many file container formats, (as well as media-codecs) and this is what helps give MPLayer its excellent media file-compatibility.
AVI, FLV, and MKV formats, MS-MPEG4 v1&v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 MPEG2,, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), MPEG Layer II Audio, AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3 Subtitle support for SSA and SRT.
Perian is a Quicktime plug-in that supports many additional codecs. Warning: Perian is known to be the cause of some software incompatibilities, e,g: iMovie 7 not importing from USB cameras, iChat video-con not working. So be aware.
Apple
Quicktime
X
QT-X is OS10.6 Snow Leopard’s new native media-player. It runs as a stand-alone player but also installs a browser plug-in to all installed web-browsers, for access to streamed web-content. Only supports a limited codec range.
Video: Mov, MPEG 2 / 4-P2, H.264, H.263, H.261, Apple ProRes & Pixlet, Animation, Cinepak, 3GPP, Component, m4v, AVI, DV, DVCPRO, MJPEG, Sorenson Vid. 2&3. Audio: m4a, m4b, m4p, mp4/ AAC, Lossless, CAF, AU, SD2, AMR, AIFF, WAV, SND, mp3, QCELP. MS ADPCM, IMa 4.1, MC 6.1
