Filed under: Multimedia, Video
Perian 1.1. released
A few weeks ago, we were talking about our must-have Mac programs on the Talkcast and one of our readers mentioned Perian; I couldn't agree more. For anyone unfamiliar, Perian is a plugin that allows QuickTime to playback all kind of popular video formats (.AVI, .MKV, .FLV and more). It's a great utility for anyone who watches video on their Mac. Back in December, Erica wrote about the 1.1 beta; well beta testing is over and Perian 1.1 is available now!Here's a rundown of some of the improvements since the last update, taken from Perian's update page:
- Major performance improvements
- TrueAudio, MP1, and DTS audio support
- Slice-based multithreaded decoding for MPEG-1/2/H.264
- Apple H.264 now handles AVCHD/interlaced video
- Compatibility fixes for QuickTime 7.4 and Leopard
- Objective-C GC compatibility
- Fixed a crash in Toast
- Better subtitle rendering
- Subtitles play during MKV loading
- Snow support
- Miscellaneous bug fixes
Thanks Robert!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Aron Trimble said 12:11PM on 2-07-2008
I compiled the 1.1b awhile back and it was the best decision I ever made! Can't wait to install the real deal when I get home tonight.
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celo said 12:24PM on 2-07-2008
Ok, but how can I join .rar movies so I can use VisualHub or iSquint and get them on my iPhone??
VLC RAR Loader only loads, and VLC can't join them, unless I'm missing something. And Perian does nothing for .rar.
Any tips/magic?
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Christina Warren said 12:28PM on 2-07-2008
Well UnRARx will join RAR files, (I'm assuming you're talking about files labeled .rar.001 and so-on) but so will MacHacha, which I really, really like (http://homepage.mac.com/julifos/soft/machacha/index.html). I think VLC is the only program that will play a RAR file without decompressing, at least for Mac, but if I'm wrong -- someone else pipe in.
mingistech said 1:08PM on 2-07-2008
.rar is a file format for data compression and archiving. it's not a video format.
yes.. there are players that can playback archived video in the rar format but there is really no point. rar compression on video is hardly worth the space save.
just like the poster above suggests... use UnRarX to unarchive your videos before playback.
http://www.unrarx.com/
NutMac said 12:36PM on 2-07-2008
1.1 is a great update, but subtitle is still buggy. While it restores subtitle (SRT) rendering with QuickTime 7.4.x, font size has become huge. There's a trick to make it small but it is tedious and still causes the next artifact. 1.1 forces longer subtitle text to be line wrapped at the character level (not word level). For instance, "Eat an Apple a day" might get wrapped as:
Eat an Appl
e a day
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astrange said 2:09PM on 2-07-2008
Post a sample!
It uses OS X's Unicode APIs to find line breaks; they should forbid breaking between characters.
NutMac said 2:33PM on 2-07-2008
I will try to post a screenshot tonight (if I can remember). Other media players (e.g., MPlayer OSX 1.0rc1) handles the same exact AVI and SRT files properly. Perian 1.1 doesn't, so it really doesn't matter which API Perian uses. And I just don't understand why the font size is so freaking huge.
Maxintech said 3:47PM on 2-07-2008
HUGE SUBTITLES. Uncomfortable and unusable.
I'm still using MPlayer OSX, the best player ever for Mac with his ugly interface and the lack of controls in full screen.
Ricky said 1:15PM on 2-07-2008
Um, after I install Perian 1.1 and click on the Pref. pane, it tells me that I can't use it on a PPC Mac. Is this Intel only?
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Big John said 1:31PM on 2-07-2008
I'm not seeing anything for the release or the forums about it. That's a bit strange that they'd do that and not say anything.
Christina Warren said 1:38PM on 2-07-2008
I can't see anything anywhere referencing an end to PPC support either. Are you running at least 10.4.7? I say try uninstalling the preference pane, restarting and the reinstalling. If the plugin works, regardless of what the preference pane says, I wouldn't worry about it.
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sven said 2:22PM on 2-07-2008
is there a chance of finding a plugin that makes leopard play .flac files in iTunes and quicktime player?
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Christina Warren said 2:25PM on 2-07-2008
I can't remember if I've tried it since Leopard came out or not, but I know that there was this overly convoluted method using the xiph.org FLAC component to get FLAC playback in QuickTime. As for iTunes? No dice. Your best bet is to use something like Max (http://sbooth.org/max) to convert to Apple Lossless. That or download a different player for your FLAC needs (Cog and Play both work well for this).
Simon Arch said 2:48PM on 2-07-2008
Max is a good option for converting files from FLAC to...well, whatever. Another good one (and my personal fave) is XLD ( http://tmkk.hp.infoseek.co.jp/xld/index_e.html ).
If you have Toast, you can use it to create CD images from FLAC files. Toast can mount the images in a way which makes the system think a physical CD has been inserted. You can then import the music with iTunes as you would with a real CD.
Set Toast to Audio CD. Drag your files in. Hit Command-D (File->Save As Disc Image...) and then enter a name for your file and choose where to save it. Once it's done, hit Command-Shift-M (Utilities->Mount Disc Image...) and find the image you just made. It'll show up on the desktop, and iTunes will get the track information from the CDDB, and you're set. If the CD's not in the database, you'll have to enter the information manually.
You can of course use Toast to burn the CD as well.
One note: be sure to go to the Audio & Video tab in Toast's preferences and set the Default Pause for New Tracks to 00:00:00 so there are no gaps between the tracks.
This is almost all I use Toast for these days. No other CD/DVD burning application can do this (or if they can, I've not heard of it).
Yve said 2:49PM on 2-07-2008
"Major performance improvements"
Does this mean that AppleTV will now be able to play all 720p h.264 files properly?
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aktelmiele said 2:54PM on 2-07-2008
Hmmmmm....
It appears to have just hosed my original install of Perian
The Pref Pane just keeps on saying Loading....
On PPC 10.5.1
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adisor19 said 3:16PM on 2-07-2008
Happened to me too. I fixed it by closing sys prefs and reopening it and it was ok.
Adi
ehm_jay29 said 3:07PM on 2-07-2008
Gonna try this out right now - perhaps it'll fix all my issues with fullscreen in QT?
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Jon said 3:24PM on 2-07-2008
Does anyone know if it actually supports Mpeg2-TS files (like those produced by EyeTV?) It'd be nice to actually be able to use Qt to play those files.
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Zorin said 3:43PM on 2-07-2008
Uses twice as much CPU as MPlayer to play the same MKV file, AND has glitches in the audio while playing the file.
This still needs a bit more work. I'm glad they're trying, though. Would be nice to see Quicktime play all the common video formats.
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