Playback Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

TUAW's Daily Mac App: VLC

by Samuel Gibbs (Jun 17th, 2011)

Yesterday on the Daily Mac App, we showed you how to bestow QuickTime Player with the ability to play a multitude of formats and codecs, but sometimes even Perian won't cut it, and that's where you can turn to VLC to get the job done. VLC is a free, open-source, cross-platform multimedia ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: Perian

by Samuel Gibbs (Jun 16th, 2011)

Have you ever wished QuickTime would just play all those random formats you've got? That you didn't have to resort to other programs, or worse converting everything, just to get them to play? You need Perian. We've covered Perian a lot in the past, and for good reason -- it's a one stop-shop ...

SpotiMy brings Spotify playback control to the menu bar, but that's it

by Samuel Gibbs (May 23rd, 2011)

Spotify might not have made it across the pond just yet, but that doesn't mean millions of Mac users aren't getting their music fix via the ad-supported or premium streaming service. A new Mac App Store app called SpotiMy aims to enhance the Spotify experience of Mac users by letting them ...

Ask TUAW: MacBook Pro cleaning, Mac maintenance, streaming video and more

by Chris Ullrich (Dec 10th, 2010)

Welcome back to another edition of our weekly Q & A column, Ask TUAW. Each week this column will appear with questions and answers. If you have questions for the following week's column, drop them in the comments, and I will do my best to get to them. When asking a question, please include ...

VLC for iPad hits the store

by Michael Rose (Sep 20th, 2010)

Just like that, the multi-format video playback app VLC has now made it to the App Store in the form of VLC Media Player for iPad. As Chris reported a couple of weeks ago, the much-beloved open source media tool has been ported and is now available for free download. We're grabbing our copy right ...

27-inch iMacs reported to have Flash playback issues

by Casey Johnston (Oct 30th, 2009)

If you were contemplating buying one of those shiny new 27-inch iMacs, maybe don't pull the trigger just yet: according to Engadget, many proud new owners of the computer have become annoyed new owners, reporting pronounced problems in particular with Flash playback. The problem doesn't appear to ...

VLC 1.0.0 released

by Robert Palmer (Jul 7th, 2009)

While being a useful tool for several years now, VLC has finally reached that first pinnacle of software development: 1.0. VLC is an alternative media player for Mac, Windows and Linux that handles a wide variety of media file formats without requiring additional software (like Perian) to be ...

Inside iPhone 3.0: Enhanced controls for podcast & audiobook playback

by Michael Rose (Jun 21st, 2009)

It's on the master list of 3.0 features, but we've been sent enough tips and suggestions about it to conclude that the advanced podcast/audiobook controls came as a pleasant surprise for lots of iPhone and iPod touch owners who upgraded. In the 3.0 version, from the playback display for a podcast, ...

The Bacterial Orchestra uses the iPhone to create "viral music"

by Mike Schramm (May 19th, 2009)

This is really wild: what you see above is an example of "viral music" -- it's part of an upcoming music festival that's taking place in Sweden, and it features a circle of iPhones that are both listening to and playing a very abstract kind of "music." Each one is picking up audio from its ...

Apple releases QuickTime 7.5.7, fixes HDCP issues

by Cory Bohon (Nov 25th, 2008)

Apple just updated QuickTime to version 7.5.7. This update is big news for users of the MacBook and MacBook Pro unibody computers because it fixes the problem where some users were unable to play protected movie files from iTunes on external displays. This is a problem that TUAW noted last week. ...

WD TV provides subtle support for Mac-format drives

by Michael Rose (Nov 13th, 2008)

It wasn't the splashiest product introduction ever, but last week's launch of Western Digital's $130 WD TV high-definition media player may have caused a few smiles for Mac users. The playback unit -- a simple configuration of a USB2 port for connecting a hard drive, and either composite (SD) or ...

Apple applies for patent on head-tracking media display system

by Robert Palmer (Nov 6th, 2008)

Apple has applied for a patent for an "automatically adjusting media display in a personal display system," a kind of head-tracking eyewear that gives the user "the impression of being in the theater." From the claims of the patent, the device looks not unlike a pair of goggles that display a ...

iPhone 2.0 supports playback of WAV voicemail

by Michael Rose (Jul 16th, 2008)

If you've been aggravated at your iPhone or iPod touch in the past for its inability to play back WAV voicemail files from home phone services like Vonage or AT&T (synergy foul! yellow card), you may now breathe easier. TJ Luoma was 95% through building a rather elaborate script to convert ...

iTunes video playback lackluster, at best

by David Chartier (Jan 26th, 2006)

Alright, I have to get this off my chest: iTunes 6.0.2 is absolutely terrible at playing video. Whether it's a tiny little 30 MB file I made of a TV show, or a 1 GB movie, iTunes is sluggish, choppy and it chokes as if it accidentally swallowed a wishbone. This happens whether I'm playing them in ...

Buy an ad here