If you’ve ever started up Quicktime and had a message pop up “You are missing a codec to play this file”, then you’ll be glad to see Perian. Perian is a Quicktime component that will allow you to play all kinds of files including the most popular ones. (Divx, XviD, FLV, AVI ). The list goes on. Also supported are MS-MPEG4 v1, MS-MPEG4 v2, MS-MPEG4 v3, DivX 3.11 alpha, 3ivX, Sorenson H.263, Flash Screen Video, Truemotion VP6. Even if you don’t recognize all those words, you should install this free component. Installing this component should Quicktime, iTunes, and iMovie play all of these files. (If you want to play Windows Media files, you’ll still need the free Windows Media Compnent)

MediaCoder is a free universal audio/video batch transcoder, putting together lots of excellent audio/video codecs and tools from the open source community into an all-in-one solution, capable of transcoding among different audio/video formats with many e