Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats.

Why does it take so long for MKV to load?

QuickTime expects to know the location of every single frame in a movie in order to play it. This is easy with its native format, MOV/MP4, but more difficult for several others, including MKV. Perian has to read in the entire file in order for seeking and playback to work.

Does hardware acceleration for H.264 work with Perian?

QuickTime supports hardware acceleration for some profiles of H.264; however, which profiles these are is not documented and may change on different Mac models. We do our best not to interfere, and some MKV files are known to work with hardware-accelerated decoding.

I thought Perian allowed me to play MPEG files, but it can't. Why?

The term MPEG covers more than just a file type; it also defines audio and video compression methods. Perian allows playback of these audio and video compression techniques, but it does not allow the ability to open the MPEG file format. This is due to limitations within QuickTime itself, and we cannot solve it until Apple designs a better interface. See our rdar on the subject.

Will there be a version of Perian for the iPhone?

Unfortunately no, the iPhone does not have QuickTime. Since Perian is a third party component for QuickTime, we would need the iPhone to have QuickTime before we could get Perian onto the iPhone.

What if QuickTime for the iPhone ends up in a future update?

We are concerned that the iPhone, while a great device, is just too slow to play the type of files that you would use Perian to play.

I submitted a bug report and I was told it was fixed in SVN; what does this mean?

SVN refers to the system which the developers use to store the source code that makes Perian. If an issue has been fixed in SVN, then that means the developers have tracked down the issue, and believes it to be fixed. At this stage, it requires further testing after which it will be included in the next release.

1.2.3 - Saturday, July 23, 2011

• Some Fraps videos only displayed black. [r1424] (#566)
• Workaround checks for Front Row stopped being effective. [r1426] (#564)
• Fixed compatibility with web video playback. [r1427, r1429, r1450] (#572)
• Worked around System Preferences crashing during an update on 10.6. [r1449] (#591)
  This change will take effect after this update.
• Further fixes to Matroska import. [r1432, r1441, r1447] (#338, #492, #594, #601)

1.2.2 - Tuesday, April 13, 2011

• Added WebM/VP8 support. [r1310, r1315]
• Added support for compressed MKV tracks, as generated by newer versions of mkvtoolnix. [r1317, r1334]
• Added FFv1 lossless video support. [r1363] (#407)
• Added an internal decoder for Theora, fixing compatibility problems with XiphQT. [r1379] (#499)
• The readme and license files are now included in the component bundle. [r1309]
Fixes:
• Fixed Matroska files with video glitches due to repeated timecodes. [r1364] (#502)
• Fixed several possible crashes in Matroska import. [r1332, r1392] (#223)
• Fixed some Matroska files losing frames at the end of the file. [r1399, r1407] (#224, #558)
• Fixed audio sync in many FLV videos. [r1383] (#543) (1.2 regression)
• Fixed several possible crashes/hangs in subtitle parsing. [r1327, r1331, r1339, r1376] (#515, #521)
• Worked around Apple's incorrect channel layout in .mp4 files. [A52Codec r84]
SSA:
• Fixed several correctness errors. [r1307, r1308, r1365]
• Improved rendering of semitransparent text styles. [r1328]
Notes:
• The next planned version will remove support for PowerPC and Mac OS X versions prior to 10.6. Maintenance updates may be provided if necessary.

1.2.1 - Tuesday, March 16, 2010

• Added Indeo 5 decoding. [r1271]
Fixes:
• Fixed several bugs in Matroska support (1.2 regression) [r1240, r1243]
• Incomplete AVI files were not fully imported (1.2 regression) [r1242]
• Fixed subtitles crashing in 10.4 [r1240]
• Fixed a rare crash with .mp4 [r1265]
• No error was shown if the installer somehow failed [r1270]
  Note that it does not try to correct errors, only report them.
• Fixed crash in SSA support [r1250]
• Fixed invisible subtitles sometimes appearing over the first frame [r1275]

1.2 - Wednesday, December 17, 2009

• Matroska cover art is now imported as iTunes cover art [r1149]
• Video tracks now have their colorspace set based on the size of the video [r1170]
Mac OS X 10.6/Snow Leopard compatibility fixes:
• QuickTime Player 10 refused to open some files due to missing type identifiers [r1126]
• Worked around 96khz HE-AAC audio tracks not playing or playing noise [r1128]
• Extended Front Row subtitle hack to cover 10.6 and reduced its ugliness [r1130, r1186]
• Worked around re-encoding files with subtitles not working [r1177]
• Worked around some MKV embedded fonts being incompatible with 10.6 [r1193]
• Fixed RGB HuffYUV video displaying black bars over the video on 10.6 [r1198]
• Now compiles under Xcode 3.2
Fixes:
• Using a debugger on a process with Perian loaded printed warnings about missing files [r1122]
• Fixed decoding of WMA audio tracks [r1131]
• Fixed a crash in LoadExternalSubtitlesFromFileDataRef [r1153]
• Fixed some VobSub video tracks displaying with wrong colors [r1171]
• Better support for tracks with delayed start times [r1181]
• Fixed MPEG1/2 in Matroska playing out of order [r1188]
• Fixed a crash opening files while they were being downloaded [r1227]
SSA:
• Fixed some top-aligned subtitles being too low [r1163]
• Vertical text is re-enabled and works somewhat better [r1208]

1.1.4 - Monday, July 27, 2009

Features:
• Forced VobSub subtitles are imported into a separate track [r1015]
• Added initial DTS passthrough via similar mechanisms as AC3 [r1024]
• Support old ffmpeg-generated MKV files with no enabled tracks [r1021]
• 10.6-compatible preference pane [r1085]
Fixes:
• Fixed "Load External Subtitles" checkbox [r998]
• Fixed crash/freeze when loading broken VobSub subtitles [r1000, r1034]
• Fixed import of uncompressed audio in FLV [r1007]
• Fixed import of some audio tracks; should improve iApps [r1042, r1088]
• Fixed CRAM codec AVI in browsers [r1010]
• Worked around bug in iChat codec loading [r1008]
• Never allows Apple's code to handle AC3 data anymore so passthrough works more often [r1014]
• Doesn't try to decode some RGB colorspaces (such as in Camtasia) that aren't supported [r1039]
• Fixed some 16-bit RGB codecs on Intel [r1039]
• Fixed importing movie files with no video tracks (regression from r706) [r1042]
• Fixed H264 crash in put_h264_qpel8_h_lowpass_l2_ssse3 (in FFmpeg)
• Fixed crash with corrupt first frame [r1061]
• Fixed BMP/RLE in AVI [r1078]
• Fixed several memory leaks [r1086]
• Fixed a problem with wrong channel order in DTS 5.1 [r1076]
• Fixed possible conflict with UniversalDetector.framework [r1100]
Subtitles:
• Fixed garbage characters appearing at the end of a line with some fonts [r1013]
• Better handling of invalid SSA files [r1013]
• Fixed rendering of multi-layer subtitles [r1016]
• Fixed SRT files using ',' for decimals [r1019]
• Ignored SSA shapes and \blur instead of misparsing them [r1027, r1036]
• Disabled vertical font support again to fix files wrongly using it for Latin text [r1027]
• Fixed subtitles in MKV wrongly displaying at the end of a video [r1036]
• Better handling of \move and \org [r1063, r1103]
Notes:
• Compilation under 10.4 is no longer supported.
• A52Codec has been deprecated and will be replaced by an LGPL decoder in a future release.

1.1.3 - Monday, Dec 15, 2008

• Enabled Indeo 2/3 decodecs
• Added external idx/sub (VobSub) support
• Added support for H.264 and H.263 in FLV containers
• Apple's decoder now handles Baseline/Main Profile H.264
• Fix inconsistent importing for multi-channel audio
• Reduced memory usage for packed streams
• Added sanity checks on all preferences
• Enabled hack to show subtitles in Front Row
• Fixed negative values in SSA \frz tag
• Fixed VSFilter bug-compatibility for \an

1.1.2 - Monday, Oct 20, 2008

• Fixed update checker never running - this version requires a manual install
• Enabled frame-dropping on AppleTV
• Fixed some frames being lost in AVCHD/.mp4 with newer versions of QuickTime
• Fixed another ffmpeg crash on G3s

1.1.1 - Sunday, Sep 29, 2008

• H.264 in AVI fixed
• Some anamorphic AVI files are now supported
• Performance problems due to PIC fixed with Xcode 3.1
• Incorrect frame skipping on H.264 intra frames fixed
• Better character set detection
• The update checker is now much more polite
• Several parsing and rendering bugs with subtitles fixed
• Player freezing while loading subtitles with embedded fonts fixed
• Audio fixed for some older MKV files with AAC/FLAC
• Strange values in MKV chapters or video sizes are handled better
• Initial support for SAMI subtitles added
• Worked around a QuickTime bug (#5770288) causing frames to be lost during export
• New codecs: DosBox ZMBV, VP6+Alpha, Nellymoser ASAO
FFmpeg:
• Crashing on PPC G3 fixed
• Fraps decoding artifacts fixed

1.1 - Wednesday, Feb 6, 2008

• 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

1.0 - Friday, June 29, 2007

• Added support for Matroska/mkv
• Integrated a52codec
• Added subtitle support
• Added support for .gvi (avi wrapper from Google Video)
• Changed distribution to a Preference Pane in order to make installation simpler and configuration possible in the long term.
• Changed installation directory from /Library/QuickTime to ~/Library/QuickTime.
• Fixed avi/flv over http
• Added support for Windows Media Audio in AVI
• Added support for MPEG-1 layer 2 audio
• Added support for the ADPCM audio codec in FLV
• Added Vorbis decoder
• Added support for Fraps FPS1
• Added support for VP3
• Added support for i263
• Added support for HuffYUV
• Added support for MPEG-1/2 video in AVI/MKV
• Fix opening AVIs with VBR audio for which there is no available decoder
• Fix crash with DVI ADPCM
• Fix multichannel audio descriptions in AVI
• Faster opening of AVI files
• High profile H.264 support
• Full MPEG-4 video support in .mp4
• Altivec & SSE2 colorspace conversion
• Fix DV in type 1 AVIs

0.5 - Friday, September 29, 2006

• Initial Release