I most definitely love Quick Time. It’s easy to use, elegant, and it bears Apple’s logo. But it has several limitations. Yeah, you guessed. There are certain video formats that you cannot open with Quick Time.
So… what happens? . You switch to Windows? just to play your favorite show?. No way.
There are few alternatives you may or may not have heard of. VLC, is a great opensource application, that allows you to open, virtually, any file format. Furthermore, it’s available for Mac, Windows… and linux!. I really love VLC, because it has support for Apple’s Remote, and you can lower the volume, pause, or fast forward / rewind, whatever you’re viewing.
The second option is Perian. Perian adds functionality to QuickTime. It’s a plugin, sort of. It extends the number of formats that Quicktime can reproduce. And yes, it’s also a free package.
Both options are pretty cool. So… now.. it’s really your choice!.