OTHER WAYS TO WATCH
How to view and convert old or unusual formats
Streaming is great, but what about the discs and videos you already have – the home videos you shot on old cameras, or your DVDs? Third-party viewers (see right) can handle many of the formats that Apple’s own apps don’t, while an external DVD or Blu-ray drive with the combination of VLC and Libbluray (from the Videolan.org site) will take care of disc playback.
That’s fine if you just want to play media on your Mac. But what if you want to convert it for other apps or devices or for backup purposes? That’s where one of our favourite apps comes in. Handbrake (handbrake.fr, for OS X 10.3 or later) makes it easy to convert pretty much anything to pretty much anything, and it includes lots of Apple-specific presets for iPhone, Apple TV and more. It can also back up unprotected DVDs and Blu-rays.