QuickTime 7.5.5

After 10 years and with millions of users worldwide, Apple's QuickTime player still provides one of the best solutions for digital media. Whether you're watching streaming movie trailers online or diving headlong into QuickTime as a creation platform, you'll find little to quibble about in this veteran player.

Its few quirks are quickly offset by the elegant Apple interface and the top-notch audio/video playback quality. QuickTime 7 comes in two varieties. The free standard player handles popular audio, graphic, and video formats, including the much-ballyhooed H.264 and MPEG-4. Also, for $29.95, you can upgrade to the content-creation-friendly Pro version, which adds features such as full-screen playback, easy editing, H.264/MPEG-4 production, and the ability to save movies from the Web.

MPEG-2 support is available, but at an additional cost of $19.95.High-definition content looks impressive with the new H.264 codec, but hardly better than with similar offerings from Microsoft. The stylish transport controls and the friendly layout work well. Inclusion of the autoupdate and automatic-network-detection features make getting started and staying current easy.

Overall, QuickTime 7 continues to be a must-have for anyone surfing the Web or looking to experience the best in digital media.