Chroma Player2009.1

I have just downloaded it for trial. Could not use the demo : it says "trial period is over". Bad sign.

If you have a faster computer, VLC, or Perian with Quicktime will do almost everything for free, but if you have a old g3 machine this app is a must. It's the only application that runs considerable well xvid movies in my old iMac G3 450 with correct running subtitles on it. It's very watchable and the most smooth of all apps I have tried in this machine! Great for PPC!

For a brief minute I thought this would finally be the OSX app that played INDEO codec avis. Shot down again :-(

I understand that it seems confusing someone is charging $30 for the proverbial "yet another player". Let me therefore just share my experience with Chroma: this app ROCKS. And that's because Chroma is the _only_ player able to play a lot of movies on my (I admit) aging G3-Powerbook, where other players (notably Quicktime Player Pro 7.x, but also VLC, MPlayer, etc.) give up, ie. drop frames to a degree, where watching is going pathetic. So maybe Chroma seems to perform so admirable just because the other players perform so poorly - it's true: Chroma does nothing special: but this nothing-special it does unbelievably good. Bottom line: if the other, free players work for you there is probably no reason to try (and buy) Chroma. If, on the other hand, you're desperately looking for a player that just plays those movies which your G3 refuses to play since you updated to Tiger (and QT 7), then Chroma comes to you like your very own saviour. And, no: no affiliation of whatever kind with Mirailabs. Just an user, that is amazed what is good ol' Pismo can do the right software provided.

A few of the developer's claims: "This is not a ported application or front end for some command line tool" "It contains built-in codecs for MPEG4, DivX, XviD, 3ivx, MS-MPEG4v1 and MS-MPEG4v2." Built-in you say? Excellent! Then under the terms of the "GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE" included with the libavcodec.framework which you borrowed from the ffmpegX command-line tool, I'd like the source code for this entire program. I'll look forward to seeing it included with the download. Thanks! Excerpt from the "GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE" which is included in the Chroma Player download as part of the libavcodec.framework (borrowed from the ffmpeg project): " 6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications. You must give prominent notice with each copy of the work that the Library is used in it and that the Library and its use are covered by this License. You must supply a copy of this License. If the work during execution displays copyright notices, you must include the copyright notice for the Library among them, as well as a reference directing the user to the copy of this License. Also, you must do one of these things: a) Accompany the work with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code for the Library including whatever changes were used in the work (which must be distributed under Sections 1 and 2 above); and, if the work is an executable linked with the Library, with the complete machine-readable "work that uses the Library", as object code and/or source code, so that the user can modify the Library and then relink to produce a modified executable containing the modified Library. (It is understood that the user who changes the contents of definitions files in the Library will not necessarily be able to recompile the application to use the modified definitions.) b) Use a suitable shared library mechanism for linking with the Library. A suitable mechanism is one that (1) uses at run time a copy of the library already present on the user's computer system, rather than copying library functions into the executable, and (2) will operate properly with a modified version of the library, if the user installs one, as long as the modified version is interface-compatible with the version that the work was made with. c) Accompany the work with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give the same user the materials specified in Subsection 6a, above, for a charge no more than the cost of performing this distribution. d) If distribution of the work is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, offer equivalent access to copy the above specified materials from the same place. e) Verify that the user has already received a copy of these materials or that you have already sent this user a copy. For an executable, the required form of the "work that uses the Library" must include any data and utility programs needed for reproducing the executable from it. However, as a special exception, the materials to be distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable. It may happen that this requirement contradicts the license restrictions of other proprietary libraries that do not normally accompany the operating system. Such a contradiction means you cannot use both them and the Library together in an executable that you distribute."