ReelBean - a Great Multimedia Player/Converter for Mac

First off, let me say that I am a big fan of Quicktime, the standard multimedia format/container by Apple Computer. Of course, the quality of an encoded video or audio file depends on the source material, who is doing the encoding, and what settings were used, but in my experience, Quicktime is capable of producing high quality output. As well, the Quicktime Player is a nice player. It's certainly nothing you would want to use to organize your music or videos, but for simple playback, it's almost always my player of choice if I'm using a Mac.

My main gripe with the Quicktime Player is that it has all kinds of features (the ability to play video files full screen, edit audio and video, as well as convert it to other formats), but that those features aren't available unless you purchase a $29.95 Quicktime PRO license. Now, I think the thirty dollars might actually be worth it, but it bugs me that an integral part of the operating system's multimedia experience, written by the same people who wrote my operating system (and built the computer!), should be shipped as shareware.

However, I recently stumbled across an audio/video player that may someday replace Quicktime Player on my computer. The name of the program is ReelBean, and while it is also shareware, I think the price asked for (a mere 15 dollars... half as much as Apple wants for Quicktime Pro), is a great deal, especially considering that ReelBean has most of the same capabilities, and even a few neat features that Quicktime Pro lacks.

First of all, you can certainly use ReelBean for free. All the basic features work as expected, and there is no 30-day demo period, after which the program ceases to work. There is also no nag screen, begging you - each time you start the program - to pay for it. If you want to use the free features, great. So, what can ReelBean do?