MOV

MOV/.mov is a video Container format for QuickTime.

The multimedia container file can hold multiple tracks, audio, video, effects or text files. Each Track, regardless of type, has its own digitally-encoded media stream using a specific Codec.

QuickTime natively supports AIFF, WAV, DV, MP3, and MPEG-1. Including extensions, QT can also support Ogg, ASF, FLV, MKV, and DivX Media Format.

MP4 was based on Apples MOV (Quicktime) container, which they were already using for MPEG-4 content. Rather than using a different type of file for elementary (separate video and audio) streams, MOV and MP4 use the same container regardless of how many or what type of streams are stored in it. Apple's iTunes online music store made audio only MP4 files a common site for consumers. Although not all portable media players can read them, Apple's M4A extension (for audio only MP4 files) has become anonymous with audio.

Related software tools:

Media Player Classic v6.4.9.1 (20081210) (Open source)
Media Player Classic is an extremely light-weight media player for Windows. It looks just like the good-old Media Player v6.4, but has lots of nice extra features.

MOV Download Tool v1.1.1 (Freeware)
MOV Download Tool is a tool for downloading QuickTime files from various websites.

QuickTime Alternative (QT7 based) v2.9.0 (Freeware)
QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install the official QuickTime Player

QuickTime Alternative Lite (QT7 based) v1.95 (Freeware)
QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files without having to install the official QuickTime Player.

VLC v1.0.0 RC 4 (Open source)
VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...

VLC for Mac OS X v1.0.0 RC 4 (Open source)
VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various st

VSO ConvertXtoDVD v3.6.13.178 (Shareware)
Easy-to-use tool that allows converting any video file format (DivX, AVI, WMV, ..) to a DVD-compliant video.