With the multiplication of Apple devices, which allow you to enjoy your media pretty much anywhere, you need to be able to convert and play your media files to any format. Roxio Crunch lets you do just this. Most users will probably be interested in converting unprotected DVDs and VIDEO_TS files to play on their Apple TVs or iPods, but Crunch also allows you to make video files playable on Sony PSP, DivX or 3GP formats. Just drag and drop any video file on the interface to convert it. Roxio Crunch has custom settings to quickly find the format you need.

More advanced users will be disappointed that Roxio Crunch does not actually allow you to convert encrypted DVDs. In terms of performances, Roxio Crunch is on par with similar applications, which means that some users might prefer going with free alternatives instead, like HandBrake or MacTheRipper. Similarly, converting media files to the iPod format is not exclusive to Roxio Crunch as you can easily do that with iTunes or QuickTime.

One the whole, Roxio Crunch is a good tool to convert a wide variety of media files to any format. While some users will be frustrated by the lack of advanced features, a simple drag and drop interface and DVD conversion make this an attractive Mac application.

Try out Roxio Crunch if you're looking for a simple tool to play your media on any support.

Download Roxio Crunch 1.0 in Softonic

Reelbean offers you a converter, an exporter and a media player all in one friendly interface.

Converting movies is a very common thing to do nowadays, especially with all the different devices you can play a video on. The video iPod in particular has been extremely successful, given how easy it makes it store and watch videos anywhere.

If you are the lucky owner of such a device then you surely have had to convert videos to play them properly on it. It can be a little difficult to find the right application to do the job though. We like Reelbean, because it lets you convert and export in many format, including the iPod friendly MPEG4 and 3GPP for other mobile devices. The process is easy and fairly quick.

Reelbean doesn't limit itself to converting though, and since it handles so many formats, you can also preview and play them from it. Video quality is good and you can use the slider at the bottom to move forward and backwards in the movie. Reelbean also plays any streaming media.

The limitations in the trial version are the only things that we found disappointing. You won't be able to convert, extract or export videos, so you're pretty much left with the playback functions of the software.

Despite the limitations in the trial version, Reelbean is an excellent application to convert, export and play all sorts of video formats.

Download ReelBean 3.8.2 in Softonic

With Last.fm, music fans have found a place to congregate and share musical tastes. The Last.fm player places the “social music revolution” onto your desktop, giving you access to thousands of tracks from all musical genres.

The beauty of the application is that it encourages you to find similar artists to the ones you’re accustomed to and also pushes you to interact with users who share the same tastes. Search results appear as a tag cloud, with the biggest elements being the most popular. With thousands of songs available on Last.fm, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll listen to the same thing twice. The player is streaming and you’ll have to be connected to the internet and have a Last.fm account for it to work.

Although slightly bulky, the Last.fm player interface is sleek and accessible. We like the shiny control icons and the “now playing” window. This is where you’ll find all artist information like album cover, a small description of the artist, related tags and artists and top listeners. The menu bar on the left includes your recently played tracks, recently loved and recently banned, although to listen to these you’ll need to upgrade your Last.fm account (€2.50/month). The last 10 stations you’ve listened to are automatically saved in your history file.

The social experience is central to Last.fm and becomes pretty addictive. By listening to tracks you create a profile of yourself, the music you listen to and the artists you like. Last.fm then connects you to other users that have similar tastes, whom it calls neighbours. In the Last.fm player, you can connect to neighbours' stations and listen to their tunes. The lists of the friends you made on Last.fm will also appear in your player. If you have the Audioscrobbler plug-in installed, Last.fm can also track all the songs you play in your favourite desktop music app (like iTunes) and connect you with even more neighbours.

Most of us here at Softonic have Last.fm connected all day, simply because it doesn’t require you to have your own music library, it’s free and provides an endless flow of new tunes. In line with modern evolutions in online music, this web music application mixes streaming and social tools to give you an exciting music player. No music fan with access to Internet should be caught dead without it.

Download Last.fm player 1.5.3.45507 in Softonic

Sound Studio 3 is an easy-to-use Mac OS X application for recording and editing audio digitally on your computer. Digitize tapes and vinyl records, record live performances, create your own mixes with crossfades, tweak the levels and EQ, apply digital effects, and save in all major file formats with Sound Studio 3!

With Sound Studio 3 you can record professional sounding Podcasts and other audio dialog. Check out the article on Suggested Recording Hardware to find out more about how to mic properly and other useful audio information. Positioned perfectly between more expensive programs with steep learning curves, and far less robust apps, Sound Studio 3 is for anyone who needs to record or edit audio.

Download Sound Studio 3.5.7 in Softonic

I hate watching dubbed movies. Except on rare occasions, the translation is never quite as good as the original dialogue. That's why I always watch movies in their original language, although with subtitles to be able to follow the story.

Submerge does a great job at merging subtitle files with your movies. It handles most of the subtitle formats, like SubRip or MicroDVD and automatically syncs them to your videos, with very little work on your part.

If you want to watch your movie just to check that the subtitles were added properly, Submerge offers basic playback functions and can display videos in full screen. Remember that it's first and foremost a subtitle merger, so don't expect any advanced features.

After your video and subtitle have been properly, Submerge can seamlessly transfer the video to either your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV. Once again here Submerge will do the hard work for you. All you will have to do is make sure that your Apple device is well connected.

If like me you really enjoy watching files in their main language, then Submerge is the tool for you. Seamless subtitle integration.

Download Submerge 1.5.3 in Softonic

Its harmonizing capabilities enable the composer to build quickly and efficiently tunes that include accompaniment, multiple instruments and drum patterns. Its full page edit and engraver modes will ease editing and page setup of your scores.

A wide range of music symbols will enable to edit scores of great quality: notation capabilities are immense. Using the page mode, you will edit the score just as it will be printed on paper. The Engraver mode will make look it nice.

Score input can be performed through the mouse, computer keyboard or an external MIDI keyboard. Harmony Assistant comes with its own embedded software synthesizer (SoftSynth), which provides high quality output on basic sound cards, even without any external MIDI device, and includes hundreds of different instruments.

Harmony Assistant can load and save in many formats (MIDI, WAV, AIFF, MP3, OGG, TAB, ABC...). With MyrScript, the embedded programming language, you can add your own features to the program.

Download Harmony Assistant 9.4.6 in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to keep a video you find on the web and play it on your iPod?

If so, you'll enjoy Cosmopod. This effective little plugin lets you download and convert web videos in seconds. The addon supports all sorts of web formats, including FLV and Divx and can convert them into high quality iPod-ready videos thanks to H.264 and MPEG4 encoding. You can even drag and drop videos from your Mac and convert them with Cosmopod.

The plugin features an embedded player, so you can preview your encoded video and make sure it's what you want and that the quality is OK. Although it's a shame that Cosmopod only works with Safari, the plugin integrates perfectly with the Apple browser, thanks to a cleverly designed interface. You can also activate Growl support to get notified when conversions are finished.

Cosmopod is a little Safari plugin that will allow you to download any encode any web video to an iPod ready format.

Download CosmoPod 2.7 in Softonic

This is an application utility for concatenating several files into one single Quicktime movie. It supports various input file formats, including, of course, Quicktime movies. It's useful if you've downloaded a movie into various clips and want to have it into one, to burn it on disc, for example.

Download AddMovie 1.5.5 in Softonic

If you like to watch YouTube and Google Video regularly but are worried about them being taken offline then Videobox can help.

Videobox allows you to quickly and easily download Flash video from most popular video sites on the internet. Videobox will convert the video into a native Quicktime format so it's ready to view on your Mac, iPod, iPhone or iTunes. Videobox is a simple widget that uses keywords to search for Google Video and YouTube videos from your desktop. The immediate problem with Videobox is that because both these services hare gradually being merged, you often get the same results for both but still, the search works pretty well.

Simply enter your search terms into the Videobox searchbox and hit the magnifying glass. The results in Videobox take a little longer than using the video sites directly but you'll soon be presented with a list of results from both YouTube and Google Video that match your criteria including title, description and in the case of YouTube, tags. The disadvantage is that you don't benefit from the comments.

Videobox is a useful alternative to searching for videos via YouTube and Google Video when you don't have the time or inclination to read the comments.

Download Videobox 2.7.2 in Softonic

HD Quick Look helps you quickly preview all your AVCHD files without actually having to play them. This can be a great time saver if you have a very large collection of AVCHD files.

For those of you that may not know it AVCHD is a high definition recording format used in tapeless camcorders. Many commercial camcorders still very much use AVCHD.

HD Quick Look makes use of one of Apple's latest technology previews to show you the first image of your AVCHD recording. You then quickly skip through your files until you find the one you want.

Once HD Quick Look is installed, all you need to do is press Space bar on any AVCHD to bring up the preview. You can also select multiple files and view them in an index or slideshow.

HD Quick Look does not actually play AVCHD files. The obvious limitation is that the first frame of a movie is at times not enough to give an idea of what it is.

If you have AVCHD files on your Mac, HD Quick Look will let you preview them without playback.

Download HD Quick Look 1.0 in Softonic

It's no secret that most DJs have ditched their turntables and heavy bags full of vinyl for powerful laptops and mixing applications like djay.

The application display two turntables and a simple mixing table. You have access to all your iTunes tracks and playlists, which you can drag and drop on the interface, from the right of the program. djay allows you to add both echo and reverb to your tracks, create spontaneous loops and create smooth transitions. You can also set cue points and adjust the BPM with a click of your mouse.

I was a little disappointed with the sampler, which seemed somewhat limited and unintuitive. Adding sound snippets to your mix sounds cool, but isn't as easy as it sounds. I also felt mixing and scratching with the mouse particularly tedious in djay. Luckily if your Mac is equipped with Multi-Touch than you'll be able to mix and scratch with your trackpad.

djay is an enjoyable mixing application. If you're planning a party and want to create a mix out of your iTunes tracks then you'll like it.

Download djay 2.1.3 in Softonic

Are you looking for a complete video encoding solution. The lesser known MPEG Streamclip is a very good program to work with.

MPEG Streamclip is more than a simple encoder. It also works as an editor, converter and player. The application supports almost any video format and can export converted files to any format of your choice.

Despite its slightly unintuitive interface, which might put off first time users, MPEG Streamclip is actually relatively easy to use. Just select your file, choose a compression type and let MPEG Streamclip do the rest. You'll find a wide choice of settings which will let you adjust quality, encoding level and bitrate of videos among other things.

MPEG Streamclip can handle multiple audio tracks and works with files larger than 4GB, although you'll have to make sure these are cut up in smaller segments.

If you are on DVB, you'll be glad to know it supports a number of DreamBox and TopField models. MPEG-2 devices can also be easily connected and used with MPEG Streamclip.

Despite its slightly unintuitive user interface, MPEG Streamclip is a highly effective and versatile video encoder and converter.

Download MPEG Streamclip 1.9.2 in Softonic

Encoders have become so important nowadays simply because of all the video and audio formats that exist and all the devices you can play media on.

RoadMovie is a good batch encoder, if you want to handle a couple of videos at once. The application features a number of presets, so you don't have to muck around with encoding. Just select whether you want your video to work on an iPod, PSP or other device and let RoadMovie do the rest. If you're the kind of person that likes playing with settings though, you'll be glad to know you can create your very own custom presets.

RoadMovie also lets you add in subtitles in common formats like .srt and .sub.

Once your movie is ready you can upload it on the internet via destinations like FTP, S3, .Mac or WebDav.

RoadMovie is a great batch encoder, with good presets, subtitle support and upload possibilities. A good choice if you're looking for a simple yet powerful solution.

Download RoadMovie 1.4.3 in Softonic

AudialHub enters a category which is nothing short of applications, that of sound converters. However since it comes from the people who make the solid visual converters VisualHub and iSquint, we can expect something good.

AudialHub offers the same type of interface and all you need to do is drag and drop your audio files, select what format to convert to, the quality and start the process. Advanced settings give you a chance to play around with things like channel, bitrate and volume and you can even choose to trim the start and end of an audio file.

AudialHub can convert to lossy and lossless audio formats and can be used to burn an MP3 or audio CD. You can monitor the conversion progress from inside the interface or on the Dock icon and even pause and resume during conversion.

The audio converter won't be able to convert DRM protected files and the demo is limited to one minute of conversion.

AudialHub is an intuitive tool to quickly convert audio to the most popular lossy and lossless formats.

Download AudialHub 1.07 in Softonic

The Mac is not the most competitive market for DJ-ing software (compared to Windows) but if it were, DJ-1800 would be one of it's best picks.

DJ-1800 is a complete, self-contained professional DJ system for the Mac which simply requires a decent AMP to get the most out of it. There's absolutely no need for a mixer, CD player or record deck and it can run from a digital music collection so there's no need to lug around heavy boxes if you're a professional DJ.

DJ-1800 can use a variety of MP3 and musical input sources so you'll never find yourself short of music options. If you've run out of space on your Mac for example, DJ-1800 provides support for music stored on an iPhone or iPod Touch. For professionals, DJ-1800 now supports all the major controllers including including the Denon DN-HC4500, M-Audio X-Session Pro, Numark DMC2, Numark iCDX and Numark Total Control

For beginners DJ-1800 is a minefield - it''s incredibly complex to use but professionals will find DJ-1800 one of the most slick DJ'ing apps they've seen on the Mac in a while.

Download DJ-1800 X 2.1.1 in Softonic

Labelling your MP3s correctly is essential if you're going to have any order to your music collection at all but Simple Tagger goes a long way to solving that problem.

If you're tired of having disorderly music collection then you'll need to use a tag editor such as Simple Tagger to help spruce things up. Changing the names of files simply isn't enough - tags are the identifier that most music apps now use to identify a music file or MP3. The great thing about Simple Tagger is that it utilizes the Amazon.com database to make sure that your songs are tagged correctly.

Simply go to Amazon, type the name of the musician or artist you're looking for. Then, in your music folder, drag the album cover into the right column of Simple Tagger and it will automatically detect the artist and create the right tag for you - you don't need to write a thing. Simple Tagger is very fast to use and an ingenious idea although it doesn't always tag songs correctly and some albums you won't be able to find if they're obscure.

Easy to use and amazingly quick, Simple Tagger takes the pain out of organizing your music collection instantly.

Download Simple Tagger 1.0 in Softonic

Screencasts, which are videos of your computer screen, are highly popular, simply because they're easy to make and end up looking great.

ScreenFlow is a new screencasting application, which not only records every activity on your screen, but also includes really impressive editing features. Using ScreenFlow you can simultaneously record your iSight camera, mic audio, computer audio and image without having to worry about your Mac slowing down. Even better, the application records not only images but also all the actions, like keyboard typing or mouse movements. Using 'callouts' you can highlight and focus on any area or action.

Recording quality is excellent, and thanks to a high frame rate (which you can set), your videos look just like if everything was actually happening on your screen. The only little trouble though is that the application lags every now and then, especially when going from a recording to editing.

The editor is easy to work with yet also offers lots of effects you'd expect to make your screencast really nice. You can zoom and pan, trim clips, add drop shadows & reflections and do much more to enhance your screencast. Once your video is done it can also be exported in multiple formats.

The real drawback to ScreenFlow is its price. $99 is a lot to pay for a piece of software nowadays, yet if you're looking to produce professional looking screencasts it's probably worth it.

Despite being a little pricey, ScreenFlow is an excellent screencasting application with a very intuitive editor and lots of effects.

Download ScreenFlow 1.2 in Softonic

Floola is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod or your Motorola mobile phone (any model supporting iTunes). It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation under Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Floola supports all most common used features including podcasts! Take a look at the feature list to find out what it can do and feel free to suggest anything that might be missing.

Take a a look at what Floola has to offer:

• Cross plattform
• Completely Portable
• Copy songs to and from iPod
• Manage, import and export playlists
• Support for Last.fm
• Support for podcasts
• Available in different languages
• Lyric support even on older iPods (3G and above)
• Search for duplicates
• Search lost files
• Add artwork to your songs easily
• Videos can be added to iPod
• Export iPod contents to HTML lists
• Manage notes
• Play iPod's music

Download Floola 3.3 in Softonic

Dreamed of creating playlists of songs with the same beats per minute (BPM)? Tangerine! is a simple mixing tool that analyzes your tracks for you and pits the ones with a similar BPM together.

Tangerine! will inspect your iTunes music library as soon as you open the program. It normally processes them fairly fast. You'll see the interface is very similar to iTunes. Tangerine! displays your library, shuffle, and playlists. Track information is also shown just like it would be in iTunes.

You can let Tangerine! select tracks with a similar BPM, or just drag them down on the timeline. The albums will appear in a Cover Flow style, which really looks clean.

Tangerine! comes with different playlist models, depending on the sort of rhythm you are looking for. The BPM count will not always be right though, so make sure you listen to your playlist after its been mixed to see if you are happy with it.

If you don't know much about mixing but want your very own playlist then you'll enjoy Tangerine!.

Download Tangerine! 1.3.6 in Softonic

Mac users are often said to be the most loyal customers in the computer market, but that's because they have very good reasons, such as iTunes, to stick to Apple products. And if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't miss the opportunity to have this application on my Windows PC.

iTunes has become one of the most popular music managers available today. When you run it for the first time, you can choose your music folders or let the program take care of everything. Then you can keep on adding new music, videos, podcasts and other multimedia elements from various sources and – of course - synchronize all this content with your iPod or iPhone thanks to a perfectly seamless integration.

Managing your iTunes library is a piece of cake. The program's interface is simple and straightforward, plus there are right-click shortcuts and keyboard hotkeys for many tasks. You can view extended information about each track and edit their tags, give them a score with the iTunes star ranking tool and comfortably browse through your collection with the amazing Cover Flow system. And for those of you who work in a LAN environment, the great news is that you can share your music libraries with your network mates.

One thing I particularly like of iTunes as music manager is its ability to create playlists. The Smart Playlist tool enables you to create almost any kind of playlist based on just about any criteria you set: artist, genre, date added, star ranking or even the number of times you've played each song. Another great playlist is the so called Party Shuffle, which comes in very handy when you invite some friends over to your place. You can then leave iTunes working as a DJ and play music on its own, but if you drop by the PC at any time, you can freely add more songs to the list or rearrange them in any way.

However, if there's something where iTunes is not perfect yet, that's the player function. You may disagree here, but I think the iTunes player falls too short, especially when compared to its music manager side. It does have some interesting features, like the Smart shuffle function and crossfading playback, but I still find it too simple. The visual effects in the Viewer window are particularly poor. I also missed the ability to control the player from anywhere with global hotkeys, which is great if you listen to music while you're working on the PC with other apps. Fortunately there are some plug-ins that cover this need.

In all, despite these slight flaws, iTunes is probably the best choice to manage your music collection –and that includes Windows users.

Download iTunes 7.7.1 in Softonic