Hi Kath and maverick1lc

until someone with more recent Mac classic experience comes along, here's what I recall about trying to play video on Mac OS 7.61-9:

once QuickTime is updated (Software Update or the Update button in the QuickTime Control Panel), then--

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30903 is the place to start--this will get you about three codecs for starts

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ Quicktime Pro comes with extra plugins for a price

http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/ will help play a few more for free

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...oad/mac71.aspx will get you a 'free' Microsoft product (shudder). I remember trying Windows Media Player *? for Mac a few years ago and finding it had a high 'price', but perhaps it doesn't still mess up other prefs and can be uninstalled much easier.
This one is may be 'free', but I'd be cautious.

Really though--for playing video on a Mac, as pointed out above, VLC on OSX covers most of the situations QuickTime can't handle.

cheers.