DVD Genie		Regional coding applies on PCs to both DVD-Rom drives and the player itself, whether hardware or software-based. Fortunately DVD Genie can unlock the vast majority of software DVD players, including PowerDVD, SoftDVD and the one which comes with ATI graphics cards. Depending on your configuration, you may find the actual Rom drive still poses a regional problem, but a quick browse on the website for DVD Genie reveals a list of firmware updates that will unlock many popular DVD drives on the market.

Nok2phone		There's a vast range of mobile phone ringtones available, but why not create your own unique tune? The Nok2phone utility can actually take PC Midi files and convert them into the appropriate file format for a wide range of mobile phones. Supported handsets include those by Alcatel, Ericsson (Sony Ericsson), Nokia, NEC, Motorola, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sanyo, Sendo, Siemens, and Sony. Nok2phone is shareware and limited to converting the first 20 notes only, but full registration only costs around £6.

Quicktime player		Today's reality of exclusive content licenses means the average PC user has at least two media players in their system, and one of these will almost certainly be Quicktime. Apple has put an enormous effort into ensuring many of the hottest movie trailers, previews and clips are available only in the Quicktime format, which simply means you'll need the Quicktime player if you want to see them. Apple requires that you visit the Quicktime website to download this software.

DivX playa		DivX is a video compression technology developed by DivXNetworks, based on the MPEG-4 system. The DivX CODEC (compressor / decompressor) allows you to create your own DivX files, or view them in a suitable media player, such as DivXNetworks' own Playa. The DivX CODEC isn't available separately, but you get it with the Playa. DivX could be used for delivering trailers, but most people are using it to sufficiently compress entire feature films so they can be transported on single CD Roms or over the Internet.

TMPG encoder		Turning your home movies into DVDs is this year's killer application, and a number of excellent packages are available that look after all the tricky stuff for you. The most intensive part of this process is turning your video clips into the MPEG-2 format required by DVD. TMPG encoder is a standalone utility that can convert standard AVI video files into MPEG-2. Encoding options include a number of variable and constant bit rates, up to an incredibly high quality 8Mbit/s setting.