Perian is nice, but VLC is great to have as a fallback: it works on everything up to and including scratched DVD's, and it's easy enough to use being a standalone app.
Yes, VLC's reading of DVDs is much more permissive. I've never figured out what the deal is with Apple's DVD reading software.
Perian is hampered in many places by the limitations of QuickTime itself. Apple hasn't yet provided any API for QTX, but they've promised us that it fixes many of our problems. We've communicated with the QuickTime team, and they're aware of our frustrations and seem at least somewhat inclined to work with us once QTX has a reasonable API.
Perian is hampered in many places by the limitations of QuickTime itself. Apple hasn't yet provided any API for QTX, but they've promised us that it fixes many of our problems. We've communicated with the QuickTime team, and they're aware of our frustrations and seem at least somewhat inclined to work with us once QTX has a reasonable API.