How do i play a downloaded video on macbook?

Use VLC. It will playback pretty much everything.

Agreed. VLC is these best media player out for all operating systems. Be sure to check for updates often on the VLC website.

and install perian

What kind of video file is it???

I have a macbook and QuickTime but I don’t know how to use it. I’m one of those computer illiterate people. I don’t know what kind of files there are, much less what this one is. A friend sent it by email. And what is VLC??

OK, I’ve down loaded VLC. I also have QuickTime. I just can’t figure out what I have to do to play the video on either player? How hard can this be?

If you have VLC it should just be a matter of opening the file in the player, from the open file menu at the tp left.

You know what kind of file format it is ? It might be compressed within a container to save space. If that is the case you need to unpack it first.