mplayer(1)
NAME
mpv - a media player
SYNOPSIS
mpv [options] [file|URL|PLAYLIST|-] mpv [options] files
DESCRIPTION
mpv is a media player based on MPlayer and mplayer2. It supports a wide variety of video file formats, audio and video codecs, and subtitle types. Special input URL types are available to read input from a variety of sources other than disk files. Depending on platform, a variety of different video and audio output methods are supported. Usage examples to get you started quickly can be found at the end of this man page.
INTERACTIVE CONTROL
mpv has a fully configurable, command-driven control layer which allows
you to control mpv using keyboard, mouse, or remote control (there is
no LIRC support - configure remotes as input devices instead).
See the --input- options for ways to customize it.
The following listings are not necessarily complete. See etc/input.conf
for a list of default bindings. User input.conf files and Lua scripts
can define additional key bindings.
Keyboard Control
LEFT and RIGHT
Seek backward/forward 5 seconds. Shift+arrow does a 1 second
exact seek (see --hr-seek).
UP and DOWN
Seek forward/backward 1 minute. Shift+arrow does a 5 second
exact seek (see --hr-seek).
Ctrl+LEFT and Ctrl+RIGHT
Seek to the previous/next subtitle. Subject to some restrictions
and might not always work; see sub-seek command.
[ and ]
Decrease/increase current playback speed by 10%.
{ and }
Halve/double current playback speed.
BACKSPACE
Reset playback speed to normal.
< and >
Go backward/forward in the playlist.
ENTER Go forward in the playlist.
p / SPACE
Pause (pressing again unpauses).
. Step forward. Pressing once will pause, every consecutive press
will play one frame and then go into pause mode again.
, Step backward. Pressing once will pause, every consecutive press
will play one frame in reverse and then go into pause mode
again.
q Stop playing and quit.
Q Like q, but store the current playback position. Playing the
same file later will resume at the old playback position if
possible.
/ and *
Decrease/increase volume.
9 and 0
Decrease/increase volume.
m Mute sound.
_ Cycle through the available video tracks.
# Cycle through the available audio tracks.
f Toggle fullscreen (see also --fs).
ESC Exit fullscreen mode.
T Toggle stay-on-top (see also --ontop).
w and e
Decrease/increase pan-and-scan range.
o (also P)
Show progression bar, elapsed time and total duration on the
OSD.
O Toggle OSD states between normal and playback time/duration.
v Toggle subtitle visibility.
j and J
Cycle through the available subtitles.
x and z
Adjust subtitle delay by +/- 0.1 seconds.
l Set/clear A-B loop points. See ab-loop command for details.
L Toggle infinite looping.
Ctrl + and Ctrl -
Adjust audio delay by +/- 0.1 seconds.
u Switch between applying no style overrides to SSA/ASS subtitles,
and overriding them almost completely with the normal subtitle
style. See --sub-ass-style-override for more info.
V Toggle subtitle VSFilter aspect compatibility mode. See
--sub-ass-vsfilter-aspect-compat for more info.
r and t
Move subtitles up/down.
s Take a screenshot.
S Take a screenshot, without subtitles. (Whether this works
depends on VO driver support.)
Ctrl s Take a screenshot, as the window shows it (with subtitles, OSD,
and scaled video).
I Show filename on the OSD.
PGUP and PGDWN
Seek to the beginning of the previous/next chapter. In most
cases, "previous" will actually go to the beginning of the
current chapter; see --chapter-seek-threshold.
Shift+PGUP and Shift+PGDWN
Seek backward or forward by 10 minutes. (This used to be mapped
to PGUP/PGDWN without Shift.)
d Activate/deactivate deinterlacer.
A Cycle aspect ratio override.
(The following keys are valid only when using a video output that
supports the corresponding adjustment, or the software equalizer
(--vf=eq).)
1 and 2
Adjust contrast.
3 and 4
Adjust brightness.
5 and 6
Adjust gamma.
7 and 8
Adjust saturation.
Alt+0 (and command+0 on OSX)
Resize video window to half its original size.
Alt+1 (and command+1 on OSX)
Resize video window to its original size.
Alt+2 (and command+2 on OSX)
Resize video window to double its original size.
command + f (OSX only)
Toggle fullscreen (see also --fs).
(The following keys are valid if you have a keyboard with multimedia
keys.)
PAUSE Pause.
STOP Stop playing and quit.
PREVIOUS and NEXT
Seek backward/forward 1 minute.
(The following keys are only valid if you compiled with TV or DVB input
support.)
h and k
Select previous/next tv-channel.
H and K
Select previous/next dvb-channel.
Mouse Control
button 3 and button 4
Seek backward/forward 1 minute.
button 5 and button 6
Decrease/increase volume.
USAGE
Command line arguments starting with - are interpreted as options,
everything else as filenames or URLs. All options except flag options
(or choice options which include yes) require a parameter in the form
--option=value.
One exception is the lone - (without anything else), which means media
data will be read from stdin. Also, -- (without anything else) will
make the player interpret all following arguments as filenames, even if
they start with -. (To play a file named -, you need to use ./-.)
Every flag option has a no-flag counterpart, e.g. the opposite of the
--fs option is --no-fs. --fs=yes is same as --fs, --fs=no is the same
as --no-fs.
If an option is marked as (XXX only), it will only work in combination
with the XXX option or if XXX is compiled in.
Legacy option syntax
The --option=value syntax is not strictly enforced, and the alternative
legacy syntax -option value and --option value will also work. This is
mostly for compatibility with MPlayer. Using these should be avoided.
Their semantics can change any time in the future.
For example, the alternative syntax will consider an argument following
the option a filename. mpv -fs no will attempt to play a file named no,
because --fs is a flag option that requires no parameter. If an option
changes and its parameter becomes optional, then a command line using
the alternative syntax will break.
Currently, the parser makes no difference whether an option starts with
-- or a single -. This might also change in the future, and --option
value might always interpret value as filename in order to reduce
ambiguities.
Escaping spaces and other special characters
Keep in mind that the shell will partially parse and mangle the
arguments you pass to mpv. For example, you might need to quote or
escape options and filenames:
mpv "filename with spaces.mkv" --title="window title"
It gets more complicated if the suboption parser is involved. The
suboption parser puts several options into a single string, and passes
them to a component at once, instead of using multiple options on the
level of the command line.
The suboption parser can quote strings with " and [...]. Additionally,
there is a special form of quoting with %n% described below.
For example, assume the hypothetical foo filter can take multiple
options:
mpv test.mkv --vf=foo:option1=value1:option2:option3=value3,bar
This passes option1 and option3 to the foo filter, with option2 as flag
(implicitly option2=yes), and adds a bar filter after that. If an
option contains spaces or characters like , or :, you need to quote
them:
mpv '--vf=foo:option1="option value with spaces",bar'
Shells may actually strip some quotes from the string passed to the
commandline, so the example quotes the string twice, ensuring that mpv
receives the " quotes.
The [...] form of quotes wraps everything between [ and ]. It's useful
with shells that don't interpret these characters in the middle of an
argument (like bash). These quotes are balanced (since mpv 0.9.0): the
[ and ] nest, and the quote terminates on the last ] that has no
matching [ within the string. (For example, [a[b]c] results in a[b]c.)
The fixed-length quoting syntax is intended for use with external
scripts and programs.
It is started with % and has the following format:
%n%string_of_length_n
Examples
mpv '--vf=foo:option1=%11%quoted text' test.avi
Or in a script:
mpv --vf=foo:option1=%`expr length "$NAME"`%"$NAME" test.avi
Suboptions passed to the client API are also subject to escaping. Using
mpv_set_option_string() is exactly like passing --name=data to the
command line (but without shell processing of the string). Some options
support passing values in a more structured way instead of flat
strings, and can avoid the suboption parsing mess. For example, --vf
supports MPV_FORMAT_NODE, which lets you pass suboptions as a nested
data structure of maps and arrays.
Paths
Some care must be taken when passing arbitrary paths and filenames to
mpv. For example, paths starting with - will be interpreted as options.
Likewise, if a path contains the sequence ://, the string before that
might be interpreted as protocol prefix, even though :// can be part of
a legal UNIX path. To avoid problems with arbitrary paths, you should
be sure that absolute paths passed to mpv start with /, and prefix
relative paths with ./.
Using the file:// pseudo-protocol is discouraged, because it involves
strange URL unescaping rules.
The name - itself is interpreted as stdin, and will cause mpv to
disable console controls. (Which makes it suitable for playing data
piped to stdin.)
The special argument -- can be used to stop mpv from interpreting the
following arguments as options.
When using the client API, you should strictly avoid using
mpv_command_string for invoking the loadfile command, and instead
prefer e.g. mpv_command to avoid the need for filename escaping.
For paths passed to suboptions, the situation is further complicated by
the need to escape special characters. To work this around, the path
can be additionally wrapped in the fixed-length syntax, e.g.
%n%string_of_length_n (see above).
Some mpv options interpret paths starting with ~. Currently, the prefix
~~/ expands to the mpv configuration directory (usually
~/.config/mpv/). ~/ expands to the user's home directory. (The
trailing / is always required.) There are the following paths as well:
┌─────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│Name │ Meaning │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~home/ │ same as ~~/ │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~global/ │ the global config path, if │
│ │ available (not on win32) │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~osxbundle/ │ the OSX bundle resource │
│ │ path (OSX only) │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~desktop/ │ the path to the desktop │
│ │ (win32, OSX) │
└─────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
Per-File Options
When playing multiple files, any option given on the command line
usually affects all files. Example:
mpv --a file1.mkv --b file2.mkv --c
┌──────────┬────────────────┐
│File │ Active options │
├──────────┼────────────────┤
│file1.mkv │ --a --b --c │
├──────────┼────────────────┤
│file2.mkv │ --a --b --c │
└──────────┴────────────────┘
(This is different from MPlayer and mplayer2.)
Also, if any option is changed at runtime (via input commands), they
are not reset when a new file is played.
Sometimes, it is useful to change options per-file. This can be
achieved by adding the special per-file markers --{ and --}. (Note that
you must escape these on some shells.) Example:
mpv --a file1.mkv --b --\{ --c file2.mkv --d file3.mkv --e --\} file4.mkv --f
┌──────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│File │ Active options │
├──────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│file1.mkv │ --a --b --f │
├──────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│file2.mkv │ --a --b --f --c --d --e │
├──────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│file3.mkv │ --a --b --f --c --d --e │
├──────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│file4.mkv │ --a --b --f │
└──────────┴─────────────────────────┘
Additionally, any file-local option changed at runtime is reset when
the current file stops playing. If option --c is changed during
playback of file2.mkv, it is reset when advancing to file3.mkv. This
only affects file-local options. The option --a is never reset here.
Playing DVDs
DVDs can be played with the dvd://[title] syntax. The optional title
specifier is a number which selects between separate video streams on
the DVD. If no title is given (dvd://) then the longest title is
selected automatically by the library. This is usually what you want.
mpv does not support DVD menus.
DVDs which have been copied on to a hard drive or other mounted
filesystem (by e.g. the dvdbackup tool) are accommodated by specifying
the path to the local copy: --dvd-device=PATH. Alternatively, running
mpv PATH should auto-detect a DVD directory tree and play the longest
title.
NOTE:
mpv uses a different default DVD library than MPlayer. MPlayer uses
libdvdread by default, and mpv uses libdvdnav by default. Both
libraries are developed in parallel, but libdvdnav is intended to
support more sophisticated DVD features such as menus and
multi-angle playback. mpv uses libdvdnav for files specified as
either dvd://... or dvdnav://.... To use libdvdread, which will
produce behavior more like MPlayer, specify dvdread://... instead.
Some users have experienced problems when using libdvdnav, in which
playback gets stuck in a DVD menu stream. These problems are
reported to go away when auto-selecting the title (dvd:// rather
than dvd://1) or when using libdvdread (e.g. dvdread://0).
DVDs use image-based subtitles. Image subtitles are implemented as a
bitmap video stream which can be superimposed over the main movie.
mpv's subtitle styling and positioning options and keyboard
shortcuts generally do not work with image-based subtitles.
Exceptions include options like --stretch-dvd-subs and
--stretch-image-subs-to-screen.
CONFIGURATION FILES
Location and Syntax
You can put all of the options in configuration files which will be
read every time mpv is run. The system-wide configuration file
'mpv.conf' is in your configuration directory (e.g. /etc/mpv or
/usr/local/etc/mpv), the user-specific one is ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf.
For details and platform specifics (in particular Windows paths) see
the FILES section.
User-specific options override system-wide options and options given on
the command line override either. The syntax of the configuration files
is option=value. Everything after a # is considered a comment. Options
that work without values can be enabled by setting them to yes and
disabled by setting them to no. Even suboptions can be specified in
this way.
Example configuration file
# Use opengl video output by default.
vo=opengl
# Use quotes for text that can contain spaces:
status-msg="Time: ${time-pos}"
Escaping spaces and special characters
This is done like with command line options. The shell is not involved
here, but option values still need to be quoted as a whole if it
contains certain characters like spaces. A config entry can be quoted
with ", as well as with the fixed-length syntax (%n%) mentioned before.
This is like passing the exact contents of the quoted string as command
line option. C-style escapes are currently _not_ interpreted on this
level, although some options do this manually. (This is a mess and
should probably be changed at some point.)
Putting Command Line Options into the Configuration File
Almost all command line options can be put into the configuration file.
Here is a small guide:
┌──────────────────┬──────────────────────────┐
│Option │ Configuration file entry │
└──────────────────┴──────────────────────────┘
│--flag │ flag │
├──────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│-opt val │ opt=val │
├──────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│--opt=val │ opt=val │
├──────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│-opt "has spaces" │ opt="has spaces" │
└──────────────────┴──────────────────────────┘
File-specific Configuration Files
You can also write file-specific configuration files. If you wish to
have a configuration file for a file called 'video.avi', create a file
named 'video.avi.conf' with the file-specific options in it and put it
in ~/.config/mpv/. You can also put the configuration file in the same
directory as the file to be played. Both require you to set the
--use-filedir-conf option (either on the command line or in your global
config file). If a file-specific configuration file is found in the
same directory, no file-specific configuration is loaded from
~/.config/mpv. In addition, the --use-filedir-conf option enables
directory-specific configuration files. For this, mpv first tries to
load a mpv.conf from the same directory as the file played and then
tries to load any file-specific configuration.
Profiles
To ease working with different configurations, profiles can be defined
in the configuration files. A profile starts with its name in square
brackets, e.g. [my-profile]. All following options will be part of the
profile. A description (shown by --profile=help) can be defined with
the profile-desc option. To end the profile, start another one or use
the profile name default to continue with normal options.
Example mpv config file with profiles
# normal top-level option
fullscreen=yes
# a profile that can be enabled with --profile=big-cache
[big-cache]
cache=123400
demuxer-readahead-secs=20
[slow]
profile-desc="some profile name"
# reference a builtin profile
profile=opengl-hq
[fast]
vo=vdpau
# using a profile again extends it
[slow]
framedrop=no
# you can also include other profiles
profile=big-cache
Auto profiles
Some profiles are loaded automatically. The following example
demonstrates this:
Auto profile loading
[protocol.dvd]
profile-desc="profile for dvd:// streams"
alang=en
[extension.flv]
profile-desc="profile for .flv files"
vf=flip
The profile name follows the schema type.name, where type can be
protocol for the input/output protocol in use (see --list-protocols),
and extension for the extension of the path of the currently played
file (not the file format).
This feature is very limited, and there are no other auto profiles.
TAKING SCREENSHOTS
Screenshots of the currently played file can be taken using the 'screenshot' input mode command, which is by default bound to the s key. Files named mpv-shotNNNN.jpg will be saved in the working directory, using the first available number - no files will be overwritten. In pseudo-GUI mode, the screenshot will be saved somewhere else. See PSEUDO GUI MODE. A screenshot will usually contain the unscaled video contents at the end of the video filter chain and subtitles. By default, S takes screenshots without subtitles, while s includes subtitles. Unlike with MPlayer, the screenshot video filter is not required. This filter was never required in mpv, and has been removed.
TERMINAL STATUS LINE
During playback, mpv shows the playback status on the terminal. It
looks like something like this:
AV: 00:03:12 / 00:24:25 (13%) A-V: -0.000
The status line can be overridden with the --term-status-msg option.
The following is a list of things that can show up in the status line.
Input properties, that can be used to get the same information
manually, are also listed.
· AV: or V: (video only) or A: (audio only)
· The current time position in HH:MM:SS format (playback-time property)
· The total file duration (absent if unknown) (length property)
· Playback speed, e.g. `` x2.0``. Only visible if the speed is not
normal. This is the user-requested speed, and not the actual speed
(usually they should be the same, unless playback is too slow).
(speed property.)
· Playback percentage, e.g. (13%). How much of the file has been
played. Normally calculated out of playback position and duration,
but can fallback to other methods (like byte position) if these are
not available. (percent-pos property.)
· The audio/video sync as A-V: 0.000. This is the difference between
audio and video time. Normally it should be 0 or close to 0. If it's
growing, it might indicate a playback problem. (avsync property.)
· Total A/V sync change, e.g. ct: -0.417. Normally invisible. Can show
up if there is audio "missing", or not enough frames can be dropped.
Usually this will indicate a problem. (total-avsync-change property.)
· Encoding state in {...}, only shown in encoding mode.
· Display sync state. If display sync is active (display-sync-active
property), this shows DS: 2.500/13, where the first number is average
number of vsyncs per video frame (e.g. 2.5 when playing 24Hz videos
on 60Hz screens), which might jitter if the ratio doesn't round off,
or there are mistimed frames (vsync-ratio), and the second number of
estimated number of vsyncs which took too long
(vo-delayed-frame-count property). The latter is a heuristic, as it's
generally not possible to determine this with certainty.
· Dropped frames, e.g. Dropped: 4. Shows up only if the count is not 0.
Can grow if the video framerate is higher than that of the display,
or if video rendering is too slow. May also be incremented on
"hiccups" and when the video frame couldn't be displayed on time.
(vo-drop-frame-count property.) If the decoder drops frames, the
number of decoder-dropped frames is appended to the display as well,
e.g.: Dropped: 4/34. This happens only if decoder frame dropping is
enabled with the --framedrop options. (drop-frame-count property.)
· Cache state, e.g. Cache: 2s+134KB. Visible if the stream cache is
enabled. The first value shows the amount of video buffered in the
demuxer in seconds, the second value shows additional data buffered
in the stream cache in kilobytes. (demuxer-cache-duration and
cache-used properties.)
PROTOCOLS
http://..., https://, ...
Many network protocols are supported, but the protocol prefix
must always be specified. mpv will never attempt to guess
whether a filename is actually a network address. A protocol
prefix is always required.
Note that not all prefixes are documented here. Undocumented
prefixes are either aliases to documented protocols, or are just
redirections to protocols implemented and documented in FFmpeg.
ytdl://...
By default, the youtube-dl hook script (enabled by default for
mpv CLI) only looks at http URLs. Prefixing an URL with ytdl://
forces it to be always processed by the script. This can also be
used to invoke special youtube-dl functionality like playing a
video by ID or invoking search.
Keep in mind that you can't pass youtube-dl command line options
by this, and you have to use --ytdl-raw-options instead.
- Play data from stdin.
smb://PATH
Play a path from Samba share.
bd://[title][/device] --bluray-device=PATH
Play a Blu-ray disc. Currently, this does not accept ISO files.
Instead, you must mount the ISO file as filesystem, and point
--bluray-device to the mounted directory directly.
dvd://[title|[starttitle]-endtitle][/device] --dvd-device=PATH
Play a DVD. DVD menus are not supported. If no title is given,
the longest title is auto-selected.
dvdnav:// is an old alias for dvd:// and does exactly the same
thing.
dvdread://...:
Play a DVD using the old libdvdread code. This is what MPlayer
and older mpv versions use for dvd://. Use is discouraged. It's
provided only for compatibility and for transition.
tv://[channel][/input_id] --tv-...
Analogue TV via V4L. Also useful for webcams. (Linux only.)
pvr:// --pvr-...
PVR. (Linux only.)
dvb://[cardnumber@]channel --dvbin-...
Digital TV via DVB. (Linux only.)
mf://[filemask|@listfile] --mf-...
Play a series of images as video.
cdda://[device] --cdrom-device=PATH --cdda-...
Play CD.
lavf://...
Access any FFmpeg/Libav libavformat protocol. Basically, this
passed the string after the // directly to libavformat.
av://type:options
This is intended for using libavdevice inputs. type is the
libavdevice demuxer name, and options is the (pseudo-)filename
passed to the demuxer.
For example, mpv av://lavfi:mandelbrot makes use of the
libavfilter wrapper included in libavdevice, and will use the
mandelbrot source filter to generate input data.
avdevice:// is an alias.
file://PATH
A local path as URL. Might be useful in some special use-cases.
Note that PATH itself should start with a third / to make the
path an absolute path.
fd://123
Read data from the given file descriptor (for example 123). This
is similar to piping data to stdin via -, but can use an
arbitrary file descriptor.
edl://[edl specification as in edl-mpv.rst]
Stitch together parts of multiple files and play them.
null://
Simulate an empty file. If opened for writing, it will discard
all data. The null demuxer will specifically pass autoprobing
if this protocol is used (while it's not automatically invoked
for empty files).
memory://data
Use the data part as source data.
hex://data
Like memory://, but the string is interpreted as hexdump.
PSEUDO GUI MODE
mpv has no official GUI, other than the OSC (ON SCREEN CONTROLLER),
which is not a full GUI and is not meant to be. However, to compensate
for the lack of expected GUI behavior, mpv will in some cases start
with some settings changed to behave slightly more like a GUI mode.
Currently this happens only in the following cases:
· if started using the mpv.desktop file on Linux (e.g. started from
menus or file associations provided by desktop environments)
· if started from explorer.exe on Windows (technically, if it was
started on Windows, and all of the stdout/stderr/stdin handles are
unset)
· started out of the bundle on OSX
· if you manually use --player-operation-mode=pseudo-gui on the command
line
This mode applies options from the builtin profile builtin-pseudo-gui,
but only if these haven't been set in the user's config file or on the
command line. Also, for compatibility with the old pseudo-gui
behavior, the options in the pseudo-gui profile are applied
unconditionally. In addition, the profile makes sure to enable the
pseudo-GUI mode, so that --profile=pseudo-gui works like in older mpv
releases. The profiles are currently defined as follows:
[builtin-pseudo-gui]
terminal=no
force-window=yes
idle=once
screenshot-directory=~~desktop/
[pseudo-gui]
player-operation-mode=pseudo-gui
WARNING:
Currently, you can extend the pseudo-gui profile in the config file
the normal way. This is deprecated. In future mpv releases, the
behavior might change, and not apply your additional settings,
and/or use a different profile name.
OPTIONS
Track Selection
--alang=<languagecode[,languagecode,...]>
Specify a priority list of audio languages to use. Different
container formats employ different language codes. DVDs use ISO
639-1 two-letter language codes, Matroska, MPEG-TS and NUT use
ISO 639-2 three-letter language codes, while OGM uses a
free-form identifier. See also --aid.
Examples
mpv dvd://1 --alang=hu,en
Chooses the Hungarian language track on a DVD and
falls back on English if Hungarian is not available.
mpv --alang=jpn example.mkv
Plays a Matroska file in Japanese.
--slang=<languagecode[,languagecode,...]>
Specify a priority list of subtitle languages to use. Different
container formats employ different language codes. DVDs use ISO
639-1 two letter language codes, Matroska uses ISO 639-2 three
letter language codes while OGM uses a free-form identifier. See
also --sid.
Examples
· mpv dvd://1 --slang=hu,en chooses the Hungarian subtitle
track on a DVD and falls back on English if Hungarian is
not available.
· mpv --slang=jpn example.mkv plays a Matroska file with
Japanese subtitles.
--aid=<ID|auto|no>
Select audio track. auto selects the default, no disables audio.
See also --alang. mpv normally prints available audio tracks on
the terminal when starting playback of a file.
--audio is an alias for --aid.
--aid=no or --audio=no or --no-audio disables audio playback.
(The latter variant does not work with the client API.)
--sid=<ID|auto|no>
Display the subtitle stream specified by <ID>. auto selects the
default, no disables subtitles.
--sub is an alias for --sid.
--sid=no or --sub=no or --no-sub disables subtitle decoding.
(The latter variant does not work with the client API.)
--vid=<ID|auto|no>
Select video channel. auto selects the default, no disables
video.
--video is an alias for --vid.
--vid=no or --video=no or --no-video disables video playback.
(The latter variant does not work with the client API.)
If video is disabled, mpv will try to download the audio only if
media is streamed with youtube-dl, because it saves bandwidth.
This is done by setting the ytdl_format to "bestaudio/best" in
the ytdl_hook.lua script.
--ff-aid=<ID|auto|no>, --ff-sid=<ID|auto|no>, --ff-vid=<ID|auto|no>
Select audio/subtitle/video streams by the FFmpeg stream index.
The FFmpeg stream index is relatively arbitrary, but useful when
interacting with other software using FFmpeg (consider ffprobe).
Note that with external tracks (added with --sub-file and
similar options), there will be streams with duplicate IDs. In
this case, the first stream in order is selected.
--edition=<ID|auto>
(Matroska files only) Specify the edition (set of chapters) to
use, where 0 is the first. If set to auto (the default), mpv
will choose the first edition declared as a default, or if there
is no default, the first edition defined.
Playback Control
--start=<relative time>
Seek to given time position.
The general format for absolute times is [[hh:]mm:]ss[.ms]. If
the time is given with a prefix of + or -, the seek is relative
from the start or end of the file. (Since mpv 0.14, the start of
the file is always considered 0.)
pp% seeks to percent position pp (0-100).
#c seeks to chapter number c. (Chapters start from 1.)
Examples
--start=+56, --start=+00:56
Seeks to the start time + 56 seconds.
--start=-56, --start=-00:56
Seeks to the end time - 56 seconds.
--start=01:10:00
Seeks to 1 hour 10 min.
--start=50%
Seeks to the middle of the file.
--start=30 --end=40
Seeks to 30 seconds, plays 10 seconds, and exits.
--start=-3:20 --length=10
Seeks to 3 minutes and 20 seconds before the end of
the file, plays 10 seconds, and exits.
--start='#2' --end='#4'
Plays chapters 2 and 3, and exits.
--end=<time>
Stop at given absolute time. Use --length if the time should be
relative to --start. See --start for valid option values and
examples.
--length=<relative time>
Stop after a given time relative to the start time. See --start
for valid option values and examples.
--rebase-start-time=<yes|no>
Whether to move the file start time to 00:00:00 (default: yes).
This is less awkward for files which start at a random
timestamp, such as transport streams. On the other hand, if
there are timestamp resets, the resulting behavior can be rather
weird. For this reason, and in case you are actually interested
in the real timestamps, this behavior can be disabled with no.
--speed=<0.01-100>
Slow down or speed up playback by the factor given as parameter.
If --audio-pitch-correction (on by default) is used, playing
with a speed higher than normal automatically inserts the
scaletempo audio filter.
--loop=<N|inf|force|no>, --loop
Loops playback N times. A value of 1 plays it one time
(default), 2 two times, etc. inf means forever. no is the same
as 1 and disables looping. If several files are specified on
command line, the entire playlist is looped. --loop is the same
as --loop=inf.
The force mode is like inf, but does not skip playlist entries
which have been marked as failing. This means the player might
waste CPU time trying to loop a file that doesn't exist. But it
might be useful for playing webradios under very bad network
conditions.
--pause
Start the player in paused state.
--shuffle
Play files in random order.
--chapter=<start[-end]>
Specify which chapter to start playing at. Optionally specify
which chapter to end playing at.
See also: --start.
--playlist-start=<auto|index>
Set which file on the internal playlist to start playback with.
The index is an integer, with 0 meaning the first file. The
value auto means that the selection of the entry to play is left
to the playback resume mechanism (default). If an entry with the
given index doesn't exist, the behavior is unspecified and might
change in future mpv versions. The same applies if the playlist
contains further playlists (don't expect any reasonable
behavior). Passing a playlist file to mpv should work with this
option, though. E.g. mpv playlist.m3u --playlist-start=123 will
work as expected, as long as playlist.m3u does not link to
further playlists.
The value no is a deprecated alias for auto.
--playlist=<filename>
Play files according to a playlist file (Supports some common
formats. If no format is detected, it will be treated as list of
files, separated by newline characters. Note that XML playlist
formats are not supported.)
You can play playlists directly and without this option,
however, this option disables any security mechanisms that might
be in place. You may also need this option to load plaintext
files as playlist.
WARNING:
The way mpv uses playlist files via --playlist is not safe
against maliciously constructed files. Such files may trigger
harmful actions. This has been the case for all mpv and
MPlayer versions, but unfortunately this fact was not well
documented earlier, and some people have even misguidedly
recommended use of --playlist with untrusted sources. Do NOT
use --playlist with random internet sources or files you do
not trust!
Playlist can contain entries using other protocols, such as
local files, or (most severely), special protocols like
avdevice://, which are inherently unsafe.
--chapter-merge-threshold=<number>
Threshold for merging almost consecutive ordered chapter parts
in milliseconds (default: 100). Some Matroska files with ordered
chapters have inaccurate chapter end timestamps, causing a small
gap between the end of one chapter and the start of the next one
when they should match. If the end of one playback part is less
than the given threshold away from the start of the next one
then keep playing video normally over the chapter change instead
of doing a seek.
--chapter-seek-threshold=<seconds>
Distance in seconds from the beginning of a chapter within which
a backward chapter seek will go to the previous chapter
(default: 5.0). Past this threshold, a backward chapter seek
will go to the beginning of the current chapter instead. A
negative value means always go back to the previous chapter.
--hr-seek=<no|absolute|yes>
Select when to use precise seeks that are not limited to
keyframes. Such seeks require decoding video from the previous
keyframe up to the target position and so can take some time
depending on decoding performance. For some video formats,
precise seeks are disabled. This option selects the default
choice to use for seeks; it is possible to explicitly override
that default in the definition of key bindings and in input
commands.
no Never use precise seeks.
absolute
Use precise seeks if the seek is to an absolute position
in the file, such as a chapter seek, but not for relative
seeks like the default behavior of arrow keys (default).
yes Use precise seeks whenever possible.
always Same as yes (for compatibility).
--hr-seek-demuxer-offset=<seconds>
This option exists to work around failures to do precise seeks
(as in --hr-seek) caused by bugs or limitations in the demuxers
for some file formats. Some demuxers fail to seek to a keyframe
before the given target position, going to a later position
instead. The value of this option is subtracted from the time
stamp given to the demuxer. Thus, if you set this option to 1.5
and try to do a precise seek to 60 seconds, the demuxer is told
to seek to time 58.5, which hopefully reduces the chance that it
erroneously goes to some time later than 60 seconds. The
downside of setting this option is that precise seeks become
slower, as video between the earlier demuxer position and the
real target may be unnecessarily decoded.
--hr-seek-framedrop=<yes|no>
Allow the video decoder to drop frames during seek, if these
frames are before the seek target. If this is enabled, precise
seeking can be faster, but if you're using video filters which
modify timestamps or add new frames, it can lead to precise
seeking skipping the target frame. This e.g. can break frame
backstepping when deinterlacing is enabled.
Default: yes
--index=<mode>
Controls how to seek in files. Note that if the index is missing
from a file, it will be built on the fly by default, so you
don't need to change this. But it might help with some broken
files.
default
use an index if the file has one, or build it if missing
recreate
don't read or use the file's index
NOTE:
This option only works if the underlying media supports
seeking (i.e. not with stdin, pipe, etc).
--load-unsafe-playlists
Load URLs from playlists which are considered unsafe (default:
no). This includes special protocols and anything that doesn't
refer to normal files. Local files and HTTP links on the other
hand are always considered safe.
Note that --playlist always loads all entries, so you use that
instead if you really have the need for this functionality.
--access-references=<yes|no>
Follow any references in the file being opened (default: yes).
Disabling this is helpful if the file is automatically scanned
(e.g. thumbnail generation). If the thumbnail scanner for
example encounters a playlist file, which contains network URLs,
and the scanner should not open these, enabling this option will
prevent it. This option also disables ordered chapters, mov
reference files, opening of archives, and a number of other
features.
On older FFmpeg versions, this will not work in some cases. Some
FFmpeg demuxers might not respect this option.
This option does not prevent opening of paired subtitle files
and such. Use --autoload-files=no to prevent this.
This option does not always work if you open non-files (for
example using dvd://directory would open a whole bunch of files
in the given directory). Prefixing the filename with ./ if it
doesn't start with a / will avoid this.
--loop-file=<N|inf|no>
Loop a single file N times. inf means forever, no means normal
playback. For compatibility, --loop-file and --loop-file=yes are
also accepted, and are the same as --loop-file=inf.
The difference to --loop is that this doesn't loop the playlist,
just the file itself. If the playlist contains only a single
file, the difference between the two option is that this option
performs a seek on loop, instead of reloading the file.
--ab-loop-a=<time>, --ab-loop-b=<time>
Set loop points. If playback passes the b timestamp, it will
seek to the a timestamp. Seeking past the b point doesn't loop
(this is intentional).
If both options are set to no, looping is disabled. Otherwise,
the start/end of the file is used if one of the options is set
to no.
The loop-points can be adjusted at runtime with the
corresponding properties. See also ab-loop command.
--ordered-chapters, --no-ordered-chapters
Enabled by default. Disable support for Matroska ordered
chapters. mpv will not load or search for video segments from
other files, and will also ignore any chapter order specified
for the main file.
--ordered-chapters-files=<playlist-file>
Loads the given file as playlist, and tries to use the files
contained in it as reference files when opening a Matroska file
that uses ordered chapters. This overrides the normal mechanism
for loading referenced files by scanning the same directory the
main file is located in.
Useful for loading ordered chapter files that are not located on
the local filesystem, or if the referenced files are in
different directories.
Note: a playlist can be as simple as a text file containing
filenames separated by newlines.
--chapters-file=<filename>
Load chapters from this file, instead of using the chapter
metadata found in the main file.
--sstep=<sec>
Skip <sec> seconds after every frame.
NOTE:
Without --hr-seek, skipping will snap to keyframes.
--stop-playback-on-init-failure=<yes|no>
Stop playback if either audio or video fails to initialize.
Currently, the default behavior is no for the command line
player, but yes for libmpv. With no, playback will continue in
video-only or audio-only mode if one of them fails. This doesn't
affect playback of audio-only or video-only files.
Program Behavior
--help, --h
Show short summary of options.
You can also pass a string to this option, which will list all
top-level options which contain the string in the name, e.g.
--h=scale for all options that contain the word scale. The
special string * lists all top-level options.
-v Increment verbosity level, one level for each -v found on the
command line.
--version, -V
Print version string and exit.
--no-config
Do not load default configuration files. This prevents loading
of both the user-level and system-wide mpv.conf and input.conf
files. Other configuration files are blocked as well, such as
resume playback files.
NOTE:
Files explicitly requested by command line options, like
--include or --use-filedir-conf, will still be loaded.
See also: --config-dir.
--list-options
Prints all available options.
--list-properties
Print a list of the available properties.
--list-protocols
Print a list of the supported protocols.
--log-file=<path>
Opens the given path for writing, and print log messages to it.
Existing files will be truncated. The log level always
corresponds to -v, regardless of terminal verbosity levels.
--config-dir=<path>
Force a different configuration directory. If this is set, the
given directory is used to load configuration files, and all
other configuration directories are ignored. This means the
global mpv configuration directory as well as per-user
directories are ignored, and overrides through environment
variables (MPV_HOME) are also ignored.
Note that the --no-config option takes precedence over this
option.
--save-position-on-quit
Always save the current playback position on quit. When this
file is played again later, the player will seek to the old
playback position on start. This does not happen if playback of
a file is stopped in any other way than quitting. For example,
going to the next file in the playlist will not save the
position, and start playback at beginning the next time the file
is played.
This behavior is disabled by default, but is always available
when quitting the player with Shift+Q.
--watch-later-directory=<path>
The directory in which to store the "watch later" temporary files.
The default is a subdirectory named "watch_later" underneath the
config directory (usually ~/.config/mpv/).
--dump-stats=<filename>
Write certain statistics to the given file. The file is
truncated on opening. The file will contain raw samples, each
with a timestamp. To make this file into a readable, the script
TOOLS/stats-conv.py can be used (which currently displays it as
a graph).
This option is useful for debugging only.
--idle=<no|yes|once>
Makes mpv wait idly instead of quitting when there is no file to
play. Mostly useful in input mode, where mpv can be controlled
through input commands.
once will only idle at start and let the player close once the
first playlist has finished playing back.
--include=<configuration-file>
Specify configuration file to be parsed after the default ones.
--load-scripts=<yes|no>
If set to no, don't auto-load scripts from the scripts
configuration subdirectory (usually ~/.config/mpv/scripts/).
(Default: yes)
--script=<filename>
Load a Lua script. You can load multiple scripts by separating
them with commas (,).
--script-opts=key1=value1,key2=value2,...
Set options for scripts. A script can query an option by key. If
an option is used and what semantics the option value has
depends entirely on the loaded scripts. Values not claimed by
any scripts are ignored.
--merge-files
Pretend that all files passed to mpv are concatenated into a
single, big file. This uses timeline/EDL support internally.
--no-resume-playback
Do not restore playback position from the watch_later
configuration subdirectory (usually ~/.config/mpv/watch_later/).
See quit-watch-later input command.
--profile=<profile1,profile2,...>
Use the given profile(s), --profile=help displays a list of the
defined profiles.
--reset-on-next-file=<all|option1,option2,...>
Normally, mpv will try to keep all settings when playing the
next file on the playlist, even if they were changed by the user
during playback. (This behavior is the opposite of MPlayer's,
which tries to reset all settings when starting next file.)
Default: Do not reset anything.
This can be changed with this option. It accepts a list of
options, and mpv will reset the value of these options on
playback start to the initial value. The initial value is either
the default value, or as set by the config file or command line.
In some cases, this might not work as expected. For example,
--volume will only be reset if it is explicitly set in the
config file or the command line.
The special name all resets as many options as possible.
Examples
· --reset-on-next-file=pause Reset pause mode when switching
to the next file.
· --reset-on-next-file=fullscreen,speed Reset fullscreen and
playback speed settings if they were changed during
playback.
· --reset-on-next-file=all Try to reset all settings that
were changed during playback.
--write-filename-in-watch-later-config
Prepend the watch later config files with the name of the file
they refer to. This is simply written as comment on the top of
the file.
WARNING:
This option may expose privacy-sensitive information and is
thus disabled by default.
--ignore-path-in-watch-later-config
Ignore path (i.e. use filename only) when using watch later
feature.
--show-profile=<profile>
Show the description and content of a profile.
--use-filedir-conf
Look for a file-specific configuration file in the same
directory as the file that is being played. See File-specific
Configuration Files.
WARNING:
May be dangerous if playing from untrusted media.
--ytdl, --no-ytdl
Enable the youtube-dl hook-script. It will look at the input
URL, and will play the video located on the website. This works
with many streaming sites, not just the one that the script is
named after. This requires a recent version of youtube-dl to be
installed on the system. (Enabled by default, except when the
client API / libmpv is used.)
If the script can't do anything with an URL, it will do nothing.
--ytdl-format=<best|worst|mp4|webm|...>
Video format/quality that is directly passed to youtube-dl. The
possible values are specific to the website and the video, for a
given url the available formats can be found with the command
youtube-dl --list-formats URL. See youtube-dl's documentation
for available aliases. (Default: youtube-dl's default,
currently bestvideo+bestaudio/best)
--ytdl-raw-options=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
Pass arbitrary options to youtube-dl. Parameter and argument
should be passed as a key-value pair. Options without argument
must include =.
There is no sanity checking so it's possible to break things
(i.e. passing invalid parameters to youtube-dl).
Example
--ytdl-raw-options=username=user,password=pass
--ytdl-raw-options=force-ipv6=
--player-operation-mode=<cplayer|pseudo-gui>
For enabling "pseudo GUI mode", which means that the defaults
for some options are changed. This option should not normally be
used directly, but only by mpv internally, or mpv-provided
scripts, config files, or .desktop files.
Video
--vo=<driver>
Specify the video output backend to be used. See VIDEO OUTPUT
DRIVERS for details and descriptions of available drivers.
--vd=<...>
Specify a priority list of video decoders to be used, according
to their family and name. See --ad for further details. Both of
these options use the same syntax and semantics; the only
difference is that they operate on different codec lists.
NOTE:
See --vd=help for a full list of available decoders.
--vf=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
Specify a list of video filters to apply to the video stream.
See VIDEO FILTERS for details and descriptions of the available
filters. The option variants --vf-add, --vf-pre, --vf-del and
--vf-clr exist to modify a previously specified list, but you
should not need these for typical use.
--untimed
Do not sleep when outputting video frames. Useful for benchmarks
when used with --no-audio.
--framedrop=<mode>
Skip displaying some frames to maintain A/V sync on slow
systems, or playing high framerate video on video outputs that
have an upper framerate limit.
The argument selects the drop methods, and can be one of the
following:
<no> Disable any framedropping.
<vo> Drop late frames on video output (default). This still
decodes and filters all frames, but doesn't render them
on the VO. It tries to query the display FPS (X11 only,
not correct on multi-monitor systems), or assumes
infinite display FPS if that fails. Drops are indicated
in the terminal status line as Dropped: field. If the
decoder is too slow, in theory all frames would have to
be dropped (because all frames are too late) - to avoid
this, frame dropping stops if the effective framerate is
below 10 FPS.
<decoder>
Old, decoder-based framedrop mode. (This is the same as
--framedrop=yes in mpv 0.5.x and before.) This tells the
decoder to skip frames (unless they are needed to decode
future frames). May help with slow systems, but can
produce unwatchable choppy output, or even freeze the
display completely. Not recommended. The
--vd-lavc-framedrop option controls what frames to drop.
<decoder+vo>
Enable both modes. Not recommended.
NOTE:
--vo=vdpau has its own code for the vo framedrop mode. Slight
differences to other VOs are possible.
--display-fps=<fps>
Set the display FPS used with the --video-sync=display-* modes.
By default, a detected value is used. Keep in mind that setting
an incorrect value (even if slightly incorrect) can ruin video
playback. On multi-monitor systems, there is a chance that the
detected value is from the wrong monitor.
Set this option only if you have reason to believe the
automatically determined value is wrong.
--hwdec=<api>
Specify the hardware video decoding API that should be used if
possible. Whether hardware decoding is actually done depends on
the video codec. If hardware decoding is not possible, mpv will
fall back on software decoding.
<api> can be one of the following:
no always use software decoding (default)
auto enable best hw decoder (see below)
yes exactly the same as auto
auto-copy
enable best hw decoder with copy-back (see below)
vdpau requires --vo=vdpau or --vo=opengl (Linux only)
vdpau-copy
copies video back into system RAM (Linux with some GPUs
only)
vaapi requires --vo=opengl or --vo=vaapi (Linux only)
vaapi-copy
copies video back into system RAM (Linux with Intel GPUs
only)
videotoolbox
requires --vo=opengl (OS X 10.8 and up only)
videotoolbox-copy
copies video back into system RAM (OS X 10.8 and up only)
dxva2 requires --vo=opengl with --opengl-backend=angle or
--opengl-backend=dxinterop (Windows only)
dxva2-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Windows only)
d3d11va
requires --vo=opengl with --opengl-backend=angle (Windows
only)
d3d11va-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Windows only)
mediacodec
copies video back to system RAM (Android only)
rpi requires --vo=opengl (Raspberry Pi only - default if
available)
rpi-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Raspberry Pi only)
cuda requires --vo=opengl (Any platform CUDA is available)
cuda-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Any platform CUDA is
available)
crystalhd
copies video back to system RAM (Any platform supported
by hardware)
auto tries to automatically enable hardware decoding using the
first available method. This still depends what VO you are
using. For example, if you are not using --vo=vdpau or
--vo=opengl, vdpau decoding will never be enabled. Also note
that if the first found method doesn't actually work, it will
always fall back to software decoding, instead of trying the
next method (might matter on some Linux systems).
auto-copy selects only modes that copy the video data back to
system memory after decoding. Currently, this selects only one
of the following modes: vaapi-copy, dxva2-copy, d3d11va-copy,
mediacodec. If none of these work, hardware decoding is
disabled. This mode is always guaranteed to incur no additional
loss compared to software decoding, and will allow CPU
processing with video filters.
The vaapi mode, if used with --vo=opengl, requires Mesa 11 and
most likely works with Intel GPUs only. It also requires the
opengl EGL backend (automatically used if available). You can
also try the old GLX backend by forcing it with
--opengl-backend=x11, but the vaapi/GLX interop is said to be
slower than vaapi-copy.
Most video filters will not work with hardware decoding as they
are primarily implemented on the CPU. Some exceptions are
vdpaupp, vdpaurb and vavpp. See VIDEO FILTERS for more details.
The ...-copy modes (e.g. dxva2-copy) allow you to use hardware
decoding with any VO, backend or filter. Because these copy the
decoded video back to system RAM, they're likely less efficient
than the direct modes (like e.g. dxva2).
NOTE:
When using this switch, hardware decoding is still only done
for some codecs. See --hwdec-codecs to enable hardware
decoding for more codecs.
Quality reduction with hardware decoding
Normally, hardware decoding does not reduce video
quality (at least for the codecs h264 and HEVC).
However, due to restrictions in video output APIs,
there can be some loss, or blatantly incorrect
results.
In some cases, RGB conversion is forced, which means
the RGB conversion is performed by the hardware
decoding API, instead of the OpenGL code used by
--vo=opengl. This means certain obscure colorspaces
may not display correctly, not certain filtering (such
as debanding) cannot be applied in an ideal way.
vdpau is usually safe. If deinterlacing enabled (or
the vdpaupp video filter is active in general), it
forces RGB conversion. The latter currently does not
treat certain colorspaces like BT.2020 correctly
(which is mostly a mpv-specific restriction). The
vdpauprb video filter retrieves image data without RGB
conversion and is safe (but precludes use of vdpau
postprocessing).
vaapi is safe if the vaapi-egl backend is indicated in
the logs. If vaapi-glx is indicated, and the video
colorspace is either BT.601 or BT.709, a forced but
correct RGB conversion is performed. Otherwise, the
result will be incorrect.
d3d11va is usually safe (if used with ANGLE builds
that support EGL_KHR_stream path - otherwise, it
converts to RGB), except that 10 bit input (HEVC main
10 profiles) will be rounded down to 8 bits.
dxva2 is not safe. It appears to always use BT.601 for
forced RGB conversion, but actual behavior depends on
the GPU drivers. Some drivers appear to convert to
limited range RGB, which gives a faded appearance. In
addition to driver-specific behavior, global system
settings might affect this additionally. This can give
incorrect results even with completely ordinary video
sources.
cuda is usually safe. Interlaced content can be
deinterlaced by the decoder, which is useful as there
is no other deinterlacing mechanism in the opengl
output path. To use this deinterlacing you must pass
the option: vd-lavc-o=deint=[weave|bob|adaptive]. Pass
weave to not attempt any deinterlacing. 10 and 12bit
HEVC is available if the hardware supports it and a
sufficiently new driver (> 375.xx) is used.
cuda-copy has the same behaviour as cuda - including
the ability to deinterlace inside the decoder.
However, traditional deinterlacing filters can be used
in this case.
rpi always uses the hardware overlay renderer, even
with --vo=opengl.
crystalhd is not safe. It always converts to 4:2:2
YUV, which may be lossy, depending on how chroma
sub-sampling is done during conversion. It also
discards the top left pixel of each frame for some
reason.
All other methods, in particular the copy-back methods
(like dxva2-copy etc.) are either fully safe, or not
worse than software decoding.
In particular, auto-copy will only select safe modes
(although potentially slower than other methods).
--hwdec-preload=<api>
This is useful for the opengl and opengl-cb VOs for creating the
hardware decoding OpenGL interop context, but without actually
enabling hardware decoding itself (like --hwdec does).
If set to no (default), the --hwdec option is used.
For opengl, if set, do not create the interop context on demand,
but when the VO is created.
For opengl-cb, if set, load the interop context as soon as the
OpenGL context is created. Since opengl-cb has no on-demand
loading, this allows enabling hardware decoding at runtime at
all, without having to temporarily set the hwdec option just
during OpenGL context initialization with
mpv_opengl_cb_init_gl().
--videotoolbox-format=<name>
Set the internal pixel format used by --hwdec=videotoolbox on
OSX. The choice of the format can influence performance
considerably. On the other hand, there doesn't appear to be a
good way to detect the best format for the given hardware. nv12,
the default, works better on modern hardware, while uyvy422
appears to be better for old hardware. rgb0 and yuv420p also
work.
--panscan=<0.0-1.0>
Enables pan-and-scan functionality (cropping the sides of e.g. a
16:9 video to make it fit a 4:3 display without black bands).
The range controls how much of the image is cropped. May not
work with all video output drivers.
This option has no effect if --video-unscaled option is used.
--video-aspect=<ratio|no>
Override video aspect ratio, in case aspect information is
incorrect or missing in the file being played. See also
--no-video-aspect.
These values have special meaning:
0 disable aspect ratio handling, pretend the video has
square pixels
no same as 0
-1 use the video stream or container aspect (default)
But note that handling of these special values might change in
the future.
Examples
· --video-aspect=4:3 or --video-aspect=1.3333
· --video-aspect=16:9 or --video-aspect=1.7777
· --no-video-aspect or --video-aspect=no
--video-aspect-method=<hybrid|bitstream|container>
This sets the default video aspect determination method (if the
aspect is _not_ overridden by the user with --video-aspect or
others).
hybrid Prefer the container aspect ratio. If the bitstream
aspect switches mid-stream, switch to preferring the
bitstream aspect. This is the default behavior in mpv
and mplayer2.
container
Strictly prefer the container aspect ratio. This is
apparently the default behavior with VLC, at least with
Matroska.
bitstream
Strictly prefer the bitstream aspect ratio, unless the
bitstream aspect ratio is not set. This is apparently the
default behavior with XBMC/kodi, at least with Matroska.
Normally you should not set this. Try the container and
bitstream choices if you encounter video that has the wrong
aspect ratio in mpv, but seems to be correct in other players.
--video-unscaled=<no|yes|downscale-big>
Disable scaling of the video. If the window is larger than the
video, black bars are added. Otherwise, the video is cropped,
unless the option is set to downscale-big, in which case the
video is fit to window. The video still can be influenced by the
other --video-... options. This option disables the effect of
--panscan.
Note that the scaler algorithm may still be used, even if the
video isn't scaled. For example, this can influence chroma
conversion. The video will also still be scaled in one dimension
if the source uses non-square pixels (e.g. anamorphic widescreen
DVDs).
This option is disabled if the --no-keepaspect option is used.
--video-pan-x=<value>, --video-pan-y=<value>
Moves the displayed video rectangle by the given value in the X
or Y direction. The unit is in fractions of the size of the
scaled video (the full size, even if parts of the video are not
visible due to panscan or other options).
For example, displaying a 1280x720 video fullscreen on a
1680x1050 screen with --video-pan-x=-0.1 would move the video
168 pixels to the left (making 128 pixels of the source video
invisible).
This option is disabled if the --no-keepaspect option is used.
--video-rotate=<0-359|no>
Rotate the video clockwise, in degrees. Currently supports 90°
steps only. If no is given, the video is never rotated, even if
the file has rotation metadata. (The rotation value is added to
the rotation metadata, which means the value 0 would rotate the
video according to the rotation metadata.)
--video-stereo-mode=<no|mode>
Set the stereo 3D output mode (default: mono). This is done by
inserting the stereo3d conversion filter.
The pseudo-mode no disables automatic conversion completely.
The mode mono is an alias to ml, which refers to the left frame
in 2D. This is the default, which means mpv will try to show 3D
movies in 2D, instead of the mangled 3D image not intended for
consumption (such as showing the left and right frame side by
side, etc.).
Use --video-stereo-mode=help to list all available modes. Check
with the stereo3d filter documentation to see what the names
mean. Note that some names refer to modes not supported by
stereo3d - these modes can appear in files, but can't be handled
properly by mpv.
--video-zoom=<value>
Adjust the video display scale factor by the given value. The
parameter is given log 2. For example, --video-zoom=0 is
unscaled, --video-zoom=1 is twice the size, --video-zoom=-2 is
one fourth of the size, and so on.
This option is disabled if the --no-keepaspect option is used.
--video-align-x=<-1-1>, --video-align-y=<-1-1>
Moves the video rectangle within the black borders, which are
usually added to pad the video to screen if video and screen
aspect ratios are different. --video-align-y=-1 would move the
video to the top of the screen (leaving a border only on the
bottom), a value of 0 centers it (default), and a value of 1
would put the video at the bottom of the screen.
If video and screen aspect match perfectly, these options do
nothing.
This option is disabled if the --no-keepaspect option is used.
--correct-pts, --no-correct-pts
--no-correct-pts switches mpv to a mode where video timing is
determined using a fixed framerate value (either using the --fps
option, or using file information). Sometimes, files with very
broken timestamps can be played somewhat well in this mode. Note
that video filters, subtitle rendering and audio synchronization
can be completely broken in this mode.
--fps=<float>
Override video framerate. Useful if the original value is wrong
or missing.
NOTE:
Works in --no-correct-pts mode only.
--deinterlace=<yes|no|auto>
Enable or disable interlacing (default: auto, which usually
means no). Interlaced video shows ugly comb-like artifacts,
which are visible on fast movement. Enabling this typically
inserts the yadif video filter in order to deinterlace the
video, or lets the video output apply deinterlacing if
supported.
This behaves exactly like the deinterlace input property
(usually mapped to d).
auto is a technicality. Strictly speaking, the default for this
option is deinterlacing disabled, but the auto case is needed if
yadif was added to the filter chain manually with --vf. Then the
core shouldn't disable deinterlacing just because the
--deinterlace was not set.
--field-dominance=<auto|top|bottom>
Set first field for interlaced content.
auto (default) If the decoder does not export the appropriate
information, it falls back on top (top field first).
top top field first
bottom bottom field first
NOTE:
Setting either top or bottom will flag all frames as
interlaced.
--frames=<number>
Play/convert only first <number> video frames, then quit.
--frames=0 loads the file, but immediately quits before
initializing playback. (Might be useful for scripts which just
want to determine some file properties.)
For audio-only playback, any value greater than 0 will quit
playback immediately after initialization. The value 0 works as
with video.
--video-output-levels=<outputlevels>
RGB color levels used with YUV to RGB conversion. Normally,
output devices such as PC monitors use full range color levels.
However, some TVs and video monitors expect studio RGB levels.
Providing full range output to a device expecting studio level
input results in crushed blacks and whites, the reverse in dim
gray blacks and dim whites.
Not all VOs support this option. Some will silently ignore it.
Available color ranges are:
auto automatic selection (equals to full range) (default)
limited
limited range (16-235 per component), studio levels
full full range (0-255 per component), PC levels
NOTE:
It is advisable to use your graphics driver's color range
option instead, if available.
--hwdec-codecs=<codec1,codec2,...|all>
Allow hardware decoding for a given list of codecs only. The
special value all always allows all codecs.
You can get the list of allowed codecs with mpv --vd=help.
Remove the prefix, e.g. instead of lavc:h264 use h264.
By default, this is set to h264,vc1,wmv3,hevc,mpeg2video,vp9.
Note that the hardware acceleration special codecs like
h264_vdpau are not relevant anymore, and in fact have been
removed from Libav in this form.
This is usually only needed with broken GPUs, where a codec is
reported as supported, but decoding causes more problems than it
solves.
Example
mpv --hwdec=vdpau --vo=vdpau --hwdec-codecs=h264,mpeg2video
Enable vdpau decoding for h264 and mpeg2 only.
--vd-lavc-check-hw-profile=<yes|no>
Check hardware decoder profile (default: yes). If no is set, the
highest profile of the hardware decoder is unconditionally
selected, and decoding is forced even if the profile of the
video is higher than that. The result is most likely broken
decoding, but may also help if the detected or reported profiles
are somehow incorrect.
--vd-lavc-software-fallback=<yes|no|N>
Fallback to software decoding if the hardware-accelerated
decoder fails (default: 3). If this is a number, then fallback
will be triggered if N frames fail to decode in a row. 1 is
equivalent to yes.
--vd-lavc-bitexact
Only use bit-exact algorithms in all decoding steps (for codec
testing).
--vd-lavc-fast (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.264 only)
Enable optimizations which do not comply with the format
specification and potentially cause problems, like simpler
dequantization, simpler motion compensation, assuming use of the
default quantization matrix, assuming YUV 4:2:0 and skipping a
few checks to detect damaged bitstreams.
--vd-lavc-o=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
Pass AVOptions to libavcodec decoder. Note, a patch to make the
o= unneeded and pass all unknown options through the AVOption
system is welcome. A full list of AVOptions can be found in the
FFmpeg manual.
Some options which used to be direct options can be set with
this mechanism, like bug, gray, idct, ec, vismv, skip_top (was
st), skip_bottom (was sb), debug.
Example
--vd-lavc-o=debug=pict
--vd-lavc-show-all=<yes|no>
Show even broken/corrupt frames (default: no). If this option is
set to no, libavcodec won't output frames that were either
decoded before an initial keyframe was decoded, or frames that
are recognized as corrupted.
--vd-lavc-skiploopfilter=<skipvalue> (H.264 only)
Skips the loop filter (AKA deblocking) during H.264 decoding.
Since the filtered frame is supposed to be used as reference for
decoding dependent frames, this has a worse effect on quality
than not doing deblocking on e.g. MPEG-2 video. But at least for
high bitrate HDTV, this provides a big speedup with little
visible quality loss.
<skipvalue> can be one of the following:
none Never skip.
default
Skip useless processing steps (e.g. 0 size packets in
AVI).
nonref Skip frames that are not referenced (i.e. not used for
decoding other frames, the error cannot "build up").
bidir Skip B-Frames.
nonkey Skip all frames except keyframes.
all Skip all frames.
--vd-lavc-skipidct=<skipvalue> (MPEG-1/2 only)
Skips the IDCT step. This degrades quality a lot in almost all
cases (see skiploopfilter for available skip values).
--vd-lavc-skipframe=<skipvalue>
Skips decoding of frames completely. Big speedup, but jerky
motion and sometimes bad artifacts (see skiploopfilter for
available skip values).
--vd-lavc-framedrop=<skipvalue>
Set framedropping mode used with --framedrop (see skiploopfilter
for available skip values).
--vd-lavc-threads=<N>
Number of threads to use for decoding. Whether threading is
actually supported depends on codec (default: 0). 0 means
autodetect number of cores on the machine and use that, up to
the maximum of 16. You can set more than 16 threads manually.
Audio
--audio-pitch-correction=<yes|no>
If this is enabled (default), playing with a speed different
from normal automatically inserts the scaletempo audio filter.
For details, see audio filter section.
--audio-device=<name>
Use the given audio device. This consists of the audio output
name, e.g. alsa, followed by /, followed by the audio output
specific device name. The default value for this option is auto,
which tries every audio output in preference order with the
default device.
You can list audio devices with --audio-device=help. This
outputs the device name in quotes, followed by a description.
The device name is what you have to pass to the --audio-device
option. The list of audio devices can be retrieved by API by
using the audio-device-list property.
While the option normally takes one of the strings as indicated
by the methods above, you can also force the device for most AOs
by building it manually. For example name/foobar forces the AO
name to use the device foobar.
Example for ALSA
MPlayer and mplayer2 required you to replace any ','
with '.' and any ':' with '=' in the ALSA device name.
For example, to use the device named dmix:default, you
had to do:
-ao alsa:device=dmix=default
In mpv you could instead use:
--audio-device=alsa/dmix:default
--audio-exclusive=<yes|no>
Enable exclusive output mode. In this mode, the system is
usually locked out, and only mpv will be able to output audio.
This only works for some audio outputs, such as wasapi and
coreaudio. Other audio outputs silently ignore this options.
They either have no concept of exclusive mode, or the mpv side
of the implementation is missing.
--audio-fallback-to-null=<yes|no>
If no audio device can be opened, behave as if --ao=null was
given. This is useful in combination with --audio-device:
instead of causing an error if the selected device does not
exist, the client API user (or a Lua script) could let playback
continue normally, and check the current-ao and
audio-device-list properties to make high-level decisions about
how to continue.
--ao=<driver>
Specify the audio output drivers to be used. See AUDIO OUTPUT
DRIVERS for details and descriptions of available drivers.
--af=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
Specify a list of audio filters to apply to the audio stream.
See AUDIO FILTERS for details and descriptions of the available
filters. The option variants --af-add, --af-pre, --af-del and
--af-clr exist to modify a previously specified list, but you
should not need these for typical use.
--audio-spdif=<codecs>
List of codecs for which compressed audio passthrough should be
used. This works for both classic S/PDIF and HDMI.
Possible codecs are ac3, dts, dts-hd. Multiple codecs can be
specified by separating them with ,. dts refers to low bitrate
DTS core, while dts-hd refers to DTS MA (receiver and OS support
varies). If both dts and dts-hd are specified, it behaves
equivalent to specifying dts-hd only.
In earlier mpv versions
Warning
There is not much reason to use this. HDMI supports
uncompressed multichannel PCM, and mpv supports
lossless DTS-HD decoding via FFmpeg's new DCA decoder
(based on libdcadec).
--ad=<[+|-]family1:(*|decoder1),[+|-]family2:(*|decoder2),...[-]>
Specify a priority list of audio decoders to be used, according
to their decoder name. When determining which decoder to use,
the first decoder that matches the audio format is selected. If
that is unavailable, the next decoder is used. Finally, it tries
all other decoders that are not explicitly selected or rejected
by the option.
Specifying family names is deprecated. Entries like family:*
prioritize all decoders of the given family.
- at the end of the list suppresses fallback on other available
decoders not on the --ad list. + in front of an entry forces the
decoder. Both of these should not normally be used, because they
break normal decoder auto-selection! Both of these methods are
deprecated.
- in front of an entry disables selection of the decoder. This
is deprecated.
Examples
--ad=mp3float
Prefer the FFmpeg/Libav mp3float decoder over all
other MP3 decoders.
--ad=lavc:mp3float
Prefer the FFmpeg/Libav mp3float decoder over all
other MP3 decoders. (Using deprecated family syntax.)
--ad=help
List all available decoders.
Warning
Enabling compressed audio passthrough (AC3 and DTS via
SPDIF/HDMI) with this option is deprecated. Use
--audio-spdif instead.
--volume=<value>
Set the startup volume. 0 means silence, 100 means no volume
reduction or amplification. Negative values can be passed for
compatibility, but are treated as 0.
Since mpv 0.18.1, this always controls the internal mixer (aka
"softvol").
--balance=<value>
How much left/right channels contribute to the audio. (The
implementation of this feature is rather odd. It doesn't change
the volumes of each channel, but instead sets up a pan matrix to
mix the left and right channels.)
Deprecated.
--audio-delay=<sec>
Audio delay in seconds (positive or negative float value).
Positive values delay the audio, and negative values delay the
video.
--mute=<yes|no|auto>
Set startup audio mute status (default: no).
auto is a deprecated possible value that is equivalent to no.
See also: --volume.
--softvol=<no|yes|auto>
Deprecated/unfunctional. Before mpv 0.18.1, this used to control
whether to use the volume controls of the audio output driver or
the internal mpv volume filter.
The current behavior is that softvol is always enabled, i.e. as
if this option is set to yes. The other behaviors are not
available anymore, although auto almost matches current behavior
in most cases.
The no behavior is still partially available through the
ao-volume and ao-mute properties. But there are no options to
reset these.
--audio-demuxer=<[+]name>
Use this audio demuxer type when using --audio-file. Use a '+'
before the name to force it; this will skip some checks. Give
the demuxer name as printed by --audio-demuxer=help.
--ad-lavc-ac3drc=<level>
Select the Dynamic Range Compression level for AC-3 audio
streams. <level> is a float value ranging from 0 to 1, where 0
means no compression (which is the default) and 1 means full
compression (make loud passages more silent and vice versa).
Values up to 6 are also accepted, but are purely experimental.
This option only shows an effect if the AC-3 stream contains the
required range compression information.
The standard mandates that DRC is enabled by default, but mpv
(and some other players) ignore this for the sake of better
audio quality.
--ad-lavc-downmix=<yes|no>
Whether to request audio channel downmixing from the decoder
(default: yes). Some decoders, like AC-3, AAC and DTS, can
remix audio on decoding. The requested number of output channels
is set with the --audio-channels option. Useful for playing
surround audio on a stereo system.
--ad-lavc-threads=<0-16>
Number of threads to use for decoding. Whether threading is
actually supported depends on codec. As of this writing, it's
supported for some lossless codecs only. 0 means autodetect
number of cores on the machine and use that, up to the maximum
of 16 (default: 1).
--ad-lavc-o=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
Pass AVOptions to libavcodec decoder. Note, a patch to make the
o= unneeded and pass all unknown options through the AVOption
system is welcome. A full list of AVOptions can be found in the
FFmpeg manual.
--ad-spdif-dtshd=<yes|no>, --dtshd, --no-dtshd
If DTS is passed through, use DTS-HD.
Warning
This and enabling passthrough via --ad are deprecated
in favor of using --audio-spdif=dts-hd.
--audio-channels=<auto-safe|auto|layouts>
Control which audio channels are output (e.g. surround vs.
stereo). There are the following possibilities:
·
--audio-channels=auto-safe
Use the system's preferred channel layout. If there is
none (such as when accessing a hardware device instead
of the system mixer), force stereo. Some audio outputs
might simply accept any layout and do downmixing on
their own.
This is the default.
·
--audio-channels=auto
Send the audio device whatever it accepts, preferring
the audio's original channel layout. Can cause issues
with HDMI (see the warning below).
·
--audio-channels=layout1,layout2,...
List of ,-separated channel layouts which should be
allowed. Technically, this only adjusts the filter
chain output to the best matching layout in the list,
and passes the result to the audio API. It's possible
that the audio API will select a different channel
layout.
Using this mode is recommended for direct hardware
output, especially over HDMI (see HDMI warning below).
·
--audio-channels=stereo
Force a plain stereo downmix. This is a special-case
of the previous item. (See paragraphs below for
implications.)
If a list of layouts is given, each item can be either an
explicit channel layout name (like 5.1), or a channel number.
Channel numbers refer to default layouts, e.g. 2 channels refer
to stereo, 6 refers to 5.1.
See --audio-channels=help output for defined default layouts.
This also lists speaker names, which can be used to express
arbitrary channel layouts (e.g. fl-fr-lfe is 2.1).
If the list of channel layouts has only 1 item, the decoder is
asked to produce according output. This sometimes triggers
decoder-downmix, which might be different from the normal mpv
downmix. (Only some decoders support remixing audio, like AC-3,
AAC or DTS. You can use --ad-lavc-downmix=no to make the decoder
always output its native layout.) One consequence is that
--audio-channels=stereo triggers decoder downmix, while auto or
auto-safe never will, even if they end up selecting stereo. This
happens because the decision whether to use decoder downmix
happens long before the audio device is opened.
If the channel layout of the media file (i.e. the decoder) and
the AO's channel layout don't match, mpv will attempt to insert
a conversion filter.
Warning
Using auto can cause issues when using audio over
HDMI. The OS will typically report all channel layouts
that _can_ go over HDMI, even if the receiver does not
support them. If a receiver gets an unsupported
channel layout, random things can happen, such as
dropping the additional channels, or adding noise.
You are recommended to set an explicit whitelist of
the layouts you want. For example, most A/V receivers
connected via HDMI and that can do 7.1 would be
served by: --audio-channels=7.1,5.1,stereo
--audio-normalize-downmix=<yes|no>
Enable/disable normalization if surround audio is downmixed to
stereo (default: no). If this is disabled, downmix can cause
clipping. If it's enabled, the output might be too silent. It
depends on the source audio.
Technically, this changes the normalize suboption of the
lavrresample audio filter, which performs the downmixing.
If downmix happens outside of mpv for some reason, this has no
effect.
--audio-display=<no|attachment>
Setting this option to attachment (default) will display image
attachments (e.g. album cover art) when playing audio files. It
will display the first image found, and additional images are
available as video tracks.
Setting this option to no disables display of video entirely
when playing audio files.
This option has no influence on files with normal video tracks.
--audio-file=<filename>
Play audio from an external file while viewing a video. Each use
of this option will add a new audio track. The details are
similar to how --sub-file works.
--audio-format=<format>
Select the sample format used for output from the audio filter
layer to the sound card. The values that <format> can adopt are
listed below in the description of the format audio filter.
--audio-samplerate=<Hz>
Select the output sample rate to be used (of course sound cards
have limits on this). If the sample frequency selected is
different from that of the current media, the lavrresample audio
filter will be inserted into the audio filter layer to
compensate for the difference.
--gapless-audio=<no|yes|weak>
Try to play consecutive audio files with no silence or
disruption at the point of file change. Default: weak.
no Disable gapless audio.
yes The audio device is opened using parameters chosen for
the first file played and is then kept open for gapless
playback. This means that if the first file for example
has a low sample rate, then the following files may get
resampled to the same low sample rate, resulting in
reduced sound quality. If you play files with different
parameters, consider using options such as
--audio-samplerate and --audio-format to explicitly
select what the shared output format will be.
weak Normally, the audio device is kept open (using the format
it was first initialized with). If the audio format the
decoder output changes, the audio device is closed and
reopened. This means that you will normally get gapless
audio with files that were encoded using the same
settings, but might not be gapless in other cases.
(Unlike with yes, you don't have to worry about corner
cases like the first file setting a very low quality
output format, and ruining the playback of higher quality
files that follow.)
NOTE:
This feature is implemented in a simple manner and relies on
audio output device buffering to continue playback while
moving from one file to another. If playback of the new file
starts slowly, for example because it is played from a remote
network location or because you have specified cache settings
that require time for the initial cache fill, then the
buffered audio may run out before playback of the new file
can start.
--initial-audio-sync, --no-initial-audio-sync
When starting a video file or after events such as seeking, mpv
will by default modify the audio stream to make it start from
the same timestamp as video, by either inserting silence at the
start or cutting away the first samples. Disabling this option
makes the player behave like older mpv versions did: video and
audio are both started immediately even if their start
timestamps differ, and then video timing is gradually adjusted
if necessary to reach correct synchronization later.
--volume-max=<100.0-1000.0>, --softvol-max=<...>
Set the maximum amplification level in percent (default: 130). A
value of 130 will allow you to adjust the volume up to about
double the normal level.
--softvol-max is a deprecated alias and should not be used.
--audio-file-auto=<no|exact|fuzzy|all>, --no-audio-file-auto
Load additional audio files matching the video filename. The
parameter specifies how external audio files are matched. exact
is enabled by default.
no Don't automatically load external audio files.
exact Load the media filename with audio file extension
(default).
fuzzy Load all audio files containing media filename.
all Load all audio files in the current and
--audio-file-paths directories.
--audio-file-paths=<path1:path2:...>
Equivalent to --sub-paths option, but for auto-loaded audio
files.
--audio-client-name=<name>
The application name the player reports to the audio API. Can be
useful if you want to force a different audio profile (e.g. with
PulseAudio), or to set your own application name when using
libmpv.
--volume-restore-data=<string>
Used internally for use by playback resume (e.g. with
quit-watch-later). Restoring value has to be done carefully,
because different AOs as well as softvol can have different
value ranges, and we don't want to restore volume if setting the
volume changes it system wide. The normal options (like
--volume) would always set the volume. This option was added for
restoring volume in a safer way (by storing the method used to
set the volume), and is not generally useful. Its semantics are
considered private to mpv.
Do not use.
--audio-buffer=<seconds>
Set the audio output minimum buffer. The audio device might
actually create a larger buffer if it pleases. If the device
creates a smaller buffer, additional audio is buffered in an
additional software buffer.
Making this larger will make soft-volume and other filters react
slower, introduce additional issues on playback speed change,
and block the player on audio format changes. A smaller buffer
might lead to audio dropouts.
This option should be used for testing only. If a non-default
value helps significantly, the mpv developers should be
contacted.
Default: 0.2 (200 ms).
--audio-stream-silence=<yes|no>
Cash-grab consumer audio hardware (such as A/V receivers) often
ignore initial audio sent over HDMI. This can happen every time
audio over HDMI is stopped and resumed. In order to compensate
for this, you can enable this option to not to stop and restart
audio on seeks, and fill the gaps with silence. Likewise, when
pausing playback, audio is not stopped, and silence is played
while paused. Note that if no audio track is selected, the audio
device will still be closed immediately.
Not all AOs support this.
--audio-wait-open=<secs>
This makes sense for use with --audio-stream-silence=yes. If
this option is given, the player will wait for the given amount
of seconds after opening the audio device before sending actual
audio data to it. Useful if your expensive hardware discards the
first 1 or 2 seconds of audio data sent to it. If
--audio-stream-silence=yes is not set, this option will likely
just waste time.
Subtitles
NOTE:
Changing styling and position does not work with all subtitles.
Image-based subtitles (DVD, Bluray/PGS, DVB) cannot changed for
fundamental reasons. Subtitles in ASS format are normally not
changed intentionally, but overriding them can be controlled with
--sub-ass-style-override.
Previously some options working on text subtitles were called
--sub-text-*, they are now named --sub-*, and those specifically for
ASS have been renamed from --ass-* to --sub-ass-*. They are now all
in this section.
--sub-demuxer=<[+]name>
Force subtitle demuxer type for --sub-file. Give the demuxer
name as printed by --sub-demuxer=help.
--sub-delay=<sec>
Delays subtitles by <sec> seconds. Can be negative.
--sub-file=subtitlefile
Add a subtitle file to the list of external subtitles.
If you use --sub-file only once, this subtitle file is displayed
by default.
If --sub-file is used multiple times, the subtitle to use can be
switched at runtime by cycling subtitle tracks. It's possible to
show two subtitles at once: use --sid to select the first
subtitle index, and --secondary-sid to select the second index.
(The index is printed on the terminal output after the --sid= in
the list of streams.)
--secondary-sid=<ID|auto|no>
Select a secondary subtitle stream. This is similar to --sid. If
a secondary subtitle is selected, it will be rendered as
toptitle (i.e. on the top of the screen) alongside the normal
subtitle, and provides a way to render two subtitles at once.
There are some caveats associated with this feature. For
example, bitmap subtitles will always be rendered in their usual
position, so selecting a bitmap subtitle as secondary subtitle
will result in overlapping subtitles. Secondary subtitles are
never shown on the terminal if video is disabled.
NOTE:
Styling and interpretation of any formatting tags is disabled
for the secondary subtitle. Internally, the same mechanism as
--no-sub-ass is used to strip the styling.
NOTE:
If the main subtitle stream contains formatting tags which
display the subtitle at the top of the screen, it will
overlap with the secondary subtitle. To prevent this, you
could use --no-sub-ass to disable styling in the main
subtitle stream.
--sub-scale=<0-100>
Factor for the text subtitle font size (default: 1).
NOTE:
This affects ASS subtitles as well, and may lead to incorrect
subtitle rendering. Use with care, or use --sub-font-size
instead.
--sub-scale-by-window=<yes|no>
Whether to scale subtitles with the window size (default: yes).
If this is disabled, changing the window size won't change the
subtitle font size.
Like --sub-scale, this can break ASS subtitles.
--sub-scale-with-window=<yes|no>
Make the subtitle font size relative to the window, instead of
the video. This is useful if you always want the same font
size, even if the video doesn't cover the window fully, e.g.
because screen aspect and window aspect mismatch (and the player
adds black bars).
Default: yes.
This option is misnamed. The difference to the confusingly
similar sounding option --sub-scale-by-window is that
--sub-scale-with-window still scales with the approximate window
size, while the other option disables this scaling.
Affects plain text subtitles only (or ASS if
--sub-ass-style-override is set high enough).
--sub-ass-scale-with-window=<yes|no>
Like --sub-scale-with-window, but affects subtitles in ASS
format only. Like --sub-scale, this can break ASS subtitles.
Default: no.
--embeddedfonts, --no-embeddedfonts
Use fonts embedded in Matroska container files and ASS scripts
(default: enabled). These fonts can be used for SSA/ASS subtitle
rendering.
--sub-pos=<0-100>
Specify the position of subtitles on the screen. The value is
the vertical position of the subtitle in % of the screen height.
NOTE:
This affects ASS subtitles as well, and may lead to incorrect
subtitle rendering. Use with care, or use --sub-margin-y
instead.
--sub-speed=<0.1-10.0>
Multiply the subtitle event timestamps with the given value. Can
be used to fix the playback speed for frame-based subtitle
formats. Affects text subtitles only.
Example
--sub-speed=25/23.976` plays frame based subtitles
which have been loaded assuming a framerate of 23.976
at 25 FPS.
--sub-ass-force-style=<[Style.]Param=Value[,...]>
Override some style or script info parameters.
Examples
· --sub-ass-force-style=FontName=Arial,Default.Bold=1
· --sub-ass-force-style=PlayResY=768
NOTE:
Using this option may lead to incorrect subtitle rendering.
--sub-ass-hinting=<none|light|normal|native>
Set font hinting type. <type> can be:
none no hinting (default)
light FreeType autohinter, light mode
normal FreeType autohinter, normal mode
native font native hinter
Warning
Enabling hinting can lead to mispositioned text (in
situations it's supposed to match up video
background), or reduce the smoothness of animations
with some badly authored ASS scripts. It is
recommended to not use this option, unless really
needed.
--sub-ass-line-spacing=<value>
Set line spacing value for SSA/ASS renderer.
--sub-ass-shaper=<simple|complex>
Set the text layout engine used by libass.
simple uses Fribidi only, fast, doesn't render some languages
correctly
complex
uses HarfBuzz, slower, wider language support
complex is the default. If libass hasn't been compiled against
HarfBuzz, libass silently reverts to simple.
--sub-ass-styles=<filename>
Load all SSA/ASS styles found in the specified file and use them
for rendering text subtitles. The syntax of the file is exactly
like the [V4 Styles] / [V4+ Styles] section of SSA/ASS.
NOTE:
Using this option may lead to incorrect subtitle rendering.
--sub-ass-style-override=<yes|no|force|signfs|strip>
Control whether user style overrides should be applied.
yes Apply all the --sub-ass-* style override options.
Changing the default for any of these options can lead to
incorrect subtitle rendering (default).
signfs like yes, but apply --sub-scale only to signs
no Render subtitles as forced by subtitle scripts.
force Try to force the font style as defined by the --sub-*
options. Can break rendering easily.
strip Radically strip all ASS tags and styles from the
subtitle. This is equivalent to the old --no-ass /
--no-sub-ass options.
--sub-ass-force-margins
Enables placing toptitles and subtitles in black borders when
they are available, if the subtitles are in the ASS format.
Default: no.
--sub-use-margins
Enables placing toptitles and subtitles in black borders when
they are available, if the subtitles are in a plain text format
(or ASS if --sub-ass-style-override is set high enough).
Default: yes.
Renamed from --sub-ass-use-margins. To place ASS subtitles in
the borders too (like the old option did), also add
--sub-ass-force-margins.
--sub-ass-vsfilter-aspect-compat=<yes|no>
Stretch SSA/ASS subtitles when playing anamorphic videos for
compatibility with traditional VSFilter behavior. This switch
has no effect when the video is stored with square pixels.
The renderer historically most commonly used for the SSA/ASS
subtitle formats, VSFilter, had questionable behavior that
resulted in subtitles being stretched too if the video was
stored in anamorphic format that required scaling for display.
This behavior is usually undesirable and newer VSFilter versions
may behave differently. However, many existing scripts
compensate for the stretching by modifying things in the
opposite direction. Thus, if such scripts are displayed
"correctly", they will not appear as intended. This switch
enables emulation of the old VSFilter behavior (undesirable but
expected by many existing scripts).
Enabled by default.
--sub-ass-vsfilter-blur-compat=<yes|no>
Scale lur tags by video resolution instead of script
resolution (enabled by default). This is bug in VSFilter, which
according to some, can't be fixed anymore in the name of
compatibility.
Note that this uses the actual video resolution for calculating
the offset scale factor, not what the video filter chain or the
video output use.
--sub-ass-vsfilter-color-compat=<basic|full|force-601|no>
Mangle colors like (xy-)vsfilter do (default: basic).
Historically, VSFilter was not color space aware. This was no
problem as long as the color space used for SD video (BT.601)
was used. But when everything switched to HD (BT.709), VSFilter
was still converting RGB colors to BT.601, rendered them into
the video frame, and handled the frame to the video output,
which would use BT.709 for conversion to RGB. The result were
mangled subtitle colors. Later on, bad hacks were added on top
of the ASS format to control how colors are to be mangled.
basic Handle only BT.601->BT.709 mangling, if the subtitles
seem to indicate that this is required (default).
full Handle the full YCbCr Matrix header with all video color
spaces supported by libass and mpv. This might lead to
bad breakages in corner cases and is not strictly needed
for compatibility (hopefully), which is why this is not
default.
force-601
Force BT.601->BT.709 mangling, regardless of subtitle
headers or video color space.
no Disable color mangling completely. All colors are RGB.
Choosing anything other than no will make the subtitle color
depend on the video color space, and it's for example in theory
not possible to reuse a subtitle script with another video file.
The --sub-ass-style-override option doesn't affect how this
option is interpreted.
--stretch-dvd-subs=<yes|no>
Stretch DVD subtitles when playing anamorphic videos for better
looking fonts on badly mastered DVDs. This switch has no effect
when the video is stored with square pixels - which for DVD
input cannot be the case though.
Many studios tend to use bitmap fonts designed for square pixels
when authoring DVDs, causing the fonts to look stretched on
playback on DVD players. This option fixes them, however at the
price of possibly misaligning some subtitles (e.g. sign
translations).
Disabled by default.
--stretch-image-subs-to-screen=<yes|no>
Stretch DVD and other image subtitles to the screen, ignoring
the video margins. This has a similar effect as
--sub-use-margins for text subtitles, except that the text
itself will be stretched, not only just repositioned. (At least
in general it is unavoidable, as an image bitmap can in theory
consist of a single bitmap covering the whole screen, and the
player won't know where exactly the text parts are located.)
This option does not display subtitles correctly. Use with care.
Disabled by default.
--sub-ass, --no-sub-ass
Render ASS subtitles natively (enabled by default).
NOTE:
This has been deprecated by --sub-ass-style-override=strip.
You also may need --embeddedfonts=no to get the same
behavior. Also, using --sub-ass-style-override=force should
give better results without breaking subtitles too much.
If --no-sub-ass is specified, all tags and style declarations
are stripped and ignored on display. The subtitle renderer uses
the font style as specified by the --sub- options instead.
NOTE:
Using --no-sub-ass may lead to incorrect or completely broken
rendering of ASS/SSA subtitles. It can sometimes be useful to
forcibly override the styling of ASS subtitles, but should be
avoided in general.
--sub-auto=<no|exact|fuzzy|all>, --no-sub-auto
Load additional subtitle files matching the video filename. The
parameter specifies how external subtitle files are matched.
exact is enabled by default.
no Don't automatically load external subtitle files.
exact Load the media filename with subtitle file extension
(default).
fuzzy Load all subs containing media filename.
all Load all subs in the current and --sub-paths directories.
--sub-codepage=<codepage>
You can use this option to specify the subtitle codepage.
uchardet will be used to guess the charset. (If mpv was not
compiled with uchardet, then utf-8 is the effective default.)
The default value for this option is auto, which enables
autodetection.
The following steps are taken to determine the final codepage,
in order:
· if the specific codepage has a +, use that codepage
· if the data looks like UTF-8, assume it is UTF-8
· if --sub-codepage is set to a specific codepage, use that
· run uchardet, and if successful, use that
· otherwise, use UTF-8-BROKEN
Examples
· --sub-codepage=latin2 Use Latin 2 if input is not UTF-8.
· --sub-codepage=+cp1250 Always force recoding to cp1250.
The pseudo codepage UTF-8-BROKEN is used internally. If it's
set, subtitles are interpreted as UTF-8 with "Latin 1" as
fallback for bytes which are not valid UTF-8 sequences. iconv is
never involved in this mode.
This option changed in mpv 0.23.0. The old syntax is still
emulated to some degree.
--sub-fix-timing, --no-sub-fix-timing
By default, subtitle timing is adjusted to remove minor gaps or
overlaps between subtitles (if the difference is smaller than
210 ms, the gap or overlap is removed).
--sub-forced-only
Display only forced subtitles for the DVD subtitle stream
selected by e.g. --slang.
--sub-fps=<rate>
Specify the framerate of the subtitle file (default: video fps).
Affects text subtitles only.
NOTE:
<rate> > video fps speeds the subtitles up for frame-based
subtitle files and slows them down for time-based ones.
See also: --sub-speed.
--sub-gauss=<0.0-3.0>
Apply Gaussian blur to image subtitles (default: 0). This can
help to make pixelated DVD/Vobsubs look nicer. A value other
than 0 also switches to software subtitle scaling. Might be
slow.
NOTE:
Never applied to text subtitles.
--sub-gray
Convert image subtitles to grayscale. Can help to make yellow
DVD/Vobsubs look nicer.
NOTE:
Never applied to text subtitles.
--sub-paths=<path1:path2:...>
Specify extra directories to search for subtitles matching the
video. Multiple directories can be separated by ":" (";" on
Windows). Paths can be relative or absolute. Relative paths are
interpreted relative to video file directory.
Example
Assuming that /path/to/video/video.avi is played and
--sub-paths=sub:subtitles:/tmp/subs is specified, mpv
searches for subtitle files in these directories:
· /path/to/video/
· /path/to/video/sub/
· /path/to/video/subtitles/
· /tmp/subs/
· the sub configuration subdirectory (usually
~/.config/mpv/sub/)
--sub-visibility, --no-sub-visibility
Can be used to disable display of subtitles, but still select
and decode them.
--sub-clear-on-seek
(Obscure, rarely useful.) Can be used to play broken mkv files
with duplicate ReadOrder fields. ReadOrder is the first field in
a Matroska-style ASS subtitle packets. It should be unique, and
libass uses it for fast elimination of duplicates. This option
disables caching of subtitles across seeks, so after a seek
libass can't eliminate subtitle packets with the same ReadOrder
as earlier packets.
--teletext-page=<1-999>
This works for dvb_teletext subtitle streams, and if FFmpeg has
been compiled with support for it.
--sub-font=<name>
Specify font to use for subtitles that do not themselves specify
a particular font. The default is sans-serif.
Examples
· --sub-font='Bitstream Vera Sans'
· --sub-font='MS Comic Sans'
NOTE:
The --sub-font option (and many other style related --sub-
options) are ignored when ASS-subtitles are rendered, unless
the --no-sub-ass option is specified.
This used to support fontconfig patterns. Starting with
libass 0.13.0, this stopped working.
--sub-font-size=<size>
Specify the sub font size. The unit is the size in scaled pixels
at a window height of 720. The actual pixel size is scaled with
the window height: if the window height is larger or smaller
than 720, the actual size of the text increases or decreases as
well.
Default: 55.
--sub-back-color=<color>
See --sub-color. Color used for sub text background.
--sub-blur=<0..20.0>
Gaussian blur factor. 0 means no blur applied (default).
--sub-bold=<yes|no>
Format text on bold.
--sub-italic=<yes|no>
Format text on italic.
--sub-border-color=<color>
See --sub-color. Color used for the sub font border.
NOTE:
ignored when --sub-back-color is specified (or more exactly:
when that option is not set to completely transparent).
--sub-border-size=<size>
Size of the sub font border in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details). A value of 0 disables borders.
Default: 3.
--sub-color=<color>
Specify the color used for unstyled text subtitles.
The color is specified in the form r/g/b, where each color
component is specified as number in the range 0.0 to 1.0. It's
also possible to specify the transparency by using r/g/b/a,
where the alpha value 0 means fully transparent, and 1.0 means
opaque. If the alpha component is not given, the color is 100%
opaque.
Passing a single number to the option sets the sub to gray, and
the form gray/a lets you specify alpha additionally.
Examples
· --sub-color=1.0/0.0/0.0 set sub to opaque red
· --sub-color=1.0/0.0/0.0/0.75 set sub to opaque red with 75%
alpha
· --sub-color=0.5/0.75 set sub to 50% gray with 75% alpha
Alternatively, the color can be specified as a RGB hex triplet
in the form #RRGGBB, where each 2-digit group expresses a color
value in the range 0 (00) to 255 (FF). For example, #FF0000 is
red. This is similar to web colors. Alpha is given with
#AARRGGBB.
Examples
· --sub-color='#FF0000' set sub to opaque red
· --sub-color='#C0808080' set sub to 50% gray with 75% alpha
--sub-margin-x=<size>
Left and right screen margin for the subs in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details).
This option specifies the distance of the sub to the left, as
well as at which distance from the right border long sub text
will be broken.
Default: 25.
--sub-margin-y=<size>
Top and bottom screen margin for the subs in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details).
This option specifies the vertical margins of unstyled text
subtitles. If you just want to raise the vertical subtitle
position, use --sub-pos.
Default: 22.
--sub-align-x=<left|center|right>
Control to which corner of the screen text subtitles should be
aligned to (default: center).
Never applied to ASS subtitles, except in --no-sub-ass mode.
Likewise, this does not apply to image subtitles.
--sub-align-y=<top|center|bottom>
Vertical position (default: bottom). Details see --sub-align-x.
--sub-shadow-color=<color>
See --sub-color. Color used for sub text shadow.
--sub-shadow-offset=<size>
Displacement of the sub text shadow in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details). A value of 0 disables shadows.
Default: 0.
--sub-spacing=<size>
Horizontal sub font spacing in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details). This value is added to the normal
letter spacing. Negative values are allowed.
Default: 0.
Window
--title=<string>
Set the window title. This is used for the video window, and if
possible, also sets the audio stream title.
Properties are expanded. (See Property Expansion.)
WARNING:
There is a danger of this causing significant CPU usage,
depending on the properties used. Changing the window title
is often a slow operation, and if the title changes every
frame, playback can be ruined.
--screen=<default|0-32>
In multi-monitor configurations (i.e. a single desktop that
spans across multiple displays), this option tells mpv which
screen to display the video on.
Note (X11)
This option does not work properly with all window
managers. In these cases, you can try to use
--geometry to position the window explicitly. It's
also possible that the window manager provides native
features to control which screens application windows
should use.
See also --fs-screen.
--fullscreen, --fs
Fullscreen playback.
--fs-screen=<all|current|0-32>
In multi-monitor configurations (i.e. a single desktop that
spans across multiple displays), this option tells mpv which
screen to go fullscreen to. If default is provided mpv will
fallback on using the behavior depending on what the user
provided with the screen option.
Note (X11)
This option does works properly only with window
managers which understand the EWMH
_NET_WM_FULLSCREEN_MONITORS hint.
Note (OS X)
all does not work on OS X and will behave like
current.
See also --screen.
--keep-open=<yes|no|always>
Do not terminate when playing or seeking beyond the end of the
file, and there is not next file to be played (and --loop is not
used). Instead, pause the player. When trying to seek beyond
end of the file, the player will attempt to seek to the last
frame.
The following arguments can be given:
no If the current file ends, go to the next file or
terminate. (Default.)
yes Don't terminate if the current file is the last playlist
entry. Equivalent to --keep-open without arguments.
always Like yes, but also applies to files before the last
playlist entry. This means playback will never
automatically advance to the next file.
NOTE:
This option is not respected when using --frames. Explicitly
skipping to the next file if the binding uses force will
terminate playback as well.
Also, if errors or unusual circumstances happen, the player
can quit anyway.
Since mpv 0.6.0, this doesn't pause if there is a next file in
the playlist, or the playlist is looped. Approximately, this
will pause when the player would normally exit, but in practice
there are corner cases in which this is not the case (e.g. mpv
--keep-open file.mkv /dev/null will play file.mkv normally, then
fail to open /dev/null, then exit). (In mpv 0.8.0, always was
introduced, which restores the old behavior.)
--image-display-duration=<seconds|inf>
If the current file is an image, play the image for the given
amount of seconds (default: 1). inf means the file is kept open
forever (until the user stops playback manually).
Unlike --keep-open, the player is not paused, but simply
continues playback until the time has elapsed. (It should not
use any resources during "playback".)
This affects image files, which are defined as having only 1
video frame and no audio. The player may recognize certain
non-images as images, for example if --length is used to reduce
the length to 1 frame, or if you seek to the last frame.
This option does not affect the framerate used for mf:// or
--merge-files. For that, use --mf-fps instead.
--force-window=<yes|no|immediate>
Create a video output window even if there is no video. This can
be useful when pretending that mpv is a GUI application.
Currently, the window always has the size 640x480, and is
subject to --geometry, --autofit, and similar options.
WARNING:
The window is created only after initialization (to make sure
default window placement still works if the video size is
different from the --force-window default window size). This
can be a problem if initialization doesn't work perfectly,
such as when opening URLs with bad network connection, or
opening broken video files. The immediate mode can be used to
create the window always on program start, but this may cause
other issues.
--taskbar-progress, --no-taskbar-progress
(Windows only) Enable/disable playback progress rendering in
taskbar (Windows 7 and above).
Enabled by default.
--ontop
Makes the player window stay on top of other windows.
On Windows, if combined with fullscreen mode, this causes mpv to
be treated as exclusive fullscreen window that bypasses the
Desktop Window Manager.
--border, --no-border
Play video with window border and decorations. Since this is on
by default, use --no-border to disable the standard window
decorations.
--fit-border, --no-fit-border
(Windows only) Fit the whole window with border and decorations
on the screen. Since this is on by default, use --no-fit-border
to make mpv try to only fit client area with video on the
screen. This behavior only applied to window/video with size
exceeding size of the screen.
--on-all-workspaces
(X11 only) Show the video window on all virtual desktops.
--geometry=<[W[xH]][+-x+-y]>, --geometry=<x:y>
Adjust the initial window position or size. W and H set the
window size in pixels. x and y set the window position, measured
in pixels from the top-left corner of the screen to the top-left
corner of the image being displayed. If a percentage sign (%) is
given after the argument, it turns the value into a percentage
of the screen size in that direction. Positions are specified
similar to the standard X11 --geometry option format, in which
e.g. +10-50 means "place 10 pixels from the left border and 50
pixels from the lower border" and "--20+-10" means "place 20
pixels beyond the right and 10 pixels beyond the top border".
If an external window is specified using the --wid option, this
option is ignored.
The coordinates are relative to the screen given with --screen
for the video output drivers that fully support --screen.
NOTE:
Generally only supported by GUI VOs. Ignored for encoding.
Note (X11)
This option does not work properly with all window
managers.
Examples
50:40 Places the window at x=50, y=40.
50%:50%
Places the window in the middle of the screen.
100%:100%
Places the window at the bottom right corner of the
screen.
50% Sets the window width to half the screen width. Window
height is set so that the window has the video aspect
ratio.
50%x50%
Forces the window width and height to half the screen
width and height. Will show black borders to
compensate for the video aspect ratio (with most VOs
and without --no-keepaspect).
50%+10+10
Sets the window to half the screen widths, and
positions it 10 pixels below/left of the top left
corner of the screen.
See also --autofit and --autofit-larger for fitting the window
into a given size without changing aspect ratio.
--autofit=<[W[xH]]>
Set the initial window size to a maximum size specified by WxH,
without changing the window's aspect ratio. The size is measured
in pixels, or if a number is followed by a percentage sign (%),
in percents of the screen size.
This option never changes the aspect ratio of the window. If the
aspect ratio mismatches, the window's size is reduced until it
fits into the specified size.
Window position is not taken into account, nor is it modified by
this option (the window manager still may place the window
differently depending on size). Use --geometry to change the
window position. Its effects are applied after this option.
See --geometry for details how this is handled with
multi-monitor setups.
Use --autofit-larger instead if you just want to limit the
maximum size of the window, rather than always forcing a window
size.
Use --geometry if you want to force both window width and height
to a specific size.
NOTE:
Generally only supported by GUI VOs. Ignored for encoding.
Examples
70% Make the window width 70% of the screen size, keeping
aspect ratio.
1000 Set the window width to 1000 pixels, keeping aspect
ratio.
70%x60%
Make the window as large as possible, without being
wider than 70% of the screen width, or higher than 60%
of the screen height.
--autofit-larger=<[W[xH]]>
This option behaves exactly like --autofit, except the window
size is only changed if the window would be larger than the
specified size.
Example
90%x80%
If the video is larger than 90% of the screen width or
80% of the screen height, make the window smaller
until either its width is 90% of the screen, or its
height is 80% of the screen.
--autofit-smaller=<[W[xH]]>
This option behaves exactly like --autofit, except that it sets
the minimum size of the window (just as --autofit-larger sets
the maximum).
Example
500x500
Make the window at least 500 pixels wide and 500
pixels high (depending on the video aspect ratio, the
width or height will be larger than 500 in order to
keep the aspect ratio the same).
--window-scale=<factor>
Resize the video window to a multiple (or fraction) of the video
size. This option is applied before --autofit and other options
are applied (so they override this option).
For example, --window-scale=0.5 would show the window at half
the video size.
--cursor-autohide=<number|no|always>
Make mouse cursor automatically hide after given number of
milliseconds. no will disable cursor autohide. always means the
cursor will stay hidden.
--cursor-autohide-fs-only
If this option is given, the cursor is always visible in
windowed mode. In fullscreen mode, the cursor is shown or hidden
according to --cursor-autohide.
--no-fixed-vo, --fixed-vo
--no-fixed-vo enforces closing and reopening the video window
for multiple files (one (un)initialization for each file).
--force-rgba-osd-rendering
Change how some video outputs render the OSD and text subtitles.
This does not change appearance of the subtitles and only has
performance implications. For VOs which support native ASS
rendering (like vdpau, opengl, direct3d), this can be slightly
faster or slower, depending on GPU drivers and hardware. For
other VOs, this just makes rendering slower.
--force-window-position
Forcefully move mpv's video output window to default location
whenever there is a change in video parameters, video stream or
file. This used to be the default behavior. Currently only
affects X11 VOs.
--heartbeat-cmd=<command>
WARNING:
This option is redundant with Lua scripting. Further, it
shouldn't be needed for disabling screensaver anyway, since mpv
will call xdg-screensaver when using X11 backend. As a
consequence this option has been deprecated with no direct
replacement.
Command that is executed every 30 seconds during playback via
system() - i.e. using the shell. The time between the commands can
be customized with the --heartbeat-interval option. The command is
not run while playback is paused.
NOTE:
mpv uses this command without any checking. It is your
responsibility to ensure it does not cause security problems
(e.g. make sure to use full paths if "." is in your path like on
Windows). It also only works when playing video (i.e. not with
--no-video but works with --vo=null).
This can be "misused" to disable screensavers that do not support
the proper X API (see also --stop-screensaver). If you think this is
too complicated, ask the author of the screensaver program to
support the proper X APIs. Note that the --stop-screensaver does not
influence the heartbeat code at all.
Example for xscreensaver
mpv --heartbeat-cmd="xscreensaver-command -deactivate"
file
Example for GNOME screensaver
mpv --heartbeat-cmd="gnome-screensaver-command
--deactivate" file
--heartbeat-interval=<sec>
Time between --heartbeat-cmd invocations in seconds (default:
30).
NOTE:
This does not affect the normal screensaver operation in any
way.
--no-keepaspect, --keepaspect
--no-keepaspect will always stretch the video to window size,
and will disable the window manager hints that force the window
aspect ratio. (Ignored in fullscreen mode.)
--no-keepaspect-window, --keepaspect-window
--keepaspect-window (the default) will lock the window size to
the video aspect. --no-keepaspect-window disables this behavior,
and will instead add black bars if window aspect and video
aspect mismatch. Whether this actually works depends on the VO
backend. (Ignored in fullscreen mode.)
--monitoraspect=<ratio>
Set the aspect ratio of your monitor or TV screen. A value of 0
disables a previous setting (e.g. in the config file). Overrides
the --monitorpixelaspect setting if enabled.
See also --monitorpixelaspect and --video-aspect.
Examples
· --monitoraspect=4:3 or --monitoraspect=1.3333
· --monitoraspect=16:9 or --monitoraspect=1.7777
--hidpi-window-scale, --no-hidpi-window-scale
(OS X only) Scale the window size according to the backing scale
factor (default: yes). On regular HiDPI resolutions the window
opens with double the size but appears as having the same size
as on none-HiDPI resolutions. This is the default OS X behavior.
--monitorpixelaspect=<ratio>
Set the aspect of a single pixel of your monitor or TV screen
(default: 1). A value of 1 means square pixels (correct for
(almost?) all LCDs). See also --monitoraspect and
--video-aspect.
--stop-screensaver, --no-stop-screensaver
Turns off the screensaver (or screen blanker and similar
mechanisms) at startup and turns it on again on exit (default:
yes). The screensaver is always re-enabled when the player is
paused.
This is not supported on all video outputs or platforms.
Sometimes it is implemented, but does not work (known to happen
with GNOME). You might be able to work around this using
--heartbeat-cmd instead.
--wid=<ID>
This tells mpv to attach to an existing window. If a VO is
selected that supports this option, it will use that window for
video output. mpv will scale the video to the size of this
window, and will add black bars to compensate if the aspect
ratio of the video is different.
On X11, the ID is interpreted as a Window on X11. Unlike
MPlayer/mplayer2, mpv always creates its own window, and sets
the wid window as parent. The window will always be resized to
cover the parent window fully. The value 0 is interpreted
specially, and mpv will draw directly on the root window.
On win32, the ID is interpreted as HWND. Pass it as value cast
to intptr_t. mpv will create its own window, and set the wid
window as parent, like with X11.
On OSX/Cocoa, the ID is interpreted as NSView*. Pass it as value
cast to intptr_t. mpv will create its own sub-view. Because OSX
does not support window embedding of foreign processes, this
works only with libmpv, and will crash when used from the
command line.
--no-window-dragging
Don't move the window when clicking on it and moving the mouse
pointer.
--x11-name
Set the window class name for X11-based video output methods.
--x11-netwm=<yes|no|auto>
(X11 only) Control the use of NetWM protocol features.
This may or may not help with broken window managers. This
provides some functionality that was implemented by the now
removed --fstype option. Actually, it is not known to the
developers to which degree this option was needed, so feedback
is welcome.
Specifically, yes will force use of NetWM fullscreen support,
even if not advertised by the WM. This can be useful for WMs
that are broken on purpose, like XMonad. (XMonad supposedly
doesn't advertise fullscreen support, because Flash uses it.
Apparently, applications which want to use fullscreen anyway are
supposed to either ignore the NetWM support hints, or provide a
workaround. Shame on XMonad for deliberately breaking X
protocols (as if X isn't bad enough already).
By default, NetWM support is autodetected (auto).
This option might be removed in the future.
--x11-bypass-compositor=<yes|no|fs-only|never>
If set to yes, then ask the compositor to unredirect the mpv
window (default: fs-only). This uses the
_NET_WM_BYPASS_COMPOSITOR hint.
fs-only asks the window manager to disable the compositor only
in fullscreen mode.
no sets _NET_WM_BYPASS_COMPOSITOR to 0, which is the default
value as declared by the EWMH specification, i.e. no change is
done.
never asks the window manager to never disable the compositor.
Disc Devices
--cdrom-device=<path>
Specify the CD-ROM device (default: /dev/cdrom).
--dvd-device=<path>
Specify the DVD device or .iso filename (default: /dev/dvd). You
can also specify a directory that contains files previously
copied directly from a DVD (with e.g. vobcopy).
Example
mpv dvd:// --dvd-device=/path/to/dvd/
--bluray-device=<path>
(Blu-ray only) Specify the Blu-ray disc location. Must be a
directory with Blu-ray structure.
Example
mpv bd:// --bluray-device=/path/to/bd/
--cdda-...
These options can be used to tune the CD Audio reading feature
of mpv.
--cdda-speed=<value>
Set CD spin speed.
--cdda-paranoia=<0-2>
Set paranoia level. Values other than 0 seem to break playback
of anything but the first track.
0 disable checking (default)
1 overlap checking only
2 full data correction and verification
--cdda-sector-size=<value>
Set atomic read size.
--cdda-overlap=<value>
Force minimum overlap search during verification to <value>
sectors.
--cdda-toc-bias
Assume that the beginning offset of track 1 as reported in the
TOC will be addressed as LBA 0. Some discs need this for getting
track boundaries correctly.
--cdda-toc-offset=<value>
Add <value> sectors to the values reported when addressing
tracks. May be negative.
--cdda-skip=<yes|no>
(Never) accept imperfect data reconstruction.
--cdda-cdtext=<yes|no>
Print CD text. This is disabled by default, because it ruins
performance with CD-ROM drives for unknown reasons.
--dvd-speed=<speed>
Try to limit DVD speed (default: 0, no change). DVD base speed
is 1385 kB/s, so an 8x drive can read at speeds up to 11080
kB/s. Slower speeds make the drive more quiet. For watching
DVDs, 2700 kB/s should be quiet and fast enough. mpv resets the
speed to the drive default value on close. Values of at least
100 mean speed in kB/s. Values less than 100 mean multiples of
1385 kB/s, i.e. --dvd-speed=8 selects 11080 kB/s.
NOTE:
You need write access to the DVD device to change the speed.
--dvd-angle=<ID>
Some DVDs contain scenes that can be viewed from multiple
angles. This option tells mpv which angle to use (default: 1).
Equalizer
--brightness=<-100-100>
Adjust the brightness of the video signal (default: 0). Not
supported by all video output drivers.
--contrast=<-100-100>
Adjust the contrast of the video signal (default: 0). Not
supported by all video output drivers.
--saturation=<-100-100>
Adjust the saturation of the video signal (default: 0). You can
get grayscale output with this option. Not supported by all
video output drivers.
--gamma=<-100-100>
Adjust the gamma of the video signal (default: 0). Not supported
by all video output drivers.
--hue=<-100-100>
Adjust the hue of the video signal (default: 0). You can get a
colored negative of the image with this option. Not supported by
all video output drivers.
Demuxer
--demuxer=<[+]name>
Force demuxer type. Use a '+' before the name to force it; this
will skip some checks. Give the demuxer name as printed by
--demuxer=help.
--demuxer-lavf-analyzeduration=<value>
Maximum length in seconds to analyze the stream properties.
--demuxer-lavf-probescore=<1-100>
Minimum required libavformat probe score. Lower values will
require less data to be loaded (makes streams start faster), but
makes file format detection less reliable. Can be used to force
auto-detected libavformat demuxers, even if libavformat
considers the detection not reliable enough. (Default: 26.)
--demuxer-lavf-allow-mimetype=<yes|no>
Allow deriving the format from the HTTP MIME type (default:
yes). Set this to no in case playing things from HTTP
mysteriously fails, even though the same files work from local
disk.
This is default in order to reduce latency when opening HTTP
streams.
--demuxer-lavf-format=<name>
Force a specific libavformat demuxer.
--demuxer-lavf-hacks=<yes|no>
By default, some formats will be handled differently from other
formats by explicitly checking for them. Most of these
compensate for weird or imperfect behavior from libavformat
demuxers. Passing no disables these. For debugging and testing
only.
--demuxer-lavf-genpts-mode=<no|lavf>
Mode for deriving missing packet PTS values from packet DTS.
lavf enables libavformat's genpts option. no disables it. This
used to be enabled by default, but then it was deemed as not
needed anymore. Enabling this might help with timestamp
problems, or make them worse.
--demuxer-lavf-o=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
Pass AVOptions to libavformat demuxer.
Note, a patch to make the o= unneeded and pass all unknown
options through the AVOption system is welcome. A full list of
AVOptions can be found in the FFmpeg manual. Note that some
options may conflict with mpv options.
Example
--demuxer-lavf-o=fflags=+ignidx
--demuxer-lavf-probesize=<value>
Maximum amount of data to probe during the detection phase. In
the case of MPEG-TS this value identifies the maximum number of
TS packets to scan.
--demuxer-lavf-buffersize=<value>
Size of the stream read buffer allocated for libavformat in
bytes (default: 32768). Lowering the size could lower latency.
Note that libavformat might reallocate the buffer internally, or
not fully use all of it.
--demuxer-lavf-cryptokey=<hexstring>
Encryption key the demuxer should use. This is the raw binary
data of the key converted to a hexadecimal string.
--demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll=<yes|index|no>, --mkv-subtitle-preroll
Try harder to show embedded soft subtitles when seeking
somewhere. Normally, it can happen that the subtitle at the seek
target is not shown due to how some container file formats are
designed. The subtitles appear only if seeking before or exactly
to the position a subtitle first appears. To make this worse,
subtitles are often timed to appear a very small amount before
the associated video frame, so that seeking to the video frame
typically does not demux the subtitle at that position.
Enabling this option makes the demuxer start reading data a bit
before the seek target, so that subtitles appear correctly. Note
that this makes seeking slower, and is not guaranteed to always
work. It only works if the subtitle is close enough to the seek
target.
Works with the internal Matroska demuxer only. Always enabled
for absolute and hr-seeks, and this option changes behavior with
relative or imprecise seeks only.
You can use the --demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll-secs option to
specify how much data the demuxer should pre-read at most in
order to find subtitle packets that may overlap. Setting this to
0 will effectively disable this preroll mechanism. Setting a
very large value can make seeking very slow, and an extremely
large value would completely reread the entire file from start
to seek target on every seek - seeking can become slower towards
the end of the file. The details are messy, and the value is
actually rounded down to the cluster with the previous video
keyframe.
Some files, especially files muxed with newer mkvmerge versions,
have information embedded that can be used to determine what
subtitle packets overlap with a seek target. In these cases, mpv
will reduce the amount of data read to a minimum. (Although it
will still read all data between the cluster that contains the
first wanted subtitle packet, and the seek target.) If the index
choice (which is the default) is specified, then prerolling will
be done only if this information is actually available. If this
method is used, the maximum amount of data to skip can be
additionally controlled by
--demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll-secs-index (it still uses the
value of the option without -index if that is higher).
See also --hr-seek-demuxer-offset option. This option can
achieve a similar effect, but only if hr-seek is active. It
works with any demuxer, but makes seeking much slower, as it has
to decode audio and video data instead of just skipping over it.
--mkv-subtitle-preroll is a deprecated alias.
--demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll-secs=<value>
See --demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll.
--demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll-secs-index=<value>
See --demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll.
--demuxer-mkv-probe-video-duration=<yes|no|full>
When opening the file, seek to the end of it, and check what
timestamp the last video packet has, and report that as file
duration. This is strictly for compatibility with Haali only. In
this mode, it's possible that opening will be slower (especially
when playing over http), or that behavior with broken files is
much worse. So don't use this option.
The yes mode merely uses the index and reads a small number of
blocks from the end of the file. The full mode actually
traverses the entire file and can make a reliable estimate even
without an index present (such as partial files).
--demuxer-rawaudio-channels=<value>
Number of channels (or channel layout) if --demuxer=rawaudio is
used (default: stereo).
--demuxer-rawaudio-format=<value>
Sample format for --demuxer=rawaudio (default: s16le). Use
--demuxer-rawaudio-format=help to get a list of all formats.
--demuxer-rawaudio-rate=<value>
Sample rate for --demuxer=rawaudio (default: 44 kHz).
--demuxer-rawvideo-fps=<value>
Rate in frames per second for --demuxer=rawvideo (default:
25.0).
--demuxer-rawvideo-w=<value>, --demuxer-rawvideo-h=<value>
Image dimension in pixels for --demuxer=rawvideo.
Example
Play a raw YUV sample:
mpv sample-720x576.yuv --demuxer=rawvideo \
--demuxer-rawvideo-w=720 --demuxer-rawvideo-h=576
--demuxer-rawvideo-format=<value>
Color space (fourcc) in hex or string for --demuxer=rawvideo
(default: YV12).
--demuxer-rawvideo-mp-format=<value>
Color space by internal video format for --demuxer=rawvideo. Use
--demuxer-rawvideo-mp-format=help for a list of possible
formats.
--demuxer-rawvideo-codec=<value>
Set the video codec instead of selecting the rawvideo codec when
using --demuxer=rawvideo. This uses the same values as codec
names in --vd (but it does not accept decoder names).
--demuxer-rawvideo-size=<value>
Frame size in bytes when using --demuxer=rawvideo.
--demuxer-max-packets=<packets>, --demuxer-max-bytes=<bytes>
This controls how much the demuxer is allowed to buffer ahead.
The demuxer will normally try to read ahead as much as
necessary, or as much is requested with
--demuxer-readahead-secs. The --demuxer-max-... options can be
used to restrict the maximum readahead. This limits excessive
readahead in case of broken files or desynced playback. The
demuxer will stop reading additional packets as soon as one of
the limits is reached. (The limits still can be slightly
overstepped due to technical reasons.)
Set these limits higher if you get a packet queue overflow
warning, and you think normal playback would be possible with a
larger packet queue.
See --list-options for defaults and value range.
--demuxer-thread=<yes|no>
Run the demuxer in a separate thread, and let it prefetch a
certain amount of packets (default: yes). Having this enabled
may lead to smoother playback, but on the other hand can add
delays to seeking or track switching.
--demuxer-readahead-secs=<seconds>
If --demuxer-thread is enabled, this controls how much the
demuxer should buffer ahead in seconds (default: 1). As long as
no packet has a timestamp difference higher than the readahead
amount relative to the last packet returned to the decoder, the
demuxer keeps reading.
Note that the --cache-secs option will override this value if a
cache is enabled, and the value is larger.
(This value tends to be fuzzy, because many file formats don't
store linear timestamps.)
--force-seekable=<yes|no>
If the player thinks that the media is not seekable (e.g.
playing from a pipe, or it's an http stream with a server that
doesn't support range requests), seeking will be disabled. This
option can forcibly enable it. For seeks within the cache,
there's a good chance of success.
Input
--native-keyrepeat
Use system settings for keyrepeat delay and rate, instead of
--input-ar-delay and --input-ar-rate. (Whether this applies
depends on the VO backend and how it handles keyboard input.
Does not apply to terminal input.)
--input-ar-delay
Delay in milliseconds before we start to autorepeat a key (0 to
disable).
--input-ar-rate
Number of key presses to generate per second on autorepeat.
--input-conf=<filename>
Specify input configuration file other than the default location
in the mpv configuration directory (usually
~/.config/mpv/input.conf).
--no-input-default-bindings
Disable mpv default (built-in) key bindings.
--input-cmdlist
Prints all commands that can be bound to keys.
--input-doubleclick-time=<milliseconds>
Time in milliseconds to recognize two consecutive button presses
as a double-click (default: 300).
--input-keylist
Prints all keys that can be bound to commands.
--input-key-fifo-size=<2-65000>
Specify the size of the FIFO that buffers key events (default:
7). If it is too small, some events may be lost. The main
disadvantage of setting it to a very large value is that if you
hold down a key triggering some particularly slow command then
the player may be unresponsive while it processes all the queued
commands.
--input-test
Input test mode. Instead of executing commands on key presses,
mpv will show the keys and the bound commands on the OSD. Has to
be used with a dummy video, and the normal ways to quit the
player will not work (key bindings that normally quit will be
shown on OSD only, just like any other binding). See INPUT.CONF.
--input-file=<filename>
Read commands from the given file. Mostly useful with a FIFO.
Since mpv 0.7.0 also understands JSON commands (see JSON IPC),
but you can't get replies or events. Use --input-ipc-server for
something bi-directional. On MS Windows, JSON commands are not
available.
This can also specify a direct file descriptor with fd://N (UNIX
only). In this case, JSON replies will be written if the FD is
writable.
NOTE:
When the given file is a FIFO mpv opens both ends, so you can
do several echo "seek 10" > mp_pipe and the pipe will stay
valid.
--input-terminal, --no-input-terminal
--no-input-terminal prevents the player from reading key events
from standard input. Useful when reading data from standard
input. This is automatically enabled when - is found on the
command line. There are situations where you have to set it
manually, e.g. if you open /dev/stdin (or the equivalent on your
system), use stdin in a playlist or intend to read from stdin
later on via the loadfile or loadlist input commands.
--input-ipc-server=<filename>
Enable the IPC support and create the listening socket at the
given path.
On Linux and Unix, the given path is a regular filesystem path.
On Windows, named pipes are used, so the path refers to the pipe
namespace (\\.\pipe\<name>). If the \\.\pipe\ prefix is missing,
mpv will add it automatically before creating the pipe, so
--input-ipc-server=/tmp/mpv-socket and
--input-ipc-server=\\.\pipe\tmp\mpv-socket are equivalent for
IPC on Windows.
See JSON IPC for details.
--input-appleremote=<yes|no>
(OS X only) Enable/disable Apple Remote support. Enabled by
default (except for libmpv).
--input-cursor, --no-input-cursor
Permit mpv to receive pointer events reported by the video
output driver. Necessary to use the OSC, or to select the
buttons in DVD menus. Support depends on the VO in use.
--input-media-keys=<yes|no>
(OS X only) Enable/disable media keys support. Enabled by
default (except for libmpv).
--input-right-alt-gr, --no-input-right-alt-gr
(Cocoa and Windows only) Use the right Alt key as Alt Gr to
produce special characters. If disabled, count the right Alt as
an Alt modifier key. Enabled by default.
--input-vo-keyboard=<yes|no>
Disable all keyboard input on for VOs which can't participate in
proper keyboard input dispatching. May not affect all VOs.
Generally useful for embedding only.
On X11, a sub-window with input enabled grabs all keyboard input
as long as it is 1. a child of a focused window, and 2. the
mouse is inside of the sub-window. It can steal away all
keyboard input from the application embedding the mpv window,
and on the other hand, the mpv window will receive no input if
the mouse is outside of the mpv window, even though mpv has
focus. Modern toolkits work around this weird X11 behavior, but
naively embedding foreign windows breaks it.
The only way to handle this reasonably is using the XEmbed
protocol, which was designed to solve these problems. GTK
provides GtkSocket, which supports XEmbed. Qt doesn't seem to
provide anything working in newer versions.
If the embedder supports XEmbed, input should work with default
settings and with this option disabled. Note that
input-default-bindings is disabled by default in libmpv as well
- it should be enabled if you want the mpv default key bindings.
(This option was renamed from --input-x11-keyboard.)
--input-app-events=<yes|no>
(OS X only) Enable/disable application wide keyboard events so
that keyboard shortcuts can be processed without a window.
Enabled by default (except for libmpv).
OSD
--osc, --no-osc
Whether to load the on-screen-controller (default: yes).
--no-osd-bar, --osd-bar
Disable display of the OSD bar. This will make some things (like
seeking) use OSD text messages instead of the bar.
You can configure this on a per-command basis in input.conf
using osd- prefixes, see Input command prefixes. If you want to
disable the OSD completely, use --osd-level=0.
--osd-duration=<time>
Set the duration of the OSD messages in ms (default: 1000).
--osd-font=<name>
Specify font to use for OSD. The default is sans-serif.
Examples
· --osd-font='Bitstream Vera Sans'
· --osd-font='MS Comic Sans'
--osd-font-size=<size>
Specify the OSD font size. See --sub-font-size for details.
Default: 55.
--osd-msg1=<string>
Show this string as message on OSD with OSD level 1 (visible by
default). The message will be visible by default, and as long
no other message covers it, and the OSD level isn't changed (see
--osd-level). Expands properties; see Property Expansion.
--osd-msg2=<string>
Similar as --osd-msg1, but for OSD level 2. If this is an empty
string (default), then the playback time is shown.
--osd-msg3=<string>
Similar as --osd-msg1, but for OSD level 3. If this is an empty
string (default), then the playback time, duration, and some
more information is shown.
This is also used for the show-progress command (by default
mapped to P), or in some non-default cases when seeking.
--osd-status-msg is a legacy equivalent (but with a minor
difference).
--osd-status-msg=<string>
Show a custom string during playback instead of the standard
status text. This overrides the status text used for
--osd-level=3, when using the show-progress command (by default
mapped to P), or in some non-default cases when seeking. Expands
properties. See Property Expansion.
This option has been replaced with --osd-msg3. The only
difference is that this option implicitly includes
${osd-sym-cc}. This option is ignored if --osd-msg3 is not
empty.
--osd-playing-msg=<string>
Show a message on OSD when playback starts. The string is
expanded for properties, e.g. --osd-playing-msg='file:
${filename}' will show the message file: followed by a space and
the currently played filename.
See Property Expansion.
--osd-bar-align-x=<-1-1>
Position of the OSD bar. -1 is far left, 0 is centered, 1 is far
right. Fractional values (like 0.5) are allowed.
--osd-bar-align-y=<-1-1>
Position of the OSD bar. -1 is top, 0 is centered, 1 is bottom.
Fractional values (like 0.5) are allowed.
--osd-bar-w=<1-100>
Width of the OSD bar, in percentage of the screen width
(default: 75). A value of 50 means the bar is half the screen
wide.
--osd-bar-h=<0.1-50>
Height of the OSD bar, in percentage of the screen height
(default: 3.125).
--osd-back-color=<color>
See --osd-color. Color used for OSD text background.
--osd-blur=<0..20.0>
Gaussian blur factor. 0 means no blur applied (default).
--osd-bold=<yes|no>
Format text on bold.
--osd-italic=<yes|no>
Format text on italic.
--osd-border-color=<color>
See --osd-color. Color used for the OSD font border.
NOTE:
ignored when --osd-back-color is specified (or more exactly:
when that option is not set to completely transparent).
--osd-border-size=<size>
Size of the OSD font border in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details). A value of 0 disables borders.
Default: 3.
--osd-color=<color>
Specify the color used for OSD. See --sub-color for details.
--osd-fractions
Show OSD times with fractions of seconds (in millisecond
precision). Useful to see the exact timestamp of a video frame.
--osd-level=<0-3>
Specifies which mode the OSD should start in.
0 OSD completely disabled (subtitles only)
1 enabled (shows up only on user interaction)
2 enabled + current time visible by default
3 enabled + --osd-status-msg (current time and status by
default)
--osd-margin-x=<size>
Left and right screen margin for the OSD in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details).
This option specifies the distance of the OSD to the left, as
well as at which distance from the right border long OSD text
will be broken.
Default: 25.
--osd-margin-y=<size>
Top and bottom screen margin for the OSD in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details).
This option specifies the vertical margins of the OSD.
Default: 22.
--osd-align-x=<left|center|right>
Control to which corner of the screen OSD should be aligned to
(default: left).
--osd-align-y=<top|center|bottom>
Vertical position (default: top). Details see --osd-align-x.
--osd-scale=<factor>
OSD font size multiplier, multiplied with --osd-font-size value.
--osd-scale-by-window=<yes|no>
Whether to scale the OSD with the window size (default: yes). If
this is disabled, --osd-font-size and other OSD options that use
scaled pixels are always in actual pixels. The effect is that
changing the window size won't change the OSD font size.
--osd-shadow-color=<color>
See --sub-color. Color used for OSD shadow.
--osd-shadow-offset=<size>
Displacement of the OSD shadow in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details). A value of 0 disables shadows.
Default: 0.
--osd-spacing=<size>
Horizontal OSD/sub font spacing in scaled pixels (see
--sub-font-size for details). This value is added to the normal
letter spacing. Negative values are allowed.
Default: 0.
--video-osd=<yes|no>
Enabled OSD rendering on the video window (default: yes). This
can be used in situations where terminal OSD is preferred. If
you just want to disable all OSD rendering, use --osd-level=0.
It does not affect subtitles or overlays created by scripts (in
particular, the OSC needs to be disabled with --no-osc).
This option is somewhat experimental and could be replaced by
another mechanism in the future.
Screenshot
--screenshot-format=<type>
Set the image file type used for saving screenshots.
Available choices:
png PNG
ppm PPM
pgm PGM
pgmyuv PGM with YV12 pixel format
tga TARGA
jpg JPEG (default)
jpeg JPEG (same as jpg, but with .jpeg file ending)
--screenshot-tag-colorspace=<yes|no>
Tag screenshots with the appropriate colorspace.
Note that not all formats are supported.
Default: no.
--screenshot-high-bit-depth=<yes|no>
If possible, write screenshots with a bit depth similar to the
source video (default: yes). This is interesting in particular
for PNG, as this sometimes triggers writing 16 bit PNGs with
huge file sizes.
--screenshot-template=<template>
Specify the filename template used to save screenshots. The
template specifies the filename without file extension, and can
contain format specifiers, which will be substituted when taking
a screenshot. By default, the template is mpv-shot%n, which
results in filenames like mpv-shot0012.png for example.
The template can start with a relative or absolute path, in
order to specify a directory location where screenshots should
be saved.
If the final screenshot filename points to an already existing
file, the file will not be overwritten. The screenshot will
either not be saved, or if the template contains %n, saved using
different, newly generated filename.
Allowed format specifiers:
%[#][0X]n
A sequence number, padded with zeros to length X
(default: 04). E.g. passing the format %04n will yield
0012 on the 12th screenshot. The number is incremented
every time a screenshot is taken or if the file already
exists. The length X must be in the range 0-9. With the
optional # sign, mpv will use the lowest available
number. For example, if you take three screenshots--0001,
0002, 0003--and delete the first two, the next two
screenshots will not be 0004 and 0005, but 0001 and 0002
again.
%f Filename of the currently played video.
%F Same as %f, but strip the file extension, including the
dot.
%x Directory path of the currently played video. If the
video is not on the filesystem (but e.g. http://), this
expand to an empty string.
%X{fallback}
Same as %x, but if the video file is not on the
filesystem, return the fallback string inside the {...}.
%p Current playback time, in the same format as used in the
OSD. The result is a string of the form "HH:MM:SS". For
example, if the video is at the time position 5 minutes
and 34 seconds, %p will be replaced with "00:05:34".
%P Similar to %p, but extended with the playback time in
milliseconds. It is formatted as "HH:MM:SS.mmm", with
"mmm" being the millisecond part of the playback time.
NOTE:
This is a simple way for getting unique per-frame
timestamps. (Frame numbers would be more intuitive,
but are not easily implementable because container
formats usually use time stamps for identifying
frames.)
%wX Specify the current playback time using the format string
X. %p is like %wH:%wM:%wS, and %P is like
%wH:%wM:%wS.%wT.
Valid format specifiers:
%wH hour (padded with 0 to two digits)
%wh hour (not padded)
%wM minutes (00-59)
%wm total minutes (includes hours, unlike %wM)
%wS seconds (00-59)
%ws total seconds (includes hours and minutes)
%wf like %ws, but as float
%wT milliseconds (000-999)
%tX Specify the current local date/time using the format X.
This format specifier uses the UNIX strftime() function
internally, and inserts the result of passing "%X" to
strftime. For example, %tm will insert the number of the
current month as number. You have to use multiple %tX
specifiers to build a full date/time string.
%{prop[:fallback text]}
Insert the value of the input property 'prop'. E.g.
%{filename} is the same as %f. If the property does not
exist or is not available, an error text is inserted,
unless a fallback is specified.
%% Replaced with the % character itself.
--screenshot-directory=<path>
Store screenshots in this directory. This path is joined with
the filename generated by --screenshot-template. If the template
filename is already absolute, the directory is ignored.
If the directory does not exist, it is created on the first
screenshot. If it is not a directory, an error is generated when
trying to write a screenshot.
This option is not set by default, and thus will write
screenshots to the directory from which mpv was started. In
pseudo-gui mode (see PSEUDO GUI MODE), this is set to the
desktop.
--screenshot-jpeg-quality=<0-100>
Set the JPEG quality level. Higher means better quality. The
default is 90.
--screenshot-jpeg-source-chroma=<yes|no>
Write JPEG files with the same chroma subsampling as the video
(default: yes). If disabled, the libjpeg default is used.
--screenshot-png-compression=<0-9>
Set the PNG compression level. Higher means better compression.
This will affect the file size of the written screenshot file
and the time it takes to write a screenshot. Too high
compression might occupy enough CPU time to interrupt playback.
The default is 7.
--screenshot-png-filter=<0-5>
Set the filter applied prior to PNG compression. 0 is none, 1 is
"sub", 2 is "up", 3 is "average", 4 is "Paeth", and 5 is
"mixed". This affects the level of compression that can be
achieved. For most images, "mixed" achieves the best compression
ratio, hence it is the default.
Software Scaler
--sws-scaler=<name>
Specify the software scaler algorithm to be used with
--vf=scale. This also affects video output drivers which lack
hardware acceleration, e.g. x11. See also --vf=scale.
To get a list of available scalers, run --sws-scaler=help.
Default: bicubic.
--sws-lgb=<0-100>
Software scaler Gaussian blur filter (luma). See --sws-scaler.
--sws-cgb=<0-100>
Software scaler Gaussian blur filter (chroma). See --sws-scaler.
--sws-ls=<-100-100>
Software scaler sharpen filter (luma). See --sws-scaler.
--sws-cs=<-100-100>
Software scaler sharpen filter (chroma). See --sws-scaler.
--sws-chs=<h>
Software scaler chroma horizontal shifting. See --sws-scaler.
--sws-cvs=<v>
Software scaler chroma vertical shifting. See --sws-scaler.
Terminal
--quiet
Make console output less verbose; in particular, prevents the
status line (i.e. AV: 3.4 (00:00:03.37) / 5320.6 ...) from being
displayed. Particularly useful on slow terminals or broken ones
which do not properly handle carriage return (i.e. \r).
See also: --really-quiet and --msg-level.
--really-quiet
Display even less output and status messages than with --quiet.
--no-terminal, --terminal
Disable any use of the terminal and stdin/stdout/stderr. This
completely silences any message output.
Unlike --really-quiet, this disables input and terminal
initialization as well.
--no-msg-color
Disable colorful console output on terminals.
--msg-level=<module1=level1,module2=level2,...>
Control verbosity directly for each module. The all module
changes the verbosity of all the modules not explicitly
specified on the command line.
Run mpv with --msg-level=all=trace to see all messages mpv
outputs. You can use the module names printed in the output
(prefixed to each line in [...]) to limit the output to
interesting modules.
NOTE:
Some messages are printed before the command line is parsed
and are therefore not affected by --msg-level. To control
these messages, you have to use the MPV_VERBOSE environment
variable; see ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES for details.
Available levels:
no complete silence
fatal fatal messages only
error error messages
warn warning messages
info informational messages
status status messages (default)
v verbose messages
debug debug messages
trace very noisy debug messages
Example
mpv --msg-level=ao/sndio=no
Completely silences the output of ao_sndio, which uses the
log prefix [ao/sndio].
mpv --msg-level=all=warn,ao/alsa=error
Only show warnings or worse, and let the ao_alsa output show
errors only.
--term-osd=<auto|no|force>
Control whether OSD messages are shown on the console when no
video output is available (default: auto).
auto use terminal OSD if no video output active
no disable terminal OSD
force use terminal OSD even if video output active
The auto mode also enables terminal OSD if --video-osd=no was
set.
--term-osd-bar, --no-term-osd-bar
Enable printing a progress bar under the status line on the
terminal. (Disabled by default.)
--term-osd-bar-chars=<string>
Customize the --term-osd-bar feature. The string is expected to
consist of 5 characters (start, left space, position indicator,
right space, end). You can use Unicode characters, but note that
double- width characters will not be treated correctly.
Default: [-+-].
--term-playing-msg=<string>
Print out a string after starting playback. The string is
expanded for properties, e.g. --term-playing-msg='file:
${filename}' will print the string file: followed by a space and
the currently played filename.
See Property Expansion.
--term-status-msg=<string>
Print out a custom string during playback instead of the
standard status line. Expands properties. See Property
Expansion.
--msg-module
Prepend module name to each console message.
--msg-time
Prepend timing information to each console message.
TV
--tv-...
These options tune various properties of the TV capture module.
For watching TV with mpv, use tv:// or tv://<channel_number> or
even tv://<channel_name> (see option tv-channels for
channel_name below) as a media URL. You can also use
tv:///<input_id> to start watching a video from a composite or
S-Video input (see option input for details).
--tv-device=<value>
Specify TV device (default: /dev/video0).
--tv-channel=<value>
Set tuner to <value> channel.
--no-tv-audio
no sound
--tv-automute=<0-255> (v4l and v4l2 only)
If signal strength reported by device is less than this value,
audio and video will be muted. In most cases automute=100 will
be enough. Default is 0 (automute disabled).
--tv-driver=<value>
See --tv=driver=help for a list of compiled-in TV input drivers.
available: dummy, v4l2 (default: autodetect)
--tv-input=<value>
Specify input (default: 0 (TV), see console output for available
inputs).
--tv-freq=<value>
Specify the frequency to set the tuner to (e.g. 511.250). Not
compatible with the channels parameter.
--tv-outfmt=<value>
Specify the output format of the tuner with a preset value
supported by the V4L driver (YV12, UYVY, YUY2, I420) or an
arbitrary format given as hex value.
--tv-width=<value>
output window width
--tv-height=<value>
output window height
--tv-fps=<value>
framerate at which to capture video (frames per second)
--tv-buffersize=<value>
maximum size of the capture buffer in megabytes (default:
dynamical)
--tv-norm=<value>
See the console output for a list of all available norms.
See also: --tv-normid.
--tv-normid=<value> (v4l2 only)
Sets the TV norm to the given numeric ID. The TV norm depends on
the capture card. See the console output for a list of available
TV norms.
--tv-chanlist=<value>
available: argentina, australia, china-bcast, europe-east,
europe-west, france, ireland, italy, japan-bcast, japan-cable,
newzealand, russia, southafrica, us-bcast, us-cable,
us-cable-hrc
--tv-channels=<chan>-<name>[=<norm>],<chan>-<name>[=<norm>],...
Set names for channels.
NOTE:
If <chan> is an integer greater than 1000, it will be treated
as frequency (in kHz) rather than channel name from frequency
table. Use _ for spaces in names (or play with quoting ;-)
). The channel names will then be written using OSD, and the
input commands tv_step_channel, tv_set_channel and
tv_last_channel will be usable for a remote control. Not
compatible with the frequency parameter.
NOTE:
The channel number will then be the position in the
'channels' list, beginning with 1.
Examples
tv://1, tv://TV1, tv_set_channel 1, tv_set_channel TV1
--tv-[brightness|contrast|hue|saturation]=<-100-100>
Set the image equalizer on the card.
--tv-audiorate=<value>
Set input audio sample rate.
--tv-forceaudio
Capture audio even if there are no audio sources reported by
v4l.
--tv-alsa
Capture from ALSA.
--tv-amode=<0-3>
Choose an audio mode:
0 mono
1 stereo
2 language 1
3 language 2
--tv-forcechan=<1-2>
By default, the count of recorded audio channels is determined
automatically by querying the audio mode from the TV card. This
option allows forcing stereo/mono recording regardless of the
amode option and the values returned by v4l. This can be used
for troubleshooting when the TV card is unable to report the
current audio mode.
--tv-adevice=<value>
Set an audio device. <value> should be /dev/xxx for OSS and a
hardware ID for ALSA. You must replace any ':' by a '.' in the
hardware ID for ALSA.
--tv-audioid=<value>
Choose an audio output of the capture card, if it has more than
one.
--tv-[volume|bass|treble|balance]=<0-100>
These options set parameters of the mixer on the video capture
card. They will have no effect, if your card does not have one.
For v4l2 50 maps to the default value of the control, as
reported by the driver.
--tv-gain=<0-100>
Set gain control for video devices (usually webcams) to the
desired value and switch off automatic control. A value of 0
enables automatic control. If this option is omitted, gain
control will not be modified.
--tv-immediatemode=<bool>
A value of 0 means capture and buffer audio and video together.
A value of 1 (default) means to do video capture only and let
the audio go through a loopback cable from the TV card to the
sound card.
--tv-mjpeg
Use hardware MJPEG compression (if the card supports it). When
using this option, you do not need to specify the width and
height of the output window, because mpv will determine it
automatically from the decimation value (see below).
--tv-decimation=<1|2|4>
choose the size of the picture that will be compressed by
hardware MJPEG compression:
1 full size
· 704x576 PAL
· 704x480 NTSC
2 medium size
· 352x288 PAL
· 352x240 NTSC
4 small size
· 176x144 PAL
· 176x120 NTSC
--tv-quality=<0-100>
Choose the quality of the JPEG compression (< 60 recommended for
full size).
--tv-scan-autostart
Begin channel scanning immediately after startup (default:
disabled).
--tv-scan-period=<0.1-2.0>
Specify delay in seconds before switching to next channel
(default: 0.5). Lower values will cause faster scanning, but can
detect inactive TV channels as active.
--tv-scan-threshold=<1-100>
Threshold value for the signal strength (in percent), as
reported by the device (default: 50). A signal strength higher
than this value will indicate that the currently scanning
channel is active.
Cache
--cache=<kBytes|yes|no|auto>
Set the size of the cache in kilobytes, disable it with no, or
automatically enable it if needed with auto (default: auto).
With auto, the cache will usually be enabled for network
streams, using the size set by --cache-default. With yes, the
cache will always be enabled with the size set by
--cache-default (unless the stream cannot be cached, or
--cache-default disables caching).
May be useful when playing files from slow media, but can also
have negative effects, especially with file formats that require
a lot of seeking, such as MP4.
Note that half the cache size will be used to allow fast seeking
back. This is also the reason why a full cache is usually not
reported as 100% full. The cache fill display does not include
the part of the cache reserved for seeking back. The actual
maximum percentage will usually be the ratio between readahead
and backbuffer sizes.
--cache-default=<kBytes|no>
Set the size of the cache in kilobytes (default: 75000 KB).
Using no will not automatically enable the cache e.g. when
playing from a network stream. Note that using --cache will
always override this option.
--cache-initial=<kBytes>
Playback will start when the cache has been filled up with this
many kilobytes of data (default: 0).
--cache-seek-min=<kBytes>
If a seek is to be made to a position within <kBytes> of the
cache size from the current position, mpv will wait for the
cache to be filled to this position rather than performing a
stream seek (default: 500).
This matters for small forward seeks. With slow streams
(especially HTTP streams) there is a tradeoff between skipping
the data between current position and seek destination, or
performing an actual seek. Depending on the situation, either of
these might be slower than the other method. This option allows
control over this.
--cache-backbuffer=<kBytes>
Size of the cache back buffer (default: 75000 KB). This will add
to the total cache size, and reserved the amount for seeking
back. The reserved amount will not be used for readahead, and
instead preserves already read data to enable fast seeking back.
--cache-file=<TMP|path>
Create a cache file on the filesystem.
There are two ways of using this:
1. Passing a path (a filename). The file will always be
overwritten. When the general cache is enabled, this file
cache will be used to store whatever is read from the source
stream.
This will always overwrite the cache file, and you can't use
an existing cache file to resume playback of a stream.
(Technically, mpv wouldn't even know which blocks in the file
are valid and which not.)
The resulting file will not necessarily contain all data of
the source stream. For example, if you seek, the parts that
were skipped over are never read and consequently are not
written to the cache. The skipped over parts are filled with
zeros. This means that the cache file doesn't necessarily
correspond to a full download of the source stream.
Both of these issues could be improved if there is any user
interest.
WARNING:
Causes random corruption when used with ordered chapters
or with --audio-file.
2. Passing the string TMP. This will not be interpreted as
filename. Instead, an invisible temporary file is created.
It depends on your C library where this file is created
(usually /tmp/), and whether filename is visible (the
tmpfile() function is used). On some systems, automatic
deletion of the cache file might not be guaranteed.
If you want to use a file cache, this mode is recommended,
because it doesn't break ordered chapters or --audio-file.
These modes open multiple cache streams, and using the same
file for them obviously clashes.
See also: --cache-file-size.
--cache-file-size=<kBytes>
Maximum size of the file created with --cache-file. For read
accesses above this size, the cache is simply not used.
Keep in mind that some use-cases, like playing ordered chapters
with cache enabled, will actually create multiple cache files,
each of which will use up to this much disk space.
(Default: 1048576, 1 GB.)
--no-cache
Turn off input stream caching. See --cache.
--cache-secs=<seconds>
How many seconds of audio/video to prefetch if the cache is
active. This overrides the --demuxer-readahead-secs option if
and only if the cache is enabled and the value is larger.
(Default: 10.)
--cache-pause, --no-cache-pause
Whether the player should automatically pause when the cache
runs low, and unpause once more data is available ("buffering").
Network
--user-agent=<string>
Use <string> as user agent for HTTP streaming.
--cookies, --no-cookies
Support cookies when making HTTP requests. Disabled by default.
--cookies-file=<filename>
Read HTTP cookies from <filename>. The file is assumed to be in
Netscape format.
--http-header-fields=<field1,field2>
Set custom HTTP fields when accessing HTTP stream.
Example
mpv --http-header-fields='Field1: value1','Field2: value2' \
http://localhost:1234
Will generate HTTP request:
GET / HTTP/1.0
Host: localhost:1234
User-Agent: MPlayer
Icy-MetaData: 1
Field1: value1
Field2: value2
Connection: close
--tls-ca-file=<filename>
Certificate authority database file for use with TLS. (Silently
fails with older FFmpeg or Libav versions.)
--tls-verify
Verify peer certificates when using TLS (e.g. with https://...).
(Silently fails with older FFmpeg or Libav versions.)
--tls-cert-file
A file containing a certificate to use in the handshake with the
peer.
--tls-key-file
A file containing the private key for the certificate.
--referrer=<string>
Specify a referrer path or URL for HTTP requests.
--network-timeout=<seconds>
Specify the network timeout in seconds. This affects at least
HTTP. The special value 0 (default) uses the FFmpeg/Libav
defaults. If a protocol is used which does not support timeouts,
this option is silently ignored.
--rtsp-transport=<lavf|udp|tcp|http>
Select RTSP transport method (default: tcp). This selects the
underlying network transport when playing rtsp://... URLs. The
value lavf leaves the decision to libavformat.
--hls-bitrate=<no|min|max|<rate>>
If HLS streams are played, this option controls what streams are
selected by default. The option allows the following parameters:
no Don't do anything special. Typically, this will simply
pick the first audio/video streams it can find.
min Pick the streams with the lowest bitrate.
max Same, but highest bitrate. (Default.)
Additionally, if the option is a number, the stream with the
highest rate equal or below the option value is selected.
The bitrate as used is sent by the server, and there's no
guarantee it's actually meaningful.
DVB
--dvbin-card=<1-4>
Specifies using card number 1-4 (default: 1).
--dvbin-file=<filename>
Instructs mpv to read the channels list from <filename>. The
default is in the mpv configuration directory (usually
~/.config/mpv) with the filename
channels.conf.{sat,ter,cbl,atsc} (based on your card type) or
channels.conf as a last resort. For DVB-S/2 cards, a VDR 1.7.x
format channel list is recommended as it allows tuning to DVB-S2
channels, enabling subtitles and decoding the PMT (which largely
improves the demuxing). Classic mplayer format channel lists
are still supported (without these improvements), and for other
card types, only limited VDR format channel list support is
implemented (patches welcome). For channels with dynamic PID
switching or incomplete channels.conf, --dvbin-full-transponder
or the magic PID 8192 are recommended.
--dvbin-timeout=<1-30>
Maximum number of seconds to wait when trying to tune a
frequency before giving up (default: 30).
--dvbin-full-transponder=<yes|no>
Apply no filters on program PIDs, only tune to frequency and
pass full transponder to demuxer. The player frontend selects
the streams from the full TS in this case, so the program which
is shown initially may not match the chosen channel. Switching
between the programs is possible by cycling the program
property. This is useful to record multiple programs on a
single transponder, or to work around issues in the
channels.conf. It is also recommended to use this for channels
which switch PIDs on-the-fly, e.g. for regional news.
Default: no
ALSA audio output options
--alsa-device=<device>
Deprecated, use --audio-device (requires alsa/ prefix).
--alsa-resample=yes
Enable ALSA resampling plugin. (This is disabled by default,
because some drivers report incorrect audio delay in some
cases.)
--alsa-mixer-device=<device>
Set the mixer device used with ao-volume (default: default).
--alsa-mixer-name=<name>
Set the name of the mixer element (default: Master). This is for
example PCM or Master.
--alsa-mixer-index=<number>
Set the index of the mixer channel (default: 0). Consider the
output of "amixer scontrols", then the index is the number that
follows the name of the element.
--alsa-non-interleaved
Allow output of non-interleaved formats (if the audio decoder
uses this format). Currently disabled by default, because some
popular ALSA plugins are utterly broken with non-interleaved
formats.
--alsa-ignore-chmap
Don't read or set the channel map of the ALSA device - only
request the required number of channels, and then pass the audio
as-is to it. This option most likely should not be used. It can
be useful for debugging, or for static setups with a specially
engineered ALSA configuration (in this case you should always
force the same layout with --audio-channels, or it will work
only for files which use the layout implicit to your ALSA
device).
OpenGL renderer options
The following video options are currently all specific to --vo=opengl
and --vo=opengl-cb only, which are the only VOs that implement them.
--scale=<filter>
bilinear
Bilinear hardware texture filtering (fastest, very low
quality). This is the default for compatibility reasons.
spline36
Mid quality and speed. This is the default when using
opengl-hq.
lanczos
Lanczos scaling. Provides mid quality and speed. Generally
worse than spline36, but it results in a slightly sharper
image which is good for some content types. The number of
taps can be controlled with scale-radius, but is best left
unchanged.
(This filter is an alias for sinc-windowed sinc)
ewa_lanczos
Elliptic weighted average Lanczos scaling. Also known as
Jinc. Relatively slow, but very good quality. The radius can
be controlled with scale-radius. Increasing the radius makes
the filter sharper but adds more ringing.
(This filter is an alias for jinc-windowed jinc)
ewa_lanczossharp
A slightly sharpened version of ewa_lanczos, preconfigured to
use an ideal radius and parameter. If your hardware can run
it, this is probably what you should use by default.
mitchell
Mitchell-Netravali. The B and C parameters can be set with
--scale-param1 and --scale-param2. This filter is very good
at downscaling (see --dscale).
oversample
A version of nearest neighbour that (naively) oversamples
pixels, so that pixels overlapping edges get linearly
interpolated instead of rounded. This essentially removes the
small imperfections and judder artifacts caused by
nearest-neighbour interpolation, in exchange for adding some
blur. This filter is good at temporal interpolation, and also
known as "smoothmotion" (see --tscale).
linear A --tscale filter.
There are some more filters, but most are not as useful. For a
complete list, pass help as value, e.g.:
mpv --scale=help
--cscale=<filter>
As --scale, but for interpolating chroma information. If the
image is not subsampled, this option is ignored entirely.
--dscale=<filter>
Like --scale, but apply these filters on downscaling instead. If
this option is unset, the filter implied by --scale will be
applied.
--tscale=<filter>
The filter used for interpolating the temporal axis (frames).
This is only used if --interpolation is enabled. The only valid
choices for --tscale are separable convolution filters (use
--tscale=help to get a list). The default is mitchell.
Note that the maximum supported filter radius is currently 3,
due to limitations in the number of video textures that can be
loaded simultaneously.
--scale-param1=<value>, --scale-param2=<value>,
--cscale-param1=<value>, --cscale-param2=<value>,
--dscale-param1=<value>, --dscale-param2=<value>,
--tscale-param1=<value>, --tscale-param2=<value>
Set filter parameters. Ignored if the filter is not tunable.
Currently, this affects the following filter parameters:
bcspline
Spline parameters (B and C). Defaults to 0.5 for both.
gaussian
Scale parameter (t). Increasing this makes the result
blurrier. Defaults to 1.
oversample
Minimum distance to an edge before interpolation is used.
Setting this to 0 will always interpolate edges, whereas
setting it to 0.5 will never interpolate, thus behaving
as if the regular nearest neighbour algorithm was used.
Defaults to 0.0.
--scale-blur=<value>, --scale-wblur=<value>, --cscale-blur=<value>,
--cscale-wblur=<value>, --dscale-blur=<value>, --dscale-wblur=<value>,
--tscale-blur=<value>, --tscale-wblur=<value>
Kernel/window scaling factor (also known as a blur factor).
Decreasing this makes the result sharper, increasing it makes it
blurrier (default 0). If set to 0, the kernel's preferred blur
factor is used. Note that setting this too low (eg. 0.5) leads
to bad results. It's generally recommended to stick to values
between 0.8 and 1.2.
--scale-clamp, --cscale-clamp, --dscale-clamp, --tscale-clamp
Clamp the filter kernel's value range to [0-1]. This is
especially useful for --tscale, where it reduces excessive
ringing artifacts in the temporal domain (which typically
manifest themselves as short flashes or fringes of black, mostly
around moving edges) in exchange for potentially adding more
blur.
--scale-taper=<value>, --scale-wtaper=<value>, --dscale-taper=<value>,
--dscale-wtaper=<value>, --cscale-taper=<value>,
--cscale-wtaper=<value>, --tscale-taper=<value>,
--tscale-wtaper=<value>
Kernel/window taper factor. Increasing this flattens the filter
function. Value range is 0 to 1. A value of 0 (the default)
means no flattening, a value of 1 makes the filter completely
flat (equivalent to a box function). Values in between mean
that some portion will be flat and the actual filter function
will be squeezed into the space in between.
--scale-radius=<value>, --cscale-radius=<value>,
--dscale-radius=<value>, --tscale-radius=<value>
Set radius for tunable filters, must be a float number between
0.5 and 16.0. Defaults to the filter's preferred radius if not
specified. Doesn't work for every scaler and VO combination.
Note that depending on filter implementation details and video
scaling ratio, the radius that actually being used might be
different (most likely being increased a bit).
--scale-antiring=<value>, --cscale-antiring=<value>,
--dscale-antiring=<value>, --tscale-antiring=<value>
Set the antiringing strength. This tries to eliminate ringing,
but can introduce other artifacts in the process. Must be a
float number between 0.0 and 1.0. The default value of 0.0
disables antiringing entirely.
Note that this doesn't affect the special filters bilinear and
bicubic_fast.
--scale-window=<window>, --cscale-window=<window>,
--dscale-window=<window>, --tscale-window=<window>
(Advanced users only) Choose a custom windowing function for the
kernel. Defaults to the filter's preferred window if unset. Use
--scale-window=help to get a list of supported windowing
functions.
--scale-wparam=<window>, --cscale-wparam=<window>,
--cscale-wparam=<window>, --tscale-wparam=<window>
(Advanced users only) Configure the parameter for the window
function given by --scale-window etc. Ignored if the window is
not tunable. Currently, this affects the following window
parameters:
kaiser Window parameter (alpha). Defaults to 6.33.
blackman
Window parameter (alpha). Defaults to 0.16.
gaussian
Scale parameter (t). Increasing this makes the window
wider. Defaults to 1.
--scaler-lut-size=<4..10>
Set the size of the lookup texture for scaler kernels (default:
6). The actual size of the texture is 2^N for an option value of
N. So the lookup texture with the default setting uses 64
samples.
All weights are linearly interpolated from those samples, so
increasing the size of lookup table might improve the accuracy
of scaler.
--scaler-resizes-only
Disable the scaler if the video image is not resized. In that
case, bilinear is used instead of whatever is set with --scale.
Bilinear will reproduce the source image perfectly if no scaling
is performed. Enabled by default. Note that this option never
affects --cscale.
--linear-scaling
Scale in linear light. It should only be used with a
--opengl-fbo-format that has at least 16 bit precision.
--correct-downscaling
When using convolution based filters, extend the filter size
when downscaling. Increases quality, but reduces performance
while downscaling.
This will perform slightly sub-optimally for anamorphic video
(but still better than without it) since it will extend the size
to match only the milder of the scale factors between the axes.
--interpolation
Reduce stuttering caused by mismatches in the video fps and
display refresh rate (also known as judder).
WARNING:
This requires setting the --video-sync option to one of the
display- modes, or it will be silently disabled. This was
not required before mpv 0.14.0.
This essentially attempts to interpolate the missing frames by
convoluting the video along the temporal axis. The filter used
can be controlled using the --tscale setting.
Note that this relies on vsync to work, see
--opengl-swapinterval for more information.
--interpolation-threshold=<0..1,-1>
Threshold below which frame ratio interpolation gets disabled
(default: 0.0001). This is calculated as abs(disphz/vfps - 1) <
threshold, where vfps is the speed-adjusted video FPS, and
disphz the display refresh rate. (The speed-adjusted video FPS
is roughly equal to the normal video FPS, but with slowdown and
speedup applied. This matters if you use
--video-sync=display-resample to make video run synchronously to
the display FPS, or if you change the speed property.)
The default is intended to almost always enable interpolation if
the playback rate is even slightly different from the display
refresh rate. But note that if you use e.g.
--video-sync=display-vdrop, small deviations in the rate can
disable interpolation and introduce a discontinuity every other
minute.
Set this to -1 to disable this logic.
--opengl-pbo
Enable use of PBOs. On some drivers this can be faster,
especially if the source video size is huge (e.g. so called "4K"
video). On other drivers it might be slower or cause latency
issues.
In theory, this can sometimes lead to sporadic and temporary
image corruption (because reupload is not retried when it
fails).
--dither-depth=<N|no|auto>
Set dither target depth to N. Default: no.
no Disable any dithering done by mpv.
auto Automatic selection. If output bit depth cannot be
detected, 8 bits per component are assumed.
8 Dither to 8 bit output.
Note that the depth of the connected video display device cannot
be detected. Often, LCD panels will do dithering on their own,
which conflicts with this option and leads to ugly output.
--dither-size-fruit=<2-8>
Set the size of the dither matrix (default: 6). The actual size
of the matrix is (2^N) x (2^N) for an option value of N, so a
value of 6 gives a size of 64x64. The matrix is generated at
startup time, and a large matrix can take rather long to compute
(seconds).
Used in --dither=fruit mode only.
--dither=<fruit|ordered|no>
Select dithering algorithm (default: fruit). (Normally, the
--dither-depth option controls whether dithering is enabled.)
--temporal-dither
Enable temporal dithering. (Only active if dithering is enabled
in general.) This changes between 8 different dithering patterns
on each frame by changing the orientation of the tiled dithering
matrix. Unfortunately, this can lead to flicker on LCD displays,
since these have a high reaction time.
--temporal-dither-period=<1-128>
Determines how often the dithering pattern is updated when
--temporal-dither is in use. 1 (the default) will update on
every video frame, 2 on every other frame, etc.
--opengl-debug
Check for OpenGL errors, i.e. call glGetError(). Also, request a
debug OpenGL context (which does nothing with current graphics
drivers as of this writing).
--opengl-swapinterval=<n>
Interval in displayed frames between two buffer swaps. 1 is
equivalent to enable VSYNC, 0 to disable VSYNC. Defaults to 1 if
not specified.
Note that this depends on proper OpenGL vsync support. On some
platforms and drivers, this only works reliably when in
fullscreen mode. It may also require driver-specific hacks if
using multiple monitors, to ensure mpv syncs to the right one.
Compositing window managers can also lead to bad results, as can
missing or incorrect display FPS information (see
--display-fps).
--opengl-shaders=<files>
Custom GLSL hooks. These are a flexible way to add custom
fragment shaders, which can be injected at almost arbitrary
points in the rendering pipeline, and access all previous
intermediate textures.
Warning
The syntax is not stable yet and may change any time.
The general syntax of a user shader looks like this:
//!METADATA ARGS...
//!METADATA ARGS...
vec4 hook() {
...
return something;
}
//!METADATA ARGS...
//!METADATA ARGS...
...
Each block of metadata, along with the non-metadata lines after
it, defines a single pass. Each pass can set the following
metadata:
HOOK <name> (required)
The texture which to hook into. May occur multiple times
within a metadata block, up to a predetermined limit. See
below for a list of hookable textures.
BIND <name>
Loads a texture and makes it available to the pass, and
sets up macros to enable accessing it. See below for a
list of set macros. By default, no textures are bound.
The special name HOOKED can be used to refer to the
texture that triggered this pass.
SAVE <name>
Gives the name of the texture to save the result of this
pass into. By default, this is set to the special name
HOOKED which has the effect of overwriting the hooked
texture.
WIDTH <szexpr>, HEIGHT <szexpr>
Specifies the size of the resulting texture for this
pass. szexpr refers to an expression in RPN (reverse
polish notation), using the operators + - * / > < !,
floating point literals, and references to sizes of
existing texture and OUTPUT (such as MAIN.width or
CHROMA.height). By default, these are set to HOOKED.w and
HOOKED.h, respectively.
WHEN <szexpr>
Specifies a condition that needs to be true (non-zero)
for the shader stage to be evaluated. If it fails, it
will silently be omitted. (Note that a shader stage like
this which has a dependency on an optional hook point can
still cause that hook point to be saved, which has some
minor overhead)
OFFSET ox oy
Indicates a pixel shift (offset) introduced by this pass.
These pixel offsets will be accumulated and corrected
during the next scaling pass (cscale or scale). The
default values are 0 0 which correspond to no shift. Note
that offsets are ignored when not overwriting the hooked
texture.
COMPONENTS n
Specifies how many components of this pass's output are
relevant and should be stored in the texture, up to 4
(rgba). By default, this value is equal to the number of
components in HOOKED.
Each bound texture (via BIND) will make available the following
definitions to that shader pass, where NAME is the name of the
bound texture:
vec4 NAME_tex(vec2 pos)
The sampling function to use to access the texture at a
certain spot (in texture coordinate space, range [0,1]).
This takes care of any necessary normalization
conversions.
vec4 NAME_texOff(vec2 offset)
Sample the texture at a certain offset in pixels. This
works like NAME_tex but additionally takes care of
necessary rotations, so that sampling at e.g. vec2(-1,0)
is always one pixel to the left.
vec2 NAME_pos
The local texture coordinate of that texture, range
[0,1].
vec2 NAME_size
The (rotated) size in pixels of the texture.
mat2 NAME_rot
The rotation matrix associated with this texture.
(Rotates pixel space to texture coordinates)
vec2 NAME_pt
The (unrotated) size of a single pixel, range [0,1].
sampler NAME_raw
The raw bound texture itself. The use of this should be
avoided unless absolutely necessary.
In addition to these parameters, the following uniforms are also
globally available:
float random
A random number in the range [0-1], different per frame.
int frame
A simple count of frames rendered, increases by one per
frame and never resets (regardless of seeks).
vec2 image_size
The size in pixels of the input image.
vec2 target_size
The size in pixels of the visible part of the scaled (and
possibly cropped) image.
Internally, vo_opengl may generate any number of the following
textures. Whenever a texture is rendered and saved by
vo_opengl, all of the passes that have hooked into it will run,
in the order they were added by the user. This is a list of the
legal hook points:
RGB, LUMA, CHROMA, ALPHA, XYZ (resizable)
Source planes (raw). Which of these fire depends on the
image format of the source.
CHROMA_SCALED, ALPHA_SCALED (fixed)
Source planes (upscaled). These only fire on subsampled
content.
NATIVE (resizable)
The combined image, in the source colorspace, before
conversion to RGB.
MAINPRESUB (resizable)
The image, after conversion to RGB, but before
--blend-subtitles=video is applied.
MAIN (resizable)
The main image, after conversion to RGB but before
upscaling.
LINEAR (fixed)
Linear light image, before scaling. This only fires when
--linear-scaling is in effect.
SIGMOID (fixed)
Sigmoidized light, before scaling. This only fires when
--sigmoid-upscaling is in effect.
PREKERNEL (fixed)
The image immediately before the scaler kernel runs.
POSTKERNEL (fixed)
The image immediately after the scaler kernel runs.
SCALED (fixed)
The final upscaled image, before color management.
OUTPUT (fixed)
The final output image, after color management but before
dithering and drawing to screen.
Only the textures labelled with resizable may be transformed by
the pass. When overwriting a texture marked fixed, the WIDTH,
HEIGHT and OFFSET must be left at their default values.
--deband
Enable the debanding algorithm. This greatly reduces the amount
of visible banding, blocking and other quantization artifacts,
at the expensive of very slightly blurring some of the finest
details. In practice, it's virtually always an improvement - the
only reason to disable it would be for performance.
--deband-iterations=<1..16>
The number of debanding steps to perform per sample. Each step
reduces a bit more banding, but takes time to compute. Note that
the strength of each step falls off very quickly, so high
numbers (>4) are practically useless. (Default 1)
--deband-threshold=<0..4096>
The debanding filter's cut-off threshold. Higher numbers
increase the debanding strength dramatically but progressively
diminish image details. (Default 64)
--deband-range=<1..64>
The debanding filter's initial radius. The radius increases
linearly for each iteration. A higher radius will find more
gradients, but a lower radius will smooth more aggressively.
(Default 16)
If you increase the --deband-iterations, you should probably
decrease this to compensate.
--deband-grain=<0..4096>
Add some extra noise to the image. This significantly helps
cover up remaining quantization artifacts. Higher numbers add
more noise. (Default 48)
--sigmoid-upscaling
When upscaling, use a sigmoidal color transform to avoid
emphasizing ringing artifacts. This also implies
--linear-scaling.
--sigmoid-center
The center of the sigmoid curve used for --sigmoid-upscaling,
must be a float between 0.0 and 1.0. Defaults to 0.75 if not
specified.
--sigmoid-slope
The slope of the sigmoid curve used for --sigmoid-upscaling,
must be a float between 1.0 and 20.0. Defaults to 6.5 if not
specified.
--sharpen=<value>
If set to a value other than 0, enable an unsharp masking
filter. Positive values will sharpen the image (but add more
ringing and aliasing). Negative values will blur the image. If
your GPU is powerful enough, consider alternatives like the
ewa_lanczossharp scale filter, or the --scale-blur option.
--opengl-glfinish
Call glFinish() before and after swapping buffers (default:
disabled). Slower, but might improve results when doing
framedropping. Can completely ruin performance. The details
depend entirely on the OpenGL driver.
--opengl-waitvsync
Call glXWaitVideoSyncSGI after each buffer swap (default:
disabled). This may or may not help with video timing accuracy
and frame drop. It's possible that this makes video output
slower, or has no effect at all.
X11/GLX only.
--opengl-vsync-fences=<N>
Synchronize the CPU to the Nth past frame using the GL_ARB_sync
extension. A value of 0 disables this behavior (default). A
value of 1 means it will synchronize to the current frame after
rendering it. Like --glfinish and --waitvsync, this can lower or
ruin performance. Its advantage is that it can span multiple
frames, and effectively limit the number of frames the GPU
queues ahead (which also has an influence on vsync).
--opengl-dwmflush=<no|windowed|yes|auto>
Calls DwmFlush after swapping buffers on Windows (default:
auto). It also sets SwapInterval(0) to ignore the OpenGL timing.
Values are: no (disabled), windowed (only in windowed mode), yes
(also in full screen).
The value auto will try to determine whether the compositor is
active, and calls DwmFlush only if it seems to be.
This may help to get more consistent frame intervals, especially
with high-fps clips - which might also reduce dropped frames.
Typically, a value of windowed should be enough, since full
screen may bypass the DWM.
Windows only.
--opengl-dcomposition=<yes|no>
Allows DirectComposition when using the ANGLE backend (default:
yes). DirectComposition implies flip-model presentation, which
can improve rendering efficiency on Windows 8+ by avoiding a
copy of the video frame. mpv uses it by default where possible,
but it can cause poor behaviour with some drivers, such as a
black screen or graphical corruption when leaving full-screen
mode. Use "no" to disable it.
Windows with ANGLE only.
--opengl-sw
Continue even if a software renderer is detected.
--opengl-backend=<sys>
The value auto (the default) selects the windowing backend. You
can also pass help to get a complete list of compiled in
backends (sorted by autoprobe order).
auto auto-select (default)
cocoa Cocoa/OS X
win Win32/WGL
angle Direct3D11 through the OpenGL ES translation layer ANGLE.
This supports almost everything the win backend does (if
the ANGLE build is new enough).
dxinterop (experimental)
Win32, using WGL for rendering and Direct3D 9Ex for
presentation. Works on Nvidia and AMD. Newer Intel chips
with the latest drivers may also work.
x11 X11/GLX
wayland
Wayland/EGL
drm DRM/EGL (drm-egl is a deprecated alias)
x11egl X11/EGL
mali-fbdev
Direct fbdev/EGL support on some ARM/MALI devices.
--opengl-es=<mode>
Select whether to use GLES:
yes Try to prefer ES over Desktop GL
no Try to prefer desktop GL over ES
auto Use the default for each backend (default)
--opengl-fbo-format=<fmt>
Selects the internal format of textures used for FBOs. The
format can influence performance and quality of the video
output. fmt can be one of: rgb8, rgb10, rgb10_a2, rgb16, rgb16f,
rgb32f, rgba12, rgba16, rgba16f, rgba32f. Default: auto, which
maps to rgba16 on desktop GL, and rgba16f or rgb10_a2 on GLES
(e.g. ANGLE), unless GL_EXT_texture_norm16 is available.
--opengl-gamma=<0.1..2.0>
Set a gamma value (default: 1.0). If gamma is adjusted in other
ways (like with the --gamma option or key bindings and the gamma
property), the value is multiplied with the other gamma value.
Recommended values based on the environmental brightness:
1.0 Brightly illuminated (default)
0.9 Slightly dim
0.8 Pitch black room
NOTE: Typical movie content (Blu-ray etc.) already contains a
gamma drop of about 0.8, so specifying it here as well will
result in even darker image than intended!
--gamma-auto
Automatically corrects the gamma value depending on ambient
lighting conditions (adding a gamma boost for dark rooms).
With ambient illuminance of 64lux, mpv will pick the 1.0 gamma
value (no boost), and slightly increase the boost up until 0.8
for 16lux.
NOTE: Only implemented on OS X.
--target-prim=<value>
Specifies the primaries of the display. Video colors will be
adapted to this colorspace when ICC color management is not
being used. Valid values are:
auto Disable any adaptation (default)
bt.470m
ITU-R BT.470 M
bt.601-525
ITU-R BT.601 (525-line SD systems, eg. NTSC), SMPTE
170M/240M
bt.601-625
ITU-R BT.601 (625-line SD systems, eg. PAL/SECAM), ITU-R
BT.470 B/G
bt.709 ITU-R BT.709 (HD), IEC 61966-2-4 (sRGB), SMPTE RP177
Annex B
bt.2020
ITU-R BT.2020 (UHD)
apple Apple RGB
adobe Adobe RGB (1998)
prophoto
ProPhoto RGB (ROMM)
cie1931
CIE 1931 RGB (not to be confused with CIE XYZ)
dci-p3 DCI-P3 (Digital Cinema Colorspace), SMPTE RP431-2
v-gamut
Panasonic V-Gamut (VARICAM) primaries
--target-trc=<value>
Specifies the transfer characteristics (gamma) of the display.
Video colors will be adjusted to this curve when ICC color
management is not being used. Valid values are:
auto Disable any adaptation (default)
bt.1886
ITU-R BT.1886 curve (assuming infinite contrast)
srgb IEC 61966-2-4 (sRGB)
linear Linear light output
gamma1.8
Pure power curve (gamma 1.8), also used for Apple RGB
gamma2.2
Pure power curve (gamma 2.2)
gamma2.8
Pure power curve (gamma 2.8), also used for BT.470-BG
prophoto
ProPhoto RGB (ROMM)
st2084 SMPTE ST2084 (HDR) curve, PQ OETF
std-b67
ARIB STD-B67 (Hybrid Log-gamma) curve, also known as
BBC/NHK HDR
v-log Panasonic V-Log (VARICAM) curve
NOTE:
When using HDR output formats, mpv will encode to the
specified curve but it will not set any HDMI flags or other
signalling that might be required for the target device to
correctly display the HDR signal. The user should
independently guarantee this before using these signal
formats for display.
--target-brightness=<1..100000>
Specifies the display's approximate brightness in cd/m^2. When
playing HDR content on a SDR display (or SDR content on an HDR
display), video colors will be tone mapped to this target
brightness using the algorithm specified by --hdr-tone-mapping.
The default of 250 cd/m^2 corresponds to a typical consumer
display.
--hdr-tone-mapping=<value>
Specifies the algorithm used for tone-mapping HDR images onto
the target display. Valid values are:
clip Hard-clip any out-of-range values.
reinhard
Reinhard tone mapping algorithm. Very simple continuous
curve. Preserves dynamic range and peak but uses
nonlinear contrast.
hable Similar to reinhard but preserves dark contrast better
(slightly sigmoidal). Developed by John Hable for use in
video games. (default)
gamma Fits a logarithmic transfer between the tone curves.
linear Linearly stretches the entire reference gamut to (a
linear multiple of) the display.
--tone-mapping-param=<value>
Set tone mapping parameters. Ignored if the tone mapping
algorithm is not tunable. This affects the following tone
mapping algorithms:
reinhard
Specifies the local contrast coefficient at the display
peak. Defaults to 0.5, which means that in-gamut values
will be about half as bright as when clipping.
gamma Specifies the exponent of the function. Defaults to 1.8.
linear Specifies the scale factor to use while stretching.
Defaults to 1.0.
--icc-profile=<file>
Load an ICC profile and use it to transform video RGB to screen
output. Needs LittleCMS 2 support compiled in. This option
overrides the --target-prim, --target-trc and --icc-profile-auto
options.
--icc-profile-auto
Automatically select the ICC display profile currently specified
by the display settings of the operating system.
NOTE: On Windows, the default profile must be an ICC profile.
WCS profiles are not supported.
--icc-cache-dir=<dirname>
Store and load the 3D LUTs created from the ICC profile in this
directory. This can be used to speed up loading, since
LittleCMS 2 can take a while to create a 3D LUT. Note that these
files contain uncompressed LUTs. Their size depends on the
--icc-3dlut-size, and can be very big.
NOTE: This is not cleaned automatically, so old, unused cache
files may stick around indefinitely.
--icc-intent=<value>
Specifies the ICC intent used for the color transformation (when
using --icc-profile).
0 perceptual
1 relative colorimetric (default)
2 saturation
3 absolute colorimetric
--icc-3dlut-size=<r>x<g>x<b>
Size of the 3D LUT generated from the ICC profile in each
dimension. Default is 64x64x64. Sizes may range from 2 to 512.
--icc-contrast=<0-100000>
Specifies an upper limit on the target device's contrast ratio.
This is detected automatically from the profile if possible, but
for some profiles it might be missing, causing the contrast to
be assumed as infinite. As a result, video may appear darker
than intended. This only affects BT.1886 content. The default of
0 means no limit.
--blend-subtitles=<yes|video|no>
Blend subtitles directly onto upscaled video frames, before
interpolation and/or color management (default: no). Enabling
this causes subtitles to be affected by --icc-profile,
--target-prim, --target-trc, --interpolation, --opengl-gamma and
--post-shader. It also increases subtitle performance when using
--interpolation.
The downside of enabling this is that it restricts subtitles to
the visible portion of the video, so you can't have subtitles
exist in the black margins below a video (for example).
If video is selected, the behavior is similar to yes, but subs
are drawn at the video's native resolution, and scaled along
with the video.
WARNING:
This changes the way subtitle colors are handled. Normally,
subtitle colors are assumed to be in sRGB and color managed
as such. Enabling this makes them treated as being in the
video's color space instead. This is good if you want things
like softsubbed ASS signs to match the video colors, but may
cause SRT subtitles or similar to look slightly off.
--alpha=<blend-tiles|blend|yes|no>
Decides what to do if the input has an alpha component.
blend-tiles
Blend the frame against a 16x16 gray/white tiles
background (default).
blend Blend the frame against the background color
(--background, normally black).
yes Try to create a framebuffer with alpha component. This
only makes sense if the video contains alpha information
(which is extremely rare). May not be supported on all
platforms. If alpha framebuffers are unavailable, it
silently falls back on a normal framebuffer. Note that if
you set the --opengl-fbo-format option to a non-default
value, a format with alpha must be specified, or this
won't work.
no Ignore alpha component.
--opengl-rectangle-textures
Force use of rectangle textures (default: no). Normally this
shouldn't have any advantages over normal textures. Note that
hardware decoding overrides this flag. Could be removed any
time.
--background=<color>
Color used to draw parts of the mpv window not covered by video.
See --osd-color option how colors are defined.
--opengl-tex-pad-x, --opengl-tex-pad-y
Enlarge the video source textures by this many pixels. For
debugging only (normally textures are sized exactly, but due to
hardware decoding interop we may have to deal with additional
padding, which can be tested with these options). Could be
removed any time.
--opengl-early-flush=<yes|no|auto>
Call glFlush() after rendering a frame and before attempting to
display it (default: auto). Can fix stuttering in some cases, in
other cases probably causes it. The auto mode will call
glFlush() only if the renderer is going to wait for a while
after rendering, instead of flipping GL front and backbuffers
immediately (i.e. it doesn't call it in display-sync mode).
--opengl-dumb-mode=<yes|no>
This mode is extremely restricted, and will disable most
extended OpenGL features. This includes high quality scalers and
custom shaders!
It is intended for hardware that does not support FBOs
(including GLES, which supports it insufficiently), or to get
some more performance out of bad or old hardware.
This mode is forced automatically if needed, and this option is
mostly useful for debugging. It's also enabled automatically if
nothing uses features which require FBOs.
This option might be silently removed in the future.
Miscellaneous
--display-tags=tag1,tags2,...
Set the list of tags that should be displayed on the terminal.
Tags that are in the list, but are not present in the played
file, will not be shown. If a value ends with *, all tags are
matched by prefix (though there is no general globbing). Just
passing * essentially filtering.
The default includes a common list of tags, call mpv with
--list-options to see it.
--mc=<seconds/frame>
Maximum A-V sync correction per frame (in seconds)
--autosync=<factor>
Gradually adjusts the A/V sync based on audio delay
measurements. Specifying --autosync=0, the default, will cause
frame timing to be based entirely on audio delay measurements.
Specifying --autosync=1 will do the same, but will subtly change
the A/V correction algorithm. An uneven video framerate in a
video which plays fine with --no-audio can often be helped by
setting this to an integer value greater than 1. The higher the
value, the closer the timing will be to --no-audio. Try
--autosync=30 to smooth out problems with sound drivers which do
not implement a perfect audio delay measurement. With this
value, if large A/V sync offsets occur, they will only take
about 1 or 2 seconds to settle out. This delay in reaction time
to sudden A/V offsets should be the only side effect of turning
this option on, for all sound drivers.
--video-sync=<audio|...>
How the player synchronizes audio and video.
The modes starting with display- try to output video frames
completely synchronously to the display, using the detected
display vertical refresh rate as a hint how fast frames will be
displayed on average. These modes change video speed slightly to
match the display. See --video-sync-... options for fine
tuning. The robustness of this mode is further reduced by making
a some idealized assumptions, which may not always apply in
reality. Behavior can depend on the VO and the system's video
and audio drivers. Media files must use constant framerate.
Section-wise VFR might work as well with some container formats
(but not e.g. mkv). If the sync code detects severe A/V desync,
or the framerate cannot be detected, the player automatically
reverts to audio mode for some time or permanently.
The modes with desync in their names do not attempt to keep
audio/video in sync. They will slowly (or quickly) desync, until
e.g. the next seek happens. These modes are meant for testing,
not serious use.
audio Time video frames to audio. This is the most robust mode,
because the player doesn't have to assume anything about
how the display behaves. The disadvantage is that it can
lead to occasional frame drops or repeats. If audio is
disabled, this uses the system clock. This is the default
mode.
display-resample
Resample audio to match the video. This mode will also
try to adjust audio speed to compensate for other drift.
(This means it will play the audio at a different speed
every once in a while to reduce the A/V difference.)
display-resample-vdrop
Resample audio to match the video. Drop video frames to
compensate for drift.
display-resample-desync
Like the previous mode, but no A/V compensation.
display-vdrop
Drop or repeat video frames to compensate desyncing
video. (Although it should have the same effects as
audio, the implementation is very different.)
display-adrop
Drop or repeat audio data to compensate desyncing video.
See --video-sync-adrop-size. This mode will cause severe
audio artifacts if the real monitor refresh rate is too
different from the reported or forced rate.
display-desync
Sync video to display, and let audio play on its own.
desync Sync video according to system clock, and let audio play
on its own.
--video-sync-max-video-change=<value>
Maximum speed difference in percent that is applied to video
with --video-sync=display-... (default: 1). Display sync mode
will be disabled if the monitor and video refresh way do not
match within the given range. It tries multiples as well:
playing 30 fps video on a 60 Hz screen will duplicate every
second frame. Playing 24 fps video on a 60 Hz screen will play
video in a 2-3-2-3-... pattern.
The default settings are not loose enough to speed up 23.976 fps
video to 25 fps. We consider the pitch change too extreme to
allow this behavior by default. Set this option to a value of 5
to enable it.
Note that in the --video-sync=display-resample mode, audio speed
will additionally be changed by a small amount if necessary for
A/V sync. See --video-sync-max-audio-change.
--video-sync-max-audio-change=<value>
Maximum additional speed difference in percent that is applied
to audio with --video-sync=display-... (default: 0.125).
Normally, the player plays the audio at the speed of the video.
But if the difference between audio and video position is too
high, e.g. due to drift or other timing errors, it will attempt
to speed up or slow down audio by this additional factor. Too
low values could lead to video frame dropping or repeating if
the A/V desync cannot be compensated, too high values could lead
to chaotic frame dropping due to the audio "overshooting" and
skipping multiple video frames before the sync logic can react.
--video-sync-adrop-size=<value>
For the --video-sync=display-adrop mode. This mode
duplicates/drops audio data to keep audio in sync with video. To
avoid audio artifacts on jitter (which would add/remove samples
all the time), this is done in relatively large, fixed units,
controlled by this option. The unit is seconds.
--mf-fps=<value>
Framerate used when decoding from multiple PNG or JPEG files
with mf:// (default: 1).
--mf-type=<value>
Input file type for mf:// (available: jpeg, png, tga, sgi). By
default, this is guessed from the file extension.
--stream-capture=<filename>
Allows capturing the primary stream (not additional audio tracks
or other kind of streams) into the given file. Capturing can
also be started and stopped by changing the filename with the
stream-capture property. Generally this will not produce usable
results for anything else than MPEG or raw streams, unless
capturing includes the file headers and is not interrupted. Note
that, due to cache latencies, captured data may begin and end
somewhat delayed compared to what you see displayed.
The destination file is always appended. (Before mpv 0.8.0, the
file was overwritten.)
--stream-dump=<filename>
Same as --stream-capture, but do not start playback. Instead,
the entire file is dumped.
--stream-lavf-o=opt1=value1,opt2=value2,...
Set AVOptions on streams opened with libavformat. Unknown or
misspelled options are silently ignored. (They are mentioned in
the terminal output in verbose mode, i.e. --v. In general we
can't print errors, because other options such as e.g. user
agent are not available with all protocols, and printing errors
for unknown options would end up being too noisy.)
--vo-mmcss-profile=<name>
(Windows only.) Set the MMCSS profile for the video renderer
thread (default: Playback).
--priority=<prio>
(Windows only.) Set process priority for mpv according to the
predefined priorities available under Windows.
Possible values of <prio>:
idle|belownormal|normal|abovenormal|high|realtime
WARNING:
Using realtime priority can cause system lockup.
--force-media-title=<string>
Force the contents of the media-title property to this value.
Useful for scripts which want to set a title, without overriding
the user's setting in --title.
--external-file=<filename>
Add all tracks from the given file. Unlike --sub-file and
--audio-file, this includes all tracks, and does not cause
default stream selection over the "proper" file.
--autoload-files=<yes|no>
Automatically load/select external files (default: yes).
If set to no, then do not automatically load external files as
specified by --sub-auto and --audio-file-auto. If external files
are forcibly added (like with --sub-file), they will not be
auto-selected.
This does not affect playlist expansion, redirection, or other
loading of referenced files like with ordered chapters.
--lavfi-complex=<string>
Set a "complex" libavfilter filter, which means a single filter
graph can take input from multiple source audio and video
tracks. The graph can result in a single audio or video output
(or both).
Currently, the filter graph labels are used to select the
participating input tracks and audio/video output. The following
rules apply:
· A label of the form aidN selects audio track N as input (e.g.
aid1).
· A label of the form vidN selects video track N as input.
· A label named ao will be connected to the audio output.
· A label named vo will be connected to the video output.
Each label can be used only once. If you want to use e.g. an
audio stream for multiple filters, you need to use the asplit
filter. Multiple video or audio outputs are not possible, but
you can use filters to merge them into one.
The complex filter cannot be changed yet during playback. It's
also not possible to change the tracks connected to the filter
at runtime. Other tracks, as long as they're not connected to
the filter, and the corresponding output is not connected to the
filter, can still be freely changed.
Note that the normal filter chains (--af, --vf) are applied
between the complex graphs (e.g. ao label) and the actual
output.
Examples
· --lavfi-complex='[aid1] asplit [ao] [t] ; [t] aphasemeter
[vo]' Play audio track 1, and visualize it as video using
the aphasemeter filter.
· --lavfi-complex='[aid1] [aid2] amix [ao]' Play audio track
1 and 2 at the same time.
· --lavfi-complex='[vid1] [vid2] vstack [vo]' Stack video
track 1 and 2 and play them at the same time. Note that
both tracks need to have the same width, or filter
initialization will fail (you can add scale filters before
the vstack filter to fix the size).
· --lavfi-complex='[aid1] asplit [ao] [t] ; [t] aphasemeter
[t2] ; [vid1] [t2] overlay [vo]' Play audio track 1, and
overlay its visualization over video track 1.
· --lavfi-complex='[aid1] asplit [t1] [ao] ; [t1] showvolume
[t2] ; [vid1] [t2] overlay [vo]' Play audio track 1, and
overlay the measured volume for each speaker over video
track 1.
· null:// --lavfi-complex='life [vo]' Conways' Life Game.
See the FFmpeg libavfilter documentation for details on the
available filters.
AUDIO OUTPUT DRIVERS
Audio output drivers are interfaces to different audio output
facilities. The syntax is:
--ao=<driver1,driver2,...[,]>
Specify a priority list of audio output drivers to be used.
If the list has a trailing ',', mpv will fall back on drivers not
contained in the list.
NOTE:
See --ao=help for a list of compiled-in audio output drivers. The
driver --ao=alsa is preferred. --ao=pulse is preferred on systems
where PulseAudio is used. On BSD systems, --ao=oss or --ao=sndio may
work (the latter being experimental).
Available audio output drivers are:
alsa (Linux only)
ALSA audio output driver
See ALSA audio output options for options specific to this AO.
WARNING:
To get multichannel/surround audio, use
--audio-channels=auto. The default for this option is
auto-safe, which makes this audio otuput explicitly reject
multichannel output, as there is no way to detect whether a
certain channel layout is actually supported.
You can also try using the upmix plugin. This setup enables
multichannel audio on the default device with automatic
upmixing with shared access, so playing stereo and
multichannel audio at the same time will work as expected.
oss OSS audio output driver
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--oss-device
Sets the audio output device (default: /dev/dsp).
Deprecated, use --audio-device.
--oss-mixer-device
Sets the audio mixer device (default: /dev/mixer).
--oss-mixer-channel
Sets the audio mixer channel (default: pcm). Other valid
values include vol, pcm, line. For a complete list of
options look for SOUND_DEVICE_NAMES in
/usr/include/linux/soundcard.h.
jack JACK (Jack Audio Connection Kit) audio output driver.
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--jack-port=<name>
Connects to the ports with the given name (default:
physical ports).
--jack-name=<client>
Client name that is passed to JACK (default: mpv). Useful
if you want to have certain connections established
automatically.
--jack-autostart=<yes|no>
Automatically start jackd if necessary (default:
disabled). Note that this tends to be unreliable and will
flood stdout with server messages.
--jack-connect=<yes|no>
Automatically create connections to output ports
(default: enabled). When enabled, the maximum number of
output channels will be limited to the number of
available output ports.
--jack-std-channel-layout=<waveext|any>
Select the standard channel layout (default: waveext).
JACK itself has no notion of channel layouts (i.e.
assigning which speaker a given channel is supposed to
map to) - it just takes whatever the application outputs,
and reroutes it to whatever the user defines. This means
the user and the application are in charge of dealing
with the channel layout. waveext uses
WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE order, which, even though it was
defined by Microsoft, is the standard on many systems.
The value any makes JACK accept whatever comes from the
audio filter chain, regardless of channel layout and
without reordering. This mode is probably not very
useful, other than for debugging or when used with fixed
setups.
coreaudio (Mac OS X only)
Native Mac OS X audio output driver using AudioUnits and the
CoreAudio sound server.
Automatically redirects to coreaudio_exclusive when playing
compressed formats.
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--coreaudio-change-physical-format=<yes|no>
Change the physical format to one similar to the
requested audio format (default: no). This has the
advantage that multichannel audio output will actually
work. The disadvantage is that it will change the
system-wide audio settings. This is equivalent to
changing the Format setting in the Audio Devices dialog
in the Audio MIDI Setup utility. Note that this does not
affect the selected speaker setup.
--coreaudio-exclusive
Deprecated, use --audio-exclusive. Use exclusive mode
access. This merely redirects to coreaudio_exclusive, but
should be preferred over using that AO directly.
coreaudio_exclusive (Mac OS X only)
Native Mac OS X audio output driver using direct device access
and exclusive mode (bypasses the sound server).
openal Experimental OpenAL audio output driver
NOTE:
This driver is not very useful. Playing multi-channel audio
with it is slow.
pulse PulseAudio audio output driver
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--pulse-host=<host>, --pulse-sink=<sink>
Specify the host and optionally output sink to use. An
empty <host> string uses a local connection, "localhost"
uses network transfer (most likely not what you want).
Deprecated, use --audio-device.
--pulse-buffer=<1-2000|native>
Set the audio buffer size in milliseconds. A higher value
buffers more data, and has a lower probability of buffer
underruns. A smaller value makes the audio stream react
faster, e.g. to playback speed changes. Default: 250.
--pulse-latency-hacks=<yes|no>
Enable hacks to workaround PulseAudio timing bugs
(default: no). If enabled, mpv will do elaborate latency
calculations on its own. If disabled, it will use
PulseAudio automatically updated timing information.
Disabling this might help with e.g. networked audio or
some plugins, while enabling it might help in some
unknown situations (it used to be required to get good
behavior on old PulseAudio versions).
If you have stuttering video when using pulse, try to
enable this option. (Or try to update PulseAudio.)
sdl SDL 1.2+ audio output driver. Should work on any platform
supported by SDL 1.2, but may require the SDL_AUDIODRIVER
environment variable to be set appropriately for your system.
NOTE:
This driver is for compatibility with extremely foreign
environments, such as systems where none of the other drivers
are available.
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--sdl-buflen=<length>
Sets the audio buffer length in seconds. Is used only as
a hint by the sound system. Playing a file with -v will
show the requested and obtained exact buffer size. A
value of 0 selects the sound system default.
--sdl-bufcnt=<count>
Sets the number of extra audio buffers in mpv. Usually
needs not be changed.
null Produces no audio output but maintains video playback speed. You
can use --ao=null --ao-null-untimed for benchmarking.
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--ao-null-untimed
Do not simulate timing of a perfect audio device. This
means audio decoding will go as fast as possible, instead
of timing it to the system clock.
--ao-null-buffer
Simulated buffer length in seconds.
--ao-null-outburst
Simulated chunk size in samples.
--ao-null-speed
Simulated audio playback speed as a multiplier. Usually,
a real audio device will not go exactly as fast as the
system clock. It will deviate just a little, and this
option helps to simulate this.
--ao-null-latency
Simulated device latency. This is additional to EOF.
--ao-null-broken-eof
Simulate broken audio drivers, which always add the fixed
device latency to the reported audio playback position.
--ao-null-broken-delay
Simulate broken audio drivers, which don't report latency
correctly.
--ao-null-channel-layouts
If not empty, this is a , separated list of channel
layouts the AO allows. This can be used to test channel
layout selection.
pcm Raw PCM/WAVE file writer audio output
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--ao-pcm-waveheader=<yes|no>
Include or do not include the WAVE header (default:
included). When not included, raw PCM will be generated.
--ao-pcm-file=<filename>
Write the sound to <filename> instead of the default
audiodump.wav. If no-waveheader is specified, the default
is audiodump.pcm.
--ao-pcm-append=<yes|no>
Append to the file, instead of overwriting it. Always use
this with the no-waveheader option - with waveheader it's
broken, because it will write a WAVE header every time
the file is opened.
rsound Audio output to an RSound daemon
NOTE:
Completely useless, unless you intend to run RSound. Not to
be confused with RoarAudio, which is something completely
different.
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--rsound-host=<name/path>
Set the address of the server (default: localhost). Can
be either a network hostname for TCP connections or a
Unix domain socket path starting with '/'.
--rsound-port=<number>
Set the TCP port used for connecting to the server
(default: 12345). Not used if connecting to a Unix
domain socket.
These options are deprecated. If anyone cares enough, their
functionality can be added back using --audio-device.
sndio Audio output to the OpenBSD sndio sound system
NOTE:
Experimental. There are known bugs and issues.
(Note: only supports mono, stereo, 4.0, 5.1 and 7.1 channel
layouts.)
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--ao-sndio-device=<device>
sndio device to use (default: $AUDIODEVICE, resp. snd0).
Deprecated, use --audio-device.
wasapi Audio output to the Windows Audio Session API.
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--ao-wasapi-exclusive
Deprecated, use --audio-exclusive. Requests exclusive,
direct hardware access. By definition prevents sound
playback of any other program until mpv exits.
--ao-wasapi-device=<id>
Deprecated, use --audio-device.
Uses the requested endpoint instead of the system's
default audio endpoint. Both an ordinal number
(0,1,2,...) and the GUID String are valid; the GUID
string is guaranteed to not change unless the driver is
uninstalled.
Also supports searching active devices by human-readable
name. If more than one device matches the name, refuses
loading it.
VIDEO OUTPUT DRIVERS
Video output drivers are interfaces to different video output
facilities. The syntax is:
--vo=<driver1,driver2,...[,]>
Specify a priority list of video output drivers to be used.
If the list has a trailing ,, mpv will fall back on drivers not
contained in the list.
NOTE:
See --vo=help for a list of compiled-in video output drivers.
The recommended output driver is --vo=opengl, which is the default.
All other drivers are for compatibility or special purposes. If the
default does not work, it will fallback to other drivers (in the
same order as listed by --vo=help).
Available video output drivers are:
xv (X11 only)
Uses the XVideo extension to enable hardware-accelerated
display. This is the most compatible VO on X, but may be
low-quality, and has issues with OSD and subtitle display.
NOTE:
This driver is for compatibility with old systems.
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--xv-adaptor=<number>
Select a specific XVideo adapter (check xvinfo results).
--xv-port=<number>
Select a specific XVideo port.
--xv-ck=<cur|use|set>
Select the source from which the color key is taken
(default: cur).
cur The default takes the color key currently set in
Xv.
use Use but do not set the color key from mpv (use the
--colorkey option to change it).
set Same as use but also sets the supplied color key.
--xv-ck-method=<none|man|bg|auto>
Sets the color key drawing method (default: man).
none Disables color-keying.
man Draw the color key manually (reduces flicker in
some cases).
bg Set the color key as window background.
auto Let Xv draw the color key.
--xv-colorkey=<number>
Changes the color key to an RGB value of your choice.
0x000000 is black and 0xffffff is white.
--xv-buffers=<number>
Number of image buffers to use for the internal
ringbuffer (default: 2). Increasing this will use more
memory, but might help with the X server not responding
quickly enough if video FPS is close to or higher than
the display refresh rate.
x11 (X11 only)
Shared memory video output driver without hardware acceleration
that works whenever X11 is present.
NOTE:
This is a fallback only, and should not be normally used.
vdpau (X11 only)
Uses the VDPAU interface to display and optionally also decode
video. Hardware decoding is used with --hwdec=vdpau.
NOTE:
Earlier versions of mpv (and MPlayer, mplayer2) provided
sub-options to tune vdpau post-processing, like deint,
sharpen, denoise, chroma-deint, pullup, hqscaling. These
sub-options are deprecated, and you should use the vdpaupp
video filter instead.
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--vo-vdpau-sharpen=<-1-1>
(Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)
For positive values, apply a sharpening algorithm to the
video, for negative values a blurring algorithm (default:
0).
--vo-vdpau-denoise=<0-1>
(Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)
Apply a noise reduction algorithm to the video (default:
0; no noise reduction).
--vo-vdpau-deint=<-4-4>
(Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)
Select deinterlacing mode (default: 0). In older versions
(as well as MPlayer/mplayer2) you could use this option
to enable deinterlacing. This doesn't work anymore, and
deinterlacing is enabled with either the d key (by
default mapped to the command cycle deinterlace), or the
--deinterlace option. Also, to select the default deint
mode, you should use something like
--vf-defaults=vdpaupp:deint-mode=temporal instead of this
sub-option.
0 Pick the vdpaupp video filter default, which
corresponds to 3.
1 Show only first field.
2 Bob deinterlacing.
3 Motion-adaptive temporal deinterlacing. May lead
to A/V desync with slow video hardware and/or high
resolution.
4 Motion-adaptive temporal deinterlacing with
edge-guided spatial interpolation. Needs fast
video hardware.
--vo-vdpau-chroma-deint
(Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)
Makes temporal deinterlacers operate both on luma and
chroma (default). Use no-chroma-deint to solely use luma
and speed up advanced deinterlacing. Useful with slow
video memory.
--vo-vdpau-pullup
(Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)
Try to apply inverse telecine, needs motion adaptive
temporal deinterlacing.
--vo-vdpau-hqscaling=<0-9>
(Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)
0 Use default VDPAU scaling (default).
1-9 Apply high quality VDPAU scaling (needs capable
hardware).
--vo-vdpau-fps=<number>
Override autodetected display refresh rate value (the
value is needed for framedrop to allow video playback
rates higher than display refresh rate, and for
vsync-aware frame timing adjustments). Default 0 means
use autodetected value. A positive value is interpreted
as a refresh rate in Hz and overrides the autodetected
value. A negative value disables all timing adjustment
and framedrop logic.
--vo-vdpau-composite-detect
NVIDIA's current VDPAU implementation behaves somewhat
differently under a compositing window manager and does
not give accurate frame timing information. With this
option enabled, the player tries to detect whether a
compositing window manager is active. If one is detected,
the player disables timing adjustments as if the user had
specified fps=-1 (as they would be based on incorrect
input). This means timing is somewhat less accurate than
without compositing, but with the composited mode
behavior of the NVIDIA driver, there is no hard playback
speed limit even without the disabled logic. Enabled by
default, use --vo-vdpau-composite-detect=no to disable.
--vo-vdpau-queuetime-windowed=<number> and queuetime-fs=<number>
Use VDPAU's presentation queue functionality to queue
future video frame changes at most this many milliseconds
in advance (default: 50). See below for additional
information.
--vo-vdpau-output-surfaces=<2-15>
Allocate this many output surfaces to display video
frames (default: 3). See below for additional
information.
--vo-vdpau-colorkey=<#RRGGBB|#AARRGGBB>
Set the VDPAU presentation queue background color, which
in practice is the colorkey used if VDPAU operates in
overlay mode (default: #020507, some shade of black). If
the alpha component of this value is 0, the default VDPAU
colorkey will be used instead (which is usually green).
--vo-vdpau-force-yuv
Never accept RGBA input. This means mpv will insert a
filter to convert to a YUV format before the VO.
Sometimes useful to force availability of certain
YUV-only features, like video equalizer or deinterlacing.
Using the VDPAU frame queuing functionality controlled by the
queuetime options makes mpv's frame flip timing less sensitive
to system CPU load and allows mpv to start decoding the next
frame(s) slightly earlier, which can reduce jitter caused by
individual slow-to-decode frames. However, the NVIDIA graphics
drivers can make other window behavior such as window moves
choppy if VDPAU is using the blit queue (mainly happens if you
have the composite extension enabled) and this feature is
active. If this happens on your system and it bothers you then
you can set the queuetime value to 0 to disable this feature.
The settings to use in windowed and fullscreen mode are separate
because there should be no reason to disable this for fullscreen
mode (as the driver issue should not affect the video itself).
You can queue more frames ahead by increasing the queuetime
values and the output_surfaces count (to ensure enough surfaces
to buffer video for a certain time ahead you need at least as
many surfaces as the video has frames during that time, plus
two). This could help make video smoother in some cases. The
main downsides are increased video RAM requirements for the
surfaces and laggier display response to user commands (display
changes only become visible some time after they're queued). The
graphics driver implementation may also have limits on the
length of maximum queuing time or number of queued surfaces that
work well or at all.
direct3d (Windows only)
Video output driver that uses the Direct3D interface.
NOTE:
This driver is for compatibility with systems that don't
provide proper OpenGL drivers, and where ANGLE does not
perform well.
NOTE:
Before to 0.21.0, direct3d_shaders and direct3d were
different, with direct3d not using shader by default. Now
both use shaders by default, and direct3d_shaders is a
deprecated alias. Use the --vo-direct3d-prefer-stretchrect or
the --vo-direct3d-disable-shaders options to get the old
behavior of direct3d.
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--vo-direct3d-prefer-stretchrect
Use IDirect3DDevice9::StretchRect over other methods if
possible.
--vo-direct3d-disable-stretchrect
Never render the video using
IDirect3DDevice9::StretchRect.
--vo-direct3d-disable-textures
Never render the video using D3D texture rendering.
Rendering with textures + shader will still be allowed.
Add disable-shaders to completely disable video rendering
with textures.
--vo-direct3d-disable-shaders
Never use shaders when rendering video.
--vo-direct3d-only-8bit
Never render YUV video with more than 8 bits per
component. Using this flag will force software
conversion to 8-bit.
--vo-direct3d-disable-texture-align
Normally texture sizes are always aligned to 16. With
this option enabled, the video texture will always have
exactly the same size as the video itself.
Debug options. These might be incorrect, might be removed in the
future, might crash, might cause slow downs, etc. Contact the
developers if you actually need any of these for performance or
proper operation.
--vo-direct3d-force-power-of-2
Always force textures to power of 2, even if the device
reports non-power-of-2 texture sizes as supported.
--vo-direct3d-texture-memory=<mode>
Only affects operation with shaders/texturing enabled,
and (E)OSD. Possible values:
default (default)
Use D3DPOOL_DEFAULT, with a D3DPOOL_SYSTEMMEM
texture for locking. If the driver supports
D3DDEVCAPS_TEXTURESYSTEMMEMORY, D3DPOOL_SYSTEMMEM
is used directly.
default-pool
Use D3DPOOL_DEFAULT. (Like default, but never use
a shadow-texture.)
default-pool-shadow
Use D3DPOOL_DEFAULT, with a D3DPOOL_SYSTEMMEM
texture for locking. (Like default, but always
force the shadow-texture.)
managed
Use D3DPOOL_MANAGED.
scratch
Use D3DPOOL_SCRATCH, with a D3DPOOL_SYSTEMMEM
texture for locking.
--vo-direct3d-swap-discard
Use D3DSWAPEFFECT_DISCARD, which might be faster. Might
be slower too, as it must(?) clear every frame.
--vo-direct3d-exact-backbuffer
Always resize the backbuffer to window size.
opengl OpenGL video output driver. It supports extended scaling
methods, dithering and color management.
See OpenGL renderer options for options specific to this VO.
By default, it tries to use fast and fail-safe settings. Use the
opengl-hq profile to use this driver with defaults set to high
quality rendering. (This profile is also the replacement for
--vo=opengl-hq.) The profile can be applied with
--profile=opengl-hq and its contents can be viewed with
--show-profile=opengl-hq.
Requires at least OpenGL 2.1.
Some features are available with OpenGL 3 capable graphics
drivers only (or if the necessary extensions are available).
OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0 are supported as well.
Hardware decoding over OpenGL-interop is supported to some
degree. Note that in this mode, some corner case might not be
gracefully handled, and color space conversion and chroma
upsampling is generally in the hand of the hardware decoder
APIs.
opengl makes use of FBOs by default. Sometimes you can achieve
better quality or performance by changing the
--opengl-fbo-format option to rgb16f, rgb32f or rgb. Known
problems include Mesa/Intel not accepting rgb16, Mesa sometimes
not being compiled with float texture support, and some OS X
setups being very slow with rgb16 but fast with rgb32f. If you
have problems, you can also try enabling the
--opengl-dumb-mode=yes option.
sdl SDL 2.0+ Render video output driver, depending on system with or
without hardware acceleration. Should work on all platforms
supported by SDL 2.0. For tuning, refer to your copy of the
file SDL_hints.h.
NOTE:
This driver is for compatibility with systems that don't
provide proper graphics drivers, or which support GLES only.
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--sdl-sw
Continue even if a software renderer is detected.
--sdl-switch-mode
Instruct SDL to switch the monitor video mode when going
fullscreen.
vaapi Intel VA API video output driver with support for hardware
decoding. Note that there is absolutely no reason to use this,
other than wanting to use hardware decoding to save power on
laptops, or possibly preventing video tearing with some setups.
NOTE:
This driver is for compatibility with crappy systems. You can
use vaapi hardware decoding with --vo=opengl too.
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--vo-vaapi-scaling=<algorithm>
default
Driver default (mpv default as well).
fast Fast, but low quality.
hq Unspecified driver dependent high-quality scaling,
slow.
nla non-linear anamorphic scaling
--vo-vaapi-deint-mode=<mode>
Select deinterlacing algorithm. Note that by default
deinterlacing is initially always off, and needs to be
enabled with the d key (default key binding for cycle
deinterlace).
This option doesn't apply if libva supports video post
processing (vpp). In this case, the default for
deint-mode is no, and enabling deinterlacing via user
interaction using the methods mentioned above actually
inserts the vavpp video filter. If vpp is not actually
supported with the libva backend in use, you can use this
option to forcibly enable VO based deinterlacing.
no Don't allow deinterlacing (default for newer
libva).
first-field
Show only first field (going by
--field-dominance).
bob bob deinterlacing (default for older libva).
--vo-vaapi-scaled-osd=<yes|no>
If enabled, then the OSD is rendered at video resolution
and scaled to display resolution. By default, this is
disabled, and the OSD is rendered at display resolution
if the driver supports it.
null Produces no video output. Useful for benchmarking.
Usually, it's better to disable video with --no-video instead.
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--vo-null-fps=<value>
Simulate display FPS. This artificially limits how many
frames the VO accepts per second.
caca Color ASCII art video output driver that works on a text
console.
NOTE:
This driver is a joke.
tct Color Unicode art video output driver that works on a text
console. Depends on support of true color by modern terminals
to display the images at full color range. On Windows it
requires an ansi terminal such as mintty.
--vo-tct-algo=<algo>
Select how to write the pixels to the terminal.
half-blocks
Uses unicode LOWER HALF BLOCK character to achieve
higher vertical resolution. (Default.)
plain Uses spaces. Causes vertical resolution to drop
twofolds, but in theory works in more places.
--vo-tct-width=<width> --vo-tct-height=<height>
Assume the terminal has the specified character width
and/or height. These default to 80x25 if the terminal
size cannot be determined.
--vo-tct-256=<yes|no> (default: no)
Use 256 colors - for terminals which don't support true
color.
image Output each frame into an image file in the current directory.
Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as
name.
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--vo-image-format=<format>
Select the image file format.
jpg JPEG files, extension .jpg. (Default.)
jpeg JPEG files, extension .jpeg.
png PNG files.
ppm Portable bitmap format.
pgm Portable graymap format.
pgmyuv Portable graymap format, using the YV12 pixel
format.
tga Truevision TGA.
--vo-image-png-compression=<0-9>
PNG compression factor (speed vs. file size tradeoff)
(default: 7)
--vo-image-png-filter=<0-5>
Filter applied prior to PNG compression (0 = none; 1 =
sub; 2 = up; 3 = average; 4 = Paeth; 5 = mixed) (default:
5)
--vo-image-jpeg-quality=<0-100>
JPEG quality factor (default: 90)
--vo-image-jpeg-progressive=<yes|no>
Specify standard or progressive JPEG (default: no).
--vo-image-jpeg-baseline=<yes|no>
Specify use of JPEG baseline or not (default: yes).
--vo-image-jpeg-optimize=<0-100>
JPEG optimization factor (default: 100)
--vo-image-jpeg-smooth=<0-100>
smooth factor (default: 0)
--vo-image-jpeg-dpi=<1->
JPEG DPI (default: 72)
--vo-image-outdir=<dirname>
Specify the directory to save the image files to
(default: ./).
wayland (Wayland only)
Wayland shared memory video output as fallback for opengl.
NOTE:
This driver is for compatibility with systems that don't
provide working OpenGL drivers.
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--vo-wayland-alpha
Use a buffer format that supports videos and images with
alpha information
--vo-wayland-rgb565
Use RGB565 as buffer format. This format is implemented
on most platforms, especially on embedded where it is far
more efficient then RGB8888.
--vo-wayland-triple-buffering
Use 3 buffers instead of 2. This can lead to more fluid
playback, but uses more memory.
opengl-cb
For use with libmpv direct OpenGL embedding; useless in any
other contexts. (See <mpv/opengl_cb.h>.)
This also supports many of the options the opengl VO has.
rpi (Raspberry Pi)
Native video output on the Raspberry Pi using the MMAL API.
This is deprecated. Use --vo=opengl instead, which is the
default and provides the same functionality. The rpi VO will be
removed in mpv 0.23.0. Its functionality was folded into
--vo=opengl, which now uses RPI hardware decoding by treating it
as a hardware overlay (without applying GL filtering). Also to
be changed in 0.23.0: the --fs flag will be reset to "no" by
default (like on the other platforms).
The following deprecated global options are supported by this
video output:
--rpi-display=<number>
Select the display number on which the video overlay
should be shown (default: 0).
--rpi-layer=<number>
Select the dispmanx layer on which the video overlay
should be shown (default: -10). Note that mpv will also
use the 2 layers above the selected layer, to handle the
window background and OSD. Actual video rendering will
happen on the layer above the selected layer.
--rpi-background=<yes|no>
Whether to render a black background behind the video
(default: no). Normally it's better to kill the console
framebuffer instead, which gives better performance.
--rpi-osd=<yes|no>
Enabled by default. If disabled with no, no OSD layer is
created. This also means there will be no subtitles
rendered.
drm (Direct Rendering Manager)
Video output driver using Kernel Mode Setting / Direct Rendering
Manager. Should be used when one doesn't want to install
full-blown graphical environment (e.g. no X). Does not support
hardware acceleration (if you need this, check the drm backend
for opengl VO).
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--drm-connector=[<gpu_number>.]<name>
Select the connector to use (usually this is a monitor.)
If <name> is empty or auto, mpv renders the output on the
first available connector. Use --drm-connector=help to
get list of available connectors. When using multiple
graphic cards, use the <gpu_number> argument to
disambiguate. (default: empty)
--drm-mode=<number>
Mode ID to use (resolution, bit depth and frame rate).
(default: 0)
AUDIO FILTERS
Audio filters allow you to modify the audio stream and its properties.
The syntax is:
--af=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
Setup a chain of audio filters.
NOTE:
To get a full list of available audio filters, see --af=help.
Also, keep in mind that most actual filters are available via the
lavfi wrapper, which gives you access to most of libavfilter's
filters. This includes all filters that have been ported from
MPlayer to libavfilter.
You can also set defaults for each filter. The defaults are applied
before the normal filter parameters.
--af-defaults=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
Set defaults for each filter.
Audio filters are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage
the filter list:
--af-add=<filter1[,filter2,...]>
Appends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.
--af-pre=<filter1[,filter2,...]>
Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.
--af-del=<index1[,index2,...]>
Deletes the filters at the given indexes. Index numbers start at
0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the
last).
--af-clr
Completely empties the filter list.
Available filters are:
lavrresample[=option1:option2:...]
This filter uses libavresample (or libswresample, depending on
the build) to change sample rate, sample format, or channel
layout of the audio stream. This filter is automatically
enabled if the audio output does not support the audio
configuration of the file being played.
It supports only the following sample formats: u8, s16, s32,
float.
filter-size=<length>
Length of the filter with respect to the lower sampling
rate. (default: 16)
phase-shift=<count>
Log2 of the number of polyphase entries. (..., 10->1024,
11->2048, 12->4096, ...) (default: 10->1024)
cutoff=<cutoff>
Cutoff frequency (0.0-1.0), default set depending upon
filter length.
linear If set then filters will be linearly interpolated between
polyphase entries. (default: no)
no-detach
Do not detach if input and output audio
format/rate/channels match. (If you just want to set
defaults for this filter that will be used even by
automatically inserted lavrresample instances, you should
prefer setting them with --af-defaults=lavrresample:....)
normalize=<yes|no|auto>
Whether to normalize when remixing channel layouts
(default: auto). auto uses the value set by
--audio-normalize-downmix.
o=<string>
Set AVOptions on the SwrContext or
AVAudioResampleContext. These should be documented by
FFmpeg or Libav.
lavcac3enc[=options]
Encode multi-channel audio to AC-3 at runtime using libavcodec.
Supports 16-bit native-endian input format, maximum 6 channels.
The output is big-endian when outputting a raw AC-3 stream,
native-endian when outputting to S/PDIF. If the input sample
rate is not 48 kHz, 44.1 kHz or 32 kHz, it will be resampled to
48 kHz.
tospdif=<yes|no>
Output raw AC-3 stream if no, output to S/PDIF for
pass-through if yes (default).
bitrate=<rate>
The bitrate use for the AC-3 stream. Set it to 384 to get
384 kbps.
The default is 640. Some receivers might not be able to
handle this.
Valid values: 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160,
192, 224, 256, 320, 384, 448, 512, 576, 640.
The special value auto selects a default bitrate based on
the input channel number:
1ch 96
2ch 192
3ch 224
4ch 384
5ch 448
6ch 448
minch=<n>
If the input channel number is less than <minch>, the
filter will detach itself (default: 3).
encoder=<name>
Select the libavcodec encoder used. Currently, this
should be an AC-3 encoder, and using another codec will
fail horribly.
equalizer=g1:g2:g3:...:g10
10 octave band graphic equalizer, implemented using 10 IIR
band-pass filters. This means that it works regardless of what
type of audio is being played back. The center frequencies for
the 10 bands are:
┌────┬────────────┐
│No. │ frequency │
├────┼────────────┤
│0 │ 31.25 Hz │
├────┼────────────┤
│1 │ 62.50 Hz │
├────┼────────────┤
│2 │ 125.00 Hz │
├────┼────────────┤
│3 │ 250.00 Hz │
├────┼────────────┤
│4 │ 500.00 Hz │
├────┼────────────┤
│5 │ 1.00 kHz │
├────┼────────────┤
│6 │ 2.00 kHz │
├────┼────────────┤
│7 │ 4.00 kHz │
├────┼────────────┤
│8 │ 8.00 kHz │
├────┼────────────┤
│9 │ 16.00 kHz │
└────┴────────────┘
If the sample rate of the sound being played is lower than the
center frequency for a frequency band, then that band will be
disabled. A known bug with this filter is that the
characteristics for the uppermost band are not completely
symmetric if the sample rate is close to the center frequency of
that band. This problem can be worked around by upsampling the
sound using a resampling filter before it reaches this filter.
<g1>:<g2>:<g3>:...:<g10>
floating point numbers representing the gain in dB for
each frequency band (-12-12)
Example
mpv --af=equalizer=11:11:10:5:0:-12:0:5:12:12 media.avi
Would amplify the sound in the upper and lower
frequency region while canceling it almost completely
around 1 kHz.
channels=nch[:routes]
Can be used for adding, removing, routing and copying audio
channels. If only <nch> is given, the default routing is used.
It works as follows: If the number of output channels is greater
than the number of input channels, empty channels are inserted
(except when mixing from mono to stereo; then the mono channel
is duplicated). If the number of output channels is less than
the number of input channels, the exceeding channels are
truncated.
<nch> number of output channels (1-8)
<routes>
List of , separated routes, in the form
from1-to1,from2-to2,.... Each pair defines where to
route each channel. There can be at most 8 routes.
Without this argument, the default routing is used. Since
, is also used to separate filters, you must quote this
argument with [...] or similar.
Examples
mpv --af=channels=4:[0-1,1-0,2-2,3-3] media.avi
Would change the number of channels to 4 and set up 4
routes that swap channel 0 and channel 1 and leave
channel 2 and 3 intact. Observe that if media
containing two channels were played back, channels 2
and 3 would contain silence but 0 and 1 would still be
swapped.
mpv --af=channels=6:[0-0,0-1,0-2,0-3] media.avi
Would change the number of channels to 6 and set up 4
routes that copy channel 0 to channels 0 to 3. Channel
4 and 5 will contain silence.
NOTE:
You should probably not use this filter. If you want to
change the output channel layout, try the format filter,
which can make mpv automatically up- and downmix standard
channel layouts.
format=format:srate:channels:out-format:out-srate:out-channels
Does not do any format conversion itself. Rather, it may cause
the filter system to insert necessary conversion filters before
or after this filter if needed. It is primarily useful for
controlling the audio format going into other filters. To
specify the format for audio output, see --audio-format,
--audio-samplerate, and --audio-channels. This filter is able to
force a particular format, whereas --audio-* may be overridden
by the ao based on output compatibility.
All parameters are optional. The first 3 parameters restrict
what the filter accepts as input. They will therefore cause
conversion filters to be inserted before this one. The out-
parameters tell the filters or audio outputs following this
filter how to interpret the data without actually doing a
conversion. Setting these will probably just break things unless
you really know you want this for some reason, such as testing
or dealing with broken media.
<format>
Force conversion to this format. Use
--af=format=format=help to get a list of valid formats.
<srate>
Force conversion to a specific sample rate. The rate is
an integer, 48000 for example.
<channels>
Force mixing to a specific channel layout. See
--audio-channels option for possible values.
<out-format>
<out-srate>
<out-channels>
NOTE: this filter used to be named force. The old format filter
used to do conversion itself, unlike this one which lets the
filter system handle the conversion.
volume[=<volumedb>[:...]]
Implements software volume control. Use this filter with caution
since it can reduce the signal to noise ratio of the sound. In
most cases it is best to use the Master volume control of your
sound card or the volume knob on your amplifier.
NOTE: This filter is not reentrant and can therefore only be
enabled once for every audio stream.
<volumedb>
Sets the desired gain in dB for all channels in the
stream from -200 dB to +60 dB, where -200 dB mutes the
sound completely and +60 dB equals a gain of 1000
(default: 0).
replaygain-track
Adjust volume gain according to the track-gain replaygain
value stored in the file metadata.
replaygain-album
Like replaygain-track, but using the album-gain value
instead.
replaygain-preamp
Pre-amplification gain in dB to apply to the selected
replaygain gain (default: 0).
replaygain-clip=yes|no
Prevent clipping caused by replaygain by automatically
lowering the gain (default). Use replaygain-clip=no to
disable this.
replaygain-fallback
Gain in dB to apply if the file has no replay gain tags.
This option is always applied if the replaygain logic is
somehow inactive. If this is applied, no other replaygain
options are applied.
softclip
Turns soft clipping on. Soft-clipping can make the sound
more smooth if very high volume levels are used. Enable
this option if the dynamic range of the loudspeakers is
very low.
WARNING: This feature creates distortion and should be
considered a last resort.
s16 Force S16 sample format if set. Lower quality, but might
be faster in some situations.
detach Remove the filter if the volume is not changed at audio
filter config time. Useful with replaygain: if the
current file has no replaygain tags, then the filter will
be removed if this option is enabled. (If --softvol=yes
is used and the player volume controls are used during
playback, a different volume filter will be inserted.)
Example
mpv --af=volume=10.1 media.avi
Would amplify the sound by 10.1 dB and hard-clip if
the sound level is too high.
pan=n:[<matrix>]
Mixes channels arbitrarily. Basically a combination of the
volume and the channels filter that can be used to down-mix many
channels to only a few, e.g. stereo to mono, or vary the "width"
of the center speaker in a surround sound system. This filter is
hard to use, and will require some tinkering before the desired
result is obtained. The number of options for this filter
depends on the number of output channels. An example how to
downmix a six-channel file to two channels with this filter can
be found in the examples section near the end.
<n> Number of output channels (1-8).
<matrix>
A list of values
[L00,L01,L02,...,L10,L11,L12,...,Ln0,Ln1,Ln2,...], where
each element Lij means how much of input channel i is
mixed into output channel j (range 0-1). So in principle
you first have n numbers saying what to do with the first
input channel, then n numbers that act on the second
input channel etc. If you do not specify any numbers for
some input channels, 0 is assumed. Note that the values
are separated by ,, which is already used by the option
parser to separate filters. This is why you must quote
the value list with [...] or similar.
Examples
mpv --af=pan=1:[0.5,0.5] media.avi
Would downmix from stereo to mono.
mpv --af=pan=3:[1,0,0.5,0,1,0.5] media.avi
Would give 3 channel output leaving channels 0 and 1
intact, and mix channels 0 and 1 into output channel 2
(which could be sent to a subwoofer for example).
NOTE:
If you just want to force remixing to a certain output
channel layout, it is easier to use the format filter. For
example, mpv '--af=format=channels=5.1'
'--audio-channels=5.1' would always force remixing audio to
5.1 and output it like this.
This filter supports the following af-command commands:
set-matrix
Set the <matrix> argument dynamically. This can be used
to change the mixing matrix at runtime, without
reinitializing the entire filter chain.
drc[=method:target]
Applies dynamic range compression. This maximizes the volume by
compressing the audio signal's dynamic range. (Formerly called
volnorm.)
<method>
Sets the used method.
1 Use a single sample to smooth the variations via
the standard weighted mean over past samples
(default).
2 Use several samples to smooth the variations via
the standard weighted mean over past samples.
<target>
Sets the target amplitude as a fraction of the maximum
for the sample type (default: 0.25).
NOTE:
This filter can cause distortion with audio signals that have
a very large dynamic range.
scaletempo[=option1:option2:...]
Scales audio tempo without altering pitch, optionally synced to
playback speed (default).
This works by playing 'stride' ms of audio at normal speed then
consuming 'stride*scale' ms of input audio. It pieces the
strides together by blending 'overlap'% of stride with audio
following the previous stride. It optionally performs a short
statistical analysis on the next 'search' ms of audio to
determine the best overlap position.
scale=<amount>
Nominal amount to scale tempo. Scales this amount in
addition to speed. (default: 1.0)
stride=<amount>
Length in milliseconds to output each stride. Too high of
a value will cause noticeable skips at high scale amounts
and an echo at low scale amounts. Very low values will
alter pitch. Increasing improves performance. (default:
60)
overlap=<percent>
Percentage of stride to overlap. Decreasing improves
performance. (default: .20)
search=<amount>
Length in milliseconds to search for best overlap
position. Decreasing improves performance greatly. On
slow systems, you will probably want to set this very
low. (default: 14)
speed=<tempo|pitch|both|none>
Set response to speed change.
tempo Scale tempo in sync with speed (default).
pitch Reverses effect of filter. Scales pitch without
altering tempo. Add this to your input.conf to
step by musical semi-tones:
[ multiply speed 0.9438743126816935
] multiply speed 1.059463094352953
WARNING:
Loses sync with video.
both Scale both tempo and pitch.
none Ignore speed changes.
Examples
mpv --af=scaletempo --speed=1.2 media.ogg
Would play media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at
normal pitch. Changing playback speed would change
audio tempo to match.
mpv --af=scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=none --speed=1.2
media.ogg
Would play media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at
normal pitch, but changing playback speed would have
no effect on audio tempo.
mpv --af=scaletempo=stride=30:overlap=.50:search=10 media.ogg
Would tweak the quality and performance parameters.
mpv --af=scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=pitch audio.ogg
Would play media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at
normal pitch. Changing playback speed would change
pitch, leaving audio tempo at 1.2x.
rubberband
High quality pitch correction with librubberband. This can be
used in place of scaletempo, and will be used to adjust audio
pitch when playing at speed different from normal. It can also
be used to adjust audio pitch without changing playback speed.
<pitch-scale>
Sets the pitch scaling factor. Frequencies are multiplied
by this value.
This filter has a number of additional sub-options. You can list
them with mpv --af=rubberband=help. This will also show the
default values for each option. The options are not documented
here, because they are merely passed to librubberband. Look at
the librubberband documentation to learn what each option does:
http://breakfastquay.com/rubberband/code-doc/classRubberBand_1_1RubberBandStretcher.html
(The mapping of the mpv rubberband filter sub-option names and
values to those of librubberband follows a simple pattern:
"Option" + Name + Value.)
This filter supports the following af-command commands:
set-pitch
Set the <pitch-scale> argument dynamically. This can be
used to change the playback pitch at runtime. Note that
speed is controlled using the standard speed property,
not af-command.
lavfi=graph
Filter audio using FFmpeg's libavfilter.
<graph>
Libavfilter graph. See lavfi video filter for details -
the graph syntax is the same.
WARNING:
Don't forget to quote libavfilter graphs as described
in the lavfi video filter section.
o=<string>
AVOptions.
VIDEO FILTERS
Video filters allow you to modify the video stream and its properties.
The syntax is:
--vf=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
Setup a chain of video filters.
You can also set defaults for each filter. The defaults are applied
before the normal filter parameters.
--vf-defaults=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
Set defaults for each filter.
NOTE:
To get a full list of available video filters, see --vf=help.
Also, keep in mind that most actual filters are available via the
lavfi wrapper, which gives you access to most of libavfilter's
filters. This includes all filters that have been ported from
MPlayer to libavfilter.
Video filters are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage
the filter list.
--vf-add=<filter1[,filter2,...]>
Appends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.
--vf-pre=<filter1[,filter2,...]>
Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.
--vf-del=<index1[,index2,...]>
Deletes the filters at the given indexes. Index numbers start at
0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the
last).
--vf-clr
Completely empties the filter list.
With filters that support it, you can access parameters by their name.
--vf=<filter>=help
Prints the parameter names and parameter value ranges for a
particular filter.
--vf=<filter=named_parameter1=value1[:named_parameter2=value2:...]>
Sets a named parameter to the given value. Use on and off or yes
and no to set flag parameters.
Available filters are:
crop[=w:h:x:y]
Crops the given part of the image and discards the rest. Useful
to remove black bands from widescreen videos.
<w>,<h>
Cropped width and height, defaults to original width and
height.
<x>,<y>
Position of the cropped picture, defaults to center.
expand[=w:h:x:y:aspect:round]
Expands (not scales) video resolution to the given value and
places the unscaled original at coordinates x, y.
<w>,<h>
Expanded width,height (default: original width,height).
Negative values for w and h are treated as offsets to the
original size.
Example
expand=0:-50:0:0
Adds a 50 pixel border to the bottom of the
picture.
<x>,<y>
position of original image on the expanded image
(default: center)
<aspect>
Expands to fit an aspect instead of a resolution
(default: 0).
Example
expand=800::::4/3
Expands to 800x600, unless the source is higher
resolution, in which case it expands to fill a
4/3 aspect.
<round>
Rounds up to make both width and height divisible by <r>
(default: 1).
flip Flips the image upside down.
mirror Mirrors the image on the Y axis.
rotate[=0|90|180|270]
Rotates the image by a multiple of 90 degrees clock-wise.
scale[=w:h:param:param2:chr-drop:noup:arnd
Scales the image with the software scaler (slow) and performs a
YUV<->RGB color space conversion (see also --sws).
All parameters are optional.
<w>:<h>
scaled width/height (default: original width/height)
0 scaled d_width/d_height
-1 original width/height
-2 Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the
prescaled aspect ratio.
-3 Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the
original aspect ratio.
-(n+8) Like -n above, but rounding the dimension to the
closest multiple of 16.
<param>[:<param2>] (see also --sws)
Set some scaling parameters depending on the type of
scaler selected with --sws:
--sws=2 (bicubic): B (blurring) and C (ringing)
0.00:0.60 default
0.00:0.75 VirtualDub's "precise bicubic"
0.00:0.50 Catmull-Rom spline
0.33:0.33 Mitchell-Netravali spline
1.00:0.00 cubic B-spline
--sws=7 (Gaussian): sharpness (0 (soft) - 100 (sharp))
--sws=9 (Lanczos): filter length (1-10)
<chr-drop>
chroma skipping
0 Use all available input lines for chroma
(default).
1 Use only every 2. input line for chroma.
2 Use only every 4. input line for chroma.
3 Use only every 8. input line for chroma.
<noup> Disallow upscaling past the original dimensions.
0 Allow upscaling (default).
1 Disallow upscaling if one dimension exceeds its
original value.
2 Disallow upscaling if both dimensions exceed their
original values.
<arnd> Accurate rounding for the vertical scaler, which may be
faster or slower than the default rounding.
no Disable accurate rounding (default).
yes Enable accurate rounding.
dsize[=w:h:aspect-method:r:aspect]
Changes the intended display aspect at an arbitrary point in the
filter chain. Aspect can be given as a fraction (4/3) or
floating point number (1.33). Note that this filter does not do
any scaling itself; it just affects what later scalers (software
or hardware) will do when auto-scaling to the correct aspect.
<w>,<h>
New aspect ratio given by a display width and height.
Unlike older mpv versions or MPlayer, this does not set
the display size.
Can also be these special values:
0 original display width and height
-1 original video width and height (default)
-2 Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the
original display aspect ratio.
-3 Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the
original video aspect ratio.
Example
dsize=800:-2
Specifies a display resolution of 800x600 for a
4/3 aspect video, or 800x450 for a 16/9 aspect
video.
<aspect-method>
Modifies width and height according to original aspect
ratios.
-1 Ignore original aspect ratio (default).
0 Keep display aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as
maximum resolution.
1 Keep display aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as
minimum resolution.
2 Keep video aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as
maximum resolution.
3 Keep video aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as
minimum resolution.
Example
dsize=800:600:0
Specifies a display resolution of at most
800x600, or smaller, in order to keep aspect.
<r> Rounds up to make both width and height divisible by <r>
(default: 1).
<aspect>
Force an aspect ratio.
format=fmt=<value>:colormatrix=<value>:...
Restricts the color space for the next filter without doing any
conversion. Use together with the scale filter for a real
conversion.
NOTE:
For a list of available formats, see format=fmt=help.
<fmt> Format name, e.g. rgb15, bgr24, 420p, etc. (default:
don't change).
<outfmt>
Format name that should be substituted for the output. If
they do not have the same bytes per pixel and chroma
subsampling, it will fail.
<colormatrix>
Controls the YUV to RGB color space conversion when
playing video. There are various standards. Normally,
BT.601 should be used for SD video, and BT.709 for HD
video. (This is done by default.) Using incorrect color
space results in slightly under or over saturated and
shifted colors.
These options are not always supported. Different video
outputs provide varying degrees of support. The opengl
and vdpau video output drivers usually offer full
support. The xv output can set the color space if the
system video driver supports it, but not input and output
levels. The scale video filter can configure color space
and input levels, but only if the output format is RGB
(if the video output driver supports RGB output, you can
force this with -vf scale,format=rgba).
If this option is set to auto (which is the default), the
video's color space flag will be used. If that flag is
unset, the color space will be selected automatically.
This is done using a simple heuristic that attempts to
distinguish SD and HD video. If the video is larger than
1279x576 pixels, BT.709 (HD) will be used; otherwise
BT.601 (SD) is selected.
Available color spaces are:
auto automatic selection (default)
bt.601 ITU-R BT.601 (SD)
bt.709 ITU-R BT.709 (HD)
bt.2020-ncl
ITU-R BT.2020 non-constant luminance system
bt.2020-cl
ITU-R BT.2020 constant luminance system
smpte-240m
SMPTE-240M
<colorlevels>
YUV color levels used with YUV to RGB conversion. This
option is only necessary when playing broken files which
do not follow standard color levels or which are flagged
wrong. If the video does not specify its color range, it
is assumed to be limited range.
The same limitations as with <colormatrix> apply.
Available color ranges are:
auto automatic selection (normally limited range)
(default)
limited
limited range (16-235 for luma, 16-240 for chroma)
full full range (0-255 for both luma and chroma)
<primaries>
RGB primaries the source file was encoded with. Normally
this should be set in the file header, but when playing
broken or mistagged files this can be used to override
the setting.
This option only affects video output drivers that
perform color management, for example opengl with the
target-prim or icc-profile suboptions set.
If this option is set to auto (which is the default), the
video's primaries flag will be used. If that flag is
unset, the color space will be selected automatically,
using the following heuristics: If the <colormatrix> is
set or determined as BT.2020 or BT.709, the corresponding
primaries are used. Otherwise, if the video height is
exactly 576 (PAL), BT.601-625 is used. If it's exactly
480 or 486 (NTSC), BT.601-525 is used. If the video
resolution is anything else, BT.709 is used.
Available primaries are:
auto automatic selection (default)
bt.601-525
ITU-R BT.601 (SD) 525-line systems (NTSC, SMPTE-C)
bt.601-625
ITU-R BT.601 (SD) 625-line systems (PAL, SECAM)
bt.709 ITU-R BT.709 (HD) (same primaries as sRGB)
bt.2020
ITU-R BT.2020 (UHD)
apple Apple RGB
adobe Adobe RGB (1998)
prophoto
ProPhoto RGB (ROMM)
cie1931
CIE 1931 RGB
dci-p3 DCI-P3 (Digital Cinema)
v-gamut
Panasonic V-Gamut primaries
<gamma>
Gamma function the source file was encoded with. Normally
this should be set in the file header, but when playing
broken or mistagged files this can be used to override
the setting.
This option only affects video output drivers that
perform color management.
If this option is set to auto (which is the default), the
gamma will be set to BT.1886 for YCbCr content, sRGB for
RGB content and Linear for XYZ content.
Available gamma functions are:
auto automatic selection (default)
bt.1886
ITU-R BT.1886 (EOTF corresponding to
BT.601/BT.709/BT.2020)
srgb IEC 61966-2-4 (sRGB)
linear Linear light
gamma1.8
Pure power curve (gamma 1.8)
gamma2.2
Pure power curve (gamma 2.2)
gamma2.8
Pure power curve (gamma 2.8)
prophoto
ProPhoto RGB (ROMM) curve
st2084 SMPTE ST2084 (HDR) curve
std-b67
ARIB STD-B67 (Hybrid Log-gamma) curve
v-log Panasonic V-Log transfer curve
<peak> Reference peak illumination for the video file. This is
mostly interesting for HDR, but it can also be used tone
map SDR content to a darker or brighter exposure.
The default of 0.0 will default to the display's
reference brightness for SDR and the source's reference
brightness for HDR.
<stereo-in>
Set the stereo mode the video is assumed to be encoded
in. Takes the same values as the --video-stereo-mode
option.
<stereo-out>
Set the stereo mode the video should be displayed as.
Takes the same values as the --video-stereo-mode option.
<rotate>
Set the rotation the video is assumed to be encoded with
in degrees. The special value -1 uses the input format.
<dw>, <dh>
Set the display size. Note that setting the display size
such that the video is scaled in both directions instead
of just changing the aspect ratio is an implementation
detail, and might change later.
<dar> Set the display aspect ratio of the video frame. This is
a float, but values such as [16:9] can be passed too
([...] for quoting to prevent the option parser from
interpreting the : character).
noformat[=fmt]
Restricts the color space for the next filter without doing any
conversion. Unlike the format filter, this will allow any color
space except the one you specify.
NOTE:
For a list of available formats, see noformat=fmt=help.
<fmt> Format name, e.g. rgb15, bgr24, 420p, etc. (default:
420p).
lavfi=graph[:sws-flags[:o=opts]]
Filter video using FFmpeg's libavfilter.
<graph>
The libavfilter graph string. The filter must have a
single video input pad and a single video output pad.
See https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html for syntax and
available filters.
WARNING:
If you want to use the full filter syntax with this
option, you have to quote the filter graph in order to
prevent mpv's syntax and the filter graph syntax from
clashing.
Examples
-vf lavfi=[gradfun=20:30,vflip]
gradfun filter with nonsense parameters,
followed by a vflip filter. (This demonstrates
how libavfilter takes a graph and not just a
single filter.) The filter graph string is
quoted with [ and ]. This requires no
additional quoting or escaping with some shells
(like bash), while others (like zsh) require
additional " quotes around the option string.
'--vf=lavfi="gradfun=20:30,vflip"'
Same as before, but uses quoting that should be
safe with all shells. The outer ' quotes make
sure that the shell does not remove the "
quotes needed by mpv.
'--vf=lavfi=graph="gradfun=radius=30:strength=20,vflip"'
Same as before, but uses named parameters for
everything.
<sws-flags>
If libavfilter inserts filters for pixel format
conversion, this option gives the flags which should be
passed to libswscale. This option is numeric and takes a
bit-wise combination of SWS_ flags.
See
http://git.videolan.org/?p=ffmpeg.git;a=blob;f=libswscale/swscale.h.
<o> Set AVFilterGraph options. These should be documented by
FFmpeg.
Example
'--vf=lavfi=yadif:o="threads=2,thread_type=slice"'
forces a specific threading configuration.
eq[=gamma:contrast:brightness:saturation:rg:gg:bg:weight]
Software equalizer that uses lookup tables (slow), allowing
gamma correction in addition to simple brightness and contrast
adjustment. The parameters are given as floating point values.
<0.1-10>
initial gamma value (default: 1.0)
<-2-2> initial contrast, where negative values result in a
negative image (default: 1.0)
<-1-1> initial brightness (default: 0.0)
<0-3> initial saturation (default: 1.0)
<0.1-10>
gamma value for the red component (default: 1.0)
<0.1-10>
gamma value for the green component (default: 1.0)
<0.1-10>
gamma value for the blue component (default: 1.0)
<0-1> The weight parameter can be used to reduce the effect of
a high gamma value on bright image areas, e.g. keep them
from getting overamplified and just plain white. A value
of 0.0 turns the gamma correction all the way down while
1.0 leaves it at its full strength (default: 1.0).
pullup[=jl:jr:jt:jb:sb:mp]
Pulldown reversal (inverse telecine) filter, capable of handling
mixed hard-telecine, 24000/1001 fps progressive, and 30000/1001
fps progressive content. The pullup filter makes use of future
context in making its decisions. It is stateless in the sense
that it does not lock onto a pattern to follow, but it instead
looks forward to the following fields in order to identify
matches and rebuild progressive frames.
jl, jr, jt, and jb
These options set the amount of "junk" to ignore at the
left, right, top, and bottom of the image, respectively.
Left/right are in units of 8 pixels, while top/bottom are
in units of 2 lines. The default is 8 pixels on each
side.
sb (strict breaks)
Setting this option to 1 will reduce the chances of
pullup generating an occasional mismatched frame, but it
may also cause an excessive number of frames to be
dropped during high motion sequences. Conversely,
setting it to -1 will make pullup match fields more
easily. This may help process video with slight blurring
between the fields, but may also cause interlaced frames
in the output.
mp (metric plane)
This option may be set to u or v to use a chroma plane
instead of the luma plane for doing pullup's
computations. This may improve accuracy on very clean
source material, but more likely will decrease accuracy,
especially if there is chroma noise (rainbow effect) or
any grayscale video. The main purpose of setting mp to a
chroma plane is to reduce CPU load and make pullup usable
in realtime on slow machines.
yadif=[mode:interlaced-only]
Yet another deinterlacing filter
<mode>
frame Output 1 frame for each frame.
field Output 1 frame for each field (default).
frame-nospatial
Like frame but skips spatial interlacing check.
field-nospatial
Like field but skips spatial interlacing check.
<interlaced-only>
no Deinterlace all frames.
yes Only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced
(default).
This filter is automatically inserted when using the d key (or
any other key that toggles the deinterlace property or when
using the --deinterlace switch), assuming the video output does
not have native deinterlacing support.
If you just want to set the default mode, put this filter and
its options into --vf-defaults instead, and enable deinterlacing
with d or --deinterlace.
Also, note that the d key is stupid enough to insert a
deinterlacer twice when inserting yadif with --vf, so using the
above methods is recommended.
sub=[=bottom-margin:top-margin]
Moves subtitle rendering to an arbitrary point in the filter
chain, or force subtitle rendering in the video filter as
opposed to using video output OSD support.
<bottom-margin>
Adds a black band at the bottom of the frame. The SSA/ASS
renderer can place subtitles there (with
--sub-use-margins).
<top-margin>
Black band on the top for toptitles (with
--sub-use-margins).
Examples
--vf=sub,eq
Moves sub rendering before the eq filter. This will
put both subtitle colors and video under the influence
of the video equalizer settings.
stereo3d[=in:out]
Stereo3d converts between different stereoscopic image formats.
<in> Stereoscopic image format of input. Possible values:
sbsl or side_by_side_left_first
side by side parallel (left eye left, right eye
right)
sbsr or side_by_side_right_first
side by side crosseye (right eye left, left eye
right)
abl or above_below_left_first
above-below (left eye above, right eye below)
abr or above_below_right_first
above-below (right eye above, left eye below)
ab2l or above_below_half_height_left_first
above-below with half height resolution (left eye
above, right eye below)
ab2r or above_below_half_height_right_first
above-below with half height resolution (right eye
above, left eye below)
<out> Stereoscopic image format of output. Possible values are
all the input formats as well as:
arcg or anaglyph_red_cyan_gray
anaglyph red/cyan gray (red filter on left eye,
cyan filter on right eye)
arch or anaglyph_red_cyan_half_color
anaglyph red/cyan half colored (red filter on left
eye, cyan filter on right eye)
arcc or anaglyph_red_cyan_color
anaglyph red/cyan color (red filter on left eye,
cyan filter on right eye)
arcd or anaglyph_red_cyan_dubois
anaglyph red/cyan color optimized with the
least-squares projection of Dubois (red filter on
left eye, cyan filter on right eye)
agmg or anaglyph_green_magenta_gray
anaglyph green/magenta gray (green filter on left
eye, magenta filter on right eye)
agmh or anaglyph_green_magenta_half_color
anaglyph green/magenta half colored (green filter
on left eye, magenta filter on right eye)
agmc or anaglyph_green_magenta_color
anaglyph green/magenta colored (green filter on
left eye, magenta filter on right eye)
aybg or anaglyph_yellow_blue_gray
anaglyph yellow/blue gray (yellow filter on left
eye, blue filter on right eye)
aybh or anaglyph_yellow_blue_half_color
anaglyph yellow/blue half colored (yellow filter
on left eye, blue filter on right eye)
aybc or anaglyph_yellow_blue_color
anaglyph yellow/blue colored (yellow filter on
left eye, blue filter on right eye)
irl or interleave_rows_left_first
Interleaved rows (left eye has top row, right eye
starts on next row)
irr or interleave_rows_right_first
Interleaved rows (right eye has top row, left eye
starts on next row)
ml or mono_left
mono output (left eye only)
mr or mono_right
mono output (right eye only)
gradfun[=strength[:radius|:size=<size>]]
Fix the banding artifacts that are sometimes introduced into
nearly flat regions by truncation to 8-bit color depth.
Interpolates the gradients that should go where the bands are,
and dithers them.
<strength>
Maximum amount by which the filter will change any one
pixel. Also the threshold for detecting nearly flat
regions (default: 1.5).
<radius>
Neighborhood to fit the gradient to. Larger radius makes
for smoother gradients, but also prevents the filter from
modifying pixels near detailed regions (default:
disabled).
<size> size of the filter in percent of the image diagonal size.
This is used to calculate the final radius size (default:
1).
dlopen=dll[:a0[:a1[:a2[:a3]]]]
Loads an external library to filter the image. The library
interface is the vf_dlopen interface specified using
libmpcodecs/vf_dlopen.h.
WARNING:
This filter is deprecated.
dll=<library>
Specify the library to load. This may require a full file
system path in some cases. This argument is required.
a0=<string>
Specify the first parameter to pass to the library.
a1=<string>
Specify the second parameter to pass to the library.
a2=<string>
Specify the third parameter to pass to the library.
a3=<string>
Specify the fourth parameter to pass to the library.
vapoursynth=file:buffered-frames:concurrent-frames
Loads a VapourSynth filter script. This is intended for streamed
processing: mpv actually provides a source filter, instead of
using a native VapourSynth video source. The mpv source will
answer frame requests only within a small window of frames (the
size of this window is controlled with the buffered-frames
parameter), and requests outside of that will return errors. As
such, you can't use the full power of VapourSynth, but you can
use certain filters.
If you just want to play video generated by a VapourSynth (i.e.
using a native VapourSynth video source), it's better to use
vspipe and a FIFO to feed the video to mpv. The same applies if
the filter script requires random frame access (see
buffered-frames parameter).
This filter is experimental. If it turns out that it works well
and is used, it will be ported to libavfilter. Otherwise, it
will be just removed.
file Filename of the script source. Currently, this is always
a python script. The variable video_in is set to the mpv
video source, and it is expected that the script reads
video from it. (Otherwise, mpv will decode no video, and
the video packet queue will overflow, eventually leading
to audio being stopped.) The script is also expected to
pass through timestamps using the _DurationNum and
_DurationDen frame properties.
Example:
import vapoursynth as vs
core = vs.get_core()
core.std.AddBorders(video_in, 10, 10, 20, 20).set_output()
WARNING:
The script will be reloaded on every seek. This is
done to reset the filter properly on discontinuities.
buffered-frames
Maximum number of decoded video frames that should be
buffered before the filter (default: 4). This specifies
the maximum number of frames the script can request in
reverse direction. E.g. if buffered-frames=5, and the
script just requested frame 15, it can still request
frame 10, but frame 9 is not available anymore. If it
requests frame 30, mpv will decode 15 more frames, and
keep only frames 25-30.
The actual number of buffered frames also depends on the
value of the concurrent-frames option. Currently, both
option values are multiplied to get the final buffer
size.
(Normally, VapourSynth source filters must provide random
access, but mpv was made for playback, and does not
provide frame-exact random access. The way this video
filter works is a compromise to make simple filters work
anyway.)
concurrent-frames
Number of frames that should be requested in parallel.
The level of concurrency depends on the filter and how
quickly mpv can decode video to feed the filter. This
value should probably be proportional to the number of
cores on your machine. Most time, making it higher than
the number of cores can actually make it slower.
By default, this uses the special value auto, which sets
the option to the number of detected logical CPU cores.
The following variables are defined by mpv:
video_in
The mpv video source as vapoursynth clip. Note that this
has no length set, which confuses many filters. Using
Trim on the clip with a high dummy length can turn it
into a finite clip.
video_in_dw, video_in_dh
Display size of the video. Can be different from video
size if the video does not use square pixels (e.g. DVD).
container_fps
FPS value as reported by file headers. This value can be
wrong or completely broken (e.g. 0 or NaN). Even if the
value is correct, if another filter changes the real FPS
(by dropping or inserting frames), the value of this
variable might not be useful. Note that the --fps command
line option overrides this value.
Useful for some filters which insist on having a FPS.
display_fps
Refresh rate of the current display. Note that this value
can be 0.
vapoursynth-lazy
The same as vapoursynth, but doesn't load Python scripts.
Instead, a custom backend using Lua and the raw VapourSynth API
is used. The syntax is completely different, and absolutely no
convenience features are provided. There's no type checking
either, and you can trigger crashes.
Example:
video_out = invoke("morpho", "Open", {clip = video_in})
The special variable video_in is the mpv video source, while the
special variable video_out is used to read video from. The 1st
argument is the plugin (queried with getPluginByNs), the 2nd is
the filter name, and the 3rd argument is a table with the
arguments. Positional arguments are not supported. The types
must match exactly. Since Lua is terrible and can't distinguish
integers and floats, integer arguments must be prefixed with i_,
in which case the prefix is removed and the argument is cast to
an integer. Should the argument's name start with i_, you're out
of luck.
Clips (VSNodeRef) are passed as light userdata, so trying to
pass any other userdata type will result in hard crashes.
vavpp VA-AP-API video post processing. Works with --vo=vaapi and
--vo=opengl only. Currently deinterlaces. This filter is
automatically inserted if deinterlacing is requested (either
using the d key, by default mapped to the command cycle
deinterlace, or the --deinterlace option).
deint=<method>
Select the deinterlacing algorithm.
no Don't perform deinterlacing.
first-field
Show only first field (going by
--field-dominance).
bob bob deinterlacing (default).
weave, motion-adaptive, motion-compensated
Advanced deinterlacing algorithms. Whether these
actually work depends on the GPU hardware, the GPU
drivers, driver bugs, and mpv bugs.
<interlaced-only>
no Deinterlace all frames.
yes Only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced
(default).
vdpaupp
VDPAU video post processing. Works with --vo=vdpau and
--vo=opengl only. This filter is automatically inserted if
deinterlacing is requested (either using the d key, by default
mapped to the command cycle deinterlace, or the --deinterlace
option). When enabling deinterlacing, it is always preferred
over software deinterlacer filters if the vdpau VO is used, and
also if opengl is used and hardware decoding was activated at
least once (i.e. vdpau was loaded).
sharpen=<-1-1>
For positive values, apply a sharpening algorithm to the
video, for negative values a blurring algorithm (default:
0).
denoise=<0-1>
Apply a noise reduction algorithm to the video (default:
0; no noise reduction).
deint=<yes|no>
Whether deinterlacing is enabled (default: no). If
enabled, it will use the mode selected with deint-mode.
deint-mode=<first-field|bob|temporal|temporal-spatial>
Select deinterlacing mode (default: temporal). All modes
respect --field-dominance.
Note that there's currently a mechanism that allows the
vdpau VO to change the deint-mode of auto-inserted
vdpaupp filters. To avoid confusion, it's recommended not
to use the --vo=vdpau suboptions related to filtering.
first-field
Show only first field.
bob Bob deinterlacing.
temporal
Motion-adaptive temporal deinterlacing. May lead
to A/V desync with slow video hardware and/or high
resolution.
temporal-spatial
Motion-adaptive temporal deinterlacing with
edge-guided spatial interpolation. Needs fast
video hardware.
chroma-deint
Makes temporal deinterlacers operate both on luma and
chroma (default). Use no-chroma-deint to solely use luma
and speed up advanced deinterlacing. Useful with slow
video memory.
pullup Try to apply inverse telecine, needs motion adaptive
temporal deinterlacing.
interlaced-only=<yes|no>
If yes (default), only deinterlace frames marked as
interlaced.
hqscaling=<0-9>
0 Use default VDPAU scaling (default).
1-9 Apply high quality VDPAU scaling (needs capable
hardware).
d3d11vpp
Direct3D 11 video post processing. Currently requires D3D11
hardware decoding for use.
deint=<yes|no>
Whether deinterlacing is enabled (default: no).
interlaced-only=<yes|no>
If yes (default), only deinterlace frames marked as
interlaced.
mode=<blend|bob|adaptive|mocomp|ivctc|none>
Tries to select a video processor with the given
processing capability. If a video processor supports
multiple capabilities, it is not clear which algorithm is
actually selected. none always falls back. On most if not
all hardware, this option will probably do nothing,
because a video processor usually supports all modes or
none.
buffer=<num>
Buffer <num> frames in the filter chain. This filter is probably
pretty useless, except for debugging. (Note that this won't help
to smooth out latencies with decoding, because the filter will
never output a frame if the buffer isn't full, except on EOF.)
ENCODING
You can encode files from one format/codec to another using this
facility.
--o=<filename>
Enables encoding mode and specifies the output file name.
--of=<format>
Specifies the output format (overrides autodetection by the file
name extension of the file specified by -o). This can be a comma
separated list of possible formats to try. See --of=help for a
full list of supported formats.
--ofopts=<options>
Specifies the output format options for libavformat. See
--ofopts=help for a full list of supported options.
Options are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage
the options list.
--ofopts-add=<options1[,options2,...]>
Appends the options given as arguments to the options
list.
--ofopts-pre=<options1[,options2,...]>
Prepends the options given as arguments to the options
list.
--ofopts-del=<index1[,index2,...]>
Deletes the options at the given indexes. Index numbers
start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list
(-1 is the last).
--ofopts-clr
Completely empties the options list.
--ofps=<float value>
Specifies the output format time base (default: 24000). Low
values like 25 limit video fps by dropping frames.
--oautofps
Sets the output format time base to the guessed frame rate of
the input video (simulates MEncoder behavior, useful for AVI;
may cause frame drops). Note that not all codecs and not all
formats support VFR encoding, and some which do have bugs when a
target bitrate is specified - use --ofps or --oautofps to force
CFR encoding in these cases.
--omaxfps=<float value>
Specifies the minimum distance of adjacent frames (default: 0,
which means unset). Content of lower frame rate is not
readjusted to this frame rate; content of higher frame rate is
decimated to this frame rate.
--oharddup
If set, the frame rate given by --ofps is attained not by
skipping time codes, but by duplicating frames (constant frame
rate mode).
--oneverdrop
If set, frames are never dropped. Instead, time codes of video
are readjusted to always increase. This may cause AV desync,
though; to work around this, use a high-fps time base using
--ofps and absolutely avoid --oautofps.
--oac=<codec>
Specifies the output audio codec. This can be a comma separated
list of possible codecs to try. See --oac=help for a full list
of supported codecs.
--oaoffset=<value>
Shifts audio data by the given time (in seconds) by
adding/removing samples at the start.
--oacopts=<options>
Specifies the output audio codec options for libavcodec. See
--oacopts=help for a full list of supported options.
Example
--oac=libmp3lame --oacopts=b=128000
selects 128 kbps MP3 encoding.
Options are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage
the options list.
--oacopts-add=<options1[,options2,...]>
Appends the options given as arguments to the options
list.
--oacopts-pre=<options1[,options2,...]>
Prepends the options given as arguments to the options
list.
--oacopts-del=<index1[,index2,...]>
Deletes the options at the given indexes. Index numbers
start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list
(-1 is the last).
--oacopts-clr
Completely empties the options list.
--oafirst
Force the audio stream to become the first stream in the output.
By default, the order is unspecified.
--ovc=<codec>
Specifies the output video codec. This can be a comma separated
list of possible codecs to try. See --ovc=help for a full list
of supported codecs.
--ovoffset=<value>
Shifts video data by the given time (in seconds) by shifting the
pts values.
--ovcopts <options>
Specifies the output video codec options for libavcodec. See
--ovcopts=help for a full list of supported options.
Examples
"--ovc=mpeg4 --ovcopts=qscale=5"
selects constant quantizer scale 5 for MPEG-4
encoding.
"--ovc=libx264 --ovcopts=crf=23"
selects VBR quality factor 23 for H.264 encoding.
Options are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage
the options list.
--ovcopts-add=<options1[,options2,...]>
Appends the options given as arguments to the options
list.
--ovcopts-pre=<options1[,options2,...]>
Prepends the options given as arguments to the options
list.
--ovcopts-del=<index1[,index2,...]>
Deletes the options at the given indexes. Index numbers
start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list
(-1 is the last).
--ovcopts-clr
Completely empties the options list.
--ovfirst
Force the video stream to become the first stream in the output.
By default, the order is unspecified.
--ocopyts
Copies input pts to the output video (not supported by some
output container formats, e.g. AVI). Discontinuities are still
fixed. By default, audio pts are set to playback time and video
pts are synchronized to match audio pts, as some output formats
do not support anything else.
--orawts
Copies input pts to the output video (not supported by some
output container formats, e.g. AVI). In this mode,
discontinuities are not fixed and all pts are passed through
as-is. Never seek backwards or use multiple input files in this
mode!
--no-ometadata
Turns off copying of metadata from input files to output files
when encoding (which is enabled by default).
COMMAND INTERFACE
The mpv core can be controlled with commands and properties. A number
of ways to interact with the player use them: key bindings
(input.conf), OSD (showing information with properties), JSON IPC, the
client API (libmpv), and the classic slave mode.
input.conf
The input.conf file consists of a list of key bindings, for example:
s screenshot # take a screenshot with the s key
LEFT seek 15 # map the left-arrow key to seeking forward by 15 seconds
Each line maps a key to an input command. Keys are specified with their
literal value (upper case if combined with Shift), or a name for
special keys. For example, a maps to the a key without shift, and A
maps to a with shift.
The file is located in the mpv configuration directory (normally at
~/.config/mpv/input.conf depending on platform). The default bindings
are defined here:
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/etc/input.conf
A list of special keys can be obtained with
mpv --input-keylist
In general, keys can be combined with Shift, Ctrl and Alt:
ctrl+q quit
mpv can be started in input test mode, which displays key bindings and
the commands they're bound to on the OSD, instead of executing the
commands:
mpv --input-test --force-window --idle
(Only closing the window will make mpv exit, pressing normal keys will
merely display the binding, even if mapped to quit.)
General Input Command Syntax
[Shift+][Ctrl+][Alt+][Meta+]<key> [{<section>}] [<prefixes>] <command>
(<argument>)* [; <command>]
Note that by default, the right Alt key can be used to create special
characters, and thus does not register as a modifier. The option
--no-input-right-alt-gr changes this behavior.
Newlines always start a new binding. # starts a comment (outside of
quoted string arguments). To bind commands to the # key, SHARP can be
used.
<key> is either the literal character the key produces (ASCII or
Unicode character), or a symbolic name (as printed by --input-keylist).
<section> (braced with { and }) is the input section for this command.
Arguments are separated by whitespace. This applies even to string
arguments. For this reason, string arguments should be quoted with ".
Inside quotes, C-style escaping can be used.
You can bind multiple commands to one key. For example:
a show-text "command 1" ; show-text "command 2"
It's also possible to bind a command to a sequence of keys:
a-b-c show-text "command run after a, b, c have been pressed"
(This is not shown in the general command syntax.)
If a or a-b or b are already bound, this will run the first command
that matches, and the multi-key command will never be called.
Intermediate keys can be remapped to ignore in order to avoid this
issue. The maximum number of (non-modifier) keys for combinations is
currently 4.
List of Input Commands
ignore Use this to "block" keys that should be unbound, and do nothing.
Useful for disabling default bindings, without disabling all
bindings with --no-input-default-bindings.
seek <seconds>
[relative|absolute|absolute-percent|relative-percent|exact|keyframes]
Change the playback position. By default, seeks by a relative
amount of seconds.
The second argument consists of flags controlling the seek mode:
relative (default)
Seek relative to current position (a negative value seeks
backwards).
absolute
Seek to a given time (a negative value starts from the
end of the file).
absolute-percent
Seek to a given percent position.
relative-percent
Seek relative to current position in percent.
keyframes
Always restart playback at keyframe boundaries (fast).
exact Always do exact/hr/precise seeks (slow).
Multiple flags can be combined, e.g.: absolute+keyframes.
By default, keyframes is used for relative seeks, and exact is
used for absolute seeks.
Before mpv 0.9, the keyframes and exact flags had to be passed
as 3rd parameter (essentially using a space instead of +). The
3rd parameter is still parsed, but is considered deprecated.
revert-seek [mode]
Undoes the seek command, and some other commands that seek (but
not necessarily all of them). Calling this command once will
jump to the playback position before the seek. Calling it a
second time undoes the revert-seek command itself. This only
works within a single file.
The first argument is optional, and can change the behavior:
mark Mark the current time position. The next normal
revert-seek command will seek back to this point, no
matter how many seeks happened since last time.
Using it without any arguments gives you the default behavior.
frame-step
Play one frame, then pause. Does nothing with audio-only
playback.
frame-back-step
Go back by one frame, then pause. Note that this can be very
slow (it tries to be precise, not fast), and sometimes fails to
behave as expected. How well this works depends on whether
precise seeking works correctly (e.g. see the
--hr-seek-demuxer-offset option). Video filters or other video
post-processing that modifies timing of frames (e.g.
deinterlacing) should usually work, but might make backstepping
silently behave incorrectly in corner cases. Using
--hr-seek-framedrop=no should help, although it might make
precise seeking slower.
This does not work with audio-only playback.
set <property> <value>
Set the given property to the given value.
add <property> [<value>]
Add the given value to the property. On overflow or underflow,
clamp the property to the maximum. If <value> is omitted, assume
1.
cycle <property> [up|down]
Cycle the given property. up and down set the cycle direction.
On overflow, set the property back to the minimum, on underflow
set it to the maximum. If up or down is omitted, assume up.
multiply <property> <factor>
Multiplies the value of a property with the numeric factor.
screenshot [subtitles|video|window|- [single|each-frame]]
Take a screenshot.
First argument:
<subtitles> (default)
Save the video image, in its original resolution, and
with subtitles. Some video outputs may still include the
OSD in the output under certain circumstances.
<video>
Like subtitles, but typically without OSD or subtitles.
The exact behavior depends on the selected video output.
<window>
Save the contents of the mpv window. Typically scaled,
with OSD and subtitles. The exact behavior depends on the
selected video output, and if no support is available,
this will act like video.
<each-frame>
Take a screenshot each frame. Issue this command again to
stop taking screenshots. Note that you should disable
frame-dropping when using this mode - or you might
receive duplicate images in cases when a frame was
dropped. This flag can be combined with the other flags,
e.g. video+each-frame.
screenshot-to-file <filename> [subtitles|video|window]
Take a screenshot and save it to a given file. The format of the
file will be guessed by the extension (and --screenshot-format
is ignored - the behavior when the extension is missing or
unknown is arbitrary).
The second argument is like the first argument to screenshot.
If the file already exists, it's overwritten.
Like all input command parameters, the filename is subject to
property expansion as described in Property Expansion.
playlist-next [weak|force]
Go to the next entry on the playlist.
weak (default)
If the last file on the playlist is currently played, do
nothing.
force Terminate playback if there are no more files on the
playlist.
playlist-prev [weak|force]
Go to the previous entry on the playlist.
weak (default)
If the first file on the playlist is currently played, do
nothing.
force Terminate playback if the first file is being played.
loadfile <file> [replace|append|append-play [options]]
Load the given file and play it.
Second argument:
<replace> (default)
Stop playback of the current file, and play the new file
immediately.
<append>
Append the file to the playlist.
<append-play>
Append the file, and if nothing is currently playing,
start playback. (Always starts with the added file, even
if the playlist was not empty before running this
command.)
The third argument is a list of options and values which should
be set while the file is playing. It is of the form
opt1=value1,opt2=value2,... Not all options can be changed this
way. Some options require a restart of the player.
loadlist <playlist> [replace|append]
Load the given playlist file (like --playlist).
playlist-clear
Clear the playlist, except the currently played file.
playlist-remove current|<index>
Remove the playlist entry at the given index. Index values start
counting with 0. The special value current removes the current
entry. Note that removing the current entry also stops playback
and starts playing the next entry.
playlist-move <index1> <index2>
Move the playlist entry at index1, so that it takes the place of
the entry index2. (Paradoxically, the moved playlist entry will
not have the index value index2 after moving if index1 was lower
than index2, because index2 refers to the target entry, not the
index the entry will have after moving.)
playlist-shuffle
Shuffle the playlist. This is similar to what is done on start
if the --shuffle option is used.
run command arg1 arg2 ...
Run the given command. Unlike in MPlayer/mplayer2 and earlier
versions of mpv (0.2.x and older), this doesn't call the shell.
Instead, the command is run directly, with each argument passed
separately. Each argument is expanded like in Property
Expansion. Note that there is a static limit of (as of this
writing) 9 arguments (this limit could be raised on demand).
The program is run in a detached way. mpv doesn't wait until the
command is completed, but continues playback right after
spawning it.
To get the old behavior, use /bin/sh and -c as the first two
arguments.
Example
run "/bin/sh" "-c" "echo ${title} > /tmp/playing"
This is not a particularly good example, because it
doesn't handle escaping, and a specially prepared file
might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary shell
commands. It is recommended to write a small shell
script, and call that with run.
quit [<code>]
Exit the player. If an argument is given, it's used as process
exit code.
quit-watch-later [<code>]
Exit player, and store current playback position. Playing that
file later will seek to the previous position on start. The
(optional) argument is exactly as in the quit command.
sub-add <file> [<flags> [<title> [<lang>]]]
Load the given subtitle file. It is selected as current subtitle
after loading.
The flags args is one of the following values:
<select>
Select the subtitle immediately.
<auto>
Don't select the subtitle. (Or in some special situations,
let the default stream selection mechanism decide.)
<cached>
Select the subtitle. If a subtitle with the same filename was
already added, that one is selected, instead of loading a
duplicate entry. (In this case, title/language are ignored,
and if the was changed since it was loaded, these changes
won't be reflected.)
The title argument sets the track title in the UI.
The lang argument sets the track language, and can also
influence stream selection with flags set to auto.
sub-remove [<id>]
Remove the given subtitle track. If the id argument is missing,
remove the current track. (Works on external subtitle files
only.)
sub-reload [<id>]
Reload the given subtitle tracks. If the id argument is missing,
reload the current track. (Works on external subtitle files
only.)
This works by unloading and re-adding the subtitle track.
sub-step <skip>
Change subtitle timing such, that the subtitle event after the
next <skip> subtitle events is displayed. <skip> can be negative
to step backwards.
sub-seek <skip>
Seek to the next (skip set to 1) or the previous (skip set to
-1) subtitle. This is similar to sub-step, except that it seeks
video and audio instead of adjusting the subtitle delay.
For embedded subtitles (like with Matroska), this works only
with subtitle events that have already been displayed, or are
within a short prefetch range.
osd [<level>]
Toggle OSD level. If <level> is specified, set the OSD mode (see
--osd-level for valid values).
print-text <string>
Print text to stdout. The string can contain properties (see
Property Expansion).
show-text <string> [<duration>|- [<level>]]
Show text on the OSD. The string can contain properties, which
are expanded as described in Property Expansion. This can be
used to show playback time, filename, and so on.
<duration>
The time in ms to show the message for. By default, it
uses the same value as --osd-duration.
<level>
The minimum OSD level to show the text at (see
--osd-level).
show-progress
Show the progress bar, the elapsed time and the total duration
of the file on the OSD.
write-watch-later-config
Write the resume config file that the quit-watch-later command
writes, but continue playback normally.
stop Stop playback and clear playlist. With default settings, this is
essentially like quit. Useful for the client API: playback can
be stopped without terminating the player.
mouse <x> <y> [<button> [single|double]]
Send a mouse event with given coordinate (<x>, <y>).
Second argument:
<button>
The button number of clicked mouse button. This should be
one of 0-19. If <button> is omitted, only the position
will be updated.
Third argument:
<single> (default)
The mouse event represents regular single click.
<double>
The mouse event represents double-click.
keypress <key_name>
Send a key event through mpv's input handler, triggering
whatever behavior is configured to that key. key_name uses the
input.conf naming scheme for keys and modifiers. Useful for the
client API: key events can be sent to libmpv to handle
internally.
keydown <key_name>
Similar to keypress, but sets the KEYDOWN flag so that if the
key is bound to a repeatable command, it will be run repeatedly
with mpv's key repeat timing until the keyup command is called.
keyup [<key_name>]
Set the KEYUP flag, stopping any repeated behavior that had been
triggered. key_name is optional. If key_name is not given or is
an empty string, KEYUP will be set on all keys. Otherwise, KEYUP
will only be set on the key specified by key_name.
audio-add <file> [<flags> [<title> [<lang>]]]
Load the given audio file. See sub-add command.
audio-remove [<id>]
Remove the given audio track. See sub-remove command.
audio-reload [<id>]
Reload the given audio tracks. See sub-reload command.
rescan-external-files [<mode>]
Rescan external files according to the current --sub-auto and
--audio-file-auto settings. This can be used to auto-load
external files after the file was loaded.
The mode argument is one of the following:
<reselect> (default)
Select the default audio and subtitle streams, which
typically selects external files with the highest
preference. (The implementation is not perfect, and could
be improved on request.)
<keep-selection>
Do not change current track selections.
Input Commands that are Possibly Subject to Change
af set|add|toggle|del|clr filter1=params,filter2,...
Change audio filter chain. See vf command.
vf set|add|toggle|del|clr filter1=params,filter2,...
Change video filter chain.
The first argument decides what happens:
set Overwrite the previous filter chain with the new one.
add Append the new filter chain to the previous one.
toggle Check if the given filter (with the exact parameters) is
already in the video chain. If yes, remove the filter. If
no, add the filter. (If several filters are passed to
the command, this is done for each filter.)
del Remove the given filters from the video chain. Unlike in
the other cases, the second parameter is a comma
separated list of filter names or integer indexes. 0
would denote the first filter. Negative indexes start
from the last filter, and -1 denotes the last filter.
clr Remove all filters. Note that like the other
sub-commands, this does not control automatically
inserted filters.
The argument is always needed. E.g. in case of clr use vf clr
"".
You can assign labels to filter by prefixing them with @name:
(where name is a user-chosen arbitrary identifier). Labels can
be used to refer to filters by name in all of the filter chain
modification commands. For add, using an already used label
will replace the existing filter.
The vf command shows the list of requested filters on the OSD
after changing the filter chain. This is roughly equivalent to
show-text ${vf}. Note that auto-inserted filters for format
conversion are not shown on the list, only what was requested by
the user.
Normally, the commands will check whether the video chain is
recreated successfully, and will undo the operation on failure.
If the command is run before video is configured (can happen if
the command is run immediately after opening a file and before a
video frame is decoded), this check can't be run. Then it can
happen that creating the video chain fails.
Example for input.conf
· a vf set flip turn video upside-down on the a key
· b vf set "" remove all video filters on b
· c vf toggle lavfi=gradfun toggle debanding on c
cycle-values ["!reverse"] <property> <value1> <value2> ...
Cycle through a list of values. Each invocation of the command
will set the given property to the next value in the list. The
command maintains an internal counter which value to pick next,
and which is initially 0. It is reset to 0 once the last value
is reached.
The internal counter is associated using the property name and
the value list. If multiple commands (bound to different keys)
use the same name and value list, they will share the internal
counter.
The special argument !reverse can be used to cycle the value
list in reverse. Compared with a command that just lists the
value in reverse, this command will actually share the internal
counter with the forward-cycling key binding (as long as the
rest of the arguments are the same).
Note that there is a static limit of (as of this writing) 10
arguments (this limit could be raised on demand).
enable-section <section> [flags]
Enable all key bindings in the named input section.
The enabled input sections form a stack. Bindings in sections on
the top of the stack are preferred to lower sections. This
command puts the section on top of the stack. If the section was
already on the stack, it is implicitly removed beforehand. (A
section cannot be on the stack more than once.)
The flags parameter can be a combination (separated by +) of the
following flags:
<exclusive>
All sections enabled before the newly enabled section are
disabled. They will be re-enabled as soon as all
exclusive sections above them are removed. In other
words, the new section shadows all previous sections.
<allow-hide-cursor>
This feature can't be used through the public API.
<allow-vo-dragging>
Same.
disable-section <section>
Disable the named input section. Undoes enable-section.
define-section <section> <contents> [default|force]
Create a named input section, or replace the contents of an
already existing input section. The contents parameter uses the
same syntax as the input.conf file (except that using the
section syntax in it is not allowed), including the need to
separate bindings with a newline character.
If the contents parameter is an empty string, the section is
removed.
The section with the name default is the normal input section.
In general, input sections have to be enabled with the
enable-section command, or they are ignored.
The last parameter has the following meaning:
<default> (also used if parameter omitted)
Use a key binding defined by this section only if the
user hasn't already bound this key to a command.
<force>
Always bind a key. (The input section that was made
active most recently wins if there are ambiguities.)
This command can be used to dispatch arbitrary keys to a script
or a client API user. If the input section defines
script-binding commands, it is also possible to get separate
events on key up/down, and relatively detailed information about
the key state. The special key name unmapped can be used to
match any unmapped key.
overlay-add <id> <x> <y> <file> <offset> <fmt> <w> <h> <stride>
Add an OSD overlay sourced from raw data. This might be useful
for scripts and applications controlling mpv, and which want to
display things on top of the video window.
Overlays are usually displayed in screen resolution, but with
some VOs, the resolution is reduced to that of the video's. You
can read the osd-width and osd-height properties. At least with
--vo-xv and anamorphic video (such as DVD), osd-par should be
read as well, and the overlay should be aspect-compensated.
id is an integer between 0 and 63 identifying the overlay
element. The ID can be used to add multiple overlay parts,
update a part by using this command with an already existing ID,
or to remove a part with overlay-remove. Using a previously
unused ID will add a new overlay, while reusing an ID will
update it.
x and y specify the position where the OSD should be displayed.
file specifies the file the raw image data is read from. It can
be either a numeric UNIX file descriptor prefixed with @ (e.g.
@4), or a filename. The file will be mapped into memory with
mmap(), copied, and unmapped before the command returns (changed
in mpv 0.18.1).
It is also possible to pass a raw memory address for use as
bitmap memory by passing a memory address as integer prefixed
with an & character. Passing the wrong thing here will crash
the player. This mode might be useful for use with libmpv. The
offset parameter is simply added to the memory address (since
mpv 0.8.0, ignored before).
offset is the byte offset of the first pixel in the source file.
(The current implementation always mmap's the whole file from
position 0 to the end of the image, so large offsets should be
avoided. Before mpv 0.8.0, the offset was actually passed
directly to mmap, but it was changed to make using it easier.)
fmt is a string identifying the image format. Currently, only
bgra is defined. This format has 4 bytes per pixels, with 8 bits
per component. The least significant 8 bits are blue, and the
most significant 8 bits are alpha (in little endian, the
components are B-G-R-A, with B as first byte). This uses
premultiplied alpha: every color component is already multiplied
with the alpha component. This means the numeric value of each
component is equal to or smaller than the alpha component.
(Violating this rule will lead to different results with
different VOs: numeric overflows resulting from blending broken
alpha values is considered something that shouldn't happen, and
consequently implementations don't ensure that you get
predictable behavior in this case.)
w, h, and stride specify the size of the overlay. w is the
visible width of the overlay, while stride gives the width in
bytes in memory. In the simple case, and with the bgra format,
stride==4*w. In general, the total amount of memory accessed is
stride * h. (Technically, the minimum size would be stride * (h
- 1) + w * 4, but for simplicity, the player will access all
stride * h bytes.)
NOTE:
Before mpv 0.18.1, you had to do manual "double buffering"
when updating an overlay by replacing it with a different
memory buffer. Since mpv 0.18.1, the memory is simply copied
and doesn't reference any of the memory indicated by the
command's arguments after the commend returns. If you want
to use this command before mpv 0.18.1, reads the old docs to
see how to handle this correctly.
overlay-remove <id>
Remove an overlay added with overlay-add and the same ID. Does
nothing if no overlay with this ID exists.
script-message <arg1> <arg2> ...
Send a message to all clients, and pass it the following list of
arguments. What this message means, how many arguments it
takes, and what the arguments mean is fully up to the receiver
and the sender. Every client receives the message, so be careful
about name clashes (or use script-message-to).
script-message-to <target> <arg1> <arg2> ...
Same as script-message, but send it only to the client named
<target>. Each client (scripts etc.) has a unique name. For
example, Lua scripts can get their name via
mp.get_script_name().
script-binding <name>
Invoke a script-provided key binding. This can be used to remap
key bindings provided by external Lua scripts.
The argument is the name of the binding.
It can optionally be prefixed with the name of the script, using
/ as separator, e.g. script-binding scriptname/bindingname.
For completeness, here is how this command works internally. The
details could change any time. On any matching key event,
script-message-to or script-message is called (depending on
whether the script name is included), with the following
arguments:
1. The string key-binding.
2. The name of the binding (as established above).
3. The key state as string (see below).
4. The key name (since mpv 0.15.0).
The key state consists of 2 letters:
1. One of d (key was pressed down), u (was released), r (key is
still down, and was repeated; only if key repeat is enabled
for this binding), p (key was pressed; happens if up/down
can't be tracked).
2. Whether the event originates from the mouse, either m (mouse
button) or - (something else).
ab-loop
Cycle through A-B loop states. The first command will set the A
point (the ab-loop-a property); the second the B point, and the
third will clear both points.
drop-buffers
Drop audio/video/demuxer buffers, and restart from fresh. Might
help with unseekable streams that are going out of sync. This
command might be changed or removed in the future.
screenshot-raw [subtitles|video|window]
Return a screenshot in memory. This can be used only through the
client API. The MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP returned by this command has
the w, h, stride fields set to obvious contents. A format field
is set to bgr0 by default. This format is organized as B8G8R8X8
(where B is the LSB). The contents of the padding X is
undefined. The data field is of type MPV_FORMAT_BYTE_ARRAY with
the actual image data. The image is freed as soon as the result
node is freed.
vf-command <label> <cmd> <args>
Send a command to the filter with the given <label>. Use all to
send it to all filters at once. The command and argument string
is filter specific. Currently, this only works with the lavfi
filter - see the libavfilter documentation for which commands a
filter supports.
Note that the <label> is a mpv filter label, not a libavfilter
filter name.
af-command <label> <cmd> <args>
Same as vf-command, but for audio filters.
apply-profile <name>
Apply the contents of a named profile. This is like using
profile=name in a config file, except you can map it to a key
binding to change it at runtime.
There is no such thing as "unapplying" a profile - applying a
profile merely sets all option values listed within the profile.
load-script <path>
Load a script, similar to the --script option.
Undocumented commands: tv-last-channel (TV/DVB only), ao-reload
(experimental/internal).
Hooks
Hooks are synchronous events between player core and a script or
similar. This applies to client API (including the Lua scripting
interface). Normally, events are supposed to be asynchronous, and the
hook API provides an awkward and obscure way to handle events that
require stricter coordination. There are no API stability guarantees
made. Not following the protocol exactly can make the player freeze
randomly. Basically, nobody should use this API.
There are two special commands involved. Also, the client must listen
for client messages (MPV_EVENT_CLIENT_MESSAGE in the C API).
hook-add <hook-name> <id> <priority>
Subscribe to the hook identified by the first argument
(basically, the name of event). The id argument is an arbitrary
integer chosen by the user. priority is used to sort all hook
handlers globally across all clients. Each client can register
multiple hook handlers (even for the same hook-name). Once the
hook is registered, it cannot be unregistered.
When a specific event happens, all registered handlers are run
serially. This uses a protocol every client has to follow
explicitly. When a hook handler is run, a client message
(MPV_EVENT_CLIENT_MESSAGE) is sent to the client which
registered the hook. This message has the following arguments:
1. the string hook_run
2. the id argument the hook was registered with as string (this
can be used to correctly handle multiple hooks registered by
the same client, as long as the id argument is unique in the
client)
3. something undefined, used by the hook mechanism to track hook
execution (currently, it's the hook-name, but this might
change without warning)
Upon receiving this message, the client can handle the event.
While doing this, the player core will still react to requests,
but playback will typically be stopped.
When the client is done, it must continue the core's hook
execution by running the hook-ack command.
hook-ack <string>
Run the next hook in the global chain of hooks. The argument is
the 3rd argument of the client message that starts hook
execution for the current client.
The following hooks are currently defined:
on_load
Called when a file is to be opened, before anything is actually
done. For example, you could read and write the
stream-open-filename property to redirect an URL to something
else (consider support for streaming sites which rarely give the
user a direct media URL), or you could set per-file options with
by setting the property file-local-options/<option name>. The
player will wait until all hooks are run.
on_preloaded
Called after a file has been opened, and before tracks are
selected and decoders are created. This has some usefulness if
an API users wants to select tracks manually, based on the set
of available tracks. It's also useful to initialize
--lavfi-complex in a specific way by API, without having to
"probe" the available streams at first.
Note that this does not yet apply default track selection. Which
operations exactly can be done and not be done, and what
information is available and what is not yet available yet, is
all subject to change.
on_unload
Run before closing a file, and before actually uninitializing
everything. It's not possible to resume playback in this state.
Input Command Prefixes
These prefixes are placed between key name and the actual command.
Multiple prefixes can be specified. They are separated by whitespace.
osd-auto (default)
Use the default behavior for this command.
no-osd Do not use any OSD for this command.
osd-bar
If possible, show a bar with this command. Seek commands will
show the progress bar, property changing commands may show the
newly set value.
osd-msg
If possible, show an OSD message with this command. Seek command
show the current playback time, property changing commands show
the newly set value as text.
osd-msg-bar
Combine osd-bar and osd-msg.
raw Do not expand properties in string arguments. (Like
"${property-name}".)
expand-properties (default)
All string arguments are expanded as described in Property
Expansion.
repeatable
For some commands, keeping a key pressed doesn't run the command
repeatedly. This prefix forces enabling key repeat in any case.
All of the osd prefixes are still overridden by the global --osd-level
settings.
Input Sections
Input sections group a set of bindings, and enable or disable them at
once. In input.conf, each key binding is assigned to an input section,
rather than actually having explicit text sections.
See also: enable-section and disable-section commands.
Predefined bindings:
default
Bindings without input section are implicitly assigned to this
section. It is enabled by default during normal playback.
encode Section which is active in encoding mode. It is enabled
exclusively, so that bindings in the default sections are
ignored.
Properties
Properties are used to set mpv options during runtime, or to query
arbitrary information. They can be manipulated with the set/add/cycle
commands, and retrieved with show-text, or anything else that uses
property expansion. (See Property Expansion.)
The property name is annotated with RW to indicate whether the property
is generally writable.
If an option is referenced, the property will normally take/return
exactly the same values as the option. In these cases, properties are
merely a way to change an option at runtime.
Property list
NOTE:
Most options can be set as runtime via properties as well. Just
remove the leading -- from the option name. These are not
documented. Only properties which do not exist as option with the
same name, or which have very different behavior from the options
are documented below.
audio-speed-correction, video-speed-correction
Factor multiplied with speed at which the player attempts to
play the file. Usually it's exactly 1. (Display sync mode will
make this useful.)
OSD formatting will display it in the form of +1.23456%, with
the number being (raw - 1) * 100 for the given raw property
value.
display-sync-active
Return whether --video-sync=display is actually active.
filename
Currently played file, with path stripped. If this is an URL,
try to undo percent encoding as well. (The result is not
necessarily correct, but looks better for display purposes. Use
the path property to get an unmodified filename.)
This has a sub-property:
filename/no-ext
Like the filename property, but if the text contains a .,
strip all text after the last .. Usually this removes the
file extension.
file-size
Length in bytes of the source file/stream. (This is the same as
${stream-end}. For ordered chapters and such, the size of the
currently played segment is returned.)
estimated-frame-count
Total number of frames in current file.
NOTE:
This is only an estimate. (It's computed from two unreliable
quantities: fps and stream length.)
estimated-frame-number
Number of current frame in current stream.
NOTE:
This is only an estimate. (It's computed from two unreliable
quantities: fps and possibly rounded timestamps.)
path Full path of the currently played file. Usually this is exactly
the same string you pass on the mpv command line or the loadfile
command, even if it's a relative path. If you expect an absolute
path, you will have to determine it yourself, for example by
using the working-directory property.
media-title
If the currently played file has a title tag, use that.
Otherwise, if the media type is DVD, return the volume ID of
DVD.
Otherwise, return the filename property.
file-format
Symbolic name of the file format. In some cases, this is a
comma-separated list of format names, e.g. mp4 is
mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 (the list may grow in the future for any
format).
current-demuxer
Name of the current demuxer. (This is useless.)
(Renamed from demuxer.)
stream-path
Filename (full path) of the stream layer filename. (This is
probably useless. It looks like this can be different from path
only when using e.g. ordered chapters.)
stream-pos
Raw byte position in source stream. Technically, this returns
the position of the most recent packet passed to a decoder.
stream-end
Raw end position in bytes in source stream.
duration
Duration of the current file in seconds. If the duration is
unknown, the property is unavailable. Note that the file
duration is not always exactly known, so this is an estimate.
This replaces the length property, which was deprecated after
the mpv 0.9 release. (The semantics are the same.)
avsync Last A/V synchronization difference. Unavailable if audio or
video is disabled.
total-avsync-change
Total A-V sync correction done. Unavailable if audio or video is
disabled.
drop-frame-count
Video frames dropped by decoder, because video is too far behind
audio (when using --framedrop=decoder). Sometimes, this may be
incremented in other situations, e.g. when video packets are
damaged, or the decoder doesn't follow the usual rules.
Unavailable if video is disabled.
vo-drop-frame-count
Frames dropped by VO (when using --framedrop=vo).
mistimed-frame-count
Number of video frames that were not timed correctly in
display-sync mode for the sake of keeping A/V sync. This does
not include external circumstances, such as video rendering
being too slow or the graphics driver somehow skipping a vsync.
It does not include rounding errors either (which can happen
especially with bad source timestamps). For example, using the
display-desync mode should never change this value from 0.
vsync-ratio
For how many vsyncs a frame is displayed on average. This is
available if display-sync is active only. For 30 FPS video on a
60 Hz screen, this will be 2. This is the moving average of what
actually has been scheduled, so 24 FPS on 60 Hz will never
remain exactly on 2.5, but jitter depending on the last frame
displayed.
vo-delayed-frame-count
Estimated number of frames delayed due to external circumstances
in display-sync mode. Note that in general, mpv has to guess
that this is happening, and the guess can be inaccurate.
percent-pos (RW)
Position in current file (0-100). The advantage over using this
instead of calculating it out of other properties is that it
properly falls back to estimating the playback position from the
byte position, if the file duration is not known.
time-pos (RW)
Position in current file in seconds.
time-start
Deprecated. Always returns 0. Before mpv 0.14, this used to
return the start time of the file (could affect e.g. transport
streams). See --rebase-start-time option.
time-remaining
Remaining length of the file in seconds. Note that the file
duration is not always exactly known, so this is an estimate.
audio-pts (R)
Current audio playback position in current file in seconds.
Unlike time-pos, this updates more often than once per frame.
For audio-only files, it is mostly equivalent to time-pos, while
for video-only files this property is not available.
playtime-remaining
time-remaining scaled by the current speed.
playback-time (RW)
Position in current file in seconds. Unlike time-pos, the time
is clamped to the range of the file. (Inaccurate file durations
etc. could make it go out of range. Useful on attempts to seek
outside of the file, as the seek target time is considered the
current position during seeking.)
chapter (RW)
Current chapter number. The number of the first chapter is 0.
edition (RW)
Current MKV edition number. Setting this property to a different
value will restart playback. The number of the first edition is
0.
disc-titles
Number of BD/DVD titles.
This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based
edition index.
disc-titles/count
Number of titles.
disc-titles/id
Title ID as integer. Currently, this is the same as the
title index.
disc-titles/length
Length in seconds. Can be unavailable in a number of
cases (currently it works for libdvdnav only).
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each edition)
"id" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"length" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
disc-title-list
List of BD/DVD titles.
disc-title (RW)
Current BD/DVD title number. Writing works only for dvdnav://
and bd:// (and aliases for these).
chapters
Number of chapters.
editions
Number of MKV editions.
edition-list
List of editions, current entry marked. Currently, the raw
property value is useless.
This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based
edition index.
edition-list/count
Number of editions. If there are no editions, this can be
0 or 1 (1 if there's a useless dummy edition).
edition-list/N/id
Edition ID as integer. Use this to set the edition
property. Currently, this is the same as the edition
index.
edition-list/N/default
yes if this is the default edition, no otherwise.
edition-list/N/title
Edition title as stored in the file. Not always
available.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each edition)
"id" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"title" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"default" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
angle (RW)
Current DVD angle.
metadata
Metadata key/value pairs.
If the property is accessed with Lua's mp.get_property_native,
this returns a table with metadata keys mapping to metadata
values. If it is accessed with the client API, this returns a
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP, with tag keys mapping to tag values.
For OSD, it returns a formatted list. Trying to retrieve this
property as a raw string doesn't work.
This has a number of sub-properties:
metadata/by-key/<key>
Value of metadata entry <key>.
metadata/list/count
Number of metadata entries.
metadata/list/N/key
Key name of the Nth metadata entry. (The first entry is
0).
metadata/list/N/value
Value of the Nth metadata entry.
metadata/<key>
Old version of metadata/by-key/<key>. Use is discouraged,
because the metadata key string could conflict with other
sub-properties.
The layout of this property might be subject to change.
Suggestions are welcome how exactly this property should work.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
(key and string value for each metadata entry)
filtered-metadata
Like metadata, but includes only fields listed in the
--display-tags option. This is the same set of tags that is
printed to the terminal.
chapter-metadata
Metadata of current chapter. Works similar to metadata property.
It also allows the same access methods (using sub-properties).
Per-chapter metadata is very rare. Usually, only the chapter
name (title) is set.
For accessing other information, like chapter start, see the
chapter-list property.
vf-metadata/<filter-label>
Metadata added by video filters. Accessed by the filter label,
which, if not explicitly specified using the @filter-label:
syntax, will be <filter-name>NN.
Works similar to metadata property. It allows the same access
methods (using sub-properties).
An example of this kind of metadata are the cropping parameters
added by --vf=lavfi=cropdetect.
af-metadata/<filter-label>
Equivalent to vf-metadata/<filter-label>, but for audio filters.
idle-active
Return yes if no file is loaded, but the player is staying
around because of the --idle option.
(Renamed from idle.)
core-idle
Return yes if the playback core is paused, otherwise no. This
can be different pause in special situations, such as when the
player pauses itself due to low network cache.
This also returns yes if playback is restarting or if nothing is
playing at all. In other words, it's only no if there's actually
video playing. (Behavior since mpv 0.7.0.)
cache Network cache fill state (0-100.0).
cache-size (RW)
Network cache size in KB. This is similar to --cache. This
allows setting the cache size at runtime. Currently, it's not
possible to enable or disable the cache at runtime using this
property, just to resize an existing cache.
This does not include the backbuffer size (changed after mpv
0.10.0).
Note that this tries to keep the cache contents as far as
possible. To make this easier, the cache resizing code will
allocate the new cache while the old cache is still allocated.
Don't use this when playing DVD or Blu-ray.
cache-free (R)
Total free cache size in KB.
cache-used (R)
Total used cache size in KB.
cache-speed (R)
Current I/O read speed between the cache and the lower layer
(like network). This gives the number bytes per seconds over a
1 second window (using the type MPV_FORMAT_INT64 for the client
API).
cache-idle (R)
Returns yes if the cache is idle, which means the cache is
filled as much as possible, and is currently not reading more
data.
demuxer-cache-duration
Approximate duration of video buffered in the demuxer, in
seconds. The guess is very unreliable, and often the property
will not be available at all, even if data is buffered.
demuxer-cache-time
Approximate time of video buffered in the demuxer, in seconds.
Same as demuxer-cache-duration but returns the last timestamp of
buffered data in demuxer.
demuxer-cache-idle
Returns yes if the demuxer is idle, which means the demuxer
cache is filled to the requested amount, and is currently not
reading more data.
paused-for-cache
Returns yes when playback is paused because of waiting for the
cache.
cache-buffering-state
Return the percentage (0-100) of the cache fill status until the
player will unpause (related to paused-for-cache).
eof-reached
Returns yes if end of playback was reached, no otherwise. Note
that this is usually interesting only if --keep-open is enabled,
since otherwise the player will immediately play the next file
(or exit or enter idle mode), and in these cases the eof-reached
property will logically be cleared immediately after it's set.
seeking
Returns yes if the player is currently seeking, or otherwise
trying to restart playback. (It's possible that it returns yes
while a file is loaded, or when switching ordered chapter
segments. This is because the same underlying code is used for
seeking and resyncing.)
mixer-active
Return yes if the audio mixer is active, no otherwise.
This option is relatively useless. Before mpv 0.18.1, it could
be used to infer behavior of the volume property.
ao-volume (RW)
System volume. This property is available only if mpv audio
output is currently active, and only if the underlying
implementation supports volume control. What this option does
depends on the API. For example, on ALSA this usually changes
system-wide audio, while with PulseAudio this controls
per-application volume.
ao-mute (RW)
Similar to ao-volume, but controls the mute state. May be
unimplemented even if ao-volume works.
audio-codec
Audio codec selected for decoding.
audio-codec-name
Audio codec.
audio-params
Audio format as output by the audio decoder. This has a number
of sub-properties:
audio-params/format
The sample format as string. This uses the same names as
used in other places of mpv.
audio-params/samplerate
Samplerate.
audio-params/channels
The channel layout as a string. This is similar to what
the --audio-channels accepts.
audio-params/hr-channels
As channels, but instead of the possibly cryptic actual
layout sent to the audio device, return a hopefully more
human readable form. (Usually only
audio-out-params/hr-channels makes sense.)
audio-params/channel-count
Number of audio channels. This is redundant to the
channels field described above.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
"format" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"samplerate" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"channels" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"channel-count" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"hr-channels" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
audio-out-params
Same as audio-params, but the format of the data written to the
audio API.
colormatrix (R)
Redirects to video-params/colormatrix. This parameter (as well
as similar ones) can be overridden with the format video filter.
colormatrix-input-range (R)
See colormatrix.
colormatrix-primaries (R)
See colormatrix.
hwdec (RW)
Reflects the --hwdec option.
Writing to it may change the currently used hardware decoder, if
possible. (Internally, the player may reinitialize the decoder,
and will perform a seek to refresh the video properly.) You can
watch the other hwdec properties to see whether this was
successful.
Unlike in mpv 0.9.x and before, this does not return the
currently active hardware decoder. Since mpv 0.18.0,
hwdec-current is available for this purpose.
hwdec-current
Return the current hardware decoding in use. If decoding is
active, return one of the values used by the hwdec
option/property. no indicates software decoding. If no decoder
is loaded, the property is unavailable.
hwdec-interop
This returns the currently loaded hardware decoding/output
interop driver. This is known only once the VO has opened (and
possibly later). With some VOs (like opengl), this might be
never known in advance, but only when the decoder attempted to
create the hw decoder successfully. (Using --hwdec-preload can
load it eagerly.) If there are multiple drivers loaded, they
will be separated by ,.
If no VO is active or no interop driver is known, this property
is unavailable.
This does not necessarily use the same values as hwdec. There
can be multiple interop drivers for the same hardware decoder,
depending on platform and VO.
video-format
Video format as string.
video-codec
Video codec selected for decoding.
width, height
Video size. This uses the size of the video as decoded, or if no
video frame has been decoded yet, the (possibly incorrect)
container indicated size.
video-params
Video parameters, as output by the decoder (with overrides like
aspect etc. applied). This has a number of sub-properties:
video-params/pixelformat
The pixel format as string. This uses the same names as
used in other places of mpv.
video-params/average-bpp
Average bits-per-pixel as integer. Subsampled planar
formats use a different resolution, which is the reason
this value can sometimes be odd or confusing. Can be
unavailable with some formats.
video-params/plane-depth
Bit depth for each color component as integer. This is
only exposed for planar or single-component formats, and
is unavailable for other formats.
video-params/w, video-params/h
Video size as integers, with no aspect correction
applied.
video-params/dw, video-params/dh
Video size as integers, scaled for correct aspect ratio.
video-params/aspect
Display aspect ratio as float.
video-params/par
Pixel aspect ratio.
video-params/colormatrix
The colormatrix in use as string. (Exact values subject
to change.)
video-params/colorlevels
The colorlevels as string. (Exact values subject to
change.)
video-params/primaries
The primaries in use as string. (Exact values subject to
change.)
video-params/gamma
The gamma function in use as string. (Exact values
subject to change.)
video-params/nom-peak
The video encoding's nominal peak brightness as float.
video-params/sig-peak
The video file's tagged signal peak as float.
video-params/chroma-location
Chroma location as string. (Exact values subject to
change.)
video-params/rotate
Intended display rotation in degrees (clockwise).
video-params/stereo-in
Source file stereo 3D mode. (See --video-stereo-mode
option.)
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
"pixelformat" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"w" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"h" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"dw" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"dh" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"aspect" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"par" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"colormatrix" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"colorlevels" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"primaries" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"gamma" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"nom-peak" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"sig-peak" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"chroma-location" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"rotate" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"stereo-in" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
dwidth, dheight
Video display size. This is the video size after filters and
aspect scaling have been applied. The actual video window size
can still be different from this, e.g. if the user resized the
video window manually.
These have the same values as video-out-params/dw and
video-out-params/dh.
video-dec-params
Exactly like video-params, but no overrides applied.
video-out-params
Same as video-params, but after video filters have been applied.
If there are no video filters in use, this will contain the same
values as video-params. Note that this is still not necessarily
what the video window uses, since the user can change the window
size, and all real VOs do their own scaling independently from
the filter chain.
Has the same sub-properties as video-params.
video-frame-info
Approximate information of the current frame. Note that if any
of these are used on OSD, the information might be off by a few
frames due to OSD redrawing and frame display being somewhat
disconnected, and you might have to pause and force a redraw.
Sub-properties:
video-frame-info/picture-type video-frame-info/interlaced
video-frame-info/tff video-frame-info/repeat
container-fps
Container FPS. This can easily contain bogus values. For videos
that use modern container formats or video codecs, this will
often be incorrect.
(Renamed from fps.)
estimated-vf-fps
Estimated/measured FPS of the video filter chain output. (If no
filters are used, this corresponds to decoder output.) This uses
the average of the 10 past frame durations to calculate the FPS.
It will be inaccurate if frame-dropping is involved (such as
when framedrop is explicitly enabled, or after precise seeking).
Files with imprecise timestamps (such as Matroska) might lead to
unstable results.
window-scale (RW)
Window size multiplier. Setting this will resize the video
window to the values contained in dwidth and dheight multiplied
with the value set with this property. Setting 1 will resize to
original video size (or to be exact, the size the video filters
output). 2 will set the double size, 0.5 halves the size.
window-minimized
Return whether the video window is minimized or not.
display-names
Names of the displays that the mpv window covers. On X11, these
are the xrandr names (LVDS1, HDMI1, DP1, VGA1, etc.). On
Windows, these are the GDI names (\.DISPLAY1, \.DISPLAY2, etc.)
and the first display in the list will be the one that Windows
considers associated with the window (as determined by the
MonitorFromWindow API.)
display-fps (RW)
The refresh rate of the current display. Currently, this is the
lowest FPS of any display covered by the video, as retrieved by
the underlying system APIs (e.g. xrandr on X11). It is not the
measured FPS. It's not necessarily available on all platforms.
Note that any of the listed facts may change any time without a
warning.
estimated-display-fps
Only available if display-sync mode (as selected by
--video-sync) is active. Returns the actual rate at which
display refreshes seem to occur, measured by system time.
vsync-jitter
Estimated deviation factor of the vsync duration.
video-aspect (RW)
Video aspect, see --video-aspect.
If video is active, this reports the effective aspect value,
instead of the value of the --video-aspect option.
osd-width, osd-height
Last known OSD width (can be 0). This is needed if you want to
use the overlay-add command. It gives you the actual OSD size,
which can be different from the window size in some cases.
osd-par
Last known OSD display pixel aspect (can be 0).
program (W)
Switch TS program (write-only).
dvb-channel (W)
Pair of integers: card,channel of current DVB stream. Can be
switched to switch to another channel on the same card.
dvb-channel-name (RW)
Name of current DVB program. On write, a channel-switch to the
named channel on the same card is performed. Can also be used
for channel switching.
sub-text
Return the current subtitle text. Formatting is stripped. If a
subtitle is selected, but no text is currently visible, or the
subtitle is not text-based (i.e. DVD/BD subtitles), an empty
string is returned.
This property is experimental and might be removed in the
future.
stream-capture (RW)
A filename, see --stream-capture. Setting this will start
capture using the given filename. Setting it to an empty string
will stop it.
tv-brightness, tv-contrast, tv-saturation, tv-hue (RW)
TV stuff.
playlist-pos (RW)
Current position on playlist. The first entry is on position 0.
Writing to the property will restart playback at the written
entry.
playlist-pos-1 (RW)
Same as playlist-pos, but 1-based.
playlist-count
Number of total playlist entries.
playlist
Playlist, current entry marked. Currently, the raw property
value is useless.
This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based
playlist entry index.
playlist/count
Number of playlist entries (same as playlist-count).
playlist/N/filename
Filename of the Nth entry.
playlist/N/current, playlist/N/playing
yes if this entry is currently playing (or being loaded).
Unavailable or no otherwise. When changing files, current
and playing can be different, because the currently
playing file hasn't been unloaded yet; in this case,
current refers to the new selection. (Since mpv 0.7.0.)
playlist/N/title
Name of the Nth entry. Only available if the playlist
file contains such fields, and only if mpv's parser
supports it for the given playlist format.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each playlist entry)
"filename" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"current" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG (might be missing; since mpv 0.7.0)
"playing" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG (same)
"title" MPV_FORMAT_STRING (optional)
track-list
List of audio/video/sub tracks, current entry marked. Currently,
the raw property value is useless.
This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based
track index.
track-list/count
Total number of tracks.
track-list/N/id
The ID as it's used for -sid/--aid/--vid. This is unique
within tracks of the same type (sub/audio/video), but
otherwise not.
track-list/N/type
String describing the media type. One of audio, video,
sub.
track-list/N/src-id
Track ID as used in the source file. Not always
available.
track-list/N/title
Track title as it is stored in the file. Not always
available.
track-list/N/lang
Track language as identified by the file. Not always
available.
track-list/N/albumart
yes if this is a video track that consists of a single
picture, no or unavailable otherwise. This is used for
video tracks that are really attached pictures in audio
files.
track-list/N/default
yes if the track has the default flag set in the file, no
otherwise.
track-list/N/forced
yes if the track has the forced flag set in the file, no
otherwise.
track-list/N/codec
The codec name used by this track, for example h264.
Unavailable in some rare cases.
track-list/N/external
yes if the track is an external file, no otherwise. This
is set for separate subtitle files.
track-list/N/external-filename
The filename if the track is from an external file,
unavailable otherwise.
track-list/N/selected
yes if the track is currently decoded, no otherwise.
track-list/N/ff-index
The stream index as usually used by the FFmpeg utilities.
Note that this can be potentially wrong if a demuxer
other than libavformat (--demuxer=lavf) is used. For mkv
files, the index will usually match even if the default
(builtin) demuxer is used, but there is no hard
guarantee.
track-list/N/decoder-desc
If this track is being decoded, the human-readable
decoder name,
track-list/N/demux-w, track-list/N/demux-h
Video size hint as indicated by the container. (Not
always accurate.)
track-list/N/demux-channel-count
Number of audio channels as indicated by the container.
(Not always accurate - in particular, the track could be
decoded as a different number of channels.)
track-list/N/demux-channels
Channel layout as indicated by the container. (Not always
accurate.)
track-list/N/demux-samplerate
Audio sample rate as indicated by the container. (Not
always accurate.)
track-list/N/demux-fps
Video FPS as indicated by the container. (Not always
accurate.)
track-list/N/audio-channels (deprecated)
Deprecated alias for track-list/N/demux-channel-count.
track-list/N/replaygain-track-peak,
track-list/N/replaygain-track-gain
Per-track replaygain values. Only available for audio
tracks with corresponding information stored in the
source file.
track-list/N/replaygain-album-peak,
track-list/N/replaygain-album-gain
Per-album replaygain values. If the file has per-track
but no per-album information, the per-album values will
be copied from the per-track values currently. It's
possible that future mpv versions will make these
properties unavailable instead in this case.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each track)
"id" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"type" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"src-id" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"title" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"lang" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"albumart" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"default" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"forced" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"selected" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"external" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"external-filename" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"codec" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"ff-index" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"decoder-desc" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"demux-w" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"demux-h" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"demux-channel-count" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"demux-channels" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"demux-samplerate" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"demux-fps" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"audio-channels" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"replaygain-track-peak" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"replaygain-track-gain" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"replaygain-album-peak" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"replaygain-album-gain" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
chapter-list
List of chapters, current entry marked. Currently, the raw
property value is useless.
This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based
chapter index.
chapter-list/count
Number of chapters.
chapter-list/N/title
Chapter title as stored in the file. Not always
available.
chapter-list/N/time
Chapter start time in seconds as float.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each chapter)
"title" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"time" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
af, vf (RW)
See --vf/--af and the vf/af command.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each filter entry)
"name" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"label" MPV_FORMAT_STRING [optional]
"params" MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP [optional]
"key" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"value" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
It's also possible to write the property using this format.
seekable
Return whether it's generally possible to seek in the current
file.
partially-seekable
Return yes if the current file is considered seekable, but only
because the cache is active. This means small relative seeks may
be fine, but larger seeks may fail anyway. Whether a seek will
succeed or not is generally not known in advance.
If this property returns true, seekable will also return true.
playback-abort
Return whether playback is stopped or is to be stopped. (Useful
in obscure situations like during on_load hook processing, when
the user can stop playback, but the script has to explicitly end
processing.)
cursor-autohide (RW)
See --cursor-autohide. Setting this to a new value will always
update the cursor, and reset the internal timer.
osd-sym-cc
Inserts the current OSD symbol as opaque OSD control code (cc).
This makes sense only with the show-text command or options
which set OSD messages. The control code is implementation
specific and is useless for anything else.
osd-ass-cc
${osd-ass-cc/0} disables escaping ASS sequences of text in OSD,
${osd-ass-cc/1} enables it again. By default, ASS sequences are
escaped to avoid accidental formatting, and this property can
disable this behavior. Note that the properties return an opaque
OSD control code, which only makes sense for the show-text
command or options which set OSD messages.
Example
· --osd-status-msg='This is ${osd-ass-cc/0}{\ 1}bold text'
· show-text "This is ${osd-ass-cc/0}{ 1}bold text"
Any ASS override tags as understood by libass can be used.
Note that you need to escape the \ character, because the string
is processed for C escape sequences before passing it to the OSD
code.
A list of tags can be found here:
http://docs.aegisub.org/latest/ASS_Tags/
vo-configured
Return whether the VO is configured right now. Usually this
corresponds to whether the video window is visible. If the
--force-window option is used, this is usually always returns
yes.
vo-performance
Some video output performance metrics. Not implemented by all
VOs. This has a number of sup-properties, of the form
vo-performance/<metric>-<value>, all of them in milliseconds.
<metric> refers to one of:
upload Time needed to make the frame available to the GPU (if
necessary).
render Time needed to perform all necessary video postprocessing
and rendering passes (if necessary).
present
Time needed to present a rendered frame on-screen.
When a step is unnecessary or skipped, it will have the value 0.
<value> refers to one of:
last Last measured value.
avg Average over a fixed number of past samples. (The exact
timeframe varies, but it should generally be a handful of
seconds)
peak The peak (highest value) within this averaging range.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
"<metric>-<value>" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
(One entry for each <metric> and <value> combination)
video-bitrate, audio-bitrate, sub-bitrate
Bitrate values calculated on the packet level. This works by
dividing the bit size of all packets between two keyframes by
their presentation timestamp distance. (This uses the timestamps
are stored in the file, so e.g. playback speed does not
influence the returned values.) In particular, the video bitrate
will update only per keyframe, and show the "past" bitrate. To
make the property more UI friendly, updates to these properties
are throttled in a certain way.
The unit is bits per second. OSD formatting turns these values
in kilobits (or megabits, if appropriate), which can be
prevented by using the raw property value, e.g. with
${=video-bitrate}.
Note that the accuracy of these properties is influenced by a
few factors. If the underlying demuxer rewrites the packets on
demuxing (done for some file formats), the bitrate might be
slightly off. If timestamps are bad or jittery (like in
Matroska), even constant bitrate streams might show fluctuating
bitrate.
How exactly these values are calculated might change in the
future.
In earlier versions of mpv, these properties returned a static
(but bad) guess using a completely different method.
packet-video-bitrate, packet-audio-bitrate, packet-sub-bitrate
Old and deprecated properties for video-bitrate, audio-bitrate,
sub-bitrate. They behave exactly the same, but return a value in
kilobits. Also, they don't have any OSD formatting, though the
same can be achieved with e.g. ${=video-bitrate}.
These properties shouldn't be used anymore.
audio-device-list
Return the list of discovered audio devices. This is mostly for
use with the client API, and reflects what --audio-device=help
with the command line player returns.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each device entry)
"name" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"description" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
The name is what is to be passed to the --audio-device option
(and often a rather cryptic audio API-specific ID), while
description is human readable free form text. The description is
set to the device name (minus mpv-specific <driver>/ prefix) if
no description is available or the description would have been
an empty string.
The special entry with the name set to auto selects the default
audio output driver and the default device.
The property can be watched with the property observation
mechanism in the client API and in Lua scripts. (Technically,
change notification is enabled the first time this property is
read.)
audio-device (RW)
Set the audio device. This directly reads/writes the
--audio-device option, but on write accesses, the audio output
will be scheduled for reloading.
Writing this property while no audio output is active will not
automatically enable audio. (This is also true in the case when
audio was disabled due to reinitialization failure after a
previous write access to audio-device.)
This property also doesn't tell you which audio device is
actually in use.
How these details are handled may change in the future.
current-vo
Current video output driver (name as used with --vo).
current-ao
Current audio output driver (name as used with --ao).
audio-out-detected-device
Return the audio device selected by the AO driver (only
implemented for some drivers: currently only coreaudio).
working-directory
Return the working directory of the mpv process. Can be useful
for JSON IPC users, because the command line player usually
works with relative paths.
protocol-list
List of protocol prefixes potentially recognized by the player.
They are returned without trailing :// suffix (which is still
always required). In some cases, the protocol will not actually
be supported (consider https if ffmpeg is not compiled with TLS
support).
decoder-list
List of decoders supported. This lists decoders which can be
passed to --vd and --ad.
family Decoder driver. Usually lavc for libavcodec.
codec Canonical codec name, which identifies the format the
decoder can handle.
driver The name of the decoder itself. Often, this is the same
as codec. Sometimes it can be different. It is used to
distinguish multiple decoders for the same codec.
description
Human readable description of the decoder and codec.
When querying the property with the client API using
MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will
return a mpv_node with the following contents:
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each decoder entry)
"family" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"codec" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"driver" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"description" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
encoder-list
List of libavcodec encoders. This has the same format as
decoder-list. The encoder names (driver entries) can be passed
to --ovc and --oac (without the lavc: prefix required by --vd
and --ad).
mpv-version
Return the mpv version/copyright string. Depending on how the
binary was built, it might contain either a release version, or
just a git hash.
mpv-configuration
Return the configuration arguments which were passed to the
build system (typically the way ./waf configure ... was
invoked).
ffmpeg-version
Return the contents of the av_version_info() API call. This is a
string which identifies the build in some way, either through a
release version number, or a git hash. This applies to Libav as
well (the property is still named the same.) This property is
unavailable if mpv is linked against older FFmpeg and Libav
versions.
options/<name> (RW)
Read-only access to value of option --<name>. Most options can
be changed at runtime by writing to this property. Note that
many options require reloading the file for changes to take
effect. If there is an equivalent property, prefer setting the
property instead.
There shouldn't be any reason to access options/<name> instead
of <name>, except in situations in which the properties have
different behavior or conflicting semantics.
file-local-options/<name>
Similar to options/<name>, but when setting an option through
this property, the option is reset to its old value once the
current file has stopped playing. Trying to write an option
while no file is playing (or is being loaded) results in an
error.
(Note that if an option is marked as file-local, even options/
will access the local value, and the old value, which will be
restored on end of playback, cannot be read or written until end
of playback.)
option-info/<name>
Additional per-option information.
This has a number of sub-properties. Replace <name> with the
name of a top-level option. No guarantee of stability is given
to any of these sub-properties - they may change radically in
the feature.
option-info/<name>/name
Returns the name of the option.
option-info/<name>/type
Return the name of the option type, like String or
Integer. For many complex types, this isn't very
accurate.
option-info/<name>/set-from-commandline
Return yes if the option was set from the mpv command
line, no otherwise. What this is set to if the option is
e.g. changed at runtime is left undefined (meaning it
could change in the future).
option-info/<name>/set-locally
Return yes if the option was set per-file. This is the
case with automatically loaded profiles, file-dir
configs, and other cases. It means the option value will
be restored to the value before playback start when
playback ends.
option-info/<name>/default-value
The default value of the option. May not always be
available.
option-info/<name>/min, option-info/<name>/max
Integer minimum and maximum values allowed for the
option. Only available if the options are numeric, and
the minimum/maximum has been set internally. It's also
possible that only one of these is set.
option-info/<name>/choices
If the option is a choice option, the possible choices.
Choices that are integers may or may not be included
(they can be implied by min and max). Note that options
which behave like choice options, but are not actual
choice options internally, may not have this info
available.
property-list
Return the list of top-level properties.
profile-list
Return the list of profiles and their contents. This is highly
implementation-specific, and may change any time. Currently, it
returns an array of options for each profile. Each option has a
name and a value, with the value currently always being a
string. Note that the options array is not a map, as order
matters and duplicate entries are possible. Recursive profiles
are not expanded, and show up as special profile options.
Inconsistencies between options and properties
You can access (almost) all options as properties, though there are
some caveats with some properties (due to historical reasons):
vid, aid, sid
While playback is active, you can set existing tracks only. (The
option allows setting any track ID, and which tracks to enable
is chosen at loading time.)
Option changes at runtime are affected by this as well.
deinterlace
While video is active, this behaves differently from the option.
It will never return the auto value (but the state as observed
by the video chain). If you set auto, the property will set this
as the option value, and will return the actual video chain
state as observed instead of auto.
video-aspect
While video is active, always returns the effective aspect
ratio. Setting a special value (like no, values <= 0) will make
the property set this as option, and return whatever actual
aspect was derived from the option setting.
brightness (and other color options)
If --vo=xv is used, these properties may return the adapter's
current values instead of the option values.
display-fps
If a VO is created, this will return either the actual display
FPS, or an invalid value, instead of the option value.
vf, af If you set the properties during playback, and the filter chain
fails to reinitialize, the new value will be rejected. Setting
the option or setting the property outside of playback will
always succeed/fail in the same way. Also, there are no vf-add
etc. properties, but you can use the vf/af group of commands to
achieve the same.
Option changes at runtime are affected by this as well.
edition
While a file is loaded, the property will always return the
effective edition, and setting the auto value will show somewhat
strange behavior (the property eventually switching to whatever
is the default edition).
playlist
The property is read-only and returns the current internal
playlist. The option is for loading playlist during command line
parsing. For client API uses, you should use the loadlist
command instead.
window-scale
Might verify the set value when setting while a window is
created.
audio-file, sub-file, external-file
These options/properties are actually lists of filenames. To
make the command-line interface easier, each --audio-file=...
option appends the full string to the internal list. However,
when used as properties, every time you set the property as a
string the internal list will be replaced with a single entry
containing the string you set. , or other separators are never
used. You have to use MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY (or corresponding
API, e.g. mp.set_property_native() with a table in Lua) to set
multiple entries.
Strictly speaking, option access via API (e.g.
mpv_set_option_string()) has the same problem, and it's only a
difference between CLI/API.
playlist-pos, chapter
These properties behave different from the deprecated options
with the same names.
Property Expansion
All string arguments to input commands as well as certain options (like
--term-playing-msg) are subject to property expansion. Note that
property expansion does not work in places where e.g. numeric
parameters are expected. (For example, the add command does not do
property expansion. The set command is an exception and not a general
rule.)
Example for input.conf
i show-text Filename: ${filename}
shows the filename of the current file when pressing the i
key
Within input.conf, property expansion can be inhibited by putting the
raw prefix in front of commands.
The following expansions are supported:
${NAME}
Expands to the value of the property NAME. If retrieving the
property fails, expand to an error string. (Use ${NAME:} with a
trailing : to expand to an empty string instead.) If NAME is
prefixed with =, expand to the raw value of the property (see
section below).
${NAME:STR}
Expands to the value of the property NAME, or STR if the
property cannot be retrieved. STR is expanded recursively.
${?NAME:STR}
Expands to STR (recursively) if the property NAME is available.
${!NAME:STR}
Expands to STR (recursively) if the property NAME cannot be
retrieved.
${?NAME==VALUE:STR}
Expands to STR (recursively) if the property NAME expands to a
string equal to VALUE. You can prefix NAME with = in order to
compare the raw value of a property (see section below). If the
property is unavailable, or other errors happen when retrieving
it, the value is never considered equal. Note that VALUE can't
contain any of the characters : or }. Also, it is possible that
escaping with " or % might be added in the future, should the
need arise.
${!NAME==VALUE:STR}
Same as with the ? variant, but STR is expanded if the value is
not equal. (Using the same semantics as with ?.)
$$ Expands to $.
$} Expands to }. (To produce this character inside recursive
expansion.)
$> Disable property expansion and special handling of $ for the
rest of the string.
In places where property expansion is allowed, C-style escapes are
often accepted as well. Example:
· \n becomes a newline character
· \\ expands to \
Raw and Formatted Properties
Normally, properties are formatted as human-readable text, meant to be
displayed on OSD or on the terminal. It is possible to retrieve an
unformatted (raw) value from a property by prefixing its name with =.
These raw values can be parsed by other programs and follow the same
conventions as the options associated with the properties.
Examples
· ${time-pos} expands to 00:14:23 (if playback position is at 14
minutes 23 seconds)
· ${=time-pos} expands to 863.4 (same time, plus 400 milliseconds -
milliseconds are normally not shown in the formatted case)
Sometimes, the difference in amount of information carried by raw and
formatted property values can be rather big. In some cases, raw values
have more information, like higher precision than seconds with
time-pos. Sometimes it is the other way around, e.g. aid shows track
title and language in the formatted case, but only the track number if
it is raw.
ON SCREEN CONTROLLER
The On Screen Controller (short: OSC) is a minimal GUI integrated with
mpv to offer basic mouse-controllability. It is intended to make
interaction easier for new users and to enable precise and direct
seeking.
The OSC is enabled by default if mpv was compiled with Lua support. It
can be disabled entirely using the --osc=no option.
Using the OSC
By default, the OSC will show up whenever the mouse is moved inside the
player window and will hide if the mouse is not moved outside the OSC
for 0.5 seconds or if the mouse leaves the window.
The Interface
+---------+----------+----------------------------+-------------+
| pl prev | pl next | title | cache |
+------+--+---+------+---------+-----------+------+-------+-----+
| play | skip | skip | time | seekbar | time | audio | sub |
| | back | frwd | elapsed | | left | | |
+------+------+------+---------+-----------+------+-------+-----+
pl prev
┌──────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│left-click │ play previous file in │
│ │ playlist │
├──────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│right-click │ show playlist │
├──────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│shift+L-click │ show playlist │
└──────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
pl next
┌──────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│left-click │ play next file in playlist │
├──────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│right-click │ show playlist │
├──────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│shift+L-click │ show playlist │
└──────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
title
Displays current media-title or filename
┌────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│left-click │ show playlist position and │
│ │ length and full title │
├────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│right-click │ show filename │
└────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
cache
Shows current cache fill status
play
┌───────────┬───────────────────┐
│left-click │ toggle play/pause │
└───────────┴───────────────────┘
skip back
┌──────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│left-click │ go to beginning of chapter │
│ │ / previous chapter │
├──────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│right-click │ show chapters │
├──────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│shift+L-click │ show chapters │
└──────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
skip frwd
┌──────────────┬────────────────────┐
│left-click │ go to next chapter │
├──────────────┼────────────────────┤
│right-click │ show chapters │
├──────────────┼────────────────────┤
│shift+L-click │ show chapters │
└──────────────┴────────────────────┘
time elapsed
Shows current playback position timestamp
┌───────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│left-click │ toggle displaying │
│ │ timecodes with │
│ │ milliseconds │
└───────────┴────────────────────────────┘
seekbar
Indicates current playback position and position of chapters
┌───────────┬──────────────────┐
│left-click │ seek to position │
└───────────┴──────────────────┘
time left
Shows remaining playback time timestamp
┌───────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│left-click │ toggle between total and │
│ │ remaining time │
└───────────┴────────────────────────────┘
audio and sub
Displays selected track and amount of available tracks
┌──────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│left-click │ cycle audio/sub tracks │
│ │ forward │
├──────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│right-click │ cycle audio/sub tracks │
│ │ backwards │
├──────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│shift+L-click │ show available audio/sub │
│ │ tracks │
└──────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
Key Bindings
These key bindings are active by default if nothing else is already
bound to these keys. In case of collision, the function needs to be
bound to a different key. See the Script Commands section.
┌────┬────────────────────────────┐
│del │ Cycles visibility between │
│ │ never / auto (mouse-move) │
│ │ / always │
└────┴────────────────────────────┘
Configuration
The OSC offers limited configuration through a config file
lua-settings/osc.conf placed in mpv's user dir and through the
--script-opts command-line option. Options provided through the
command-line will override those from the config file.
Config Syntax
The config file must exactly follow the following syntax:
# this is a comment
optionA=value1
optionB=value2
# can only be used at the beginning of a line and there may be no
spaces around the = or anywhere else.
Command-line Syntax
To avoid collisions with other scripts, all options need to be prefixed
with osc-.
Example:
--script-opts=osc-optionA=value1,osc-optionB=value2
Configurable Options
layout Default: bottombar
The layout for the OSC. Currently available are: box, slimbox,
bottombar and topbar. Default pre-0.21.0 was 'box'.
seekbarstyle
Default: bar
Sets the style of the seekbar, slider (diamond marker), knob
(circle marker with guide), or bar (fill). Default pre-0.21.0
was 'slider'.
deadzonesize
Default: 0.5
Size of the deadzone. The deadzone is an area that makes the
mouse act like leaving the window. Movement there won't make the
OSC show up and it will hide immediately if the mouse enters it.
The deadzone starts at the window border opposite to the OSC and
the size controls how much of the window it will span. Values
between 0.0 and 1.0, where 0 means the OSC will always popup
with mouse movement in the window, and 1 means the OSC will only
show up when the mouse hovers it. Default pre-0.21.0 was 0.
minmousemove
Default: 0
Minimum amount of pixels the mouse has to move between ticks to
make the OSC show up. Default pre-0.21.0 was 3.
showwindowed
Default: yes
Enable the OSC when windowed
showfullscreen
Default: yes
Enable the OSC when fullscreen
scalewindowed
Default: 1.0
Scale factor of the OSC when windowed.
scalefullscreen
Default: 1.0
Scale factor of the OSC when fullscreen
scaleforcedwindow
Default: 2.0
Scale factor of the OSC when rendered on a forced (dummy) window
vidscale
Default: yes
Scale the OSC with the video no tries to keep the OSC size
constant as much as the window size allows
valign Default: 0.8
Vertical alignment, -1 (top) to 1 (bottom)
halign Default: 0.0
Horizontal alignment, -1 (left) to 1 (right)
barmargin
Default: 0
Margin from bottom (bottombar) or top (topbar), in pixels
boxalpha
Default: 80
Alpha of the background box, 0 (opaque) to 255 (fully
transparent)
hidetimeout
Default: 500
Duration in ms until the OSC hides if no mouse movement, must
not be negative
fadeduration
Default: 200
Duration of fade out in ms, 0 = no fade
tooltipborder
Default: 1
Size of the tooltip outline when using bottombar or topbar
layouts
timetotal
Default: no
Show total time instead of time remaining
timems Default: no
Display timecodes with milliseconds
visibility
Default: auto (auto hide/show on mouse move)
Also supports never and always
Script Commands
The OSC script listens to certain script commands. These commands can
bound in input.conf, or sent by other scripts.
osc-message
Show a message on screen using the OSC. First argument is the
message, second the duration in seconds.
osc-visibility
Controls visibility mode never / auto (on mouse move) / always
and also cycle to cycle between the modes
Example
You could put this into input.conf to hide the OSC with the a key and
to set auto mode (the default) with b:
a script-message osc-visibility never
b script-message osc-visibility auto
osc-playlist, osc-chapterlist, osc-tracklist
Shows a limited view of the respective type of list using the
OSC. First argument is duration in seconds.
LUA SCRIPTING
mpv can load Lua scripts. Scripts passed to the --script option, or
found in the scripts subdirectory of the mpv configuration directory
(usually ~/.config/mpv/scripts/) will be loaded on program start. mpv
also appends the scripts subdirectory to the end of Lua's path so you
can import scripts from there too. Since it's added to the end, don't
name scripts you want to import the same as Lua libraries because they
will be overshadowed by them.
mpv provides the built-in module mp, which contains functions to send
commands to the mpv core and to retrieve information about playback
state, user settings, file information, and so on.
These scripts can be used to control mpv in a similar way to slave
mode. Technically, the Lua code uses the client API internally.
Example
A script which leaves fullscreen mode when the player is paused:
function on_pause_change(name, value)
if value == true then
mp.set_property("fullscreen", "no")
end
end
mp.observe_property("pause", "bool", on_pause_change)
Details on the script initialization and lifecycle
Your script will be loaded by the player at program start from the
scripts configuration subdirectory, or from a path specified with the
--script option. Some scripts are loaded internally (like --osc). Each
script runs in its own thread. Your script is first run "as is", and
once that is done, the event loop is entered. This event loop will
dispatch events received by mpv and call your own event handlers which
you have registered with mp.register_event, or timers added with
mp.add_timeout or similar.
When the player quits, all scripts will be asked to terminate. This
happens via a shutdown event, which by default will make the event loop
return. If your script got into an endless loop, mpv will probably
behave fine during playback, but it won't terminate when quitting,
because it's waiting on your script.
Internally, the C code will call the Lua function mp_event_loop after
loading a Lua script. This function is normally defined by the default
prelude loaded before your script (see player/lua/defaults.lua in the
mpv sources). The event loop will wait for events and dispatch events
registered with mp.register_event. It will also handle timers added
with mp.add_timeout and similar (by waiting with a timeout).
Since mpv 0.6.0, the player will wait until the script is fully loaded
before continuing normal operation. The player considers a script as
fully loaded as soon as it starts waiting for mpv events (or it exits).
In practice this means the player will more or less hang until the
script returns from the main chunk (and mp_event_loop is called), or
the script calls mp_event_loop or mp.dispatch_events directly. This is
done to make it possible for a script to fully setup event handlers
etc. before playback actually starts. In older mpv versions, this
happened asynchronously.
mp functions
The mp module is preloaded, although it can be loaded manually with
require 'mp'. It provides the core client API.
mp.command(string)
Run the given command. This is similar to the commands used in
input.conf. See List of Input Commands.
By default, this will show something on the OSD (depending on
the command), as if it was used in input.conf. See Input Command
Prefixes how to influence OSD usage per command.
Returns true on success, or nil, error on error.
mp.commandv(arg1, arg2, ...)
Similar to mp.command, but pass each command argument as
separate parameter. This has the advantage that you don't have
to care about quoting and escaping in some cases.
Example:
mp.command("loadfile " .. filename .. " append")
mp.commandv("loadfile", filename, "append")
These two commands are equivalent, except that the first version
breaks if the filename contains spaces or certain special
characters.
Note that properties are not expanded. You can use either
mp.command, the expand-properties prefix, or the mp.get_property
family of functions.
Unlike mp.command, this will not use OSD by default either
(except for some OSD-specific commands).
mp.command_native(table [,def])
Similar to mp.commandv, but pass the argument list as table.
This has the advantage that in at least some cases, arguments
can be passed as native types.
Returns a result table on success (usually empty), or def, error
on error. def is the second parameter provided to the function,
and is nil if it's missing.
mp.get_property(name [,def])
Return the value of the given property as string. These are the
same properties as used in input.conf. See Properties for a list
of properties. The returned string is formatted similar to
${=name} (see Property Expansion).
Returns the string on success, or def, error on error. def is
the second parameter provided to the function, and is nil if
it's missing.
mp.get_property_osd(name [,def])
Similar to mp.get_property, but return the property value
formatted for OSD. This is the same string as printed with
${name} when used in input.conf.
Returns the string on success, or def, error on error. def is
the second parameter provided to the function, and is an empty
string if it's missing. Unlike get_property(), assigning the
return value to a variable will always result in a string.
mp.get_property_bool(name [,def])
Similar to mp.get_property, but return the property value as
Boolean.
Returns a Boolean on success, or def, error on error.
mp.get_property_number(name [,def])
Similar to mp.get_property, but return the property value as
number.
Note that while Lua does not distinguish between integers and
floats, mpv internals do. This function simply request a double
float from mpv, and mpv will usually convert integer property
values to float.
Returns a number on success, or def, error on error.
mp.get_property_native(name [,def])
Similar to mp.get_property, but return the property value using
the best Lua type for the property. Most time, this will return
a string, Boolean, or number. Some properties (for example
chapter-list) are returned as tables.
Returns a value on success, or def, error on error. Note that
nil might be a possible, valid value too in some corner cases.
mp.set_property(name, value)
Set the given property to the given string value. See
mp.get_property and Properties for more information about
properties.
Returns true on success, or nil, error on error.
mp.set_property_bool(name, value)
Similar to mp.set_property, but set the given property to the
given Boolean value.
mp.set_property_number(name, value)
Similar to mp.set_property, but set the given property to the
given numeric value.
Note that while Lua does not distinguish between integers and
floats, mpv internals do. This function will test whether the
number can be represented as integer, and if so, it will pass an
integer value to mpv, otherwise a double float.
mp.set_property_native(name, value)
Similar to mp.set_property, but set the given property using its
native type.
Since there are several data types which cannot represented
natively in Lua, this might not always work as expected. For
example, while the Lua wrapper can do some guesswork to decide
whether a Lua table is an array or a map, this would fail with
empty tables. Also, there are not many properties for which it
makes sense to use this, instead of set_property,
set_property_bool, set_property_number. For these reasons, this
function should probably be avoided for now, except for
properties that use tables natively.
mp.get_time()
Return the current mpv internal time in seconds as a number.
This is basically the system time, with an arbitrary offset.
mp.add_key_binding(key, name|fn [,fn [,flags]])
Register callback to be run on a key binding. The binding will
be mapped to the given key, which is a string describing the
physical key. This uses the same key names as in input.conf, and
also allows combinations (e.g. ctrl+a). If the key is empty or
nil, no physical key is registered, but the user still can
create own bindings (see below).
After calling this function, key presses will cause the function
fn to be called (unless the user remapped the key with another
binding).
The name argument should be a short symbolic string. It allows
the user to remap the key binding via input.conf using the
script-message command, and the name of the key binding (see
below for an example). The name should be unique across other
bindings in the same script - if not, the previous binding with
the same name will be overwritten. You can omit the name, in
which case a random name is generated internally.
The last argument is used for optional flags. This is a table,
which can have the following entries:
repeatable
If set to true, enables key repeat for this specific
binding.
complex
If set to true, then fn is called on both key up and
down events (as well as key repeat, if enabled), with
the first argument being a table. This table has an
event entry, which is set to one of the strings down,
repeat, up or press (the latter if key up/down can't
be tracked). It further has an is_mouse entry, which
tells whether the event was caused by a mouse button.
Internally, key bindings are dispatched via the
script-message-to or script-binding input commands and
mp.register_script_message.
Trying to map multiple commands to a key will essentially prefer
a random binding, while the other bindings are not called. It is
guaranteed that user defined bindings in the central input.conf
are preferred over bindings added with this function (but see
mp.add_forced_key_binding).
Example:
function something_handler()
print("the key was pressed")
end
mp.add_key_binding("x", "something", something_handler)
This will print the message the key was pressed when x was
pressed.
The user can remap these key bindings. Then the user has to put
the following into his input.conf to remap the command to the y
key:
y script-binding something
This will print the message when the key y is pressed. (x will
still work, unless the user remaps it.)
You can also explicitly send a message to a named script only.
Assume the above script was using the filename fooscript.lua:
y script-binding fooscript/something
mp.add_forced_key_binding(...)
This works almost the same as mp.add_key_binding, but registers
the key binding in a way that will overwrite the user's custom
bindings in his input.conf. (mp.add_key_binding overwrites
default key bindings only, but not those by the user's
input.conf.)
mp.remove_key_binding(name)
Remove a key binding added with mp.add_key_binding or
mp.add_forced_key_binding. Use the same name as you used when
adding the bindings. It's not possible to remove bindings for
which you omitted the name.
mp.register_event(name, fn)
Call a specific function when an event happens. The event name
is a string, and the function fn is a Lua function value.
Some events have associated data. This is put into a Lua table
and passed as argument to fn. The Lua table by default contains
a name field, which is a string containing the event name. If
the event has an error associated, the error field is set to a
string describing the error, on success it's not set.
If multiple functions are registered for the same event, they
are run in registration order, which the first registered
function running before all the other ones.
Returns true if such an event exists, false otherwise.
See Events and List of events for details.
mp.unregister_event(fn)
Undo mp.register_event(..., fn). This removes all event handlers
that are equal to the fn parameter. This uses normal Lua ==
comparison, so be careful when dealing with closures.
mp.observe_property(name, type, fn)
Watch a property for changes. If the property name is changed,
then the function fn(name) will be called. type can be nil, or
be set to one of none, native, bool, string, or number. none is
the same as nil. For all other values, the new value of the
property will be passed as second argument to fn, using
mp.get_property_<type> to retrieve it. This means if type is for
example string, fn is roughly called as in fn(name,
mp.get_property_string(name)).
If possible, change events are coalesced. If a property is
changed a bunch of times in a row, only the last change triggers
the change function. (The exact behavior depends on timing and
other things.)
In some cases the function is not called even if the property
changes. Whether this can happen depends on the property.
If the type is none or nil, sporadic property change events are
possible. This means the change function fn can be called even
if the property doesn't actually change.
mp.unobserve_property(fn)
Undo mp.observe_property(..., fn). This removes all property
handlers that are equal to the fn parameter. This uses normal
Lua == comparison, so be careful when dealing with closures.
mp.add_timeout(seconds, fn)
Call the given function fn when the given number of seconds has
elapsed. Note that the number of seconds can be fractional. For
now, the timer's resolution may be as low as 50 ms, although
this will be improved in the future.
This is a one-shot timer: it will be removed when it's fired.
Returns a timer object. See mp.add_periodic_timer for details.
mp.add_periodic_timer(seconds, fn)
Call the given function periodically. This is like
mp.add_timeout, but the timer is re-added after the function fn
is run.
Returns a timer object. The timer object provides the following
methods:
stop() Disable the timer. Does nothing if the timer is
already disabled. This will remember the current
elapsed time when stopping, so that resume()
essentially unpauses the timer.
kill() Disable the timer. Resets the elapsed time.
resume() will restart the timer.
resume()
Restart the timer. If the timer was disabled with
stop(), this will resume at the time it was
stopped. If the timer was disabled with kill(), or
if it's a previously fired one-shot timer (added
with add_timeout()), this starts the timer from
the beginning, using the initially configured
timeout.
is_enabled()
Whether the timer is currently enabled or was
previously disabled (e.g. by stop() or kill()).
timeout (RW)
This field contains the current timeout period.
This value is not updated as time progresses. It's
only used to calculate when the timer should fire
next when the timer expires.
If you write this, you can call t:kill() ;
t:resume() to reset the current timeout to the new
one. (t:stop() won't use the new timeout.)
oneshot (RW)
Whether the timer is periodic (false) or fires
just once (true). This value is used when the
timer expires (but before the timer callback
function fn is run).
Note that these are method, and you have to call them using :
instead of . (Refer to
http://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/manual.html#3.4.9 .)
Example:
seconds = 0
timer = mp.add_periodic_timer(1, function()
print("called every second")
# stop it after 10 seconds
seconds = seconds + 1
if seconds >= 10 then
timer:kill()
end
end)
mp.get_opt(key)
Return a setting from the --script-opts option. It's up to the
user and the script how this mechanism is used. Currently, all
scripts can access this equally, so you should be careful about
collisions.
mp.get_script_name()
Return the name of the current script. The name is usually made
of the filename of the script, with directory and file extension
removed. If there are several scripts which would have the same
name, it's made unique by appending a number.
Example
The script /path/to/fooscript.lua becomes fooscript.
mp.osd_message(text [,duration])
Show an OSD message on the screen. duration is in seconds, and
is optional (uses --osd-duration by default).
Advanced mp functions
These also live in the mp module, but are documented separately as they
are useful only in special situations.
mp.suspend()
This function has been deprecated in mpv 0.21.0 and does nothing
starting with mpv 0.23.0 (no replacement).
mp.resume()
This function has been deprecated in mpv 0.21.0 and does nothing
starting with mpv 0.23.0 (no replacement).
mp.resume_all()
This function has been deprecated in mpv 0.21.0 and does nothing
starting with mpv 0.23.0 (no replacement).
mp.get_wakeup_pipe()
Calls mpv_get_wakeup_pipe() and returns the read end of the
wakeup pipe. (See client.h for details.)
mp.get_next_timeout()
Return the relative time in seconds when the next timer
(mp.add_timeout and similar) expires. If there is no timer,
return nil.
mp.dispatch_events([allow_wait])
This can be used to run custom event loops. If you want to have
direct control what the Lua script does (instead of being called
by the default event loop), you can set the global variable
mp_event_loop to your own function running the event loop. From
your event loop, you should call mp.dispatch_events() to dequeue
and dispatch mpv events.
If the allow_wait parameter is set to true, the function will
block until the next event is received or the next timer
expires. Otherwise (and this is the default behavior), it
returns as soon as the event loop is emptied. It's strongly
recommended to use mp.get_next_timeout() and
mp.get_wakeup_pipe() if you're interested in properly working
notification of new events and working timers.
mp.register_idle(fn)
Register an event loop idle handler. Idle handlers are called
before the script goes to sleep after handling all new events.
This can be used for example to delay processing of property
change events: if you're observing multiple properties at once,
you might not want to act on each property change, but only when
all change notifications have been received.
mp.enable_messages(level)
Set the minimum log level of which mpv message output to
receive. These messages are normally printed to the terminal. By
calling this function, you can set the minimum log level of
messages which should be received with the log-message event.
See the description of this event for details. The level is a
string, see msg.log for allowed log levels.
mp.register_script_message(name, fn)
This is a helper to dispatch script-message or script-message-to
invocations to Lua functions. fn is called if script-message or
script-message-to (with this script as destination) is run with
name as first parameter. The other parameters are passed to fn.
If a message with the given name is already registered, it's
overwritten.
Used by mp.add_key_binding, so be careful about name collisions.
mp.unregister_script_message(name)
Undo a previous registration with mp.register_script_message.
Does nothing if the name wasn't registered.
mp.msg functions
This module allows outputting messages to the terminal, and can be
loaded with require 'mp.msg'.
msg.log(level, ...)
The level parameter is the message priority. It's a string and
one of fatal, error, warn, info, v, debug. The user's settings
will determine which of these messages will be visible.
Normally, all messages are visible, except v and debug.
The parameters after that are all converted to strings. Spaces
are inserted to separate multiple parameters.
You don't need to add newlines.
msg.fatal(...), msg.error(...), msg.warn(...), msg.info(...),
msg.verbose(...), msg.debug(...)
All of these are shortcuts and equivalent to the corresponding
msg.log(level, ...) call.
mp.options functions
mpv comes with a built-in module to manage options from config-files
and the command-line. All you have to do is to supply a table with
default options to the read_options function. The function will
overwrite the default values with values found in the config-file and
the command-line (in that order).
options.read_options(table [, identifier])
A table with key-value pairs. The type of the default values is
important for converting the values read from the config file or
command-line back. Do not use nil as a default value!
The identifier is used to identify the config-file and the
command-line options. These needs to unique to avoid collisions
with other scripts. Defaults to mp.get_script_name().
Example implementation:
require 'mp.options'
local options = {
optionA = "defaultvalueA",
optionB = -0.5,
optionC = true,
}
read_options(options, "myscript")
print(options.optionA)
The config file will be stored in lua-settings/identifier.conf in mpv's
user folder. Comment lines can be started with # and stray spaces are
not removed. Boolean values will be represented with yes/no.
Example config:
# comment
optionA=Hello World
optionB=9999
optionC=no
Command-line options are read from the --script-opts parameter. To
avoid collisions, all keys have to be prefixed with identifier-.
Example command-line:
--script-opts=myscript-optionA=TEST,myscript-optionB=0,myscript-optionC=yes
mp.utils functions
This built-in module provides generic helper functions for Lua, and
have strictly speaking nothing to do with mpv or video/audio playback.
They are provided for convenience. Most compensate for Lua's scarce
standard library.
Be warned that any of these functions might disappear any time. They
are not strictly part of the guaranteed API.
utils.getcwd()
Returns the directory that mpv was launched from. On error, nil,
error is returned.
utils.readdir(path [, filter])
Enumerate all entries at the given path on the filesystem, and
return them as array. Each entry is a directory entry (without
the path). The list is unsorted (in whatever order the
operating system returns it).
If the filter argument is given, it must be one of the following
strings:
files List regular files only. This excludes directories,
special files (like UNIX device files or FIFOs), and
dead symlinks. It includes UNIX symlinks to regular
files.
dirs List directories only, or symlinks to directories. .
and .. are not included.
normal Include the results of both files and dirs. (This is
the default.)
all List all entries, even device files, dead symlinks,
FIFOs, and the . and .. entries.
On error, nil, error is returned.
utils.split_path(path)
Split a path into directory component and filename component,
and return them. The first return value is always the directory.
The second return value is the trailing part of the path, the
directory entry.
utils.join_path(p1, p2)
Return the concatenation of the 2 paths. Tries to be clever. For
example, if `p2 is an absolute path, p2 is returned without
change.
utils.subprocess(t)
Runs an external process and waits until it exits. Returns
process status and the captured output.
The parameter t is a table. The function reads the following
entries:
args Array of strings. The first array entry is the
executable. This can be either an absolute path, or a
filename with no path components, in which case the
PATH environment variable is used to resolve the
executable. The other array elements are passed as
command line arguments.
cancellable
Optional. If set to true (default), then if the user
stops playback or goes to the next file while the
process is running, the process will be killed.
max_size
Optional. The maximum size in bytes of the data that
can be captured from stdout. (Default: 16 MB.)
The function returns a table as result with the following
entries:
status The raw exit status of the process. It will be
negative on error.
stdout Captured output stream as string, limited to max_size.
error nil on success. The string killed if the process was
terminated in an unusual way. The string init if the
process could not be started.
On Windows, killed is only returned when the process
has been killed by mpv as a result of cancellable
being set to true.
killed_by_us
Set to true if the process has been killed by mpv as a
result of cancellable being set to true.
utils.subprocess_detached(t)
Runs an external process and detaches it from mpv's control.
The parameter t is a table. The function reads the following
entries:
args Array of strings of the same semantics as the args
used in the subprocess function.
The function returns nil.
utils.parse_json(str [, trail])
Parses the given string argument as JSON, and returns it as a
Lua table. On error, returns nil, error. (Currently, error is
just a string reading error, because there is no fine-grained
error reporting of any kind.)
The returned value uses similar conventions as
mp.get_property_native() to distinguish empty objects and
arrays.
If the trail parameter is true (or any value equal to true),
then trailing non-whitespace text is tolerated by the function,
and the trailing text is returned as 3rd return value. (The 3rd
return value is always there, but with trail set, no error is
raised.)
utils.format_json(v)
Format the given Lua table (or value) as a JSON string and
return it. On error, returns nil, error. (Errors usually only
happen on value types incompatible with JSON.)
The argument value uses similar conventions as
mp.set_property_native() to distinguish empty objects and
arrays.
utils.to_string(v)
Turn the given value into a string. Formats tables and their
contents. This doesn't do anything special; it is only needed
because Lua is terrible.
Events
Events are notifications from player core to scripts. You can register
an event handler with mp.register_event.
Note that all scripts (and other parts of the player) receive events
equally, and there's no such thing as blocking other scripts from
receiving events.
Example:
function my_fn(event)
print("start of playback!")
end
mp.register_event("file-loaded", my_fn)
List of events
start-file
Happens right before a new file is loaded. When you receive
this, the player is loading the file (or possibly already done
with it).
end-file
Happens after a file was unloaded. Typically, the player will
load the next file right away, or quit if this was the last
file.
The event has the reason field, which takes one of these values:
eof The file has ended. This can (but doesn't have to)
include incomplete files or broken network connections
under circumstances.
stop Playback was ended by a command.
quit Playback was ended by sending the quit command.
error An error happened. In this case, an error field is
present with the error string.
redirect
Happens with playlists and similar. Details see
MPV_END_FILE_REASON_REDIRECT in the C API.
unknown
Unknown. Normally doesn't happen, unless the Lua API is
out of sync with the C API. (Likewise, it could happen
that your script gets reason strings that did not exist
yet at the time your script was written.)
file-loaded
Happens after a file was loaded and begins playback.
seek Happens on seeking. (This might include cases when the player
seeks internally, even without user interaction. This includes
e.g. segment changes when playing ordered chapters Matroska
files.)
playback-restart
Start of playback after seek or after file was loaded.
idle Idle mode is entered. This happens when playback ended, and the
player was started with --idle or --force-window. This mode is
implicitly ended when the start-file or shutdown events happen.
tick Called after a video frame was displayed. This is a hack, and
you should avoid using it. Use timers instead and maybe watch
pausing/unpausing events to avoid wasting CPU when the player is
paused.
shutdown
Sent when the player quits, and the script should terminate.
Normally handled automatically. See Details on the script
initialization and lifecycle.
log-message
Receives messages enabled with mp.enable_messages. The message
data is contained in the table passed as first parameter to the
event handler. The table contains, in addition to the default
event fields, the following fields:
prefix The module prefix, identifies the sender of the message.
This is what the terminal player puts in front of the
message text when using the --v option, and is also what
is used for --msg-level.
level The log level as string. See msg.log for possible log
level names. Note that later versions of mpv might add
new levels or remove (undocumented) existing ones.
text The log message. The text will end with a newline
character. Sometimes it can contain multiple lines.
Keep in mind that these messages are meant to be hints for
humans. You should not parse them, and prefix/level/text of
messages might change any time.
get-property-reply
Undocumented (not useful for Lua scripts).
set-property-reply
Undocumented (not useful for Lua scripts).
command-reply
Undocumented (not useful for Lua scripts).
client-message
Undocumented (used internally).
video-reconfig
Happens on video output or filter reconfig.
audio-reconfig
Happens on audio output or filter reconfig.
The following events also happen, but are deprecated: tracks-changed,
track-switched, pause, unpause, metadata-update, chapter-change. Use
mp.observe_property() instead.
Extras
This documents experimental features, or features that are "too
special" to guarantee a stable interface.
mp.add_hook(type, priority, fn)
Add a hook callback for type (a string identifying a certain
kind of hook). These hooks allow the player to call script
functions and wait for their result (normally, the Lua scripting
interface is asynchronous from the point of view of the player
core). priority is an arbitrary integer that allows ordering
among hooks of the same kind. Using the value 50 is recommended
as neutral default value. fn is the function that will be called
during execution of the hook.
See Hooks for currently existing hooks and what they do - only
the hook list is interesting; handling hook execution is done by
the Lua script function automatically.
JSON IPC
mpv can be controlled by external programs using the JSON-based IPC
protocol. It can be enabled by specifying the path to a unix socket or
a named pipe using the option --input-ipc-server. Clients can connect
to this socket and send commands to the player or receive events from
it.
WARNING:
This is not intended to be a secure network protocol. It is
explicitly insecure: there is no authentication, no encryption, and
the commands themselves are insecure too. For example, the run
command is exposed, which can run arbitrary system commands. The
use-case is controlling the player locally. This is not different
from the MPlayer slave protocol.
Socat example
You can use the socat tool to send commands (and receive replies) from
the shell. Assuming mpv was started with:
mpv file.mkv --input-ipc-server=/tmp/mpvsocket
Then you can control it using socat:
> echo '{ "command": ["get_property", "playback-time"] }' | socat - /tmp/mpvsocket
{"data":190.482000,"error":"success"}
In this case, socat copies data between stdin/stdout and the mpv socket
connection.
See the --idle option how to make mpv start without exiting immediately
or playing a file.
It's also possible to send input.conf style text-only commands:
> echo 'show-text ${playback-time}' | socat - /tmp/mpvsocket
But you won't get a reply over the socket. (This particular command
shows the playback time on the player's OSD.)
Command Prompt example
Unfortunately, it's not as easy to test the IPC protocol on Windows,
since Windows ports of socat (in Cygwin and MSYS2) don't understand
named pipes. In the absence of a simple tool to send and receive from
bidirectional pipes, the echo command can be used to send commands, but
not receive replies from the command prompt.
Assuming mpv was started with:
mpv file.mkv --input-ipc-server=\\.\pipe\mpvsocket
You can send commands from a command prompt:
echo show-text ${playback-time} >\\.\pipe\mpvsocket
To be able to simultaneously read and write from the IPC pipe, like on
Linux, it's necessary to write an external program that uses overlapped
file I/O (or some wrapper like .NET's NamedPipeClientStream.)
Protocol
Clients can execute commands on the player by sending JSON messages of
the following form:
{ "command": ["command_name", "param1", "param2", ...] }
where command_name is the name of the command to be executed, followed
by a list of parameters. Parameters must be formatted as native JSON
values (integers, strings, booleans, ...). Every message must be
terminated with \n. Additionally, \n must not appear anywhere inside
the message. In practice this means that messages should be minified
before being sent to mpv.
mpv will then send back a reply indicating whether the command was run
correctly, and an additional field holding the command-specific return
data (it can also be null).
{ "error": "success", "data": null }
mpv will also send events to clients with JSON messages of the
following form:
{ "event": "event_name" }
where event_name is the name of the event. Additional event-specific
fields can also be present. See List of events for a list of all
supported events.
Because events can occur at any time, it may be difficult at times to
determine which response goes with which command. Commands may
optionally include a request_id which, if provided in the command
request, will be copied verbatim into the response. mpv does not
intrepret the request_id in any way; it is solely for the use of the
requester.
For example, this request:
{ "command": ["get_property", "time-pos"], "request_id": 100 }
Would generate this response:
{ "error": "success", "data": 1.468135, "request_id": 100 }
All commands, replies, and events are separated from each other with a
line break character (\n).
If the first character (after skipping whitespace) is not {, the
command will be interpreted as non-JSON text command, as they are used
in input.conf (or mpv_command_string() in the client API).
Additionally, lines starting with # and empty lines are ignored.
Currently, embedded 0 bytes terminate the current line, but you should
not rely on this.
Commands
In addition to the commands described in List of Input Commands, a few
extra commands can also be used as part of the protocol:
client_name
Return the name of the client as string. This is the string
ipc-N with N being an integer number.
get_time_us
Return the current mpv internal time in microseconds as a
number. This is basically the system time, with an arbitrary
offset.
get_property
Return the value of the given property. The value will be sent
in the data field of the replay message.
Example:
{ "command": ["get_property", "volume"] }
{ "data": 50.0, "error": "success" }
get_property_string
Like get_property, but the resulting data will always be a
string.
Example:
{ "command": ["get_property_string", "volume"] }
{ "data": "50.000000", "error": "success" }
set_property
Set the given property to the given value. See Properties for
more information about properties.
Example:
{ "command": ["set_property", "pause", true] }
{ "error": "success" }
set_property_string
Like set_property, but the argument value must be passed as
string.
Example:
{ "command": ["set_property_string", "pause", "yes"] }
{ "error": "success" }
observe_property
Watch a property for changes. If the given property is changed,
then an event of type property-change will be generated
Example:
{ "command": ["observe_property", 1, "volume"] }
{ "error": "success" }
{ "event": "property-change", "id": 1, "data": 52.0, "name": "volume" }
observe_property_string
Like observe_property, but the resulting data will always be a
string.
Example:
{ "command": ["observe_property_string", 1, "volume"] }
{ "error": "success" }
{ "event": "property-change", "id": 1, "data": "52.000000", "name": "volume" }
unobserve_property
Undo observe_property or observe_property_string. This requires
the numeric id passed to the observed command as argument.
Example:
{ "command": ["unobserve_property", 1] }
{ "error": "success" }
request_log_messages
Enable output of mpv log messages. They will be received as
events. The parameter to this command is the log-level (see
mpv_request_log_messages C API function).
Log message output is meant for humans only (mostly for
debugging). Attempting to retrieve information by parsing these
messages will just lead to breakages with future mpv releases.
Instead, make a feature request, and ask for a proper event that
returns the information you need.
enable_event, disable_event
Enables or disables the named event. Mirrors the
mpv_request_event C API function. If the string all is used
instead of an event name, all events are enabled or disabled.
By default, most events are enabled, and there is not much use
for this command.
get_version
Returns the client API version the C API of the remote mpv
instance provides.
See also: DOCS/client-api-changes.rst.
UTF-8
Normally, all strings are in UTF-8. Sometimes it can happen that
strings are in some broken encoding (often happens with file tags and
such, and filenames on many Unixes are not required to be in UTF-8
either). This means that mpv sometimes sends invalid JSON. If that is a
problem for the client application's parser, it should filter the raw
data for invalid UTF-8 sequences and perform the desired replacement,
before feeding the data to its JSON parser.
mpv will not attempt to construct invalid UTF-8 with broken escape
sequences.
CHANGELOG
There is no real changelog, but you can look at the following things:
· The release changelog, which should contain most user-visible
changes, including new features and bug fixes:
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/releases
· The git log, which is the "real" changelog
· The files client-api-changes.rst and interface-changes.rst in the
DOCS sub directoryon the git repository, which document API and user
interface changes (the latter usually documents breaking changes
only, rather than additions).
· The file mplayer-changes.rst in the DOCS sub directory on the git
repository, which used to be in place of this section. It documents
some changes that happened since mplayer2 forked off MPlayer. (Not
updated anymore.)
EMBEDDING INTO OTHER PROGRAMS (LIBMPV)
mpv can be embedded into other programs as video/audio playback backend. The recommended way to do so is using libmpv. See libmpv/client.h in the mpv source code repository. This provides a C API. Bindings for other languages might be available (see wiki). Since libmpv merely allows access to underlying mechanisms that can control mpv, further documentation is spread over a few places: · https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/libmpv/client.h · http://mpv.io/manual/master/#options · http://mpv.io/manual/master/#list-of-input-commands · http://mpv.io/manual/master/#properties · https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv-examples/tree/master/libmpv
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
There are a number of environment variables that can be used to control
the behavior of mpv.
HOME, XDG_CONFIG_HOME
Used to determine mpv config directory. If XDG_CONFIG_HOME is
not set, $HOME/.config/mpv is used.
$HOME/.mpv is always added to the list of config search paths
with a lower priority.
XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
If set, XDG-style system configuration directories are used.
Otherwise, the UNIX convention (PREFIX/etc/mpv/) is used.
MPV_HOME
Directory where mpv looks for user settings. Overrides HOME, and
mpv will try to load the config file as $MPV_HOME/mpv.conf.
MPV_VERBOSE (see also -v and --msg-level)
Set the initial verbosity level across all message modules
(default: 0). This is an integer, and the resulting verbosity
corresponds to the number of --v options passed to the command
line.
MPV_LEAK_REPORT
If set to 1, enable internal talloc leak reporting.
LADSPA_PATH
Specifies the search path for LADSPA plugins. If it is unset,
fully qualified path names must be used.
DISPLAY
Standard X11 display name to use.
FFmpeg/Libav:
This library accesses various environment variables. However,
they are not centrally documented, and documenting them is not
our job. Therefore, this list is incomplete.
Notable environment variables:
http_proxy
URL to proxy for http:// and https:// URLs.
no_proxy
List of domain patterns for which no proxy should be
used. List entries are separated by ,. Patterns can
include *.
libdvdcss:
DVDCSS_CACHE
Specify a directory in which to store title key values.
This will speed up descrambling of DVDs which are in the
cache. The DVDCSS_CACHE directory is created if it does
not exist, and a subdirectory is created named after the
DVD's title or manufacturing date. If DVDCSS_CACHE is not
set or is empty, libdvdcss will use the default value
which is ${HOME}/.dvdcss/ under Unix and the roaming
application data directory (%APPDATA%) under Windows. The
special value "off" disables caching.
DVDCSS_METHOD
Sets the authentication and decryption method that
libdvdcss will use to read scrambled discs. Can be one of
title, key or disc.
key is the default method. libdvdcss will use a set of
calculated player keys to try to get the disc key.
This can fail if the drive does not recognize any
of the player keys.
disc is a fallback method when key has failed. Instead
of using player keys, libdvdcss will crack the
disc key using a brute force algorithm. This
process is CPU intensive and requires 64 MB of
memory to store temporary data.
title is the fallback when all other methods have
failed. It does not rely on a key exchange with
the DVD drive, but rather uses a crypto attack to
guess the title key. On rare cases this may fail
because there is not enough encrypted data on the
disc to perform a statistical attack, but on the
other hand it is the only way to decrypt a DVD
stored on a hard disc, or a DVD with the wrong
region on an RPC2 drive.
DVDCSS_RAW_DEVICE
Specify the raw device to use. Exact usage will depend on
your operating system, the Linux utility to set up raw
devices is raw(8) for instance. Please note that on most
operating systems, using a raw device requires highly
aligned buffers: Linux requires a 2048 bytes alignment
(which is the size of a DVD sector).
DVDCSS_VERBOSE
Sets the libdvdcss verbosity level.
0 Outputs no messages at all.
1 Outputs error messages to stderr.
2 Outputs error messages and debug messages to
stderr.
DVDREAD_NOKEYS
Skip retrieving all keys on startup. Currently disabled.
HOME FIXME: Document this.
EXIT CODES
Normally mpv returns 0 as exit code after finishing playback
successfully. If errors happen, the following exit codes can be
returned:
1 Error initializing mpv. This is also returned if unknown
options are passed to mpv.
2 The file passed to mpv couldn't be played. This is somewhat
fuzzy: currently, playback of a file is considered to be
successful if initialization was mostly successful, even if
playback fails immediately after initialization.
3 There were some files that could be played, and some files
which couldn't (using the definition of success from above).
4 Quit due to a signal, Ctrl+c in a VO window (by default), or
from the default quit key bindings in encoding mode.
Note that quitting the player manually will always lead to exit code 0,
overriding the exit code that would be returned normally. Also, the
quit input command can take an exit code: in this case, that exit code
is returned.
FILES
For Windows-specifics, see FILES ON WINDOWS section.
/etc/mpv/mpv.conf
mpv system-wide settings (depends on --prefix passed to
configure - mpv in default configuration will use
/usr/local/etc/mpv/ as config directory, while most Linux
distributions will set it to /etc/mpv/).
~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf
mpv user settings (see CONFIGURATION FILES section)
~/.config/mpv/input.conf
key bindings (see INPUT.CONF section)
~/.config/mpv/scripts/
All files in this directory are loaded as if they were passed to
the --script option. They are loaded in alphabetical order, and
sub-directories and files with no .lua extension are ignored.
The --load-scripts=no option disables loading these files.
~/.config/mpv/watch_later/
Contains temporary config files needed for resuming playback of
files with the watch later feature. See for example the Q key
binding, or the quit-watch-later input command.
Each file is a small config file which is loaded if the
corresponding media file is loaded. It contains the playback
position and some (not necessarily all) settings that were
changed during playback. The filenames are hashed from the full
paths of the media files. It's in general not possible to
extract the media filename from this hash. However, you can set
the --write-filename-in-watch-later-config option, and the
player will add the media filename to the contents of the resume
config file.
~/.config/mpv/lua-settings/osc.conf
This is loaded by the OSC script. See the ON SCREEN CONTROLLER
docs for details.
Other files in this directory are specific to the corresponding
scripts as well, and the mpv core doesn't touch them.
Note that the environment variables $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and $MPV_HOME can
override the standard directory ~/.config/mpv/.
Also, the old config location at ~/.mpv/ is still read, and if the XDG
variant does not exist, will still be preferred.
FILES ON WINDOWS
On win32 (if compiled with MinGW, but not Cygwin), the default config
file locations are different. They are generally located under
%APPDATA%/mpv/. For example, the path to mpv.conf is
%APPDATA%/mpv/mpv.conf, which maps to a system and user-specific path,
for example
C:\users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\mpv\mpv.conf
You can find the exact path by running echo %APPDATA%\mpv\mpv.conf in
cmd.exe.
Other config files (such as input.conf) are in the same directory. See
the FILES section above.
The environment variable $MPV_HOME completely overrides these, like on
UNIX.
If a directory named portable_config next to the mpv.exe exists, all
config will be loaded from this directory only. Watch later config
files are written to this directory as well. (This exists on Windows
only and is redundant with $MPV_HOME. However, since Windows is very
scripting unfriendly, a wrapper script just setting $MPV_HOME, like you
could do it on other systems, won't work. portable_config is provided
for convenience to get around this restriction.)
Config files located in the same directory as mpv.exe are loaded with
lower priority. Some config files are loaded only once, which means
that e.g. of 2 input.conf files located in two config directories, only
the one from the directory with higher priority will be loaded.
A third config directory with the lowest priority is the directory
named mpv in the same directory as mpv.exe. This used to be the
directory with the highest priority, but is now discouraged to use and
might be removed in the future.
Note that mpv likes to mix / and \ path separators for simplicity.
kernel32.dll accepts this, but cmd.exe does not.
COPYRIGHT
GPLv2+
MPV(1)
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