Provided by: mpv_0.32.0-1ubuntu1_amd64 
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.
Ctrl+Shift+Left and Ctrl+Shift+Right
Adjust subtitle delay so that the next or previous subtitle is displayed now. This is especially
useful to sync subtitles to audio.
[ and ]
Decrease/increase current playback speed by 10%.
{ and }
Halve/double current playback speed.
BACKSPACE
Reset playback speed to normal.
Shift+BACKSPACE
Undo the last seek. This works only if the playlist entry was not changed. Hitting it a second
time will go back to the original position. See revert-seek command for details.
Shift+Ctrl+BACKSPACE
Mark the current position. This will then be used by Shift+BACKSPACE as revert position (once you
seek back, the marker will be reset). You can use this to seek around in the file and then return
to the exact position where you left off.
< 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 W
Decrease/increase pan-and-scan range. The e key does the same as W currently, but use is
discouraged.
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.
z and Z
Adjust subtitle delay by +/- 0.1 seconds. The x key does the same as Z currently, but use is
discouraged.
l Set/clear A-B loop points. See ab-loop command for details.
L Toggle infinite looping.
Ctrl + and Ctrl -
Adjust audio delay (A/V sync) 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-override for more info.
V Toggle subtitle VSFilter aspect compatibility mode. See --sub-ass-vsfilter-aspect-compat for more
info.
r and R
Move subtitles up/down. The t key does the same as R currently, but use is discouraged.
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).
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.
Ctrl h Toggle hardware video decoding on/off.
Alt+LEFT, Alt+RIGHT, Alt+UP, Alt+DOWN
Move the video rectangle (panning).
Alt + and Alt -
Combining Alt with the + or - keys changes video zoom.
Alt+BACKSPACE
Reset the pan/zoom settings.
F8 Show the playlist and the current position in it (useful only if a UI window is used, broken on
the terminal).
F9 Show the list of audio and subtitle streams (useful only if a UI window is used, broken on the
terminal).
i and I
Show/toggle an overlay displaying statistics about the currently playing file such as codec,
framerate, number of dropped frames and so on. See STATS for more information.
del Cycles visibility between never / auto (mouse-move) / always
` Show the console. (ESC closes it again. See CONSOLE.)
(The following keys are valid only when using a video output that supports the corresponding adjustment.)
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.
If you miss some older key bindings, look at etc/restore-old-bindings.conf in the mpv git repository.
Mouse Control
Left double click
Toggle fullscreen on/off.
Right click
Toggle pause on/off.
Forward/Back button
Skip to next/previous entry in playlist.
Wheel up/down
Seek forward/backward 10 seconds.
Wheel left/right
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.
Until mpv 0.31.0, there was no difference whether an option started with -- or a single -. Newer mpv
releases strictly expect that you pass the option value after a =. For example, before mpv --log-file
f.txt would write a log to f.txt, but now this command line fails, as --log-file expects an option value,
and f.txt is simply considered a normal file to be played (as in mpv f.txt).
The future plan is that -option value will not work anymore, and options with a single - behave the same
as -- options.
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.
List Options
Some options which store lists of option values can have action suffixes. For example, the --display-tags
option takes a ,-separated list of tags, but the option also allows you to append a single tag with
--display-tags-append, and the tag name can for example contain a literal , without the need for
escaping.
String list and path list options
String lists are separated by ,. The strings are not parsed or interpreted by the option system itself.
However, most
Path or file list options use : (Unix) or ; (Windows) as separator, instead of ,.
They support the following operations:
┌────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│Suffix │ Meaning │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-set │ Set a list of items (using the list │
│ │ separator, interprets escapes) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-append │ Append single item (does not │
│ │ interpret escapes) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-add │ Append 1 or more items (same syntax │
│ │ as -set) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-pre │ Prepend 1 or more items (same syntax │
│ │ as -set) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-clr │ Clear the option (remove all items) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-remove │ Delete item if present (does not │
│ │ interpret escapes) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-del │ Delete 1 or more items by integer │
│ │ index (deprecated) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-toggle │ Append an item, or remove if if it │
│ │ already exists (no escapes) │
└────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
-append is meant as a simple way to append a single item without having to escape the argument (you may
still need to escape on the shell level).
Key/value list options
A key/value list is a list of key/value string pairs. In programming languages, this type of data
structure is often called a map or a dictionary. The order normally does not matter, although in some
cases the order might matter.
They support the following operations:
┌────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│Suffix │ Meaning │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-set │ Set a list of items (using , as │
│ │ separator) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-append │ Append a single item (escapes for the │
│ │ key, no escapes for the value) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-add │ Append 1 or more items (same syntax │
│ │ as -set) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-remove │ Delete item by key if present (does │
│ │ not interpret escapes) │
└────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
Keys are unique within the list. If an already present key is set, the existing key is removed before the
new value is appended.
Filter options
This is a very complex option type for the --af and --vf options only. They often require complicated
escaping. See VIDEO FILTERS for details. They support the following operations:
┌────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│Suffix │ Meaning │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-set │ Set a list of filters (using , as │
│ │ separator) │
└────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
│-append │ Append single filter │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-add │ Append 1 or more filters (same syntax │
│ │ as -set) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-pre │ Prepend 1 or more filters (same │
│ │ syntax as -set) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-clr │ Clear the option (remove all filters) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-remove │ Delete filter if present │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-del │ Delete 1 or more filters by integer │
│ │ index or filter label (deprecated) │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-toggle │ Append a filter, or remove if if it │
│ │ already exists │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│-help │ Pseudo operation that prints a help │
│ │ text to the terminal │
└────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
General
Without suffix, the operation used is normally -set.
Although some operations allow specifying multiple items, using this is strongly discouraged and
deprecated, except for -set. There is a chance that operations like -add and -pre will work like -append
and accept a single, unescaped item only (so the , separator will not be interpreted and is passed on as
part of the value).
Some options (like --sub-file, --audio-file, --glsl-shader) are aliases for the proper option with
-append action. For example, --sub-file is an alias for --sub-files-append.
Options of this type can be changed at runtime using the change-list command, which takes the suffix
(without the -) as separate operation parameter.
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 GPU-accelerated video output by default.
vo=gpu
# 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.
You can list profiles with --profile=help, and show the contents of a profile with --show-profile=<name>
(replace <name> with the profile name). You can apply profiles on start with the --profile=<name> option,
or at runtime with the apply-profile <name> command.
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=yes
demuxer-max-bytes=123400KiB
demuxer-readahead-secs=20
[slow]
profile-desc="some profile name"
# reference a builtin profile
profile=gpu-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
[extension.mkv]
profile-desc="profile for .mkv 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.
USING MPV FROM OTHER PROGRAMS OR SCRIPTS
There are three choices for using mpv from other programs or scripts:
1. Calling it as UNIX process. If you do this, do not parse terminal output. The terminal output is
intended for humans, and may change any time. In addition, terminal behavior itself may change any
time. Compatibility cannot be guaranteed.
Your code should work even if you pass --no-terminal. Do not attempt to simulate user input by
sending terminal control codes to mpv's stdin. If you need interactive control, using
--input-ipc-server is recommended. This gives you access to the JSON IPC over unix domain sockets
(or named pipes on Windows).
Depending on what you do, passing --no-config or --config-dir may be a good idea to avoid conflicts
with the normal mpv user configuration intended for CLI playback.
Using --input-ipc-server is also suitable for purposes like remote control (however, the IPC
protocol itself is not "secure" and not intended to be so).
2. Using libmpv. This is generally recommended when mpv is used as playback backend for a completely
different application. The provided C API is very close to CLI mechanisms and the scripting API.
Note that even though libmpv has different defaults, it can be configured to work exactly like the
CLI player (except command line parsing is unavailable).
See EMBEDDING INTO OTHER PROGRAMS (LIBMPV).
3. As a user script (LUA SCRIPTING, JAVASCRIPT, C PLUGINS). This is recommended when the goal is to
"enhance" the CLI player. Scripts get access to the entire client API of mpv.
This is the standard way to create third-party extensions for the player.
All these access the client API, which is the sum of the various mechanisms provided by the player core,
as documented here: OPTIONS, List of Input Commands, Properties, List of events (also see C API), Hooks.
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 the estimated size of the
buffered amount in kilobytes. (demuxer-cache-duration and demuxer-cache-state properties.)
LOW LATENCY PLAYBACK
mpv is optimized for normal video playback, meaning it actually tries to buffer as much data as it seems
to make sense. This will increase latency. Reducing latency is possible only by specifically disabling
features which increase latency.
The builtin low-latency profile tries to apply some of the options which can reduce latency. You can use
--profile=low-latency to apply all of them. You can list the contents with --show-profile=low-latency
(some of the options are quite obscure, and may change every mpv release).
Be aware that some of the options can reduce playback quality.
Most latency is actually caused by inconvenient timing behavior. You can disable this with --untimed, but
it will likely break, unless the stream has no audio, and the input feeds data to the player at a
constant rate.
Another common problem is with MJPEG streams. These do not signal the correct framerate. Using --untimed
or --no-correct-pts --fps=60 might help.
For livestreams, data can build up due to pausing the stream, due to slightly lower playback rate, or
"buffering" pauses. If the demuxer cache is enabled, these can be skipped manually. The experimental
drop-buffers command can be used to discard any buffered data, though it's very disruptive.
In some cases, manually tuning TCP buffer sizes and such can help to reduce latency.
Additional options that can be tried:
• --opengl-glfinish=yes, can reduce buffering in the graphics driver
• --opengl-swapinterval=0, same
• --vo=xv, same
• without audio --framedrop=no --speed=1.01 may help for live sources (results can be mixed)
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.
data: is supported in FFmpeg (not in Libav), but needs to be in the format data://. This is done to
avoid ambiguity with filenames. You can also prefix it with lavf:// or ffmpeg://.
ytdl://...
By default, the youtube-dl hook script only looks at http(s) 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. Since libbluray 1.0.1, you can read from ISO files by passing them to
--bluray-device.
title can be: longest or first (selects the default playlist); mpls/<number> (selects <number>.mpls
playlist); <number> (select playlist with the same index). mpv will list the available playlists on
loading.
bluray:// is an alias.
dvd://[title][/device] --dvd-device=PATH
Play a DVD. DVD menus are not supported. If no title is given, the longest title is auto-selected.
Without --dvd-device, it will probably try to open an actual optical drive, if available and
implemented for the OS.
dvdnav:// is an old alias for dvd:// and does exactly the same thing.
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.
Example
mpv av://v4l2:/dev/video0 --profile=low-latency --untimed
This plays video from the first v4l input with nearly the lowest latency possible. It's a good
replacement for the removed tv:// input. Using --untimed is a hack to output a captured frame
immediately, instead of respecting the input framerate. (There may be better ways to handle this
in the future.)
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.
appending://PATH
Play a local file, but assume it's being appended to. This is useful for example for files that are
currently being downloaded to disk. This will block playback, and stop playback only if no new data
was appended after a timeout of about 2 seconds.
Using this is still a bit of a bad idea, because there is no way to detect if a file is actually being
appended, or if it's still written. If you're trying to play the output of some program, consider
using a pipe (something | mpv -). If it really has to be a file on disk, use tail to make it wait
forever, e.g. tail -f -c +0 file.mkv | mpv -.
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. mpv may modify some file descriptor properties when
the stream layer "opens" it.
fdclose://123
Like fd://, but the file descriptor is closed after use. When using this you need to ensure that the
same fd URL will only be used once.
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.
This is a string list option. See List Options for details.
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 with Japanese audio.
--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.
This is a string list option. See List Options for details.
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.
--vlang=<...>
Equivalent to --alang and --slang, for video tracks.
This is a string list option. See List Options for details.
--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.
--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.
--track-auto-selection=<yes|no>
Enable the default track auto-selection (default: yes). Enabling this will make the player select
streams according to --aid, --alang, and others. If it is disabled, no tracks are selected. In
addition, the player will not exit if no tracks are selected, and wait instead (this wait mode is
similar to pausing, but the pause option is not set).
This is useful with --lavfi-complex: you can start playback in this mode, and then set select
tracks at runtime by setting the filter graph. Note that if --lavfi-complex is set before
playback is started, the referenced tracks are always selected.
Playback Control
--start=<relative time>
Seek to given time position.
The general format for times is [+|-][[hh:]mm:]ss[.ms]. If the time is prefixed with -, the time
is considered relative from the end of the file (as signaled by the demuxer/the file). A + is
usually ignored (but see below).
The following alternative time specifications are recognized:
pp% seeks to percent position pp (0-100).
#c seeks to chapter number c. (Chapters start from 1.)
none resets any previously set option (useful for libmpv).
If --rebase-start-time=no is given, then prefixing times with + makes the time relative to the
start of the file. A timestamp without prefix is considered an absolute time, i.e. should seek to
a frame with a timestamp as the file contains it. As a bug, but also a hidden feature, putting 1
or more spaces before the + or - always interprets the time as absolute, which can be used to seek
to negative timestamps (useful for debugging at most).
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=<relative time>
Stop at given 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.
If both --end and --length are provided, playback will stop when it reaches either of the two
endpoints.
Obscurity note: this does not work correctly if --rebase-start-time=no, and the specified time is
not an "absolute" time, as defined in the --start option description.
--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.
--pause
Start the player in paused state.
--shuffle
Play files in random order.
--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.
In addition, if a playlist is loaded while this is set, the added playlist entries are not marked
as originating from network or potentially unsafe location. (Instead, the behavior is as if the
playlist entries were provided directly to mpv command line or loadfile command.)
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-playlist=<N|inf|force|no>, --loop-playlist
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-playlist is the same as --loop-playlist=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.
--loop-file=<N|inf|no>, --loop=<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-playlist 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.
--loop is an alias for this option.
--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 a is after b, the behavior is as if the points were given in the right order, and the player
will seek to b after crossing through a. This is different from old behavior, where looping was
disabled (and as a bug, looped back to a on the end of the file).
If either options are set to no (or unset), looping is disabled. This is different from old
behavior, where an unset a implied the start of the file, and an unset b the end of the file.
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.
This accepts a media file (like mkv) or even a pseudo-format like ffmetadata and uses its chapters
to replace the current file's chapters. This doesn't work with OGM or XML chapters directly.
--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 (default: no). 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.
--play-dir=<forward|+|backward|->
Control the playback direction (default: forward). Setting backward will attempt to play the file
in reverse direction, with decreasing playback time. If this is set on playback starts, playback
will start from the end of the file. If this is changed at during playback, a hr-seek will be
issued to change the direction.
+ and - are aliases for forward and backward.
The rest of this option description pertains to the backward mode.
NOTE:
Backward playback is extremely fragile. It may not always work, is much slower than forward
playback, and breaks certain other features. How well it works depends mainly on the file being
played. Generally, it will show good results (or results at all) only if the stars align.
mpv, as well as most media formats, were designed for forward playback only. Backward playback is
bolted on top of mpv, and tries to make a medium effort to make backward playback work. Depending
on your use-case, another tool may work much better.
Backward playback is not exactly a 1st class feature. Implementation tradeoffs were made, that are
bad for backward playback, but in turn do not cause disadvantages for normal playback. Various
possible optimizations are not implemented in order to keep the complexity down. Normally, a media
player is highly pipelined (future data is prepared in separate threads, so it is available in
realtime when the next stage needs it), but backward playback will essentially stall the pipeline
at various random points.
For example, for intra-only codecs are trivially backward playable, and tools built around them
may make efficient use of them (consider video editors or camera viewers). mpv won't be efficient
in this case, because it uses its generic backward playback algorithm, that on top of it is not
very optimized.
If you just want to quickly go backward through the video and just show "keyframes", just use
forward playback, and hold down the left cursor key (which on CLI with default config sends many
small relative seek commands).
The implementation consists of mostly 3 parts:
• Backward demuxing. This relies on the demuxer cache, so the demuxer cache should (or must,
didn't test it) be enabled, and its size will affect performance. If the cache is too small or
too large, quadratic runtime behavior may result.
• Backward decoding. The decoder library used (libavcodec) does not support this. It is emulated
by feeding bits of data in forward, putting the result in a queue, returning the queue data to
the VO in reverse, and then starting over at an earlier position. This can require buffering an
extreme amount of decoded data, and also completely breaks pipelining.
• Backward output. This is relatively simple, because the decoder returns the frames in the needed
order. However, this may cause various problems because filters see audio and video going
backward.
Known problems:
• It's fragile. If anything doesn't work, random non-useful behavior may occur. In simple cases,
the player will just play nonsense and artifacts. In other cases, it may get stuck or heat the
CPU. (Exceeding memory usage significantly beyond the user-set limits would be a bug, though.)
• Performance and resource usage isn't good. In part this is inherent to backward playback of
normal media formats, and in parts due to implementation choices and tradeoffs.
• This is extremely reliant on good demuxer behavior. Although backward demuxing requires no
special demuxer support, it is required that the demuxer performs seeks reliably, fulfills some
specific requirements about packet metadata, and has deterministic behavior.
• Starting playback exactly from the end may or may not work, depending on seeking behavior and
file duration detection.
• Some container formats, audio, and video codecs are not supported due to their behavior. There
is no list, and the player usually does not detect them. Certain live streams (including TV
captures) may exhibit problems in particular, as well as some lossy audio codecs. h264
intra-refresh is known not to work due to problems with libavcodec. WAV and some other raw audio
formats tend to have problems - there are hacks for dealing with them, which may or may not
work.
• Backward demuxing of subtitles is not supported. Subtitle display still works for some external
text subtitle formats. (These are fully read into memory, and only backward display is needed.)
Text subtitles that are cached in the subtitle renderer also have a chance to be displayed
correctly.
• Some features dealing with playback of broken or hard to deal with files will not work fully
(such as timestamp correction).
• If demuxer low level seeks (i.e. seeking the actual demuxer instead of just within the demuxer
cache) are performed by backward playback, the created seek ranges may not join, because not
enough overlap is achieved.
• Trying to use this with hardware video decoding will probably exhaust all your GPU memory and
then crash a thing or two. Or it will fail because --hwdec-extra-frames will certainly be set
too low.
• Stream recording is broken. --stream-record may keep working if you backward play within a
cached region only.
• Relative seeks may behave weird. Small seeks backward (towards smaller time, i.e. seek -1) may
not really seek properly, and audio will remain muted for a while. Using hr-seek is recommended,
which should have none of these problems.
• Some things are just weird. For example, while seek commands manipulate playback time in the
expected way (provided they work correctly), the framestep commands are transposed. Backstepping
will perform very expensive work to step forward by 1 frame.
Tuning:
• Remove all --vf/--af filters you have set. Disable hardware decoding. Disable idiotic nonsense
like SPDIF passthrough.
• Increasing --video-reversal-buffer might help if reversal queue overflow is reported, which may
happen in high bitrate video, or video with large GOP. Hardware decoding mostly ignores this,
and you need to increase --hwdec-extra-frames instead (until you get playback without logged
errors).
• The demuxer cache is essential for backward demuxing. Make sure to set --demuxer-seekable-cache
(or just use --cache). The cache size might matter. If it's too small, a queue overflow will be
logged, and backward playback cannot continue, or it performs too many low level seeks. If it's
too large, implementation tradeoffs may cause general performance issues. Use
--demuxer-max-bytes to potentially increase the amount of packets the demuxer layer can queue
for reverse demuxing (basically it's the --video-reversal-buffer equivalent for the demuxer
layer).
• --demuxer-backward-playback-step also factors into how many seeks may be performed, and whether
backward demuxing could break due to queue overflow. If it's set too high, the backstep
operation needs to search through more packets all the time, even if the cache is large enough.
• Setting --demuxer-cache-wait may be useful to cache the entire file into the demuxer cache. Set
--demuxer-max-bytes to a large size to make sure it can read the entire cache;
--demuxer-max-back-bytes should also be set to a large size to prevent that tries to trim the
cache.
• If audio artifacts are audible, even though the AO does not underrun, increasing
--audio-backward-overlap might help in some cases.
--video-reversal-buffer=<bytesize>, --audio-reversal-buffer=<bytesize>
For backward decoding. Backward decoding decodes forward in steps, and then reverses the decoder
output. These options control the approximate maximum amount of bytes that can be buffered. The
main use of this is to avoid unbounded resource usage; during normal backward playback, it's not
supposed to hit the limit, and if it does, it will drop frames and complain about it.
Use this option if you get reversal queue overflow errors during backward playback. Increase the
size until the warning disappears. Usually, the video buffer will overflow first, especially if
it's high resolution video.
This does not work correctly if video hardware decoding is used. The video frame size will not
include the referenced GPU and driver memory. Some hardware decoders may also be limited by
--hwdec-extra-frames.
How large the queue size needs to be depends entirely on the way the media was encoded. Audio
typically requires a very small buffer, while video can require excessively large buffers.
(Technically, this allows the last frame to exceed the limit. Also, this does not account for
other buffered frames, such as inside the decoder or the video output.)
This does not affect demuxer cache behavior at all.
See --list-options for defaults and value range. <bytesize> options accept suffixes such as KiB
and MiB.
--video-backward-overlap=<auto|number>, --audio-backward-overlap=<auto|number>
Number of overlapping keyframe ranges to use for backward decoding (default: auto) ("keyframe" to
be understood as in the mpv/ffmpeg specific meaning). Backward decoding works by forward decoding
in small steps. Some codecs cannot restart decoding from any packet (even if it's marked as seek
point), which becomes noticeable with backward decoding (in theory this is a problem with seeking
too, but --hr-seek-demuxer-offset can fix it for seeking). In particular, MDCT based audio codecs
are affected.
The solution is to feed a previous packet to the decoder each time, and then discard the output.
This option controls how many packets to feed. The auto choice is currently hardcoded to 0 for
video, and uses 1 for lossy audio, 0 for lossless audio. For some specific lossy audio codecs,
this is set to 2.
--video-backward-overlap can potentially handle intra-refresh video, depending on the exact
conditions. You may have to use the --vd-lavc-show-all option as well.
--video-backward-batch=<number>, --audio-backward-batch=<number>
Number of keyframe ranges to decode at once when backward decoding (default: 1 for video, 10 for
audio). Another pointless tuning parameter nobody should use. This should affect performance only.
In theory, setting a number higher than 1 for audio will reduce overhead due to less frequent
backstep operations and less redundant decoding work due to fewer decoded overlap frames (see
--audio-backward-overlap). On the other hand, it requires a larger reversal buffer, and could make
playback less smooth due to breaking pipelining (e.g. by decoding a lot, and then doing nothing
for a while).
It probably never makes sense to set --video-backward-batch. But in theory, it could help with
intra-only video codecs by reducing backstep operations.
--demuxer-backward-playback-step=<seconds>
Number of seconds the demuxer should seek back to get new packets during backward playback
(default: 60). This is useful for tuning backward playback, see --play-dir for details.
Setting this to a very low value or 0 may make the player think seeking is broken, or may make it
perform multiple seeks.
Setting this to a high value may lead to quadratic runtime behavior.
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 is at least -v -v, but can be raised via --msg-level (the option cannot lower it
below the forced minimum log level).
--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. (Default: no)
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>, --scripts=file1.lua:file2.lua:...
Load a Lua script. The second option allows you to load multiple scripts by separating them with
the path separator (: on Unix, ; on Windows).
--scripts is a path list option. See List Options for details.
--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.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
--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.
--resume-playback-check-mtime
Only restore the playback position from the watch_later configuration subdirectory (usually
~/.config/mpv/watch_later/) if the file's modification time is the same as at the time of saving.
This may prevent skipping forward in files with the same name which have different content.
(Default: no)
--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.
This is a string list option. See List Options for details.
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. (Default: disabled)
--show-profile=<profile>
Show the description and content of a profile. Lists all profiles if no parameter is provided.
--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.)
If the script can't do anything with an URL, it will do nothing.
The try_ytdl_first script option accepts a boolean 'yes' or 'no', and if 'yes' will try parsing
the URL with youtube-dl first, instead of the default where it's only after mpv failed to open it.
This mostly depends on whether most of your URLs need youtube-dl parsing.
The exclude script option accepts a |-separated list of URL patterns which mpv should not use with
youtube-dl. The patterns are matched after the http(s):// part of the URL.
^ matches the beginning of the URL, $ matches its end, and you should use % before any of the
characters ^$()%|,.[]*+-? to match that character.
Examples
• --script-opts=ytdl_hook-exclude='^youtube%.com' will exclude any URL that starts with
http://youtube.com or https://youtube.com.
• --script-opts=ytdl_hook-exclude='%.mkv$|%.mp4$' will exclude any URL that ends with .mkv or
.mp4.
See more lua patterns here: https://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html#5.4.1
The use_manifests script option makes mpv use the master manifest URL for formats like HLS and
DASH, if available, allowing for video/audio selection in runtime. It's disabled ("no") by default
for performance reasons.
--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).
A proxy URL can be passed for youtube-dl to use it in parsing the website. This is useful for
geo-restricted URLs. After youtube-dl parsing, some URLs also require a proxy for playback, so
this can pass that proxy information to mpv. Take note that SOCKS proxies aren't supported and
https URLs also bypass the proxy. This is a limitation in FFmpeg.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
Example
• --ytdl-raw-options=username=user,password=pass
• --ytdl-raw-options=force-ipv6=
• --ytdl-raw-options=proxy=[http://127.0.0.1:3128]
• --ytdl-raw-options-append=proxy=http://127.0.0.1:3128
--load-stats-overlay=<yes|no>
Enable the builtin script that shows useful playback information on a key binding (default: yes).
By default, the i key is used (I to make the overlay permanent).
--load-osd-console=<yes|no>
Enable the builtin script that shows a console on a key binding and lets you enter commands
(default: yes). By default,. The ´ key is used to show the console, and ESC to hide it again.
(This is based on a user script called repl.lua.)
--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 frame dropping. Not recommended, for testing only.
<vo> Drop late frames on video output (default). This still decodes and filters all frames, but
doesn't render them on the VO. Drops are indicated in the terminal status line as Dropped:
field.
In audio sync. mode, this drops frames that are outdated at the time of display. 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.
In display-sync. modes (see --video-sync), this affects only how A/V drops or repeats
frames. If this mode is disabled, A/V desync will in theory not affect video scheduling
anymore (much like the display-resample-desync mode). However, even if disabled, frames
will still be skipped (i.e. dropped) according to the ratio between video and display
frequencies.
This is the recommended mode, and the default.
<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.
This uses a heuristic which may not make sense, and in general cannot achieve good
results, because the decoder's frame dropping cannot be controlled in a predictable manner.
Not recommended.
Even if you want to use this, prefer decoder+vo for better results.
The --vd-lavc-framedrop option controls what frames to drop.
<decoder+vo>
Enable both modes. Not recommended. Better than just decoder mode.
NOTE:
--vo=vdpau has its own code for the vo framedrop mode. Slight differences to other VOs are
possible.
--video-latency-hacks=<yes|no>
Enable some things which tend to reduce video latency by 1 or 2 frames (default: no). Note that
this option might be removed without notice once the player's timing code does not inherently need
to do these things anymore.
This does:
• Use the demuxer reported FPS for frame dropping. This avoids that the player needs to decode 1
frame in advance, lowering total latency in effect. This also means that if the demuxer reported
FPS is wrong, or the video filter chain changes FPS (e.g. deinterlacing), then it could drop too
many or not enough frames.
• Disable waiting for the first video frame. Normally the player waits for the first video frame
to be fully rendered before starting playback properly. Some VOs will lazily initialize stuff
when rendering the first frame, so if this is not done, there is some likeliness that the VO has
to drop some frames if rendering the first frame takes longer than needed.
--override-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.
--display-fps=<fps>
Deprecated alias for --override-display-fps.
--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.
Hardware decoding is not enabled by default, because it is typically an additional source of
errors. It is worth using only if your CPU is too slow to decode a specific video.
NOTE:
Use the Ctrl+h shortcut to toggle hardware decoding at runtime. It toggles this option between
auto and no.
Always enabling HW decoding by putting it into the config file is discouraged. If you use the
Ubuntu package, delete /etc/mpv/mpv.conf, as the package tries to enable HW decoding by default
by setting hwdec=vaapi (which is less than ideal, and may even cause sub-optimal wrappers to be
used). Or at least change it to hwdec=auto-safe.
Use one of the auto modes if you want to enable hardware decoding. Explicitly selecting the mode
is mostly meant for testing and debugging. It's a bad idea to put explicit selection into the
config file if you want thing to just keep working after updates and so on.
NOTE:
Even if enabled, hardware decoding is still only white-listed for some codecs. See
--hwdec-codecs to enable hardware decoding in more cases.
Which method to choose?
• If you only want to enable hardware decoding at runtime, don't set the parameter, or put
hwdec=no into your mpv.conf (relevant on distros which force-enable it by default, such as on
Ubuntu). Use the Ctrl+h default binding to enable it at runtime.
• If you're not sure, but want hardware decoding always enabled by default, put hwdec=auto-safe
into your mpv.conf, and acknowledge that this use case is not "really" supported and may
cause problems.
• If you want to test available hardware decoding methods, pass --hwdec=auto --hwdec-codecs=all
and look at the terminal output.
• If you're a developer, or want to perform elaborate tests, you may need any of the other
possible option values.
<api> can be one of the following:
no always use software decoding (default)
auto forcibly enable any hw decoder found (see below)
yes exactly the same as auto
auto-safe
enable any whitelisted hw decoder (see below)
auto-copy
enable best hw decoder with copy-back (see below)
vdpau requires --vo=gpu with X11, or --vo=vdpau (Linux only)
vdpau-copy
copies video back into system RAM (Linux with some GPUs only)
vaapi requires --vo=gpu or --vo=vaapi (Linux only)
vaapi-copy
copies video back into system RAM (Linux with some GPUs only)
videotoolbox
requires --vo=gpu (OS X 10.8 and up), or --vo=libmpv (iOS 9.0 and up)
videotoolbox-copy
copies video back into system RAM (OS X 10.8 or iOS 9.0 and up)
dxva2 requires --vo=gpu with --gpu-context=d3d11, --gpu-context=angle or --gpu-context=dxinterop
(Windows only)
dxva2-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Windows only)
d3d11va
requires --vo=gpu with --gpu-context=d3d11 or --gpu-context=angle (Windows 8+ only)
d3d11va-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Windows 8+ only)
mediacodec
requires --vo=mediacodec_embed (Android only)
mediacodec-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Android only)
mmal requires --vo=gpu (Raspberry Pi only - default if available)
mmal-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Raspberry Pi only)
nvdec requires --vo=gpu (Any platform CUDA is available)
nvdec-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Any platform CUDA is available)
cuda requires --vo=gpu (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)
rkmpp requires --vo=gpu (some RockChip devices only)
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=gpu or --vo=vdpau, 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-safe is similar to auto, but allows only whitelisted methods that are considered "safe". This
is supposed to be a reasonable way to enable hardware decdoding by default in a config file (even
though you shouldn't do that anyway; prefer runtime enabling with Ctrl+h). Unlike auto, this will
not try to enable unknown or known-to-be-bad methods. In addition, this may disable hardware
decoding in other situations when it's known to cause problems, but currently this mechanism is
quite primitive. (As an example for something that still causes problems: certain combinations of
HEVC and Intel chips on Windows tend to cause mpv to crash, most likely due to driver bugs.)
auto-copy-safe selects the union of methods selected with auto-safe and auto-copy.
auto-copy selects only modes that copy the video data back to system memory after decoding. This
selects modes like vaapi-copy (and so on). If none of these work, hardware decoding is disabled.
This mode is usually guaranteed to incur no additional quality loss compared to software decoding
(assuming modern codecs and an error free video stream), and will allow CPU processing with video
filters. This mode works with all video filters and VOs.
Because these copy the decoded video back to system RAM, they're often less efficient than the
direct modes, and may not help too much over software decoding.
NOTE:
Most non-copy methods only work with the OpenGL GPU backend. Currently, only the vaapi, nvdec
and cuda methods work with Vulkan.
The vaapi mode, if used with --vo=gpu, requires Mesa 11, and most likely works with Intel and AMD
GPUs only. It also requires the opengl EGL backend.
nvdec and nvdec-copy are the newest, and recommended method to do hardware decoding on Nvidia
GPUs.
cuda and cuda-copy are an older implementation of hardware decoding on Nvidia GPUs that uses
Nvidia's bitstream parsers rather than FFmpeg's. This can lead to feature deficiencies, such as
incorrect playback of HDR content, and nvdec/nvdec-copy should always be preferred unless you
specifically need Nvidia's deinterlacing algorithms. To use this deinterlacing you must pass the
option: vd-lavc-o=deint=[weave|bob|adaptive]. Pass weave (or leave the option unset) to not
attempt any deinterlacing.
Quality reduction with hardware decoding
In theory, hardware decoding does not reduce video quality (at least for the codecs h264
and HEVC). However, due to restrictions in video output APIs, as well as bugs in the
actual hardware decoders, there can be some loss, or even 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 shaders used by --vo=gpu. This means certain
colorspaces may not display correctly, and certain filtering (such as debanding) cannot
be applied in an ideal way. This will also usually force the use of low quality chroma
scalers instead of the one specified by --cscale. In other cases, hardware decoding can
also reduce the bit depth of the decoded image, which can introduce banding or precision
loss for 10-bit files.
vdpau always does RGB conversion in hardware, which does not support newer colorspaces
like BT.2020 correctly. However, vdpau doesn't support 10 bit or HDR encodings, so these
limitations are unlikely to be relevant.
vaapi and d3d11va are safe. Enabling deinterlacing (or simply their respective
post-processing filters) will possibly at least reduce color quality by converting the
output to a 8 bit format.
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.
rpi always uses the hardware overlay renderer, even with --vo=gpu.
cuda should usually be safe, but depending on how a file/stream has been mixed, it has
been reported to corrupt the timestamps causing glitched, flashing frames. It can also
sometimes cause massive framedrops for unknown reasons. Caution is advised, and nvdec
should always be preferred.
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.) should
hopefully be safe, although they can still cause random decoding issues. At the very
least, they shouldn't affect the colors of the image.
In particular, auto-copy will only select "safe" modes (although potentially slower than
other methods), but there's still no guarantee the chosen hardware decoder will actually
work correctly.
In general, it's very strongly advised to avoid hardware decoding unless absolutely
necessary, i.e. if your CPU is insufficient to decode the file in questions. If you run
into any weird decoding issues, frame glitches or discoloration, and you have --hwdec
turned on, the first thing you should try is disabling it.
--gpu-hwdec-interop=<auto|all|no|name>
This option is for troubleshooting hwdec interop issues. Since it's a debugging option, its
semantics may change at any time.
This is useful for the gpu and libmpv VOs for selecting which hwdec interop context to use
exactly. Effectively it also can be used to block loading of certain backends.
If set to auto (default), the behavior depends on the VO: for gpu, it does nothing, and the
interop context is loaded on demand (when the decoder probes for --hwdec support). For libmpv,
which has has no on-demand loading, this is equivalent to all.
The empty string is equivalent to auto.
If set to all, it attempts to load all interop contexts at GL context creation time.
Other than that, a specific backend can be set, and the list of them can be queried with help (mpv
CLI only).
Runtime changes to this are ignored (the current option value is used whenever the renderer is
created).
The old aliases --opengl-hwdec-interop and --hwdec-preload are barely related to this anymore, but
will be somewhat compatible in some cases.
--hwdec-extra-frames=<N>
Number of GPU frames hardware decoding should preallocate (default: see --list-options output). If
this is too low, frame allocation may fail during decoding, and video frames might get dropped
and/or corrupted. Setting it too high simply wastes GPU memory and has no advantages.
This value is used only for hardware decoding APIs which require preallocating surfaces (known
examples include d3d11va and vaapi). For other APIs, frames are allocated as needed. The details
depend on the libavcodec implementations of the hardware decoders.
The required number of surfaces depends on dynamic runtime situations. The default is a fixed
value that is thought to be sufficient for most uses. But in certain situations, it may not be
enough.
--hwdec-image-format=<name>
Set the internal pixel format used by hardware decoding via --hwdec (default no). The special
value no selects an implementation specific standard format. Most decoder implementations support
only one format, and will fail to initialize if the format is not supported.
Some implementations might support multiple formats. In particular, videotoolbox is known to
require uyvy422 for good performance on some older hardware. d3d11va can always use yuv420p, which
uses an opaque format, with likely no advantages.
--cuda-decode-device=<auto|0..>
Choose the GPU device used for decoding when using the cuda or nvdec hwdecs with the OpenGL GPU
backend, and with the cuda-copy or nvdec-copy hwdecs in all cases.
For the OpenGL GPU backend, the default device used for decoding is the one being used to provide
gpu output (and in the vast majority of cases, only one GPU will be present).
For the copy hwdecs, the default device will be the first device enumerated by the CUDA libraries
- however that is done.
For the Vulkan GPU backend, decoding must always happen on the display device, and this option has
no effect.
--vaapi-device=<device file>
Choose the DRM device for vaapi-copy. This should be the path to a DRM device file. (Default:
/dev/dri/renderD128)
--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-override=<ratio|no>
Override video aspect ratio, in case aspect information is incorrect or missing in the file being
played.
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-override=4:3 or --video-aspect-override=1.3333
• --video-aspect-override=16:9 or --video-aspect-override=1.7777
• --no-video-aspect-override or --video-aspect-override=no
--video-aspect-method=<bitstream|container>
This sets the default video aspect determination method (if the aspect is _not_ overridden by the
user with --video-aspect-override or others).
container
Strictly prefer the container aspect ratio. This is apparently the default behavior with
VLC, at least with Matroska. Note that if the container has no aspect ratio set, the
behavior is the same as with bitstream.
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.
The current default for mpv is container.
Normally you should not set this. Try the various 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-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.
--video-margin-ratio-left=<val>, --video-margin-ratio-right=<val>, --video-margin-ratio-top=<val>,
--video-margin-ratio-bottom=<val>
Set extra video margins on each border (default: 0). Each value is a ratio of the window size,
using a range 0.0-1.0. For example, setting the option --video-margin-ratio-right=0.2 at a window
size of 1000 pixels will add a 200 pixels border on the right side of the window.
The video is "boxed" by these margins. The window size is not changed. In particular it does not
enlarge the window, and the margins will cause the video to be downscaled by default. This may or
may not change in the future.
The margins are applied after 90° video rotation, but before any other video transformations.
This option is disabled if the --no-keepaspect option is used.
Subtitles still may use the margins, depending on --sub-use-margins and similar options.
These options were created for the OSC. Some odd decisions, such as making the margin values a
ratio (instead of pixels), were made for the sake of the OSC. It's possible that these options may
be replaced by ones that are more generally useful. The behavior of these options may change to
fit OSC requirements better, too.
--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, seeking (including hr-seeks and backstepping), 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>
Enable or disable interlacing (default: 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).
Keep in mind that this will conflict with manually inserted deinterlacing filters, unless you take
care. (Since mpv 0.27.0, even the hardware deinterlace filters will conflict. Also since that
version, --deinterlace=auto was removed, which used to mean that the default interlacing option of
possibly inserted video filters was used.)
Note that this will make video look worse if it's not actually 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,hevc,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.
Setting this to a higher number might break the playback start fallback: if a fallback happens,
parts of the file will be skipped, approximately by to the number of packets that could not be
decoded. Values below an unspecified count will not have this problem, because mpv retains the
packets.
--vd-lavc-dr=<yes|no>
Enable direct rendering (default: yes). If this is set to yes, the video will be decoded directly
to GPU video memory (or staging buffers). This can speed up video upload, and may help with large
resolutions or slow hardware. This works only with the following VOs:
• gpu: requires at least OpenGL 4.4 or Vulkan.
(In particular, this can't be made work with opengl-cb, but the libmpv render API has optional
support.)
Using video filters of any kind that write to the image data (or output newly allocated frames)
will silently disable the DR code path.
--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.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
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.
--vd-lavc-assume-old-x264=<yes|no>
Assume the video was encoded by an old, buggy x264 version (default: no). Normally, this is
autodetected by libavcodec. But if the bitstream contains no x264 version info (or it was somehow
skipped), and the stream was in fact encoded by an old x264 version (build 150 or earlier), and if
the stream uses 4:4:4 chroma, then libavcodec will by default show corrupted video. This option
sets the libavcodec x264_build option to 150, which means that if the stream contains no version
info, or was not encoded by x264 at all, it assumes it was encoded by the old version. Enabling
this option is pretty safe if you want your broken files to work, but in theory this can break on
streams not encoded by x264, or if a stream encoded by a newer x264 version contains no version
info.
--swapchain-depth=<N>
Allow up to N in-flight frames. This essentially controls the frame latency. Increasing the
swapchain depth can improve pipelining and prevent missed vsyncs, but increases visible latency.
This option only mandates an upper limit, the implementation can use a lower latency than
requested internally. A setting of 1 means that the VO will wait for every frame to become visible
before starting to render the next frame. (Default: 3)
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. However, the --ao option will strictly force a specific AO. To avoid
confusion, don't use --ao and --audio-device together.
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, eac3, truehd. 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 you could use --ad to force the spdif wrapper. This does not work
anymore.
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=<decoder1,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.
- 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.
Examples
--ad=mp3float
Prefer the FFmpeg/Libav mp3float decoder over all other MP3 decoders.
--ad=help
List all available decoders.
Warning
Enabling compressed audio passthrough (AC3 and DTS via SPDIF/HDMI) with this option is
not possible. 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").
--replaygain=<no|track|album>
Adjust volume gain according to replaygain values stored in the file metadata. With
--replaygain=no (the default), perform no adjustment. With --replaygain=track, apply track gain.
With --replaygain=album, apply album gain if present and fall back to track gain otherwise.
--replaygain-preamp=<db>
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=<db>
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.
--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.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
--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. You may need to change the channel layout
of the system mixer to achieve your desired output as mpv does not have control over it. Another
work-around for this on some AOs is to use --audio-exclusive=yes to circumvent the system mixer
entirely.
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-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-files=<files>
Play audio from an external file while viewing a video.
This is a path list option. See List Options for details.
--audio-file=<file>
CLI/config file only alias for --audio-files-append. 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. The exact conditions under which
the audio device is kept open is an implementation detail, and can change from version to
version. Currently, the device is kept even if the sample format changes, but the sample
formats are convertible. If video is still going on when there is still audio, trying to
use gapless is also explicitly given up.
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.
no Don't automatically load external audio files (default).
exact Load the media filename with audio file extension.
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-file-paths option, but for auto-loaded audio files.
This is a path list option. See List Options for details.
--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.
--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-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-files=<file-list>, --sub-file=<filename>
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.)
--sub-files is a path list option (see List Options for details), and can take multiple file
names separated by : (Unix) or ; (Windows), while --sub-file takes a single filename, but can be
used multiple times to add multiple files. Technically, --sub-file is a CLI/config file only alias
for --sub-files-append.
--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-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=<yes|no>
Use fonts embedded in Matroska container files and ASS scripts (default: yes). 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.
This is a string list option. See List Options for details.
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-override=<yes|no|force|scale|strip>
Control whether user style overrides should be applied. Note that all of these overrides try to be
somewhat smart about figuring out whether or not a subtitle is considered a "sign".
no Render subtitles as specified by the subtitle scripts, without overrides.
yes Apply all the --sub-ass-* style override options. Changing the default for any of these
options can lead to incorrect subtitle rendering (default).
force Like yes, but also force all --sub-* options. Can break rendering easily.
scale Like yes, but also apply --sub-scale.
strip Radically strip all ASS tags and styles from the subtitle. This is equivalent to the old
--no-ass / --no-sub-ass options.
This also controls some bitmap subtitle overrides, as well as HTML tags in formats like SRT,
despite the name of the option.
--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-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 \blur 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-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.
--image-subs-video-resolution=<yes|no>
Override the image subtitle resolution with the video resolution (default: no). Normally, the
subtitle canvas is fit into the video canvas (e.g. letterboxed). Setting this option uses the
video size as subtitle canvas size. Can be useful to test broken subtitles, which often happen
when the video was trancoded, while attempting to keep the old subtitles.
--sub-ass, --no-sub-ass
Render ASS subtitles natively (enabled by default).
NOTE:
This has been deprecated by --sub-ass-override=strip. You also may need --embeddedfonts=no to
get the same behavior. Also, using --sub-ass-override=style 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-file-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. Support for the old syntax was fully removed in mpv 0.24.0.
--sub-fix-timing=<yes|no>
Adjust subtitle timing is 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:...>
Deprecated, use --sub-file-paths.
--sub-file-paths=<path-list>
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. If the file is a URL, only absolute paths and sub
configuration subdirectory will be scanned.
Example
Assuming that /path/to/video/video.avi is played and --sub-file-paths=sub:subtitles is
specified, mpv searches for subtitle files in these directories:
• /path/to/video/
• /path/to/video/sub/
• /path/to/video/subtitles/
• the sub configuration subdirectory (usually ~/.config/mpv/sub/)
This is a path list option. See List Options for details.
--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='Comic Sans MS'
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. You can use --sub-shadow-offset to change its
size relative to the text.
--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-justify=<auto|left|center|right>
Control how multi line subs are justified irrespective of where they are aligned (default: auto
which justifies as defined by --sub-align-y). Left justification is recommended to make the subs
easier to read as it is easier for the eyes.
--sub-ass-justify=<yes|no>
Applies justification as defined by --sub-justify on ASS subtitles if --sub-ass-override is not
set to no. Default: no.
--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.
--sub-filter-sdh=<yes|no>
Applies filter removing subtitle additions for the deaf or hard-of-hearing (SDH). This is
intended for English, but may in part work for other languages too. The intention is that it can
be always enabled so may not remove all parts added. It removes speaker labels (like MAN:), upper
case text in parentheses and any text in brackets.
Default: no.
--sub-filter-sdh-harder=<yes|no>
Do harder SDH filtering (if enabled by --sub-filter-sdh). Will also remove speaker labels and
text within parentheses using both lower and upper case letters.
Default: no.
--sub-create-cc-track=<yes|no>
For every video stream, create a closed captions track (default: no). The only purpose is to make
the track available for selection at the start of playback, instead of creating it lazily. This
applies only to ATSC A53 Part 4 Closed Captions (displayed by mpv as subtitle tracks using the
codec eia_608). The CC track is marked "default" and selected according to the normal subtitle
track selection rules. You can then use --sid to explicitly select the correct track too.
If the video stream contains no closed captions, or if no video is being decoded, the CC track
will remain empty and will not show any text.
--sub-font-provider=<auto|none|fontconfig>
Which libass font provider backend to use (default: auto). auto will attempt to use the native
font provider: fontconfig on Linux, CoreText on OSX, DirectWrite on Windows. fontconfig forces
fontconfig, if libass was built with support (if not, it behaves like none).
The none font provider effectively disables system fonts. It will still attempt to use embedded
fonts (unless --embeddedfonts=no is set; this is the same behavior as with all other font
providers), subfont.ttf if provided, and fonts in the fonts sub-directory if provided. (The
fallback is more strict than that of other font providers, and if a font name does not match, it
may prefer not to render any text that uses the missing font.)
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 current is used mpv will fallback on what
the user provided with the screen option.
Note (X11)
This option 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.
Normally, this will act like set pause yes on EOF, unless the --keep-open-pause=no option is set.
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.)
--keep-open-pause=<yes|no>
If set to no, instead of pausing when --keep-open is active, just stop at end of file and continue
playing forward when you seek backwards until end where it stops again. Default: yes.
--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.
Setting --image-display-duration hides the OSC and does not track playback time on the
command-line output, and also does not duplicate the image frame when encoding. To force the
player into "dumb mode" and actually count out seconds, or to duplicate the image when encoding,
you need to use --demuxer=lavf --demuxer-lavf-o=loop=1, and use --length or --frames to stop after
a particular time.
--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.
--snap-window
(Windows only) Snap the player window to screen edges.
--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.
--ontop-level=<window|system|level>
(OS X only) Sets the level of an ontop window (default: window).
window On top of all other windows.
system On top of system elements like Taskbar, Menubar and Dock.
level A level as integer.
--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.
--window-minimized=<yes|no>
Whether the video window is minimized or not. Setting this will minimize, or unminimze, the video
window if the current VO supports it. Note that some VOs may support minimization while not
supporting unminimization (eg: Wayland).
Whether this option and --window-maximized work on program start or at runtime, and whether
they're (at runtime) updated to reflect the actual window state, heavily depends on the VO and the
windowing system. Some VOs simply do not implement them or parts of them, while other VOs may be
restricted by the windowing systems (especially Wayland).
--window-maximized=<yes|no>
Whether the video window is maximized or not. Setting this will maximize, or unmaximize, the video
window if the current VO supports it. See --window-minimized for further remarks.
--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 gpu, vdpau, 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.
--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-override.
Examples
• --monitoraspect=4:3 or --monitoraspect=1.3333
• --monitoraspect=16:9 or --monitoraspect=1.7777
--hidpi-window-scale, --no-hidpi-window-scale
(OS X, X11, and Wayland 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.
--native-fs, --no-native-fs
(OS X only) Uses the native fullscreen mechanism of the OS (default: yes).
--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-override.
--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 (especially with Linux "desktops").
--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.
On Android, the ID is interpreted as android.view.Surface. Pass it as a value cast to intptr_t.
Use with --vo=mediacodec_embed and --hwdec=mediacodec for direct rendering using MediaCodec, or
with --vo=gpu --gpu-context=android (with or without --hwdec=mediacodec-copy).
--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-probe-info=<yes|no|auto|nostreams>
Whether to probe stream information (default: auto). Technically, this controls whether
libavformat's avformat_find_stream_info() function is called. Usually it's safer to call it, but
it can also make startup slower.
The auto choice (the default) tries to skip this for a few know-safe whitelisted formats, while
calling it for everything else.
The nostreams choice only calls it if and only if the file seems to contain no streams after
opening (helpful in cases when calling the function is needed to detect streams at all, such as
with FLV files).
--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-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.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
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-linearize-timestamps=<yes|no|auto>
Attempt to linearize timestamp resets in demuxed streams (default: auto). This was tested only
for single audio streams. It's unknown whether it works correctly for video (but likely won't).
Note that the implementation is slightly incorrect either way, and will introduce a discontinuity
by about 1 codec frame size.
The auto mode enables this for OGG audio stream. This covers the common and annoying case of OGG
web radio streams. Some of these will reset timestamps to 0 every time a new song begins. This
breaks the mpv seekable cache, which can't deal with timestamp resets. Note that
FFmpeg/libavformat's seeking API can't deal with this either; it's likely that if this option
breaks this even more, while if it's disabled, you can at least seek within the first song in the
stream. Well, you won't get anything useful either way if the seek is outside of mpv's cache.
--demuxer-lavf-propagate-opts=<yes|no>
Propagate FFmpeg-level options to recursively opened connections (default: yes). This is needed
because FFmpeg will apply these settings to nested AVIO contexts automatically. On the other hand,
this could break in certain situations - it's the FFmpeg API, you just can't win.
This affects in particular the --timeout option and anything passed with --demuxer-lavf-o.
If this option is deemed unnecessary at some point in the future, it will be removed without
notice.
--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-cue-codepage=<codepage>
Specify the CUE sheet codepage. (See --sub-codepage for details.)
--demuxer-max-bytes=<bytesize>
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 option
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. <bytesize> options accept suffixes such as KiB
and MiB.
--demuxer-max-back-bytes=<bytesize>
This controls how much past data the demuxer is allowed to preserve. This is useful only if the
--demuxer-seekable-cache option is enabled. Unlike the forward cache, there is no control how
many seconds are actually cached - it will simply use as much memory this option allows. Setting
this option to 0 will strictly disable any back buffer, but this will lead to the situation that
the forward seek range starts after the current playback position (as it removes past packets that
are seek points).
If the end of the file is reached, the remaining unused forward buffer space is "donated" to the
backbuffer (unless the backbuffer size is set to 0). This still limits the total cache usage to
the sum of the forward and backward cache, and effectively makes better use of the total allowed
memory budget. (The opposite does not happen: free backward buffer is never "donated" to the
forward buffer.)
Keep in mind that other buffers in the player (like decoders) will cause the demuxer to cache
"future" frames in the back buffer, which can skew the impression about how much data the
backbuffer contains.
See --list-options for defaults and value range.
--demuxer-seekable-cache=<yes|no|auto>
This controls whether seeking can use the demuxer cache (default: auto). If enabled, short seek
offsets will not trigger a low level demuxer seek (which means for example that slow network round
trips or FFmpeg seek bugs can be avoided). If a seek cannot happen within the cached range, a low
level seek will be triggered. Seeking outside of the cache will start a new cached range, but can
discard the old cache range if the demuxer exhibits certain unsupported behavior.
Keep in mind that some events can flush the cache or force a low level seek anyway, such as
switching tracks, or attempting to seek before the start or after the end of the file.
The special value auto means yes in the same situation as --cache-secs is used (i.e. when the
stream appears to be a network stream or the stream cache is enabled).
--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 leads to smoother playback, enables features like prefetching, and
prevents that stuck network freezes the player. On the other hand, it can add overhead, or the
background prefetching can hog CPU resources.
Disabling this option is not recommended. Use it for debugging only.
--demuxer-termination-timeout=<seconds>
Number of seconds the player should wait to shutdown the demuxer (default: 0.1). The player will
wait up to this much time before it closes the stream layer forcefully. Forceful closing usually
means the network I/O is given no chance to close its connections gracefully (of course the OS can
still close TCP connections properly), and might result in annoying messages being logged, and in
some cases, confused remote servers.
This timeout is usually only applied when loading has finished properly. If loading is aborted by
the user, or in some corner cases like removing external tracks sourced from network during
playback, forceful closing is always used.
--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.)
--prefetch-playlist=<yes|no>
Prefetch next playlist entry while playback of the current entry is ending (default: no). This
merely opens the URL of the next playlist entry as soon as the current URL is fully read.
This does not work with URLs resolved by the youtube-dl wrapper, and it won't.
This does not affect HLS (.m3u8 URLs) - HLS prefetching depends on the demuxer cache settings and
is on by default.
This can give subtly wrong results if per-file options are used, or if options are changed in the
time window between prefetching start and next file played.
This can occasionally make wrong prefetching decisions. For example, it can't predict whether you
go backwards in the playlist, and assumes you won't edit the playlist.
Highly experimental.
--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.
--demuxer-cache-wait=<yes|no>
Before starting playback, read data until either the end of the file was reached, or the demuxer
cache has reached maximum capacity. Only once this is done, playback starts. This intentionally
happens before the initial seek triggered with --start. This does not change any runtime behavior
after the initial caching. This option is useless if the file cannot be cached completely.
--rar-list-all-volumes=<yes|no>
When opening multi-volume rar files, open all volumes to create a full list of contained files
(default: no). If disabled, only the archive entries whose headers are located within the first
volume are listed (and thus played when opening a .rar file with mpv). Doing so speeds up opening,
and the typical idiotic use-case of playing uncompressed multi-volume rar files that contain a
single media file is made faster.
Opening is still slow, because for unknown, idiotic, and unnecessary reasons libarchive opens all
volumes anyway when playing the main file, even though mpv iterated no archive entries yet.
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>
Deprecated. Use --input-ipc-server.
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-gamepad=<yes|no>
Enable/disable SDL2 Gamepad support. Disabled by default.
--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 and Windows 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.)
OSD
--osc, --no-osc
Whether to load the on-screen-controller (default: yes).
--no-osd-bar, --osd-bar
Disable display of the OSD 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-on-seek=<no,bar,msg,msg-bar>
Set what is displayed on the OSD during seeks. The default is bar.
You can configure this on a per-command basis in input.conf using osd- prefixes, see Input Command
Prefixes.
--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='Comic Sans MS'
--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 as no other message covers it, and the OSD level isn't changed
(see --osd-level). Expands properties; see Property Expansion.
--osd-msg2=<string>
Similar to --osd-msg1, but for OSD level 2. If this is an empty string (default), then the
playback time is shown.
--osd-msg3=<string>
Similar to --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 used for the show-progress command (by default mapped to P), and when seeking if enabled
with --osd-on-seek or by osd- prefixes in input.conf (see Input Command Prefixes).
--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),
and when seeking if enabled with --osd-on-seek or osd- prefixes in input.conf (see Input Command
Prefixes). 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.
--osd-font-provider=<...>
See --sub-font-provider for details and accepted values. Note that unlike subtitles, OSD never
uses embedded fonts from media files.
Screenshot
--screenshot-format=<type>
Set the image file type used for saving screenshots.
Available choices:
png PNG
jpg JPEG (default)
jpeg JPEG (alias for jpg)
webp WebP
--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. This will also include an unused alpha channel in the resulting files if 16 bit is
used.
--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.
--screenshot-webp-lossless=<yes|no>
Write lossless WebP files. --screenshot-webp-quality is ignored if this is set. The default is no.
--screenshot-webp-quality=<0-100>
Set the WebP quality level. Higher means better quality. The default is 75.
--screenshot-webp-compression=<0-6>
Set the WebP compression level. Higher means better compression, but takes more CPU time. Note
that this also affects the screenshot quality when used with lossy WebP files. The default is 4.
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.
--sws-bitexact=<yes|no>
Unknown functionality (default: no). Consult libswscale source code. The primary purpose of this,
as far as libswscale API goes), is to produce exactly the same output for the same input on all
platforms (output has the same "bits" everywhere, thus "bitexact"). Typically disables
optimizations.
--sws-fast=<yes|no>
Allow optimizations that help with performance, but reduce quality (default: no).
VOs like drm and x11 will benefit a lot from using --sws-fast. You may need to set other options,
like --sws-scaler. The builtin sws-fast profile sets this option and some others to gain
performance for reduced quality.
--sws-allow-zimg=<yes|no>
Allow using zimg (if the component using the internal swscale wrapper explicitly allows so). In
this case, zimg may be used, if the internal zimg wrapper supports the input and output formats.
It will silently fall back to libswscale if one of these conditions does not apply.
If zimg is used, the other --sws- options are ignored, and the --zimg- options are used instead.
If the internal component using the swscale wrapper hooks up logging correctly, a verbose priority
log message will indicate whether zimg is being used.
Most things which need software conversion can make use of this.
--zimg-scaler=<point|bilinear|bicubic|spline16|spline36|lanczos>
Zimg luma scaler to use (default: lanczos).
--zimg-scaler-param-a=<default|float>, --zimg-scaler-param-b=<default|float>
Set scaler parameters. By default, these are set to the special string default, which maps to a
scaler-specific default value. Ignored if the scaler is not tunable.
lanczos
--zimg-scaler-param-a is the number of taps.
bicubic
a and b are the bicubic b and c parameters.
--zimg-scaler-chroma=...
Same as --zimg-scaler, for for chroma interpolation (default: bilinear).
--zimg-scaler-chroma-param-a, --zimg-scaler-chroma-param-b
Same as --zimg-scaler-param-a / --zimg-scaler-param-b, for chroma.
--zimg-dither=<no|ordered|random|error-diffusion>
Dithering (default: random).
--zimg-fast=<yes|no>
Allow optimizations that help with performance, but reduce quality (default: yes). Currently, this
may simplify gamma conversion operations.
Audio Resampler
This controls the default options of any resampling done by mpv (but not within libavfilter, within the
system audio API resampler, or any other places).
It also sets the defaults for the lavrresample audio filter.
--audio-resample-filter-size=<length>
Length of the filter with respect to the lower sampling rate. (default: 16)
--audio-resample-phase-shift=<count>
Log2 of the number of polyphase entries. (..., 10->1024, 11->2048, 12->4096, ...) (default:
10->1024)
--audio-resample-cutoff=<cutoff>
Cutoff frequency (0.0-1.0), default set depending upon filter length.
--audio-resample-linear=<yes|no>
If set then filters will be linearly interpolated between polyphase entries. (default: no)
--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 quiet. 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, or in the decoder (decoder downmixing), or in
the audio output (system mixer), this has no effect.
--audio-resample-max-output-size=<length>
Limit maximum size of audio frames filtered at once, in ms (default: 40). The output size size is
limited in order to make resample speed changes react faster. This is necessary especially if
decoders or filters output very large frame sizes (like some lossless codecs or some DRC filters).
This option does not affect the resampling algorithm in any way.
For testing/debugging only. Can be removed or changed any time.
--audio-swresample-o=<string>
Set AVOptions on the SwrContext or AVAudioResampleContext. These should be documented by FFmpeg or
Libav.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
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. The verbosity changes from this option are applied in order from left to right, and each
item can override a previous one.
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.
This also affects --log-file, and in certain cases libmpv API logging.
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.
Cache
--cache=<yes|no|auto>
Decide whether to use network cache settings (default: auto).
If enabled, use up to --cache-secs for the cache size (but still limited to --demuxer-max-bytes).
--demuxer-seekable-cache=auto behaves as if it was set to yes. If disabled, --cache-pause and
related are implicitly disabled.
The auto choice enables this depending on whether the stream is thought to involve network
accesses or other slow media (this is an imperfect heuristic).
Before mpv 0.30.0, this used to accept a number, which specified the size of the cache in
kilobytes. Use e.g. --cache --demuxer-max-bytes=123k instead.
--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. The
default value is set to something very high, so the actually achieved readahead will usually be
limited by the value of the --demuxer-max-bytes option. Setting this option is usually only useful
for limiting readahead.
--cache-on-disk=<yes|no>
Write packet data to a temporary file, instead of keeping them in memory. This makes sense only
with --cache. If the normal cache is disabled, this option is ignored.
You need to set --cache-dir to use this.
The cache file is append-only. Even if the player appears to prune data, the file space freed by
it is not reused. The cache file is deleted when playback is closed.
Note that packet metadata is still kept in memory. --demuxer-max-bytes and related options are
applied to metadata only. The size of this metadata varies, but 50 MB per hour of media is
typical. The cache statistics will report this metadats size, instead of the size of the cache
file. If the metadata hits the size limits, the metadata is pruned (but not the cache file).
When the media is closed, the cache file is deleted. A cache file is generally worthless after the
media is closed, and it's hard to retrieve any media data from it (it's not supported by design).
If the option is enabled at runtime, the cache file is created, but old data will remain in the
memory cache. If the option is disabled at runtime, old data remains in the disk cache, and the
cache file is not closed until the media is closed. If the option is disabled and enabled again,
it will continue to use the cache file that was opened first.
--cache-dir=<path>
Directory where to create temporary files (default: none).
Currently, this is used for --cache-on-disk only.
--cache-pause=<yes|no>
Whether the player should automatically pause when the cache runs out of data and stalls
decoding/playback (default: yes). If enabled, it will pause and unpause once more data is
available, aka "buffering".
--cache-pause-wait=<seconds>
Number of seconds the packet cache should have buffered before starting playback again if
"buffering" was entered (default: 1). This can be used to control how long the player rebuffers if
--cache-pause is enabled, and the demuxer underruns. If the given time is higher than the maximum
set with --cache-secs or --demuxer-readahead-secs, or prefetching ends before that for some other
reason (like file end or maximum configured cache size reached), playback resumes earlier.
--cache-pause-initial=<yes|no>
Enter "buffering" mode before starting playback (default: no). This can be used to ensure playback
starts smoothly, in exchange for waiting some time to prefetch network data (as controlled by
--cache-pause-wait). For example, some common behavior is that playback starts, but network caches
immediately underrun when trying to decode more data as playback progresses.
Another thing that can happen is that the network prefetching is so CPU demanding (due to demuxing
in the background) that playback drops frames at first. In these cases, it helps enabling this
option, and setting --cache-secs and --cache-pause-wait to roughly the same value.
This option also triggers when playback is restarted after seeking.
--cache-unlink-files=<immediate|whendone|no>
Whether or when to unlink cache files (default: immediate). This affects cache files which are
inherently temporary, and which make no sense to remain on disk after the player terminates. This
is a debugging option.
immediate
Unlink cache file after they were created. The cache files won't be visible anymore, even
though they're in use. This ensures they are guaranteed to be removed from disk when the
player terminates, even if it crashes.
whendone
Delete cache files after they are closed.
no Don't delete cache files. They will consume disk space without having a use.
Currently, this is used for --cache-on-disk only.
--stream-buffer-size=<bytesize>
Size of the low level stream byte buffer (default: 128KB). This is used as buffer between demuxer
and low level I/O (e.g. sockets). Generally, this can be very small, and the main purpose is
similar to the internal buffer FILE in the C standard library will have.
Half of the buffer is always used for guaranteed seek back, which is important for unseekable
input.
There are known cases where this can help performance to set a large buffer:
1. mp4 files. libavformat may trigger many small seeks in both directions, depending on how the
file was muxed.
2. Certain network filesystems, which do not have a cache, and where small reads can be
inefficient.
In other cases, setting this to a large value can reduce performance.
Usually, read accesses are at half the buffer size, but it may happen that accesses are done
alternating with smaller and larger sizes (this is due to the internal ring buffer wrap-around).
See --list-options for defaults and value range. <bytesize> options accept suffixes such as KiB
and MiB.
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.
This is a string list option. See List Options for details.
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
--http-proxy=<proxy>
URL of the HTTP/HTTPS proxy. If this is set, the http_proxy environment is ignored. The no_proxy
environment variable is still respected. This option is silently ignored if it does not start with
http://. Proxies are not used for https URLs. Setting this option does not try to make the ytdl
script use the proxy.
--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 (default: 60 seconds). This affects at least HTTP. The
special value 0 uses the FFmpeg/Libav defaults. If a protocol is used which does not support
timeouts, this option is silently ignored.
WARNING:
This breaks the RTSP protocol, because of inconsistent FFmpeg API regarding its internal
timeout option. Not only does the RTSP timeout option accept different units (seconds instead
of microseconds, causing mpv to pass it huge values), it will also overflow FFmpeg internal
calculations. The worst is that merely setting the option will put RTSP into listening mode,
which breaks any client uses. At time of this writing, the fix was not made effective yet. For
this reason, this option is ignored (or should be ignored) on RTSP URLs. You can still set the
timeout option directly with --demuxer-lavf-o.
--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-prog=<string>
This defines the program to tune to. Usually, you may specify this by using a stream URI like
"dvb://ZDF HD", but you can tune to a different channel by writing to this property at runtime.
Also see dvbin-channel-switch-offset for more useful channel switching functionality.
--dvbin-card=<0-15>
Specifies using card number 0-15 (default: 0).
--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
--dvbin-channel-switch-offset=<integer>
This value is not meant for setting via configuration, but used in channel switching. An
input.conf can cycle this value up and down to perform channel switching. This number effectively
gives the offset to the initially tuned to channel in the channel list.
An example input.conf could contain: H cycle dvbin-channel-switch-offset up, K cycle
dvbin-channel-switch-offset down
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).
--alsa-buffer-time=<microseconds>
Set the requested buffer time in microseconds. A value of 0 skips requesting anything from the
ALSA API. This and the --alsa-periods option uses the ALSA near functions to set the requested
parameters. If doing so results in an empty configuration set, setting these parameters is
skipped.
Both options control the buffer size. A low buffer size can lead to higher CPU usage and audio
dropouts, while a high buffer size can lead to higher latency in volume changes and other
filtering.
--alsa-periods=<number>
Number of periods requested from the ALSA API. See --alsa-buffer-time for further remarks.
GPU renderer options
The following video options are currently all specific to --vo=gpu and --vo=libmpv only, which are the
only VOs that implement them.
--scale=<filter>
The filter function to use when upscaling video.
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 gpu-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.
Common --tscale choices include oversample, linear, catmull_rom, mitchell, gaussian, or bicubic.
These are listed in increasing order of smoothness/blurriness, with bicubic being the
smoothest/blurriest and oversample being the sharpest/least smooth.
--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. By default, these are set to the special string default, which maps to a
scaler-specific default value. 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=<0.0-1.0>, --cscale-clamp, --dscale-clamp, --tscale-clamp
Specifies a weight bias to multiply into negative coefficients. Specifying --scale-clamp=1 has the
effect of removing negative weights completely, thus effectively clamping the value range to
[0-1]. Values between 0.0 and 1.0 can be specified to apply only a moderate diminishment of
negative weights. 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. The default
for --tscale-clamp is 1.0, the others default to 0.0.
--scale-cutoff=<value>, --cscale-cutoff=<value>, --dscale-cutoff=<value>
Cut off the filter kernel prematurely once the value range drops below this threshold. Doing so
allows more aggressive pruning of skippable coefficients by disregarding parts of the LUT which
are effectively zeroed out by the window function. Only affects polar (EWA) filters. The default
is 0.001 for each, which is perceptually transparent but provides a 10%-20% speedup, depending on
the exact radius and filter kernel chosen.
--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, nor does it affect
any polar (EWA) scalers.
--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.
By default, these are set to the special string default, which maps to a window-specific default
value. 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.
--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.
--linear-downscaling
Scale in linear light when downscaling. It should only be used with a --fbo-format that has at
least 16 bit precision. This option has no effect on HDR content.
--linear-upscaling
Scale in linear light when upscaling. Like --linear-downscaling, it should only be used with a
--fbo-format that has at least 16 bits precisions. This is not usually recommended except for
testing/specific purposes. Users are advised to either enable --sigmoid-upscaling or keep both
options disabled (i.e. scaling in gamma light).
--sigmoid-upscaling
When upscaling, use a sigmoidal color transform to avoid emphasizing ringing artifacts. This is
incompatible with and replaces --linear-upscaling. (Note that sigmoidization also requires
linearization, so the LINEAR rendering step fires in both cases)
--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.
--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.
--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.
--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|error-diffusion|no>
Select dithering algorithm (default: fruit). (Normally, the --dither-depth option controls whether
dithering is enabled.)
The error-diffusion option requires compute shader support. It also requires large amount of
shared memory to run, the size of which depends on both the kernel (see --error-diffusion option
below) and the height of video window. It will fallback to fruit dithering if there is no enough
shared memory to run the shader.
--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.
--error-diffusion=<kernel>
The error diffusion kernel to use when --dither=error-diffusion is set.
simple Propagate error to only two adjacent pixels. Fastest but low quality.
sierra-lite
Fast with reasonable quality. This is the default.
floyd-steinberg
Most notable error diffusion kernel.
atkinson
Looks different from other kernels because only fraction of errors will be propagated
during dithering. A typical use case of this kernel is saving dithered screenshot (in
window mode). This kernel produces slightly smaller file, with still reasonable dithering
quality.
There are other kernels (use --error-diffusion=help to list) but most of them are much slower and
demanding even larger amount of shared memory. Among these kernels, burkes achieves a good
balance between performance and quality, and probably is the one you want to try first.
--gpu-debug
Enables GPU debugging. What this means depends on the API type. For OpenGL, it calls glGetError(),
and requests a debug context. For Vulkan, it enables validation layers.
--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 --override-display-fps).
--vulkan-swap-mode=<mode>
Controls the presentation mode of the vulkan swapchain. This is similar to the
--opengl-swapinterval option.
auto Use the preferred swapchain mode for the vulkan context. (Default)
fifo Non-tearing, vsync blocked. Similar to "VSync on".
fifo-relaxed
Tearing, vsync blocked. Late frames will tear instead of stuttering.
mailbox
Non-tearing, not vsync blocked. Similar to "triple buffering".
immediate
Tearing, not vsync blocked. Similar to "VSync off".
--vulkan-queue-count=<1..8>
Controls the number of VkQueues used for rendering (limited by how many your device supports). In
theory, using more queues could enable some parallelism between frames (when using a
--swapchain-depth higher than 1), but it can also slow things down on hardware where there's no
true parallelism between queues. (Default: 1)
--vulkan-async-transfer
Enables the use of async transfer queues on supported vulkan devices. Using them allows transfer
operations like texture uploads and blits to happen concurrently with the actual rendering, thus
improving overall throughput and power consumption. Enabled by default, and should be relatively
safe.
--vulkan-async-compute
Enables the use of async compute queues on supported vulkan devices. Using this, in theory, allows
out-of-order scheduling of compute shaders with graphics shaders, thus enabling the hardware to do
more effective work while waiting for pipeline bubbles and memory operations. Not beneficial on
all GPUs. It's worth noting that if async compute is enabled, and the device supports more compute
queues than graphics queues (bound by the restrictions set by --vulkan-queue-count), mpv will
internally try and prefer the use of compute shaders over fragment shaders wherever possible.
Enabled by default, although Nvidia users may want to disable it.
--d3d11-warp=<yes|no|auto>
Use WARP (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform) with the D3D11 GPU backend (default: auto).
This is a high performance software renderer. By default, it is only used when the system has no
hardware adapters that support D3D11. While the extended GPU features will work with WARP, they
can be very slow.
--d3d11-feature-level=<12_1|12_0|11_1|11_0|10_1|10_0|9_3|9_2|9_1>
Select a specific feature level when using the D3D11 GPU backend. By default, the highest
available feature level is used. This option can be used to select a lower feature level, which is
mainly useful for debugging. Most extended GPU features will not work at 9_x feature levels.
--d3d11-flip=<yes|no>
Enable flip-model presentation, which avoids unnecessarily copying the backbuffer by sharing
surfaces with the DWM (default: yes). This may cause performance issues with older drivers. If
flip-model presentation is not supported (for example, on Windows 7 without the platform update),
mpv will automatically fall back to the older bitblt presentation model.
--d3d11-sync-interval=<0..4>
Schedule each frame to be presented for this number of VBlank intervals. (default: 1) Setting to
1 will enable VSync, setting to 0 will disable it.
--d3d11-adapter=<adapter name|help>
Select a specific D3D11 adapter to utilize for D3D11 rendering. Will pick the default adapter if
unset. Alternatives are listed when the name "help" is given.
Checks for matches based on the start of the string, case insensitive. Thus, if the description of
the adapter starts with the vendor name, that can be utilized as the selection parameter.
Hardware decoders utilizing the D3D11 rendering abstraction's helper functionality to receive a
device, such as D3D11VA or DXVA2's DXGI mode, will be affected by this choice.
--d3d11-output-format=<auto|rgba8|bgra8|rgb10_a2|rgba16f>
Select a specific D3D11 output format to utilize for D3D11 rendering. "auto" is the default,
which will pick either rgba8 or rgb10_a2 depending on the configured desktop bit depth. rgba16f
and bgra8 are left out of the autodetection logic, and are available for manual testing.
NOTE:
Desktop bit depth querying is only available from an API available from Windows 10. Thus on
older systems it will only automatically utilize the rgba8 output format.
--d3d11-output-csp=<auto|srgb|linear|pq|bt.2020>
Select a specific D3D11 output color space to utilize for D3D11 rendering. "auto" is the default,
which will select the color space of the desktop on which the swap chain is located.
Values other than "srgb" and "pq" have had issues in testing, so they are mostly available for
manual testing.
NOTE:
Swap chain color space configuration is only available from an API available from Windows 10.
Thus on older systems it will not work.
--d3d11va-zero-copy=<yes|no>
By default, when using hardware decoding with --gpu-api=d3d11, the video image will be copied
(GPU-to-GPU) from the decoder surface to a shader resource. Set this option to avoid that copy by
sampling directly from the decoder image. This may increase performance and reduce power usage,
but can cause the image to be sampled incorrectly on the bottom and right edges due to padding,
and may invoke driver bugs, since Direct3D 11 technically does not allow sampling from a decoder
surface (though most drivers support it.)
Currently only relevant for --gpu-api=d3d11.
--wayland-frame-wait-offset=<-500..3000>
Control the amount of offset (in microseconds) to add to wayland's frame wait (default 1000). The
wayland context assumes that if frame callback or presentation feedback isn't received within a
certain amount of time then the video is being rendered offscreen. The time it waits is equal to
how long it takes your monitor to display a frame (i.e. 1/refresh rate) plus the offset. In
general, staying close to your monitor's refresh rate is preferred, but with a small offset in
case a frame takes a little long to display.
--wayland-disable-vsync=<yes|no>
Disable vsync for the wayland contexts (default: no). Useful for benchmarking the wayland context
when combined with video-sync=display-desync, --no-audio, and --untimed=yes. Only works with
--gpu-context=wayland and --gpu-context=waylandvk.
--spirv-compiler=<compiler>
Controls which compiler is used to translate GLSL to SPIR-V. This is (currently) only relevant for
--gpu-api=vulkan and --gpu-api=d3d11. The possible choices are currently only:
auto Use the first available compiler. (Default)
shaderc
Use libshaderc, which is an API wrapper around glslang. This is generally the most
preferred, if available.
NOTE:
This option is deprecated, since there is only one reasonable value. It may be removed in the
future.
--glsl-shader=<file>, --glsl-shaders=<file-list>
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.
Each use of the --glsl-shader option will add another file to the internal list of shaders, while
--glsl-shaders takes a list of files, and overwrites the internal list with it. The latter is a
path list option (see List Options for details).
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 section of metadata, along with the non-metadata lines after it, defines a single block.
There are currently two types of blocks, HOOKs and TEXTUREs.
A TEXTURE block can set the following options:
TEXTURE <name> (required)
The name of this texture. Hooks can then bind the texture under this name using BIND. This
must be the first option of the texture block.
SIZE <width> [<height>] [<depth>] (required)
The dimensions of the texture. The height and depth are optional. The type of texture (1D,
2D or 3D) depends on the number of components specified.
FORMAT <name> (required)
The texture format for the samples. Supported texture formats are listed in debug logging
when the gpu VO is initialized (look for Texture formats:). Usually, this follows OpenGL
naming conventions. For example, rgb16 provides 3 channels with normalized 16 bit
components. One oddity are float formats: for example, rgba16f has 16 bit internal
precision, but the texture data is provided as 32 bit floats, and the driver converts the
data on texture upload.
Although format names follow a common naming convention, not all of them are available on
all hardware, drivers, GL versions, and so on.
FILTER <LINEAR|NEAREST>
The min/magnification filter used when sampling from this texture.
BORDER <CLAMP|REPEAT|MIRROR>
The border wrapping mode used when sampling from this texture.
Following the metadata is a string of bytes in hexadecimal notation that define the raw texture
data, corresponding to the format specified by FORMAT, on a single line with no extra whitespace.
A HOOK block can set the following options:
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.
DESC <title>
User-friendly description of the pass. This is the name used when representing this shader
in the list of passes for property vo-passes.
BIND <name>
Loads a texture (either coming from mpv or from a TEXTURE block) and makes it available to
the pass. When binding textures from mpv, this will also set up macros to facilitate
accessing it properly. See below for a list. 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 (such as MAIN.width or
CHROMA.height), OUTPUT, or NATIVE_CROPPED (size of an input texture cropped after
pan-and-scan, video-align-x/y, video-pan-x/y, etc. and possibly prescaled). By default,
these are set to HOOKED.w and HOOKED.h, espectively.
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 | ALIGN>
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.
A special value of ALIGN will attempt to fix existing offset of HOOKED by align it with
reference. It requires HOOKED to be resizable (see below). It works transparently with
fragment shader. For compute shader, the predefined texmap macro is required to handle
coordinate mapping.
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.
COMPUTE <bw> <bh> [<tw> <th>]
Specifies that this shader should be treated as a compute shader, with the block size bw
and bh. The compute shader will be dispatched with however many blocks are necessary to
completely tile over the output. Within each block, there will bw tw*th threads, forming a
single work group. In other words: tw and th specify the work group size, which can be
different from the block size. So for example, a compute shader with bw, bh = 32 and tw, th
= 8 running on a 500x500 texture would dispatch 16x16 blocks (rounded up), each with 8x8
threads.
Compute shaders in mpv are treated a bit different from fragment shaders. Instead of
defining a vec4 hook that produces an output sample, you directly define void hook which
writes to a fixed writeonly image unit named out_image (this is bound by mpv) using
imageStore. To help translate texture coordinates in the absence of vertices, mpv provides
a special function NAME_map(id) to map from the texel space of the output image to the
texture coordinates for all bound textures. In particular, NAME_pos is equivalent to
NAME_map(gl_GlobalInvocationID), although using this only really makes sense if (tw,th) ==
(bw,bh).
Each bound mpv 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].
float NAME_mul
The coefficient that needs to be multiplied into the texture contents in order to normalize
it to the range [0,1].
sampler NAME_raw
The raw bound texture itself. The use of this should be avoided unless absolutely
necessary.
Normally, users should use either NAME_tex or NAME_texOff to read from the texture. For some
shaders however , it can be better for performance to do custom sampling from NAME_raw, in which
case care needs to be taken to respect NAME_mul and NAME_rot.
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 input_size
The size in pixels of the input image (possibly cropped and prescaled).
vec2 target_size
The size in pixels of the visible part of the scaled (and possibly cropped) image.
vec2 tex_offset
Texture offset introduced by user shaders or options like panscan, video-align-x/y,
video-pan-x/y.
Internally, vo_gpu may generate any number of the following textures. Whenever a texture is
rendered and saved by vo_gpu, 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-upscaling,
--linear-downscaling or --sigmoid-upscaling 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.
--glsl-shader=<file>
CLI/config file only alias for --glsl-shaders-append.
--deband
Enable the debanding algorithm. This greatly reduces the amount of visible banding, blocking and
other quantization artifacts, at the expense 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)
--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 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-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.
--angle-d3d11-feature-level=<11_0|10_1|10_0|9_3>
Selects a specific feature level when using the ANGLE backend with D3D11. By default, the highest
available feature level is used. This option can be used to select a lower feature level, which is
mainly useful for debugging. Note that OpenGL ES 3.0 is only supported at feature level 10_1 or
higher. Most extended OpenGL features will not work at lower feature levels (similar to
--gpu-dumb-mode).
Windows with ANGLE only.
--angle-d3d11-warp=<yes|no|auto>
Use WARP (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform) when using the ANGLE backend with D3D11
(default: auto). This is a high performance software renderer. By default, it is used when the
Direct3D hardware does not support Direct3D 11 feature level 9_3. While the extended OpenGL
features will work with WARP, they can be very slow.
Windows with ANGLE only.
--angle-egl-windowing=<yes|no|auto>
Use ANGLE's built in EGL windowing functions to create a swap chain (default: auto). If this is
set to no and the D3D11 renderer is in use, ANGLE's built in swap chain will not be used and a
custom swap chain that is optimized for video rendering will be created instead. If set to auto, a
custom swap chain will be used for D3D11 and the built in swap chain will be used for D3D9. This
option is mainly for debugging purposes, in case the custom swap chain has poor performance or
does not work.
If set to yes, the --angle-max-frame-latency, --angle-swapchain-length and --angle-flip options
will have no effect.
Windows with ANGLE only.
--angle-flip=<yes|no>
Enable flip-model presentation, which avoids unnecessarily copying the backbuffer by sharing
surfaces with the DWM (default: yes). This may cause performance issues with older drivers. If
flip-model presentation is not supported (for example, on Windows 7 without the platform update),
mpv will automatically fall back to the older bitblt presentation model.
If set to no, the --angle-swapchain-length option will have no effect.
Windows with ANGLE only.
--angle-renderer=<d3d9|d3d11|auto>
Forces a specific renderer when using the ANGLE backend (default: auto). In auto mode this will
pick D3D11 for systems that support Direct3D 11 feature level 9_3 or higher, and D3D9 otherwise.
This option is mainly for debugging purposes. Normally there is no reason to force a specific
renderer, though --angle-renderer=d3d9 may give slightly better performance on old hardware. Note
that the D3D9 renderer only supports OpenGL ES 2.0, so most extended OpenGL features will not work
if this renderer is selected (similar to --gpu-dumb-mode).
Windows with ANGLE only.
--cocoa-force-dedicated-gpu=<yes|no>
Deactivates the automatic graphics switching and forces the dedicated GPU. (default: no)
OS X only.
--cocoa-cb-sw-renderer=<yes|no|auto>
Use the Apple Software Renderer when using cocoa-cb (default: auto). If set to no the software
renderer is never used and instead fails when a the usual pixel format could not be created, yes
will always only use the software renderer, and auto only falls back to the software renderer when
the usual pixel format couldn't be created.
OS X only.
--cocoa-cb-10bit-context=<yes|no>
Creates a 10bit capable pixel format for the context creation (default: yes). Instead of 8bit
integer framebuffer a 16bit half-float framebuffer is requested.
OS X only.
--macos-title-bar-appearance=<appearance>
Sets the appearance of the title bar (default: auto). Not all combinations of appearances and
--macos-title-bar-material materials make sense or are unique. Appearances that are not supported
by you current macOS version fall back to the default value. macOS and cocoa-cb only
<appearance> can be one of the following:
auto Detects the system settings and sets the title bar appearance appropriately. On macOS 10.14
it also detects run time changes.
aqua The standard macOS Light appearance.
darkAqua
The standard macOS Dark appearance. (macOS 10.14+)
vibrantLight
Light vibrancy appearance with.
vibrantDark
Dark vibrancy appearance with.
aquaHighContrast
Light Accessibility appearance. (macOS 10.14+)
darkAquaHighContrast
Dark Accessibility appearance. (macOS 10.14+)
vibrantLightHighContrast
Light vibrancy Accessibility appearance. (macOS 10.14+)
vibrantDarkHighContrast
Dark vibrancy Accessibility appearance. (macOS 10.14+)
--macos-title-bar-material=<material>
Sets the material of the title bar (default: titlebar). All deprecated materials should not be
used on macOS 10.14+ because their functionality is not guaranteed. Not all combinations of
materials and --macos-title-bar-appearance appearances make sense or are unique. Materials that
are not supported by you current macOS version fall back to the default value. macOS and cocoa-cb
only
<material> can be one of the following:
titlebar
The standard macOS titel bar material.
selection
The standard macOS selection material.
menu The standard macOS menu material. (macOS 10.11+)
popover
The standard macOS popover material. (macOS 10.11+)
sidebar
The standard macOS sidebar material. (macOS 10.11+)
headerView
The standard macOS header view material. (macOS 10.14+)
sheet The standard macOS sheet material. (macOS 10.14+)
windowBackground
The standard macOS window background material. (macOS 10.14+)
hudWindow
The standard macOS hudWindow material. (macOS 10.14+)
fullScreen
The standard macOS full screen material. (macOS 10.14+)
toolTip
The standard macOS tool tip material. (macOS 10.14+)
contentBackground
The standard macOS content background material. (macOS 10.14+)
underWindowBackground
The standard macOS under window background material. (macOS 10.14+)
underPageBackground
The standard macOS under page background material. (deprecated in macOS 10.14+)
dark The standard macOS dark material. (deprecated in macOS 10.14+)
light The standard macOS light material. (macOS 10.14+)
mediumLight
The standard macOS mediumLight material. (macOS 10.11+, deprecated in macOS 10.14+)
ultraDark
The standard macOS ultraDark material. (macOS 10.11+ deprecated in macOS 10.14+)
--macos-title-bar-color=<color>
Sets the color of the title bar (default: completely transparent). Is influenced by
--macos-title-bar-appearance and --macos-title-bar-material. See --sub-color for color syntax.
--macos-fs-animation-duration=<default|0-1000>
Sets the fullscreen resize animation duration in ms (default: default). The default value is
slightly less than the system's animation duration (500ms) to prevent some problems when the end
of an async animation happens at the same time as the end of the system wide fullscreen animation.
Setting anything higher than 500ms will only prematurely cancel the resize animation after the
system wide animation ended. The upper limit is still set at 1000ms since it's possible that Apple
or the user changes the system defaults. Anything higher than 1000ms though seems too long and
shouldn't be set anyway. OS X and cocoa-cb only
--android-surface-size=<WxH>
Set dimensions of the rendering surface used by the Android gpu context. Needs to be set by the
embedding application if the dimensions change during runtime (i.e. if the device is rotated), via
the surfaceChanged callback.
Android with --gpu-context=android only.
--gpu-sw
Continue even if a software renderer is detected.
--gpu-context=<sys>
The value auto (the default) selects the GPU context. 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 (deprecated, use --vo=libmpv instead)
win Win32/WGL
winvk VK_KHR_win32_surface
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.
d3d11 Win32, with native Direct3D 11 rendering.
x11 X11/GLX
x11vk VK_KHR_xlib_surface
wayland
Wayland/EGL
waylandvk
VK_KHR_wayland_surface
drm DRM/EGL
x11egl X11/EGL
android
Android/EGL. Requires --wid be set to an android.view.Surface.
--gpu-api=<type>
Controls which type of graphics APIs will be accepted:
auto Use any available API (default)
opengl Allow only OpenGL (requires OpenGL 2.1+ or GLES 2.0+)
vulkan Allow only Vulkan (requires a valid/working --spirv-compiler)
d3d11 Allow only --gpu-context=d3d11
--opengl-es=<mode>
Controls which type of OpenGL context will be accepted:
auto Allow all types of OpenGL (default)
yes Only allow GLES
no Only allow desktop/core GL
--opengl-restrict=<version>
Restricts all OpenGL versions above a certain version. Versions are encoded in hundreds, i.e.
OpenGL 4.5 -> 450. As an example, --opengl-restrict=300 would restrict OpenGL 3.0 and higher,
effectively only allowing 2.x contexts. Note that this only imposes a limit on context creation
APIs, the actual OpenGL context may still have a higher OpenGL version. (Default: 0)
--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, rgba16hf, rgba32f.
Default: auto, which first attempts to utilize 16bit float (rgba16f, rgba16hf), and falls back to
rgba16 if those are not available. Finally, attempts to utilize rgb10_a2 or rgba8 if all of the
previous formats are not available.
--gamma-factor=<0.1..2.0>
Set an additional raw gamma factor (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 Pitch black or dimly lit room (default)
1.1 Moderately lit room, home
1.2 Brightly illuminated room, office
NOTE: This is based around the assumptions of typical movie content, which contains an implicit
end-to-end of about 0.8 from scene to display. For bright environments it can be useful to cancel
that out.
--gamma-auto
Automatically corrects the gamma value depending on ambient lighting conditions (adding a gamma
boost for bright rooms).
With ambient illuminance of 16 lux, mpv will pick the 1.0 gamma value (no boost), and slightly
increase the boost up until 1.2 for 256 lux.
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, except for atypical color spaces. Specifically, wide/unusual gamuts
get automatically adapted to BT.709, while standard gamut (i.e. BT.601 and BT.709) content
is not touched. (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
s-gamut
Sony S-Gamut (S-Log) 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, except for atypical transfers. Specifically, HDR or linear light
source material gets automatically converted to gamma 2.2, while SDR content is not
touched. (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
gamma2.0
Pure power curve (gamma 2.0)
gamma2.2
Pure power curve (gamma 2.2)
gamma2.4
Pure power curve (gamma 2.4)
gamma2.6
Pure power curve (gamma 2.6)
gamma2.8
Pure power curve (gamma 2.8), also used for BT.470-BG
prophoto
ProPhoto RGB (ROMM)
pq ITU-R BT.2100 PQ (Perceptual quantizer) curve, aka SMPTE ST2084
hlg ITU-R BT.2100 HLG (Hybrid Log-gamma) curve, aka ARIB STD-B67
v-log Panasonic V-Log (VARICAM) curve
s-log1 Sony S-Log1 curve
s-log2 Sony S-Log2 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-peak=<auto|nits>
Specifies the measured peak brightness of the output display, in cd/m^2 (AKA nits). The
interpretation of this brightness depends on the configured --target-trc. In all cases, it imposes
a limit on the signal values that will be sent to the display. If the source exceeds this
brightness level, a tone mapping filter will be inserted. For HLG, it has the additional effect of
parametrizing the inverse OOTF, in order to get colorimetrically consistent results with the
mastering display. For SDR, or when using an ICC (profile (--icc-profile), setting this to a value
above 100 essentially causes the display to be treated as if it were an HDR display in disguise.
(See the note below)
In auto mode (the default), the chosen peak is an appropriate value based on the TRC in use. For
SDR curves, it uses 100. For HDR curves, it uses 100 * the transfer function's nominal peak.
NOTE:
When using an SDR transfer function, this is normally not needed, and setting it may lead to
very unexpected results. The one time it is useful is if you want to calibrate a HDR display
using traditional transfer functions and calibration equipment. In such cases, you can set your
HDR display to a high brightness such as 800 cd/m^2, and then calibrate it to a standard curve
like gamma2.8. Setting this value to 800 would then instruct mpv to essentially treat it as an
HDR display with the given peak. This may be a good alternative in environments where PQ or HLG
input to the display is not possible, and makes it possible to use HDR displays with mpv
regardless of operating system support for HDMI HDR metadata.
In such a configuration, we highly recommend setting --tone-mapping to mobius or even clip.
--tone-mapping=<value>
Specifies the algorithm used for tone-mapping images onto the target display. This is relevant for
both HDR->SDR conversion as well as gamut reduction (e.g. playing back BT.2020 content on a
standard gamut display). Valid values are:
clip Hard-clip any out-of-range values. Use this when you care about perfect color accuracy for
in-range values at the cost of completely distorting out-of-range values. Not generally
recommended.
mobius Generalization of Reinhard to a Möbius transform with linear section. Smoothly maps
out-of-range values while retaining contrast and colors for in-range material as much as
possible. Use this when you care about color accuracy more than detail preservation. This
is somewhere in between clip and reinhard, depending on the value of --tone-mapping-param.
reinhard
Reinhard tone mapping algorithm. Very simple continuous curve. Preserves overall image
brightness but uses nonlinear contrast, which results in flattening of details and
degradation in color accuracy.
hable Similar to reinhard but preserves both dark and bright details better (slightly sigmoidal),
at the cost of slightly darkening / desaturating everything. Developed by John Hable for
use in video games. Use this when you care about detail preservation more than
color/brightness accuracy. This is roughly equivalent to --tone-mapping=reinhard
--tone-mapping-param=0.24. If possible, you should also enable --hdr-compute-peak for the
best results. (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. By default, this is set to the special string default, which maps to
an algorithm-specific default value. Ignored if the tone mapping algorithm is not tunable. This
affects the following tone mapping algorithms:
clip Specifies an extra linear coefficient to multiply into the signal before clipping. Defaults
to 1.0.
mobius Specifies the transition point from linear to mobius transform. Every value below this
point is guaranteed to be mapped 1:1. The higher the value, the more accurate the result
will be, at the cost of losing bright details. Defaults to 0.3, which due to the steep
initial slope still preserves in-range colors fairly accurately.
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.
--tone-mapping-max-boost=<1.0..10.0>
Upper limit for how much the tone mapping algorithm is allowed to boost the average brightness by
over-exposing the image. The default value of 1.0 allows no additional brightness boost. A value
of 2.0 would allow over-exposing by a factor of 2, and so on. Raising this setting can help reveal
details that would otherwise be hidden in dark scenes, but raising it too high will make dark
scenes appear unnaturally bright.
--hdr-compute-peak=<auto|yes|no>
Compute the HDR peak and frame average brightness per-frame instead of relying on tagged metadata.
These values are averaged over local regions as well as over several frames to prevent the value
from jittering around too much. This option basically gives you dynamic, per-scene tone mapping.
Requires compute shaders, which is a fairly recent OpenGL feature, and will probably also perform
horribly on some drivers, so enable at your own risk. The special value auto (default) will
enable HDR peak computation automatically if compute shaders and SSBOs are supported.
--hdr-peak-decay-rate=<1.0..1000.0>
The decay rate used for the HDR peak detection algorithm (default: 100.0). This is only relevant
when --hdr-compute-peak is enabled. Higher values make the peak decay more slowly, leading to more
stable values at the cost of more "eye adaptation"-like effects (although this is mitigated
somewhat by --hdr-scene-threshold). A value of 1.0 (the lowest possible) disables all averaging,
meaning each frame's value is used directly as measured, but doing this is not recommended for
"noisy" sources since it may lead to excessive flicker. (In signal theory terms, this controls the
time constant "tau" of an IIR low pass filter)
--hdr-scene-threshold-low=<0.0..100.0>, --hdr-scene-threshold-high=<0.0..100.0>
The lower and upper thresholds (in dB) for a brightness difference to be considered a scene change
(default: 5.5 low, 10.0 high). This is only relevant when --hdr-compute-peak is enabled. Normally,
small fluctuations in the frame brightness are compensated for by the peak averaging mechanism,
but for large jumps in the brightness this can result in the frame remaining too bright or too
dark for up to several seconds, depending on the value of --hdr-peak-decay-rate. To counteract
this, when the brightness between the running average and the current frame exceeds the low
threshold, mpv will make the averaging filter more aggressive, up to the limit of the high
threshold (at which point the filter becomes instant).
--tone-mapping-desaturate=<0.0..1.0>
Apply desaturation for highlights (default: 0.75). The parameter controls the strength of the
desaturation curve. A value of 0.0 completely disables it, while a value of 1.0 means that overly
bright colors will tend towards white. (This is not always the case, especially not for highlights
that are near primary colors)
Values in between apply progressively more/less aggressive desaturation. This setting helps
prevent unnaturally oversaturated colors for super-highlights, by (smoothly) turning them into
less saturated (per channel tone mapped) colors instead. This makes images feel more natural, at
the cost of chromatic distortions for out-of-range colors. The default value of 0.75 provides a
good balance. Setting this to 0.0 preserves the chromatic accuracy of the tone mapping process.
--tone-mapping-desaturate-exponent=<0.0..20.0>
This setting controls the exponent of the desaturation curve, which controls how bright a color
needs to be in order to start being desaturated. The default of 1.5 provides a reasonable balance.
Decreasing this exponent makes the curve more aggressive.
--gamut-warning
If enabled, mpv will mark all clipped/out-of-gamut pixels that exceed a given threshold (currently
hard-coded to 101%). The affected pixels will be inverted to make them stand out. Note: This
option applies after the effects of all of mpv's color space transformation / tone mapping
options, so it's a good idea to combine this with --tone-mapping=clip and use --target-prim to set
the gamut to simulate. For example, --target-prim=bt.709 would make mpv highlight all pixels that
exceed the gamut of a standard gamut (sRGB) display. This option also does not work well with ICC
profiles, since the 3DLUTs are always generated against the source color space and have
chromatically-accurate clipping built in.
--use-embedded-icc-profile
Load the embedded ICC profile contained in media files such as PNG images. (Default: yes). Note
that this option only works when also using a display ICC profile (--icc-profile or
--icc-profile-auto), and also requires LittleCMS 2 support.
--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.
Applications using libmpv with the render API need to provide the ICC profile via
MPV_RENDER_PARAM_ICC_PROFILE.
--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=<0-1000000|inf>
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 if the detected contrast is less than 100000, and
limits to 1000 otherwise. Use --icc-contrast=inf to preserve the infinite contrast (most likely
when using OLED displays).
--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, --gamma-factor and --glsl-shaders. 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 --fbo-format option to a non-default value, a format
with alpha must be specified, or this won't work. This does not work on X11 with EGL and
Mesa (freedesktop bug 67676).
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.
--gpu-tex-pad-x, --gpu-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).
On OSX this is always deactivated because it only causes performance problems and other
regressions.
--gpu-dumb-mode=<yes|no|auto>
This mode is extremely restricted, and will disable most extended features. That 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. The
default of auto will enable it automatically if nothing uses features which require FBOs.
This option might be silently removed in the future.
--gpu-shader-cache-dir=<dirname>
Store and load compiled GLSL shaders in this directory. Normally, shader compilation is very fast,
so this is usually not needed. It mostly matters for GPU APIs that require internally recompiling
shaders to other languages, for example anything based on ANGLE or Vulkan. Enabling this can
improve startup performance on these platforms.
NOTE: This is not cleaned automatically, so old, unused cache files may stick around indefinitely.
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.
This is a string list option. See List Options for details.
--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-timing-offset=<seconds>
Control how long before video display target time the frame should be rendered (default: 0.050).
If a video frame should be displayed at a certain time, the VO will start rendering the frame
earlier, and then will perform a blocking wait until the display time, and only then "swap" the
frame to display. The rendering cannot start before the previous frame is displayed, so this value
is implicitly limited by the video framerate. With normal video frame rates, the default value
will ensure that rendering is always immediately started after the previous frame was displayed.
On the other hand, setting a too high value can reduce responsiveness with low FPS value.
For client API users using the render API (or the deprecated opengl-cb API), this option is
interesting, because you can stop the render API from limiting your FPS (see
mpv_render_context_render() documentation).
This applies only to audio timing modes (e.g. --video-sync=audio). In other modes
(--video-sync=display-...), video timing relies on vsync blocking, and this option is not used.
--video-sync=<audio|...>
How the player synchronizes audio and video.
If you use this option, you usually want to set it to display-resample to enable a timing mode
that tries to not skip or repeat frames when for example playing 24fps video on a 24Hz screen.
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).
Under some circumstances, the player automatically reverts to audio mode for some time or
permanently. This can happen on very low framerate video, or if the framerate cannot be detected.
Also in display-sync modes it can happen that interruptions to video playback (such as toggling
fullscreen mode, or simply resizing the window) will skip the video frames that should have been
displayed, while audio mode will display them after the renderer has resumed (typically resulting
in a short A/V desync and the video "catching up").
Before mpv 0.30.0, there was a fallback to audio mode on severe A/V desync. This was changed for
the sake of not sporadically stopping. Now, display-desync does what it promises and may desync
with audio by an arbitrary amount, until it is manually fixed with a seek.
These modes also require a vsync blocked presentation mode. For OpenGL, this translates to
--opengl-swapinterval=1. For Vulkan, it translates to --vulkan-swap-mode=fifo (or fifo-relaxed).
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-dump=<destination-filename>
Instead of playing a file, read its byte stream and write it to the given destination file. The
destination is overwritten. Can be useful to test network-related behavior.
--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.)
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
--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-files=<file-list>
Load a file and add all of its tracks. This is useful to play different files together (for
example audio from one file, video from another), or for advanced --lavfi-complex used (like
playing two video files at the same time).
Unlike --sub-files and --audio-files, this includes all tracks, and does not cause default stream
selection over the "proper" file. This makes it slightly less intrusive. (In mpv 0.28.0 and
before, this was not quite strictly enforced.)
This is a path list option. See List Options for details.
--external-file=<file>
CLI/config file only alias for --external-files-append. Each use of this option will add a new
external files.
--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-files), they will not be
auto-selected.
This does not affect playlist expansion, redirection, or other loading of referenced files like
with ordered chapters.
--record-file=<file>
Deprecated, use --stream-record, or the dump-cache command.
Record the current stream to the given target file. The target file will always be overwritten
without asking.
This was deprecated because it isn't very nice to use. For one, seeking while this is enabled will
be directly reflected in the output, which was not useful and annoying.
--stream-record=<file>
Write received/read data from the demuxer to the given output file. The output file will always be
overwritten without asking. The output format is determined by the extension of the output file.
Switching streams or seeking during recording might result in recording being stopped and/or
broken files. Use with care.
Seeking outside of the demuxer cache will result in "skips" in the output file, but seeking within
the demuxer cache should not affect recording. One exception is when you seek back far enough to
exceed the forward buffering size, in which case the cache stops actively reading. This will
return in dropped data if it's a live stream.
If this is set at runtime, the old file is closed, and the new file is opened. Note that this will
write only data that is appended at the end of the cache, and the already cached data cannot be
written. You can try the dump-cache command as an alternative.
External files (--audio-file etc.) are ignored by this, it works on the "main" file only. Using
this with files using ordered chapters or EDL files will also not work correctly in general.
There are some glitches with this because it uses FFmpeg's libavformat for writing the output
file. For example, it's typical that it will only work if the output format is the same as the
input format. This is the case even if it works with the ffmpeg tool. One reason for this is that
ffmpeg and its libraries contain certain hacks and workarounds for these issues, that are
unavailable to outside users.
This replaces --record-file. It is similar to the ancient/removed --stream-capture/-capture
options, and provides better behavior in most cases (i.e. actually works).
--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.
It's not possible to change the tracks connected to the filter at runtime, unless you explicitly
change the lavfi-complex property and set new track assignments. When the graph is changed, the
track selection is changed according to the used labels as well.
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 with the normal methods.
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] [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). To load a video
track from another file, you can use --external-file=other.mkv.
• --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]' A libavfilter source-only filter (Conways' Life Game).
See the FFmpeg libavfilter documentation for details on the available filters.
--metadata-codepage=<codepage>
Codepage for various input metadata (default: utf-8). This affects how file tags, chapter titles,
etc. are interpreted. You can for example set this to auto to enable autodetection of the
codepage. (This is not the default because non-UTF-8 codepages are an obscure fringe use-case.)
See --sub-codepage option on how codepages are specified and further details regarding
autodetection and codepage conversion. (The underlying code is the same.)
Conversion is not applied to metadata that is updated at runtime.
Debugging
--unittest=<name>
Run an internal unit test. There are multiple, and the name specifies which.
The special value all-simple runs all tests which do not need further setup (other arguments and
such). Some tests may need additional arguments to do anything useful.
On success, the player binary exits with exit status 0, otherwise it returns with an undefined
non-0 exit status (it may crash or abort itself on test failures).
This is only enabled if built with --enable-tests, and should normally be enabled and used by
developers only.
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 output 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-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-spdif-hack=<yes|no>
Try to pass through AC3/DTS data as PCM. This is useful for drivers which do not report AC3
support. It converts the AC3 data to float, and assumes the driver will do the inverse
conversion, which means a typical A/V receiver will pick it up as compressed IEC framed AC3
stream, ignoring that it's marked as PCM. This disables normal AC3 passthrough (even if the
device reports it as supported). Use with extreme care.
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 OpenAL audio output driver
--openal-num-buffers=<2-128>
Specify the number of audio buffers to use. Lower values are better for lower CPU usage.
Default: 4.
--openal-num-samples=<256-32768>
Specify the number of complete samples to use for each buffer. Higher values are better for
lower CPU usage. Default: 8192.
--openal-direct-channels=<yes|no>
Enable OpenAL Soft's direct channel extension when available to avoid tinting the sound
with ambisonics or HRTF. Channels are dropped when when they are not available as
downmixing will be disabled. Default: no.
pulse PulseAudio audio output driver
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--pulse-host=<host>
Specify the host to use. An empty <host> string uses a local connection, "localhost" uses
network transfer (most likely not what you want).
--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.
--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.)
--pulse-allow-suspended=<yes|no>
Allow mpv to use PulseAudio even if the sink is suspended (default: no). Can be useful if
PulseAudio is running as a bridge to jack and mpv has its sink-input set to the one jack is
using.
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.
--ao-null-format
Force the audio output format the AO will accept. If unset accepts any.
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. Use --audio-device=rsound/<hostname> to set the host name (with
<hostname> replaced, without the < >).
NOTE:
Completely useless, unless you intend to run RSound. Not to be confused with RoarAudio, which
is something completely different.
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.)
wasapi Audio output to the Windows Audio Session API.
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=gpu, 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.
Since mpv 0.30.0, you may need to use --profile=sw-fast to get decent performance.
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.
gpu General purpose, customizable, GPU-accelerated video output driver. It supports extended scaling
methods, dithering, color management, custom shaders, HDR, and more.
See GPU renderer options for options specific to this VO.
By default, it tries to use fast and fail-safe settings. Use the gpu-hq profile to use this driver
with defaults set to high quality rendering. The profile can be applied with --profile=gpu-hq and
its contents can be viewed with --show-profile=gpu-hq.
This VO abstracts over several possible graphics APIs and windowing contexts, which can be
influenced using the --gpu-api and --gpu-context options.
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.
gpu makes use of FBOs by default. Sometimes you can achieve better quality or performance by
changing the --gpu-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 --gpu-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.
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 compatibility. This is low quality, and has issues with OSD.
NOTE:
This driver is for compatibility with crappy systems. You can use vaapi hardware decoding with
--vo=gpu 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.
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.
Since mpv 0.30.0, you may need to use --profile=sw-fast to get decent performance.
--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.
webp WebP files.
--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-optimize=<0-100>
JPEG optimization factor (default: 100)
--vo-image-webp-lossless=<yes|no>
Enable writing lossless WebP files (default: no)
--vo-image-webp-quality=<0-100>
WebP quality (default: 75)
--vo-image-webp-compression=<0-6>
WebP compression factor (default: 4)
--vo-image-outdir=<dirname>
Specify the directory to save the image files to (default: ./).
libmpv For use with libmpv direct embedding. As a special case, on OS X it is used like a normal VO
within mpv (cocoa-cb). Otherwise useless in any other contexts. (See <mpv/render.h>.)
This also supports many of the options the gpu VO has, depending on the backend.
rpi (Raspberry Pi)
Native video output on the Raspberry Pi using the MMAL API.
This is deprecated. Use --vo=gpu 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=gpu, 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 gpu VO).
Since mpv 0.30.0, you may need to use --profile=sw-fast to get decent performance.
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 a list
of available connectors. When using multiple graphic cards, use the <gpu_number> argument
to disambiguate. (default: empty)
--drm-mode=<preferred|highest|N|WxH[@R]>
Mode to use (resolution and frame rate). Possible values:
preferred
Use the preferred mode for the screen on the selected connector. (default)
highest
Use the mode with the highest resolution available on the selected connector.
N Select mode by index.
WxH[@R]
Specify mode by width, height, and optionally refresh rate. In case several modes
match, selects the mode that comes first in the EDID list of modes.
Use --drm-mode=help to get a list of available modes for all active connectors.
--drm-atomic=<no|auto>
Toggle use of atomic modesetting. Mostly useful for debugging.
no Use legacy modesetting.
auto Use atomic modesetting, falling back to legacy modesetting if not available.
(default)
Note: Only affects gpu-context=drm. vo=drm supports legacy modesetting only.
--drm-draw-plane=<primary|overlay|N>
Select the DRM plane to which video and OSD is drawn to, under normal circumstances. The
plane can be specified as primary, which will pick the first applicable primary plane;
overlay, which will pick the first applicable overlay plane; or by index. The index is zero
based, and related to the CRTC. (default: primary)
When using this option with the drmprime-drm hwdec interop, only the OSD is rendered to
this plane.
--drm-drmprime-video-plane=<primary|overlay|N>
Select the DRM plane to use for video with the drmprime-drm hwdec interop (used by e.g. the
rkmpp hwdec on RockChip SoCs, and v4l2 hwdec:s on various other SoC:s). The plane is unused
otherwise. This option accepts the same values as --drm-draw-plane. (default: overlay)
To be able to successfully play 4K video on various SoCs you might need to set
--drm-draw-plane=overlay --drm-drmprime-video-plane=primary and setting
--drm-draw-surface-size=1920x1080, to render the OSD at a lower resolution (the video when
handled by the hwdec will be on the drmprime-video plane and at full 4K resolution)
--drm-format=<xrgb8888|xrgb2101010>
Select the DRM format to use (default: xrgb8888). This allows you to choose the bit depth
of the DRM mode. xrgb8888 is your usual 24 bit per pixel/8 bits per channel packed RGB
format with 8 bits of padding. xrgb2101010 is a packed 30 bits per pixel/10 bits per
channel packed RGB format with 2 bits of padding.
There are cases when xrgb2101010 will work with the drm VO, but not with the drm backend
for the gpu VO. This is because with the gpu VO, in addition to requiring support in your
DRM driver, requires support for xrgb2101010 in your EGL driver
--drm-draw-surface-size=<[WxH]>
Sets the size of the surface used on the draw plane. The surface will then be upscaled to
the current screen resolution. This option can be useful when used together with the
drmprime-drm hwdec interop at high resolutions, as it allows scaling the draw plane (which
in this case only handles the OSD) down to a size the GPU can handle.
When used without the drmprime-drm hwdec interop this option will just cause the video to
get rendered at a different resolution and then scaled to screen size.
Note: this option is only available with DRM atomic support. (default: display resolution)
mediacodec_embed (Android)
Renders IMGFMT_MEDIACODEC frames directly to an android.view.Surface. Requires --hwdec=mediacodec
for hardware decoding, along with --vo=mediacodec_embed and
--wid=(intptr_t)(*android.view.Surface).
Since this video output driver uses native decoding and rendering routines, many of mpv's features
(subtitle rendering, OSD/OSC, video filters, etc) are not available with this driver.
To use hardware decoding with --vo=gpu instead, use --hwdec=mediacodec-copy along with
--gpu-context=android.
wlshm (Wayland only)
Shared memory video output driver without hardware acceleration that works whenever Wayland is
present.
Since mpv 0.30.0, you may need to use --profile=sw-fast to get decent performance.
NOTE:
This is a fallback only, and should not be normally used.
AUDIO FILTERS
Audio filters allow you to modify the audio stream and its properties. The syntax is:
--af=...
Setup a chain of audio filters. See --vf (VIDEO FILTERS) for the full syntax.
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.
The --vf description describes how libavfilter can be used and how to workaround deprecated mpv
filters.
See --vf group of options for info on how --af-defaults, --af-add, --af-pre, --af-del, --af-clr, and
possibly others work.
Available filters are:
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.
format=format:srate:channels: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-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.
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.
multiply-pitch <factor>
Multiply the current value of <pitch-scale> dynamically. For example: 0.5 to go down by an
octave, 1.5 to go up by a perfect fifth. If you want to go up or down by semi-tones, use
1.059463094352953 and 0.9438743126816935
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.
fix-pts=<yes|no>
Determine PTS based on sample count (default: no). If this is enabled, the player won't
rely on libavfilter passing through PTS accurately. Instead, it pass a sample count as PTS
to libavfilter, and compute the PTS used by mpv based on that and the input PTS. This helps
with filters which output a recomputed PTS instead of the original PTS (including filters
which require the PTS to start at 0). mpv normally expects filters to not touch the PTS (or
only to the extent of changing frame boundaries), so this is not the default, but it will
be needed to use broken filters. In practice, these broken filters will either cause slow
A/V desync over time (with some files), or break playback completely if you seek or start
playback from the middle of a file.
VIDEO FILTERS
Video filters allow you to modify the video stream and its properties. All of the information described
in this section applies to audio filters as well (generally using the prefix --af instead of --vf).
The exact syntax is:
--vf=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
Setup a chain of video filters. This consists on the filter name, and an option list of parameters
after =. The parameters are separated by : (not ,, as that starts a new filter entry).
Before the filter name, a label can be specified with @name:, where name is an arbitrary
user-given name, which identifies the filter. This is only needed if you want to toggle the filter
at runtime.
A ! before the filter name means the filter is disabled by default. It will be skipped on filter
creation. This is also useful for runtime filter toggling.
See the vf command (and toggle sub-command) for further explanations and examples.
The general filter entry syntax is:
["@"<label-name>":"] ["!"] <filter-name> [ "=" <filter-parameter-list> ]
or for the special "toggle" syntax (see vf command):
"@"<label-name>
and the filter-parameter-list:
<filter-parameter> | <filter-parameter> "," <filter-parameter-list>
and filter-parameter:
( <param-name> "=" <param-value> ) | <param-value>
param-value can further be quoted in [ / ] in case the value contains characters like , or =. This
is used in particular with the lavfi filter, which uses a very similar syntax as mpv (MPlayer
historically) to specify filters and their parameters.
Filters can be manipulated at run time. You can use @ labels as described above in combination with the
vf command (see COMMAND INTERFACE) to get more control over this. Initially disabled filters with ! are
useful for this as well.
You can also set defaults for each filter. The defaults are applied before the normal filter parameters.
This is deprecated and never worked for the libavfilter bridge.
--vf-defaults=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
Set defaults for each filter. (Deprecated. --af-defaults is deprecated as well.)
NOTE:
To get a full list of available video filters, see --vf=help and http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html
.
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.
Most builtin filters are deprecated in some ways, unless they're only available in mpv (such as
filters which deal with mpv specifics, or which are implemented in mpv only).
If a filter is not builtin, the lavfi-bridge will be automatically tried. This bridge does not support
help output, and does not verify parameters before the filter is actually used. Although the mpv
syntax is rather similar to libavfilter's, it's not the same. (Which means not everything accepted by
vf_lavfi's graph option will be accepted by --vf.)
You can also prefix the filter name with lavfi- to force the wrapper. This is helpful if the filter
name collides with a deprecated mpv builtin filter. For example --vf=lavfi-scale=args would use
libavfilter's scale filter over mpv's deprecated builtin one.
Video filters are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage the filter list.
--vf-append=filter
Appends the filter given as arguments to the filter list.
--vf-add=filter
Appends the filter given as arguments to the filter list. (Passing multiple filters is currently
still possible, but deprecated.)
--vf-pre=filter
Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list. (Passing multiple filters is currently
still possible, but deprecated.)
--vf-remove=filter
Deletes the filter from the list. The filter can be either given the way it was added (filter name
and its full argument list), or by label (prefixed with @). Matching of filters works as follows:
if either of the compared filters has a label set, only the labels are compared. If none of the
filters have a label, the filter name, arguments, and argument order are compared. (Passing
multiple filters is currently still possible, but deprecated.)
-vf-toggle=filter
Add the given filter to the list if it was not present yet, or remove it from the list if it was
present. Matching of filters works as described in --vf-remove.
--vf-del=filter
Sort of like --vf-remove, but also accepts an index number. Index numbers start at 0, negative
numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the last). Deprecated.
--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.
Available mpv-only filters are:
format=fmt=<value>:colormatrix=<value>:...
Applies video parameter overrides, with optional conversion. By default, this overrides the
video's parameters without conversion (except for the fmt parameter), but can be made to perform
an appropriate conversion with convert=yes for parameters for which conversion is supported.
<fmt> Image format name, e.g. rgb15, bgr24, 420p, etc. (default: don't change).
This filter always performs conversion to the given format.
NOTE:
For a list of available formats, use --vf=format=fmt=help.
<convert=yes|no>
Force conversion of color parameters (default: no).
If this is disabled (the default), the only conversion that is possibly performed is format
conversion if <fmt> is set. All other parameters (like <colormatrix>) are forced without
conversion. This mode is typically useful when files have been incorrectly tagged.
If this is enabled, libswscale or zimg is used if any of the parameters mismatch. zimg is
used of the input/output image formats are supported by mpv's zimg wrapper, and if
--sws-allow-zimg=yes is used. Both libraries may not support all kinds of conversions. This
typically results in silent incorrect conversion. zimg has in many cases a better chance of
performing the conversion correctly.
In both cases, the color parameters are set on the output stage of the image format
conversion (if fmt was set). The difference is that with convert=no, the color parameters
are not passed on to the converter.
If input and output video parameters are the same, conversion is always skipped.
Examples
mpv test.mkv --vf=format:colormatrix=ycgco
Results in incorrect colors (if test.mkv was tagged correctly).
mpv test.mkv --vf=format:colormatrix=ycgco:convert=yes --sws-allow-zimg
Results in true conversion to ycgco, assuming the renderer supports it (--vo=gpu
normally does). You can add --vo=xv to force a VO which definitely does not
support it, which should show incorrect colors as confirmation.
Using --sws-allow-zimg=no (or disabling zimg at build time) will use libswscale,
which cannot perform this conversion as of this writing.
<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 gpu 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
gpu 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)
gamma2.0
Pure power curve (gamma 2.0)
gamma2.2
Pure power curve (gamma 2.2)
gamma2.4
Pure power curve (gamma 2.4)
gamma2.6
Pure power curve (gamma 2.6)
gamma2.8
Pure power curve (gamma 2.8)
prophoto
ProPhoto RGB (ROMM) curve
pq ITU-R BT.2100 PQ (Perceptual quantizer) curve
hlg ITU-R BT.2100 HLG (Hybrid Log-gamma) curve
v-log Panasonic V-Log transfer curve
s-log1 Sony S-Log1 transfer curve
s-log2 Sony S-Log2 transfer curve
<sig-peak>
Reference peak illumination for the video file, relative to the signal's reference white
level. This is mostly interesting for HDR, but it can also be used tone map SDR content to
simulate a different exposure. Normally inferred from tags such as MaxCLL or mastering
metadata.
The default of 0.0 will default to the source's nominal peak luminance.
<light>
Light type of the scene. This is mostly correctly inferred based on the gamma function,
but it can be useful to override this when viewing raw camera footage (e.g. V-Log),
which is normally scene-referred instead of display-referred.
Available light types are:
auto Automatic selection (default)
display
Display-referred light (most content)
hlg Scene-referred using the HLG OOTF (e.g. HLG content)
709-1886
Scene-referred using the BT709+BT1886 interaction
gamma1.2
Scene-referred using a pure power OOTF (gamma=1.2)
<stereo-in>
Set the stereo mode the video is assumed to be encoded in. Use --vf format:stereo-in=help
to list all available modes. Check with the stereo3d filter documentation to see what the
names mean.
<stereo-out>
Set the stereo mode the video should be displayed as. Takes the same values as the
stereo-in 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).
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. To
prevent a quoting and escaping mess, consider using --lavfi-complex if you know which
video track you want to use from the input file. (There is only one video track for
nearly all video files anyway.)
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.
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.
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.
WARNING:
Do not use this filter, unless you have expert knowledge in VapourSynth, and know how to fix
bugs in the mpv VapourSynth wrapper code.
If you just want to play video generated by VapourSynth (i.e. using a native VapourSynth video
source), it's better to use vspipe and a pipe or FIFO to feed the video to mpv. The same applies
if the filter script requires random frame access (see buffered-frames parameter).
file Filename of the script source. Currently, this is always a python script (.vpy in
VapourSynth convention).
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 only audio playing, or worse.)
The filter graph created by the script is also expected to pass through timestamps using
the _DurationNum and _DurationDen frame properties.
See the end of the option list for a full list of script variables defined by mpv.
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 backward
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 only reason why this buffer exists is to serve the random access requests the
VapourSynth filter can make.
The VapourSynth API has a getFrameAsync function, which takes an absolute frame number.
Source filters must respond to all requests. For example, a source filter can request frame
2432, and then frame 3. Source filters typically implement this by pre-indexing the
entire file.
mpv on the other hand is stream oriented, and does not allow filters to seek. (And it would
not make sense to allow it, because it would ruin performance.) Filters get frames
sequentially in playback direction, and cannot request them out of order.
To compensate for this mismatch, mpv allows the filter to access frames within a certain
window. buffered-frames controls the size of this window. Most VapourSynth filters happen
to work with this, because mpv requests frames sequentially increasing from it, and most
filters only require frames "close" to the requested frame.
If the filter requests a frame that has a higher frame number than the highest buffered
frame, new frames will be decoded until the requested frame number is reached. Excessive
frames will be flushed out in a FIFO manner (there are only at most buffered-frames in this
buffer).
If the filter requests a frame that has a lower frame number than the lowest buffered
frame, the request cannot be satisfied, and an error is returned to the filter. This kind
of error is not supposed to happen in a "proper" VapourSynth environment. What exactly
happens depends on the filters involved.
Increasing this buffer will not improve performance. Rather, it will waste memory, and slow
down seeks (when enough frames to fill the buffer need to be decoded at once). It is only
needed to prevent the error described in the previous paragraph.
How many frames a filter requires depends on filter implementation details, and mpv has no
way of knowing. A scale filter might need only 1 frame, an interpolation filter may require
a small number of frames, and the Reverse filter will require an infinite number of frames.
If you want reliable operation to the full extend VapourSynth is capable, use vspipe.
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.
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.
Technically, mpv will call the VapourSynth getFrameAsync function in a loop, until there
are concurrent-frames frames that have not been returned by the filter yet. This also
assumes that the rest of the mpv filter chain reads the output of the vapoursynth filter
quickly enough. (For example, if you pause the player, filtering will stop very soon,
because the filtered frames are waiting in a queue.)
Actual concurrency depends on many other factors.
By default, this uses the special value auto, which sets the option to the number of
detected logical CPU cores.
The following .vpy script variables are defined by mpv:
video_in
The mpv video source as vapoursynth clip. Note that this has an incorrect (very high)
length set, which confuses many filters. This is necessary, because the true number of
frames is unknown. You can use the Trim filter on the clip to reduce the length.
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 will 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.
vavpp VA-API video post processing. Requires the system to support VA-API, i.e. Linux/BSD only. Works
with --vo=vaapi and --vo=gpu 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.
auto Select the best quality deinterlacing algorithm (default). This goes by the order of
the options as documented, with motion-compensated being considered best quality.
first-field
Show only first field.
bob bob deinterlacing.
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 (default).
yes Only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced.
reversal-bug=<yes|no>
no Use the API as it was interpreted by older Mesa drivers. While this interpretation
was more obvious and inuitive, it was apparently wrong, and not shared by Intel
driver developers.
yes Use Intel interpretation of surface forward and backwards references (default). This
is what Intel drivers and newer Mesa drivers expect. Matters only for the advanced
deinterlacing algorithms.
vdpaupp
VDPAU video post processing. Works with --vo=vdpau and --vo=gpu 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 gpu 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).
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, only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced (default: no).
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, only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced (default: no).
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.
fingerprint=...
Compute video frame fingerprints and provide them as metadata. Actually, it currently barely
deserved to be called fingerprint, because it does not compute "proper" fingerprints, only tiny
downscaled images (but which can be used to compute image hashes or for similarity matching).
The main purpose of this filter is to support the skip-logo.lua script. If this script is
dropped, or mpv ever gains a way to load user-defined filters (other than VapourSynth), this
filter will be removed. Due to the "special" nature of this filter, it will be removed without
warning.
The intended way to read from the filter is using vf-metadata (also see clear-on-query filter
parameter). The property will return a list of key/value pairs as follows:
fp0.pts = 1.2345
fp0.hex = 1234abcdef...bcde
fp1.pts = 1.4567
fp1.hex = abcdef1234...6789
...
fpN.pts = ...
fpN.hex = ...
type = gray-hex-16x16
Each fp<N> entry is for a frame. The pts entry specifies the timestamp of the frame (within the
filter chain; in simple cases this is the same as the display timestamp). The hex field is the hex
encoded fingerprint, whose size and meaning depend on the type filter option. The type field has
the same value as the option the filter was created with.
This returns the frames that were filtered since the last query of the property. If
clear-on-query=no was set, a query doesn't reset the list of frames. In both cases, a maximum of
10 frames is returned. If there are more frames, the oldest frames are discarded. Frames are
returned in filter order.
(This doesn't return a structured list for the per-frame details because the internals of the
vf-metadata mechanism suck. The returned format may change in the future.)
This filter uses zimg for speed and profit. However, it will fallback to libswscale in a number of
situations: lesser pixel formats, unaligned data pointers or strides, or if zimg fails to
initialize for unknown reasons. In these cases, the filter will use more CPU. Also, it will output
different fingerprints, because libswscale cannot perform the full range expansion we normally
request from zimg. As a consequence, the filter may be slower and not work correctly in random
situations.
type=...
What fingerprint to compute. Available types are:
gray-hex-8x8
grayscale, 8 bit, 8x8 size
gray-hex-16x16
grayscale, 8 bit, 16x16 size (default)
Both types simply remove all colors, downscale the image, concatenate all pixel values to a
byte array, and convert the array to a hex string.
clear-on-query=yes|no
Clear the list of frame fingerprints if the vf-metadata property for this filter is queried
(default: yes). This requires some care by the user. Some types of accesses might query the
filter multiple times, which leads to lost frames.
print=yes|no
Print computed fingerprints the the terminal (default: no). This is mostly for testing and
such. Scripts should use vf-metadata to read information from this filter instead.
gpu=...
Convert video to RGB using the OpenGL renderer normally used with --vo=gpu. This requires that the
EGL implementation supports off-screen rendering on the default display. (This is the case with
Mesa.)
Sub-options:
w=<pixels>, h=<pixels>
Size of the output in pixels (default: 0). If not positive, this will use the size of the
first filtered input frame.
WARNING:
This is highly experimental. Performance is bad, and it will not work everywhere in the first
place. Some features are not supported.
WARNING:
This does not do OSD rendering. If you see OSD, then it has been rendered by the VO backend.
(Subtitles are rendered by the gpu filter, if possible.)
WARNING:
If you use this with encoding mode, keep in mind that encoding mode will convert the RGB
filter's output back to yuv420p in software, using the configured software scaler. Using zimg
might improve this, but in any case it might go against your goals when using this filter.
WARNING:
Do not use this with --vo=gpu. It will apply filtering twice, since most --vo=gpu options are
unconditionally applied to the gpu filter. There is no mechanism in mpv to prevent this.
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). 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.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
--ofopts-add=<option>
Appends the option given as an argument to the options list. (Passing multiple options is
currently still possible, but deprecated.)
--ofopts=""
Completely empties the options list.
--oac=<codec>
Specifies the output audio codec. 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.
Deprecated.
--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.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
--oacopts-add=<option>
Appends the option given as an argument to the options list. (Passing multiple options is
currently still possible, but deprecated.)
--oacopts=""
Completely empties the options list.
--oafirst
Force the audio stream to become the first stream in the output. By default, the order is
unspecified. Deprecated.
--ovc=<codec>
Specifies the output video codec. 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. Deprecated.
--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.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
--ovcopts-add=<option>
Appends the option given as an argument to the options list. (Passing multiple options is
currently still possible, but deprecated.)
--ovcopts=""
Completely empties the options list.
--ovfirst
Force the video stream to become the first stream in the output. By default, the order is
unspecified. Deprecated.
--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-ocopy-metadata
Turns off copying of metadata from input files to output files when encoding (which is enabled by
default).
--oset-metadata=<metadata-tag[,metadata-tag,...]>
Specifies metadata to include in the output file. Supported keys vary between output formats. For
example, Matroska (MKV) and FLAC allow almost arbitrary keys, while support in MP4 and MP3 is more
limited.
This is a key/value list option. See List Options for details.
Example
--oset-metadata=title= Output title",comment="Another tag""
adds a title and a comment to the output file.
--oremove-metadata=<metadata-tag[,metadata-tag,...]>
Specifies metadata to exclude from the output file when copying from the input file.
This is a string list option. See List Options for details.
Example
--oremove-metadata=comment,genre
excludes copying of the the comment and genre tags to the output file.
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.)
Also see Key names.
input.conf syntax
[Shift+][Ctrl+][Alt+][Meta+]<key> [{<section>}] <command> ( ; <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.
<command> is the command itself. It consists of the command name and multiple (or none) commands, all
separated by whitespace. String arguments need to be quoted with ". Details see Flat command syntax.
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.
Key names
All mouse and keyboard input is to converted to mpv-specific key names. Key names are either special
symbolic identifiers representing a physical key, or a text key names, which are unicode code points
encoded as UTF-8. These are what keyboard input would normally produce, for example a for the A key. As a
consequence, mpv uses input translated by the current OS keyboard layout, rather than physical scan
codes.
Currently there is the hardcoded assumption that every text key can be represented as a single unicode
code point (in NFKC form).
All key names can be combined with the modifiers Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Meta. They must be prefixed to the
actual key name, where each modifier is followed by a + (for example ctrl+q).
Symbolic key names and modifier names are case-insensitive. Unicode key names are case-sensitive because
input bindings typically respect the shift key.
Another type of key names are hexadecimal key names, that serve as fallback for special keys that are
neither unicode, nor have a special mpv defined name. They will break as soon as mpv adds proper names
for them, but can enable you to use a key at all if that does not happen.
All symbolic names are listed by --input-keylist. --input-test is a special mode that prints all input on
the OSD.
Comments on some symbolic names:
KP* Keypad names. Behavior varies by backend (whether they implement this, and on how they treat
numlock), but typically, mpv tries to map keys on the keypad to separate names, even if they
produce the same text as normal keys.
MOUSE_BTN*, MBTN*
Various mouse buttons.
Depending on backend, the mouse wheel might also be represented as a button. In addition,
MOUSE_BTN3 to MOUSE_BTN6 are deprecated aliases for WHEEL_UP, WHEEL_DOWN, WHEEL_LEFT, WHEEL_RIGHT.
MBTN* are aliases for MOUSE_BTN*.
WHEEL_*
Mouse wheels (typically).
AXIS_* Deprecated aliases for WHEEL_*.
*_DBL Mouse button double clicks.
MOUSE_MOVE, MOUSE_ENTER, MOUSE_LEAVE
Emitted by mouse move events. Enter/leave happens when the mouse enters or leave the mpv window
(or the current mouse region, using the deprecated mouse region input section mechanism).
CLOSE_WIN
Pseudo key emitted when closing the mpv window using the OS window manager (for example, by
clicking the close button in the window title bar).
GAMEPAD_*
Keys emitted by the SDL gamepad backend.
UNMAPPED
Pseudo-key that matches any unmapped key. (You should probably avoid this if possible, because it
might change behavior or get removed in the future.)
ANY_UNICODE
Pseudo-key that matches any key that produces text. (You should probably avoid this if possible,
because it might change behavior or get removed in the future.)
Flat command syntax
This is the syntax used in input.conf, and referred to "input.conf syntax" in a number of other places.
<command> ::= [<prefixes>] <command_name> (<argument>)* <argument> ::= (<string> | " <quoted_string> " )
command_name is an unquoted string with the command name itself. See List of Input Commands for a list.
Arguments are separated by whitespace. This applies even to string arguments. For this reason, string
arguments should be quoted with ". If a string argument contains spaces or certain special characters,
quoting and possibly escaping is mandatory, or the command cannot be parsed correctly.
Inside quotes, C-style escaping can be used. JSON escapes according to RFC 8259, minus surrogate pair
escapes, should be a safe subset that can be used.
Commands specified as arrays
This applies to certain APIs, such as mp.commandv() or mp.command_native() (with array parameters) in Lua
scripting, or mpv_command() or mpv_command_node() (with MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY) in the C libmpv client
API.
The command as well as all arguments are passed as a single array. Similar to the Flat command syntax,
you can first pass prefixes as strings (each as separate array item), then the command name as string,
and then each argument as string or a native value.
Since these APIs pass arguments as separate strings or native values, they do not expect quotes, and do
support escaping. Technically, there is the input.conf parser, which first splits the command string into
arguments, and then invokes argument parsers for each argument. The input.conf parser normally handles
quotes and escaping. The array command APIs mentioned above pass strings directly to the argument
parsers, or can sidestep them by the ability to pass non-string values.
Sometimes commands have string arguments, that in turn are actually parsed by other components (e.g.
filter strings with vf add) - in these cases, you you would have to double-escape in input.conf, but not
with the array APIs.
For complex commands, consider using Named arguments instead, which should give slightly more
compatibility. Some commands do not support named arguments and inherently take an array, though.
Named arguments
This applies to certain APIs, such as mp.command_native() (with tables that have string keys) in Lua
scripting, or mpv_command_node() (with MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP) in the C libmpv client API.
Like with array commands, quoting and escaping is inherently not needed in the normal case.
The name of each command is defined in each command description in the List of Input Commands.
--input-cmdlist also lists them.
Some commands do not support named arguments (e.g. run command). You need to use APIs that pass arguments
as arrays.
Named arguments are not supported in the "flat" input.conf syntax, which means you cannot use them for
key bindings in input.conf at all.
List of Input Commands
Commands with parameters have the parameter name enclosed in < / >. Don't add those to the actual
command. Optional arguments are enclosed in [ / ]. If you don't pass them, they will be set to a default
value.
Remember to quote string arguments in input.conf (see Flat command syntax).
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 <target> [<flags>]
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, relative-percent, and absolute-percent seeks, while
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 [<flags>]
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 <name> <value>
Set the given property or option to the given value.
add <name> [<value>]
Add the given value to the property or option. On overflow or underflow, clamp the property to the
maximum. If <value> is omitted, assume 1.
cycle <name> [<value>]
Cycle the given property or option. The second argument can be up or down to 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 <name> <value>
Similar to add, but multiplies the property or option with the numeric value.
screenshot <flags>
Take a screenshot.
Multiple flags are available (some can be combined with +):
<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.
Older mpv versions required passing single and each-frame as second argument (and did not have
flags). This syntax is still understood, but deprecated and might be removed in the future.
If you combine this command with another one using ;, you can use the async flag to make
encoding/writing the image file asynchronous. For normal standalone commands, this is always
asynchronous, and the flag has no effect. (This behavior changed with mpv 0.29.0.)
screenshot-to-file <filename> <flags>
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 and supports subtitles, video,
window.
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 <flags>
Go to the next entry on the playlist.
First argument:
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 <flags>
Go to the previous entry on the playlist.
First argument:
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 <url> [<flags> [<options>]]
Load the given file or URL 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 <url> [<flags>]
Load the given playlist file or URL (like --playlist).
Second argument:
<replace> (default)
Stop playback and replace the internal playlist with the new one.
<append>
Append the new playlist at the end of the current internal playlist.
playlist-clear
Clear the playlist, except the currently played file.
playlist-remove <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.
playlist-unshuffle
Attempt to revert the previous playlist-shuffle command. This works only once (multiple successive
playlist-unshuffle commands do nothing). May not work correctly if new recursive playlists have
been opened since a playlist-shuffle command.
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.
This command has a variable number of arguments, and cannot be used with named arguments.
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.
subprocess
Similar to run, but gives more control about process execution to the caller, and does does not
detach the process.
You can avoid blocking until the process terminates by running this command asynchronously. (For
example mp.command_native_async() in Lua scripting.)
This has the following named arguments. The order of them is not guaranteed, so you should always
call them with named arguments, see Named arguments.
args (MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY[MPV_FORMAT_STRING])
Array of strings with the command as first argument, and subsequent command line arguments
following. This is just like the run command argument list.
The first array entry is either an absolute path to the executable, or a filename with no
path components, in which case the PATH environment variable. On Unix, this is equivalent
to posix_spawnp and execvp behavior.
playback_only (MPV_FORMAT_FLAG)
Boolean indicating whether the process should be killed when playback terminates (optional,
default: yes). If enabled, stopping playback will automatically kill the process, and you
can't start it outside of playback.
capture_size (MPV_FORMAT_INT64)
Integer setting the maximum number of stdout plus stderr bytes that can be captured
(optional, default: 64MB). If the number of bytes exceeds this, capturing is stopped. The
limit is per captured stream.
capture_stdout (MPV_FORMAT_FLAG)
Capture all data the process outputs to stdout and return it once the process ends
(optional, default: no).
capture_stderr (MPV_FORMAT_FLAG)
Same as capture_stdout, but for stderr.
The command returns the following result (as MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP):
status (MPV_FORMAT_INT64)
The raw exit status of the process. It will be negative on error. The meaning of negative
values is undefined, other than meaning error (and does not necessarily correspond to OS
low level exit status values).
On Windows, it can happen that a negative return value is returned even if the process
exits gracefully, because the win32 UINT exit code is assigned to an int variable before
being set as int64_t field in the result map. This might be fixed later.
stdout (MPV_FORMAT_BYTE_ARRAY)
Captured stdout stream, limited to capture_size.
stderr (MPV_FORMAT_BYTE_ARRAY)
Same as stdout, but for stderr.
error_string (MPV_FORMAT_STRING)
Empty string if the process exited gracefully. 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
playback_only being set to yes.
killed_by_us (MPV_FORMAT_FLAG)
Set to yes if the process has been killed by mpv, for example as a result of playback_only
being set to yes, aborting the command (e.g. by mp.abort_async_command()), or if the player
is about to exit.
Note that the command itself will always return success as long as the parameters are correct.
Whether the process could be spawned or whether it was somehow killed or returned an error status
has to be queried from the result value.
This command can be asynchronously aborted via API.
In all cases, the subprocess will be terminated on player exit. Also see Asynchronous command
details. Only the run command can start processes in a truly detached way.
Warning
Don't forget to set the playback_only field if you want the command run while the player
is in idle mode, or if you don't want that end of playback kills the command.
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 <url> [<flags> [<title> [<lang>]]]
Load the given subtitle file or stream. By default, it is selected as current subtitle after
loading.
The flags argument is one of the following values:
<select>
Select the subtitle immediately (default).
<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.
print-text <text>
Print text to stdout. The string can contain properties (see Property Expansion). Take care to put
the argument in quotes.
show-text <text> [<duration>|-1 [<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).
expand-text <string>
Property-expand the argument and return the expanded string. This can be used only through the
client API or from a script using mp.command_native. (see Property Expansion).
expand-path <string>
Expand a path's double-tilde placeholders into a platform-specific path. As expand-text, this can
only be used through the client API or from a script using mp.command_native.
Example
mp.osd_message(mp.command_native({"expand-path", "~~home/"}))
This line of Lua would show the location of the user's mpv configuration directory on
the OSD.
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> [<mode>]]
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 <name>
Send a key event through mpv's input handler, triggering whatever behavior is configured to that
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 <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 [<name>]
Set the KEYUP flag, stopping any repeated behavior that had been triggered. name is optional. If
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 name.
keybind <name> <command>
Binds a key to an input command. command must be a complete command containing all the desired
arguments and flags. Both name and command use the input.conf naming scheme. This is primarily
useful for the client API.
audio-add <url> [<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.
video-add <url> [<flags> [<title> [<lang>]]]
Load the given video file. See sub-add command.
video-remove [<id>]
Remove the given video track. See sub-remove command.
video-reload [<id>]
Reload the given video 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 <operation> <value>
Change audio filter chain. See vf command.
vf <operation> <value>
Change video filter chain.
The semantics are exactly the same as with option parsing (see VIDEO FILTERS). As such the text
below is a redundant and incomplete summary.
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.)
A special variant is combining this with labels, and using @name without filter name and
parameters as filter entry. This toggles the enable/disable flag.
<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.
Deprecated.
<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 gradfun toggle debanding on c
Example how to toggle disabled filters at runtime
• Add something like vf-add=@deband:!gradfun to mpv.conf. The @deband: is the label, an
arbitrary, user-given name for this filter entry. The ! before the filter name disables the
filter by default. Everything after this is the normal filter name and possibly filter
parameters, like in the normal --vf syntax.
• Add a vf toggle @deband to input.conf. This toggles the "disabled" flag for the filter with
the label deband when the a key is hit.
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 will use the current value of the property/option, and use it
to determine the current position in the list of values. Once it has found it, it will set the
next value in the list (wrapping around to the first item if needed).
This command has a variable number of arguments, and cannot be used with named arguments.
The special argument !reverse can be used to cycle the value list in reverse. The only advantage
is that you don't need to reverse the value list yourself when adding a second key binding for
cycling backwards.
enable-section <name> [<flags>]
This command is deprecated, except for mpv-internal uses.
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 <name>
This command is deprecated, except for mpv-internal uses.
Disable the named input section. Undoes enable-section.
define-section <name> <contents> [<flags>]
This command is deprecated, except for mpv-internal uses.
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.
This has the following named arguments. The order of them is not guaranteed, so you should always
call them with named arguments, see Named arguments.
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.
osd-overlay
Add/update/remove an OSD overlay.
(Although this sounds similar to overlay-add, osd-overlay is for text overlays, while overlay-add
is for bitmaps. Maybe overlay-add will be merged into osd-overlay to remove this oddity.)
You can use this to add text overlays in ASS format. ASS has advanced positioning and rendering
tags, which can be used to render almost any kind of vector graphics.
This command accepts the following parameters:
id Arbitrary integer that identifies the overlay. Multiple overlays can be added by calling
this command with different id parameters. Calling this command with the same id replaces
the previously set overlay.
There is a separate namespace for each libmpv client (i.e. IPC connection, script), so IDs
can be made up and assigned by the API user without conflicting with other API users.
If the libmpv client is destroyed, all overlays associated with it are also deleted. In
particular, connecting via --input-ipc-server, adding an overlay, and disconnecting will
remove the overlay immediately again.
format String that gives the type of the overlay. Accepts the following values:
ass-events
The data parameter is a string. The string is split on the newline character. Every
line is turned into the Text part of a Dialogue ASS event. Timing is unused (but
behavior of timing dependent ASS tags may change in future mpv versions).
Note that it's better to put multiple lines into data, instead of adding multiple
OSD overlays.
This provides 2 ASS Styles. OSD contains the text style as defined by the current
--osd-... options. Default is similar, and contains style that OSD would have if all
options were set to the default.
In addition, the res_x and res_y options specify the value of the ASS PlayResX and
PlayResY header fields. If res_y is set to 0, PlayResY is initialized to an
arbitrary default value (but note that the default for this command is 720, not 0).
If res_x is set to 0, PlayResX is set based on res_y such that a virtual ASS pixel
has a square pixel aspect ratio.
none Special value that causes the overlay to be removed. Most parameters other than id
and format are mostly ignored.
data String defining the overlay contents according to the format parameter.
res_x, res_y
Used if format is set to ass-events (see description there). Optional, defaults to 0/720.
z The Z order of the overlay. Optional, defaults to 0.
Note that Z order between different overlays of different formats is static, and cannot be
changed (currently, this means that bitmap overlays added by overlay-add are always on top
of the ASS overlays added by osd-overlay). In addition, the builtin OSD components are
always below any of the custom OSD. (This includes subtitles of any kind as well as text
rendered by show-text.)
It's possible that future mpv versions will randomly change how Z order between different
OSD formats and builtin OSD is handled.
Note: always use named arguments (mpv_command_node()). Scripts should use the
mp.create_osd_overlay() helper instead of invoking this command directly.
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).
This command has a variable number of arguments, and cannot be used with named arguments.
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().
This command has a variable number of arguments, and cannot be used with named arguments.
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).
5. The text the key would produce, or empty string if not applicable.
The 5th argument is only set if no modifiers are present (using the shift key with a letter is
normally not emitted as having a modifier, and results in upper case text instead, but some
backends may mess up).
The key state consists of 2 characters:
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).
Future versions can add more arguments and more key state characters to support more input
peculiarities.
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 [<flags>]
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.
The 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 are 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 mpv_node is freed. As usual
with client API semantics, you are not allowed to write to the image data.
The stride is the number of bytes from a pixel at (x0, y0) to the pixel at (x0, y0 + 1). This can
be larger than w * 4 if the image was cropped, or if there is padding. This number can be negative
as well. You access a pixel with byte_index = y * stride + x * 4 (assuming the bgr0 format).
The flags argument is like the first argument to screenshot and supports subtitles, video, window.
vf-command <label> <command> <argument>
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> <command> <argument>
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 <filename>
Load a script, similar to the --script option. Whether this waits for the script to finish
initialization or not changed multiple times, and the future behavior is left undefined.
change-list <name> <operation> <value>
This command changes list options as described in List Options. The <name> parameter is the normal
option name, while <operation> is the suffix or action used on the option.
Some operations take no value, but the command still requires the value parameter. In these cases,
the value must be an empty string.
Example
change-list glsl-shaders append file.glsl
Add a filename to the glsl-shaders list. The command line equivalent is
--glsl-shaders-append=file.glsl or alternatively --glsl-shader=file.glsl.
dump-cache <start> <end> <filename>
Dump the current cache to the given filename. The <filename> file is overwritten if it already
exists. <start> and <end> give the time range of what to dump. If no data is cached at the given
time range, nothing may be dumped (creating a file with no packets).
Dumping a larger part of the cache will freeze the player. No effort was made to fix this, as this
feature was meant mostly for creating small excerpts.
See --stream-record for various caveats that mostly apply to this command too, as both use the
same underlying code for writing the output file.
If <filename> is an empty string, an ongoing dump-cache is stopped.
If <end> is no, then continuous dumping is enabled. Then, after dumping the existing parts of the
cache, anything read from network is appended to the cache as well. This behaves similar to
--stream-record (although it does not conflict with that option, and they can be both active at
the same time).
If the <end> time is after the cache, the command will _not_ wait and write newly received data to
it.
The end of the resulting file may be slightly damaged or incomplete at the end. (Not enough effort
was made to ensure that the end lines up properly.)
Note that this command will finish only once dumping ends. That means it works similar to the
screenshot command, just that it can block much longer. If continuous dumping is used, the command
will not finish until playback is stopped, an error happens, another dump-cache command is run, or
an API like mp.abort_async_command was called to explicitly stop the command. See Synchronous vs.
Asynchronous.
NOTE:
This was mostly created for network streams. For local files, there may be much better methods
to create excerpts and such. There are tons of much more user-friendly Lua scripts, that will
reencode parts of a file by spawning a separate instance of ffmpeg. With network streams, this
is not that easily possible, as the stream would have to be downloaded again. Even if
--stream-record is used to record the stream to the local filesystem, there may be problems,
because the recorded file is still written to.
This command is experimental, and all details about it may change in the future.
ab-loop-dump-cache <filename>
Essentially calls dump-cache with the current AB-loop points as arguments. Like dump-cache, this
will overwrite the file at <filename>. Likewise, if the B point is set to no, it will enter
continuous dumping after the existing cache was dumped.
The author reserves the right to remove this command if enough motivation is found to move this
functionality to a trivial Lua script.
ab-loop-align-cache
Re-adjust the A/B loop points to the start and end within the cache the ab-loop-dump-cache command
will (probably) dump. Basically, it aligns the times on keyframes. The guess might be off
especially at the end (due to granularity issues due to remuxing). If the cache shrinks in the
meantime, the points set by the command will not be the effective parameters either.
This command has an even more uncertain future than ab-loop-dump-cache and might disappear without
replacement if the author decides it's useless.
Undocumented commands: 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.
The C API is described in the header files. The Lua API is described in the Lua section.
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_load_fail
Called after after a file has been opened, but failed to. This can be used to provide a fallback
in case native demuxers failed to recognize the file, instead of always running before the native
demuxers like on_load. Demux will only be retried if stream-open-filename was changed.
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.
Legacy hook API
WARNING:
The legacy API is deprecated and will be removed soon.
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
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.
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
Use the default behavior for this command. This is the default for input.conf commands. Some
libmpv/scripting/IPC APIs do not use this as default, but use no-osd instead.
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}".) This is the default for
some libmpv/scripting/IPC APIs.
expand-properties
All string arguments are expanded as described in Property Expansion. This is the default for
input.conf commands.
repeatable
For some commands, keeping a key pressed doesn't run the command repeatedly. This prefix forces
enabling key repeat in any case.
async Allow asynchronous execution (if possible). Note that only a few commands will support this
(usually this is explicitly documented). Some commands are asynchronous by default (or rather,
their effects might manifest after completion of the command). The semantics of this flag might
change in the future. Set it only if you don't rely on the effects of this command being fully
realized when it returns. See Synchronous vs. Asynchronous.
sync Allow synchronous execution (if possible). Normally, all commands are synchronous by default, but
some are asynchronous by default for compatibility with older behavior.
All of the osd prefixes are still overridden by the global --osd-level settings.
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous
The async and sync prefix matter only for how the issuer of the command waits on the completion of the
command. Normally it does not affect how the command behaves by itself. There are the following cases:
• Normal input.conf commands are always run asynchronously. Slow running commands are queued up or run in
parallel.
• "Multi" input.conf commands (1 key binding, concatenated with ;) will be executed in order, except for
commands that are async (either prefixed with async, or async by default for some commands). The async
commands are run in a detached manner, possibly in parallel to the remaining sync commands in the list.
• Normal Lua and libmpv commands (e.g. mpv_command()) are run in a blocking manner, unless the async
prefix is used, or the command is async by default. This means in the sync case the caller will block,
even if the core continues playback. Async mode runs the command in a detached manner.
• Async libmpv command API (e.g. mpv_command_async()) never blocks the caller, and always notify their
completion with a message. The sync and async prefixes make no difference.
• Lua also provides APIs for running async commands, which behave similar to the C counterparts.
• In all cases, async mode can still run commands in a synchronous manner, even in detached mode. This
can for example happen in cases when a command does not have an asynchronous implementation. The async
libmpv API still never blocks the caller in these cases.
Before mpv 0.29.0, the async prefix was only used by screenshot commands, and made them run the file
saving code in a detached manner. This is the default now, and async changes behavior only in the ways
mentioned above.
Currently the following commands have different waiting characteristics with sync vs. async: sub-add,
audio-add, sub-reload, audio-reload, rescan-external-files, screenshot, screenshot-to-file, dump-cache,
ab-loop-dump-cache.
Asynchronous command details
On the API level, every asynchronous command is bound to the context which started it. For example, an
asynchronous command started by mpv_command_async is bound to the mpv_handle passed to the function. Only
this mpv_handle receives the completion notification (MPV_EVENT_COMMAND_REPLY), and only this handle can
abort a still running command directly. If the mpv_handle is destroyed, any still running async. commands
started by it are terminated.
The scripting APIs and JSON IPC give each script/connection its own implicit mpv_handle.
If the player is closed, the core may abort all pending async. commands on its own (like a forced
mpv_abort_async_command() call for each pending command on behalf of the API user). This happens at the
same time MPV_EVENT_SHUTDOWN is sent, and there is no way to prevent this.
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
segmented/multi-part files, this will return the size of the main or manifest file, whatever it
is.)
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.
stream-open-filename
The full path to the currently played media. This is different only from path in special cases. In
particular, if --ytdl=yes is used, and the URL is detected by youtube-dl, then the script will set
this property to the actual media URL. This property should be set only during the on_load or
on_load_fail hooks, otherwise it will have no effect (or may do something implementation defined
in the future). The property is reset if playback of the current media ends.
media-title
If the currently played file has a title tag, use that.
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 and is almost never
different from path.)
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.
decoder-frame-drop-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.
drop-frame-count is a deprecated alias.
frame-drop-count
Frames dropped by VO (when using --framedrop=vo).
vo-drop-frame-count is a deprecated alias.
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.
Before mpv 0.31.0, this showed the actual edition selected at runtime, if you didn't set the
option or property manually. With mpv 0.31.0 and later, this strictly returns the user-set option
or property value, and the current-edition property was added to return the runtime selected
edition (this matters with --edition=auto, the default).
current-edition
Currently selected edition. This property is unavailable if no file is loaded, or the file has no
editions. (Matroska files make a difference between having no editions and a single edition, which
will be reflected by the property, although in practice it does not matter.)
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
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-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).
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.
demuxer-cache-state
Various undocumented or half-documented things.
Each entry in seekable-ranges represents a region in the demuxer cache that can be seeked to. If
there are multiple demuxers active, this only returns information about the "main" demuxer, but
might be changed in future to return unified information about all demuxers. The ranges are in
arbitrary order. Often, ranges will overlap for a bit, before being joined. In broken corner
cases, ranges may overlap all over the place.
The end of a seek range is usually smaller than the value returned by the demuxer-cache-time
property, because that property returns the guessed buffering amount, while the seek ranges
represent the buffered data that can actually be used for cached seeking.
bof-cached indicates whether the seek range with the lowest timestamp points to the beginning of
the stream (BOF). This implies you cannot seek before this position at all. eof-cached indicates
whether the seek range with the highest timestamp points to the end of the stream (EOF). If both
bof-cached and eof-cached are set to yes, and there's only 1 cache range, the entire stream is
cached.
fw-bytes is the number of bytes of packets buffered in the range starting from the current
decoding position. This is a rough estimate (may not account correctly for various overhead), and
stops at the demuxer position (it ignores seek ranges after it).
file-cache-bytes is the number of bytes stored in the file cache. This includes all overhead, and
possibly unused data (like pruned data). This member is missing if the file cache is not active.
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
"seekable-ranges" MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
"start" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"end" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"bof-cached" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"eof-cached" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"fw-bytes" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"file-cache-bytes" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
Other fields (might be changed or removed in the future):
eof True if the reader thread has hit the end of the file.
underrun
True if the reader thread could not satisfy a decoder's request for a new packet.
idle True if the thread is currently not reading.
total-bytes
Sum of packet bytes (plus some overhead estimation) of the entire packet queue, including
cached seekable ranges.
demuxer-via-network
Returns yes if the stream demuxed via the main demuxer is most likely played via network. What
constitutes "network" is not always clear, might be used for other types of untrusted streams,
could be wrong in certain cases, and its definition might be changing. Also, external files (like
separate audio files or streams) do not influence the value of this property (currently).
demuxer-start-time (R)
Returns the start time reported by the demuxer in fractional seconds.
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. 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 gpu), this might be never known
in advance, but only when the decoder attempted to create the hw decoder successfully. (Using
--gpu-hwdec-interop 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/sig-peak
The video file's tagged signal peak as float.
video-params/light
The light type in use as a string. (Exact values subject to change.)
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 the format video filter's stereo-in 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
"sig-peak" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"light" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"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.
See current-window-scale for the value derived from the actual window size.
Since mpv 0.31.0, this always returns the previously set value (or the default value), instead of
the value implied by the actual window size. Before mpv 0.31.0, this returned what
current-window-scale returns now, after the window was created.
current-window-scale
The window-scale value calculated from the current window size. This has the same value as
window-scale if the window size was not changed since setting the option, and the window size was
not restricted in other ways. The property is unavailable if no video is active.
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.) On macOS these are the Display Product Names as used
in the System Information and only one display name is returned since a window can only be on one
screen.
display-fps
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.
Writing to this property is deprecated. It has the same effect as writing to override-display-fps.
Since mpv 0.31.0, this property is unavailable if no display FPS was reported (e.g. if no video is
active), while in older versions, it returned the --display-fps option value.
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.
display-hidpi-scale
The HiDPI scale factor as reported by the windowing backend. If no VO is active, or if the VO does
not report a value, this property is unavailable. It may be saner to report an absolute DPI,
however, this is the way HiDPI support is implemented on most OS APIs. See also
--hidpi-window-scale.
video-aspect (RW)
Deprecated. This is tied to --video-aspect-override, but always reports the current video aspect
if video is active.
The read and write components of this option can be split up into video-params/aspect and
video-aspect-override respectively.
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.
Alias to osd-dimensions/w and osd-dimensions/h.
osd-par
Last known OSD display pixel aspect (can be 0).
Alias to osd-dimensions/osd-par.
osd-dimensions
Last known OSD dimensions.
Has the following sub-properties (which can be read as MPV_FORMAT_NODE or Lua table with
mp.get_property_native):
w Size of the VO window in OSD render units (usually pixels, but may be scaled pixels with
VOs like xv).
h Size of the VO window in OSD render units,
par Pixel aspect ratio of the OSD (usually 1).
aspect Display aspect ratio of the VO window. (Computing from the properties above.)
mt, mb, ml, mr
OSD to video margins (top, bottom, left, right). This describes the area into which the
video is rendered.
Any of these properties may be unavailable or set to dummy values if the VO window is not created
or visible.
sub-text
Return the current subtitle text regardless of sub visibility. Formatting is stripped. If 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.
sub-start
Return the current subtitle start time (in seconds). If there's multiple current subtitles,
returns the first start time. If no current subtitle is present null is returned instead.
sub-end
Return the current subtitle start time (in seconds). If there's multiple current subtitles, return
the last end time. If no current subtitle is present, or if it's present but has unknown or
incorrect duration, null is returned instead.
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. (It is missing if the format has
no native ID, if the track is a pseudo-track that does not exist in this way in the actual
file, or if the format is handled by libavformat, and the format was not whitelisted as
having track IDs.)
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/demux-bitrate
Audio average bitrate, in bits per second. (Not always accurate.)
track-list/N/demux-rotation
Video clockwise rotation metadata, in degrees.
track-list/N/demux-par
Pixel aspect ratio.
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
"demux-bitrate" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"demux-rotation" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"demux-par" 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]
"enabled" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG [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}{\\b1}bold text'
• show-text "This is ${osd-ass-cc/0}{\b1}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-passes
Contains introspection about the VO's active render passes and their execution times. Not
implemented by all VOs.
This is further subdivided into two frame types, vo-passes/fresh for fresh frames (which have to
be uploaded, scaled, etc.) and vo-passes/redraw for redrawn frames (which only have to be
re-painted). The number of passes for any given subtype can change from frame to frame, and
should not be relied upon.
Each frame type has a number of further sub-properties. Replace TYPE with the frame type, N with
the 0-based pass index, and M with the 0-based sample index.
vo-passes/TYPE/count
Number of passes.
vo-passes/TYPE/N/desc
Human-friendy description of the pass.
vo-passes/TYPE/N/last
Last measured execution time, in nanoseconds.
vo-passes/TYPE/N/avg
Average execution time of this pass, in nanoseconds. The exact timeframe varies, but it
should generally be a handful of seconds.
vo-passes/TYPE/N/peak
The peak execution time (highest value) within this averaging range, in nanoseconds.
vo-passes/TYPE/N/count
The number of samples for this pass.
vo-passes/TYPE/N/samples/M
The raw execution time of a specific sample for this pass, in nanoseconds.
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
"TYPE" MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
"desc" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
"last" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"avg" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"peak" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"count" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"samples" MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
MP_FORMAT_INT64
Note that directly accessing this structure via subkeys is not supported, the only access is
through aforementioned MPV_FORMAT_NODE.
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).
shared-script-properties (RW)
This is a key/value map of arbitrary strings shared between scripts for general use. The player
itself does not use any data in it (although some builtin scripts may). The property is not
preserved across player restarts.
This is very primitive, inefficient, and annoying to use. It's a makeshift solution which could go
away any time (for example, when a better solution becomes available). This is also why this
property has an annoying name. You should avoid using it, unless you absolutely have to.
Lua scripting has helpers starting with utils.shared_script_property_. They are undocumented
because you should not use this property. If you still think you must, you should use the helpers
instead of the property directly.
You are supposed to use the change-list command to modify the contents. Reading, modifying, and
writing the property manually could data loss if two scripts update different keys at the same
time due to lack of synchronization. The Lua helpers take care of this.
(There is no way to ensure synchronization if two scripts try to update the same key at the same
time.)
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.
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)
"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).
demuxer-lavf-list
List of available libavformat demuxers' names. This can be used to check for support for a
specific format or use with --demuxer-lavf-format.
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.
command-list
Return the list of input commands. This returns an array of maps, where each map node represents a
command. This map currently only has a single entry: name for the name of the command. (This
property is supposed to be a replacement for --input-cmdlist. The option dumps some more
information, but it's a valid feature request to extend this property if needed.)
input-bindings
Return list of current input key bindings. This returns an array of maps, where each map node
represents a binding for a single key/command. This map has the following entries:
key The key name. This is normalized and may look slightly different from how it was specified
in the source (e.g. in input.conf).
cmd The command mapped to the key. (Currently, this is exactly the same string as specified in
the source, other than stripping whitespace and comments. It's possible that it will be
normalized in the future.)
is_weak
If set to true, any existing and active user bindings will take priority.
owner If this entry exists, the name of the script (or similar) which added this binding.
section
Name of the section this binding is part of. This is a rarely used mechanism. This entry
may be removed or change meaning in the future.
priority
A number. Bindings with a higher value are preferred over bindings with a lower value. If
the value is negative, this binding is inactive and will not be triggered by input. Note
that mpv does not use this value internally, and matching of bindings may work slightly
differently in some cases. In addition, this value is dynamic and can change around at
runtime.
comment
If available, the comment following the command on the same line. (For example, the
input.conf entry f cycle bla # toggle bla would result in an entry with comment = "toggle
bla", cmd = "cycle bla".)
This property is read-only, and change notification is not supported. Currently, there is no
mechanism to change key bindings at runtime, other than scripts adding or removing their own
bindings.
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, these result the actually active tracks. For example, if you set aid=5,
and the currently played file contains no audio track with ID 5, the aid property will return no.
Before mpv 0.31.0, you could set existing tracks at runtime only.
display-fps
This inconsistent behavior is deprecated. Post-deprecation, the reported value and the option
value are cleanly separated (override-display-fps for the option value).
vf, af If you set the properties during playback, and the filter chain fails to reinitialize, the option
will be set, but the runtime filter chain does not change. On the other hand, the next video to be
played will fail, because the initial filter chain cannot be created.
This behavior changed in mpv 0.31.0. Before this, the new value was rejected iff video (for vf) or
audio (for af) was active. If playback was not active, the behavior was the same as the current
behavior.
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.
profile, include
These are write-only, and will perform actions as they are written to, exactly as if they were
used on the mpv CLI commandline. Their only use is when using libmpv before mpv_initialize(),
which in turn is probably only useful in encoding mode. Normal libmpv users should use other
mechanisms, such as the apply-profile command, and the mpv_load_config_file API function. Avoid
these properties.
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 | vol | fs |
| | 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, filename, or custom title
┌────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│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 │
└──────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┘
vol
┌────────────┬────────────────┐
│left-click │ toggle mute │
├────────────┼────────────────┤
│mouse wheel │ volume up/down │
└────────────┴────────────────┘
fs
┌───────────┬───────────────────┐
│left-click │ toggle fullscreen │
└───────────┴───────────────────┘
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 script-opts/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 playback position marker and overall shape of the seekbar: bar, diamond or
knob.
seekbarhandlesize
Default: 0.6
Size ratio of the seek handle if seekbarstyle is set to dimaond or knob. This is relative to the
full height of the seekbar.
seekbarkeyframes
Default: yes
Controls the mode used to seek when dragging the seekbar. By default, keyframes are used. If set
to false, exact seeking on mouse drags will be used instead. Keyframes are preferred, but exact
seeks may be useful in cases where keyframes cannot be found. Note that using exact seeks can
potentially make mouse dragging much slower.
seekrangestyle
Default: inverted
Display seekable ranges on the seekbar. bar shows them on the full height of the bar, line as a
thick line and inverted as a thin line that is inverted over playback position markers. none will
hide them. Additionally, slider will show a permanent handle inside the seekbar with cached ranges
marked inside. Note that these will look differently based on the seekbarstyle option. Also,
slider does not work with seekbarstyle set to bar.
seekrangeseparate
Default: yes
Controls whether to show line-style seekable ranges on top of the seekbar or separately if
seekbarstyle is set to bar.
seekrangealpha
Default: 200
Alpha of the seekable ranges, 0 (opaque) to 255 (fully transparent).
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
title Default: ${media-title}
String that supports property expansion that will be displayed as OSC title. ASS tags are
escaped, and newlines and trailing slashes are stripped.
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
boxmaxchars
Default: 80
Max chars for the osc title at the box layout. mpv does not measure the text width on screen and
so it needs to limit it by number of chars. The default is conservative to allow wide fonts to be
used without overflow. However, with many common fonts a bigger number can be used. YMMV.
boxvideo
Default: no
Whether to overlay the osc over the video (no), or to box the video within the areas not covered
by the osc (yes). If this option is set, the osc may overwrite the --video-margin-ratio-* options,
even if the user has set them. (It will not overwrite them if all of them are set to default
values.)
Currently, this is supported for the bottombar and topbar layout only. The other layouts do not
change if this option is set. Separately, if window controls are present (see below), they will be
affected regardless of which osc layout is in use.
The border is static and appears even if the OSC is configured to appear only on mouse
interaction. If the OSC is invisible, the border is simply filled with the background color (black
by default).
This currently still makes the OSC overlap with subtitles (if the --sub-use-margins option is set
to yes, the default). This may be fixed later.
This does not work correctly with video outputs like --vo=xv, which render OSD into the unscaled
video.
windowcontrols
Default: auto (Show window controls if there is no window border)
Whether to show window management controls over the video, and if so, which side of the window to
place them. This may be desirable when the window has no decorations, either because they have
been explicitly disabled (border=no) or because the current platform doesn't support them (eg:
gnome-shell with wayland).
The set of window controls is fixed, offering minimize, maximize, and quit. Not all platforms
implement minimize and maximize, but quit will always work.
windowcontrols_alignment
Default: right
If window controls are shown, indicates which side should they be aligned to.
Supports left and right which will place the controls on those respective sides.
greenandgrumpy
Default: no
Set to yes to reduce festivity (i.e. disable santa hat in December.)
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.
STATS
This builtin script displays information and statistics for the currently played file. It is enabled by
default if mpv was compiled with Lua support. It can be disabled entirely using the
--load-stats-overlay=no option.
Usage
The following key bindings are active by default unless something else is already bound to them:
┌──┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│i │ Show stats for a fixed duration │
├──┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│I │ Toggle stats (shown until toggled │
│ │ again) │
└──┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
While the stats are visible on screen the following key bindings are active, regardless of existing
bindings. They allow you to switch between pages of stats:
┌──┬────────────────────┐
│1 │ Show usual stats │
├──┼────────────────────┤
│2 │ Show frame timings │
├──┼────────────────────┤
│3 │ Input cache stats │
└──┴────────────────────┘
Font
For optimal visual experience, a font with support for many font weights and monospaced digits is
recommended. By default, the open source font Source Sans Pro is used.
Configuration
This script can be customized through a config file script-opts/stats.conf placed in mpv's user directory
and through the --script-opts command-line option. The configuration syntax is described in ON SCREEN
CONTROLLER.
Configurable Options
key_oneshot
Default: i
key_toggle
Default: I
Key bindings to display stats.
key_page_1
Default: 1
key_page_2
Default: 2
key_page_3
Default: 3
Key bindings for page switching while stats are displayed.
duration
Default: 4
How long the stats are shown in seconds (oneshot).
redraw_delay
Default: 1
How long it takes to refresh the displayed stats in seconds (toggling).
persistent_overlay
Default: no
When no, other scripts printing text to the screen can overwrite the displayed stats. When yes,
displayed stats are persistently shown for the respective duration. This can result in overlapping
text when multiple scripts decide to print text at the same time.
plot_perfdata
Default: yes
Show graphs for performance data (page 2).
plot_vsync_ratio
Default: yes
plot_vsync_jitter
Default: yes
Show graphs for vsync and jitter values (page 1). Only when toggled.
flush_graph_data
Default: yes
Clear data buffers used for drawing graphs when toggling.
font Default: Source Sans Pro
Font name. Should support as many font weights as possible for optimal visual experience.
font_mono
Default: Source Sans Pro
Font name for parts where monospaced characters are necessary to align text. Currently, monospaced
digits are sufficient.
font_size
Default: 8
Font size used to render text.
font_color
Default: FFFFFF
Font color.
border_size
Default: 0.8
Size of border drawn around the font.
border_color
Default: 262626
Color of drawn border.
alpha Default: 11
Transparency for drawn text.
plot_bg_border_color
Default: 0000FF
Border color used for drawing graphs.
plot_bg_color
Default: 262626
Background color used for drawing graphs.
plot_color
Default: FFFFFF
Color used for drawing graphs.
Note: colors are given as hexadecimal values and use ASS tag order: BBGGRR (blue green red).
Different key bindings
A different key binding can be defined with the aforementioned options key_oneshot and key_toggle but
also with commands in input.conf, for example:
e script-binding stats/display-stats
E script-binding stats/display-stats-toggle
Using input.conf, it is also possible to directly display a certain page:
i script-binding stats/display-page-1
e script-binding stats/display-page-2
CONSOLE
The console is a REPL for mpv input commands. It is displayed on the video window. It also shows log
messages. It can be disabled entirely using the --load-osd-console=no option.
Keybindings
` Show the console.
ESC Hide the console.
ENTER Run the typed command.
Shift+ENTER
Type a literal newline character.
Ctrl+LEFT and Ctrl+RIGHT
Move cursor to previous/next word.
UP and DOWN
Navigate command history.
PGUP Go to the first command in the history.
PGDN Stop navigating command history.
INSERT Toggle insert mode.
Shift+INSERT
Paste text (uses the primary selection on X11.)
TAB Complete the command or property name at the cursor.
Ctrl+C Clear current line.
Ctrl+K.
Delete text from the cursor to the end of the line.
Ctrl+L Clear all log messages from the console.
Ctrl+U Delete text from the cursor to the beginning of the line.
Ctrl+V Paste text (uses the clipboard on X11.)
Ctrl+W Delete text from the cursor to the beginning of the current word.
Commands
script-message-to console type <text>
Show the console and pre-fill it with the provided text.
Known issues
• Pasting text is slow on Windows
• Non-ASCII keyboard input has restrictions
• The cursor keys move between Unicode code-points, not grapheme clusters
Configuration
This script can be customized through a config file script-opts/console.conf placed in mpv's user
directory and through the --script-opts command-line option. The configuration syntax is described in ON
SCREEN CONTROLLER.
Key bindings can be changed in a standard way, see for example stats.lua documentation.
Configurable Options
scale Default: 1
All drawing is scaled by this value, including the text borders and the cursor.
If the VO backend in use has HiDPI scale reporting implemented, the option value is scaled with
the reported HiDPI scale.
font Default: unset (picks a hardcoded font depending on detected platform)
Set the font used for the REPL and the console. This probably doesn't have to be a monospaced
font.
font_size
Default: 16
Set the font size used for the REPL and the console. This will be multiplied by "scale."
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. Note that since
the script starts execution concurrently with player initialization, some properties may not be populated
with meaningful values until the relevant subsystems have initialized.
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. With mpv 0.29.0, this
changes slightly, and it merely waits for scripts to be loaded in this manner before starting playback as
part of the player initialization phase. Scripts run though initialization in parallel. This might change
again.
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. It also allows you to use named
argument.
If the table is an array, each array item is like an argument in mp.commandv() (but can be a
native type instead of a string).
If the table contains string keys, it's interpreted as command with named arguments. This requires
at least an entry with the key name to be present, which must be a string, and contains the
command name. The special entry _flags is optional, and if present, must be an array of Input
Command Prefixes to apply. All other entries are interpreted as arguments.
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.command_native_async(table [,fn])
Like mp.command_native(), but the command is ran asynchronously (as far as possible), and upon
completion, fn is called. fn has two arguments: fn(success, result, error). success is always a
Boolean and is true if the command was successful, otherwise false. The second parameter is the
result value (can be nil) in case of success, nil otherwise (as returned by mp.command_native()).
The third parameter is the error string in case of an error, nil otherwise.
Returns a table with undefined contents, which can be used as argument for mp.abort_async_command.
If starting the command failed for some reason, nil, error is returned, and fn is called
indicating failure, using the same error value.
mp.abort_async_command(t)
Abort a mp.command_native_async call. The argument is the return value of that command (which
starts asynchronous execution of the command). Whether this works and how long it takes depends
on the command and the situation. The abort call itself is asynchronous. Does not return anything.
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. (Omitting works as follows: either pass nil for name, or pass
the fn argument in place of the name. The latter is not recommended and is handled for
compatibility only.)
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 the following entries
(and may contain undocumented ones):
event Set to one of the strings down, repeat, up or press (the latter if key up/down
can't be tracked).
is_mouse
Boolean Whether the event was caused by a mouse button.
key_name
The name of they key that triggered this, or nil if invoked artificially. If the
key name is unknown, it's an empty string.
key_text
Text if triggered by a text key, otherwise nil. See description of script-binding
command for details (this field is equivalent to the 5th argument).
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 their
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 their 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.)
If a property is unavailable, or on error, the value argument to fn is nil. (The
observe_property() call always succeeds, even if a property does not exist.)
In some cases the function is not called even if the property changes. This depends on the
property, and it's a valid feature request to ask for better update handling of a specific
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.
You always get an initial change notification. This is meant to initialize the user's state to the
current value of the property.
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 methods, 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. This is deprecated, but
still works. (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.unregister_idle(fn)
Undo mp.register_idle(fn). This removes all idle handlers that are equal to the fn parameter. This
uses normal Lua == comparison, so be careful when dealing with closures.
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.create_osd_overlay(format)
Create an OSD overlay. This is a very thin wrapper around the osd-overlay command. The function
returns a table, which mostly contains fields that will be passed to osd-overlay. The format
parameter is used to initialize the format field. The data field contains the text to be used as
overlay. For details, see the osd-overlay command.
In addition, it provides the following methods:
update()
Commit the OSD overlay to the screen, or in other words, run the osd-overlay command with
the current fields of the overlay table.
remove()
Remove the overlay from the screen. A update() call will add it again.
Example:
ov = mp.create_osd_overlay("ass-events")
ov.data = "{\\an5}{\\b1}hello world!"
ov:update()
The advantage of using this wrapper (as opposed to running osd-overlay directly) is that the id
field is allocated automatically.
mp.get_osd_size()
Returns a tuple of osd_width, osd_height, osd_par. The first two give the size of the OSD in
pixels (for video ouputs like --vo=xv, this may be "scaled" pixels). The third is the display
pixel aspect ratio.
May return invalid/nonsense values if OSD is not initialized yet.
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, trace. The user's settings will determine which of these messages will be visible.
Normally, all messages are visible, except v, debug and trace.
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(...),
msg.trace(...)
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 [, on_update]])
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() if the parameter
is nil or missing.
The on_update parameter enables run-time updates of all matching option values via the script-opts
option/property. If any of the matching options changes, the values in the table (which was
originally passed to the function) are changed, and on_update(list) is called. list is a table
where each updated option has a list[option_name] = true entry. There is no initial on_update()
call. This never re-reads the config file. script-opts is always applied on the original config
file, ignoring previous script-opts values (for example, if an option is removed from script-opts
at runtime, the option will have the value in the config file). table entries are only written for
option values whose values effectively change (this is important if the script changes table
entries independently).
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 script-opts/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.file_info(path)
Stats the given path for information and returns a table with the following entries:
mode protection bits (on Windows, always 755 (octal) for directories and 644 (octal) for
files)
size size in bytes
atime time of last access
mtime time of last modification
ctime time of last metadata change (Linux) / time of creation (Windows)
is_file
Whether path is a regular file (boolean)
is_dir Whether path is a directory (boolean)
mode and size are integers. Timestamps (atime, mtime and ctime) are integer seconds since the
Unix epoch (Unix time). The booleans is_file and is_dir are provided as a convenience; they can
be and are derived from mode.
On error (eg. path does not exist), 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.
This is a legacy wrapper around calling the subprocess command with mp.command_native. It does the
following things:
• copy the table t
• rename cancellable field to playback_only
• rename max_size to capture_size
• set capture_stdout field to true if unset
• set name field to subprocess
• call mp.command_native(copied_t)
• if the command failed, create a dummy result table
• copy error_string to error field if the string is non-empty
• return the result table
It is recommended to use mp.command_native or mp.command_native_async directly, instead of calling
this legacy wrapper. It is for compatibility only.
See the subprocess documentation for semantics and further parameters.
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.
This is a legacy wrapper around calling the run command with mp.commandv and other functions.
utils.getpid()
Returns the process ID of the running mpv process. This can be used to identify the calling mpv
when launching (detached) subprocesses.
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.
JAVASCRIPT
JavaScript support in mpv is near identical to its Lua support. Use this section as reference on
differences and availability of APIs, but otherwise you should refer to the Lua documentation for API
details and general scripting in mpv.
Example
JavaScript code which leaves fullscreen mode when the player is paused:
function on_pause_change(name, value) {
if (value == true)
mp.set_property("fullscreen", "no");
}
mp.observe_property("pause", "bool", on_pause_change);
Similarities with Lua
mpv tries to load a script file as JavaScript if it has a .js extension, but otherwise, the documented
Lua options, script directories, loading, etc apply to JavaScript files too.
Script initialization and lifecycle is the same as with Lua, and most of the Lua functions at the modules
mp, mp.utils, mp.msg and mp.options are available to JavaScript with identical APIs - including running
commands, getting/setting properties, registering events/key-bindings/hooks, etc.
Differences from Lua
No need to load modules. mp, mp.utils, mp.msg and mp.options are preloaded, and you can use e.g. var cwd
= mp.utils.getcwd(); without prior setup.
Errors are slightly different. Where the Lua APIs return nil for error, the JavaScript ones return
undefined. Where Lua returns something, error JavaScript returns only something - and makes error
available via mp.last_error(). Note that only some of the functions have this additional error value -
typically the same ones which have it in Lua.
Standard APIs are preferred. For instance setTimeout and JSON.stringify are available, but mp.add_timeout
and mp.utils.format_json are not.
No standard library. This means that interaction with anything outside of mpv is limited to the available
APIs, typically via mp.utils. However, some file functions were added, and CommonJS require is available
too - where the loaded modules have the same privileges as normal scripts.
Language features - ECMAScript 5
The scripting backend which mpv currently uses is MuJS - a compatible minimal ES5 interpreter. As such,
String.substring is implemented for instance, while the common but non-standard String.substr is not.
Please consult the MuJS pages on language features and platform support - http://mujs.com .
Unsupported Lua APIs and their JS alternatives
mp.add_timeout(seconds, fn) JS: id = setTimeout(fn, ms)
mp.add_periodic_timer(seconds, fn) JS: id = setInterval(fn, ms)
utils.parse_json(str [, trail]) JS: JSON.parse(str)
utils.format_json(v) JS: JSON.stringify(v)
utils.to_string(v) see dump below.
mp.suspend() JS: none (deprecated).
mp.resume() JS: none (deprecated).
mp.resume_all() JS: none (deprecated).
mp.get_next_timeout() see event loop below.
mp.dispatch_events([allow_wait]) see event loop below.
Scripting APIs - identical to Lua
(LE) - Last-Error, indicates that mp.last_error() can be used after the call to test for success (empty
string) or failure (non empty reason string). Where the Lua APIs use nil to indicate error, JS APIs use
undefined.
mp.command(string) (LE)
mp.commandv(arg1, arg2, ...) (LE)
mp.command_native(table [,def]) (LE)
id = mp.command_native_async(table [,fn]) (LE) Notes: id is true-thy on success, fn is called always
a-sync, error is empty string on success.
mp.abort_async_command(id)
mp.get_property(name [,def]) (LE)
mp.get_property_osd(name [,def]) (LE)
mp.get_property_bool(name [,def]) (LE)
mp.get_property_number(name [,def]) (LE)
mp.get_property_native(name [,def]) (LE)
mp.set_property(name, value) (LE)
mp.set_property_bool(name, value) (LE)
mp.set_property_number(name, value) (LE)
mp.set_property_native(name, value) (LE)
mp.get_time()
mp.add_key_binding(key, name|fn [,fn [,flags]])
mp.add_forced_key_binding(...)
mp.remove_key_binding(name)
mp.register_event(name, fn)
mp.unregister_event(fn)
mp.observe_property(name, type, fn)
mp.unobserve_property(fn)
mp.get_opt(key)
mp.get_script_name()
mp.osd_message(text [,duration])
mp.get_wakeup_pipe()
mp.register_idle(fn)
mp.unregister_idle(fn)
mp.enable_messages(level)
mp.register_script_message(name, fn)
mp.unregister_script_message(name)
mp.create_osd_overlay(format)
mp.get_osd_size() (returned object has properties: width, height, aspect)
mp.msg.log(level, ...)
mp.msg.fatal(...)
mp.msg.error(...)
mp.msg.warn(...)
mp.msg.info(...)
mp.msg.verbose(...)
mp.msg.debug(...)
mp.msg.trace(...)
mp.utils.getcwd() (LE)
mp.utils.readdir(path [, filter]) (LE)
mp.utils.file_info(path) (LE)
mp.utils.split_path(path)
mp.utils.join_path(p1, p2)
mp.utils.subprocess(t)
mp.utils.subprocess_detached(t)
mp.utils.getpid() (LE)
mp.add_hook(type, priority, fn)
mp.options.read_options(obj [, identifier [, on_update]]) (types: string/boolean/number)
Additional utilities
mp.last_error()
If used after an API call which updates last error, returns an empty string if the API call
succeeded, or a non-empty error reason string otherwise.
Error.stack (string)
When using try { ... } catch(e) { ... }, then e.stack is the stack trace of the error - if it was
created using the Error(...) constructor.
print (global)
A convenient alias to mp.msg.info.
dump (global)
Like print but also expands objects and arrays recursively.
mp.utils.getenv(name)
Returns the value of the host environment variable name, or undefined if the variable is not
defined.
mp.utils.get_user_path(path)
Expands (mpv) meta paths like ~/x, ~~/y, ~~desktop/z etc. read_file, write_file and require
already use this internaly.
mp.utils.read_file(fname [,max])
Returns the content of file fname as string. If max is provided and not negative, limit the read
to max bytes.
mp.utils.write_file(fname, str)
(Over)write file fname with text content str. fname must be prefixed with file:// as simple
protection against accidental arguments switch, e.g. mp.utils.write_file("file://~/abc.txt",
"hello world").
Note: read_file and write_file throw on errors, allow text content only.
mp.get_time_ms()
Same as mp.get_time() but in ms instead of seconds.
mp.get_script_file()
Returns the file name of the current script.
exit() (global)
Make the script exit at the end of the current event loop iteration. Note: please remove added
key bindings before calling exit().
mp.utils.compile_js(fname, content_str)
Compiles the JS code content_str as file name fname (without loading anything from the
filesystem), and returns it as a function. Very similar to a Function constructor, but shows at
stack traces as fname.
mp.module_paths
Global modules search paths array for the require function (see below).
Timers (global)
The standard HTML/node.js timers are available:
id = setTimeout(fn [,duration [,arg1 [,arg2...]]])
id = setTimeout(code_string [,duration])
clearTimeout(id)
id = setInterval(fn [,duration [,arg1 [,arg2...]]])
id = setInterval(code_string [,duration])
clearInterval(id)
setTimeout and setInterval return id, and later call fn (or execute code_string) after duration ms.
Interval also repeat every duration.
duration has a minimum and default value of 0, code_string is a plain string which is evaluated as JS
code, and [,arg1 [,arg2..]] are used as arguments (if provided) when calling back fn.
The clear...(id) functions cancel timer id, and are irreversible.
Note: timers always call back asynchronously, e.g. setTimeout(fn) will never call fn before returning. fn
will be called either at the end of this event loop iteration or at a later event loop iteration. This is
true also for intervals - which also never call back twice at the same event loop iteration.
Additionally, timers are processed after the event queue is empty, so it's valid to use setTimeout(fn) as
a one-time idle observer.
CommonJS modules and require(id)
CommonJS Modules are a standard system where scripts can export common functions for use by other
scripts. Specifically, a module is a script which adds properties (functions, etc) to its pre-existing
exports object, which another script can access with require(module-id). This runs the module and returns
its exports object. Further calls to require for the same module will return its cached exports object
without running the module again.
Modules and require are supported, standard compliant, and generally similar to node.js. However, most
node.js modules won't run due to missing modules such as fs, process, etc, but some node.js modules with
minimal dependencies do work. In general, this is for mpv modules and not a node.js replacement.
A .js file extension is always added to id, e.g. require("./foo") will load the file ./foo.js and return
its exports object.
An id is relative (to the script which require'd it) if it starts with ./ or ../. Otherwise, it's
considered a "top-level id" (CommonJS term).
Top level id is evaluated as absolute filesystem path if possible, e.g. /x/y or ~/x. Otherwise, it's
considered a global module id and searched at scripts/modules.js/ in mpv config dirs - in normal config
search order. E.g. require("x") is searched as file x.js at those dirs, and id foo/x is searched as file
x.js inside dir foo at those dirs.
Search paths for global module id's are at the array mp.module_paths, which is searched in order.
Initially it contains one item: ~~/scripts/modules.js such that it behaves as described above. Modifying
it will affect future require calls with global module id's which are not already loaded/cached.
No global variable, but a module's this at its top lexical scope is the global object - also in strict
mode. If you have a module which needs global as the global object, you could do this.global = this;
before require.
Functions and variables declared at a module don't pollute the global object.
The event loop
The event loop poll/dispatch mpv events as long as the queue is not empty, then processes the timers,
then waits for the next event, and repeats this forever.
You could put this code at your script to replace the built-in event loop, and also print every event
which mpv sends to your script:
function mp_event_loop() {
var wait = 0;
do {
var e = mp.wait_event(wait);
dump(e); // there could be a lot of prints...
if (e.event != "none") {
mp.dispatch_event(e);
wait = 0;
} else {
wait = mp.process_timers() / 1000;
if (wait != 0) {
mp.notify_idle_observers();
wait = mp.peek_timers_wait() / 1000;
}
}
} while (mp.keep_running);
}
mp_event_loop is a name which mpv tries to call after the script loads. The internal implementation is
similar to this (without dump though..).
e = mp.wait_event(wait) returns when the next mpv event arrives, or after wait seconds if positive and no
mpv events arrived. wait value of 0 returns immediately (with e.event == "none" if the queue is empty).
mp.dispatch_event(e) calls back the handlers registered for e.event, if there are such (event handlers,
property observers, script messages, etc).
mp.process_timers() calls back the already-added, non-canceled due timers, and returns the duration in ms
till the next due timer (possibly 0), or -1 if there are no pending timers. Must not be called
recursively.
mp.notify_idle_observers() calls back the idle observers, which we do when we're about to sleep (wait !=
0), but the observers may add timers or take non-negligible duration to complete, so we re-calculate wait
afterwards.
mp.peek_timers_wait() returns the same values as mp.process_timers() but without doing anything. Invalid
result if called from a timer callback.
Note: exit() is also registered for the shutdown event, and its implementation is a simple
mp.keep_running = false.
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
The protocol uses UTF-8-only JSON as defined by RFC-8259. Unlike standard JSON, "u" escape sequences are
not allowed to construct surrogate pairs. To avoid getting conflicts, encode all text characters
including and above codepoint U+0020 as UTF-8. mpv might output broken UTF-8 in corner cases (see "UTF-8"
section below).
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. The only requirement is that the request_id field must be an integer (a
number without fractional parts in the range -2^63..2^63-1). Using other types is deprecated and will
currently show a warning. In the future, this will raise an error.
For example, this request:
{ "command": ["get_property", "time-pos"], "request_id": 100 }
Would generate this response:
{ "error": "success", "data": 1.468135, "request_id": 100 }
If you don't specify a request_id, command replies will set it to 0.
Commands may run asynchronously in the future, instead of blocking the socket until a reply is sent.
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
Alias for set_property. Both commands accept native values and strings.
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" }
WARNING:
If the connection is closed, the IPC client is destroyed internally, and the observed
properties are unregistered. This happens for example when sending commands to a socket with
separate socat invocations. This can make it seem like property observation does not work. You
must keep the IPC connection open to make it work.
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 "u" escape sequences. This includes surrogate
pairs.
JSON extensions
The following non-standard extensions are supported:
• a list or object item can have a trailing ","
• object syntax accepts "=" in addition of ":"
• object keys can be unquoted, if they start with a character in "A-Za-z_" and contain only characters
in "A-Za-z0-9_"
• byte escapes with "xAB" are allowed (with AB being a 2 digit hex number)
Example:
{ objkey = "value\x0A" }
Is equivalent to:
{ "objkey": "value\n" }
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
C PLUGINS
You can write C plugins for mpv. These use the libmpv API, although they do not use the libmpv library
itself.
Currently, they must be explicitly enabled at build time with --enable-cplugins. They are available on
Linux/BSD platforms only.
C plugins location
C plugins are put into the mpv scripts directory in its config directory (see the FILES section for
details). They must have a .so file extension. They can also be explicitly loaded with the --script
option.
API
A C plugin must export the following function:
int mpv_open_cplugin(mpv_handle *handle)
The plugin function will be called on loading time. This function does not return as long as your plugin
is loaded (it runs in its own thread). The handle will be deallocated as soon as the plugin function
returns.
The return value is interpreted as error status. A value of 0 is interpreted as success, while -1 signals
an error. In the latter case, the player prints an uninformative error message that loading failed.
Return values other than 0 and -1 are reserved, and trigger undefined behavior.
Within the plugin function, you can call libmpv API functions. The handle is created by
mpv_create_client() (or actually an internal equivalent), and belongs to you. You can call
mpv_wait_event() to wait for things happening, and so on.
Note that the player might block until your plugin calls mpv_wait_event() for the first time. This gives
you a chance to install initial hooks etc. before playback begins.
The details are quite similar to Lua scripts.
Linkage to libmpv
The current implementation requires that your plugins are not linked against libmpv. What your plugins
uses are not symbols from a libmpv binary, but symbols from the mpv host binary.
Examples
See:
• https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv-examples/tree/master/cplugins
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. If set to another value, disable leak
reporting. If unset, use the default, which normally is 0. If mpv was built with
--enable-ta-leak-report, the default is 1. If leak reporting was disabled at compile time (NDEBUG
in custom CFLAGS), this environment variable is ignored.
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.
/usr/local/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/fonts.conf
Fontconfig fonts.conf that is customized for mpv. You should include system fonts.conf in this
file or mpv would not know about fonts that you already have in the system.
Only available when libass is built with fontconfig.
~/.config/mpv/subfont.ttf
fallback subtitle font
~/.config/mpv/fonts/
Font files in this directory are used by mpv/libass for subtitles. Useful if you do not want to
install fonts to your system. Note that files in this directory are loaded into memory before
being used by mpv. If you have a lot of fonts, consider using fonts.conf (see above) to include
additional fonts, which is more memory-efficient.
~/.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. Directory entries other than files are ignored. Files with unknown
extension lead to an initialization error. Files with .disable 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/script-opts/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)