MPV(1) multimedia MPV(1)
NAME
mpv - a media player
SYNOPSIS
mpv [options] [file|URL|PLAYLIST|-]
mpv [options] files
DESCRIPTION
mpv is a media player based on MPlayer and mplayer2. It supports a wide
variety of video file formats, audio and video codecs, and subtitle
types. Special input URL types are available to read input from a vari-
ety 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
in the mpv source files for a list of default bindings. User input.conf
files and Lua scripts can define additional key bindings.
See COMMAND INTERFACE and Key names sections for more details on con-
figuring keybindings.
See also --input-test for interactive binding details by key, and the
stats built-in script for key bindings list (including print to termi-
nal).
Keyboard Control
LEFT and RIGHT
Seek backward/forward 5 seconds. Shift+arrow does a 1 second ex-
act seek (see --hr-seek).
UP and DOWN
Seek forward/backward 1 minute. Shift+arrow does a 5 second ex-
act 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 orig-
inal 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 pos-
sible. See RESUMING PLAYBACK.
/ 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.
E Cycle through the available Editions.
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.
Shift+g and Shift+f
Adjust subtitle font size by +/- 10%.
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 de-
pends 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 cur-
rent 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 Cycle OSC 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 sup-
ports 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 macOS)
Resize video window to half its original size.
Alt+1 (and command+1 on macOS)
Resize video window to its original size.
Alt+2 (and command+2 on macOS)
Resize video window to double its original size.
command + f (macOS 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-bind-
ings.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, ev-
erything else as filenames or URLs. All options except flag options (or
choice options which include yes) require a parameter in the form --op-
tion=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 op-
tions 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 argu-
ments 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 sub-
option 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 op-
tions:
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 op-
tion 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 match-
ing [ 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
Note: where applicable with JSON-IPC, %n% is the length in UTF-8 bytes,
after decoding the JSON data.
Suboptions passed to the client API are also subject to escaping. Using
mpv_set_option_string() is exactly like passing --name=data to the com-
mand 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 rel-
ative 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 dis-
able 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_com-
mand_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 pre-
fix ~~home/ expands to the mpv configuration directory (usually ~/.con-
fig/mpv/). ~/ expands to the user's home directory. (The trailing / is
always required.) The following paths are currently recognized:
┌─────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│Name │ Meaning │
└─────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
│~~/ │ If the subpath exists in │
│ │ any of the mpv's config │
│ │ directories the path of │
│ │ the existing file/dir is │
│ │ returned. Otherwise this │
│ │ is equivalent to ~~home/. │
│ │ Note that if --no-config │
│ │ is used ~~/foobar will re- │
│ │ solve to foobar which can │
│ │ be unexpected. │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~/ │ user home directory root │
│ │ (similar to shell, $HOME) │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~home/ │ mpv config dir (for exam- │
│ │ ple ~/.config/mpv/) │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~global/ │ the global config path, if │
│ │ available (not on win32) │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~osxbundle/ │ the macOS bundle resource │
│ │ path (macOS only) │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~desktop/ │ the path to the desktop │
│ │ (win32, macOS) │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~exe_dir/ │ win32 only: the path to │
│ │ the directory containing │
│ │ the exe (for config file │
│ │ purposes; $MPV_HOME over- │
│ │ rides it) │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│~~old_home/ │ do not use │
└─────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
Per-File Options
When playing multiple files, any option given on the command line usu-
ally 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 play-
back 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 suf-
fixes. 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 lit-
eral , without the need for escaping.
String list and path list options
String lists are separated by ,. The strings are not parsed or inter-
preted by the option system itself. However, most
Path or file list options use : (Unix) or ; (Windows) as separator, in-
stead of ,.
They support the following operations:
┌────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│Suffix │ Meaning │
├────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│-set │ Set a list of items (using │
│ │ the list separator, es- │
│ │ caped with backslash) │
├────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│-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 es- │
│ │ capes) │
├────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│-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 dic-
tionary. 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 (es- │
│ │ capes for the key, no es- │
│ │ capes for the value) │
├────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│-add │ Append 1 or more items │
│ │ (same syntax as -set) │
├────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│-remove │ Delete item by key if │
│ │ present (does not inter- │
│ │ pret 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.
If you want to pass a value without interpreting it for escapes or ,,
it is recommended to use the -add variant. When using libmpv, prefer
using MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP; when using a scripting backend or the JSON
IPC, use an appropriate structured data type.
Prior to mpv 0.33, : was also recognized as separator by -set.
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 (us- │
│ │ ing , 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 dis-
abled 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:
term-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 con-
tains 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 ~/.con-
fig/mpv. In addition, the --use-filedir-conf option enables direc-
tory-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> op-
tion, 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
Runtime profiles
Profiles can be set at runtime with apply-profile command. Since this
operation is "destructive" (every item in a profile is simply set as an
option, overwriting the previous value), you can't just enable and dis-
able profiles again.
As a partial remedy, there is a way to make profiles save old option
values before overwriting them with the profile values, and then
restoring the old values at a later point using apply-profile <pro-
file-name> restore.
This can be enabled with the profile-restore option, which takes one of
the following options:
default
Does nothing, and nothing can be restored (default).
copy When applying a profile, copy the old values of all profile
options to a backup before setting them from the profile.
These options are reset to their old values using the backup
when restoring.
Every profile has its own list of backed up values. If the
backup already exists (e.g. if apply-profile name was called
more than once in a row), the existing backup is no changed.
The restore operation will remove the backup.
It's important to know that restoring does not "undo" setting
an option, but simply copies the old option value. Consider
for example vf-add, appends an entry to vf. This mechanism
will simply copy the entire vf list, and does _not_ execute
the inverse of vf-add (that would be vf-remove) on restoring.
Note that if a profile contains recursive profiles (via the
profile option), the options in these recursive profiles are
treated as if they were part of this profile. The referenced
profile's backup list is not used when creating or using the
backup. Restoring a profile does not restore referenced pro-
files, only the options of referenced profiles (as if they
were part of the main profile).
copy-equal
Similar to copy, but restore an option only if it has the
same value as the value effectively set by the profile. This
tries to deal with the situation when the user does not want
the option to be reset after interactively changing it.
Example
[something]
profile-restore=copy-equal
vf-add=rotate=PI/2 # rotate by 90 degrees
Then running these commands will result in behavior as commented:
set vf vflip
apply-profile something
vf add hflip
apply-profile something
# vf == vflip,rotate=PI/2,hflip,rotate=PI/2
apply-profile something restore
# vf == vflip
Conditional auto profiles
Profiles which have the profile-cond option set are applied automati-
cally if the associated condition matches (unless auto profiles are
disabled). The option takes a string, which is interpreted as Lua con-
dition. If evaluating the expression returns true, the profile is ap-
plied, if it returns false, it is ignored. This Lua code execution is
not sandboxed.
Any variables in condition expressions can reference properties. If an
identifier is not already defined by Lua or mpv, it is interpreted as
property. For example, pause would return the current pause status.
You cannot reference properties with - this way since that would denote
a subtraction, but if the variable name contains any _ characters, they
are turned into -. For example, playback_time would return the property
playback-time.
A more robust way to access properties is using p.property_name or
get("property-name", default_value). The automatic variable to property
magic will break if a new identifier with the same name is introduced
(for example, if a function named pause() were added, pause would re-
turn a function value instead of the value of the pause property).
Note that if a property is not available, it will return nil, which can
cause errors if used in expressions. These are logged in verbose mode,
and the expression is considered to be false.
Whenever a property referenced by a profile condition changes, the con-
dition is re-evaluated. If the return value of the condition changes
from false or error to true, the profile is applied.
This mechanism tries to "unapply" profiles once the condition changes
from true to false. If you want to use this, you need to set pro-
file-restore for the profile. Another possibility it to create another
profile with an inverse condition to undo the other profile.
Recursive profiles can be used. But it is discouraged to reference
other conditional profiles in a conditional profile, since this can
lead to tricky and unintuitive behavior.
Example
Make only HD video look funny:
[something]
profile-desc=HD video sucks
profile-cond=width >= 1280
hue=-50
If you want the profile to be reverted if the condition goes to
false again, you can set profile-restore:
[something]
profile-desc=Mess up video when entering fullscreen
profile-cond=fullscreen
profile-restore=copy
vf-add=rotate=PI/2 # rotate by 90 degrees
This appends the rotate filter to the video filter chain when enter-
ing fullscreen. When leaving fullscreen, the vf option is set to the
value it had before entering fullscreen. Note that this would also
remove any other filters that were added during fullscreen mode by
the user. Avoiding this is trickier, and could for example be solved
by adding a second profile with an inverse condition and operation:
[something]
profile-cond=fullscreen
vf-add=@rot:rotate=PI/2
[something-inv]
profile-cond=not fullscreen
vf-remove=@rot
WARNING:
Every time an involved property changes, the condition is evaluated
again. If your condition uses p.playback_time for example, the con-
dition is re-evaluated approximately on every video frame. This is
probably slow.
This feature is managed by an internal Lua script. Conditions are exe-
cuted as Lua code within this script. Its environment contains at least
the following things:
(function environment table)
Every Lua function has an environment table. This is used for
identifier access. There is no named Lua symbol for it; it is
implicit.
The environment does "magic" accesses to mpv properties. If an
identifier is not already defined in _G, it retrieves the mpv
property of the same name. Any occurrences of _ in the name are
replaced with - before reading the property. The returned value
is as retrieved by mp.get_property_native(name). Internally, a
cache of property values, updated by observing the property is
used instead, so properties that are not observable will be
stuck at the initial value forever.
If you want to access properties, that actually contain _ in the
name, use get() (which does not perform transliteration).
Internally, the environment table has a __index meta method set,
which performs the access logic.
p A "magic" table similar to the environment table. Unlike the
latter, this does not prefer accessing variables defined in _G -
it always accesses properties.
get(name [, def])
Read a property and return its value. If the property value is
nil (e.g. if the property does not exist), def is returned.
This is superficially similar to mp.get_property_native(name).
An important difference is that this accesses the property
cache, and enables the change detection logic (which is essen-
tial to the dynamic runtime behavior of auto profiles). Also, it
does not return an error value as second return value.
The "magic" tables mentioned above use this function as backend.
It does not perform the _ transliteration.
In addition, the same environment as in a blank mpv Lua script is
present. For example, math is defined and gives access to the Lua stan-
dard math library.
WARNING:
This feature is subject to change indefinitely. You might be forced
to adjust your profiles on mpv updates.
Legacy auto profiles
Some profiles are loaded automatically using a legacy mechanism. The
following example demonstrates this:
Auto profile loading
[extension.mkv]
profile-desc="profile for .mkv files"
vf=vflip
The profile name follows the schema type.name, where type can be proto-
col 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 is considered soft-deprecated. Use
conditional 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 at-
tempt to simulate user input by sending terminal control codes to
mpv's stdin. If you need interactive control, using --in-
put-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 con-
figuration intended for CLI playback.
Using --input-ipc-server is also suitable for purposes like re-
mote 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 pro-
vided 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 mecha-
nisms 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 direc-
tory, 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 manu-
ally, 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) (duration 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 prop-
erty.)
• 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-de-
layed-frame-count property). The latter is a heuristic, as it's gen-
erally 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 "hic-
cups" and when the video frame couldn't be displayed on time.
(frame-drop-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. (decoder-frame-drop-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 de-
muxer-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 re-
lease).
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 con-
stant 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)
RESUMING PLAYBACK
mpv is capable of storing the playback position of the currently play-
ing file and resume from there the next time that file is played. This
is done with the commands quit-watch-later (bound to Shift+Q by de-
fault) and write-watch-later-config, and with the --save-posi-
tion-on-quit option.
The difference between always quitting with a key bound to
quit-watch-later and using --save-position-on-quit is that the latter
will save the playback position even when mpv is closed with a method
other than a keybinding, for example if you shutdown your system with-
out closing mpv beforehand, unless of course mpv is terminated abruptly
and doesn't have the time to save (e.g. with the KILL Unix signal).
mpv also stores options other than the playback position when they have
been modified after playback began, for example the volume and the
fullscreen state, and restores their values the next time the file is
played. Which options are saved can be configured with the
--watch-later-options option.
When playing multiple playlist entries, mpv checks if one them has a
resume config file associated, and if it finds one it restarts playback
from it. For example, if you use quit-watch-later on the 5th episode of
a show, and later play all the episodes, mpv will automatically resume
playback from episode 5.
More options to configure this functionality are listed in Watch Later.
PROTOCOLS
http://..., https://, ...
Many network protocols are supported, but the protocol prefix must
always be specified. mpv will never attempt to guess whether a file-
name is actually a network address. A protocol prefix is always re-
quired.
Note that not all prefixes are documented here. Undocumented pre-
fixes are either aliases to documented protocols, or are just redi-
rections 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 func-
tionality 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. (Requires FFmpeg support.)
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 proba-
bly try to open an actual optical drive, if available and imple-
mented 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 libavde-
vice 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 im-
mediately, 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 ab-
solute 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 writ-
ten. 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.
slice://start[-end]@URL
Read a slice of a stream.
start and end represent a byte range and accept suffixes such as KiB
and MiB. end is optional.
if end starts with +, it is considered as offset from start.
Only works with seekable streams.
Examples:
mpv slice://1g-2g@cap.ts
This starts reading from cap.ts after seeking 1 GiB, then
reads until reaching 2 GiB or end of file.
mpv slice://1g-+2g@cap.ts
This starts reading from cap.ts after seeking 1 GiB, then
reads until reaching 3 GiB or end of file.
mpv slice://100m@appending://cap.ts
This starts reading from cap.ts after seeking 100MiB, then
reads until end of file.
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 macOS
• 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, which is the main difference to using --pro-
file=builtin-pseudo-gui.
The profile is currently defined as follows:
[builtin-pseudo-gui]
terminal=no
force-window=yes
idle=once
screenshot-directory=~~desktop/
The pseudo-gui profile exists for compatibility. The options in the
pseudo-gui profile are applied unconditionally. In addition, the pro-
file makes sure to enable the pseudo-GUI mode, so that --pro-
file=pseudo-gui works like in older mpv releases:
[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 be-
havior might change, and not apply your additional settings, and/or
use a different profile name.
LINUX DESKTOP ISSUES
This subsection describes common problems on the Linux desktop. None of
these problems exist on systems like Windows or macOS.
Disabling Screensaver
By default, mpv tries to disable the OS screensaver during playback
(only if a VO using the OS GUI API is active). --stop-screensaver=no
disables this.
A common problem is that Linux desktop environments ignore the standard
screensaver APIs on which mpv relies. In particular, mpv uses the
Screen Saver extension (XSS) on X11, and the idle-inhibit protocol on
Wayland.
GNOME in particular still ignores the idle-inhibit protocol, and has
its own D-Bus interfaces for display power management, which mpv does
not support.
Before mpv 0.33.0, the X11 backend ran xdg-screensaver reset in 10 sec-
ond intervals when not paused in order to support screensaver inhibi-
tion in these environments. This functionality was removed in 0.33.0,
but it is possible to call the xdg-screensaver command line program
from a user script instead.
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 Ja-
panese 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 Ja-
panese 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.)
NOTE:
The track selection options (--aid but also --sid and the
others) sometimes expose behavior that may appear strange.
Also, the behavior tends to change around with each mpv re-
lease.
The track selection properties will return the option value
outside of playback (as expected), but during playback, the
affective track selection is returned. For example, with
--aid=auto, the aid property will suddenly return 2 after
playback initialization (assuming the file has at least 2 au-
dio tracks, and the second is the default).
At mpv 0.32.0 (and some releases before), if you passed a
track value for which a corresponding track didn't exist
(e.g. --aid=2 and there was only 1 audio track), the aid
property returned no. However if another audio track was
added during playback, and you tried to set the aid property
to 2, nothing happened, because the aid option still had the
value 2, and writing the same value has no effect.
With mpv 0.33.0, the behavior was changed. Now track selec-
tion options are reset to auto at playback initialization, if
the option had tries to select a track that does not exist.
The same is done if the track exists, but fails to initial-
ize. The consequence is that unlike before mpv 0.33.0, the
user's track selection parameters are clobbered in certain
situations.
Also since mpv 0.33.0, trying to select a track by number
will strictly select this track. Before this change, trying
to select a track which did not exist would fall back to
track default selection at playback initialization. The new
behavior is more consistent.
Setting a track selection property at runtime, and then play-
ing a new file might reset the track selection to defaults,
if the fingerprint of the track list of the new file is dif-
ferent.
Be aware of tricky combinations of all of all of the above:
for example, mpv --aid=2 file_with_2_audio_tracks.mkv
file_with_1_audio_track.mkv would first play the correct
track, and the second file without audio. If you then go
back the first file, its first audio track will be played,
and the second file is played with audio. If you do the same
thing again but instead of using --aid=2 you run set aid 2
while the file is playing, then changing to the second file
will play its audio track. This is because runtime selection
enables the fingerprint heuristic.
Most likely this is not the end.
--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 play-
back is started, the referenced tracks are always selected.
--subs-with-matching-audio=<yes|no>
When autoselecting a subtitle track, select a non-forced one
even if the selected audio stream matches your preferred subti-
tle language (default: yes). Disable this if you'd like to only
show subtitles for foreign audio or onscreen text.
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 --re-
base-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 time-
stamp, 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
scaletempo2 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 behav-
ior). Passing a playlist file to mpv should work with this op-
tion, though. E.g. mpv playlist.m3u --playlist-start=123 will
work as expected, as long as playlist.m3u does not link to fur-
ther 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. You may need this option
to load plaintext files as a playlist. Note that XML playlist
formats are not supported.
This option forces --demuxer=playlist to interpret the playlist
file. Some playlist formats, notably CUE and optical disc for-
mats, need to use different demuxers and will not work with this
option. They still can be played directly, without using this
option.
You can play playlists directly, without this option. Before mpv
version 0.31.0, this option disabled any security mechanisms
that might be in place, but since 0.31.0 it uses the same secu-
rity mechanisms as playing a playlist file directly. If you
trust the playlist file, you can disable any security checks
with --load-unsafe-playlists. Because playlists can load other
playlist entries, consider applying this option only to the
playlist itself and not its entries, using something along these
lines:
mpv --{ --playlist=filename --load-unsafe-playlists --}
WARNING:
The way older versions of mpv played playlist files via
--playlist was not safe against maliciously constructed
files. Such files may trigger harmful actions. This has been
the case for all verions of mpv prior to 0.31.0, and all
MPlayer versions, but unfortunately this fact was not well
documented earlier, and some people have even misguidedly
recommended the use of --playlist with untrusted sources. Do
NOT use --playlist with random internet sources or files you
do not trust if you are not sure your mpv is at least 0.31.0.
In particular, playlists can contain entries using protocols
other than local files, such as special protocols like avde-
vice:// (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 (de-
fault: 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|default>
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 de-
pending 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 de-
fault 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
Like absolute, but enable hr-seeks in audio-only cases.
The exact behavior is implementation specific and may
change with new releases (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 in-
stead. 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 down-
side of setting this option is that precise seeks become slower,
as video between the earlier demuxer position and the real tar-
get 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 seek-
ing (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 net-
work or potentially unsafe location. (Instead, the behavior is
as if the playlist entries were provided directly to mpv command
line or loadfile command.)
--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 exam-
ple 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 ref-
erence files, opening of archives, and a number of other fea-
tures.
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 ex-
ample 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 (de-
fault), 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.
NOTE:
--loop-file counts the number of times it causes the player
to seek to the beginning of the file, not the number of full
playthroughs. This means --loop-file=1 will end up playing
the file twice. Contrast with --loop-playlist, which counts
the number of full playthroughs.
--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 correspond-
ing properties. See also ab-loop command.
--ab-loop-count=<N|inf>
Run A-B loops only N times, then ignore the A-B loop points (de-
fault: inf). Every finished loop iteration will decrement this
option by 1 (unless it is set to inf or 0). inf means that loop-
ing goes on forever. If this option is set to 0, A-B looping is
ignored, and even the ab-loop command will not enable looping
again (the command will show (disabled) on the OSD message if
both loop points are set, but ab-loop-count is 0).
--ordered-chapters, --no-ordered-chapters
Enabled by default. Disable support for Matroska ordered chap-
ters. 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 differ-
ent 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 meta-
data 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 di-
rectly.
--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 (de-
fault: no). With no, playback will continue in video-only or
audio-only mode if one of them fails. This doesn't affect play-
back of audio-only or video-only files.
--play-dir=<forward|+|backward|->
Control the playback direction (default: forward). Setting back-
ward 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 di-
rection.
+ 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 cer-
tain 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. Implemen-
tation tradeoffs were made, that are bad for backward playback,
but in turn do not cause disadvantages for normal playback. Var-
ious 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 back-
ward 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 ear-
lier position. This can require buffering an extreme amount of
decoded data, and also completely breaks pipelining.
• Backward output. This is relatively simple, because the de-
coder 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 be-
havior 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 in-
herent 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 de-
terministic 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 sup-
ported 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 dis-
play 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, be-
cause 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 recom-
mended, 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. Back-
stepping 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 ig-
nores this, and you need to increase --hwdec-extra-frames in-
stead (until you get playback without logged errors).
• The demuxer cache is essential for backward demuxing. Make
sure to set --cache=yes. The cache size might matter. If it's
too small, a queue overflow will be logged, and backward play-
back 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 in-
crease the amount of packets the demuxer layer can queue for
reverse demuxing (basically it's the --video-reversal-buffer
equivalent for the demuxer layer).
• Setting --vd-queue-enable=yes can help a lot to make playback
smooth (once it works).
• --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 back-
step 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; --de-
muxer-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 con-
trol 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 disap-
pears. 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> op-
tions accept suffixes such as KiB and MiB.
--video-backward-overlap=<auto|number>, --audio-backward-over-
lap=<auto|number>
Number of overlapping keyframe ranges to use for backward decod-
ing (default: auto) ("keyframe" to be understood as in the
mpv/ffmpeg specific meaning). Backward decoding works by for-
ward decoding in small steps. Some codecs cannot restart decod-
ing 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 af-
fected.
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 decod-
ing (default: 1 for video, 10 for audio). Another pointless tun-
ing 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 reduc-
ing backstep operations.
--demuxer-backward-playback-step=<seconds>
Number of seconds the demuxer should seek back to get new pack-
ets 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 be-
havior.
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 spe-
cial 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).
A special case is the macOS bundle, it will create a log file at
~/Library/Logs/mpv.log by default.
--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 directo-
ries are ignored, and overrides through environment variables
(MPV_HOME) are also ignored.
Note that the --no-config option takes precedence over this op-
tion.
--dump-stats=<filename>
Write certain statistics to the given file. The file is trun-
cated 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 configu-
ration 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 de-
pends 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.
--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 op-
tions, and mpv will reset the value of these options on playback
start to the initial value. The initial value is either the de-
fault 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 con-
fig 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 play-
back.
• --reset-on-next-file=all Try to reset all settings that
were changed during playback.
--show-profile=<profile>
Show the description and content of a profile. Lists all pro-
files if no parameter is provided.
--use-filedir-conf
Look for a file-specific configuration file in the same direc-
tory as the file that is being played. See File-specific Config-
uration 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.
This accepts a set of options, which can be passed to it with
the --script-opts option (using ytdl_hook- as prefix):
try_ytdl_first=<yes|no>
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.
exclude=<URL1|URL2|...
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
all_formats=<yes|no>
If 'yes' will attempt to add all formats found reported
by youtube-dl (default: no). Each format is added as a
separate track. In addition, they are delay-loaded, and
actually opened only when a track is selected (this
should keep load times as low as without this option).
It adds average bitrate metadata, if available, which
means you can use --hls-bitrate to decide which track to
select. (HLS used to be the only format whose alternative
quality streams were exposed in a similar way, thus the
option name.)
Tracks which represent formats that were selected by
youtube-dl as default will have the default flag set.
This means mpv should generally still select formats cho-
sen with --ytdl-format by default.
Although this mechanism makes it possible to switch
streams at runtime, it's not suitable for this purpose
for various technical reasons. (It's slow, which can't be
really fixed.) In general, this option is not useful, and
was only added to show that it's possible.
There are two cases that must be considered when doing
quality/bandwidth selection:
1. Completely separate audio and video streams
(DASH-like). Each of these streams contain either
only audio or video, so you can mix and combine au-
dio/video bandwidths without restriction. This in-
tuitively matches best with the concept of select-
ing quality by track (what all_formats is supposed
to do).
2. Separate sets of muxed audio and video streams.
Each version of the media contains both an audio
and video stream, and they are interleaved. In or-
der not to waste bandwidth, you should only select
one of these versions (if, for example, you select
an audio stream, then video will be downloaded,
even if you selected video from a different
stream).
mpv will still represent them as separate tracks,
but will set the title of each track to muxed-N,
where N is replaced with the youtube-dl format ID
of the originating stream.
Some sites will mix 1. and 2., but we assume that they do
so for compatibility reasons, and there is no reason to
use them at all.
force_all_formats=<yes|no>
If set to 'yes', and all_formats is also set to 'yes',
this will try to represent all youtube-dl reported for-
mats as tracks, even if mpv would normally use the direct
URL reported by it (default: yes).
It appears this normally makes a difference if youtube-dl
works on a master HLS playlist.
If this is set to 'no', this specific kind of stream is
treated like all_formats is set to 'no', and the stream
selection as done by youtube-dl (via --ytdl-format) is
used.
use_manifests=<yes|no>
Make mpv use the master manifest URL for formats like HLS
and DASH, if available, allowing for video/audio selec-
tion in runtime (default: no). It's disabled ("no") by
default for performance reasons.
ytdl_path=youtube-dl
Configure paths to youtube-dl's executable or a compati-
ble fork's. The paths should be separated by : on Unix
and ; on Windows. mpv looks in order for the configured
paths in PATH and in mpv's config directory. The de-
faults are "yt-dlp", "yt-dlp_x86" and "youtube-dl". On
Windows the suffix extension ".exe" is always appended.
Why do the option names mix _ and -?
I have no idea.
--ytdl-format=<ytdl|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: bestvideo+bestaudio/best)
The ytdl value does not pass a --format option to youtube-dl at
all, and thus does not override its default. Note that sometimes
youtube-dl returns a format that mpv cannot use, and in these
cases the mpv default may work better.
--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 built-in script that shows a console on a key binding
and lets you enter commands (default: yes). The ` key is used to
show the console by default, and ESC to hide it again.
--load-auto-profiles=<yes|no|auto>
Enable the builtin script that does auto profiles (default:
auto). See Conditional auto profiles for details. auto will load
the script, but immediately unload it if there are no condi-
tional profiles.
--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. See PSEUDO GUI MODE
for details.
Watch Later
--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 posi-
tion, 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.
See RESUMING PLAYBACK.
--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/).
--no-resume-playback
Do not restore playback position from the watch_later configura-
tion subdirectory (usually ~/.config/mpv/watch_later/).
--resume-playback-check-mtime
Only restore the playback position from the watch_later configu-
ration 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)
--watch-later-options=option1,option2,...
The options that are saved in "watch later" files if they have
been changed since when mpv started. These values will be re-
stored the next time the files are played. The playback position
is always saved as start, so adding start to this list has no
effect.
When removing options, existing watch later data won't be modi-
fied and will still be applied fully, but new watch later data
won't contain these options.
This is a string list option. See List Options for details.
Examples
• --watch-later-options-remove=fullscreen The fullscreen
state won't be saved to watch later files.
• --watch-later-options-remove=volume --watch-later-op-
tions-remove=mute The volume and mute state won't be saved
to watch later files.
• --watch-later-options-clr No option will be saved to watch
later files except the starting position.
--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 fea-
ture. (Default: disabled)
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 dif-
ference 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 sys-
tems, 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 pro-
duce unwatchable choppy output, or even freeze the dis-
play completely.
This uses a heuristic which may not make sense, and in
general cannot achieve good results, because the de-
coder's frame dropping cannot be controlled in a predict-
able manner. Not recommended.
Even if you want to use this, prefer decoder+vo for bet-
ter results.
The --vd-lavc-framedrop option controls what frames to
drop.
<decoder+vo>
Enable both modes. Not recommended. Better than just de-
coder 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
the player needing to decode 1 frame in advance, lowering to-
tal latency in effect. This also means that if the demuxer re-
ported 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 automati-
cally 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, to keep the
out-of-the-box configuration as reliable as possible. However,
when using modern hardware, hardware video decoding should work
correctly, offering reduced CPU usage, and possibly lower power
consumption. On older systems, it may be necessary to use hard-
ware decoding due to insufficient CPU resources; and even on
modern systems, sufficiently complex content (eg: 4K60 AV1) may
require it.
NOTE:
Use the Ctrl+h shortcut to toggle hardware decoding at run-
time. It toggles this option between auto and no.
If you decide you want to use hardware decoding by default,
the general recommendation is to try out decoding with the
command line option, and prove to yourself that it works as
desired for the content you care about. After that, you can
add it to your config file.
When testing, you should start by using hwdec=auto-safe as it
will limit itself to choosing from hwdecs that are actively
supported by the development team. If that doesn't result in
working hardware decoding, you can try hwdec=auto to have it
attempt to load every possible hwdec, but if auto-safe didn't
work, you will probably need to know exactly which hwdec
matches your hardware and read up on that entry below.
If auto-safe or auto produced the desired results, we recom-
mend just sticking with that and only setting a specific
hwdec in your config file if it is really necessary.
If you use the Ubuntu package, keep in mind that their
/etc/mpv/mpv.conf contains hwdec=vaapi, which is less than
ideal as it may not be the right choice for your system, and
it may end up using an inefficient wrapper library under the
covers. We recommend removing this line or deleting the file
altogether.
NOTE:
Even if enabled, hardware decoding is still only white-listed
for some codecs. See --hwdec-codecs to enable hardware decod-
ing 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 en-
abled by default, put hwdec=auto-safe into your mpv.conf,
and acknowledge that this may cause problems.
• If you want to test available hardware decoding methods,
pass --hwdec=auto --hwdec-codecs=all and look at the termi-
nal 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)
Actively supported hwdecs:
d3d11va
requires --vo=gpu with --gpu-context=d3d11 or --gpu-con-
text=angle (Windows 8+ only)
d3d11va-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Windows 8+ only)
videotoolbox
requires --vo=gpu (macOS 10.8 and up), or --vo=libmpv
(iOS 9.0 and up)
videotoolbox-copy
copies video back into system RAM (macOS 10.8 or iOS 9.0
and up)
vaapi requires --vo=gpu, --vo=vaapi or --vo=dmabuf-wayland
(Linux only)
vaapi-copy
copies video back into system RAM (Linux with some GPUs
only)
nvdec requires --vo=gpu (Any platform CUDA is available)
nvdec-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Any platform CUDA is
available)
drm requires --vo=gpu (Linux only)
drm-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Linux ony)
Other hwdecs (only use if you know you have to):
dxva2 requires --vo=gpu with --gpu-context=d3d11, --gpu-con-
text=angle or --gpu-context=dxinterop (Windows only)
dxva2-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Windows only)
vdpau requires --vo=gpu with X11, or --vo=vdpau (Linux only)
vdpau-copy
copies video back into system RAM (Linux with some GPUs
only)
mediacodec
requires --vo=gpu --gpu-context=android or --vo=media-
codec_embed (Android only)
mediacodec-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Android only)
mmal requires --vo=gpu (Raspberry Pi only - default if avail-
able)
mmal-copy
copies video back to system RAM (Raspberry Pi only)
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 us-
ing. 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 meth-
ods that are considered "safe". This is supposed to be a reason-
able 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 dis-
able 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 dis-
abled. 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 pro-
cessing with video filters. This mode works with all video fil-
ters 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 if you are short on CPU resources.
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 de-
coding 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 deinterlac-
ing.
Quality reduction with hardware decoding
In theory, hardware decoding does not reduce video
quality (at least for the codecs h264 and HEVC). How-
ever, 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.
This has largely ceased to be a problem with modern
hardware, but there is a lot of hardware out there, so
caveat emptor. Known problems are discussed below, but
the list cannot be considered exhaustive, as even
hwdecs that work well on certain hardware generations
may be problematic on other ones.
In some cases, RGB conversion is forced, which means
the RGB conversion is performed by the hardware decod-
ing 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 cor-
rectly. However, vdpau doesn't support 10 bit or HDR
encodings, so these limitations are unlikely to be
relevant.
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.
mediacodec is not safe. It forces RGB conversion (not
with -copy) and how well it handles non-standard col-
orspaces is not known. In the rare cases where 10-bit
is supported the bit depth of the output will be re-
duced to 8.
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 dis-
cards the top left pixel of each frame for some rea-
son.
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 de-
mand (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 (de-
fault: see --list-options output). If this is too low, frame al-
location 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 de-
tails depend on the libavcodec implementations of the hardware
decoders.
The required number of surfaces depends on dynamic runtime situ-
ations. The default is a fixed value that is thought to be suf-
ficient 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 implemen-
tation specific standard format. Most decoder implementations
support only one format, and will fail to initialize if the for-
mat is not supported.
Some implementations might support multiple formats. In particu-
lar, videotoolbox is known to require uyvy422 for good perfor-
mance 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 ma-
jority 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 in-
correct 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-over-
ride=1.3333
• --video-aspect-override=16:9 or --video-aspect-over-
ride=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-over-
ride or others).
container
Strictly prefer the container aspect ratio. This is ap-
parently the default behavior with VLC, at least with Ma-
troska. 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 con-
version. 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. 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 rota-
tion metadata.)
When using hardware decoding without copy-back, only 90° steps
work, while software decoding and hardware decoding methods that
copy the video back to system memory support all values between
0 and 359.
--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 un-
scaled, --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-scale-x=<value>, --video-scale-y=<value>
Multiply the video display size with the given value (default:
1.0). If a non-default value is used, this will be different
from the window size, so video will be either cut off, or black
bars are added.
This value is multiplied with the value derived from
--video-zoom and the normal video aspect ratio. 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 as-
pect 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 exam-
ple, setting the option --video-margin-ratio-right=0.2 at a win-
dow 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-mar-
gins 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 be-
havior of these options may change to fit OSC requirements bet-
ter, 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 move-
ment. 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 (usu-
ally 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 initial-
izing 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, out-
put 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 op-
tion 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. Re-
move the prefix, e.g. instead of lavc:h264 use h264.
By default, this is set to h264,vc1,hevc,vp8,vp9,av1. 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 se-
lected, 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 some-
how incorrect.
--vd-lavc-software-fallback=<yes|no|N>
Fallback to software decoding if the hardware-accelerated de-
coder 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-film-grain=<auto|cpu|gpu>
Enables film grain application on the GPU. If video decoding is
done on the CPU, doing film grain application on the GPU can
speed up decoding. This option can also help hardware decoding,
as it can reduce the number of frame copies done.
By default, it's set to auto, so if the VO supports film grain
application, then it will be treated as gpu. If the VO does not
support this, then it will be treated as cpu, regardless of the
setting. Currently, only gpu-next supports film grain applica-
tion.
--vd-lavc-dr=<auto|yes|no>
Enable direct rendering (default: auto). If this is set to yes,
the video will be decoded directly to GPU video memory (or stag-
ing 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.
• libmpv: The libmpv render API has optional support.
The auto option will try to guess whether DR can improve perfor-
mance on your particular hardware. Currently this enables it on
AMD or NVIDIA if using OpenGL or unconditionally if using
Vulkan.
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-1/2 and H.264 only)
Enable optimizations which do not comply with the format speci-
fication and potentially cause problems, like simpler dequanti-
zation, 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 de-
coded before an initial keyframe was decoded, or frames that are
recognized as corrupted.
--vd-lavc-skiploopfilter=<skipvalue> (H.264, HEVC only)
Skips the loop filter (AKA deblocking) during decoding. Since
the filtered frame is supposed to be used as reference for de-
coding 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. Codecs other than H.264 or HEVC may have partial
support for this option (often only all and none).
<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-1/2/4 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 mo-
tion and sometimes bad artifacts (see skiploopfilter for avail-
able 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 ac-
tually supported depends on codec (default: 0). 0 means autode-
tect number of cores on the machine and use that, up to the max-
imum 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 (de-
fault: no). Normally, this is autodetected by libavcodec. But
if the bitstream contains no x264 version info (or it was some-
how 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 ver-
sion 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 pipe-
lining 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 scaletempo2 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 de-
fault device.
You can list audio devices with --audio-device=help. This out-
puts the device name in quotes, followed by a description. The
device name is what you have to pass to the --audio-device op-
tion. 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 usu-
ally locked out, and only mpv will be able to output audio.
This only works for some audio outputs, such as wasapi and core-
audio. 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: in-
stead of causing an error if the selected device does not exist,
the client API user (or a Lua script) could let playback con-
tinue 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 loss-
less 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 re-
duction or amplification. Negative values can be passed for com-
patibility, 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 in-
active. If this is applied, no other replaygain options are ap-
plied.
--audio-delay=<sec>
Audio delay in seconds (positive or negative float value). Posi-
tive 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 avail-
able anymore, although auto almost matches current behavior in
most cases.
The no behavior is still partially available through the ao-vol-
ume 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 au-
dio quality.
--ad-lavc-downmix=<yes|no>
Whether to request audio channel downmixing from the decoder
(default: no). 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 sur-
round audio on a stereo system.
--ad-lavc-threads=<0-16>
Number of threads to use for decoding. Whether threading is ac-
tually supported depends on codec. As of this writing, it's sup-
ported 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 al-
lowed. 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 out-
put, especially over HDMI (see HDMI warning below).
•
--audio-channels=<stereo|mono>
Force a downmix to stereo or mono. These are spe-
cial-cases of the previous item. (See paragraphs below
for implications.)
If a list of layouts is given, each item can be either an ex-
plicit 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 ar-
bitrary 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 de-
coder-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 --au-
dio-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 hap-
pens 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 chan-
nel 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|embedded-first|external-first>
Determines whether to display cover art when playing audio files
and with what priority. It will display the first image found,
and additional images are available as video tracks.
no Disable display of video entirely when playing audio
files.
embedded-first
Display embedded images and external cover art, giving
priority to embedded images (default).
external-first
Display embedded images and external cover art, giving
priority to external 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 dif-
ferent from that of the current media, the lavrresample audio
filter will be inserted into the audio filter layer to compen-
sate for the difference.
--gapless-audio=<no|yes|weak>
Try to play consecutive audio files with no silence or disrup-
tion 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 re-
duced sound quality. If you play files with different pa-
rameters, consider using options such as --audio-sampler-
ate 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 set-
tings, but might not be gapless in other cases. The ex-
act 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 con-
vertible. 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 mov-
ing 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 time-
stamps 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 pa-
rameter 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 the media filename.
all Load all audio files in the current and --au-
dio-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 ac-
tually create a larger buffer if it pleases. If the device cre-
ates a smaller buffer, additional audio is buffered in an addi-
tional 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 con-
tacted.
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.
Warning
This modifies certain subtle player behavior, like
A/V-sync and underrun handling. Enabling this option
is strongly discouraged.
--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 --au-
dio-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. Im-
age-based subtitles (DVD, Bluray/PGS, DVB) cannot changed for funda-
mental 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 subti-
tle 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 de-
tails), 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-ap-
pend.
--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 topti-
tle (i.e. on the top of the screen) alongside the normal subti-
tle, and provides a way to render two subtitles at once.
There are some caveats associated with this feature. For exam-
ple, bitmap subtitles will always be rendered in their usual po-
sition, 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 over-
lap 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 in-
stead.
--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. be-
cause screen aspect and window aspect mismatch (and the player
adds black bars).
Default: yes.
This option is misnamed. The difference to the confusingly simi-
lar 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 for-
mat 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=<0-150>
Specify the position of subtitles on the screen. The value is
the vertical position of the subtitle in % of the screen height.
100 is the original position, which is often not the absolute
bottom of the screen, but with some margin between the bottom
and the subtitle. Values above 100 move the subtitle further
down.
Warning
Text subtitles (as opposed to image subtitles) may be
cut off if the value of the option is above 100. This
is a libass restriction.
This affects ASS subtitles as well, and may lead to
incorrect subtitle rendering in addition to the prob-
lem above.
Using --sub-margin-y can achieve this in a better way.
--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 for-
mats. 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 back-
ground), 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 fig-
uring 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. Chang-
ing the default for any of these options can lead to in-
correct 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 subti-
tle. 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 re-
sulted 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 direc-
tion. 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 ex-
isting scripts).
Enabled by default.
--sub-ass-vsfilter-blur-compat=<yes|no>
Scale \blur tags by video resolution instead of script resolu-
tion (enabled by default). This is bug in VSFilter, which ac-
cording to some, can't be fixed anymore in the name of compati-
bility.
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). Histori-
cally, 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 subti-
tle 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 de-
pend 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 in-
put 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 transla-
tions).
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-mar-
gins 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 re-
sults 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. ex-
act is enabled by default.
no Don't automatically load external subtitle files.
exact Load the media filename with subtitle file extension and
possibly language suffixes (default).
fuzzy Load all subs containing the media filename.
all Load all subs in the current and --sub-file-paths direc-
tories.
--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 com-
piled with uchardet, then utf-8 is the effective default.)
The default value for this option is auto, which enables autode-
tection.
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 fall-
back 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.
NOTE:
This works for text subtitle files only. Other types of sub-
titles (in particular subtitles in mkv files) are always as-
sumed to be UTF-8.
--sub-fix-timing=<yes|no>
Adjust subtitle timing is to remove minor gaps or overlaps be-
tween subtitles (if the difference is smaller than 210 ms, the
gap or overlap is removed).
--sub-forced-only=<auto|yes|no>
Display only forced subtitles for the DVD subtitle stream se-
lected by e.g. --slang (default: auto). When set to auto, en-
abled when the --subs-with-matching-audio option is on and a
non-forced stream is selected. Enabling this will hide all sub-
titles in streams that don't make a distinction between forced
and unforced events within a stream.
--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 ~/.con-
fig/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.
--secondary-sub-visibility, --no-secondary-sub-visibility
Can be used to disable display of secondary 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-past-video-end
After the last frame of video, if this option is enabled, subti-
tles will continue to update based on audio timestamps. Other-
wise, the subtitles for the last video frame will stay onscreen.
Default: disabled
--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.
--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 com-
ponent 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 #AAR-
RGGBB.
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 sub-
titles. If you just want to raise the vertical subtitle posi-
tion, 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-x). 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 subti-
tles if --sub-ass-override is not set to no. Default: no.
--sub-shadow-color=<color>
See --sub-color. Color used for sub text shadow.
NOTE:
ignored when --sub-back-color is specified (or more exactly:
when that option is not set to completely transparent).
--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-filter-regex-...=...
Set a list of regular expressions to match on text subtitles,
and remove any lines that match (default: empty). This is a
string list option. See List Options for details. Normally, you
should use --sub-filter-regex-append=<regex>, where each option
use will append a new regular expression, without having to
fight escaping problems.
List items are matched in order. If a regular expression
matches, the process is stopped, and the subtitle line is dis-
carded. The text matched against is, by default, the Text field
of ASS events (if the subtitle format is different, it is always
converted). This may include formatting tags. Matching is
case-insensitive, but how this is done depends on the libc, and
most likely works in ASCII only. It does not work on bitmap/im-
age subtitles. Unavailable on inferior OSes (requires POSIX
regex support).
Example
--sub-filter-regex-append=opensubtitles\.org filters
some ads.
Technically, using a list for matching is redundant, since you
could just use a single combined regular expression. But it
helps with diagnosis, ease of use, and temporarily disabling or
enabling individual filters.
WARNING:
This is experimental. The semantics most likely will change,
and if you use this, you should be prepared to update the op-
tion later. Ideas include replacing the regexes with a very
primitive and small subset of sed, or some method to control
case-sensitivity.
--sub-filter-jsre-...=...
Same as --sub-filter-regex but with JavaScript regular expres-
sions. Shares/affected-by all --sub-filter-regex-* control op-
tions (see below), and also experimental. Requires only Java-
Script support.
--sub-filter-regex-plain=<yes|no>
Whether to first convert the ASS "Text" field to plain-text (de-
fault: no). This strips ASS tags and applies ASS directives,
like \N to new-line. If the result is multi-line then the reg-
exp anchors ^ and $ match each line, but still any match dis-
cards all lines.
--sub-filter-regex-warn=<yes|no>
Log dropped lines with warning log level, instead of verbose
(default: no). Helpful for testing.
--sub-filter-regex-enable=<yes|no>
Whether to enable regex filtering (default: yes). Note that if
no regexes are added to the --sub-filter-regex list, setting
this option to yes has no effect. It's meant to easily disable
or enable filtering temporarily.
--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 selec-
tion 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 subti-
tle 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 macOS, 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 --embedded-
fonts=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 miss-
ing 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, de-
pending 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 --geome-
try to position the window explicitly. It's also pos-
sible that the window manager provides native features
to control which screens application windows should
use.
See also --fs-screen.
--screen-name=<string>
In multi-monitor configurations, this option tells mpv which
screen to display the video on based on the screen name from the
video backend. The same caveats in the --screen option also ap-
ply here. This option is ignored and does nothing if --screen is
explicitly set.
--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 fall-
back 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 (macOS)
all does not work on macOS and will behave like cur-
rent.
See also --screen.
--fs-screen-name=<string>
In multi-monitor configurations, this option tells mpv which
screen to go fullscreen to based on the screen name from the
video backend. The same caveats in the --fs-screen option also
apply here. This option is ignored and does nothing if
--fs-screen is explicitly set.
--keep-open=<yes|no|always>
Do not terminate when playing or seeking beyond the end of the
file, and there is no 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 termi-
nate. (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 automati-
cally 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 ter-
minate 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 contin-
ues 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 --de-
muxer-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. Cur-
rently, 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|desktop|level>
(macOS only) Sets the level of an ontop window (default: win-
dow).
window On top of all other windows.
system On top of system elements like Taskbar, Menubar and Dock.
desktop
On top of the Dekstop behind windows and Desktop icons.
level A level as integer.
--focus-on-open, --no-focus-on-open
(macOS only) Focus the video window on creation and makes it the
front most window. This is on by default.
--border, --no-border
Play video with window border and decorations. Since this is on
by default, use --no-border to disable the standard window deco-
rations.
--on-all-workspaces
(X11 and macOS only) Show the video window on all virtual desk-
tops.
--geometry=<[W[xH]][+-x+-y][/WS]>, --geometry=<x:y>
Adjust the initial window position or size. W and H set the win-
dow 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". A
trailing / followed by an integer denotes on which workspace
(virtual desktop) the window should appear (X11 only).
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 compen-
sate for the video aspect ratio (with most VOs and
without --no-keepaspect).
50%+10+10/2
Sets the window to half the screen widths, and posi-
tions it 10 pixels below/left of the top left corner
of the screen, on the second workspace.
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 dif-
ferently 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-moni-
tor setups.
Use --autofit-larger instead if you just want to limit the maxi-
mum 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 un-
til 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 pix-
els 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 unminimize, the video window if the current VO sup-
ports 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 re-
flect 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 sys-
tems (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 sup-
ports it. See --window-minimized for further remarks.
--cursor-autohide=<number|no|always>
Make mouse cursor automatically hide after given number of mil-
liseconds. 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 win-
dowed 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 ren-
dering (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 af-
fects 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 as-
pect 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
(macOS, Windows, X11, and Wayland only) Scale the window size
according to the backing scale factor (default: yes). On regu-
lar HiDPI resolutions the window opens with double the size but
appears as having the same size as on non-HiDPI resolutions.
This is enabled by default on macOS.
--native-fs, --no-native-fs
(macOS only) Uses the native fullscreen mechanism of the OS (de-
fault: 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 (al-
most?) all LCDs). See also --monitoraspect and --video-as-
pect-override.
--stop-screensaver=<yes|no|always>
Turns off the screensaver (or screen blanker and similar mecha-
nisms) at startup and turns it on again on exit (default: yes).
When using yes, the screensaver will re-enable when playback is
not active. always will always disable the screensaver. Note
that stopping the screensaver is only possible if a video output
is available (i.e. there is an open mpv window).
This is not supported on all video outputs or platforms. Some-
times it is implemented, but does not work (especially with
Linux "desktops"). Read the Disabling Screensaver section very
carefully.
--wid=<ID>
This tells mpv to attach to an existing window. If a VO is se-
lected that supports this option, it will use that window for
video output. mpv will scale the video to the size of this win-
dow, 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 spe-
cially, 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 macOS/Cocoa, the ID is interpreted as NSView*. Pass it as
value cast to intptr_t. mpv will create its own sub-view. Be-
cause macOS does not support window embedding of foreign pro-
cesses, 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=me-
diacodec).
--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 pro-
vides 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. Ap-
parently, 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 proto-
cols (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_COMPOSI-
TOR 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.
--x11-present=<no|auto|yes>
Whether or not to use presentation statistics from X11's presen-
tation extension (default: auto).
mpv asks X11 for present events which it then may use for more
accurate frame presentation. This only has an effect if
--video-sync=display-... is being used.
The auto option enumerates XRandr providers for autodetection.
If amd, radeon, intel, or nouveau (the standard x86 Mesa driv-
ers) is found and nvidia is NOT found, presentation feedback is
enabled. Other drivers are not assumed to work, so they are not
enabled automatically.
yes or no can still be passed regardless to enable/disable this
mechanism in case there is good/bad behavior with whatever your
combination of hardware/drivers/etc. happens to be.
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 di-
rectory 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> sec-
tors.
--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 an-
gles. This option tells mpv which angle to use (default: 1).
Equalizer
--brightness=<-100-100>
Adjust the brightness of the video signal (default: 0). Not sup-
ported by all video output drivers.
--contrast=<-100-100>
Adjust the contrast of the video signal (default: 0). Not sup-
ported 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 --de-
muxer=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). Techni-
cally, this controls whether libavformat's avfor-
mat_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 call-
ing 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 re-
quire 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 consid-
ers 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 mysteri-
ously 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 compen-
sate 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 op-
tions through the AVOption system is welcome. A full list of
AVOptions can be found in the FFmpeg manual. Note that some op-
tions 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 (de-
fault: 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 ei-
ther 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 use-
ful 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 fu-
ture, 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 some-
where. 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 or-
der 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 addi-
tionally 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-start-time=<yes|no>
Check the start time of Matroska files (default: yes). This sim-
ply reads the first cluster timestamps and assumes it is the
start time. Technically, this also reads the first timestamp,
which may increase latency by one frame (which may be relevant
for live streams).
--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 du-
ration. 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 tra-
verses 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 for-
mats.
--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 de-
tails.)
--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 neces-
sary, or as much is requested with --demuxer-readahead-secs. The
option can be used to restrict the maximum readahead. This lim-
its 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 warn-
ing, and you think normal playback would be possible with a
larger packet queue.
See --list-options for defaults and value range. <bytesize> op-
tions accept suffixes such as KiB and MiB.
--demuxer-max-back-bytes=<bytesize>
This controls how much past data the demuxer is allowed to pre-
serve. This is useful only if the cache is enabled.
Unlike the forward cache, there is no control how many seconds
are actually cached - it will simply use as much memory this op-
tion allows. Setting this option to 0 will strictly disable any
back buffer, but this will lead to the situation that the for-
ward 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 back-
buffer size is set to 0, or --demuxer-donate-buffer is set to
no). 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 buf-
fer, which can skew the impression about how much data the back-
buffer contains.
See --list-options for defaults and value range.
--demuxer-donate-buffer=<yes|no>
Whether to let the back buffer use part of the forward buffer
(default: yes). If set to yes, the "donation" behavior de-
scribed in the option description for --demuxer-max-back-bytes
is enabled. This means the back buffer may use up memory up to
the sum of the forward and back buffer options, minus the active
size of the forward buffer. If set to no, the options strictly
limit the forward and back buffer sizes separately.
Note that if the end of the file is reached, the buffered data
stays the same, even if you seek back within the cache. This is
because the back buffer is only reduced when new data is read.
--demuxer-seekable-cache=<yes|no|auto>
Debugging option to control whether seeking can use the demuxer
cache (default: auto). Normally you don't ever need to set this;
the default auto does the right thing and enables cache seeking
it if --cache is set to yes (or is implied yes if --cache=auto).
If enabled, short seek offsets will not trigger a low level de-
muxer seek (which means for example that slow network round
trips or FFmpeg seek bugs can be avoided). If a seek cannot hap-
pen 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.
The special value auto means yes in the same situation as
--cache-secs is used (i.e. when the stream appears to be a net-
work stream or the stream cache is enabled).
--demuxer-force-retry-on-eof=<yes|no>
Whether to keep retrying making the demuxer thread read more
packets each time the decoder dequeues a packet, even if the end
of the file was reached (default: no). This does not really make
sense, but was the default behavior in mpv 0.32.0 and earlier.
This option will be silently removed after a while, and exists
only to restore the old behavior for testing, in case this was
actually needed somewhere. This does _not_ help with files that
are being appended to (in these cases use appending://, or dis-
able the cache).
--demuxer-thread=<yes|no>
Run the demuxer in a separate thread, and let it prefetch a cer-
tain 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 connec-
tions gracefully (of course the OS can still close TCP connec-
tions 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 de-
muxer 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 enabling the cache (such as --cache=yes, or if the in-
put is considered a network stream, and --cache=auto is used),
this option is mostly ignored. (--cache-secs will override this.
Technically, the maximum of both options is used.)
The main purpose of this option is to limit the readhead for lo-
cal playback, since a large readahead value is not overly useful
in this case.
(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 does not prefill the cache with the video data of the next
URL. Prefetching video data is supported only for the current
playlist entry, and depends on the demuxer cache settings (on by
default). This merely opens the URL of the next playlist entry
as soon the current URL is fully read.
This does not work with URLs resolved by the youtube-dl wrapper,
and it won't.
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 ex-
ample, 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. play-
ing 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 ca-
pacity. Only once this is done, playback starts. This intention-
ally 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 unnec-
essary 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 de-
pends 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/in-
put.conf).
--no-input-default-bindings
Disable default-level ("weak") key bindings. These are bindings
which config files like input.conf can override. It currently
affects the builtin key bindings, and keys which scripts bind
using mp.add_key_binding (but not mp.add_forced_key_binding be-
cause this overrides input.conf).
--no-input-builtin-bindings
Disable loading of built-in key bindings during start-up. This
option is applied only during (lib)mpv initialization, and if
used then it will not be not possible to enable them later. May
be useful to libmpv clients.
--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 disad-
vantage 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-terminal, --no-input-terminal
--no-input-terminal prevents the player from reading key events
from standard input. Useful when reading data from standard in-
put. This is automatically enabled when - is found on the com-
mand line. There are situations where you have to set it manu-
ally, 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 --in-
put-ipc-server=/tmp/mpv-socket and --in-
put-ipc-server=\\.\pipe\tmp\mpv-socket are equivalent for IPC on
Windows.
See JSON IPC for details.
--input-ipc-client=fd://<N>
Connect a single IPC client to the given FD. This is somewhat
similar to --input-ipc-server, except no socket is created, and
instead the passed FD is treated like a socket connection re-
ceived from accept(). In practice, you could pass either a FD
created by socketpair(), or a pipe. In both cases, you must
sure the FD is actually inherited by mpv (do not set the POSIX
CLOEXEC flag).
The player quits when the connection is closed.
This is somewhat similar to the removed --input-file option, ex-
cept it supports only integer FDs, and cannot open actual paths.
Example
--input-ipc-client=fd://123
NOTE:
Does not and will not work on Windows.
WARNING:
Writing to the input-ipc-server option at runtime will start
another instance of an IPC client handler for the in-
put-ipc-client option, because initialization is bundled, and
this thing is stupid. This is a bug. Writing to in-
put-ipc-client at runtime will start another IPC client han-
dler for the new value, without stopping the old one, even if
the FD value is the same (but the string is different e.g.
due to whitespace). This is not a bug.
--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 out-
put 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>
On systems where mpv can choose between receiving media keys or
letting the system handle them - this option controls whether
mpv should receive them.
Default: yes (except for libmpv). macOS and Windows only, be-
cause elsewhere mpv doesn't have a choice - the system decides
whether to send media keys to mpv. For instance, on X11 or Way-
land, system-wide media keys are not implemented. Whether media
keys work when the mpv window is focused is implementation-de-
fined.
--input-right-alt-gr, --no-input-right-alt-gr
(Cocoa and Windows only) Use the right Alt key as Alt Gr to pro-
duce 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. Gen-
erally 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 key-
board 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 pro-
tocol, 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-de-
fault-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 us-
ing 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 us-
ing 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 dif-
ference).
--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). Ex-
pands properties. See Property Expansion.
This option has been replaced with --osd-msg3. The only differ-
ence 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 ex-
panded for properties, e.g. --osd-playing-msg='file: ${file-
name}' will show the message file: followed by a space and the
currently played filename.
See Property Expansion.
--osd-playing-msg-duration=<time>
Set the duration of osd-playing-msg in ms. If this is unset,
osd-playing-msg stays on screen for the duration of osd-dura-
tion.
--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 (de-
fault: 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 (de-
fault: 3.125).
--osd-back-color=<color>
See --sub-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 --sub-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 preci-
sion). 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
jxl JPEG XL
--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 tem-
plate 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 re-
sults in filenames like mpv-shot0012.png for example.
The template can start with a relative or absolute path, in or-
der 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 ei-
ther 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 (de-
fault: 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 ex-
ample, 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 filesys-
tem, 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, un-
less 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 screen-
shots 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 de-
fault 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 compres-
sion might occupy enough CPU time to interrupt playback. The de-
fault 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 de-
fault 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 screen-
shot quality when used with lossy WebP files. The default is 4.
--screenshot-jxl-distance=<0-15>
Set the JPEG XL Butteraugli distance. Lower means better qual-
ity. Lossless is 0.0, and 1.0 is approximately equivalent to
JPEG quality 90 for photographic content. Use 0.1 for "visually
lossless" screenshots. The default is 1.0.
--screenshot-jxl-effort=<1-9>
Set the JPEG XL compression effort. Higher effort (usually)
means better compression, but takes more CPU time. The default
is 3.
--screenshot-sw=<yes|no>
Whether to use software rendering for screenshots (default: no).
If set to no, the screenshot will be rendered by the current VO
if possible (only vo_gpu currently). The advantage is that this
will (probably) always show up as in the video window, because
the same code is used for rendering. But since the renderer
needs to be reinitialized, this can be slow and interrupt play-
back. (Unless the window mode is used with the screenshot com-
mand.)
If set to yes, the software scaler is used to convert the video
to RGB (or whatever the target screenshot requires). In this
case, conversion will run in a separate thread and will probably
not interrupt playback. The software renderer may lack some ca-
pabilities, such as HDR rendering.
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 qual-
ity (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. Also see --sws-allow-zimg.
--sws-allow-zimg=<yes|no>
Allow using zimg (if the component using the internal swscale
wrapper explicitly allows so) (default: yes). In this case, zimg
may be used, if the internal zimg wrapper supports the input and
output formats. It will silently or noisily fall back to libsws-
cale 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.
NOTE:
Do note that zimg may be slower than libswscale. Usually,
it's faster on x86 platforms, but slower on ARM (due to lack
of ARM specific optimizations). The mpv zimg wrapper uses un-
optimized repacking for some formats, for which zimg cannot
be blamed.
--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=<de-
fault|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-threads=<auto|integer>
Set the maximum number of threads to use for scaling (default:
auto). auto uses the number of logical cores on the current ma-
chine. Note that the scaler may use less threads (or even just 1
thread) depending on stuff. Passing a value of 1 disables
threading and always scales the image in a single operation.
Higher thread counts waste resources, but make it typically
faster.
Note that some zimg git versions had bugs that will corrupt the
output if threads are used.
--zimg-fast=<yes|no>
Allow optimizations that help with performance, but reduce qual-
ity (default: yes). Currently, this may simplify gamma conver-
sion 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 de-
pends on the source audio.
Technically, this changes the normalize suboption of the lavrre-
sample audio filter, which performs the downmixing.
If downmix happens outside of mpv for some reason, or in the de-
coder (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 (de-
fault: 40). The output size size is limited in order to make
resample speed changes react faster. This is necessary espe-
cially 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 initial-
ization 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 out-
puts. You can use the module names printed in the output (pre-
fixed 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 ter-
minal. (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 ex-
panded for properties, e.g. --term-playing-msg='file: ${file-
name}' 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 stan-
dard status line. Expands properties. See Property Expansion.
--term-title=<string>
Set the terminal title. Currently, this simply concatenates the
escape sequence setting the window title with the provided
(property expanded) string. This will mess up if the expanded
string contain bytes that end the escape sequence, or if the
terminal does not understand the sequence. The latter probably
includes the regrettable win32.
Expands properties. See Property Expansion.
--msg-module
Prepend module name to each console message.
--msg-time
Prepend timing information to each console message. The time is
in seconds since the player process was started (technically,
slightly later actually), using a monotonic time source depend-
ing on the OS. This is CLOCK_MONOTONIC on sane UNIX variants.
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), and make the cached data seek-
able (if possible). 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 --de-
muxer-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 ac-
tive. This overrides the --demuxer-readahead-secs option if and
only if the cache is enabled and the value is larger. The de-
fault 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. --de-
muxer-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 op-
tion 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 play-
back 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 seek-
ing.
--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. sock-
ets). 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 perfor-
mance.
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> op-
tions accept suffixes such as KiB and MiB.
--vd-queue-enable=<yes|no>, --ad-queue-enable
Enable running the video/audio decoder on a separate thread (de-
fault: no). If enabled, the decoder is run on a separate
thread, and a frame queue is put between decoder and higher
level playback logic. The size of the frame queue is defined by
the other options below.
This is probably quite pointless. libavcodec already has multi-
threaded decoding (enabled by default), which makes this largely
unnecessary. It might help in some corner cases with high band-
width video that is slow to decode (in these cases libavcodec
would block the playback logic, while using a decoding thread
would distribute the decoding time evenly without affecting the
playback logic). In other situations, it will simply make seek-
ing slower and use significantly more memory.
The queue size is restricted by the other --vd-queue-... op-
tions. The final queue size is the minimum as indicated by the
option with the lowest limit. Each decoder/track has its own
queue that may use the full configured queue size.
Most queue options can be changed at runtime. --vd-queue-enable
itself (and the audio equivalent) update only if decoding is
completely reinitialized. However, setting --vd-queue-max-sam-
ples=1 should almost lead to the same behavior as --vd-queue-en-
able=no, so that value can be used for effectively runtime en-
abling/disabling the queue.
This should not be used with hardware decoding. It is possible
to enable this for audio, but it makes even less sense.
--vd-queue-max-bytes=<bytesize>, --ad-queue-max-bytes
Maximum approximate allowed size of the queue. If exceeded, de-
coding will be stopped. The maximum size can be exceeded by
about 1 frame.
See --list-options for defaults and value range. <bytesize> op-
tions accept suffixes such as KiB and MiB.
--vd-queue-max-samples=<int>, --ad-queue-max-samples
Maximum number of frames (video) or samples (audio) of the
queue. The audio size may be exceeded by about 1 frame.
See --list-options for defaults and value range.
--vd-queue-max-secs=<seconds>, --ad-queue-max-secs
Maximum number of seconds of media in the queue. The special
value 0 means no limit is set. The queue size may be exceeded by
about 2 frames. Timestamp resets may lead to random queue size
usage.
See --list-options for defaults and value range.
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 en-
vironment 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 FFm-
peg/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|udp_multicast|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 guar-
antee 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 de-
fault is in the mpv configuration directory (usually ~/.con-
fig/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 recom-
mended as it allows tuning to DVB-S2 channels, enabling subti-
tles and decoding the PMT (which largely improves the demuxing).
Classic mplayer format channel lists are still supported (with-
out these improvements), and for other card types, only limited
VDR format channel list support is implemented (patches wel-
come). 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 fre-
quency 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 prop-
erty. 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-chan-
nel-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, be-
cause 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 re-
quest 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 de-
vice).
--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 configura-
tion 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 filter-
ing.
--alsa-periods=<number>
Number of periods requested from the ALSA API. See --alsa-buf-
fer-time for further remarks.
GPU renderer options
The following video options are currently all specific to --vo=gpu,
--vo=libmpv and --vo=gpu-next, 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. Gener-
ally 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 ra-
dius 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, preconfig-
ured to use an ideal radius and parameter. If your hard-
ware 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 in-
terpolated 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 im-
age 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 ap-
plied.
--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). De-
creasing 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 arti-
facts in the temporal domain (which typically manifest them-
selves as short flashes or fringes of black, mostly around mov-
ing edges) in exchange for potentially adding more blur. The de-
fault for --tscale-clamp is 1.0, the others default to 0.0.
--scale-cutoff=<value>, --cscale-cutoff=<value>, --dscale-cut-
off=<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, depend-
ing on the exact radius and filter kernel chosen.
--scale-taper=<value>, --scale-wtaper=<value>, --dscale-taper=<value>,
--dscale-wtaper=<value>, --cscale-taper=<value>, --cscale-wta-
per=<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-ra-
dius=<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 dif-
ferent (most likely being increased a bit).
--scale-antiring=<value>, --cscale-antiring=<value>, --dscale-antir-
ing=<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 dis-
ables 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-win-
dow=<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 func-
tions.
--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 sam-
ples.
All weights are linearly interpolated from those samples, so in-
creasing 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.
Note: this option is ignored when using bilinear downscaling
(the default).
--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 op-
tion 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 empha-
sizing ringing artifacts. This is incompatible with and replaces
--linear-upscaling. (Note that sigmoidization also requires lin-
earization, 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 dis-
play 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: 0.01). This is calculated as abs(disphz/vfps - 1) <
threshold, where vfps is the speed-adjusted video FPS, and dis-
phz 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=dis-
play-resample to make video run synchronously to the display
FPS, or if you change the speed property.)
The default is intended to enable interpolation in scenarios
where retiming with the --video-sync=display-* cannot adjust the
speed of the video sufficiently for smooth playback. For example
if a video is 60.00 FPS and your display refresh rate is 59.94
Hz, interpolation will never be activated, since the mismatch is
within 1% of the refresh rate. The default also handles the sce-
nario when mpv cannot determine the container FPS, such as dur-
ing certain live streams, and may dynamically toggle interpola-
tion on and off. In this scenario, the default would be to not
use interpolation but rather to allow --video-sync=display-* to
retime the video to match display refresh rate. See
--video-sync-max-video-change for more information about how mpv
will retime video.
Also 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.
--interpolation-preserve
Preserve the previous frames' interpolated results even when
renderer parameters are changed - with the exception of options
related to cropping and video placement, which always invalidate
the cache. Enabling this option makes dynamic updates of ren-
derer settings slightly smoother at the cost of slightly higher
latency in response to such changes. Defaults to on. (Only af-
fects --vo=gpu-next, note that --vo=gpu always invalidates in-
terpolated frames)
--opengl-pbo
Enable use of PBOs. On some drivers this can be faster, espe-
cially if the source video size is huge (e.g. so called "4K"
video). On other drivers it might be slower or cause latency is-
sues.
--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 de-
tected, 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 ev-
ery 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 bal-
ance 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 --over-
ride-display-fps).
--vulkan-device=<device name>
The name of the Vulkan device to use for rendering and presenta-
tion. Use --vulkan-device=help to see the list of available de-
vices and their names. If left unspecified, the first enumerated
hardware Vulkan device will be used.
--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 de-
vices. Using them allows transfer operations like texture up-
loads and blits to happen concurrently with the actual render-
ing, 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 de-
vices. Using this, in theory, allows out-of-order scheduling of
compute shaders with graphics shaders, thus enabling the hard-
ware to do more effective work while waiting for pipeline bub-
bles 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.
--vulkan-display-display=<n>
The index of the display, on the selected Vulkan device, to
present on when using the displayvk GPU context. Use
--vulkan-display-display=help to see the list of available dis-
plays. If left unspecified, the first enumerated display will be
used.
--vulkan-display-mode=<n>
The index of the display mode, of the selected Vulkan display,
to use when using the displayvk GPU context. Use --vulkan-dis-
play-mode=help to see the list of available modes. If left un-
specified, the first enumerated mode will be used.
--vulkan-display-plane=<n>
The index of the plane, on the selected Vulkan device, to
present on when using the displayvk GPU context. Use
--vulkan-display-plane=help to see the list of available planes.
If left unspecified, the first enumerated plane will be used.
--d3d11-exclusive-fs=<yes|no>
Switches the D3D11 swap chain fullscreen state to 'fullscreen'
when fullscreen video is requested. Also known as "exclusive
fullscreen" or "D3D fullscreen" in other applications. Gives mpv
full control of rendering on the swap chain's screen. Off by de-
fault.
--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 back-
end. 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 copy-
ing 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 Win-
dows 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 insen-
sitive. 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 ren-
dering. "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 pad-
ding, 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-app-id=<string>
Set the client app id for Wayland-based video output methods
(default: mpv).
--wayland-configure-bounds=<yes|no>
Controls whether or not mpv opts into the configure bounds event
if sent by the compositor (default: yes). This restricts the
initial size of the mpv window to a certain maximum size in-
tended by the compositor. In most cases, this simply just pre-
vents the mpv window from being larger than the size of the mon-
itor when it first renders. This option will take precedence
over any autofit or geometry type settings if the configure
bounds are used.
--wayland-disable-vsync=<yes|no>
Disable mpv's internal vsync for Wayland-based video output (de-
fault: no). This is mainly useful for benchmarking wayland VOs
when combined with video-sync=display-desync, --no-audio, and
--untimed=yes.
--wayland-edge-pixels-pointer=<value>
Defines the size of an edge border (default: 10) to initiate
client side resize events in the wayland contexts with the
mouse. This is only active if there are no server side decora-
tions from the compositor.
--wayland-edge-pixels-touch=<value>
Defines the size of an edge border (default: 32) to initiate
client side resizes events in the wayland contexts with touch
events.
--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 frag-
ment 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 af-
ter 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 nota-
tion that define the raw texture data, corresponding to the for-
mat specified by FORMAT, on a single line with no extra white-
space.
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 facil-
itate accessing it properly. See below for a list. By de-
fault, 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 pol-
ish notation), using the operators + - * / > < !, float-
ing 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 de-
fault 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 transpar-
ently with fragment shader. For compute shader, the pre-
defined 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 be 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 exam-
ple, 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 ver-
tices, mpv provides a special function NAME_map(id) to
map from the texel space of the output image to the tex-
ture coordinates for all bound textures. In particular,
NAME_pos is equivalent to NAME_map(gl_GlobalInvoca-
tionID), although using this only really makes sense if
(tw,th) == (bw,bh).
Each bound mpv texture (via BIND) will make available the fol-
lowing 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 conver-
sions.
vec4 NAME_texOff(vec2 offset)
Sample the texture at a certain offset in pixels. This
works like NAME_tex but additionally takes care of neces-
sary 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. (Ro-
tates 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 tex-
ture 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 bet-
ter 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 tex-
tures. 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 con-
version 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 up-
scaling.
LINEAR (fixed)
Linear light image, before scaling. This only fires when
--linear-upscaling, --linear-downscaling or --sigmoid-up-
scaling is in effect.
SIGMOID (fixed)
Sigmoidized light, before scaling. This only fires when
--sigmoid-upscaling is in effect.
PREKERNEL (fixed)
The image immediately before the scaler kernel runs.
POSTKERNEL (fixed)
The image immediately after the scaler kernel runs.
SCALED (fixed)
The final upscaled image, before color management.
OUTPUT (fixed)
The final output image, after color management but before
dithering and drawing to screen.
Only the textures labelled with resizable may be transformed by
the pass. When overwriting a texture marked fixed, the WIDTH,
HEIGHT and OFFSET must be left at their default values.
--glsl-shader=<file>
CLI/config file only alias for --glsl-shaders-append.
--glsl-shader-opts=param1=value1,param2=value2,...
Specifies the options to use for tunable shader parameters. You
can target specific named shaders by prefixing the shader name
with a /, e.g. shader/param=value. Without a prefix, parameters
affect all shaders. The shader name is the base part of the
shader filename, without the extension. (--vo=gpu-next only)
--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 de-
tails. 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 num-
bers (>4) are practically useless. (Default 1)
--deband-threshold=<0..4096>
The debanding filter's cut-off threshold. Higher numbers in-
crease the debanding strength dramatically but progressively di-
minish image details. (Default 32)
--deband-range=<1..64>
The debanding filter's initial radius. The radius increases lin-
early for each iteration. A higher radius will find more gradi-
ents, but a lower radius will smooth more aggressively. (Default
16)
If you increase the --deband-iterations, you should probably de-
crease 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 fil-
ter. Positive values will sharpen the image (but add more ring-
ing and aliasing). Negative values will blur the image. If your
GPU is powerful enough, consider alternatives like the ewa_lanc-
zossharp scale filter, or the --scale-blur option. (Only for
--vo=gpu)
--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: dis-
abled). 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 ex-
tended 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 ren-
derer 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, --an-
gle-swapchain-length and --angle-flip options will have no ef-
fect.
Windows with ANGLE only.
--angle-flip=<yes|no>
Enable flip-model presentation, which avoids unnecessarily copy-
ing 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 Win-
dows 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 (de-
fault: auto). In auto mode this will pick D3D11 for systems that
support Direct3D 11 feature level 9_3 or higher, and D3D9 other-
wise. This option is mainly for debugging purposes. Normally
there is no reason to force a specific renderer, though --an-
gle-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 ren-
derer is selected (similar to --gpu-dumb-mode).
Windows with ANGLE only.
--macos-force-dedicated-gpu=<yes|no>
Deactivates the automatic graphics switching and forces the ded-
icated GPU. (default: no)
macOS 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 in-
stead 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.
macOS 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.
macOS 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 mate-
rials make sense or are unique. Appearances that are not sup-
ported 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 ap-
pearance 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 dep-
recated 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. (dep-
recated 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 transpar-
ent). 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. (macOS and cocoa-cb only)
--macos-app-activation-policy=<regular|accessory|prohibited>
Changes the App activation policy. With accessory the mpv icon
in the Dock can be hidden. (default: regular)
macOS only.
--macos-geometry-calculation=<visible|whole>
This changes the rectangle which is used to calculate the screen
position and size of the window (default: visible). visible
takes the the menu bar and Dock into account and the window is
only positioned/sized within the visible screen frame rectangle,
whole takes the whole screen frame rectangle and ignores the
menu bar and Dock. Other previous restrictions still apply, like
the window can't be placed on top of the menu bar etc.
macOS 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 ro-
tated), 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/macOS (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 pre-
sentation. 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
displayvk
VK_KHR_display. This backend is roughly the Vukan equiva-
lent of DRM/EGL, allowing for direct rendering via Vulkan
without a display manager.
x11egl X11/EGL
android
Android/EGL. Requires --wid be set to an an-
droid.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-com-
piler)
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
--fbo-format=<fmt>
Selects the internal format of textures used for FBOs. The for-
mat 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.
This option is deprecated and may be removed in the future.
--gamma-auto
Automatically corrects the gamma value depending on ambient
lighting conditions (adding a gamma boost for bright rooms).
This option is deprecated and may be removed in the future.
NOTE: Only implemented on macOS.
--image-lut=<file>
Specifies a custom LUT file (in Adobe .cube format) to apply to
the colors during image decoding. The exact interpretation of
the LUT depends on the value of --image-lut-type. (Only for
--vo=gpu-next)
--image-lut-type=<value>
Controls the interpretation of color values fed to and from the
LUT specified as --image-lut. Valid values are:
auto Chooses the interpretation of the LUT automatically from
tagged metadata, and otherwise falls back to native. (De-
fault)
native Applied to the raw image contents in its native col-
orspace, before decoding to RGB. For example, for a HDR10
image, this would be fed PQ-encoded YCbCr values in the
range 0.0 - 1.0.
normalized
Applied to the normalized RGB image contents, after de-
coding from its native color encoding, but before lin-
earization.
conversion
Fully replaces the color decoding. A LUT of this type
should ingest the image's native colorspace and output
normalized non-linear RGB.
--target-colorspace-hint
Automatically configure the output colorspace of the display to
pass through the input values of the stream (e.g. for HDR
passthrough), if possible. Requires a supporting driver and
--vo=gpu-next.
--target-prim=<value>
Specifies the primaries of the display. Video colors will be
adapted to this colorspace when ICC color management is not be-
ing 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 An-
nex 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 man-
agement 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 speci-
fied curve but it will not set any HDMI flags or other sig-
nalling that might be required for the target device to cor-
rectly 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 203 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 203. For
HDR curves, it uses 203 * 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.
--target-lut=<file>
Specifies a custom LUT file (in Adobe .cube format) to apply to
the colors before display on-screen. This LUT is fed values in
normalized RGB, after encoding into the target colorspace, so
after the application of --target-trc. (Only for --vo=gpu-next)
--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:
auto Choose the best curve according to internal heuristics.
(Default)
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 ac-
curacy 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 non-
linear 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-map-
ping=reinhard --tone-mapping-param=0.24. If possible, you
should also enable --hdr-compute-peak for the best re-
sults.
bt.2390
Perceptual tone mapping curve (EETF) specified in ITU-R
Report BT.2390.
gamma Fits a logarithmic transfer between the tone curves.
linear Linearly stretches the entire reference gamut to (a lin-
ear multiple of) the display.
spline Perceptually linear single-pivot polynomial.
(--vo=gpu-next only)
bt.2446a
HDR<->SDR mapping specified in ITU-R Report BT.2446,
method A. This is the recommended curve for well-mastered
content. (--vo=gpu-next only)
--tone-mapping-param=<value>
Set tone mapping parameters. By default, this is set to the spe-
cial 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.
bt.2390
Specifies the offset for the knee point. Defaults to 1.0,
which is higher than the value from the original ITU-R
specification (0.5). (--vo=gpu-next only)
gamma Specifies the exponent of the function. Defaults to 1.8.
linear Specifies the scale factor to use while stretching. De-
faults to 1.0.
spline Specifies the knee point (in PQ space). Defaults to 0.30.
--inverse-tone-mapping
If set, allows inverse tone mapping (expanding SDR to HDR). Not
supported by all tone mapping curves. Use with caution.
(--vo=gpu-next only)
--tone-mapping-crosstalk=<0.0..0.30>
If nonzero, apply an extra crosstalk matrix before tone mapping.
Can help improve the appearance of strongly saturated monochro-
matic highlights. (Default: 0.04, only affects --vo=gpu-next)
--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 oth-
erwise be hidden in dark scenes, but raising it too high will
make dark scenes appear unnaturally bright. (--vo=gpu only)
--tone-mapping-mode
Controls how the tone mapping function is applied to colors.
auto Choose the best mode automatically. (Default)
rgb Tone-map per-channel (RGB). Has a tendency to severely
distort colors, desaturate highlights, and is generally
not very recommended. However, this is the mode used in
many displays and TVs (especially early ones), and so
sometimes it's needed to reproduce the artistic intent a
film was mastered with.
max Tone-map on the brightest component in the video. Has a
tendency to lead to weirdly oversaturated colors, and
loss of dark details.
hybrid A hybrid approach that uses linear tone-mapping for mid-
tones and per-channel tone mapping for highlights.
luma Luminance-based method from ITU-R BT.2446a, including
fixed gamut reductions to account for brightness-related
perceptual nonuniformity. (--vo=gpu-next only)
--gamut-mapping-mode
Specifies the algorithm used for reducing the gamut of images
for the target display, after any tone mapping is done.
auto Choose the best mode automatically. (Default)
clip Hard-clip to the gamut (per-channel).
warn Simply highlight out-of-gamut pixels.
desaturate
Chromatically desaturate out-of-gamut colors towards
white.
darken Linearly darken the entire image, then clip to the color
volume. Unlike clip, this does not destroy detail in sat-
urated regions, but comes at the cost of sometimes sig-
nificantly lowering output brightness. (--vo=gpu-next
only)
--hdr-compute-peak=<auto|yes|no>
Compute the HDR peak and frame average brightness per-frame in-
stead 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 prob-
ably 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 sup-
ported.
--allow-delayed-peak-detect
When using --hdr-compute-peak, allow delaying the detected peak
by a frame when beneficial for performance. In particular, this
is required to avoid an unnecessary FBO indirection when no ad-
vanced rendering is required otherwise. Has no effect if there
already is an indirect pass, such as when advanced scaling is
enabled. Defaults to on. (Only affects --vo=gpu-next, note that
--vo=gpu always delays the peak.)
--hdr-peak-decay-rate=<1.0..1000.0>
The decay rate used for the HDR peak detection algorithm (de-
fault: 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 di-
rectly as measured, but doing this is not recommended for
"noisy" sources since it may lead to excessive flicker. (In sig-
nal theory terms, this controls the time constant "tau" of an
IIR low pass filter)
--hdr-scene-threshold-low=<0.0..100.0>, --hdr-scene-thresh-
old-high=<0.0..100.0>
The lower and upper thresholds (in dB) for a brightness differ-
ence 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 compen-
sated 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 ex-
ceeds 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).
--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 Lit-
tleCMS 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 dimen-
sion. Default is 64x64x64. Sizes may range from 2 to 512.
--icc-force-contrast=<no|0-1000000|inf>
Override the target device's detected contrast ratio by a spe-
cific value. 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 ap-
pear darker than intended. If this is the case, setting this op-
tion might help. This only affects BT.1886 content. The default
of no means to use the profile values. The special value inf
causes the BT.1886 curve to be treated as a pure power gamma 2.4
function.
--lut=<file>
Specifies a custom LUT (in Adobe .cube format) to apply to the
colors as part of color conversion. The exact interpretation de-
pends on the value of --lut-type. (Only for --vo=gpu-next)
--lut-type=<value>
Controls the interpretation of color values fed to and from the
LUT specified as --lut. Valid values are:
auto Chooses the interpretation of the LUT automatically from
tagged metadata, and otherwise falls back to native. (De-
fault)
native Applied to raw image contents in its native RGB col-
orspace (non-linear light), before conversion to the out-
put color space.
normalized
Applied to the normalized RGB image contents, in linear
light, before conversion to the output color space.
conversion
Fully replaces the conversion from the image color space
to the output color space. If such a LUT is present, it
has the highest priority, and overrides any ICC profiles,
as well as options related to tone mapping and output
colorimetry (--target-prim, --target-trc etc.).
--blend-subtitles=<yes|video|no>
Blend subtitles directly onto upscaled video frames, before in-
terpolation 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 us-
ing --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 back-
ground (default).
blend Blend the frame against the background color (--back-
ground, 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) or if you make the background
color transparent. 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. Whether this
really works depends on the windowing system and desktop
environment.
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 the --sub-color option for how colors are defined.
--gpu-tex-pad-x, --gpu-tex-pad-y
Enlarge the video source textures by this many pixels. For de-
bugging 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 re-
moved 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 af-
ter rendering, instead of flipping GL front and backbuffers im-
mediately (i.e. it doesn't call it in display-sync mode).
On macOS this is always deactivated because it only causes per-
formance problems and other regressions.
--gpu-dumb-mode=<yes|no|auto>
This mode is extremely restricted, and will disable most ex-
tended features. That includes high quality scalers and custom
shaders!
It is intended for hardware that does not support FBOs (includ-
ing 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. Nor-
mally, 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 per-
formance 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 measure-
ments. Specifying --autosync=0, the default, will cause frame
timing to be based entirely on audio delay measurements. Speci-
fying --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.
This option is interesting for client API users using the render
API because you can stop it from limiting your FPS (see mpv_ren-
der_context_render() documentation).
This applies only to audio timing modes (e.g. --video-sync=au-
dio). 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 dis-
play-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 com-
pletely synchronously to the display, using the detected display
vertical refresh rate as a hint how fast frames will be dis-
played on average. These modes change video speed slightly to
match the display. See --video-sync-... options for fine tun-
ing. The robustness of this mode is further reduced by making a
some idealized assumptions, which may not always apply in real-
ity. Behavior can depend on the VO and the system's video and
audio drivers. Media files must use constant framerate. Sec-
tion-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 re-
sizing 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 au-
dio/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 au-
dio, the implementation is very different.)
display-adrop
Drop or repeat audio data to compensate desyncing video.
This mode will cause severe audio artifacts if the real
monitor refresh rate is too different from the reported
or forced rate. Since mpv 0.33.0, this acts on entire au-
dio frames, instead of single samples.
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-factor=<value>
Maximum multiple for which to try to fit the video's FPS to the
display's FPS (default: 5).
For example, if this is set to 1, the video FPS is forced to an
integer multiple of the display FPS, as long as the speed change
does not exceed the value set by --video-sync-max-video-change.
See --interpolation-threshold for how this option affects inter-
polation.
This is mostly for testing, and the option may be randomly
changed in the future without notice.
--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: play-
ing 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 al-
low 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). Nor-
mally, 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 skip-
ping multiple video frames before the sync logic can react.
--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|abovenor-
mal|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 play-
ing 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 file.
--cover-art-files=<file-list>
Use an external file as cover art while playing audio. This
makes it appear on the track list and subject to automatic track
selection. Options like --audio-display control whether such
tracks are supposed to be selected.
(The difference to loading a file with --external-files is that
video tracks will be marked as being pictures, which affects the
auto-selection method. If the passed file is a video, only the
first frame will be decoded and displayed. Enabling the cover
art track during playback may show a random frame if the source
file is a video. Normally you're not supposed to pass videos to
this option, so this paragraph describes the behavior coinciden-
tally resulting from implementation details.)
This is a path list option. See List Options for details.
--cover-art-file=<file>
CLI/config file only alias for --cover-art-files-append. Each
use of this option will add a new external file.
--cover-art-auto=<no|exact|fuzzy|all>
Whether to load _external_ cover art automatically. Similar to
--sub-auto and --audio-file-auto. If a video already has tracks
(which are not marked as cover art), external cover art will not
be loaded.
no Don't automatically load cover art.
exact Load the media filename with an image file extension (de-
fault).
fuzzy Load all cover art containing the media filename.
all Load all images in the current directory.
See --cover-art-files for details about what constitutes cover
art.
See --audio-display how to control display of cover art (this
can be used to disable cover art that is part of the file).
--cover-art-whitelist=<no|yes>
Whether to load filenames in an internal whitelist, such as
cover.jpg, as cover art. If cover-art-auto is set to no, the
whitelisted filenames are never loaded even if this option is
set to yes.
Default: yes.
--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, --audio-file-auto and --cover-art-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 ap-
pended at the end of the cache, and the already cached data can-
not be written. You can try the dump-cache command as an alter-
native.
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 typi-
cal 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 li-
braries contain certain hacks and workarounds for these issues,
that are unavailable to outside users.
This replaces --record-file. It is similar to the ancient/re-
moved --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 par-
ticipating 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 au-
dio stream for multiple filters, you need to use the asplit fil-
ter. 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 prop-
erty 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 be-
tween 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 initial-
ization will fail (you can add scale filters before the vs-
tack 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 af-
fects 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 run-
time.
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, other-
wise 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 facili-
ties. 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 con-
tained 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 is preferred.
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-chan-
nels=auto. The default for this option is auto-safe, which
makes this audio output explicitly reject multichannel out-
put, 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 up-
mixing with shared access, so playing stereo and multichannel
audio at the same time will work as expected.
oss OSS audio output driver
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: phys-
ical ports).
--jack-name=<client>
Client name that is passed to JACK (default: mpv). Useful
if you want to have certain connections established auto-
matically.
--jack-autostart=<yes|no>
Automatically start jackd if necessary (default: dis-
abled). Note that this tends to be unreliable and will
flood stdout with server messages.
--jack-connect=<yes|no>
Automatically create connections to output ports (de-
fault: enabled). When enabled, the maximum number of
output channels will be limited to the number of avail-
able 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. as-
signing 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, re-
gardless of channel layout and without reordering. This
mode is probably not very useful, other than for debug-
ging or when used with fixed setups.
coreaudio (macOS only)
Native macOS audio output driver using AudioUnits and the Core-
Audio sound server.
Automatically redirects to coreaudio_exclusive when playing com-
pressed 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 re-
quested audio format (default: no). This has the advan-
tage 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 se-
lected 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, ig-
noring 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 (macOS only)
Native macOS 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. De-
fault: 8192.
--openal-direct-channels=<yes|no>
Enable OpenAL Soft's direct channel extension when avail-
able to avoid tinting the sound with ambisonics or HRTF.
Default: yes.
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 (de-
fault: no). If enabled, mpv will do elaborate latency
calculations on its own. If disabled, it will use
PulseAudio automatically updated timing information. Dis-
abling 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 en-
able 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.
pipewire
PipeWire audio output driver
The following global options are supported by this audio output:
--pipewire-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.
--pipewire-remote=<remote>
Specify the PipeWire remote daemon name to connect to via
local UNIX sockets. An empty <remote> string uses the
default remote named pipewire-0.
sdl SDL 1.2+ audio output driver. Should work on any platform sup-
ported by SDL 1.2, but may require the SDL_AUDIODRIVER environ-
ment variable to be set appropriately for your system.
NOTE:
This driver is for compatibility with extremely foreign envi-
ronments, 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.
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 op-
tion 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 lay-
outs the AO allows. This can be used to test channel lay-
out selection.
--ao-null-format
Force the audio output format the AO will accept. If un-
set 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: in-
cluded). When not included, raw PCM will be generated.
--ao-pcm-file=<filename>
Write the sound to <filename> instead of the default au-
diodump.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.
sndio Audio output to the OpenBSD sndio sound system
(Note: only supports mono, stereo, 4.0, 5.1 and 7.1 channel lay-
outs.)
wasapi Audio output to the Windows Audio Session API.
VIDEO OUTPUT DRIVERS
Video output drivers are interfaces to different video output facili-
ties. 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 con-
tained 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 de-
fault does not work, it will fallback to other drivers (in the same
order as listed by --vo=help).
Available video output drivers are:
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 --pro-
file=gpu-hq and its contents can be viewed with --show-pro-
file=gpu-hq.
This VO abstracts over several possible graphics APIs and win-
dowing contexts, which can be influenced using the --gpu-api and
--gpu-context options.
Hardware decoding over OpenGL-interop is supported to some de-
gree. Note that in this mode, some corner case might not be
gracefully handled, and color space conversion and chroma upsam-
pling is generally in the hand of the hardware decoder APIs.
gpu makes use of FBOs by default. Sometimes you can achieve bet-
ter quality or performance by changing the --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 macOS 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.
gpu-next
Experimental video renderer based on libplacebo. This supports
almost the same set of features as --vo=gpu. See GPU renderer
options for a list.
Should generally be faster and higher quality, but some features
may still be missing or misbehave. Expect (and report!) bugs.
See here for a list of known differences and bugs:
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/wiki/GPU-Next-vs-GPU
xv (X11 only)
Uses the XVideo extension to enable hardware-accelerated dis-
play. This is the most compatible VO on X, but may be low-qual-
ity, 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 (de-
fault: 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 ring-
buffer (default: 2). Increasing this will use more mem-
ory, 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 that
there is absolutely no reason to use this, other than compati-
bility. We strongly recommend that you use --vo=gpu with
--hwdec=nvdec instead.
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-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 tem-
poral 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 op-
tion enabled, the player tries to detect whether a com-
positing 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 in-
put). This means timing is somewhat less accurate than
without compositing, but with the composited mode behav-
ior of the NVIDIA driver, there is no hard playback speed
limit even without the disabled logic. Enabled by de-
fault, 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 fu-
ture video frame changes at most this many milliseconds
in advance (default: 50). See below for additional in-
formation.
--vo-vdpau-output-surfaces=<2-15>
Allocate this many output surfaces to display video
frames (default: 3). See below for additional informa-
tion.
--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. Some-
times 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 in-
dividual 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 ac-
tive. 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 be-
cause 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 val-
ues 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 graph-
ics 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 pro-
vide proper OpenGL drivers, and where ANGLE does not perform
well.
The following global options are supported by this video output:
--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 tex-
ture for locking. If the driver supports D3DDEV-
CAPS_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 tex-
ture for locking. (Like default, but always force
the shadow-texture.)
managed
Use D3DPOOL_MANAGED.
scratch
Use D3DPOOL_SCRATCH, with a D3DPOOL_SYSTEMMEM tex-
ture 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.
sdl SDL 2.0+ Render video output driver, depending on system with or
without hardware acceleration. Should work on all platforms sup-
ported 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 pro-
vide 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.
dmabuf-wayland
Experimental Wayland output driver designed for use with either
drm stateless or VA API hardware decoding. The driver is de-
signed to avoid any GPU to CPU copies, and to perform scaling
and color space conversion using fixed-function hardware, if
available, rather than GPU shaders. This frees up GPU resources
for other tasks. Currently this driver is experimental and only
works with the --hwdec=vaapi or hwdec=drm drivers; OSD is also
not supported. Supported compositors : Weston and Sway.
vaapi Intel VA API video output driver with support for hardware de-
coding. Note that there is absolutely no reason to use this,
other than compatibility. This is low quality, and has issues
with OSD. We strongly recommend that you use --vo=gpu with
--hwdec=vaapi instead.
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 in-
teraction using the methods mentioned above actually in-
serts the vavpp video filter. If vpp is not actually sup-
ported 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 con-
sole.
NOTE:
This driver is a joke.
tct Color Unicode art video output driver that works on a text con-
sole. By default depends on support of true color by modern
terminals to display the images at full color range, but
256-colors output is also supported (see below). 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.
Note: the TCT image output is not synchronized with other termi-
nal output from mpv, which can lead to broken images. The op-
tions --no-terminal or --really-quiet can help with that.
--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.
sixel Graphical output for the terminal, using sixels. Tested with ml-
term and xterm.
Note: the Sixel image output is not synchronized with other ter-
minal output from mpv, which can lead to broken images. The op-
tion --really-quiet can help with that, and is recommended.
You may need to use --profile=sw-fast to get decent performance.
Note: at the time of writing, xterm does not enable sixel by de-
fault - launching it as xterm -ti 340 is one way to enable it.
Also, xterm does not display images bigger than 1000x1000 pixels
by default.
To render and align sixel images correctly, mpv needs to know
the terminal size both in cells and in pixels. By default it
tries to use values which the terminal reports, however, due to
differences between terminals this is an error-prone process
which cannot be automated with certainty - some terminals report
the size in pixels including the padding - e.g. xterm, while
others report the actual usable number of pixels - like mlterm.
Additionally, they may behave differently when maximized or in
fullscreen, and mpv cannot detect this state using standard
methods.
Sixel size and alignment options:
--vo-sixel-cols=<columns>, --vo-sixel-rows=<rows> (default: 0)
Specify the terminal size in character cells, otherwise
(0) read it from the terminal, or fall back to 80x25.
Note that mpv doesn't use the the last row with sixel be-
cause this seems to result in scrolling.
--vo-sixel-width=<width>, --vo-sixel-height=<height> (default:
0)
Specify the available size in pixels, otherwise (0) read
it from the terminal, or fall back to 320x240. Other than
excluding the last line, the height is also further
rounded down to a multiple of 6 (sixel unit height) to
avoid overflowing below the designated size.
--vo-sixel-left=<col>, --vo-sixel-top=<row> (default: 0)
Specify the position in character cells where the image
starts (1 is the first column or row). If 0 (default)
then try to automatically determine it according to the
other values and the image aspect ratio and zoom.
--vo-sixel-pad-x=<pad_x>, --vo-sixel-pad-y=<pad_y> (default: -1)
Used only when mpv reads the size in pixels from the ter-
minal. Specify the number of padding pixels (on one
side) which are included at the size which the terminal
reports. If -1 (default) then the number of pixels is
rounded down to a multiple of number of cells (per axis),
to take into account padding at the report - this only
works correctly when the overall padding per axis is
smaller than the number of cells.
--vo-sixel-exit-clear=<yes|no> (default: yes)
Whether or not to clear the terminal on quit. When set to
no - the last sixel image stays on screen after quit,
with the cursor following it.
Sixel image quality options:
--vo-sixel-dither=<algo>
Selects the dither algorithm which libsixel should apply.
Can be one of the below list as per libsixel's documenta-
tion.
auto (Default)
Let libsixel choose the dithering method.
none Don't diffuse
atkinson
Diffuse with Bill Atkinson's method.
fs Diffuse with Floyd-Steinberg method
jajuni Diffuse with Jarvis, Judice & Ninke method
stucki Diffuse with Stucki's method
burkes Diffuse with Burkes' method
arithmetic
Positionally stable arithmetic dither
xor Positionally stable arithmetic xor based dither
--vo-sixel-fixedpalette=<yes|no> (default: yes)
Use libsixel's built-in static palette using the XTERM256
profile for dither. Fixed palette uses 256 colors for
dithering. Note that using no (at the time of writing)
will slow down xterm.
--vo-sixel-reqcolors=<colors> (default: 256)
Has no effect with fixed palette. Set up libsixel to use
required number of colors for dynamic palette. This value
depends on the terminal emulator as well. Xterm supports
256 colors. Can set this to a lower value for faster per-
formance.
--vo-sixel-threshold=<threshold> (default: -1)
Has no effect with fixed palette. Defines the threshold
to change the palette - as percentage of the number of
colors, e.g. 20 will change the palette when the number
of colors changed by 20%. It's a simple measure to reduce
the number of palette changes, because it can be slow in
some terminals (xterm). The default (-1) will choose a
palette on every frame and will have better quality.
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 (de-
fault: ./).
libmpv For use with libmpv direct embedding. As a special case, on
macOS it is used like a normal VO within mpv (cocoa-cb). Other-
wise 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 ren-
dered.
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. The <gpu_number> ar-
gument can be used to disambiguate multiple graphic
cards, but is deprecated in favor of --drm-device. (de-
fault: empty)
--drm-device=<path>
Select the DRM device file to use. If specified this
overrides automatic card selection and any card number
specified --drm-connector. (default: empty)
--drm-mode=<preferred|highest|N|WxH[@R]>
Mode to use (resolution and frame rate). Possible val-
ues:
preferred
Use the preferred mode for the screen on the se-
lected 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 re-
fresh 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 de-
bugging.
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-overlay 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 drm-
prime-overlay 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 ac-
cepts 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-drm-
prime-video-plane=primary and setting --drm-draw-sur-
face-size=1920x1080, to render the OSD at a lower resolu-
tion (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 chan-
nel 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 reso-
lution. This option can be useful when used together with
the drmprime-overlay 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-overlay 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 sup-
port. (default: display resolution)
--drm-vrr-enabled=<no|yes|auto>
Toggle use of Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), aka Freesync
or Adaptive Sync on compatible systems. VRR allows for
the display to be refreshed at any rate within a range
(usually ~40Hz-60Hz for 60Hz displays). This can help
with playback of 24/25/50fps content. Support depends on
the use of a compatible monitor, GPU, and a sufficiently
new kernel with drivers that support the feature.
no Do not attempt to enable VRR. (default)
yes Attempt to enable VRR, whether the capability is
reported or not.
auto Attempt to enable VRR if support is reported.
mediacodec_embed (Android)
Renders IMGFMT_MEDIACODEC frames directly to an an-
droid.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 render-
ing 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=me-
diacodec or 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 fil-
ters. 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, na-
tive-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 con-
trolling the audio format going into other filters. To specify
the format for audio output, see --audio-format, --audio-sam-
plerate, 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 con-
version filters to be inserted before this one. The out- param-
eters 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=for-
mat=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 --au-
dio-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 deter-
mine the best overlap position.
scale=<amount>
Nominal amount to scale tempo. Scales this amount in ad-
dition 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 per-
formance. (default: .20)
search=<amount>
Length in milliseconds to search for best overlap posi-
tion. 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 au-
dio tempo to match.
mpv --af=scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=none --speed=1.2 me-
dia.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.
scaletempo2[=option1:option2:...]
Scales audio tempo without altering pitch. The algorithm is
ported from chromium and uses the Waveform Similarity Over-
lap-and-add (WSOLA) method. It seems to achieve a higher audio
quality than scaletempo and rubberband.
By default, the search-interval and window-size parameters have
the same values as in chromium.
min-speed=<speed>
Mute audio if the playback speed is below <speed>. (de-
fault: 0.25)
max-speed=<speed>
Mute audio if the playback speed is above <speed> and
<speed> != 0. (default: 4.0)
search-interval=<amount>
Length in milliseconds to search for best overlap posi-
tion. (default: 30)
window-size=<amount>
Length in milliseconds of the overlap-and-add window.
(default: 20)
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 de-
fault 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:
https://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: "Op-
tion" + 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 sam-
ple 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 bound-
aries), 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.
drop This filter drops or repeats audio frames to adapt to playback
speed. It always operates on full audio frames, because it was
made to handle SPDIF (compressed audio passthrough). This is
used automatically if the --video-sync=display-adrop option is
used. Do not use this filter (or the given option); they are ex-
tremely low quality.
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 fil-
ters 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 de-
fault. It will be skipped on filter creation. This is also use-
ful for runtime filter toggling.
See the vf command (and toggle sub-command) for further explana-
tions and examples.
The general filter entry syntax is:
["@"<label-name>":"] ["!"] <filter-name> [ "=" <filter-param-
eter-list> ]
or for the special "toggle" syntax (see vf command):
"@"<label-name>
and the filter-parameter-list:
<filter-parameter> | <filter-parameter> "," <filter-parame-
ter-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 de-
scribed above in combination with the vf command (see COMMAND INTER-
FACE) 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 be-
fore 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 dep-
recated as well.)
NOTE:
To get a full list of available video filters, see --vf=help and
https://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 fil-
ters. 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 syn-
tax is rather similar to libavfilter's, it's not the same. (Which
means not everything accepted by vf_lavfi's graph option will be ac-
cepted by --vf.)
You can also prefix the filter name with lavfi- to force the wrap-
per. 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. (Pass-
ing multiple filters is currently still possible, but depre-
cated.)
--vf-pre=filter
Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.
(Passing multiple filters is currently still possible, but dep-
recated.)
--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 fol-
lows: 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 dep-
recated.)
-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. In-
dex 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 par-
ticular 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 conver-
sion (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. (de-
fault: don't change).
This filter always performs conversion to the given for-
mat.
NOTE:
For a list of available formats, use --vf=for-
mat=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 sup-
port 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 parame-
ters are not passed on to the converter.
If input and output video parameters are the same, con-
version 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 play-
ing 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) (de-
fault)
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 per-
form color management, for example gpu with the tar-
get-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 un-
set, the color space will be selected automatically, us-
ing 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 ex-
actly 576 (PAL), BT.601-625 is used. If it's exactly 480
or 486 (NTSC), BT.601-525 is used. If the video resolu-
tion 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 per-
form 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 in-
teresting for HDR, but it can also be used tone map SDR
content to simulate a different exposure. Normally in-
ferred 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 in-
ferred based on the gamma function, but it can be use-
ful 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 con-
tent)
709-1886
Scene-referred using the BT709+BT1886 interaction
gamma1.2
Scene-referred using a pure power OOTF (gamma=1.2)
<dolbyvision=yes|no>
Whether or not to include Dolby Vision metadata (default:
yes). If disabled, any Dolby Vision metadata will be
stripped from frames.
<film-grain=yes|no>
Whether or not to include film grain metadata (default:
yes). If disabled, any film grain metadata will be
stripped from frames.
<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.
<w>, <h>
If not 0, perform conversion to the given size. Ignored
if convert=yes is not set.
<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 in-
terpreting the : character).
<force-scaler=auto|zimg|sws>
Force a specific scaler backend, if applicable. This is a
debug option and could go away any time.
<alpha=auto|straight|premul>
Set the kind of alpha the video uses. Undefined effect if
the image format has no alpha channel (could be ignored
or cause an error, depending on how mpv internals
evolve). Setting this may or may not cause downstream im-
age processing to treat alpha differently, depending on
support. With convert and zimg used, this will convert
the alpha. libswscale and other FFmpeg components com-
pletely ignore this.
lavfi=graph[:sws-flags[:o=opts]]
Filter video using FFmpeg's libavfilter.
<graph>
The libavfilter graph string. The filter must have a sin-
gle 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, con-
sider 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 any-
way.)
Examples
--vf=lavfi=[gradfun=20:30,vflip]
gradfun filter with nonsense parameters, fol-
lowed 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=ra-
dius=30:strength=20,vflip"'
Same as before, but uses named parameters for
everything.
<sws-flags>
If libavfilter inserts filters for pixel format conver-
sion, 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 https://git.videolan.org/?p=ffmpeg.git;a=blob;f=lib-
swscale/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 op-
posed 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-mar-
gins).
<top-margin>
Black band on the top for toptitles (with --sub-use-mar-
gins).
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 an-
swer frame requests only within a small window of frames (the
size of this window is controlled with the buffered-frames pa-
rameter), 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 ap-
plies 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. (Oth-
erwise, 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
from vapoursynth import 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 re-
spond 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 re-
quest 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 fil-
ters 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 im-
plementation 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 Re-
verse 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 in-
serted if deinterlacing is requested (either using the d key, by
default mapped to the command cycle deinterlace, or the --dein-
terlace 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 con-
sidered 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 obvi-
ous and intuitive, 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 com-
mand cycle deinterlace, or the --deinterlace option). When en-
abling deinterlacing, it is always preferred over software dein-
terlacer filters if the vdpau VO is used, and also if gpu is
used and hardware decoding was activated at least once (i.e. vd-
pau 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 en-
abled, 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 vd-
paupp 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 tem-
poral deinterlacing.
interlaced-only=<yes|no>
If yes, only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced (de-
fault: 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 (de-
fault: no).
mode=<blend|bob|adaptive|mocomp|ivctc|none>
Tries to select a video processor with the given process-
ing 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 re-
turned 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, be-
cause libswscale cannot perform the full range expansion we nor-
mally 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 to the terminal (default:
no). This is mostly for testing and such. Scripts should
use vf-metadata to read information from this filter in-
stead.
gpu=...
Convert video to RGB using the OpenGL renderer normally used
with --vo=gpu. This requires that the EGL implementation sup-
ports 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 posi-
tive, 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 encod-
ing 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 facil-
ity.
--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 possi-
ble, 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/re-
moving 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 possi-
ble, 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 encod-
ing.
"--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 possi-
ble, 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 out-
put 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 (in-
put.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 spe-
cial 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 com-
mands:
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 Uni-
code 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) arguments, all separated by whitespace. String argu-
ments should be quoted, typically with ". 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. Interme-
diate 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 physi-
cal key, or a text key names, which are unicode code points encoded as
UTF-8. These are what keyboard input would normally produce, for exam-
ple 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).
The Shift modifier requires some attention. For instance Shift+2 should
usually be specified as key-name @ at input.conf, and similarly the
combination Alt+Shift+2 is usually Alt+@, etc. Special key names like
Shift+LEFT work as expected. If in doubt - use --input-test to check
how a key/combination is seen by mpv.
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 pro-
duce 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 depre-
cated 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, us-
ing the deprecated mouse region input section mechanism).
CLOSE_WIN
Pseudo key emitted when closing the mpv window using the OS win-
dow 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 behav-
ior or get removed in the future.)
Flat command syntax
This is the syntax used in input.conf, and referred to "input.conf syn-
tax" in a number of other places.
<command> ::= [<prefixes>] <command_name> (<argument>)*
<argument> ::= (<unquoted> | " <double_quoted> " | ' <single_quoted> ' | `X <custom_quoted> X`)
command_name is an unquoted string with the command name itself. See
List of Input Commands for a list.
Arguments are separated by whitespaces even if the command expects only
one argument. Arguments with whitespaces or other special characters
must be quoted, or the command cannot be parsed correctly.
Double quotes interpret JSON/C-style escaping, like \t or \" or \\.
JSON escapes according to RFC 8259, minus surrogate pair escapes. This
is the only form which allows newlines at the value - as \n.
Single quotes take the content literally, and cannot include the sin-
gle-quote character at the value.
Custom quotes also take the content literally, but are more flexible
than single quotes. They start with ` (back-quote) followed by any
ASCII character, and end at the first occurance of the same pair in re-
verse order, e.g. `-foo-` or ``bar``. The final pair sequence is not
allowed at the value - in these examples -` and `` respectively. In the
second example the last character of the value also can't be a
back-quote.
Mixed quoting at the same argument, like 'foo'"bar", is not supported.
Note that argument parsing and property expansion happen at different
stages. First, arguments are determined as described above, and then,
where applicable, properties are expanded - regardless of argument
quoting. However, expansion can still be prevented with the raw prefix
or $>. See Input Command Prefixes and Property Expansion.
Commands specified as arrays
This applies to certain APIs, such as mp.commandv() or mp.command_na-
tive() (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. Sim-
ilar 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 in-
put.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.
Property expansion is disabled by default for these APIs. This can be
changed with the expand-properties prefix. See Input Command Prefixes.
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.
The name of the command is provided with a name string field. The name
of each command is defined in each command description in the List of
Input Commands. --input-cmdlist also lists them. See the subprocess
command for an example.
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.
Property expansion is disabled by default for these APIs. This can be
changed with the expand-properties prefix. See Input Command Prefixes.
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 syn-
tax).
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 sec-
ond 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 re-
vert-seek command will seek back to this point, no matter
how many seeks happened since last time.
mark-permanent
If set, mark the current position, and do not change the
mark position before the next revert-seek command that
has mark or mark-permanent set (or playback of the cur-
rent file ends). Until this happens, revert-seek will al-
ways seek to the marked point. This flag cannot be com-
bined with mark.
Using it without any arguments gives you the default behavior.
frame-step
Play one frame, then pause. Does nothing with audio-only play-
back.
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 pre-
cise seeking works correctly (e.g. see the --hr-seek-de-
muxer-offset option). Video filters or other video post-process-
ing that modifies timing of frames (e.g. deinterlacing) should
usually work, but might make backstepping silently behave incor-
rectly 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 maxi-
mum. If up or down is omitted, assume up.
Whether or not key-repeat is enabled by default depends on the
property. Currently properties with continuous values are re-
peatable by default (like volume), while discrete values are not
(like osd-level).
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 re-
ceive 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 asyn-
chronous. For normal standalone commands, this is always asyn-
chronous, 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 un-
known 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.
playlist-play-index <integer|current|none>
Start (or restart) playback of the given playlist index. In ad-
dition to the 0-based playlist entry index, it supports the fol-
lowing values:
<current>
The current playlist entry (as in playlist-current-pos)
will be played again (unload and reload). If none is set,
playback is stopped. (In corner cases, playlist-cur-
rent-pos can point to a playlist entry even if playback
is currently inactive,
<none> Playback is stopped. If idle mode (--idle) is enabled,
the player will enter idle mode, otherwise it will exit.
This command is similar to loadfile in that it only manipulates
the state of what to play next, without waiting until the cur-
rent file is unloaded, and the next one is loaded.
Setting playlist-pos or similar properties can have a similar
effect to this command. However, it's more explicit, and guaran-
tees that playback is restarted if for example the new playlist
entry is the same as the previous one.
loadfile <url> [<flags> [<options>]]
Load the given file or URL and play it. Technically, this is
just a playlist manipulation command (which either replaces the
playlist or appends an entry to it). Actual file loading happens
independently. For example, a loadfile command that replaces the
current file with a new one returns before the current file is
stopped, and the new file even begins loading.
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 com-
mand.)
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,... When using the client API, this can
be a MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (or a Lua table), however the values
themselves must be strings currently. These options are set dur-
ing playback, and restored to the previous value at end of play-
back (see Per-File Options).
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 inter-
nal playlist.
<append-play>
Append the new playlist, and if nothing is currently
playing, start playback. (Always starts with the new
playlist, even if the internal playlist was not empty be-
fore running this command.)
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 Expan-
sion.
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 spawn-
ing it.
To get the old behavior, use /bin/sh and -c as the first two ar-
guments.
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_na-
tive_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 executable is searched in the directories
in the PATH environment variable. On Unix, this is equiv-
alent to posix_spawnp and execvp behavior.
playback_only (MPV_FORMAT_FLAG)
Boolean indicating whether the process should be killed
when playback of the current playlist entry terminates
(optional, default: true). 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.
detach (MPV_FORMAT_FLAG)
Whether to run the process in detached mode (optional,
default: no). In this mode, the process is run in a new
process session, and the command does not wait for the
process to terminate. If neither capture_stdout nor cap-
ture_stderr have been set to true, the command returns
immediately after the new process has been started, oth-
erwise the command will read as long as the pipes are
open.
env (MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY[MPV_FORMAT_STRING])
Set a list of environment variables for the new process
(default: empty). If an empty list is passed, the envi-
ronment of the mpv process is used instead. (Unlike the
underlying OS mechanisms, the mpv command cannot start a
process with empty environment. Fortunately, that is com-
pletely useless.) The format of the list is as in the ex-
ecle() syscall. Each string item defines an environment
variable as in NAME=VALUE.
On Lua, you may use utils.get_env_list() to retrieve the
current environment if you e.g. simply want to add a new
variable.
stdin_data (MPV_FORMAT_STRING)
Feed the given string to the new process' stdin. Since
this is a string, you cannot pass arbitrary binary data.
If the process terminates or closes the pipe before all
data is written, the remaining data is silently dis-
carded. Probably does not work on win32.
passthrough_stdin (MPV_FORMAT_FLAG)
If enabled, wire the new process' stdin to mpv's stdin
(default: no). Before mpv 0.33.0, this argument did not
exist, but the behavior was as if this was set to true.
The command returns the following result (as MPV_FOR-
MAT_NODE_MAP):
status (MPV_FORMAT_INT64)
Typically this is the process exit code (0 or positive)
if the process terminates normally, or negative for other
errors (failed to start, terminated by mpv, and others).
The meaning of negative values is undefined, other than
meaning error (and does not correspond to OS low level
exit status values).
On Windows, it can happen that a negative return value is
returned even if the process terminates normally, 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 terminated normally. 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 true.
killed_by_us (MPV_FORMAT_FLAG)
Whether the process has been killed by mpv, for example
as a result of playback_only being set to true, 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. Also see
Asynchronous command details. Only the run command can start
processes in a truly detached way.
NOTE:
The subprocess will always be terminated on player exit if it
wasn't started in detached mode, even if playback_only is
false.
Warning
Don't forget to set the playback_only field to false
if you want the command to run while the player is in
idle mode, or if you don't want the end of playback to
kill the command.
Example
local r = mp.command_native({
name = "subprocess",
playback_only = false,
capture_stdout = true,
args = {"cat", "/proc/cpuinfo"},
})
if r.status == 0 then
print("result: " .. r.stdout)
end
This is a fairly useless Lua example, which demonstrates how
to run a process in a blocking manner, and retrieving its
stdout output.
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 (op-
tional) argument is exactly as in the quit command. See RESUMING
PLAYBACK.
sub-add <url> [<flags> [<title> [<lang>]]]
Load the given subtitle file or stream. By default, it is se-
lected 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 du-
plicate 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 influ-
ence 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> <flags>
Change subtitle timing such, that the subtitle event after the
next <skip> subtitle events is displayed. <skip> can be negative
to step backwards.
Secondary argument:
primary (default)
Steps through the primary subtitles.
secondary
Steps through the secondary subtitles.
sub-seek <skip> <flags>
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.
Secondary argument:
primary (default)
Seeks through the primary subtitles.
secondary
Seeks through the secondary subtitles.
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-spe-
cific 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.
delete-watch-later-config [<filename>]
Delete any existing resume config file that was written by
quit-watch-later or write-watch-later-config. If a filename is
specified, then the deleted config is for that file; otherwise,
it is the same one as would be written by quit-watch-later or
write-watch-later-config in the current circumstance.
stop [<flags>]
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.
The first argument is optional, and supports the following
flags:
keep-playlist
Do not clear the playlist.
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 what-
ever behavior is configured to that key. name uses the in-
put.conf naming scheme for keys and modifiers. Useful for the
client API: key events can be sent to libmpv to handle inter-
nally.
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 com-
mand 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> [<albumart>]]]]
Load the given video file. See sub-add command for common op-
tions.
albumart (MPV_FORMAT_FLAG)
If enabled, mpv will load the given video as album art.
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, --au-
dio-file-auto and --cover-art-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 typ-
ically selects external files with the highest prefer-
ence. (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 incom-
plete 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 it is, remove the filter.
If it isn't, 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 us-
ing @name without filter name and parameters as filter
entry. This toggles the enable/disable flag.
<remove>
Like toggle, but always remove the given filter from the
chain.
<del> Remove the given filters from the video chain. Unlike in
the other cases, the second parameter is a comma sepa-
rated 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,
use remove.
<clr> Remove all filters. Note that like the other sub-com-
mands, this does not control automatically inserted fil-
ters.
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 con-
version 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 vflip turn the 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 dis-
ables 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 com-
mand 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 exclu-
sive 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 al-
ready existing input section. The contents parameter uses the
same syntax as the input.conf file (except that using the sec-
tion syntax in it is not allowed), including the need to sepa-
rate bindings with a newline character.
If the contents parameter is an empty string, the section is re-
moved.
The section with the name default is the normal input section.
In general, input sections have to be enabled with the en-
able-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 ac-
tive 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-bind-
ing 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 ele-
ment. 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 bit-
map 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 off-
set 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 di-
rectly 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 compo-
nents are B-G-R-A, with B as first byte). This uses premulti-
plied alpha: every color component is already multiplied with
the alpha component. This means the numeric value of each compo-
nent is equal to or smaller than the alpha component. (Violating
this rule will lead to different results with different VOs: nu-
meric overflows resulting from blending broken alpha values is
considered something that shouldn't happen, and consequently im-
plementations don't ensure that you get predictable behavior in
this case.)
w, h, and stride specify the size of the overlay. w is the visi-
ble 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 com-
mand'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 over-
lay-add will be merged into osd-overlay to remove this oddity.)
You can use this to add text overlays in ASS format. ASS has ad-
vanced positioning and rendering tags, which can be used to ren-
der 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 dif-
ferent 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 associ-
ated with it are also deleted. In particular, connecting
via --input-ipc-server, adding an overlay, and discon-
necting will remove the overlay immediately again.
format String that gives the type of the overlay. Accepts the
following values (HTML rendering of this is broken, view
the generated manpage instead, or the raw RST source):
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 initial-
ized 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 re-
moved. 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 al-
ways 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.
hidden If set to true, do not display this (default: false).
compute_bounds
If set to true, attempt to determine bounds and write
them to the command's result value as x0, x1, y0, y1 rec-
tangle (default: false). If the rectangle is empty, not
known, or somehow degenerate, it is not set. x1/y1 is the
coordinate of the bottom exclusive corner of the rectan-
gle.
The result value may depend on the VO window size, and is
based on the last known window size at the time of the
call. This means the results may be different from what
is actually rendered.
For ass-events, the result rectangle is recomputed to
PlayRes coordinates (res_x/res_y). If window size is not
known, a fallback is chosen.
You should be aware that this mechanism is very ineffi-
cient, as it renders the full result, and then uses the
bounding box of the rendered bitmap list (even if hidden
is set). It will flush various caches. Its results also
depend on the used libass version.
This feature is experimental, and may change in some way
again.
NOTE:
Always use named arguments (mpv_command_node()). Lua scripts
should use the mp.create_osd_overlay() helper instead of in-
voking 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 ex-
ample, Lua scripts can get their name via mp.get_script_name().
Note that client names only consist of alphanumeric characters
and _.
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. Note
that script names only consist of alphanumeric characters and _.
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 argu-
ments:
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 appli-
cable.
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 back-
ends 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 char-
acters 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> [<mode>]
Apply the contents of a named profile. This is like using pro-
file=name in a config file, except you can map it to a key bind-
ing to change it at runtime.
The mode argument:
default
Apply the profile. Default if the argument is omitted.
restore
Restore options set by a previous apply-profile command
for this profile. Only works if the profile has pro-
file-restore set to a relevant mode. Prints a warning if
nothing could be done. See Runtime profiles for details.
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.
On success, returns a mpv_node with a client_id field set to the
return value of the mpv_client_id() API call of the newly cre-
ated script handle.
change-list <name> <operation> <value>
This command changes list options as described in List Options.
The <name> parameter is the normal option name, while <opera-
tion> 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 writ-
ing 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 net-
work 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 incom-
plete 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 com-
mand will not finish until playback is stopped, an error hap-
pens, another dump-cache command is run, or an API like
mp.abort_async_command was called to explicitly stop the com-
mand. 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 pos-
sible, 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. Basi-
cally, it aligns the times on keyframes. The guess might be off
especially at the end (due to granularity issues due to remux-
ing). 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).
List of events
This is a partial list of events. This section describes what
mpv_event_to_node() returns, and which is what scripting APIs and the
JSON IPC sees. Note that the C API has separate C-level declarations
with mpv_event, which may be slightly different.
Note that events are asynchronous: the player core continues running
while events are delivered to scripts and other clients. In some cases,
you can hooks to enforce synchronous execution.
All events can have the following fields:
event Name as the event (as returned by mpv_event_name()).
id The reply_userdata field (opaque user value). If reply_userdata
is 0, the field is not added.
error Set to an error string (as returned by mpv_error_string()). This
field is missing if no error happened, or the event type does
not report error. Most events leave this unset.
This list uses the event name field value, and the C API symbol in
brackets:
start-file (MPV_EVENT_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).
This has the following fields:
playlist_entry_id
Playlist entry ID of the file being loaded now.
end-file (MPV_EVENT_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 following fields:
reason Has one of these values:
eof The file has ended. This can (but doesn't have to)
include incomplete files or broken network connec-
tions 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.)
playlist_entry_id
Playlist entry ID of the file that was being played or
attempted to be played. This has the same value as the
playlist_entry_id field in the corresponding start-file
event.
file_error
Set to mpv error string describing the approximate reason
why playback failed. Unset if no error known. (In Lua
scripting, this value was set on the error field di-
rectly. This is deprecated since mpv 0.33.0. In the fu-
ture, this error field will be unset for this specific
event.)
playlist_insert_id
If loading ended, because the playlist entry to be played
was for example a playlist, and the current playlist en-
try is replaced with a number of other entries. This may
happen at least with MPV_END_FILE_REASON_REDIRECT (other
event types may use this for similar but different pur-
poses in the future). In this case, playlist_insert_id
will be set to the playlist entry ID of the first in-
serted entry, and playlist_insert_num_entries to the to-
tal number of inserted playlist entries. Note this in
this specific case, the ID of the last inserted entry is
playlist_insert_id+num-1. Beware that depending on cir-
cumstances, you may observe the new playlist entries be-
fore seeing the event (e.g. reading the "playlist" prop-
erty or getting a property change notification before re-
ceiving the event). If this is 0 in the C API, this
field isn't added.
playlist_insert_num_entries
See playlist_insert_id. Only present if playlist_in-
sert_id is present.
file-loaded (MPV_EVENT_FILE_LOADED)
Happens after a file was loaded and begins playback.
seek (MPV_EVENT_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 (MPV_EVENT_PLAYBACK_RESTART)
Start of playback after seek or after file was loaded.
shutdown (MPV_EVENT_SHUTDOWN)
Sent when the player quits, and the script should terminate.
Normally handled automatically. See Details on the script ini-
tialization and lifecycle.
log-message (MPV_EVENT_LOG_MESSAGE)
Receives messages enabled with mpv_request_log_messages() (Lua:
mp.enable_messages).
This contains, in addition to the default event fields, the fol-
lowing 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 charac-
ter. Sometimes it can contain multiple lines.
Keep in mind that these messages are meant to be hints for hu-
mans. You should not parse them, and prefix/level/text of mes-
sages might change any time.
hook The event has the following fields:
hook_id
ID to pass to mpv_hook_continue(). The Lua scripting
wrapper provides a better API around this with
mp.add_hook().
get-property-reply (MPV_EVENT_GET_PROPERTY_REPLY)
See C API.
set-property-reply (MPV_EVENT_SET_PROPERTY_REPLY)
See C API.
command-reply (MPV_EVENT_COMMAND_REPLY)
This is one of the commands for which the `error field is mean-
ingful.
JSON IPC and Lua and possibly other backends treat this spe-
cially and may not pass the actual event to the user. See C API.
The event has the following fields:
result The result (on success) of any mpv_node type, if any.
client-message (MPV_EVENT_CLIENT_MESSAGE)
Lua and possibly other backends treat this specially and may not
pass the actual event to the user.
The event has the following fields:
args Array of strings with the message data.
video-reconfig (MPV_EVENT_VIDEO_RECONFIG)
Happens on video output or filter reconfig.
audio-reconfig (MPV_EVENT_AUDIO_RECONFIG)
Happens on audio output or filter reconfig.
property-change (MPV_EVENT_PROPERTY_CHANGE)
Happens when a property that is being observed changes value.
The event has the following fields:
name The name of the property.
data The new value of the property.
The following events also happen, but are deprecated: idle, tick Use
mpv_observe_property() (Lua: mp.observe_property()) instead.
Hooks
Hooks are synchronous events between player core and a script or simi-
lar. This applies to client API (including the Lua scripting inter-
face). 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. Ba-
sically, nobody should use this API.
The C API is described in the header files. The Lua API is described in
the Lua section.
Before a hook is actually invoked on an API clients, it will attempt to
return new values for all observed properties that were changed before
the hook. This may make it easier for an application to set defined
"barriers" between property change notifications by registering hooks.
(That means these hooks will have an effect, even if you do nothing and
make them continue immediately.)
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.
Ordered after start-file and before playback-restart.
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 na-
tive demuxers like on_load. Demux will only be retried if
stream-open-filename was changed. If it fails again, this hook
is _not_ called again, and loading definitely fails.
Ordered after on_load, and before playback-restart and end-file.
on_preloaded
Called after a file has been opened, and before tracks are se-
lected 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 avail-
able 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 infor-
mation is available and what is not yet available yet, is all
subject to change.
Ordered after on_load_fail etc. and before playback-restart.
on_unload
Run before closing a file, and before actually uninitializing
everything. It's not possible to resume playback in this state.
Ordered before end-file. Will also happen in the error case
(then after on_load_fail).
on_before_start_file
Run before a start-file event is sent. (If any client changes
the current playlist entry, or sends a quit command to the
player, the corresponding event will not actually happen after
the hook returns.) Useful to drain property changes before a
new file is loaded.
on_after_end_file
Run after an end-file event. Useful to drain property changes
after a file has finished.
Input Command Prefixes
These prefixes are placed between key name and the actual command. Mul-
tiple 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 "${prop-
erty-name}".) This is the default for some libmpv/scripting/IPC
APIs.
expand-properties
All string arguments are expanded as described in Property Ex-
pansion. 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.
For a list of commands: the first command determines the re-
peatability of the whole list (up to and including version 0.33
- a list was always repeatable).
async Allow asynchronous execution (if possible). Note that only a few
commands will support this (usually this is explicitly docu-
mented). 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. Asynchro-
nous.
sync Allow synchronous execution (if possible). Normally, all com-
mands 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 run-
ning 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 pre-
fixed 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 simi-
lar to the C counterparts.
• In all cases, async mode can still run commands in a synchronous man-
ner, 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 com-
mands, 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, res-
can-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 run-
ning command directly. If the mpv_handle is destroyed, any still run-
ning async. commands started by it are terminated.
The scripting APIs and JSON IPC give each script/connection its own im-
plicit 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 pend-
ing 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 exclu-
sively, so that bindings in the default sections are ignored.
Properties
Properties are used to set mpv options during runtime, or to query ar-
bitrary 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 ex-
actly 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 at runtime via properties as well. Just re-
move the leading -- from the option name. These are not documented
below, see OPTIONS instead. Only properties which do not exist as
option with the same name, or which have very different behavior
from the options are documented below.
Properties marked as (RW) are writeable, while those that aren't are
read-only.
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
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 neces-
sarily 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.)
pid Process-id of mpv.
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 us-
ing the working-directory property.
stream-open-filename
The full path to the currently played media. This is different
from path only 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 implemen-
tation 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 un-
known, 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. Unavail-
able 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 dis-
play-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 espe-
cially with bad source timestamps). For example, using the dis-
play-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 re-
main exactly on 2.5, but jitter depending on the last frame dis-
played.
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 re-
turn 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 du-
ration is not always exactly known, so this is an estimate.
audio-pts
Current audio playback position in current file in seconds. Un-
like 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 --edi-
tion=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 edi-
tion, which will be reflected by the property, although in prac-
tice it does not matter.)
chapters
Number of chapters.
editions
Number of MKV editions.
edition-list
List of editions, current entry marked. Currently, the raw prop-
erty 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 (RW)
Edition ID as integer. Use this to set the edition prop-
erty. Currently, this is the same as the edition index.
edition-list/N/default
Whether this is the default edition.
edition-list/N/title
Edition title as stored in the file. Not always avail-
able.
When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FOR-
MAT_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 val-
ues. 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. Sugges-
tions are welcome how exactly this property should work.
When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FOR-
MAT_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 --dis-
play-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: syn-
tax, 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
Returns yes/true if no file is loaded, but the player is staying
around because of the --idle option.
(Renamed from idle.)
core-idle
Whether the playback core is paused. This can differ from pause
in special situations, such as when the player pauses itself due
to low network cache.
This also returns yes/true if playback is restarting or if noth-
ing is playing at all. In other words, it's only no/false if
there's actually video playing. (Behavior since mpv 0.7.0.)
cache-speed
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).
This is the same as demuxer-cache-state/raw-input-rate.
demuxer-cache-duration
Approximate duration of video buffered in the demuxer, in sec-
onds. 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
Whether the demuxer is idle, which means that the demuxer cache
is filled to the requested amount, and is currently not reading
more data.
demuxer-cache-state
Each entry in seekable-ranges represents a region in the demuxer
cache that can be seeked to, with a start and end fields con-
taining the respective timestamps. If there are multiple demux-
ers active, this only returns information about the "main" de-
muxer, but might be changed in future to return unified informa-
tion about all demuxers. The ranges are in arbitrary order. Of-
ten, 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 re-
turned by the demuxer-cache-time property, because that property
returns the guessed buffering amount, while the seek ranges rep-
resent 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 im-
plies 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 true, 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 es-
timate (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
wasn't enabled with --cache-on-disk=yes.
cache-end is demuxer-cache-time. Missing if unavailable.
reader-pts is the approximate timestamp of the start of the
buffered range. Missing if unavailable.
cache-duration is demuxer-cache-duration. Missing if unavail-
able.
raw-input-rate is the estimated input rate of the network layer
(or any other byte-oriented input layer) in bytes per second.
May be inaccurate or missing.
When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FOR-
MAT_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
"cache-end" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"reader-pts" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"cache-duration" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
"raw-input-rate" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
Other fields (might be changed or removed in the future):
eof Whether the reader thread has hit the end of the file.
underrun
Whether the reader thread could not satisfy a decoder's
request for a new packet.
idle Whether 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
Whether 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
The start time reported by the demuxer in fractional seconds.
paused-for-cache
Whether playback is paused because of waiting for the cache.
cache-buffering-state
The percentage (0-100) of the cache fill status until the player
will unpause (related to paused-for-cache).
eof-reached
Whether the end of playback was reached. Note that this is usu-
ally 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
Whether the player is currently seeking, or otherwise trying to
restart playback. (It's possible that it returns yes/true while
a file is loaded. This is because the same underlying code is
used for seeking and resyncing.)
mixer-active
Whether the audio mixer is active.
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 out-
put is currently active, and only if the underlying implementa-
tion 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 vol-
ume.
ao-mute (RW)
Similar to ao-volume, but controls the mute state. May be unim-
plemented 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 au-
dio-out-params/hr-channels makes sense.)
audio-params/channel-count
Number of audio channels. This is redundant to the chan-
nels field described above.
When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FOR-
MAT_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
Redirects to video-params/colormatrix. This parameter (as well
as similar ones) can be overridden with the format video filter.
colormatrix-input-range
See colormatrix.
colormatrix-primaries
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 suc-
cessful.
Unlike in mpv 0.9.x and before, this does not return the cur-
rently active hardware decoder. Since mpv 0.18.0, hwdec-current
is available for this purpose.
hwdec-current
The current hardware decoding in use. If decoding is active, re-
turn one of the values used by the hwdec option/property.
no/false indicates software decoding. If no decoder is loaded,
the property is unavailable.
hwdec-interop
This returns the currently loaded hardware decoding/output in-
terop 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) con-
tainer 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/hw-pixelformat
The underlying pixel format as string. This is relevant
for some cases of hardware decoding and unavailable oth-
erwise.
video-params/average-bpp
Average bits-per-pixel as integer. Subsampled planar for-
mats use a different resolution, which is the reason this
value can sometimes be odd or confusing. Can be unavail-
able with some formats.
video-params/w, video-params/h
Video size as integers, with no aspect correction ap-
plied.
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 sub-
ject 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 fil-
ter's stereo-in option.)
video-params/alpha
Alpha type. If the format has no alpha channel, this will
be unavailable (but in future releases, it could change
to no). If alpha is present, this is set to straight or
premul.
When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FOR-
MAT_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
"hw-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
"average-bpp" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"alpha" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
dwidth, dheight
Video display size. This is the video size after filters and as-
pect 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.
This has a number of sub-properties:
video-frame-info/picture-type
The type of the picture. It can be "I" (intra), "P" (pre-
dicted), "B" (bi-dir predicted) or unavailable.
video-frame-info/interlaced
Whether the content of the frame is interlaced.
video-frame-info/tff
If the content is interlaced, whether the top field is
displayed first.
video-frame-info/repeat
Whether the frame must be delayed when decoding.
container-fps
Container FPS. This can easily contain bogus values. For videos
that use modern container formats or video codecs, this will of-
ten 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 win-
dow 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.
Note that setting a value identical to its previous value will
not resize the window. That's because this property mirrors the
window-scale option, and setting an option to its previous value
is ignored. If this value is set while the window is in a
fullscreen, the multiplier is not applied until the window is
taken out of that state. Writing this property to a maximized
window can unmaximize the window depending on the OS and window
manager. If the window does not unmaximize, the multiplier will
be applied if the user unmaximizes the window later.
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 ac-
tual window size. Before mpv 0.31.0, this returned what cur-
rent-window-scale returns now, after the window was created.
current-window-scale (RW)
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. If the window is fullscreened,
this will return the scale value calculated from the last
non-fullscreen size of the window. The property is unavailable
if no video is active.
When setting this property in the fullscreen or maximized state,
the behavior is the same as window-scale. In all ther cases,
setting the value of this property will always resize the win-
dow. This does not affect the value of window-scale.
focused
Whether the window has focus. Might not be supported by all VOs.
display-names
Names of the displays that the mpv window covers. On X11, these
are the xrandr names (LVDS1, HDMI1, DP1, VGA1, etc.). On Win-
dows, these are the GDI names (\.DISPLAY1, \.DISPLAY2, etc.) and
the first display in the list will be the one that Windows con-
siders associated with the window (as determined by the Monitor-
FromWindow API.) On macOS these are the Display Product Names as
used in the System Information and only one display name is re-
turned 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 prop-
erty 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
The actual rate at which display refreshes seem to occur, mea-
sured by system time. Only available if display-sync mode (as
selected by --video-sync) is active.
vsync-jitter
Estimated deviation factor of the vsync duration.
display-width, display-height
The current display's horizontal and vertical resolution in pix-
els. Whether or not these values update as the mpv window
changes displays depends on the windowing backend. It may not be
available on all platforms.
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/window
size (not including decorations drawn by the OS window manager).
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_FOR-
MAT_NODE or Lua table with mp.get_property_native):
osd-dimensions/w
Size of the VO window in OSD render units (usually pix-
els, but may be scaled pixels with VOs like xv).
osd-dimensions/h
Size of the VO window in OSD render units,
osd-dimensions/par
Pixel aspect ratio of the OSD (usually 1).
osd-dimensions/aspect
Display aspect ratio of the VO window. (Computing from
the properties above.)
osd-dimensions/mt, osd-dimensions/mb, osd-dimensions/ml, osd-di-
mensions/mr
OSD to video margins (top, bottom, left, right). This de-
scribes the area into which the video is rendered.
Any of these properties may be unavailable or set to dummy val-
ues if the VO window is not created or visible.
mouse-pos
Read-only - last known mouse position, normalizd to OSD dimen-
sions.
Has the following sub-properties (which can be read as MPV_FOR-
MAT_NODE or Lua table with mp.get_property_native):
mouse-pos/x, mouse-pos/y
Last known coordinates of the mouse pointer.
mouse-pos/hover
Boolean - whether the mouse pointer hovers the video win-
dow. The coordinates should be ignored when this value is
false, because the video backends update them only when
the pointer hovers the window.
sub-text
The current subtitle text regardless of sub visibility. Format-
ting 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 fu-
ture.
sub-text-ass
Like sub-text, but return the text in ASS format. Text subtitles
in other formats are converted. For native ASS subtitles, events
that do not contain any text (but vector drawings etc.) are not
filtered out. If multiple events match with the current playback
time, they are concatenated with line breaks. Contains only the
"Text" part of the events.
This property is not enough to render ASS subtitles correctly,
because ASS header and per-event metadata are not returned. You
likely need to do further filtering on the returned string to
make it useful.
This property is experimental and might be removed in the fu-
ture.
secondary-sub-text
Same as sub-text, but for the secondary subtitles.
sub-start
The current subtitle start time (in seconds). If there's multi-
ple current subtitles, returns the first start time. If no cur-
rent subtitle is present null is returned instead.
secondary-sub-start
Same as sub-start, but for the secondary subtitles.
sub-end
The current subtitle end time (in seconds). If there's multiple
current subtitles, return the last end time. If no current sub-
title is present, or if it's present but has unknown or incor-
rect duration, null is returned instead.
secondary-sub-end
Same as sub-end, but for the secondary subtitles.
playlist-pos (RW)
Current position on playlist. The first entry is on position 0.
Writing to this property may start playback at the new position.
In some cases, this is not necessarily the currently playing
file. See explanation of current and playing flags in playlist.
If there the playlist is empty, or if it's non-empty, but no en-
try is "current", this property returns -1. Likewise, writing -1
will put the player into idle mode (or exit playback if idle
mode is not enabled). If an out of range index is written to the
property, this behaves as if writing -1. (Before mpv 0.33.0,
instead of returning -1, this property was unavailable if no
playlist entry was current.)
Writing the current value back to the property is subject to
change. Currently, it will restart playback of the playlist en-
try. But in the future, writing the current value will be ig-
nored. Use the playlist-play-index command to get guaranteed be-
havior.
playlist-pos-1 (RW)
Same as playlist-pos, but 1-based.
playlist-current-pos (RW)
Index of the "current" item on playlist. This usually, but not
necessarily, the currently playing item (see playlist-play-
ing-pos). Depending on the exact internal state of the player,
it may refer to the playlist item to play next, or the playlist
item used to determine what to play next.
For reading, this is exactly the same as playlist-pos.
For writing, this only sets the position of the "current" item,
without stopping playback of the current file (or starting play-
back, if this is done in idle mode). Use -1 to remove the cur-
rent flag.
This property is only vaguely useful. If set during playback, it
will typically cause the playlist entry after it to be played
next. Another possibly odd observable state is that if
playlist-next is run during playback, this property is set to
the playlist entry to play next (unlike the previous case).
There is an internal flag that decides whether the current
playlist entry or the next one should be played, and this flag
is currently inaccessible for API users. (Whether this behavior
will kept is possibly subject to change.)
playlist-playing-pos
Index of the "playing" item on playlist. A playlist item is
"playing" if it's being loaded, actually playing, or being un-
loaded. This property is set during the MPV_EVENT_START_FILE
(start-file) and the MPV_EVENT_START_END (end-file) events. Out-
side of that, it returns -1. If the playlist entry was somehow
removed during playback, but playback hasn't stopped yet, or is
in progress of being stopped, it also returns -1. (This can
happen at least during state transitions.)
In the "playing" state, this is usually the same as
playlist-pos, except during state changes, or if playlist-cur-
rent-pos was written explicitly.
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/playing
yes/true if the playlist-playing-pos property points to
this entry, no/false or unavailable otherwise.
playlist/N/current
yes/true if the playlist-current-pos property points to
this entry, no/false or unavailable otherwise.
playlist/N/title
Name of the Nth entry. Only available if the playlist
file contains such fields, and only if mpv's parser sup-
ports it for the given playlist format.
playlist/N/id
Unique ID for this entry. This is an automatically as-
signed integer ID that is unique for the entire life time
of the current mpv core instance. Other commands, events,
etc. use this as playlist_entry_id fields.
When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FOR-
MAT_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)
"id" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
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 avail-
able. (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/image
yes/true if this is a video track that consists of a sin-
gle picture, no/false or unavailable otherwise. The
heuristic used to determine if a stream is an image
doesn't attempt to detect images in codecs normally used
for videos. Otherwise, it is reliable.
track-list/N/albumart
yes/true if this is an image embedded in an audio file or
external cover art, no/false or unavailable otherwise.
track-list/N/default
yes/true if the track has the default flag set in the
file, no/false or unavailable otherwise.
track-list/N/forced
yes/true if the track has the forced flag set in the
file, no/false or unavailable otherwise.
track-list/N/codec
The codec name used by this track, for example h264. Un-
available in some rare cases.
track-list/N/external
yes/true if the track is an external file, no/false or
unavailable otherwise. This is set for separate subtitle
files.
track-list/N/external-filename
The filename if the track is from an external file, un-
available otherwise.
track-list/N/selected
yes/true if the track is currently decoded, no/false or
unavailable otherwise.
track-list/N/main-selection
It indicates the selection order of tracks for the same
type. If a track is not selected, or is selected by the
--lavfi-complex, it is not available. For subtitle
tracks, 0 represents the sid, and 1 represents the sec-
ondary-sid.
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 guaran-
tee.
track-list/N/decoder-desc
If this track is being decoded, the human-readable de-
coder name,
track-list/N/demux-w, track-list/N/demux-h
Video size hint as indicated by the container. (Not al-
ways 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 al-
ways accurate.)
track-list/N/demux-fps
Video FPS as indicated by the container. (Not always ac-
curate.)
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/replay-
gain-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-al-
bum-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 pos-
sible that future mpv versions will make these properties
unavailable instead in this case.
When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FOR-
MAT_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
"image" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"albumart" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"default" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"forced" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"selected" MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
"main-selection" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
"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
current-tracks/...
This gives access to currently selected tracks. It redirects to
the correct entry in track-list.
The following sub-entries are defined: video, audio, sub, sub2
For example, current-tracks/audio/lang returns the current audio
track's language field (the same value as track-list/N/lang).
If tracks of the requested type are selected via --lavfi-com-
plex, the first one is returned.
chapter-list (RW)
List of chapters, current entry marked. Currently, the raw prop-
erty 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 avail-
able.
chapter-list/N/time
Chapter start time in seconds as float.
When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FOR-
MAT_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_FOR-
MAT_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
Whether it's generally possible to seek in the current file.
partially-seekable
Whether the current file is considered seekable, but only be-
cause 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 yes/true, so will seekable.
playback-abort
Whether playback is stopped or is to be stopped. (Useful in ob-
scure 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 spe-
cific 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 com-
mand or options which set OSD messages.
Example
• --osd-msg3='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. See Flat command syntax for details.
A list of tags can be found here:
https://aeg-dev.github.io/AegiSite/docs/3.2/ass_tags/
vo-configured
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 usually always returns yes/true.
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 aver-
aging 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_FOR-
MAT_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_FOR-
MAT_NODE.
perf-info
Further performance data. Querying this property triggers inter-
nal collection of some data, and may slow down the player. Each
query will reset some internal state. Property change notifica-
tion doesn't and won't work. All of this may change in the fu-
ture, so don't use this. The builtin stats script is supposed to
be the only user; since it's bundled and built with the source
code, it can use knowledge of mpv internal to render the infor-
mation properly. See stats script description for some details.
video-bitrate, audio-bitrate, sub-bitrate
Bitrate values calculated on the packet level. This works by di-
viding 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 influ-
ence 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 pre-
vented by using the raw property value, e.g. with ${=video-bi-
trate}.
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 Ma-
troska), even constant bitrate streams might show fluctuating
bitrate.
How exactly these values are calculated might change in the fu-
ture.
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
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_FOR-
MAT_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 de-
scription 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 mecha-
nism 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-de-
vice 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 pre-
vious write access to audio-device.)
This property also doesn't tell you which audio device is actu-
ally 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
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 de-
coder 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_FOR-
MAT_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 de-
coder-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 --de-
muxer-lavf-format.
input-key-list
List of Key names, same as output by --input-keylist.
mpv-version
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
The configuration arguments which were passed to the build sys-
tem (typically the way ./waf configure ... was invoked).
ffmpeg-version
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 un-
available if mpv is linked against older FFmpeg and Libav ver-
sions.
libass-version
The value of ass_library_version(). This is an integer, encoded
in a somewhat weird form (apparently "hex BCD"), indicating the
release version of the libass library linked to mpv.
options/<name> (RW)
The value of option --<name>. Most options can be changed at
runtime by writing to this property. Note that many options re-
quire 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> (RW)
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 er-
ror.
(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
The name of the option.
option-info/<name>/type
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
Whether the option was set from the mpv command line.
What this is set to if the option is e.g. changed at run-
time is left undefined (meaning it could change in the
future).
option-info/<name>/set-locally
Whether 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 avail-
able.
option-info/<name>/min, option-info/<name>/max
Integer minimum and maximum values allowed for the op-
tion. Only available if the options are numeric, and the
minimum/maximum has been set internally. It's also possi-
ble 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 avail-
able.
property-list
The list of top-level properties.
profile-list
The list of profiles and their contents. This is highly imple-
mentation-specific, and may change any time. Currently, it re-
turns 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 mat-
ters and duplicate entries are possible. Recursive profiles are
not expanded, and show up as special profile options.
The profile-restore field is currently missing if it holds the
default value (either because it was not set, or set explicitly
to default), but in the future it might hold the value default.
command-list
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
The 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 ex-
actly 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 in-
put. 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 sup-
ported. 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 return 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 (over-
ride-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 a video (for vf) or an audio (for af) track was
active. If playback was not active, the behavior was the same as
the current one.
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 com-
mand instead.
profile, include
These are write-only, and will perform actions as they are writ-
ten 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-pro-
file 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 prop-
erty expansion does not work in places where e.g. numeric parameters
are expected. (For example, the add command does not do property ex-
pansion. 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
Whether property expansion is enabled by default depends on which API
is used (see Flat command syntax, Commands specified as arrays and
Named arguments), but it can always be enabled with the expand-proper-
ties prefix or disabled with the raw prefix, as described in Input Com-
mand Prefixes.
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 prop-
erty 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 re-
trieved.
${?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 expan-
sion.)
$> Disable property expansion and special handling of $ for the
rest of the string.
In places where property expansion is allowed, C-style escapes are of-
ten 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 un-
formatted (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 inter-
action 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, custom title, or target chapter
name while hovering the seekbar.
┌────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│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 time- │
│ │ codes 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 com-
mand-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 spa-
ces 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. If set
to yes, default seeking mode is used (usually keyframes, but
player defaults and heuristics can change it to exact). If set
to no, 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 han-
dle inside the seekbar with cached ranges marked inside. Note
that these will look differently based on the seekbarstyle op-
tion. 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 transpar-
ent).
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
idlescreen
Default: yes
Show the mpv logo and message when idle
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 con-
stant 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 transpar-
ent)
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 lay-
outs
timetotal
Default: no
Show total time instead of time remaining
timems Default: no
Display timecodes with milliseconds
tcspace
Default: 100 (allowed: 50-200)
Adjust space reserved for timecodes (current time and time re-
maining) in the bottombar and topbar layouts. The timecode width
depends on the font, and with some fonts the spacing near the
timecodes becomes too small. Use values above 100 to increase
that spacing, or below 100 to decrease it.
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 mea-
sure 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 op-
tion 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.) Additionally,
visibility must be set to always. Otherwise, this option does
nothing.
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 bor-
der)
Whether to show window management controls over the video, and
if so, which side of the window to place them. This may be de-
sirable 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, maxi-
mize, and quit. Not all platforms implement minimize and maxi-
mize, 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 Decem-
ber.)
livemarkers
Default: yes
Update chapter markers positions on duration changes, e.g. live
streams. The updates are unoptimized - consider disabling it on
very low-end systems.
chapters_osd, playlist_osd
Default: yes
Whether to display the chapters/playlist at the OSD when
left-clicking the next/previous OSC buttons, respectively.
chapter_fmt
Default: Chapter: %s
Template for the chapter-name display when hovering the seekbar.
Use no to disable chapter display on hover. Otherwise it's a lua
string.format template and %s is replaced with the actual name.
unicodeminus
Default: no
Use a Unicode minus sign instead of an ASCII hyphen when dis-
playing the remaining playback time.
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-idlescreen
Controls the visibility of the mpv logo on idle. Valid arguments
are yes, no, and cycle to toggle between yes and no.
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 cur-
rently played file. It is enabled by default if mpv was compiled with
Lua support. It can be disabled entirely using the --load-stats-over-
lay=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 du- │
│ │ ration │
├──┼────────────────────────────┤
│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 be-
tween pages of stats:
┌──┬────────────────────────────┐
│1 │ Show usual stats │
├──┼────────────────────────────┤
│2 │ Show frame timings │
│ │ (scroll) │
├──┼────────────────────────────┤
│3 │ Input cache stats │
├──┼────────────────────────────┤
│4 │ Active key bindings │
│ │ (scroll) │
├──┼────────────────────────────┤
│0 │ Internal stuff (scroll) │
└──┴────────────────────────────┘
On pages which support scroll, these key bindings are also active:
┌─────┬──────────────────────┐
│UP │ Scroll one line up │
├─────┼──────────────────────┤
│DOWN │ Scroll one line down │
└─────┴──────────────────────┘
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 de-
scribed in ON SCREEN CONTROLLER.
Configurable Options
key_page_1
Default: 1
key_page_2
Default: 2
key_page_3
Default: 3
key_page_4
Default: 4
key_page_0
Default: 0
Key bindings for page switching while stats are displayed.
key_scroll_up
Default: UP
key_scroll_down
Default: DOWN
scroll_lines
Default: 1
Scroll key bindings and number of lines to scroll on pages which
support it.
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 overlap-
ping 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 tog-
gled.
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
Additional keys can be configured in input.conf to display the stats:
e script-binding stats/display-stats
E script-binding stats/display-stats-toggle
And to display a certain page directly:
i script-binding stats/display-page-1
e script-binding stats/display-page-2
Active key bindings page
Lists the active key bindings and the commands they're bound to, ex-
cluding the interactive keys of the stats script itself. See also --in-
put-test for more detailed view of each binding.
The keys are grouped automatically using a simple analysis of the com-
mand string, and one should not expect documentation-level grouping ac-
curacy, however, it should still be reasonably useful.
Using --idle --script-opts=stats-bindlist=yes will print the list to
the terminal and quit immediately. By default long lines are shortened
to 79 chars, and terminal escape sequences are enabled. A different
length limit can be set by changing yes to a number (at least 40), and
escape sequences can be disabled by adding - before the value, e.g.
...=-yes or ...=-120.
Like with --input-test, the list includes bindings from input.conf and
from user scripts. Use --no-config to list only built-in bindings.
Internal stuff page
Most entries shown on this page have rather vague meaning. Likely none
of this is useful for you. Don't attempt to use it. Forget its exis-
tence.
Selecting this for the first time will start collecting some internal
performance data. That means performance will be slightly lower than
normal for the rest of the time the player is running (even if the
stats page is closed). Note that the stats page itself uses a lot of
CPU and even GPU resources, and may have a heavy impact on performance.
The displayed information is accumulated over the redraw delay (shown
as poll-time field).
This adds entries for each Lua script. If there are too many scripts
running, parts of the list will simply be out of the screen, but it can
be scrolled.
If the underlying platform does not support pthread per thread times,
the displayed times will be 0 or something random (I suspect that at
time of this writing, only Linux provides the correct via pthread APIs
for per thread times).
Most entries are added lazily and only during data collection, which is
why entries may pop up randomly after some time. It's also why the mem-
ory usage entries for scripts that have been inactive since the start
of data collection are missing.
Memory usage is approximate and does not reflect internal fragmenta-
tion.
JS scripts memory reporting is disabled by default because collecting
the data at the JS side has an overhead. It can be enabled by exporting
the env var MPV_LEAK_REPORT=1 before starting mpv, and will increase JS
memory usage.
If entries have /time and /cpu variants, the former gives the real time
(monotonic clock), while the latter the thread CPU time (only if the
corresponding pthread API works and is supported).
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, Ctrl+J and Ctrl+M
Run the typed command.
Shift+ENTER
Type a literal newline character.
LEFT and Ctrl+B
Move the cursor to the previous character.
RIGHT and Ctrl+F
Move the cursor to the next character.
Ctrl+LEFT and Alt+B
Move the cursor to the beginning of the current word, or if be-
tween words, to the beginning of the previous word.
Ctrl+RIGHT and Alt+F
Move the cursor to the end of the current word, or if between
words, to the end of the next word.
HOME and Ctrl+A
Move the cursor to the start of the current line.
END and Ctrl+E
Move the cursor to the end of the current line.
BACKSPACE and Ctrl+H
Delete the previous character.
Ctrl+D Hide the console if the current line is empty, otherwise delete
the next character.
Ctrl+BACKSPACE and Ctrl+W
Delete text from the cursor to the beginning of the current
word, or if between words, to the beginning of the previous
word.
Ctrl+DEL and Alt+D
Delete text from the cursor to the end of the current word, or
if between words, to the end of the next word.
Ctrl+U Delete text from the cursor to the beginning of the current
line.
Ctrl+K Delete text from the cursor to the end of the current line.
Ctrl+C Clear the current line.
UP and Ctrl+P
Move back in the command history.
DOWN and Ctrl+N
Move forward in the command history.
PGUP Go to the first command in the history.
PGDN Stop navigating the command history.
INSERT Toggle insert mode.
Ctrl+V Paste text (uses the clipboard on X11 and Wayland).
Shift+INSERT
Paste text (uses the primary selection on X11 and Wayland).
TAB and Ctrl+I
Complete the command or property name at the cursor.
Ctrl+L Clear all log messages from the console.
Commands
script-message-to console type <text> [<cursor_pos>]
Show the console and pre-fill it with the provided text, option-
ally specifying the initial cursor position as a positive inte-
ger starting from 1.
Example for input.conf
% script-message-to console type "seek absolute-per-
cent" 6
Known issues
• Pasting text is slow on Windows
• Non-ASCII keyboard input has restrictions
• The cursor keys move between Unicode code-points, not grapheme clus-
ters
Configuration
This script can be customized through a config file script-opts/con-
sole.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".
history_dedup
Default: true
Remove duplicate entries in history as to only keep the latest
one.
LUA SCRIPTING
mpv can load Lua scripts. (See Script location.)
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)
Script location
Scripts can be passed to the --script option, and are automatically
loaded from the scripts subdirectory of the mpv configuration directory
(usually ~/.config/mpv/scripts/).
A script can be a single file. The file extension is used to select the
scripting backend to use for it. For Lua, it is .lua. If the extension
is not recognized, an error is printed. (If an error happens, the ex-
tension is either mistyped, or the backend was not compiled into your
mpv binary.)
mpv internally loads the script's name by stripping the .lua extension
and replacing all nonalphanumeric characters with _. E.g., my-tools.lua
becomes my_tools. If there are several scripts with the same name, it
is made unique by appending a number. This is the name returned by
mp.get_script_name().
Entries with .disable extension are always ignored.
If a script is a directory (either if a directory is passed to
--script, or any sub-directories in the script directory, such as for
example ~/.config/mpv/scripts/something/), then the directory repre-
sents a single script. The player will try to load a file named main.x,
where x is replaced with the file extension. For example, if main.lua
exists, it is loaded with the Lua scripting backend.
You must not put any other files or directories that start with main.
into the script's top level directory. If the script directory contains
for example both main.lua and main.js, only one of them will be loaded
(and which one depends on mpv internals that may change any time).
Likewise, if there is for example main.foo, your script will break as
soon as mpv adds a backend that uses the .foo file extension.
mpv also appends the top level directory of the script to the start of
Lua's package path so you can import scripts from there too. Be aware
that this will shadow Lua libraries that use the same package path.
(Single file scripts do not include mpv specific directory the Lua
package path. This was silently changed in mpv 0.32.0.)
Using a script directory is the recommended way to package a script
that consists of multiple source files, or requires other files (you
can use mp.get_script_directory() to get the location and e.g. load
data files).
Making a script a git repository, basically a repository which contains
a main.lua` file in the root directory, makes scripts easily updateable
(without the dangers of auto-updates). Another suggestion is to use git
submodules to share common files or libraries.
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 dis-
patch 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 be-
have fine during playback, but it won't terminate when quitting, be-
cause 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 hap-
pened 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 re-
quire '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 sepa-
rate 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 char-
acters.
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 (ex-
cept 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
three arguments: fn(success, result, error):
success
Always a Boolean and is true if the command was
successful, otherwise false.
result The result value (can be nil) in case of success, nil
otherwise (as returned by mp.command_native()).
error 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.
fn is always called asynchronously, even if the command failed
to start.
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 asyn-
chronous. 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 for-
matted 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 re-
turn 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 chap-
ter-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 prop-
erties.
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 na-
tively in Lua, this might not always work as expected. For exam-
ple, 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_prop-
erty_bool, set_property_number. For these reasons, this func-
tion 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 cre-
ate 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 be-
low 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 argu-
ment 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 com-
mand for details (this field is equivalent
to the 5th argument).
Internally, key bindings are dispatched via the script-mes-
sage-to or script-binding input commands and mp.regis-
ter_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 de-
fault key bindings only, but not those by the user's in-
put.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 func-
tion 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 == com-
parison, 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_prop-
erty_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 prop-
erty.
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 prop-
erty.
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_time-
out, 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() es-
sentially unpauses the timer.
kill() Disable the timer. Resets the elapsed time. re-
sume() 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 pre-
viously 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:re-
sume() 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 func-
tion fn is run).
Note that these are methods, and you have to call them using :
instead of . (Refer to
https://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. Any nonalphanu-
meric characters are replaced with _.
Example
The script /path/to/foo-script.lua becomes foo_script.
mp.get_script_directory()
Return the directory if this is a script packaged as directory
(see Script location for a description). Return nothing if this
is a single file script.
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.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, re-
turn 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 ex-
pires. 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 == compari-
son, so be careful when dealing with closures.
mp.enable_messages(level)
Set the minimum log level of which mpv message output to re-
ceive. These messages are normally printed to the terminal. By
calling this function, you can set the minimum log level of mes-
sages 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. Returns the result of the osd-overlay
command itself.
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 automat-
ically.
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 outputs 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.ver-
bose(...), 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 de-
fault options to the read_options function. The function will overwrite
the default values with values found in the config-file and the com-
mand-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 com-
mand-line options. These needs to unique to avoid collisions
with other scripts. Defaults to mp.get_script_name() if the pa-
rameter 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_up-
date(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, ig-
noring 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 operat-
ing 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
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 bool-
eans is_file and is_dir are provided as a convenience; they can
be and are derived from mode.
On error (e.g. 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_na-
tive_async directly, instead of calling this legacy wrapper. It
is for compatibility only.
See the subprocess documentation for semantics and further pa-
rameters.
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 en-
tries:
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) sub-
processes.
utils.get_env_list()
Returns the C environment as a list of strings. (Do not confuse
this with the Lua "environment", which is an unrelated concept.)
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_prop-
erty_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 re-
turn it. On error, returns nil, error. (Errors usually only hap-
pen on value types incompatible with JSON.)
The argument value uses similar conventions as mp.set_prop-
erty_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 re-
ceiving events.
Example:
function my_fn(event)
print("start of playback!")
end
mp.register_event("file-loaded", my_fn)
For the existing event types, see List of events.
Extras
This documents experimental features, or features that are "too spe-
cial" 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 func-
tions and wait for their result (normally, the Lua scripting in-
terface 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(hook) is the function that will be called during execution of
the hook. The parameter passed to it (hook) is a Lua object that
can control further aspects about the currently invoked hook. It
provides the following methods:
defer()
Returning from the hook function should not automati-
cally continue the hook. Instead, the API user wants
to call hook:cont() on its own at a later point in
time (before or after the function has returned).
cont() Continue the hook. Doesn't need to be called unless
defer() was called.
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 exten-
sion, 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-bind-
ings/hooks, etc.
Differences from Lua
No need to load modules. mp, mp.utils, mp.msg and mp.options are pre-
loaded, 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, er-
ror JavaScript returns only something - and makes error available via
mp.last_error(). Note that only some of the functions have this addi-
tional 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. How-
ever, 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
- https://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.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 un-
defined.
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, 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.get_script_directory()
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, as-
pect)
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) Note: like lua - this does NOT expand
meta-paths like ~~/foo (other JS file functions do expand meta paths).
mp.utils.split_path(path)
mp.utils.join_path(p1, p2)
mp.utils.subprocess(t)
mp.utils.subprocess_detached(t)
mp.utils.get_env_list()
mp.utils.getpid() (LE)
mp.add_hook(type, priority, fn(hook))
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 Er-
ror(...) 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 un-
defined if the variable is not defined.
mp.utils.get_user_path(path)
Trivial wrapper of the expand-path mpv command, returns a
string. read_file, write_file, append_file and require already
expand the path internally and accept mpv meta-paths like
~~desktop/foo.
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 pre-
fixed with file:// as simple protection against accidental argu-
ments switch, e.g. mp.utils.write_file("file://~/abc.txt",
"hello world").
mp.utils.append_file(fname, str)
Same as mp.utils.write_file if the file fname does not exist. If
it does exist then append instead of overwrite.
Note: read_file, write_file and append_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 itera-
tion. 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 func-
tion. 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 ob-
ject, which another script can access with require(module-id). This
runs the module and returns its exports object. Further calls to re-
quire 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 which starts with ./ or ../ is relative to the script or module
which require it. 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
according to mp.module_paths in normal array order, e.g. require("x")
tries to load x.js at one of the array paths, and id foo/x tries to
load x.js inside dir foo at one of the paths.
The mp.module_paths array is empty by default except for scripts which
are loaded as a directory where it contains one item - <directory>/mod-
ules/ . The array may be updated from a script (or using custom init -
see below) which will affect future calls to require for 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.
Custom initialization
After mpv initializes the JavaScript environment for a script but be-
fore it loads the script - it tries to run the file init.js at the root
of the mpv configuration directory. Code at this file can update the
environment further for all scripts. E.g. if it contains mp.mod-
ule_paths.push("/foo") then require at all scripts will search global
module id's also at /foo (do NOT do mp.module_paths = ["/foo"]; because
this will remove existing paths - like <script-dir>/modules for scripts
which load from a directory).
The custom-init file is ignored if mpv is invoked with --no-config.
Before mpv 0.34, the file name was .init.js (with dot) at the same dir.
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 af-
ter 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 (possi-
bly 0), or -1 if there are no pending timers. Must not be called recur-
sively.
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 call-
back.
Note: exit() is also registered for the shutdown event, and its imple-
mentation 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 explic-
itly 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.)
You can open the pipe in PuTTY as "serial" device. This is not very
comfortable, but gives a way to test interactively without having to
write code.
Protocol
The protocol uses UTF-8-only JSON as defined by RFC-8259. Unlike stan-
dard 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 termi-
nated 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 follow-
ing 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 sup-
ported events.
Because events can occur at any time, it may be difficult at times to
determine which response goes with which command. Commands may option-
ally include a request_id which, if provided in the command request,
will be copied verbatim into the response. mpv does not interpret 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 fu-
ture, 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.
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 com-
mand 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.
Data flow
Currently, the mpv-side IPC implementation does not service the socket
while a command is executed and the reply is written. It is for example
not possible that other events, that happened during the execution of
the command, are written to the socket before the reply is written.
This might change in the future. The only guarantee is that replies to
IPC messages are sent in sequence.
Also, since socket I/O is inherently asynchronous, it is possible that
you read unrelated event messages from the socket, before you read the
reply to the previous command you sent. In this case, these events were
queued by the mpv side before it read and started processing your com-
mand message.
If the mpv-side IPC implementation switches away from blocking writes
and blocking command execution, it may attempt to send events at any
time.
You can also use asynchronous commands, which can return in any order,
and which do not block IPC protocol interaction at all while the com-
mand is executed in the background.
Asynchronous commands
Command can be run asynchronously. This behaves exactly as with normal
command execution, except that execution is not blocking. Other com-
mands can be sent while it's executing, and command completion can be
arbitrarily reordered.
The async field controls this. If present, it must be a boolean. If
missing, false is assumed.
For example, this initiates an asynchronous command:
{ "command": ["screenshot"], "request_id": 123, "async": true }
And this is the completion:
{"request_id":123,"error":"success","data":null}
By design, you will not get a confirmation that the command was
started. If a command is long running, sending the message will lead to
any reply until much later when the command finishes.
Some commands execute synchronously, but these will behave like asyn-
chronous commands that finished execution immediately.
Cancellation of asynchronous commands is available in the libmpv API,
but has not yet been implemented in the IPC protocol.
Commands with named arguments
If the command field is a JSON object, named arguments are expected.
This is described in the C API mpv_command_node() documentation (the
MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP case). In some cases, this may make commands more
readable, while some obscure commands basically require using named ar-
guments.
Currently, only "proper" commands (as listed by List of Input Commands)
support named arguments.
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 num-
ber. This is basically the system time, with an arbitrary off-
set.
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 in-
ternally, 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 prop-
erty observation does not work. You must keep the IPC connec-
tion 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 debug-
ging). Attempting to retrieve information by parsing these mes-
sages will just lead to breakages with future mpv releases. In-
stead, 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_re-
quest_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 in-
stance 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 ei-
ther). 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" }
Alternative ways of starting clients
You can create an anonymous IPC connection without having to set --in-
put-ipc-server. This is achieved through a mpv pseudo scripting backend
that starts processes.
You can put .run file extension in the mpv scripts directory in its
config directory (see the FILES section for details), or load them
through other means (see Script location). These scripts are simply ex-
ecuted with the OS native mechanism (as if you ran them in the shell).
They must have a proper shebang and have the executable bit set.
When executed, a socket (the IPC connection) is passed to them through
file descriptor inheritance. The file descriptor is indicated as the
special command line argument --mpv-ipc-fd=N, where N is the numeric
file descriptor.
The rest is the same as with a normal --input-ipc-server IPC connec-
tion. mpv does not attempt to observe or other interact with the
started script process.
This does not work in Windows yet.
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 file
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/DOCS/interface-changes.rst
documents changes to the command and user interface, such as options
and properties. (It usually documents breaking changes only, addi-
tions and enhancements are often not listed.)
• C API changes are listed in
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/DOCS/client-api-changes.rst
• 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 back-
end. 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
• https://mpv.io/manual/master/#options
• https://mpv.io/manual/master/#list-of-input-commands
• https://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.
They are available on Linux/BSD platforms only and enabled by default
if the compiler supports linking with the -rdynamic flag.
C plugins location
C plugins are put into the mpv scripts directory in its config direc-
tory (see the FILES section for details). They must have a .so file ex-
tension. 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 inter-
preted 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 han-
dle is created by mpv_create_client() (or actually an internal equiva-
lent), 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 use are not symbols from a libmpv bi-
nary, 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.
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 (de-
fault: 0). This is an integer, and the resulting verbosity cor-
responds 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 de-
fault, which normally is 0. If mpv was built with --en-
able-ta-leak-report, the default is 1. If leak reporting was
disabled at compile time (NDEBUG in custom CFLAGS), this envi-
ronment 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 in-
clude *.
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 ap-
plication data directory (%APPDATA%) under Windows. The
special value "off" disables caching.
DVDCSS_METHOD
Sets the authentication and decryption method that libd-
vdcss will use to read scrambled discs. Can be one of ti-
tle, 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 re-
gion 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 success-
fully. If errors happen, the following exit codes can be returned:
1 Error initializing mpv. This is also returned if unknown op-
tions 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 suc-
cessful 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 config-
ure - 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
The standard configuration directory. This can be overridden by
environment variables, in ascending order:
1 If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set, then the derived configura-
tion directory will be $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mpv.
2 If $MPV_HOME is set, then the derived configuration di-
rectory will be $MPV_HOME.
If this directory, nor the original configuration directory (see
below) do not exist, mpv tries to create this directory automat-
ically.
~/.mpv/
The original (pre 0.5.0) configuration directory. It will con-
tinue to be read if present.
If both this directory and the standard configuration directory
are present, configuration will be read from both with the stan-
dard configuration directory content taking precedence. However,
you should fully migrate to the standard directory and a warning
will be shown in this situation.
~/.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 in-
clude 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 subti-
tles. 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.
The --load-scripts=no option disables loading these files.
See Script location for details.
~/.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 corre-
sponding 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-file-
name-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.
FILES ON WINDOWS
On win32 (if compiled with MinGW, but not Cygwin), the default config
file locations are different. They are generally located under %APP-
DATA%/mpv/. For example, the path to mpv.conf is %APP-
DATA%/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 direc-
tory with the highest priority, but is now discouraged to use and might
be removed in the future.
Note that mpv likes to mix / and \ path separators for simplicity.
kernel32.dll accepts this, but cmd.exe does not.
COPYRIGHT
GPLv2+
MPV(1)
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