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 variety of sources other than disk files. Depending on platform, a variety of different video and audio output methods are supported.

Usage examples to get you started quickly can be found at the end of this man page.

INTERACTIVE CONTROL

mpv has a fully configurable, command-driven control layer which allows you to control mpv using keyboard, mouse, or remote control (there is no LIRC support - configure remotes as input devices instead).

See the --input- options for ways to customize it.

The following listings are not necessarily complete. See etc/input.conf for a list of default bindings. User input.conf files and Lua scripts can define additional key bindings.

  Keyboard Control

LEFT and RIGHT
    Seek backward/forward 5 seconds. Shift+arrow does a 1 second exact seek (see --hr-seek).

UP and DOWN
    Seek forward/backward 1 minute. Shift+arrow does a 5 second exact seek (see --hr-seek).

Ctrl+LEFT and Ctrl+RIGHT
    Seek to the previous/next subtitle. Subject to some restrictions and might not always work; see sub-seek command.

[ and ]
    Decrease/increase current playback speed by 10%.

{ and }
    Halve/double current playback speed.

BACKSPACE
    Reset playback speed to normal.

< and >
    Go backward/forward in the playlist.

ENTER
    Go forward in the playlist.

p / SPACE
    Pause (pressing again unpauses).

.   Step forward. Pressing once will pause, every consecutive press will play one frame and then go into pause mode again.

,   Step backward. Pressing once will pause, every consecutive press will play one frame in reverse and then go into pause mode again.

q   Stop playing and quit.

Q   Like q, but store the current playback position. Playing the same file later will resume at the old playback position if possible.

/ and *
    Decrease/increase volume.

9 and 0
    Decrease/increase volume.

m   Mute sound.

_   Cycle through the available video tracks.

#   Cycle through the available audio tracks.

f   Toggle fullscreen (see also --fs).

ESC Exit fullscreen mode.

T   Toggle stay-on-top (see also --ontop).

w and e
    Decrease/increase pan-and-scan range.

o (also P)
    Show progression bar, elapsed time and total duration on the OSD.

O   Toggle OSD states between normal and playback time/duration.

v   Toggle subtitle visibility.

j and J
    Cycle through the available subtitles.

x and z
    Adjust subtitle delay by +/- 0.1 seconds.

l   Set/clear A-B loop points. See ab-loop command for details.

L   Toggle infinite looping.

Ctrl + and Ctrl -
    Adjust audio delay (A/V sync) by +/- 0.1 seconds.

u   Switch between applying no style overrides to SSA/ASS subtitles, and overriding them almost completely with the normal subtitle style. See --sub-ass-override for more info.

V   Toggle subtitle VSFilter aspect compatibility mode. See --sub-ass-vsfilter-aspect-compat for more info.

r and t
    Move subtitles up/down.

s   Take a screenshot.

S   Take a screenshot, without subtitles. (Whether this works depends on VO driver support.)

Ctrl s
    Take a screenshot, as the window shows it (with subtitles, OSD, and scaled video).

PGUP and PGDWN
    Seek to the beginning of the previous/next chapter. In most cases, "previous" will actually go to the beginning of the current chapter; see --chapter-seek-threshold.

Shift+PGUP and Shift+PGDWN
    Seek backward or forward by 10 minutes. (This used to be mapped to PGUP/PGDWN without Shift.)

d   Activate/deactivate deinterlacer.

A   Cycle aspect ratio override.

    (The following keys are valid only when using a video output that supports the corresponding adjustment, or the software equalizer (--vf=eq).)

1 and 2
    Adjust contrast.

3 and 4
    Adjust brightness.

5 and 6
    Adjust gamma.

7 and 8
    Adjust saturation.

Alt+0 (and command+0 on OSX)
    Resize video window to half its original size.

Alt+1 (and command+1 on OSX)
    Resize video window to its original size.

Alt+2 (and command+2 on OSX)
    Resize video window to double its original size.

command + f (OSX only)
    Toggle fullscreen (see also --fs).

    (The following keys are valid if you have a keyboard with multimedia keys.)

PAUSE
    Pause.

STOP
    Stop playing and quit.

PREVIOUS and NEXT
    Seek backward/forward 1 minute.

    If you miss some older key bindings, look at etc/restore-old-bindings.conf in the mpv git repository.

  Mouse Control

button 3 and button 4
    Seek backward/forward 1 minute.

button 5 and button 6
    Decrease/increase volume.

USAGE

Command line arguments starting with - are interpreted as options, everything else as filenames or URLs. All options except flag options (or choice options which include yes) require a parameter in the form --option=value.

One exception is the lone - (without anything else), which means media data will be read from stdin. Also, -- (without anything else) will make the player interpret all following arguments as filenames, even if they start with -. (To play a file named -, you need to use ./-.)

Every flag option has a no-flag counterpart, e.g. the opposite of the --fs option is --no-fs. --fs=yes is same as --fs, --fs=no is the same as --no-fs.

If an option is marked as (XXX only), it will only work in combination with the XXX option or if XXX is compiled in.

  Legacy option syntax

The --option=value syntax is not strictly enforced, and the alternative legacy syntax -option value and --option value will also work. This is mostly for compatibility with MPlayer. Using these should be avoided. Their semantics can change any time in the future.

For example, the alternative syntax will consider an argument following the option a filename. mpv -fs no will attempt to play a file named no, because --fs is a flag option that requires no parameter. If an option changes and its parameter becomes optional, then a command line using the alternative syntax will break.

Currently, the parser makes no difference whether an option starts with -- or a single -. This might also change in the future, and --option value might always interpret value as filename in order to reduce ambiguities.

  Escaping spaces and other special characters

Keep in mind that the shell will partially parse and mangle the arguments you pass to mpv. For example, you might need to quote or escape options and filenames: mpv "filename with spaces.mkv" --title="window title"

It gets more complicated if the suboption parser is involved. The suboption parser puts several options into a single string, and passes them to a component at once, instead of using multiple options on the level of the command line.

The suboption parser can quote strings with " and [...]. Additionally, there is a special form of quoting with %n% described below.

For example, assume the hypothetical foo filter can take multiple options: mpv test.mkv --vf=foo:option1=value1:option2:option3=value3,bar

This passes option1 and option3 to the foo filter, with option2 as flag (implicitly option2=yes), and adds a bar filter after that. If an option contains spaces or characters like , or :, you need to quote them: mpv '--vf=foo:option1="option value with spaces",bar'

Shells may actually strip some quotes from the string passed to the commandline, so the example quotes the string twice, ensuring that mpv receives the " quotes.

The [...] form of quotes wraps everything between [ and ]. It's useful with shells that don't interpret these characters in the middle of an argument (like bash). These quotes are balanced (since mpv 0.9.0): the [ and ] nest, and the quote terminates on the last ] that has no matching [ within the string. (For example, [a[b]c] results in a[b]c.)

The fixed-length quoting syntax is intended for use with external scripts and programs.

It is started with % and has the following format:

%n%string_of_length_n

Examples

    mpv '--vf=foo:option1=%11%quoted text' test.avi

    Or in a script:

    mpv --vf=foo:option1=%`expr length "$NAME"`%"$NAME" test.avi

    Suboptions passed to the client API are also subject to escaping. Using mpv_set_option_string() is exactly like passing --name=data to the command line (but without shell processing of the string). Some options support passing values in a more structured way instead of flat strings, and can avoid the suboption parsing mess. For example, --vf supports MPV_FORMAT_NODE, which lets you pass suboptions as a nested data structure of maps and arrays.

  Paths

Some care must be taken when passing arbitrary paths and filenames to mpv. For example, paths starting with - will be interpreted as options. Likewise, if a path contains the sequence ://, the string before that might be interpreted as protocol prefix, even though :// can be part of a legal UNIX path. To avoid problems with arbitrary paths, you should be sure that absolute paths passed to mpv start with /, and prefix relative paths with ./.

Using the file:// pseudo-protocol is discouraged, because it involves strange URL unescaping rules.

The name - itself is interpreted as stdin, and will cause mpv to disable console controls. (Which makes it suitable for playing data piped to stdin.)

The special argument -- can be used to stop mpv from interpreting the following arguments as options.

When using the client API, you should strictly avoid using mpv_command_string for invoking the loadfile command, and instead prefer e.g. mpv_command to avoid the need for filename escaping.

For paths passed to suboptions, the situation is further complicated by the need to escape special characters. To work this around, the path can be additionally wrapped in the fixed-length syntax, e.g. %n%string_of_length_n (see above).

Some mpv options interpret paths starting with ~. Currently, the prefix ~~/ expands to the mpv configuration directory (usually ~/.config/mpv/). ~/ expands to the user's home directory. (The trailing / is always required.) There are the following paths as well:
Name | Meaning
~~home/ | same as ~~/
~~global/ | the global config path, if available (not on win32)
~~osxbundle/ | the OSX bundle resource path (OSX only)
~~desktop/ | the path to the desktop (win32, OSX)

  Per-File Options

When playing multiple files, any option given on the command line usually affects all files. Example:

mpv --a file1.mkv --b file2.mkv --c
File | Active options
file1.mkv | --a --b --c
file2.mkv | --a --b --c

(This is different from MPlayer and mplayer2.)

Also, if any option is changed at runtime (via input commands), they are not reset when a new file is played.

Sometimes, it is useful to change options per-file. This can be achieved by adding the special per-file markers --{ and --}. (Note that you must escape these on some shells.) Example:

mpv --a file1.mkv --b --\{ --c file2.mkv --d file3.mkv --e --\} file4.mkv --f
File | Active options
file1.mkv | --a --b --f
file2.mkv | --a --b --f --c --d --e
file3.mkv | --a --b --f --c --d --e
file4.mkv | --a --b --f

Additionally, any file-local option changed at runtime is reset when the current file stops playing. If option --c is changed during playback of file2.mkv, it is reset when advancing to file3.mkv. This only affects file-local options. The option --a is never reset here.

  List Options

Some options which store lists of option values can have action suffixes. For example, you can set a ,-separated list of filters with --vf, but the option also allows you to append filters with --vf-append.

Options for filenames do not use , as separator, but : (Unix) or ; (Windows).
Suffix | Meaning
-add | Append 1 or more items (may become alias for -append)
-append | Append single item (avoids need for escaping)
-clr | Clear the option
-del | Delete an existing item by integer index
-pre | Prepend 1 or more items
-set | Set a list of items

Although some operations allow specifying multiple ,-separated items, using this is strongly discouraged and deprecated, except for -set.

Without suffix, the action taken is normally -set.

Some options (like --sub-file, --audio-file, --opengl-shader) are aliases for the proper option with -append action. For example, --sub-file is an alias for --sub-files-append.

  Playing DVDs

DVDs can be played with the dvd://[title] syntax. The optional title specifier is a number which selects between separate video streams on the DVD. If no title is given (dvd://) then the longest title is selected automatically by the library. This is usually what you want. mpv does not support DVD menus.

DVDs which have been copied on to a hard drive or other mounted filesystem (by e.g. the dvdbackup tool) are accommodated by specifying the path to the local copy: --dvd-device=PATH. Alternatively, running mpv PATH should auto-detect a DVD directory tree and play the longest title.

NOTE: DVD library choices

mpv uses a different default DVD library than MPlayer. MPlayer uses libdvdread by default, and mpv uses libdvdnav by default. Both libraries are developed in parallel, but libdvdnav is intended to support more sophisticated DVD features such as menus and multi-angle playback. mpv uses libdvdnav for files specified as either dvd://... or dvdnav://.... To use libdvdread, which will produce behavior more like MPlayer, specify dvdread://... instead. Some users have experienced problems when using libdvdnav, in which playback gets stuck in a DVD menu stream. These problems are reported to go away when auto-selecting the title (dvd:// rather than dvd://1) or when using libdvdread (e.g. dvdread://0). There are also outstanding bugs in libdvdnav with seeking backwards and forwards in a video stream. Specify dvdread://... to fix such problems.

NOTE: DVD subtitles

DVDs use image-based subtitles. Image subtitles are implemented as a bitmap video stream which can be superimposed over the main movie. mpv's subtitle styling and positioning options and keyboard shortcuts generally do not work with image-based subtitles. Exceptions include options like --stretch-dvd-subs and --stretch-image-subs-to-screen.

CONFIGURATION FILES

  Location and Syntax

You can put all of the options in configuration files which will be read every time mpv is run. The system-wide configuration file 'mpv.conf' is in your configuration directory (e.g. /etc/mpv or /usr/local/etc/mpv), the user-specific one is ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf. For details and platform specifics (in particular Windows paths) see the FILES section.

User-specific options override system-wide options and options given on the command line override either. The syntax of the configuration files is option=value. Everything after a # is considered a comment. Options that work without values can be enabled by setting them to yes and disabled by setting them to no. Even suboptions can be specified in this way.

Example configuration file

    # Use opengl video output by default.
    vo=opengl
    # Use quotes for text that can contain spaces:
    status-msg="Time: ${time-pos}"

  Escaping spaces and special characters

This is done like with command line options. The shell is not involved here, but option values still need to be quoted as a whole if it contains certain characters like spaces. A config entry can be quoted with ", as well as with the fixed-length syntax (%n%) mentioned before. This is like passing the exact contents of the quoted string as command line option. C-style escapes are currently _not_ interpreted on this level, although some options do this manually. (This is a mess and should probably be changed at some point.)

  Putting Command Line Options into the Configuration File

Almost all command line options can be put into the configuration file. Here is a small guide:
Option | Configuration file entry
--flag | flag
-opt val | opt=val
--opt=val | opt=val
-opt "has spaces" | opt="has spaces"

  File-specific Configuration Files

You can also write file-specific configuration files. If you wish to have a configuration file for a file called 'video.avi', create a file named 'video.avi.conf' with the file-specific options in it and put it in ~/.config/mpv/. You can also put the configuration file in the same directory as the file to be played. Both require you to set the --use-filedir-conf option (either on the command line or in your global config file). If a file-specific configuration file is found in the same directory, no file-specific configuration is loaded from ~/.config/mpv. In addition, the --use-filedir-conf option enables directory-specific configuration files. For this, mpv first tries to load a mpv.conf from the same directory as the file played and then tries to load any file-specific configuration.

  Profiles

To ease working with different configurations, profiles can be defined in the configuration files. A profile starts with its name in square brackets, e.g. [my-profile]. All following options will be part of the profile. A description (shown by --profile=help) can be defined with the profile-desc option. To end the profile, start another one or use the profile name default to continue with normal options.

Example mpv config file with profiles

    # normal top-level option
    fullscreen=yes
    # a profile that can be enabled with --profile=big-cache
    [big-cache]
    cache=123400
    demuxer-readahead-secs=20
    [slow]
    profile-desc="some profile name"
    # reference a builtin profile
    profile=opengl-hq
    [fast]
    vo=vdpau
    # using a profile again extends it
    [slow]
    framedrop=no
    # you can also include other profiles
    profile=big-cache

  Auto profiles

Some profiles are loaded automatically. The following example demonstrates this:

Auto profile loading

    [protocol.dvd]
    profile-desc="profile for dvd:// streams"
    alang=en
    [extension.flv]
    profile-desc="profile for .flv files"
    vf=flip

    The profile name follows the schema type.name, where type can be protocol for the input/output protocol in use (see --list-protocols), and extension for the extension of the path of the currently played file (not the file format).

    This feature is very limited, and there are no other auto profiles.

TAKING SCREENSHOTS

Screenshots of the currently played file can be taken using the 'screenshot' input mode command, which is by default bound to the s key. Files named mpv-shotNNNN.jpg will be saved in the working directory, using the first available number - no files will be overwritten. In pseudo-GUI mode, the screenshot will be saved somewhere else. See PSEUDO GUI MODE.

A screenshot will usually contain the unscaled video contents at the end of the video filter chain and subtitles. By default, S takes screenshots without subtitles, while s includes subtitles.

Unlike with MPlayer, the screenshot video filter is not required. This filter was never required in mpv, and has been removed.

TERMINAL STATUS LINE

During playback, mpv shows the playback status on the terminal. It looks like something like this: AV: 00:03:12 / 00:24:25 (13%) A-V: -0.000

The status line can be overridden with the --term-status-msg option.

The following is a list of things that can show up in the status line. Input properties, that can be used to get the same information manually, are also listed.

•   AV: or V: (video only) or A: (audio only)

•   The current time position in HH:MM:SS format (playback-time property)

•   The total file duration (absent if unknown) (length property)

•   Playback speed, e.g. `` x2.0``. Only visible if the speed is not normal. This is the user-requested speed, and not the actual speed (usually they should be the same, unless playback is too slow). (speed property.)

•   Playback percentage, e.g. (13%). How much of the file has been played. Normally calculated out of playback position and duration, but can fallback to other methods (like byte position) if these are not available. (percent-pos property.)

•   The audio/video sync as A-V: 0.000. This is the difference between audio and video time. Normally it should be 0 or close to 0. If it's growing, it might indicate a playback problem. (avsync property.)

•   Total A/V sync change, e.g. ct: -0.417. Normally invisible. Can show up if there is audio "missing", or not enough frames can be dropped. Usually this will indicate a problem. (total-avsync-change property.)

•   Encoding state in {...}, only shown in encoding mode.

•   Display sync state. If display sync is active (display-sync-active property), this shows DS: 2.500/13, where the first number is average number of vsyncs per video frame (e.g. 2.5 when playing 24Hz videos on 60Hz screens), which might jitter if the ratio doesn't round off, or there are mistimed frames (vsync-ratio), and the second number of estimated number of vsyncs which took too long (vo-delayed-frame-count property). The latter is a heuristic, as it's generally not possible to determine this with certainty.

•   Dropped frames, e.g. Dropped: 4. Shows up only if the count is not 0. Can grow if the video framerate is higher than that of the display, or if video rendering is too slow. May also be incremented on "hiccups" and when the video frame couldn't be displayed on time. (vo-drop-frame-count property.) If the decoder drops frames, the number of decoder-dropped frames is appended to the display as well, e.g.: Dropped: 4/34. This happens only if decoder frame dropping is enabled with the --framedrop options. (drop-frame-count property.)

•   Cache state, e.g. Cache: 2s+134KB. Visible if the stream cache is enabled. The first value shows the amount of video buffered in the demuxer in seconds, the second value shows additional data buffered in the stream cache in kilobytes. (demuxer-cache-duration and cache-used properties.)

PROTOCOLS

http://..., https://, ... Many network protocols are supported, but the protocol prefix must always be specified. mpv will never attempt to guess whether a filename is actually a network address. A protocol prefix is always required.

Note that not all prefixes are documented here. Undocumented prefixes are either aliases to documented protocols, or are just redirections to protocols implemented and documented in FFmpeg.

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 (enabled by default for mpv CLI) only looks at http URLs. Prefixing an URL with ytdl:// forces it to be always processed by the script. This can also be used to invoke special youtube-dl functionality like playing a video by ID or invoking search.

Keep in mind that you can't pass youtube-dl command line options by this, and you have to use --ytdl-raw-options instead.

- Play data from stdin.

smb://PATH Play a path from Samba share.

bd://[title][/device] --bluray-device=PATH Play a Blu-ray disc. Currently, this does not accept ISO files. Instead, you must mount the ISO file as filesystem, and point --bluray-device to the mounted directory directly.

title can be: longest or first (selects the default playlist); mpls/<number> (selects <number>.mpls playlist); <number> (select playlist with the same index). You can list the available playlists with --msg-level=bd=v.

dvd://[title|[starttitle]-endtitle][/device] --dvd-device=PATH Play a DVD. DVD menus are not supported. If no title is given, the longest title is auto-selected.

dvdnav:// is an old alias for dvd:// and does exactly the same thing.

dvdread://...: Play a DVD using the old libdvdread code. This is what MPlayer and older mpv versions use for dvd://. Use is discouraged. It's provided only for compatibility and for transition, and to work around outstanding dvdnav bugs (see "DVD library choices" above).

tv://[channel][/input_id] --tv-... Analogue TV via V4L. Also useful for webcams. (Linux only.)

pvr:// --pvr-... PVR. (Linux only.)

dvb://[cardnumber@]channel --dvbin-... Digital TV via DVB. (Linux only.)

mf://[filemask|@listfile] --mf-... Play a series of images as video.

cdda://[device] --cdrom-device=PATH --cdda-... Play CD.

lavf://... Access any FFmpeg/Libav libavformat protocol. Basically, this passed the string after the // directly to libavformat.

av://type:options This is intended for using libavdevice inputs. type is the libavdevice demuxer name, and options is the (pseudo-)filename passed to the demuxer.

For example, mpv av://lavfi:mandelbrot makes use of the libavfilter wrapper included in libavdevice, and will use the mandelbrot source filter to generate input data.

avdevice:// is an alias.

file://PATH A local path as URL. Might be useful in some special use-cases. Note that PATH itself should start with a third / to make the path an absolute path.

fd://123 Read data from the given file descriptor (for example 123). This is similar to piping data to stdin via -, but can use an arbitrary file descriptor.

fdclose://123 Like fd://, but the file descriptor is closed after use. When using this you need to ensure that the same fd URL will only be used once.

edl://[edl specification as in edl-mpv.rst] Stitch together parts of multiple files and play them.

null:// Simulate an empty file. If opened for writing, it will discard all data. The null demuxer will specifically pass autoprobing if this protocol is used (while it's not automatically invoked for empty files).

memory://data Use the data part as source data.

hex://data Like memory://, but the string is interpreted as hexdump.

PSEUDO GUI MODE

mpv has no official GUI, other than the OSC (ON SCREEN CONTROLLER), which is not a full GUI and is not meant to be. However, to compensate for the lack of expected GUI behavior, mpv will in some cases start with some settings changed to behave slightly more like a GUI mode.

Currently this happens only in the following cases:

•   if started using the mpv.desktop file on Linux (e.g. started from menus or file associations provided by desktop environments)

•   if started from explorer.exe on Windows (technically, if it was started on Windows, and all of the stdout/stderr/stdin handles are unset)

•   started out of the bundle on OSX

•   if you manually use --player-operation-mode=pseudo-gui on the command line

    This mode applies options from the builtin profile builtin-pseudo-gui, but only if these haven't been set in the user's config file or on the command line. Also, for compatibility with the old pseudo-gui behavior, the options in the pseudo-gui profile are applied unconditionally. In addition, the profile makes sure to enable the pseudo-GUI mode, so that --profile=pseudo-gui works like in older mpv releases. The profiles are currently defined as follows:

    [builtin-pseudo-gui]
    terminal=no
    force-window=yes
    idle=once
    screenshot-directory=~~desktop/
    [pseudo-gui]
    player-operation-mode=pseudo-gui

    WARNING: Currently, you can extend the pseudo-gui profile in the config file the normal way. This is deprecated. In future mpv releases, the behavior might change, and not apply your additional settings, and/or use a different profile name.

OPTIONS

  Track Selection

--alang=<languagecode[,languagecode,...]>
    Specify a priority list of audio languages to use. Different container formats employ different language codes. DVDs use ISO 639-1 two-letter language codes, Matroska, MPEG-TS and NUT use ISO 639-2 three-letter language codes, while OGM uses a free-form identifier. See also --aid.

Examples

•   mpv dvd://1 --alang=hu,en chooses the Hungarian language track on a DVD and falls back on English if Hungarian is not available.

•   mpv --alang=jpn example.mkv plays a Matroska file with Japanese audio.

--slang=<languagecode[,languagecode,...]>
    Specify a priority list of subtitle languages to use. Different container formats employ different language codes. DVDs use ISO 639-1 two letter language codes, Matroska uses ISO 639-2 three letter language codes while OGM uses a free-form identifier. See also --sid.

Examples

•   mpv dvd://1 --slang=hu,en chooses the Hungarian subtitle track on a DVD and falls back on English if Hungarian is not available.

•   mpv --slang=jpn example.mkv plays a Matroska file with Japanese subtitles.

--aid=<ID|auto|no>
    Select audio track. auto selects the default, no disables audio. See also --alang. mpv normally prints available audio tracks on the terminal when starting playback of a file.

    --audio is an alias for --aid.

    --aid=no or --audio=no or --no-audio disables audio playback. (The latter variant does not work with the client API.)

--sid=<ID|auto|no>
    Display the subtitle stream specified by <ID>. auto selects the default, no disables subtitles.

    --sub is an alias for --sid.

    --sid=no or --sub=no or --no-sub disables subtitle decoding. (The latter variant does not work with the client API.)

--vid=<ID|auto|no>
    Select video channel. auto selects the default, no disables video.

    --video is an alias for --vid.

    --vid=no or --video=no or --no-video disables video playback. (The latter variant does not work with the client API.)

    If video is disabled, mpv will try to download the audio only if media is streamed with youtube-dl, because it saves bandwidth. This is done by setting the ytdl_format to "bestaudio/best" in the ytdl_hook.lua script.

--ff-aid=<ID|auto|no>, --ff-sid=<ID|auto|no>, --ff-vid=<ID|auto|no>
    Select audio/subtitle/video streams by the FFmpeg stream index. The FFmpeg stream index is relatively arbitrary, but useful when interacting with other software using FFmpeg (consider ffprobe).

    Note that with external tracks (added with --sub-files and similar options), there will be streams with duplicate IDs. In this case, the first stream in order is selected.

--edition=<ID|auto>
    (Matroska files only) Specify the edition (set of chapters) to use, where 0 is the first. If set to auto (the default), mpv will choose the first edition declared as a default, or if there is no default, the first edition defined.

--track-auto-selection=<yes|no>
    Enable the default track auto-selection (default: yes). Enabling this will make the player select streams according to --aid, --alang, and others. If it is disabled, no tracks are selected. In addition, the player will not exit if no tracks are selected, and wait instead (this wait mode is similar to pausing, but the pause option is not set).

    This is useful with --lavfi-complex: you can start playback in this mode, and then set select tracks at runtime by setting the filter graph. Note that if --lavfi-complex is set before playback is started, the referenced tracks are always selected.

  Playback Control

--start=<relative time>
    Seek to given time position.

    The general format for absolute times is [[hh:]mm:]ss[.ms]. If the time is given with a prefix of + or -, the seek is relative from the start or end of the file. (Since mpv 0.14, the start of the file is always considered 0.)

    pp% seeks to percent position pp (0-100).

    #c seeks to chapter number c. (Chapters start from 1.)

Examples

--start=+56, --start=+00:56
    Seeks to the start time + 56 seconds.

--start=-56, --start=-00:56
    Seeks to the end time - 56 seconds.

--start=01:10:00
    Seeks to 1 hour 10 min.

--start=50%
    Seeks to the middle of the file.

--start=30 --end=40
    Seeks to 30 seconds, plays 10 seconds, and exits.

--start=-3:20 --length=10
    Seeks to 3 minutes and 20 seconds before the end of the file, plays 10 seconds, and exits.

--start='#2' --end='#4'
    Plays chapters 2 and 3, and exits.

--end=<time>
    Stop at given absolute time. Use --length if the time should be relative to --start. See --start for valid option values and examples.

--length=<relative time>
    Stop after a given time relative to the start time. See --start for valid option values and examples.

--rebase-start-time=<yes|no>
    Whether to move the file start time to 00:00:00 (default: yes). This is less awkward for files which start at a random timestamp, such as transport streams. On the other hand, if there are timestamp resets, the resulting behavior can be rather weird. For this reason, and in case you are actually interested in the real timestamps, this behavior can be disabled with no.

--speed=<0.01-100>
    Slow down or speed up playback by the factor given as parameter.

    If --audio-pitch-correction (on by default) is used, playing with a speed higher than normal automatically inserts the scaletempo audio filter.

--pause
    Start the player in paused state.

--shuffle
    Play files in random order.

--chapter=<start[-end]>
    Specify which chapter to start playing at. Optionally specify which chapter to end playing at.

    See also: --start.

--playlist-start=<auto|index>
    Set which file on the internal playlist to start playback with. The index is an integer, with 0 meaning the first file. The value auto means that the selection of the entry to play is left to the playback resume mechanism (default). If an entry with the given index doesn't exist, the behavior is unspecified and might change in future mpv versions. The same applies if the playlist contains further playlists (don't expect any reasonable behavior). Passing a playlist file to mpv should work with this option, though. E.g. mpv playlist.m3u --playlist-start=123 will work as expected, as long as playlist.m3u does not link to further playlists.

    The value no is a deprecated alias for auto.

--playlist=<filename>
    Play files according to a playlist file (Supports some common formats. If no format is detected, it will be treated as list of files, separated by newline characters. Note that XML playlist formats are not supported.)

    You can play playlists directly and without this option, however, this option disables any security mechanisms that might be in place. You may also need this option to load plaintext files as playlist.

    WARNING: The way mpv uses playlist files via --playlist is not safe against maliciously constructed files. Such files may trigger harmful actions. This has been the case for all mpv and MPlayer versions, but unfortunately this fact was not well documented earlier, and some people have even misguidedly recommended use of --playlist with untrusted sources. Do NOT use --playlist with random internet sources or files you do not trust!

    Playlist can contain entries using other protocols, such as local files, or (most severely), special protocols like avdevice://, which are inherently unsafe.

--chapter-merge-threshold=<number>
    Threshold for merging almost consecutive ordered chapter parts in milliseconds (default: 100). Some Matroska files with ordered chapters have inaccurate chapter end timestamps, causing a small gap between the end of one chapter and the start of the next one when they should match. If the end of one playback part is less than the given threshold away from the start of the next one then keep playing video normally over the chapter change instead of doing a seek.

--chapter-seek-threshold=<seconds>
    Distance in seconds from the beginning of a chapter within which a backward chapter seek will go to the previous chapter (default: 5.0). Past this threshold, a backward chapter seek will go to the beginning of the current chapter instead. A negative value means always go back to the previous chapter.

--hr-seek=<no|absolute|yes>
    Select when to use precise seeks that are not limited to keyframes. Such seeks require decoding video from the previous keyframe up to the target position and so can take some time depending on decoding performance. For some video formats, precise seeks are disabled. This option selects the default choice to use for seeks; it is possible to explicitly override that default in the definition of key bindings and in input commands.

no  Never use precise seeks.

absolute
    Use precise seeks if the seek is to an absolute position in the file, such as a chapter seek, but not for relative seeks like the default behavior of arrow keys (default).

yes Use precise seeks whenever possible.

always
    Same as yes (for compatibility).

--hr-seek-demuxer-offset=<seconds>
    This option exists to work around failures to do precise seeks (as in --hr-seek) caused by bugs or limitations in the demuxers for some file formats. Some demuxers fail to seek to a keyframe before the given target position, going to a later position instead. The value of this option is subtracted from the time stamp given to the demuxer. Thus, if you set this option to 1.5 and try to do a precise seek to 60 seconds, the demuxer is told to seek to time 58.5, which hopefully reduces the chance that it erroneously goes to some time later than 60 seconds. The downside of setting this option is that precise seeks become slower, as video between the earlier demuxer position and the real target may be unnecessarily decoded.

--hr-seek-framedrop=<yes|no>
    Allow the video decoder to drop frames during seek, if these frames are before the seek target. If this is enabled, precise seeking can be faster, but if you're using video filters which modify timestamps or add new frames, it can lead to precise seeking skipping the target frame. This e.g. can break frame backstepping when deinterlacing is enabled.

    Default: yes

--index=<mode>
    Controls how to seek in files. Note that if the index is missing from a file, it will be built on the fly by default, so you don't need to change this. But it might help with some broken files.

default
    use an index if the file has one, or build it if missing

recreate
    don't read or use the file's index

    NOTE: This option only works if the underlying media supports seeking (i.e. not with stdin, pipe, etc).

--load-unsafe-playlists
    Load URLs from playlists which are considered unsafe (default: no). This includes special protocols and anything that doesn't refer to normal files. Local files and HTTP links on the other hand are always considered safe.

    Note that --playlist always loads all entries, so you use that instead if you really have the need for this functionality.

--access-references=<yes|no>
    Follow any references in the file being opened (default: yes). Disabling this is helpful if the file is automatically scanned (e.g. thumbnail generation). If the thumbnail scanner for example encounters a playlist file, which contains network URLs, and the scanner should not open these, enabling this option will prevent it. This option also disables ordered chapters, mov reference files, opening of archives, and a number of other features.

    On older FFmpeg versions, this will not work in some cases. Some FFmpeg demuxers might not respect this option.

    This option does not prevent opening of paired subtitle files and such. Use --autoload-files=no to prevent this.

    This option does not always work if you open non-files (for example using dvd://directory would open a whole bunch of files in the given directory). Prefixing the filename with ./ if it doesn't start with a / will avoid this.

--loop-playlist=<N|inf|force|no>, --loop-playlist
    Loops playback N times. A value of 1 plays it one time (default), 2 two times, etc. inf means forever. no is the same as 1 and disables looping. If several files are specified on command line, the entire playlist is looped. --loop-playlist is the same as --loop-playlist=inf.

    The force mode is like inf, but does not skip playlist entries which have been marked as failing. This means the player might waste CPU time trying to loop a file that doesn't exist. But it might be useful for playing webradios under very bad network conditions.

--loop-file=<N|inf|no>, --loop=<N|inf|no>
    Loop a single file N times. inf means forever, no means normal playback. For compatibility, --loop-file and --loop-file=yes are also accepted, and are the same as --loop-file=inf.

    The difference to --loop-playlist is that this doesn't loop the playlist, just the file itself. If the playlist contains only a single file, the difference between the two option is that this option performs a seek on loop, instead of reloading the file.

    --loop is an alias for this option.

--ab-loop-a=<time>, --ab-loop-b=<time>
    Set loop points. If playback passes the b timestamp, it will seek to the a timestamp. Seeking past the b point doesn't loop (this is intentional).

    If both options are set to no, looping is disabled. Otherwise, the start/end of the file is used if one of the options is set to no.

    The loop-points can be adjusted at runtime with the corresponding properties. See also ab-loop command.

--ordered-chapters, --no-ordered-chapters
    Enabled by default. Disable support for Matroska ordered chapters. mpv will not load or search for video segments from other files, and will also ignore any chapter order specified for the main file.

--ordered-chapters-files=<playlist-file>
    Loads the given file as playlist, and tries to use the files contained in it as reference files when opening a Matroska file that uses ordered chapters. This overrides the normal mechanism for loading referenced files by scanning the same directory the main file is located in.

    Useful for loading ordered chapter files that are not located on the local filesystem, or if the referenced files are in different directories.

    Note: a playlist can be as simple as a text file containing filenames separated by newlines.

--chapters-file=<filename>
    Load chapters from this file, instead of using the chapter metadata found in the main file.

    This accepts a media file (like mkv) or even a pseudo-format like ffmetadata and uses its chapters to replace the current file's chapters. This doesn't work with OGM or XML chapters directly.

--sstep=<sec>
    Skip <sec> seconds after every frame.

    NOTE: Without --hr-seek, skipping will snap to keyframes.

--stop-playback-on-init-failure=<yes|no>
    Stop playback if either audio or video fails to initialize. Currently, the default behavior is no for the command line player, but yes for libmpv. With no, playback will continue in video-only or audio-only mode if one of them fails. This doesn't affect playback of audio-only or video-only files.

  Program Behavior

--help, --h
    Show short summary of options.

    You can also pass a string to this option, which will list all top-level options which contain the string in the name, e.g. --h=scale for all options that contain the word scale. The special string * lists all top-level options.

-v  Increment verbosity level, one level for each -v found on the command line.

--version, -V
    Print version string and exit.

--no-config
    Do not load default configuration files. This prevents loading of both the user-level and system-wide mpv.conf and input.conf files. Other configuration files are blocked as well, such as resume playback files.

    NOTE: Files explicitly requested by command line options, like --include or --use-filedir-conf, will still be loaded.

    See also: --config-dir.

--list-options
    Prints all available options.

--list-properties
    Print a list of the available properties.

--list-protocols
    Print a list of the supported protocols.

--log-file=<path>
    Opens the given path for writing, and print log messages to it. Existing files will be truncated. The log level always corresponds to -v, regardless of terminal verbosity levels.

--config-dir=<path>
    Force a different configuration directory. If this is set, the given directory is used to load configuration files, and all other configuration directories are ignored. This means the global mpv configuration directory as well as per-user directories are ignored, and overrides through environment variables (MPV_HOME) are also ignored.

    Note that the --no-config option takes precedence over this option.

--save-position-on-quit
    Always save the current playback position on quit. When this file is played again later, the player will seek to the old playback position on start. This does not happen if playback of a file is stopped in any other way than quitting. For example, going to the next file in the playlist will not save the position, and start playback at beginning the next time the file is played.

    This behavior is disabled by default, but is always available when quitting the player with Shift+Q.

    --watch-later-directory=<path> The directory in which to store the "watch later" temporary files.

    The default is a subdirectory named "watch_later" underneath the config directory (usually ~/.config/mpv/).

--dump-stats=<filename>
    Write certain statistics to the given file. The file is truncated on opening. The file will contain raw samples, each with a timestamp. To make this file into a readable, the script TOOLS/stats-conv.py can be used (which currently displays it as a graph).

    This option is useful for debugging only.

--idle=<no|yes|once>
    Makes mpv wait idly instead of quitting when there is no file to play. Mostly useful in input mode, where mpv can be controlled through input commands.

    once will only idle at start and let the player close once the first playlist has finished playing back.

--include=<configuration-file>
    Specify configuration file to be parsed after the default ones.

--load-scripts=<yes|no>
    If set to no, don't auto-load scripts from the scripts configuration subdirectory (usually ~/.config/mpv/scripts/). (Default: yes)

--script=<filename>
    Load a Lua script. You can load multiple scripts by separating them with commas (,).

--script-opts=key1=value1,key2=value2,...
    Set options for scripts. A script can query an option by key. If an option is used and what semantics the option value has depends entirely on the loaded scripts. Values not claimed by any scripts are ignored.

--merge-files
    Pretend that all files passed to mpv are concatenated into a single, big file. This uses timeline/EDL support internally.

--no-resume-playback
    Do not restore playback position from the watch_later configuration subdirectory (usually ~/.config/mpv/watch_later/). See quit-watch-later input command.

--profile=<profile1,profile2,...>
    Use the given profile(s), --profile=help displays a list of the defined profiles.

--reset-on-next-file=<all|option1,option2,...>
    Normally, mpv will try to keep all settings when playing the next file on the playlist, even if they were changed by the user during playback. (This behavior is the opposite of MPlayer's, which tries to reset all settings when starting next file.)

    Default: Do not reset anything.

    This can be changed with this option. It accepts a list of options, and mpv will reset the value of these options on playback start to the initial value. The initial value is either the default value, or as set by the config file or command line.

    In some cases, this might not work as expected. For example, --volume will only be reset if it is explicitly set in the config file or the command line.

    The special name all resets as many options as possible.

Examples

•   --reset-on-next-file=pause Reset pause mode when switching to the next file.

•   --reset-on-next-file=fullscreen,speed Reset fullscreen and playback speed settings if they were changed during playback.

•   --reset-on-next-file=all Try to reset all settings that were changed during playback.

--write-filename-in-watch-later-config
    Prepend the watch later config files with the name of the file they refer to. This is simply written as comment on the top of the file.

    WARNING: This option may expose privacy-sensitive information and is thus disabled by default.

--ignore-path-in-watch-later-config
    Ignore path (i.e. use filename only) when using watch later feature.

--show-profile=<profile>
    Show the description and content of a profile.

--use-filedir-conf
    Look for a file-specific configuration file in the same directory as the file that is being played. See File-specific Configuration Files.

    WARNING: May be dangerous if playing from untrusted media.

--ytdl, --no-ytdl
    Enable the youtube-dl hook-script. It will look at the input URL, and will play the video located on the website. This works with many streaming sites, not just the one that the script is named after. This requires a recent version of youtube-dl to be installed on the system. (Enabled by default, except when the client API / libmpv is used.)

    If the script can't do anything with an URL, it will do nothing.

    The exclude script option accepts a |-separated list of URL patterns which mpv should not use with youtube-dl. The patterns are matched after the http(s):// part of the URL.

    ^ matches the beginning of the URL, $ matches its end, and you should use % before any of the characters ^$()%|,.[]*+-? to match that character.

Examples

•   --script-opts=ytdl_hook-exclude='^youtube%.com' will exclude any URL that starts with http://youtube.com or https://youtube.com.

•   --script-opts=ytdl_hook-exclude='%.mkv$|%.mp4$' will exclude any URL that ends with .mkv or .mp4.

    See more lua patterns here: https://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html#5.4.1

--ytdl-format=<best|worst|mp4|webm|...>
    Video format/quality that is directly passed to youtube-dl. The possible values are specific to the website and the video, for a given url the available formats can be found with the command youtube-dl --list-formats URL. See youtube-dl's documentation for available aliases. (Default: youtube-dl's default, currently bestvideo+bestaudio/best)

--ytdl-raw-options=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
    Pass arbitrary options to youtube-dl. Parameter and argument should be passed as a key-value pair. Options without argument must include =.

    There is no sanity checking so it's possible to break things (i.e. passing invalid parameters to youtube-dl).

Example

•   --ytdl-raw-options=username=user,password=pass

•   --ytdl-raw-options=force-ipv6=

--player-operation-mode=<cplayer|pseudo-gui>
    For enabling "pseudo GUI mode", which means that the defaults for some options are changed. This option should not normally be used directly, but only by mpv internally, or mpv-provided scripts, config files, or .desktop files.

  Video

--vo=<driver>
    Specify the video output backend to be used. See VIDEO OUTPUT DRIVERS for details and descriptions of available drivers.

--vd=<...>
    Specify a priority list of video decoders to be used, according to their family and name. See --ad for further details. Both of these options use the same syntax and semantics; the only difference is that they operate on different codec lists.

    NOTE: See --vd=help for a full list of available decoders.

--vf=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
    Specify a list of video filters to apply to the video stream. See VIDEO FILTERS for details and descriptions of the available filters. The option variants --vf-add, --vf-pre, --vf-del and --vf-clr exist to modify a previously specified list, but you should not need these for typical use.

--untimed
    Do not sleep when outputting video frames. Useful for benchmarks when used with --no-audio.

--framedrop=<mode>
    Skip displaying some frames to maintain A/V sync on slow systems, or playing high framerate video on video outputs that have an upper framerate limit.

    The argument selects the drop methods, and can be one of the following:

<no>
    Disable any framedropping.

<vo>
    Drop late frames on video output (default). This still decodes and filters all frames, but doesn't render them on the VO. It tries to query the display FPS (X11 only, not correct on multi-monitor systems), or assumes infinite display FPS if that fails. Drops are indicated in the terminal status line as Dropped: field. If the decoder is too slow, in theory all frames would have to be dropped (because all frames are too late) - to avoid this, frame dropping stops if the effective framerate is below 10 FPS.

<decoder>
    Old, decoder-based framedrop mode. (This is the same as --framedrop=yes in mpv 0.5.x and before.) This tells the decoder to skip frames (unless they are needed to decode future frames). May help with slow systems, but can produce unwatchable choppy output, or even freeze the display completely. Not recommended. The --vd-lavc-framedrop option controls what frames to drop.

<decoder+vo>
    Enable both modes. Not recommended.

    NOTE: --vo=vdpau has its own code for the vo framedrop mode. Slight differences to other VOs are possible.

--display-fps=<fps>
    Set the display FPS used with the --video-sync=display-* modes. By default, a detected value is used. Keep in mind that setting an incorrect value (even if slightly incorrect) can ruin video playback. On multi-monitor systems, there is a chance that the detected value is from the wrong monitor.

    Set this option only if you have reason to believe the automatically determined value is wrong.

--hwdec=<api>
    Specify the hardware video decoding API that should be used if possible. Whether hardware decoding is actually done depends on the video codec. If hardware decoding is not possible, mpv will fall back on software decoding.

    <api> can be one of the following:

no  always use software decoding (default)

auto
    enable best hw decoder (see below)

yes exactly the same as auto

auto-copy
    enable best hw decoder with copy-back (see below)

vdpau
    requires --vo=vdpau or --vo=opengl (Linux only)

vdpau-copy
    copies video back into system RAM (Linux with some GPUs only)

vaapi
    requires --vo=opengl or --vo=vaapi (Linux only)

vaapi-copy
    copies video back into system RAM (Linux with Intel GPUs only)

videotoolbox
    requires --vo=opengl (OS X 10.8 and up), or --vo=opengl-cb (iOS 9.0 and up)

videotoolbox-copy
    copies video back into system RAM (OS X 10.8 or iOS 9.0 and up)

dxva2
    requires --vo=opengl with --opengl-backend=angle or --opengl-backend=dxinterop (Windows only)

dxva2-copy
    copies video back to system RAM (Windows only)

d3d11va
    requires --vo=opengl with --opengl-backend=angle (Windows 8+ only)

d3d11va-copy
    copies video back to system RAM (Windows 8+ only)

mediacodec
    copies video back to system RAM (Android only)

rpi requires --vo=opengl (Raspberry Pi only - default if available)

rpi-copy
    copies video back to system RAM (Raspberry Pi only)

cuda
    requires --vo=opengl (Any platform CUDA is available)

cuda-copy
    copies video back to system RAM (Any platform CUDA is available)

crystalhd
    copies video back to system RAM (Any platform supported by hardware)

    auto tries to automatically enable hardware decoding using the first available method. This still depends what VO you are using. For example, if you are not using --vo=vdpau or --vo=opengl, vdpau decoding will never be enabled. Also note that if the first found method doesn't actually work, it will always fall back to software decoding, instead of trying the next method (might matter on some Linux systems).

    auto-copy selects only modes that copy the video data back to system memory after decoding. Currently, this selects only one of the following modes: vaapi-copy, dxva2-copy, d3d11va-copy, mediacodec. If none of these work, hardware decoding is disabled. This mode is always guaranteed to incur no additional loss compared to software decoding, and will allow CPU processing with video filters.

    The vaapi mode, if used with --vo=opengl, requires Mesa 11 and most likely works with Intel GPUs only. It also requires the opengl EGL backend (automatically used if available). You can also try the old GLX backend by forcing it with --opengl-backend=x11, but the vaapi/GLX interop is said to be slower than vaapi-copy.

    The cuda and cuda-copy modes provides deinterlacing in the decoder which is useful as there is no other deinterlacing mechanism in the opengl output path. To use this deinterlacing you must pass the option: vd-lavc-o=deint=[weave|bob|adaptive]. Pass weave (or leave the option unset) to not attempt any deinterlacing. cuda should always be preferred unless the opengl vo is not being used or filters are required.

    Most video filters will not work with hardware decoding as they are primarily implemented on the CPU. Some exceptions are vdpaupp, vdpaurb and vavpp. See VIDEO FILTERS for more details.

    The ...-copy modes (e.g. dxva2-copy) allow you to use hardware decoding with any VO, backend or filter. Because these copy the decoded video back to system RAM, they're likely less efficient than the direct modes (like e.g. dxva2), and probably not more efficient than software decoding except for some codecs (e.g. HEVC).

    NOTE: When using this switch, hardware decoding is still only done for some codecs. See --hwdec-codecs to enable hardware decoding for more codecs.

Quality reduction with hardware decoding

    In theory, hardware decoding does not reduce video quality (at least for the codecs h264 and HEVC). However, due to restrictions in video output APIs, as well as bugs in the actual hardware decoders, there can be some loss, or even blatantly incorrect results.

    In some cases, RGB conversion is forced, which means the RGB conversion is performed by the hardware decoding API, instead of the OpenGL code used by --vo=opengl. 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 is usually safe. If deinterlacing enabled (or the vdpaupp video filter is active in general), it forces RGB conversion. The latter currently does not treat certain colorspaces like BT.2020 correctly (which is mostly a mpv-specific restriction). The vdpauprb video filter retrieves image data without RGB conversion and is safe (but precludes use of vdpau postprocessing).

    vaapi is safe if the vaapi-egl backend is indicated in the logs. If vaapi-glx is indicated, and the video colorspace is either BT.601 or BT.709, a forced, low-quality but correct RGB conversion is performed. Otherwise, the result will be totally incorrect.

    d3d11va is usually safe (if used with ANGLE builds that support EGL_KHR_stream path - otherwise, it converts to RGB), except that 10 bit input (HEVC main 10 profiles) will be rounded down to 8 bits, which results in reduced quality.

    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=opengl.

    cuda should be safe, but it has been reported to corrupt the timestamps causing glitched, flashing frames on some files. It can also sometimes cause massive framedrops for unknown reasons. Caution is advised.

    crystalhd is not safe. It always converts to 4:2:2 YUV, which may be lossy, depending on how chroma sub-sampling is done during conversion. It also discards the top left pixel of each frame for some reason.

    All other methods, in particular the copy-back methods (like dxva2-copy etc.) should hopefully be safe, although they can still cause random decoding issues. At the very least, they shouldn't affect the colors of the image.

    In particular, auto-copy will only select "safe" modes (although potentially slower than other methods), but there's still no guarantee the chosen hardware decoder will actually work correctly.

    In general, it's very strongly advised to avoid hardware decoding unless absolutely necessary, i.e. if your CPU is insufficient to decode the file in questions. If you run into any weird decoding issues, frame glitches or discoloration, and you have --hwdec turned on, the first thing you should try is disabling it.

--opengl-hwdec-interop=<name>
    This is useful for the opengl and opengl-cb VOs for creating the hardware decoding OpenGL interop context, but without actually enabling hardware decoding itself (like --hwdec does).

    If set to an empty string (default), the --hwdec option is used.

    For opengl, if set, do not create the interop context on demand, but when the VO is created.

    For opengl-cb, if set, load the interop context as soon as the OpenGL context is created. Since opengl-cb has no on-demand loading, this allows enabling hardware decoding at runtime at all, without having to temporarily set the hwdec option just during OpenGL context initialization with mpv_opengl_cb_init_gl().

    See --opengl-hwdec-interop=help for accepted values. This lists the interop backend, with the --hwdec alias after it in [...]. Consider all values except the proper interop backend name, auto, and no as silently deprecated and subject to change. Also, if you use this in application code (e.g. via libmpv), any value other than auto and no should be avoided, as backends can change.

    Currently the option sets a single value. It is possible that the option type changes to a list in the future.

    The old alias --hwdec-preload has different behavior if the option value is no.

--videotoolbox-format=<name>
    Set the internal pixel format used by --hwdec=videotoolbox on OSX. The choice of the format can influence performance considerably. On the other hand, there doesn't appear to be a good way to detect the best format for the given hardware. nv12, the default, works better on modern hardware, while uyvy422 appears to be better for old hardware. yuv420p also works. Since mpv 0.25.0, no is an accepted value, which lets the decoder pick the format on newer FFmpeg versions (will use nv12 on older versions).

--panscan=<0.0-1.0>
    Enables pan-and-scan functionality (cropping the sides of e.g. a 16:9 video to make it fit a 4:3 display without black bands). The range controls how much of the image is cropped. May not work with all video output drivers.

    This option has no effect if --video-unscaled option is used.

--video-aspect=<ratio|no>
    Override video aspect ratio, in case aspect information is incorrect or missing in the file being played. See also --no-video-aspect.

    These values have special meaning:

0   disable aspect ratio handling, pretend the video has square pixels

no  same as 0

-1  use the video stream or container aspect (default)

    But note that handling of these special values might change in the future.

Examples

•   --video-aspect=4:3 or --video-aspect=1.3333

•   --video-aspect=16:9 or --video-aspect=1.7777

•   --no-video-aspect or --video-aspect=no

--video-aspect-method=<bitstream|container>
    This sets the default video aspect determination method (if the aspect is _not_ overridden by the user with --video-aspect or others).

container
    Strictly prefer the container aspect ratio. This is apparently the default behavior with VLC, at least with Matroska. Note that if the container has no aspect ratio set, the behavior is the same as with bitstream.

bitstream
    Strictly prefer the bitstream aspect ratio, unless the bitstream aspect ratio is not set. This is apparently the default behavior with XBMC/kodi, at least with Matroska.

    The current default for mpv is container.

    Normally you should not set this. Try the various choices if you encounter video that has the wrong aspect ratio in mpv, but seems to be correct in other players.

--video-unscaled=<no|yes|downscale-big>
    Disable scaling of the video. If the window is larger than the video, black bars are added. Otherwise, the video is cropped, unless the option is set to downscale-big, in which case the video is fit to window. The video still can be influenced by the other --video-... options. This option disables the effect of --panscan.

    Note that the scaler algorithm may still be used, even if the video isn't scaled. For example, this can influence chroma conversion. The video will also still be scaled in one dimension if the source uses non-square pixels (e.g. anamorphic widescreen DVDs).

    This option is disabled if the --no-keepaspect option is used.

--video-pan-x=<value>, --video-pan-y=<value>
    Moves the displayed video rectangle by the given value in the X or Y direction. The unit is in fractions of the size of the scaled video (the full size, even if parts of the video are not visible due to panscan or other options).

    For example, displaying a 1280x720 video fullscreen on a 1680x1050 screen with --video-pan-x=-0.1 would move the video 168 pixels to the left (making 128 pixels of the source video invisible).

    This option is disabled if the --no-keepaspect option is used.

--video-rotate=<0-359|no>
    Rotate the video clockwise, in degrees. Currently supports 90° steps only. If no is given, the video is never rotated, even if the file has rotation metadata. (The rotation value is added to the rotation metadata, which means the value 0 would rotate the video according to the rotation metadata.)

--video-stereo-mode=<no|mode>
    Set the stereo 3D output mode (default: mono). This is done by inserting the stereo3d conversion filter.

    The pseudo-mode no disables automatic conversion completely.

    The mode mono is an alias to ml, which refers to the left frame in 2D. This is the default, which means mpv will try to show 3D movies in 2D, instead of the mangled 3D image not intended for consumption (such as showing the left and right frame side by side, etc.).

    Use --video-stereo-mode=help to list all available modes. Check with the stereo3d filter documentation to see what the names mean. Note that some names refer to modes not supported by stereo3d - these modes can appear in files, but can't be handled properly by mpv.

--video-zoom=<value>
    Adjust the video display scale factor by the given value. The parameter is given log 2. For example, --video-zoom=0 is unscaled, --video-zoom=1 is twice the size, --video-zoom=-2 is one fourth of the size, and so on.

    This option is disabled if the --no-keepaspect option is used.

--video-align-x=<-1-1>, --video-align-y=<-1-1>
    Moves the video rectangle within the black borders, which are usually added to pad the video to screen if video and screen aspect ratios are different. --video-align-y=-1 would move the video to the top of the screen (leaving a border only on the bottom), a value of 0 centers it (default), and a value of 1 would put the video at the bottom of the screen.

    If video and screen aspect match perfectly, these options do nothing.

    This option is disabled if the --no-keepaspect option is used.

--correct-pts, --no-correct-pts
    --no-correct-pts switches mpv to a mode where video timing is determined using a fixed framerate value (either using the --fps option, or using file information). Sometimes, files with very broken timestamps can be played somewhat well in this mode. Note that video filters, subtitle rendering and audio synchronization can be completely broken in this mode.

--fps=<float>
    Override video framerate. Useful if the original value is wrong or missing.

    NOTE: Works in --no-correct-pts mode only.

--deinterlace=<yes|no>
    Enable or disable interlacing (default: no). Interlaced video shows ugly comb-like artifacts, which are visible on fast movement. Enabling this typically inserts the yadif video filter in order to deinterlace the video, or lets the video output apply deinterlacing if supported.

    This behaves exactly like the deinterlace input property (usually mapped to d).

    Keep in mind that this will conflict with manually inserted deinterlacing filters, unless you take care. (Since mpv 0.27.0, even the hardware deinterlace filters will conflict. Also since that version, --deinterlace=auto was removed, which used to mean that the default interlacing option of possibly inserted video filters was used.)

--frames=<number>
    Play/convert only first <number> video frames, then quit.

    --frames=0 loads the file, but immediately quits before initializing playback. (Might be useful for scripts which just want to determine some file properties.)

    For audio-only playback, any value greater than 0 will quit playback immediately after initialization. The value 0 works as with video.

--video-output-levels=<outputlevels>
    RGB color levels used with YUV to RGB conversion. Normally, output devices such as PC monitors use full range color levels. However, some TVs and video monitors expect studio RGB levels. Providing full range output to a device expecting studio level input results in crushed blacks and whites, the reverse in dim gray blacks and dim whites.

    Not all VOs support this option. Some will silently ignore it.

    Available color ranges are:

auto
    automatic selection (equals to full range) (default)

limited
    limited range (16-235 per component), studio levels

full
    full range (0-255 per component), PC levels

    NOTE: It is advisable to use your graphics driver's color range option instead, if available.

--hwdec-codecs=<codec1,codec2,...|all>
    Allow hardware decoding for a given list of codecs only. The special value all always allows all codecs.

    You can get the list of allowed codecs with mpv --vd=help. Remove the prefix, e.g. instead of lavc:h264 use h264.

    By default, this is set to h264,vc1,wmv3,hevc,mpeg2video,vp9. Note that the hardware acceleration special codecs like h264_vdpau are not relevant anymore, and in fact have been removed from Libav in this form.

    This is usually only needed with broken GPUs, where a codec is reported as supported, but decoding causes more problems than it solves.

Example

mpv --hwdec=vdpau --vo=vdpau --hwdec-codecs=h264,mpeg2video
    Enable vdpau decoding for h264 and mpeg2 only.

--vd-lavc-check-hw-profile=<yes|no>
    Check hardware decoder profile (default: yes). If no is set, the highest profile of the hardware decoder is unconditionally selected, and decoding is forced even if the profile of the video is higher than that. The result is most likely broken decoding, but may also help if the detected or reported profiles are somehow incorrect.

--vd-lavc-software-fallback=<yes|no|N>
    Fallback to software decoding if the hardware-accelerated decoder fails (default: 3). If this is a number, then fallback will be triggered if N frames fail to decode in a row. 1 is equivalent to yes.

--vd-lavc-dr=<yes|no>
    Enable direct rendering (default: no). If this is set to yes, the video will be decoded directly to GPU video memory (or staging buffers). This can speed up video upload, and may help with large resolutions or slow hardware. This works only with the following VOs:

•   opengl: requires at least OpenGL 4.4.

    (In particular, this can't be made work with opengl-cb.)

    Using video filters of any kind that write to the image data (or output newly allocated frames) will silently disable the DR code path.

    There are some corner cases that will result in undefined behavior (crashes and other strange behavior) if this option is enabled. These are pending towards being fixed properly at a later point.

--vd-lavc-bitexact
    Only use bit-exact algorithms in all decoding steps (for codec testing).

--vd-lavc-fast (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.264 only)
    Enable optimizations which do not comply with the format specification and potentially cause problems, like simpler dequantization, simpler motion compensation, assuming use of the default quantization matrix, assuming YUV 4:2:0 and skipping a few checks to detect damaged bitstreams.

--vd-lavc-o=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
    Pass AVOptions to libavcodec decoder. Note, a patch to make the o= unneeded and pass all unknown options through the AVOption system is welcome. A full list of AVOptions can be found in the FFmpeg manual.

    Some options which used to be direct options can be set with this mechanism, like bug, gray, idct, ec, vismv, skip_top (was st), skip_bottom (was sb), debug.

Example

    --vd-lavc-o=debug=pict

--vd-lavc-show-all=<yes|no>
    Show even broken/corrupt frames (default: no). If this option is set to no, libavcodec won't output frames that were either decoded before an initial keyframe was decoded, or frames that are recognized as corrupted.

--vd-lavc-skiploopfilter=<skipvalue> (H.264 only)
    Skips the loop filter (AKA deblocking) during H.264 decoding. Since the filtered frame is supposed to be used as reference for decoding dependent frames, this has a worse effect on quality than not doing deblocking on e.g. MPEG-2 video. But at least for high bitrate HDTV, this provides a big speedup with little visible quality loss.

    <skipvalue> can be one of the following:

none
    Never skip.

default
    Skip useless processing steps (e.g. 0 size packets in AVI).

nonref
    Skip frames that are not referenced (i.e. not used for decoding other frames, the error cannot "build up").

bidir
    Skip B-Frames.

nonkey
    Skip all frames except keyframes.

all Skip all frames.

--vd-lavc-skipidct=<skipvalue> (MPEG-1/2 only)
    Skips the IDCT step. This degrades quality a lot in almost all cases (see skiploopfilter for available skip values).

--vd-lavc-skipframe=<skipvalue>
    Skips decoding of frames completely. Big speedup, but jerky motion and sometimes bad artifacts (see skiploopfilter for available skip values).

--vd-lavc-framedrop=<skipvalue>
    Set framedropping mode used with --framedrop (see skiploopfilter for available skip values).

--vd-lavc-threads=<N>
    Number of threads to use for decoding. Whether threading is actually supported depends on codec (default: 0). 0 means autodetect number of cores on the machine and use that, up to the maximum of 16. You can set more than 16 threads manually.

  Audio

--audio-pitch-correction=<yes|no>
    If this is enabled (default), playing with a speed different from normal automatically inserts the scaletempo audio filter. For details, see audio filter section.

--audio-device=<name>
    Use the given audio device. This consists of the audio output name, e.g. alsa, followed by /, followed by the audio output specific device name. The default value for this option is auto, which tries every audio output in preference order with the default device.

    You can list audio devices with --audio-device=help. This outputs the device name in quotes, followed by a description. The device name is what you have to pass to the --audio-device option. The list of audio devices can be retrieved by API by using the audio-device-list property.

    While the option normally takes one of the strings as indicated by the methods above, you can also force the device for most AOs by building it manually. For example name/foobar forces the AO name to use the device foobar.

Example for ALSA

    MPlayer and mplayer2 required you to replace any ',' with '.' and any ':' with '=' in the ALSA device name. For example, to use the device named dmix:default, you had to do: -ao alsa:device=dmix=default

    In mpv you could instead use: --audio-device=alsa/dmix:default

--audio-exclusive=<yes|no>
    Enable exclusive output mode. In this mode, the system is usually locked out, and only mpv will be able to output audio.

    This only works for some audio outputs, such as wasapi and coreaudio. Other audio outputs silently ignore this options. They either have no concept of exclusive mode, or the mpv side of the implementation is missing.

--audio-fallback-to-null=<yes|no>
    If no audio device can be opened, behave as if --ao=null was given. This is useful in combination with --audio-device: instead of causing an error if the selected device does not exist, the client API user (or a Lua script) could let playback continue normally, and check the current-ao and audio-device-list properties to make high-level decisions about how to continue.

--ao=<driver>
    Specify the audio output drivers to be used. See AUDIO OUTPUT DRIVERS for details and descriptions of available drivers.

--af=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
    Specify a list of audio filters to apply to the audio stream. See AUDIO FILTERS for details and descriptions of the available filters. The option variants --af-add, --af-pre, --af-del and --af-clr exist to modify a previously specified list, but you should not need these for typical use.

--audio-spdif=<codecs>
    List of codecs for which compressed audio passthrough should be used. This works for both classic S/PDIF and HDMI.

    Possible codecs are ac3, dts, dts-hd. Multiple codecs can be specified by separating them with ,. dts refers to low bitrate DTS core, while dts-hd refers to DTS MA (receiver and OS support varies). If both dts and dts-hd are specified, it behaves equivalent to specifying dts-hd only.

    In earlier mpv versions you could use --ad to force the spdif wrapper. This does not work anymore.

Warning

    There is not much reason to use this. HDMI supports uncompressed multichannel PCM, and mpv supports lossless DTS-HD decoding via FFmpeg's new DCA decoder (based on libdcadec).

--ad=<decoder1,decoder2,...[-]>
    Specify a priority list of audio decoders to be used, according to their decoder name. When determining which decoder to use, the first decoder that matches the audio format is selected. If that is unavailable, the next decoder is used. Finally, it tries all other decoders that are not explicitly selected or rejected by the option.

    - at the end of the list suppresses fallback on other available decoders not on the --ad list. + in front of an entry forces the decoder. Both of these should not normally be used, because they break normal decoder auto-selection! Both of these methods are deprecated.

Examples

--ad=mp3float
    Prefer the FFmpeg/Libav mp3float decoder over all other MP3 decoders.

--ad=help
    List all available decoders.

Warning

    Enabling compressed audio passthrough (AC3 and DTS via SPDIF/HDMI) with this option is not possible. Use --audio-spdif instead.

--volume=<value>
    Set the startup volume. 0 means silence, 100 means no volume reduction or amplification. Negative values can be passed for compatibility, but are treated as 0.

    Since mpv 0.18.1, this always controls the internal mixer (aka "softvol").

--replaygain=<no|track|album>
    Adjust volume gain according to the track-gain or album-gain replaygain value stored in the file metadata (default: no replaygain).

--replaygain-preamp=<db>
    Pre-amplification gain in dB to apply to the selected replaygain gain (default: 0).

--replaygain-clip=<yes|no>
    Prevent clipping caused by replaygain by automatically lowering the gain (default). Use --replaygain-clip=no to disable this.

--replaygain-fallback=<db>
    Gain in dB to apply if the file has no replay gain tags. This option is always applied if the replaygain logic is somehow inactive. If this is applied, no other replaygain options are applied.

--balance=<value>
    How much left/right channels contribute to the audio. (The implementation of this feature is rather odd. It doesn't change the volumes of each channel, but instead sets up a pan matrix to mix the left and right channels.)

    Deprecated.

--audio-delay=<sec>
    Audio delay in seconds (positive or negative float value). Positive values delay the audio, and negative values delay the video.

--mute=<yes|no|auto>
    Set startup audio mute status (default: no).

    auto is a deprecated possible value that is equivalent to no.

    See also: --volume.

--softvol=<no|yes|auto>
    Deprecated/unfunctional. Before mpv 0.18.1, this used to control whether to use the volume controls of the audio output driver or the internal mpv volume filter.

    The current behavior is that softvol is always enabled, i.e. as if this option is set to yes. The other behaviors are not available anymore, although auto almost matches current behavior in most cases.

    The no behavior is still partially available through the ao-volume and ao-mute properties. But there are no options to reset these.

--audio-demuxer=<[+]name>
    Use this audio demuxer type when using --audio-file. Use a '+' before the name to force it; this will skip some checks. Give the demuxer name as printed by --audio-demuxer=help.

--ad-lavc-ac3drc=<level>
    Select the Dynamic Range Compression level for AC-3 audio streams. <level> is a float value ranging from 0 to 1, where 0 means no compression (which is the default) and 1 means full compression (make loud passages more silent and vice versa). Values up to 6 are also accepted, but are purely experimental. This option only shows an effect if the AC-3 stream contains the required range compression information.

    The standard mandates that DRC is enabled by default, but mpv (and some other players) ignore this for the sake of better audio quality.

--ad-lavc-downmix=<yes|no>
    Whether to request audio channel downmixing from the decoder (default: yes). Some decoders, like AC-3, AAC and DTS, can remix audio on decoding. The requested number of output channels is set with the --audio-channels option. Useful for playing surround audio on a stereo system.

--ad-lavc-threads=<0-16>
    Number of threads to use for decoding. Whether threading is actually supported depends on codec. As of this writing, it's supported for some lossless codecs only. 0 means autodetect number of cores on the machine and use that, up to the maximum of 16 (default: 1).

--ad-lavc-o=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
    Pass AVOptions to libavcodec decoder. Note, a patch to make the o= unneeded and pass all unknown options through the AVOption system is welcome. A full list of AVOptions can be found in the FFmpeg manual.

--ad-spdif-dtshd=<yes|no>, --dtshd, --no-dtshd
    If DTS is passed through, use DTS-HD.

Warning

    This and enabling passthrough via --ad are deprecated in favor of using --audio-spdif=dts-hd.

--audio-channels=<auto-safe|auto|layouts>
    Control which audio channels are output (e.g. surround vs. stereo). There are the following possibilities:

•

--audio-channels=auto-safe
    Use the system's preferred channel layout. If there is none (such as when accessing a hardware device instead of the system mixer), force stereo. Some audio outputs might simply accept any layout and do downmixing on their own.

    This is the default.

•

--audio-channels=auto
    Send the audio device whatever it accepts, preferring the audio's original channel layout. Can cause issues with HDMI (see the warning below).

•

--audio-channels=layout1,layout2,...
    List of ,-separated channel layouts which should be allowed. Technically, this only adjusts the filter chain output to the best matching layout in the list, and passes the result to the audio API. It's possible that the audio API will select a different channel layout.

    Using this mode is recommended for direct hardware output, especially over HDMI (see HDMI warning below).

•

--audio-channels=stereo
    Force a plain stereo downmix. This is a special-case of the previous item. (See paragraphs below for implications.)

    If a list of layouts is given, each item can be either an explicit channel layout name (like 5.1), or a channel number. Channel numbers refer to default layouts, e.g. 2 channels refer to stereo, 6 refers to 5.1.

    See --audio-channels=help output for defined default layouts. This also lists speaker names, which can be used to express arbitrary channel layouts (e.g. fl-fr-lfe is 2.1).

    If the list of channel layouts has only 1 item, the decoder is asked to produce according output. This sometimes triggers decoder-downmix, which might be different from the normal mpv downmix. (Only some decoders support remixing audio, like AC-3, AAC or DTS. You can use --ad-lavc-downmix=no to make the decoder always output its native layout.) One consequence is that --audio-channels=stereo triggers decoder downmix, while auto or auto-safe never will, even if they end up selecting stereo. This happens because the decision whether to use decoder downmix happens long before the audio device is opened.

    If the channel layout of the media file (i.e. the decoder) and the AO's channel layout don't match, mpv will attempt to insert a conversion filter.

Warning

    Using auto can cause issues when using audio over HDMI. The OS will typically report all channel layouts that _can_ go over HDMI, even if the receiver does not support them. If a receiver gets an unsupported channel layout, random things can happen, such as dropping the additional channels, or adding noise.

    You are recommended to set an explicit whitelist of the layouts you want. For example, most A/V receivers connected via HDMI and that can do 7.1 would be served by: --audio-channels=7.1,5.1,stereo

--audio-normalize-downmix=<yes|no>
    Enable/disable normalization if surround audio is downmixed to stereo (default: no). If this is disabled, downmix can cause clipping. If it's enabled, the output might be too silent. It depends on the source audio.

    Technically, this changes the normalize suboption of the lavrresample audio filter, which performs the downmixing.

    If downmix happens outside of mpv for some reason, this has no effect.

--audio-display=<no|attachment>
    Setting this option to attachment (default) will display image attachments (e.g. album cover art) when playing audio files. It will display the first image found, and additional images are available as video tracks.

    Setting this option to no disables display of video entirely when playing audio files.

    This option has no influence on files with normal video tracks.

--audio-files=<files>
    Play audio from an external file while viewing a video.

    This is a list option. See List Options for details.

--audio-file=<file>
    CLI/config file only alias for --audio-files-append. Each use of this option will add a new audio track. The details are similar to how --sub-file works.

--audio-format=<format>
    Select the sample format used for output from the audio filter layer to the sound card. The values that <format> can adopt are listed below in the description of the format audio filter.

--audio-samplerate=<Hz>
    Select the output sample rate to be used (of course sound cards have limits on this). If the sample frequency selected is different from that of the current media, the lavrresample audio filter will be inserted into the audio filter layer to compensate for the difference.

--gapless-audio=<no|yes|weak>
    Try to play consecutive audio files with no silence or disruption at the point of file change. Default: weak.

no  Disable gapless audio.

yes The audio device is opened using parameters chosen for the first file played and is then kept open for gapless playback. This means that if the first file for example has a low sample rate, then the following files may get resampled to the same low sample rate, resulting in reduced sound quality. If you play files with different parameters, consider using options such as --audio-samplerate and --audio-format to explicitly select what the shared output format will be.

weak
    Normally, the audio device is kept open (using the format it was first initialized with). If the audio format the decoder output changes, the audio device is closed and reopened. This means that you will normally get gapless audio with files that were encoded using the same settings, but might not be gapless in other cases. (Unlike with yes, you don't have to worry about corner cases like the first file setting a very low quality output format, and ruining the playback of higher quality files that follow.)

    NOTE: This feature is implemented in a simple manner and relies on audio output device buffering to continue playback while moving from one file to another. If playback of the new file starts slowly, for example because it is played from a remote network location or because you have specified cache settings that require time for the initial cache fill, then the buffered audio may run out before playback of the new file can start.

--initial-audio-sync, --no-initial-audio-sync
    When starting a video file or after events such as seeking, mpv will by default modify the audio stream to make it start from the same timestamp as video, by either inserting silence at the start or cutting away the first samples. Disabling this option makes the player behave like older mpv versions did: video and audio are both started immediately even if their start timestamps differ, and then video timing is gradually adjusted if necessary to reach correct synchronization later.

--volume-max=<100.0-1000.0>, --softvol-max=<...>
    Set the maximum amplification level in percent (default: 130). A value of 130 will allow you to adjust the volume up to about double the normal level.

    --softvol-max is a deprecated alias and should not be used.

--audio-file-auto=<no|exact|fuzzy|all>, --no-audio-file-auto
    Load additional audio files matching the video filename. The parameter specifies how external audio files are matched.

no  Don't automatically load external audio files (default).

exact
    Load the media filename with audio file extension.

fuzzy
    Load all audio files containing media filename.

all Load all audio files in the current and --audio-file-paths directories.

--audio-file-paths=<path1:path2:...>
    Equivalent to --sub-file-paths option, but for auto-loaded audio files.

--audio-client-name=<name>
    The application name the player reports to the audio API. Can be useful if you want to force a different audio profile (e.g. with PulseAudio), or to set your own application name when using libmpv.

--audio-buffer=<seconds>
    Set the audio output minimum buffer. The audio device might actually create a larger buffer if it pleases. If the device creates a smaller buffer, additional audio is buffered in an additional software buffer.

    Making this larger will make soft-volume and other filters react slower, introduce additional issues on playback speed change, and block the player on audio format changes. A smaller buffer might lead to audio dropouts.

    This option should be used for testing only. If a non-default value helps significantly, the mpv developers should be contacted.

    Default: 0.2 (200 ms).

--audio-stream-silence=<yes|no>
    Cash-grab consumer audio hardware (such as A/V receivers) often ignore initial audio sent over HDMI. This can happen every time audio over HDMI is stopped and resumed. In order to compensate for this, you can enable this option to not to stop and restart audio on seeks, and fill the gaps with silence. Likewise, when pausing playback, audio is not stopped, and silence is played while paused. Note that if no audio track is selected, the audio device will still be closed immediately.

    Not all AOs support this.

--audio-wait-open=<secs>
    This makes sense for use with --audio-stream-silence=yes. If this option is given, the player will wait for the given amount of seconds after opening the audio device before sending actual audio data to it. Useful if your expensive hardware discards the first 1 or 2 seconds of audio data sent to it. If --audio-stream-silence=yes is not set, this option will likely just waste time.

  Subtitles

NOTE: Changing styling and position does not work with all subtitles. Image-based subtitles (DVD, Bluray/PGS, DVB) cannot changed for fundamental reasons. Subtitles in ASS format are normally not changed intentionally, but overriding them can be controlled with --sub-ass-override.

Previously some options working on text subtitles were called --sub-text-*, they are now named --sub-*, and those specifically for ASS have been renamed from --ass-* to --sub-ass-*. They are now all in this section.

--sub-demuxer=<[+]name>
    Force subtitle demuxer type for --sub-file. Give the demuxer name as printed by --sub-demuxer=help.

--sub-delay=<sec>
    Delays subtitles by <sec> seconds. Can be negative.

--sub-files=<file-list>
    Add a subtitle file to the list of external subtitles.

    If you use --sub-file only once, this subtitle file is displayed by default.

    If --sub-file is used multiple times, the subtitle to use can be switched at runtime by cycling subtitle tracks. It's possible to show two subtitles at once: use --sid to select the first subtitle index, and --secondary-sid to select the second index. (The index is printed on the terminal output after the --sid= in the list of streams.)

    This is a list option. See List Options for details.

--secondary-sid=<ID|auto|no>
    Select a secondary subtitle stream. This is similar to --sid. If a secondary subtitle is selected, it will be rendered as toptitle (i.e. on the top of the screen) alongside the normal subtitle, and provides a way to render two subtitles at once.

    There are some caveats associated with this feature. For example, bitmap subtitles will always be rendered in their usual position, so selecting a bitmap subtitle as secondary subtitle will result in overlapping subtitles. Secondary subtitles are never shown on the terminal if video is disabled.

    NOTE: Styling and interpretation of any formatting tags is disabled for the secondary subtitle. Internally, the same mechanism as --no-sub-ass is used to strip the styling.

    NOTE: If the main subtitle stream contains formatting tags which display the subtitle at the top of the screen, it will overlap with the secondary subtitle. To prevent this, you could use --no-sub-ass to disable styling in the main subtitle stream.

--sub-scale=<0-100>
    Factor for the text subtitle font size (default: 1).

    NOTE: This affects ASS subtitles as well, and may lead to incorrect subtitle rendering. Use with care, or use --sub-font-size instead.

--sub-scale-by-window=<yes|no>
    Whether to scale subtitles with the window size (default: yes). If this is disabled, changing the window size won't change the subtitle font size.

    Like --sub-scale, this can break ASS subtitles.

--sub-scale-with-window=<yes|no>
    Make the subtitle font size relative to the window, instead of the video. This is useful if you always want the same font size, even if the video doesn't cover the window fully, e.g. because screen aspect and window aspect mismatch (and the player adds black bars).

    Default: yes.

    This option is misnamed. The difference to the confusingly similar sounding option --sub-scale-by-window is that --sub-scale-with-window still scales with the approximate window size, while the other option disables this scaling.

    Affects plain text subtitles only (or ASS if --sub-ass-override is set high enough).

--sub-ass-scale-with-window=<yes|no>
    Like --sub-scale-with-window, but affects subtitles in ASS format only. Like --sub-scale, this can break ASS subtitles.

    Default: no.

--embeddedfonts, --no-embeddedfonts
    Use fonts embedded in Matroska container files and ASS scripts (default: enabled). These fonts can be used for SSA/ASS subtitle rendering.

--sub-pos=<0-100>
    Specify the position of subtitles on the screen. The value is the vertical position of the subtitle in % of the screen height.

    NOTE: This affects ASS subtitles as well, and may lead to incorrect subtitle rendering. Use with care, or use --sub-margin-y instead.

--sub-speed=<0.1-10.0>
    Multiply the subtitle event timestamps with the given value. Can be used to fix the playback speed for frame-based subtitle formats. Affects text subtitles only.

Example

    --sub-speed=25/23.976 plays frame based subtitles which have been loaded assuming a framerate of 23.976 at 25 FPS.

--sub-ass-force-style=<[Style.]Param=Value[,...]>
    Override some style or script info parameters.

Examples

•   --sub-ass-force-style=FontName=Arial,Default.Bold=1

•   --sub-ass-force-style=PlayResY=768

    NOTE: Using this option may lead to incorrect subtitle rendering.

--sub-ass-hinting=<none|light|normal|native>
    Set font hinting type. <type> can be:

none
    no hinting (default)

light
    FreeType autohinter, light mode

normal
    FreeType autohinter, normal mode

native
    font native hinter

Warning

    Enabling hinting can lead to mispositioned text (in situations it's supposed to match up video background), or reduce the smoothness of animations with some badly authored ASS scripts. It is recommended to not use this option, unless really needed.

--sub-ass-line-spacing=<value>
    Set line spacing value for SSA/ASS renderer.

--sub-ass-shaper=<simple|complex>
    Set the text layout engine used by libass.

simple
    uses Fribidi only, fast, doesn't render some languages correctly

complex
    uses HarfBuzz, slower, wider language support

    complex is the default. If libass hasn't been compiled against HarfBuzz, libass silently reverts to simple.

--sub-ass-styles=<filename>
    Load all SSA/ASS styles found in the specified file and use them for rendering text subtitles. The syntax of the file is exactly like the [V4 Styles] / [V4+ Styles] section of SSA/ASS.

    NOTE: Using this option may lead to incorrect subtitle rendering.

--sub-ass-override=<yes|no|force|scale|strip>
    Control whether user style overrides should be applied. Note that all of these overrides try to be somewhat smart about figuring out whether or not a subtitle is considered a "sign".

no  Render subtitles as specified by the subtitle scripts, without overrides.

yes Apply all the --sub-ass-* style override options. Changing the default for any of these options can lead to incorrect subtitle rendering (default).

force
    Like yes, but also force all --sub-* options. Can break rendering easily.

scale
    Like yes, but also apply --sub-scale.

strip
    Radically strip all ASS tags and styles from the subtitle. This is equivalent to the old --no-ass / --no-sub-ass options.

--sub-ass-force-margins
    Enables placing toptitles and subtitles in black borders when they are available, if the subtitles are in the ASS format.

    Default: no.

--sub-use-margins
    Enables placing toptitles and subtitles in black borders when they are available, if the subtitles are in a plain text format (or ASS if --sub-ass-override is set high enough).

    Default: yes.

    Renamed from --sub-ass-use-margins. To place ASS subtitles in the borders too (like the old option did), also add --sub-ass-force-margins.

--sub-ass-vsfilter-aspect-compat=<yes|no>
    Stretch SSA/ASS subtitles when playing anamorphic videos for compatibility with traditional VSFilter behavior. This switch has no effect when the video is stored with square pixels.

    The renderer historically most commonly used for the SSA/ASS subtitle formats, VSFilter, had questionable behavior that resulted in subtitles being stretched too if the video was stored in anamorphic format that required scaling for display. This behavior is usually undesirable and newer VSFilter versions may behave differently. However, many existing scripts compensate for the stretching by modifying things in the opposite direction. Thus, if such scripts are displayed "correctly", they will not appear as intended. This switch enables emulation of the old VSFilter behavior (undesirable but expected by many existing scripts).

    Enabled by default.

--sub-ass-vsfilter-blur-compat=<yes|no>
    Scale \blur tags by video resolution instead of script resolution (enabled by default). This is bug in VSFilter, which according to some, can't be fixed anymore in the name of compatibility.

    Note that this uses the actual video resolution for calculating the offset scale factor, not what the video filter chain or the video output use.

--sub-ass-vsfilter-color-compat=<basic|full|force-601|no>
    Mangle colors like (xy-)vsfilter do (default: basic). Historically, VSFilter was not color space aware. This was no problem as long as the color space used for SD video (BT.601) was used. But when everything switched to HD (BT.709), VSFilter was still converting RGB colors to BT.601, rendered them into the video frame, and handled the frame to the video output, which would use BT.709 for conversion to RGB. The result were mangled subtitle colors. Later on, bad hacks were added on top of the ASS format to control how colors are to be mangled.

basic
    Handle only BT.601->BT.709 mangling, if the subtitles seem to indicate that this is required (default).

full
    Handle the full YCbCr Matrix header with all video color spaces supported by libass and mpv. This might lead to bad breakages in corner cases and is not strictly needed for compatibility (hopefully), which is why this is not default.

force-601
    Force BT.601->BT.709 mangling, regardless of subtitle headers or video color space.

no  Disable color mangling completely. All colors are RGB.

    Choosing anything other than no will make the subtitle color depend on the video color space, and it's for example in theory not possible to reuse a subtitle script with another video file. The --sub-ass-override option doesn't affect how this option is interpreted.

--stretch-dvd-subs=<yes|no>
    Stretch DVD subtitles when playing anamorphic videos for better looking fonts on badly mastered DVDs. This switch has no effect when the video is stored with square pixels - which for DVD input cannot be the case though.

    Many studios tend to use bitmap fonts designed for square pixels when authoring DVDs, causing the fonts to look stretched on playback on DVD players. This option fixes them, however at the price of possibly misaligning some subtitles (e.g. sign translations).

    Disabled by default.

--stretch-image-subs-to-screen=<yes|no>
    Stretch DVD and other image subtitles to the screen, ignoring the video margins. This has a similar effect as --sub-use-margins for text subtitles, except that the text itself will be stretched, not only just repositioned. (At least in general it is unavoidable, as an image bitmap can in theory consist of a single bitmap covering the whole screen, and the player won't know where exactly the text parts are located.)

    This option does not display subtitles correctly. Use with care.

    Disabled by default.

--image-subs-video-resolution=<yes|no>
    Override the image subtitle resolution with the video resolution (default: no). Normally, the subtitle canvas is fit into the video canvas (e.g. letterboxed). Setting this option uses the video size as subtitle canvas size. Can be useful to test broken subtitles, which often happen when the video was trancoded, while attempting to keep the old subtitles.

--sub-ass, --no-sub-ass
    Render ASS subtitles natively (enabled by default).

    NOTE: This has been deprecated by --sub-ass-override=strip. You also may need --embeddedfonts=no to get the same behavior. Also, using --sub-ass-override=style should give better results without breaking subtitles too much.

    If --no-sub-ass is specified, all tags and style declarations are stripped and ignored on display. The subtitle renderer uses the font style as specified by the --sub- options instead.

    NOTE: Using --no-sub-ass may lead to incorrect or completely broken rendering of ASS/SSA subtitles. It can sometimes be useful to forcibly override the styling of ASS subtitles, but should be avoided in general.

--sub-auto=<no|exact|fuzzy|all>, --no-sub-auto
    Load additional subtitle files matching the video filename. The parameter specifies how external subtitle files are matched. exact is enabled by default.

no  Don't automatically load external subtitle files.

exact
    Load the media filename with subtitle file extension (default).

fuzzy
    Load all subs containing media filename.

all Load all subs in the current and --sub-file-paths directories.

--sub-codepage=<codepage>
    You can use this option to specify the subtitle codepage. uchardet will be used to guess the charset. (If mpv was not compiled with uchardet, then utf-8 is the effective default.)

    The default value for this option is auto, which enables autodetection.

    The following steps are taken to determine the final codepage, in order:

•   if the specific codepage has a +, use that codepage

•   if the data looks like UTF-8, assume it is UTF-8

•   if --sub-codepage is set to a specific codepage, use that

•   run uchardet, and if successful, use that

•   otherwise, use UTF-8-BROKEN

Examples

•   --sub-codepage=latin2 Use Latin 2 if input is not UTF-8.

•   --sub-codepage=+cp1250 Always force recoding to cp1250.

    The pseudo codepage UTF-8-BROKEN is used internally. If it's set, subtitles are interpreted as UTF-8 with "Latin 1" as fallback for bytes which are not valid UTF-8 sequences. iconv is never involved in this mode.

    This option changed in mpv 0.23.0. Support for the old syntax was fully removed in mpv 0.24.0.

--sub-fix-timing=<yes|no>
    Adjust subtitle timing is to remove minor gaps or overlaps between subtitles (if the difference is smaller than 210 ms, the gap or overlap is removed).

--sub-forced-only
    Display only forced subtitles for the DVD subtitle stream selected by e.g. --slang.

--sub-fps=<rate>
    Specify the framerate of the subtitle file (default: video fps). Affects text subtitles only.

    NOTE: <rate> > video fps speeds the subtitles up for frame-based subtitle files and slows them down for time-based ones.

    See also: --sub-speed.

--sub-gauss=<0.0-3.0>
    Apply Gaussian blur to image subtitles (default: 0). This can help to make pixelated DVD/Vobsubs look nicer. A value other than 0 also switches to software subtitle scaling. Might be slow.

    NOTE: Never applied to text subtitles.

--sub-gray
    Convert image subtitles to grayscale. Can help to make yellow DVD/Vobsubs look nicer.

    NOTE: Never applied to text subtitles.

--sub-paths=<path1:path2:...>
    Deprecated, use --sub-file-paths.

--sub-file-paths=<path-list>
    Specify extra directories to search for subtitles matching the video. Multiple directories can be separated by ":" (";" on Windows). Paths can be relative or absolute. Relative paths are interpreted relative to video file directory. If the file is a URL, only absolute paths and sub configuration subdirectory will be scanned.

Example

    Assuming that /path/to/video/video.avi is played and --sub-file-paths=sub:subtitles is specified, mpv searches for subtitle files in these directories:

•   /path/to/video/

•   /path/to/video/sub/

•   /path/to/video/subtitles/

•   the sub configuration subdirectory (usually ~/.config/mpv/sub/)

    This is a list option. See List Options for details.

--sub-visibility, --no-sub-visibility
    Can be used to disable display of subtitles, but still select and decode them.

--sub-clear-on-seek
    (Obscure, rarely useful.) Can be used to play broken mkv files with duplicate ReadOrder fields. ReadOrder is the first field in a Matroska-style ASS subtitle packets. It should be unique, and libass uses it for fast elimination of duplicates. This option disables caching of subtitles across seeks, so after a seek libass can't eliminate subtitle packets with the same ReadOrder as earlier packets.

--teletext-page=<1-999>
    This works for dvb_teletext subtitle streams, and if FFmpeg has been compiled with support for it.

--sub-font=<name>
    Specify font to use for subtitles that do not themselves specify a particular font. The default is sans-serif.

Examples

•   --sub-font='Bitstream Vera Sans'

•   --sub-font='Comic Sans MS'

    NOTE: The --sub-font option (and many other style related --sub- options) are ignored when ASS-subtitles are rendered, unless the --no-sub-ass option is specified.

    This used to support fontconfig patterns. Starting with libass 0.13.0, this stopped working.

--sub-font-size=<size>
    Specify the sub font size. The unit is the size in scaled pixels at a window height of 720. The actual pixel size is scaled with the window height: if the window height is larger or smaller than 720, the actual size of the text increases or decreases as well.

    Default: 55.

--sub-back-color=<color>
    See --sub-color. Color used for sub text background.

--sub-blur=<0..20.0>
    Gaussian blur factor. 0 means no blur applied (default).

--sub-bold=<yes|no>
    Format text on bold.

--sub-italic=<yes|no>
    Format text on italic.

--sub-border-color=<color>
    See --sub-color. Color used for the sub font border.

    NOTE: ignored when --sub-back-color is specified (or more exactly: when that option is not set to completely transparent).

--sub-border-size=<size>
    Size of the sub font border in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details). A value of 0 disables borders.

    Default: 3.

--sub-color=<color>
    Specify the color used for unstyled text subtitles.

    The color is specified in the form r/g/b, where each color component is specified as number in the range 0.0 to 1.0. It's also possible to specify the transparency by using r/g/b/a, where the alpha value 0 means fully transparent, and 1.0 means opaque. If the alpha component is not given, the color is 100% opaque.

    Passing a single number to the option sets the sub to gray, and the form gray/a lets you specify alpha additionally.

Examples

•   --sub-color=1.0/0.0/0.0 set sub to opaque red

•   --sub-color=1.0/0.0/0.0/0.75 set sub to opaque red with 75% alpha

•   --sub-color=0.5/0.75 set sub to 50% gray with 75% alpha

    Alternatively, the color can be specified as a RGB hex triplet in the form #RRGGBB, where each 2-digit group expresses a color value in the range 0 (00) to 255 (FF). For example, #FF0000 is red. This is similar to web colors. Alpha is given with #AARRGGBB.

Examples

•   --sub-color='#FF0000' set sub to opaque red

•   --sub-color='#C0808080' set sub to 50% gray with 75% alpha

--sub-margin-x=<size>
    Left and right screen margin for the subs in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details).

    This option specifies the distance of the sub to the left, as well as at which distance from the right border long sub text will be broken.

    Default: 25.

--sub-margin-y=<size>
    Top and bottom screen margin for the subs in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details).

    This option specifies the vertical margins of unstyled text subtitles. If you just want to raise the vertical subtitle position, use --sub-pos.

    Default: 22.

--sub-align-x=<left|center|right>
    Control to which corner of the screen text subtitles should be aligned to (default: center).

    Never applied to ASS subtitles, except in --no-sub-ass mode. Likewise, this does not apply to image subtitles.

--sub-align-y=<top|center|bottom>
    Vertical position (default: bottom). Details see --sub-align-x.

--sub-justify=<auto|left|center|right>
    Control how multi line subs are justified irrespective of where they are aligned (default: auto which justifies as defined by --sub-align-y). Left justification is recommended to make the subs easier to read as it is easier for the eyes.

--sub-ass-justify=<yes|no>
    Applies justification as defined by --sub-justify on ASS subtitles if --sub-ass-override is not set to no. Default: no.

--sub-shadow-color=<color>
    See --sub-color. Color used for sub text shadow.

--sub-shadow-offset=<size>
    Displacement of the sub text shadow in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details). A value of 0 disables shadows.

    Default: 0.

--sub-spacing=<size>
    Horizontal sub font spacing in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details). This value is added to the normal letter spacing. Negative values are allowed.

    Default: 0.

--sub-filter-sdh=<yes|no>
    Applies filter removing subtitle additions for the deaf or hard-of-hearing (SDH). This is intended for English, but may in part work for other languages too. The intention is that it can be always enabled so may not remove all parts added. It removes speaker labels (like MAN:), upper case text in parentheses and any text in brackets.

    Default: no.

--sub-filter-sdh-harder=<yes|no>
    Do harder SDH filtering (if enabled by --sub-filter-sdh). Will also remove speaker labels and text within parentheses using both lower and upper case letters.

    Default: no.

  Window

--title=<string>
    Set the window title. This is used for the video window, and if possible, also sets the audio stream title.

    Properties are expanded. (See Property Expansion.)

    WARNING: There is a danger of this causing significant CPU usage, depending on the properties used. Changing the window title is often a slow operation, and if the title changes every frame, playback can be ruined.

--screen=<default|0-32>
    In multi-monitor configurations (i.e. a single desktop that spans across multiple displays), this option tells mpv which screen to display the video on.

Note (X11)

    This option does not work properly with all window managers. In these cases, you can try to use --geometry to position the window explicitly. It's also possible that the window manager provides native features to control which screens application windows should use.

    See also --fs-screen.

--fullscreen, --fs
    Fullscreen playback.

--fs-screen=<all|current|0-32>
    In multi-monitor configurations (i.e. a single desktop that spans across multiple displays), this option tells mpv which screen to go fullscreen to. If default is provided mpv will fallback on using the behavior depending on what the user provided with the screen option.

Note (X11)

    This option does works properly only with window managers which understand the EWMH _NET_WM_FULLSCREEN_MONITORS hint.

Note (OS X)

    all does not work on OS X and will behave like current.

    See also --screen.

--keep-open=<yes|no|always>
    Do not terminate when playing or seeking beyond the end of the file, and there is not next file to be played (and --loop is not used). Instead, pause the player. When trying to seek beyond end of the file, the player will attempt to seek to the last frame.

    Normally, this will act like set pause yes on EOF, unless the --keep-open-pause=no option is set.

    The following arguments can be given:

no  If the current file ends, go to the next file or terminate. (Default.)

yes Don't terminate if the current file is the last playlist entry. Equivalent to --keep-open without arguments.

always
    Like yes, but also applies to files before the last playlist entry. This means playback will never automatically advance to the next file.

    NOTE: This option is not respected when using --frames. Explicitly skipping to the next file if the binding uses force will terminate playback as well.

    Also, if errors or unusual circumstances happen, the player can quit anyway.

    Since mpv 0.6.0, this doesn't pause if there is a next file in the playlist, or the playlist is looped. Approximately, this will pause when the player would normally exit, but in practice there are corner cases in which this is not the case (e.g. mpv --keep-open file.mkv /dev/null will play file.mkv normally, then fail to open /dev/null, then exit). (In mpv 0.8.0, always was introduced, which restores the old behavior.)

--keep-open-pause=<yes|no>
    If set to no, instead of pausing when --keep-open is active, just stop at end of file and continue playing forward when you seek backwards until end where it stops again. Default: yes.

--image-display-duration=<seconds|inf>
    If the current file is an image, play the image for the given amount of seconds (default: 1). inf means the file is kept open forever (until the user stops playback manually).

    Unlike --keep-open, the player is not paused, but simply continues playback until the time has elapsed. (It should not use any resources during "playback".)

    This affects image files, which are defined as having only 1 video frame and no audio. The player may recognize certain non-images as images, for example if --length is used to reduce the length to 1 frame, or if you seek to the last frame.

    This option does not affect the framerate used for mf:// or --merge-files. For that, use --mf-fps instead.

--force-window=<yes|no|immediate>
    Create a video output window even if there is no video. This can be useful when pretending that mpv is a GUI application. Currently, the window always has the size 640x480, and is subject to --geometry, --autofit, and similar options.

    WARNING: The window is created only after initialization (to make sure default window placement still works if the video size is different from the --force-window default window size). This can be a problem if initialization doesn't work perfectly, such as when opening URLs with bad network connection, or opening broken video files. The immediate mode can be used to create the window always on program start, but this may cause other issues.

--taskbar-progress, --no-taskbar-progress
    (Windows only) Enable/disable playback progress rendering in taskbar (Windows 7 and above).

    Enabled by default.

--snap-window
    (Windows only) Snap the player window to screen edges.

--ontop
    Makes the player window stay on top of other windows.

    On Windows, if combined with fullscreen mode, this causes mpv to be treated as exclusive fullscreen window that bypasses the Desktop Window Manager.

--ontop-level=<window|system|level>
    (OS X only) Sets the level of an ontop window (default: window).

window
    On top of all other windows.

system
    On top of system elements like Taskbar, Menubar and Dock.

level
    A level as integer.

--border, --no-border
    Play video with window border and decorations. Since this is on by default, use --no-border to disable the standard window decorations.

--fit-border, --no-fit-border
    (Windows only) Fit the whole window with border and decorations on the screen. Since this is on by default, use --no-fit-border to make mpv try to only fit client area with video on the screen. This behavior only applied to window/video with size exceeding size of the screen.

--on-all-workspaces
    (X11 only) Show the video window on all virtual desktops.

--geometry=<[W[xH]][+-x+-y]>, --geometry=<x:y>
    Adjust the initial window position or size. W and H set the window size in pixels. x and y set the window position, measured in pixels from the top-left corner of the screen to the top-left corner of the image being displayed. If a percentage sign (%) is given after the argument, it turns the value into a percentage of the screen size in that direction. Positions are specified similar to the standard X11 --geometry option format, in which e.g. +10-50 means "place 10 pixels from the left border and 50 pixels from the lower border" and "--20+-10" means "place 20 pixels beyond the right and 10 pixels beyond the top border".

    If an external window is specified using the --wid option, this option is ignored.

    The coordinates are relative to the screen given with --screen for the video output drivers that fully support --screen.

    NOTE: Generally only supported by GUI VOs. Ignored for encoding.

Note (X11)

    This option does not work properly with all window managers.

Examples

50:40
    Places the window at x=50, y=40.

50%:50%
    Places the window in the middle of the screen.

100%:100%
    Places the window at the bottom right corner of the screen.

50% Sets the window width to half the screen width. Window height is set so that the window has the video aspect ratio.

50%x50%
    Forces the window width and height to half the screen width and height. Will show black borders to compensate for the video aspect ratio (with most VOs and without --no-keepaspect).

50%+10+10
    Sets the window to half the screen widths, and positions it 10 pixels below/left of the top left corner of the screen.

    See also --autofit and --autofit-larger for fitting the window into a given size without changing aspect ratio.

--autofit=<[W[xH]]>
    Set the initial window size to a maximum size specified by WxH, without changing the window's aspect ratio. The size is measured in pixels, or if a number is followed by a percentage sign (%), in percents of the screen size.

    This option never changes the aspect ratio of the window. If the aspect ratio mismatches, the window's size is reduced until it fits into the specified size.

    Window position is not taken into account, nor is it modified by this option (the window manager still may place the window differently depending on size). Use --geometry to change the window position. Its effects are applied after this option.

    See --geometry for details how this is handled with multi-monitor setups.

    Use --autofit-larger instead if you just want to limit the maximum size of the window, rather than always forcing a window size.

    Use --geometry if you want to force both window width and height to a specific size.

    NOTE: Generally only supported by GUI VOs. Ignored for encoding.

Examples

70% Make the window width 70% of the screen size, keeping aspect ratio.

1000
    Set the window width to 1000 pixels, keeping aspect ratio.

70%x60%
    Make the window as large as possible, without being wider than 70% of the screen width, or higher than 60% of the screen height.

--autofit-larger=<[W[xH]]>
    This option behaves exactly like --autofit, except the window size is only changed if the window would be larger than the specified size.

Example

90%x80%
    If the video is larger than 90% of the screen width or 80% of the screen height, make the window smaller until either its width is 90% of the screen, or its height is 80% of the screen.

--autofit-smaller=<[W[xH]]>
    This option behaves exactly like --autofit, except that it sets the minimum size of the window (just as --autofit-larger sets the maximum).

Example

500x500
    Make the window at least 500 pixels wide and 500 pixels high (depending on the video aspect ratio, the width or height will be larger than 500 in order to keep the aspect ratio the same).

--window-scale=<factor>
    Resize the video window to a multiple (or fraction) of the video size. This option is applied before --autofit and other options are applied (so they override this option).

    For example, --window-scale=0.5 would show the window at half the video size.

--cursor-autohide=<number|no|always>
    Make mouse cursor automatically hide after given number of milliseconds. no will disable cursor autohide. always means the cursor will stay hidden.

--cursor-autohide-fs-only
    If this option is given, the cursor is always visible in windowed mode. In fullscreen mode, the cursor is shown or hidden according to --cursor-autohide.

--no-fixed-vo, --fixed-vo
    --no-fixed-vo enforces closing and reopening the video window for multiple files (one (un)initialization for each file).

--force-rgba-osd-rendering
    Change how some video outputs render the OSD and text subtitles. This does not change appearance of the subtitles and only has performance implications. For VOs which support native ASS rendering (like vdpau, opengl, direct3d), this can be slightly faster or slower, depending on GPU drivers and hardware. For other VOs, this just makes rendering slower.

--force-window-position
    Forcefully move mpv's video output window to default location whenever there is a change in video parameters, video stream or file. This used to be the default behavior. Currently only affects X11 VOs.

    --heartbeat-cmd=<command>

    WARNING: This option is redundant with Lua scripting. Further, it shouldn't be needed for disabling screensaver anyway, since mpv will call xdg-screensaver when using X11 backend. As a consequence this option has been deprecated with no direct replacement.

    Command that is executed every 30 seconds during playback via system() - i.e. using the shell. The time between the commands can be customized with the --heartbeat-interval option. The command is not run while playback is paused.

    NOTE: mpv uses this command without any checking. It is your responsibility to ensure it does not cause security problems (e.g. make sure to use full paths if "." is in your path like on Windows). It also only works when playing video (i.e. not with --no-video but works with --vo=null).

    This can be "misused" to disable screensavers that do not support the proper X API (see also --stop-screensaver). If you think this is too complicated, ask the author of the screensaver program to support the proper X APIs. Note that the --stop-screensaver does not influence the heartbeat code at all.

Example for xscreensaver

    mpv --heartbeat-cmd="xscreensaver-command -deactivate" file

Example for GNOME screensaver

    mpv --heartbeat-cmd="gnome-screensaver-command --deactivate" file

--heartbeat-interval=<sec>
    Time between --heartbeat-cmd invocations in seconds (default: 30).

    NOTE: This does not affect the normal screensaver operation in any way.

--no-keepaspect, --keepaspect
    --no-keepaspect will always stretch the video to window size, and will disable the window manager hints that force the window aspect ratio. (Ignored in fullscreen mode.)

--no-keepaspect-window, --keepaspect-window
    --keepaspect-window (the default) will lock the window size to the video aspect. --no-keepaspect-window disables this behavior, and will instead add black bars if window aspect and video aspect mismatch. Whether this actually works depends on the VO backend. (Ignored in fullscreen mode.)

--monitoraspect=<ratio>
    Set the aspect ratio of your monitor or TV screen. A value of 0 disables a previous setting (e.g. in the config file). Overrides the --monitorpixelaspect setting if enabled.

    See also --monitorpixelaspect and --video-aspect.

Examples

•   --monitoraspect=4:3 or --monitoraspect=1.3333

•   --monitoraspect=16:9 or --monitoraspect=1.7777

--hidpi-window-scale, --no-hidpi-window-scale
    (OS X and X11 only) Scale the window size according to the backing scale factor (default: yes). On regular HiDPI resolutions the window opens with double the size but appears as having the same size as on none-HiDPI resolutions. This is the default OS X behavior.

--native-fs, --no-native-fs
    (OS X only) Uses the native fullscreen mechanism of the OS (default: yes).

--monitorpixelaspect=<ratio>
    Set the aspect of a single pixel of your monitor or TV screen (default: 1). A value of 1 means square pixels (correct for (almost?) all LCDs). See also --monitoraspect and --video-aspect.

--stop-screensaver, --no-stop-screensaver
    Turns off the screensaver (or screen blanker and similar mechanisms) at startup and turns it on again on exit (default: yes). The screensaver is always re-enabled when the player is paused.

    This is not supported on all video outputs or platforms. Sometimes it is implemented, but does not work (known to happen with GNOME). You might be able to work around this using --heartbeat-cmd instead.

--wid=<ID>
    This tells mpv to attach to an existing window. If a VO is selected that supports this option, it will use that window for video output. mpv will scale the video to the size of this window, and will add black bars to compensate if the aspect ratio of the video is different.

    On X11, the ID is interpreted as a Window on X11. Unlike MPlayer/mplayer2, mpv always creates its own window, and sets the wid window as parent. The window will always be resized to cover the parent window fully. The value 0 is interpreted specially, and mpv will draw directly on the root window.

    On win32, the ID is interpreted as HWND. Pass it as value cast to intptr_t. mpv will create its own window, and set the wid window as parent, like with X11.

    On OSX/Cocoa, the ID is interpreted as NSView*. Pass it as value cast to intptr_t. mpv will create its own sub-view. Because OSX does not support window embedding of foreign processes, this works only with libmpv, and will crash when used from the command line.

--no-window-dragging
    Don't move the window when clicking on it and moving the mouse pointer.

--x11-name
    Set the window class name for X11-based video output methods.

--x11-netwm=<yes|no|auto>
    (X11 only) Control the use of NetWM protocol features.

    This may or may not help with broken window managers. This provides some functionality that was implemented by the now removed --fstype option. Actually, it is not known to the developers to which degree this option was needed, so feedback is welcome.

    Specifically, yes will force use of NetWM fullscreen support, even if not advertised by the WM. This can be useful for WMs that are broken on purpose, like XMonad. (XMonad supposedly doesn't advertise fullscreen support, because Flash uses it. Apparently, applications which want to use fullscreen anyway are supposed to either ignore the NetWM support hints, or provide a workaround. Shame on XMonad for deliberately breaking X protocols (as if X isn't bad enough already).

    By default, NetWM support is autodetected (auto).

    This option might be removed in the future.

--x11-bypass-compositor=<yes|no|fs-only|never>
    If set to yes, then ask the compositor to unredirect the mpv window (default: fs-only). This uses the _NET_WM_BYPASS_COMPOSITOR hint.

    fs-only asks the window manager to disable the compositor only in fullscreen mode.

    no sets _NET_WM_BYPASS_COMPOSITOR to 0, which is the default value as declared by the EWMH specification, i.e. no change is done.

    never asks the window manager to never disable the compositor.

  Disc Devices

--cdrom-device=<path>
    Specify the CD-ROM device (default: /dev/cdrom).

--dvd-device=<path>
    Specify the DVD device or .iso filename (default: /dev/dvd). You can also specify a directory that contains files previously copied directly from a DVD (with e.g. vobcopy).

Example

    mpv dvd:// --dvd-device=/path/to/dvd/

--bluray-device=<path>
    (Blu-ray only) Specify the Blu-ray disc location. Must be a directory with Blu-ray structure.

Example

    mpv bd:// --bluray-device=/path/to/bd/

--cdda-...
    These options can be used to tune the CD Audio reading feature of mpv.

--cdda-speed=<value>
    Set CD spin speed.

--cdda-paranoia=<0-2>
    Set paranoia level. Values other than 0 seem to break playback of anything but the first track.

0   disable checking (default)

1   overlap checking only

2   full data correction and verification

--cdda-sector-size=<value>
    Set atomic read size.

--cdda-overlap=<value>
    Force minimum overlap search during verification to <value> sectors.

--cdda-toc-bias
    Assume that the beginning offset of track 1 as reported in the TOC will be addressed as LBA 0. Some discs need this for getting track boundaries correctly.

--cdda-toc-offset=<value>
    Add <value> sectors to the values reported when addressing tracks. May be negative.

--cdda-skip=<yes|no>
    (Never) accept imperfect data reconstruction.

--cdda-cdtext=<yes|no>
    Print CD text. This is disabled by default, because it ruins performance with CD-ROM drives for unknown reasons.

--dvd-speed=<speed>
    Try to limit DVD speed (default: 0, no change). DVD base speed is 1385 kB/s, so an 8x drive can read at speeds up to 11080 kB/s. Slower speeds make the drive more quiet. For watching DVDs, 2700 kB/s should be quiet and fast enough. mpv resets the speed to the drive default value on close. Values of at least 100 mean speed in kB/s. Values less than 100 mean multiples of 1385 kB/s, i.e. --dvd-speed=8 selects 11080 kB/s.

    NOTE: You need write access to the DVD device to change the speed.

--dvd-angle=<ID>
    Some DVDs contain scenes that can be viewed from multiple angles. This option tells mpv which angle to use (default: 1).

  Equalizer

--brightness=<-100-100>
    Adjust the brightness of the video signal (default: 0). Not supported by all video output drivers.

--contrast=<-100-100>
    Adjust the contrast of the video signal (default: 0). Not supported by all video output drivers.

--saturation=<-100-100>
    Adjust the saturation of the video signal (default: 0). You can get grayscale output with this option. Not supported by all video output drivers.

--gamma=<-100-100>
    Adjust the gamma of the video signal (default: 0). Not supported by all video output drivers.

--hue=<-100-100>
    Adjust the hue of the video signal (default: 0). You can get a colored negative of the image with this option. Not supported by all video output drivers.

  Demuxer

--demuxer=<[+]name>
    Force demuxer type. Use a '+' before the name to force it; this will skip some checks. Give the demuxer name as printed by --demuxer=help.

--demuxer-lavf-analyzeduration=<value>
    Maximum length in seconds to analyze the stream properties.

--demuxer-lavf-probe-info=<yes|no|auto>
    Whether to probe stream information (default: auto). Technically, this controls whether libavformat's avformat_find_stream_info() function is called. Usually it's safer to call it, but it can also make startup slower.

    The auto choice (the default) tries to skip this for a few know-safe whitelisted formats, while calling it for everything else.

--demuxer-lavf-probescore=<1-100>
    Minimum required libavformat probe score. Lower values will require less data to be loaded (makes streams start faster), but makes file format detection less reliable. Can be used to force auto-detected libavformat demuxers, even if libavformat considers the detection not reliable enough. (Default: 26.)

--demuxer-lavf-allow-mimetype=<yes|no>
    Allow deriving the format from the HTTP MIME type (default: yes). Set this to no in case playing things from HTTP mysteriously fails, even though the same files work from local disk.

    This is default in order to reduce latency when opening HTTP streams.

--demuxer-lavf-format=<name>
    Force a specific libavformat demuxer.

--demuxer-lavf-hacks=<yes|no>
    By default, some formats will be handled differently from other formats by explicitly checking for them. Most of these compensate for weird or imperfect behavior from libavformat demuxers. Passing no disables these. For debugging and testing only.

--demuxer-lavf-genpts-mode=<no|lavf>
    Mode for deriving missing packet PTS values from packet DTS. lavf enables libavformat's genpts option. no disables it. This used to be enabled by default, but then it was deemed as not needed anymore. Enabling this might help with timestamp problems, or make them worse.

--demuxer-lavf-o=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
    Pass AVOptions to libavformat demuxer.

    Note, a patch to make the o= unneeded and pass all unknown options through the AVOption system is welcome. A full list of AVOptions can be found in the FFmpeg manual. Note that some options may conflict with mpv options.

Example

    --demuxer-lavf-o=fflags=+ignidx

--demuxer-lavf-probesize=<value>
    Maximum amount of data to probe during the detection phase. In the case of MPEG-TS this value identifies the maximum number of TS packets to scan.

--demuxer-lavf-buffersize=<value>
    Size of the stream read buffer allocated for libavformat in bytes (default: 32768). Lowering the size could lower latency. Note that libavformat might reallocate the buffer internally, or not fully use all of it.

--demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll=<yes|index|no>, --mkv-subtitle-preroll
    Try harder to show embedded soft subtitles when seeking somewhere. Normally, it can happen that the subtitle at the seek target is not shown due to how some container file formats are designed. The subtitles appear only if seeking before or exactly to the position a subtitle first appears. To make this worse, subtitles are often timed to appear a very small amount before the associated video frame, so that seeking to the video frame typically does not demux the subtitle at that position.

    Enabling this option makes the demuxer start reading data a bit before the seek target, so that subtitles appear correctly. Note that this makes seeking slower, and is not guaranteed to always work. It only works if the subtitle is close enough to the seek target.

    Works with the internal Matroska demuxer only. Always enabled for absolute and hr-seeks, and this option changes behavior with relative or imprecise seeks only.

    You can use the --demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll-secs option to specify how much data the demuxer should pre-read at most in order to find subtitle packets that may overlap. Setting this to 0 will effectively disable this preroll mechanism. Setting a very large value can make seeking very slow, and an extremely large value would completely reread the entire file from start to seek target on every seek - seeking can become slower towards the end of the file. The details are messy, and the value is actually rounded down to the cluster with the previous video keyframe.

    Some files, especially files muxed with newer mkvmerge versions, have information embedded that can be used to determine what subtitle packets overlap with a seek target. In these cases, mpv will reduce the amount of data read to a minimum. (Although it will still read all data between the cluster that contains the first wanted subtitle packet, and the seek target.) If the index choice (which is the default) is specified, then prerolling will be done only if this information is actually available. If this method is used, the maximum amount of data to skip can be additionally controlled by --demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll-secs-index (it still uses the value of the option without -index if that is higher).

    See also --hr-seek-demuxer-offset option. This option can achieve a similar effect, but only if hr-seek is active. It works with any demuxer, but makes seeking much slower, as it has to decode audio and video data instead of just skipping over it.

    --mkv-subtitle-preroll is a deprecated alias.

--demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll-secs=<value>
    See --demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll.

--demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll-secs-index=<value>
    See --demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll.

--demuxer-mkv-probe-video-duration=<yes|no|full>
    When opening the file, seek to the end of it, and check what timestamp the last video packet has, and report that as file duration. This is strictly for compatibility with Haali only. In this mode, it's possible that opening will be slower (especially when playing over http), or that behavior with broken files is much worse. So don't use this option.

    The yes mode merely uses the index and reads a small number of blocks from the end of the file. The full mode actually traverses the entire file and can make a reliable estimate even without an index present (such as partial files).

--demuxer-rawaudio-channels=<value>
    Number of channels (or channel layout) if --demuxer=rawaudio is used (default: stereo).

--demuxer-rawaudio-format=<value>
    Sample format for --demuxer=rawaudio (default: s16le). Use --demuxer-rawaudio-format=help to get a list of all formats.

--demuxer-rawaudio-rate=<value>
    Sample rate for --demuxer=rawaudio (default: 44 kHz).

--demuxer-rawvideo-fps=<value>
    Rate in frames per second for --demuxer=rawvideo (default: 25.0).

--demuxer-rawvideo-w=<value>, --demuxer-rawvideo-h=<value>
    Image dimension in pixels for --demuxer=rawvideo.

Example

    Play a raw YUV sample:

    mpv sample-720x576.yuv --demuxer=rawvideo \
    --demuxer-rawvideo-w=720 --demuxer-rawvideo-h=576

--demuxer-rawvideo-format=<value>
    Color space (fourcc) in hex or string for --demuxer=rawvideo (default: YV12).

--demuxer-rawvideo-mp-format=<value>
    Color space by internal video format for --demuxer=rawvideo. Use --demuxer-rawvideo-mp-format=help for a list of possible formats.

--demuxer-rawvideo-codec=<value>
    Set the video codec instead of selecting the rawvideo codec when using --demuxer=rawvideo. This uses the same values as codec names in --vd (but it does not accept decoder names).

--demuxer-rawvideo-size=<value>
    Frame size in bytes when using --demuxer=rawvideo.

--demuxer-max-bytes=<bytes>
    This controls how much the demuxer is allowed to buffer ahead. The demuxer will normally try to read ahead as much as necessary, or as much is requested with --demuxer-readahead-secs. The option can be used to restrict the maximum readahead. This limits excessive readahead in case of broken files or desynced playback. The demuxer will stop reading additional packets as soon as one of the limits is reached. (The limits still can be slightly overstepped due to technical reasons.)

    Set these limits higher if you get a packet queue overflow warning, and you think normal playback would be possible with a larger packet queue.

    See --list-options for defaults and value range.

--demuxer-max-packets=<packets>
    Quite similar --demuxer-max-bytes=<bytes>. Deprecated, because the other option does basically the same job. Since mpv 0.25.0, the code tries to account for per-packet overhead, which is why this option becomes rather pointless.

--demuxer-thread=<yes|no>
    Run the demuxer in a separate thread, and let it prefetch a certain amount of packets (default: yes). Having this enabled may lead to smoother playback, but on the other hand can add delays to seeking or track switching.

--demuxer-readahead-secs=<seconds>
    If --demuxer-thread is enabled, this controls how much the demuxer should buffer ahead in seconds (default: 1). As long as no packet has a timestamp difference higher than the readahead amount relative to the last packet returned to the decoder, the demuxer keeps reading.

    Note that the --cache-secs option will override this value if a cache is enabled, and the value is larger.

    (This value tends to be fuzzy, because many file formats don't store linear timestamps.)

--prefetch-playlist=<yes|no>
    Prefetch next playlist entry while playback of the current entry is ending (default: no). This merely opens the URL of the next playlist entry as soon as the current URL is fully read.

    This does not work with URLs resolved by the youtube-dl wrapper, and it won't.

    This does not affect HLS (.m3u8 URLs) - HLS prefetching depends on the demuxer cache settings and is on by default.

    This can give subtly wrong results if per-file options are used, or if options are changed in the time window between prefetching start and next file played.

    This can occasionally make wrong prefetching decisions. For example, it can't predict whether you go backwards in the playlist, and assumes you won't edit the playlist.

    Highly experimental.

--force-seekable=<yes|no>
    If the player thinks that the media is not seekable (e.g. playing from a pipe, or it's an http stream with a server that doesn't support range requests), seeking will be disabled. This option can forcibly enable it. For seeks within the cache, there's a good chance of success.

  Input

--native-keyrepeat
    Use system settings for keyrepeat delay and rate, instead of --input-ar-delay and --input-ar-rate. (Whether this applies depends on the VO backend and how it handles keyboard input. Does not apply to terminal input.)

--input-ar-delay
    Delay in milliseconds before we start to autorepeat a key (0 to disable).

--input-ar-rate
    Number of key presses to generate per second on autorepeat.

--input-conf=<filename>
    Specify input configuration file other than the default location in the mpv configuration directory (usually ~/.config/mpv/input.conf).

--no-input-default-bindings
    Disable mpv default (built-in) key bindings.

--input-cmdlist
    Prints all commands that can be bound to keys.

--input-doubleclick-time=<milliseconds>
    Time in milliseconds to recognize two consecutive button presses as a double-click (default: 300).

--input-keylist
    Prints all keys that can be bound to commands.

--input-key-fifo-size=<2-65000>
    Specify the size of the FIFO that buffers key events (default: 7). If it is too small, some events may be lost. The main disadvantage of setting it to a very large value is that if you hold down a key triggering some particularly slow command then the player may be unresponsive while it processes all the queued commands.

--input-test
    Input test mode. Instead of executing commands on key presses, mpv will show the keys and the bound commands on the OSD. Has to be used with a dummy video, and the normal ways to quit the player will not work (key bindings that normally quit will be shown on OSD only, just like any other binding). See INPUT.CONF.

--input-file=<filename>
    Read commands from the given file. Mostly useful with a FIFO. Since mpv 0.7.0 also understands JSON commands (see JSON IPC), but you can't get replies or events. Use --input-ipc-server for something bi-directional. On MS Windows, JSON commands are not available.

    This can also specify a direct file descriptor with fd://N (UNIX only). In this case, JSON replies will be written if the FD is writable.

    NOTE: When the given file is a FIFO mpv opens both ends, so you can do several echo "seek 10" > mp_pipe and the pipe will stay valid.

--input-terminal, --no-input-terminal
    --no-input-terminal prevents the player from reading key events from standard input. Useful when reading data from standard input. This is automatically enabled when - is found on the command line. There are situations where you have to set it manually, e.g. if you open /dev/stdin (or the equivalent on your system), use stdin in a playlist or intend to read from stdin later on via the loadfile or loadlist input commands.

--input-ipc-server=<filename>
    Enable the IPC support and create the listening socket at the given path.

    On Linux and Unix, the given path is a regular filesystem path. On Windows, named pipes are used, so the path refers to the pipe namespace (\\.\pipe\<name>). If the \\.\pipe\ prefix is missing, mpv will add it automatically before creating the pipe, so --input-ipc-server=/tmp/mpv-socket and --input-ipc-server=\\.\pipe\tmp\mpv-socket are equivalent for IPC on Windows.

    See JSON IPC for details.

--input-appleremote=<yes|no>
    (OS X only) Enable/disable Apple Remote support. Enabled by default (except for libmpv).

--input-cursor, --no-input-cursor
    Permit mpv to receive pointer events reported by the video output driver. Necessary to use the OSC, or to select the buttons in DVD menus. Support depends on the VO in use.

--input-media-keys=<yes|no>
    (OS X and Windows only) Enable/disable media keys support. Enabled by default (except for libmpv).

--input-right-alt-gr, --no-input-right-alt-gr
    (Cocoa and Windows only) Use the right Alt key as Alt Gr to produce special characters. If disabled, count the right Alt as an Alt modifier key. Enabled by default.

--input-vo-keyboard=<yes|no>
    Disable all keyboard input on for VOs which can't participate in proper keyboard input dispatching. May not affect all VOs. Generally useful for embedding only.

    On X11, a sub-window with input enabled grabs all keyboard input as long as it is 1. a child of a focused window, and 2. the mouse is inside of the sub-window. It can steal away all keyboard input from the application embedding the mpv window, and on the other hand, the mpv window will receive no input if the mouse is outside of the mpv window, even though mpv has focus. Modern toolkits work around this weird X11 behavior, but naively embedding foreign windows breaks it.

    The only way to handle this reasonably is using the XEmbed protocol, which was designed to solve these problems. GTK provides GtkSocket, which supports XEmbed. Qt doesn't seem to provide anything working in newer versions.

    If the embedder supports XEmbed, input should work with default settings and with this option disabled. Note that input-default-bindings is disabled by default in libmpv as well - it should be enabled if you want the mpv default key bindings.

    (This option was renamed from --input-x11-keyboard.)

  OSD

--osc, --no-osc
    Whether to load the on-screen-controller (default: yes).

--no-osd-bar, --osd-bar
    Disable display of the OSD bar. This will make some things (like seeking) use OSD text messages instead of the bar.

    You can configure this on a per-command basis in input.conf using osd- prefixes, see Input command prefixes. If you want to disable the OSD completely, use --osd-level=0.

--osd-duration=<time>
    Set the duration of the OSD messages in ms (default: 1000).

--osd-font=<name>
    Specify font to use for OSD. The default is sans-serif.

Examples

•   --osd-font='Bitstream Vera Sans'

•   --osd-font='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 no other message covers it, and the OSD level isn't changed (see --osd-level). Expands properties; see Property Expansion.

--osd-msg2=<string>
    Similar as --osd-msg1, but for OSD level 2. If this is an empty string (default), then the playback time is shown.

--osd-msg3=<string>
    Similar as --osd-msg1, but for OSD level 3. If this is an empty string (default), then the playback time, duration, and some more information is shown.

    This is also used for the show-progress command (by default mapped to P), or in some non-default cases when seeking.

    --osd-status-msg is a legacy equivalent (but with a minor difference).

--osd-status-msg=<string>
    Show a custom string during playback instead of the standard status text. This overrides the status text used for --osd-level=3, when using the show-progress command (by default mapped to P), or in some non-default cases when seeking. Expands properties. See Property Expansion.

    This option has been replaced with --osd-msg3. The only difference is that this option implicitly includes ${osd-sym-cc}. This option is ignored if --osd-msg3 is not empty.

--osd-playing-msg=<string>
    Show a message on OSD when playback starts. The string is expanded for properties, e.g. --osd-playing-msg='file: ${filename}' will show the message file: followed by a space and the currently played filename.

    See Property Expansion.

--osd-bar-align-x=<-1-1>
    Position of the OSD bar. -1 is far left, 0 is centered, 1 is far right. Fractional values (like 0.5) are allowed.

--osd-bar-align-y=<-1-1>
    Position of the OSD bar. -1 is top, 0 is centered, 1 is bottom. Fractional values (like 0.5) are allowed.

--osd-bar-w=<1-100>
    Width of the OSD bar, in percentage of the screen width (default: 75). A value of 50 means the bar is half the screen wide.

--osd-bar-h=<0.1-50>
    Height of the OSD bar, in percentage of the screen height (default: 3.125).

--osd-back-color=<color>
    See --osd-color. Color used for OSD text background.

--osd-blur=<0..20.0>
    Gaussian blur factor. 0 means no blur applied (default).

--osd-bold=<yes|no>
    Format text on bold.

--osd-italic=<yes|no>
    Format text on italic.

--osd-border-color=<color>
    See --osd-color. Color used for the OSD font border.

    NOTE: ignored when --osd-back-color is specified (or more exactly: when that option is not set to completely transparent).

--osd-border-size=<size>
    Size of the OSD font border in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details). A value of 0 disables borders.

    Default: 3.

--osd-color=<color>
    Specify the color used for OSD. See --sub-color for details.

--osd-fractions
    Show OSD times with fractions of seconds (in millisecond precision). Useful to see the exact timestamp of a video frame.

--osd-level=<0-3>
    Specifies which mode the OSD should start in.

0   OSD completely disabled (subtitles only)

1   enabled (shows up only on user interaction)

2   enabled + current time visible by default

3   enabled + --osd-status-msg (current time and status by default)

--osd-margin-x=<size>
    Left and right screen margin for the OSD in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details).

    This option specifies the distance of the OSD to the left, as well as at which distance from the right border long OSD text will be broken.

    Default: 25.

--osd-margin-y=<size>
    Top and bottom screen margin for the OSD in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details).

    This option specifies the vertical margins of the OSD.

    Default: 22.

--osd-align-x=<left|center|right>
    Control to which corner of the screen OSD should be aligned to (default: left).

--osd-align-y=<top|center|bottom>
    Vertical position (default: top). Details see --osd-align-x.

--osd-scale=<factor>
    OSD font size multiplier, multiplied with --osd-font-size value.

--osd-scale-by-window=<yes|no>
    Whether to scale the OSD with the window size (default: yes). If this is disabled, --osd-font-size and other OSD options that use scaled pixels are always in actual pixels. The effect is that changing the window size won't change the OSD font size.

--osd-shadow-color=<color>
    See --sub-color. Color used for OSD shadow.

--osd-shadow-offset=<size>
    Displacement of the OSD shadow in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details). A value of 0 disables shadows.

    Default: 0.

--osd-spacing=<size>
    Horizontal OSD/sub font spacing in scaled pixels (see --sub-font-size for details). This value is added to the normal letter spacing. Negative values are allowed.

    Default: 0.

--video-osd=<yes|no>
    Enabled OSD rendering on the video window (default: yes). This can be used in situations where terminal OSD is preferred. If you just want to disable all OSD rendering, use --osd-level=0.

    It does not affect subtitles or overlays created by scripts (in particular, the OSC needs to be disabled with --no-osc).

    This option is somewhat experimental and could be replaced by another mechanism in the future.

  Screenshot

--screenshot-format=<type>
    Set the image file type used for saving screenshots.

    Available choices:

png PNG

jpg JPEG (default)

jpeg
    JPEG (alias for jpg)

--screenshot-tag-colorspace=<yes|no>
    Tag screenshots with the appropriate colorspace.

    Note that not all formats are supported.

    Default: no.

--screenshot-high-bit-depth=<yes|no>
    If possible, write screenshots with a bit depth similar to the source video (default: yes). This is interesting in particular for PNG, as this sometimes triggers writing 16 bit PNGs with huge file sizes.

--screenshot-template=<template>
    Specify the filename template used to save screenshots. The template specifies the filename without file extension, and can contain format specifiers, which will be substituted when taking a screenshot. By default, the template is mpv-shot%n, which results in filenames like mpv-shot0012.png for example.

    The template can start with a relative or absolute path, in order to specify a directory location where screenshots should be saved.

    If the final screenshot filename points to an already existing file, the file will not be overwritten. The screenshot will either not be saved, or if the template contains %n, saved using different, newly generated filename.

    Allowed format specifiers:

%[#][0X]n
    A sequence number, padded with zeros to length X (default: 04). E.g. passing the format %04n will yield 0012 on the 12th screenshot. The number is incremented every time a screenshot is taken or if the file already exists. The length X must be in the range 0-9. With the optional # sign, mpv will use the lowest available number. For example, if you take three screenshots--0001, 0002, 0003--and delete the first two, the next two screenshots will not be 0004 and 0005, but 0001 and 0002 again.

%f  Filename of the currently played video.

%F  Same as %f, but strip the file extension, including the dot.

%x  Directory path of the currently played video. If the video is not on the filesystem (but e.g. http://), this expand to an empty string.

%X{fallback}
    Same as %x, but if the video file is not on the filesystem, return the fallback string inside the {...}.

%p  Current playback time, in the same format as used in the OSD. The result is a string of the form "HH:MM:SS". For example, if the video is at the time position 5 minutes and 34 seconds, %p will be replaced with "00:05:34".

%P  Similar to %p, but extended with the playback time in milliseconds. It is formatted as "HH:MM:SS.mmm", with "mmm" being the millisecond part of the playback time.

    NOTE: This is a simple way for getting unique per-frame timestamps. (Frame numbers would be more intuitive, but are not easily implementable because container formats usually use time stamps for identifying frames.)

%wX Specify the current playback time using the format string X. %p is like %wH:%wM:%wS, and %P is like %wH:%wM:%wS.%wT.

Valid format specifiers:

%wH hour (padded with 0 to two digits)

%wh hour (not padded)

%wM minutes (00-59)

%wm total minutes (includes hours, unlike %wM)

%wS seconds (00-59)

%ws total seconds (includes hours and minutes)

%wf like %ws, but as float

%wT milliseconds (000-999)

%tX Specify the current local date/time using the format X. This format specifier uses the UNIX strftime() function internally, and inserts the result of passing "%X" to strftime. For example, %tm will insert the number of the current month as number. You have to use multiple %tX specifiers to build a full date/time string.

%{prop[:fallback text]}
    Insert the value of the input property 'prop'. E.g. %{filename} is the same as %f. If the property does not exist or is not available, an error text is inserted, unless a fallback is specified.

%%  Replaced with the % character itself.

--screenshot-directory=<path>
    Store screenshots in this directory. This path is joined with the filename generated by --screenshot-template. If the template filename is already absolute, the directory is ignored.

    If the directory does not exist, it is created on the first screenshot. If it is not a directory, an error is generated when trying to write a screenshot.

    This option is not set by default, and thus will write screenshots to the directory from which mpv was started. In pseudo-gui mode (see PSEUDO GUI MODE), this is set to the desktop.

--screenshot-jpeg-quality=<0-100>
    Set the JPEG quality level. Higher means better quality. The default is 90.

--screenshot-jpeg-source-chroma=<yes|no>
    Write JPEG files with the same chroma subsampling as the video (default: yes). If disabled, the libjpeg default is used.

--screenshot-png-compression=<0-9>
    Set the PNG compression level. Higher means better compression. This will affect the file size of the written screenshot file and the time it takes to write a screenshot. Too high compression might occupy enough CPU time to interrupt playback. The default is 7.

--screenshot-png-filter=<0-5>
    Set the filter applied prior to PNG compression. 0 is none, 1 is "sub", 2 is "up", 3 is "average", 4 is "Paeth", and 5 is "mixed". This affects the level of compression that can be achieved. For most images, "mixed" achieves the best compression ratio, hence it is the default.

  Software Scaler

--sws-scaler=<name>
    Specify the software scaler algorithm to be used with --vf=scale. This also affects video output drivers which lack hardware acceleration, e.g. x11. See also --vf=scale.

    To get a list of available scalers, run --sws-scaler=help.

    Default: bicubic.

--sws-lgb=<0-100>
    Software scaler Gaussian blur filter (luma). See --sws-scaler.

--sws-cgb=<0-100>
    Software scaler Gaussian blur filter (chroma). See --sws-scaler.

--sws-ls=<-100-100>
    Software scaler sharpen filter (luma). See --sws-scaler.

--sws-cs=<-100-100>
    Software scaler sharpen filter (chroma). See --sws-scaler.

--sws-chs=<h>
    Software scaler chroma horizontal shifting. See --sws-scaler.

--sws-cvs=<v>
    Software scaler chroma vertical shifting. See --sws-scaler.

  Terminal

--quiet
    Make console output less verbose; in particular, prevents the status line (i.e. AV: 3.4 (00:00:03.37) / 5320.6 ...) from being displayed. Particularly useful on slow terminals or broken ones which do not properly handle carriage return (i.e. \r).

    See also: --really-quiet and --msg-level.

--really-quiet
    Display even less output and status messages than with --quiet.

--no-terminal, --terminal
    Disable any use of the terminal and stdin/stdout/stderr. This completely silences any message output.

    Unlike --really-quiet, this disables input and terminal initialization as well.

--no-msg-color
    Disable colorful console output on terminals.

--msg-level=<module1=level1,module2=level2,...>
    Control verbosity directly for each module. The all module changes the verbosity of all the modules not explicitly specified on the command line.

    Run mpv with --msg-level=all=trace to see all messages mpv outputs. You can use the module names printed in the output (prefixed to each line in [...]) to limit the output to interesting modules.

    NOTE: Some messages are printed before the command line is parsed and are therefore not affected by --msg-level. To control these messages, you have to use the MPV_VERBOSE environment variable; see ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES for details.

    Available levels:

no  complete silence

fatal
    fatal messages only

error
    error messages

warn
    warning messages

info
    informational messages

status
    status messages (default)

v   verbose messages

debug
    debug messages

trace
    very noisy debug messages

Example

    mpv --msg-level=ao/sndio=no

    Completely silences the output of ao_sndio, which uses the log prefix [ao/sndio].

    mpv --msg-level=all=warn,ao/alsa=error

    Only show warnings or worse, and let the ao_alsa output show errors only.

--term-osd=<auto|no|force>
    Control whether OSD messages are shown on the console when no video output is available (default: auto).

auto
    use terminal OSD if no video output active

no  disable terminal OSD

force
    use terminal OSD even if video output active

    The auto mode also enables terminal OSD if --video-osd=no was set.

--term-osd-bar, --no-term-osd-bar
    Enable printing a progress bar under the status line on the terminal. (Disabled by default.)

--term-osd-bar-chars=<string>
    Customize the --term-osd-bar feature. The string is expected to consist of 5 characters (start, left space, position indicator, right space, end). You can use Unicode characters, but note that double- width characters will not be treated correctly.

    Default: [-+-].

--term-playing-msg=<string>
    Print out a string after starting playback. The string is expanded for properties, e.g. --term-playing-msg='file: ${filename}' will print the string file: followed by a space and the currently played filename.

    See Property Expansion.

--term-status-msg=<string>
    Print out a custom string during playback instead of the standard status line. Expands properties. See Property Expansion.

--msg-module
    Prepend module name to each console message.

--msg-time
    Prepend timing information to each console message.

  TV

--tv-...
    These options tune various properties of the TV capture module. For watching TV with mpv, use tv:// or tv://<channel_number> or even tv://<channel_name> (see option tv-channels for channel_name below) as a media URL. You can also use tv:///<input_id> to start watching a video from a composite or S-Video input (see option input for details).

--tv-device=<value>
    Specify TV device (default: /dev/video0).

--tv-channel=<value>
    Set tuner to <value> channel.

--no-tv-audio
    no sound

--tv-automute=<0-255> (v4l and v4l2 only)
    If signal strength reported by device is less than this value, audio and video will be muted. In most cases automute=100 will be enough. Default is 0 (automute disabled).

--tv-driver=<value>
    See --tv=driver=help for a list of compiled-in TV input drivers. available: dummy, v4l2 (default: autodetect)

--tv-input=<value>
    Specify input (default: 0 (TV), see console output for available inputs).

--tv-freq=<value>
    Specify the frequency to set the tuner to (e.g. 511.250). Not compatible with the channels parameter.

--tv-outfmt=<value>
    Specify the output format of the tuner with a preset value supported by the V4L driver (YV12, UYVY, YUY2, I420) or an arbitrary format given as hex value.

--tv-width=<value>
    output window width

--tv-height=<value>
    output window height

--tv-fps=<value>
    framerate at which to capture video (frames per second)

--tv-buffersize=<value>
    maximum size of the capture buffer in megabytes (default: dynamical)

--tv-norm=<value>
    See the console output for a list of all available norms.

    See also: --tv-normid.

--tv-normid=<value> (v4l2 only)
    Sets the TV norm to the given numeric ID. The TV norm depends on the capture card. See the console output for a list of available TV norms.

--tv-chanlist=<value>
    available: argentina, australia, china-bcast, europe-east, europe-west, france, ireland, italy, japan-bcast, japan-cable, newzealand, russia, southafrica, us-bcast, us-cable, us-cable-hrc

--tv-channels=<chan>-<name>[=<norm>],<chan>-<name>[=<norm>],...
    Set names for channels.

    NOTE: If <chan> is an integer greater than 1000, it will be treated as frequency (in kHz) rather than channel name from frequency table. Use _ for spaces in names (or play with quoting ;-) ). The channel names will then be written using OSD, and the input commands tv_step_channel, tv_set_channel and tv_last_channel will be usable for a remote control. Not compatible with the frequency parameter.

    NOTE: The channel number will then be the position in the 'channels' list, beginning with 1.

Examples

    tv://1, tv://TV1, tv_set_channel 1, tv_set_channel TV1

--tv-[brightness|contrast|hue|saturation]=<-100-100>
    Set the image equalizer on the card.

--tv-audiorate=<value>
    Set input audio sample rate.

--tv-forceaudio
    Capture audio even if there are no audio sources reported by v4l.

--tv-alsa
    Capture from ALSA.

--tv-amode=<0-3>
    Choose an audio mode:

0   mono

1   stereo

2   language 1

3   language 2

--tv-forcechan=<1-2>
    By default, the count of recorded audio channels is determined automatically by querying the audio mode from the TV card. This option allows forcing stereo/mono recording regardless of the amode option and the values returned by v4l. This can be used for troubleshooting when the TV card is unable to report the current audio mode.

--tv-adevice=<value>
    Set an audio device. <value> should be /dev/xxx for OSS and a hardware ID for ALSA. You must replace any ':' by a '.' in the hardware ID for ALSA.

--tv-audioid=<value>
    Choose an audio output of the capture card, if it has more than one.

--tv-[volume|bass|treble|balance]=<0-100>
    These options set parameters of the mixer on the video capture card. They will have no effect, if your card does not have one. For v4l2 50 maps to the default value of the control, as reported by the driver.

--tv-gain=<0-100>
    Set gain control for video devices (usually webcams) to the desired value and switch off automatic control. A value of 0 enables automatic control. If this option is omitted, gain control will not be modified.

--tv-immediatemode=<bool>
    A value of 0 means capture and buffer audio and video together. A value of 1 (default) means to do video capture only and let the audio go through a loopback cable from the TV card to the sound card.

--tv-mjpeg
    Use hardware MJPEG compression (if the card supports it). When using this option, you do not need to specify the width and height of the output window, because mpv will determine it automatically from the decimation value (see below).

--tv-decimation=<1|2|4>
    choose the size of the picture that will be compressed by hardware MJPEG compression:

1   full size

•   704x576 PAL

•   704x480 NTSC

2   medium size

•   352x288 PAL

•   352x240 NTSC

4   small size

•   176x144 PAL

•   176x120 NTSC

--tv-quality=<0-100>
    Choose the quality of the JPEG compression (< 60 recommended for full size).

--tv-scan-autostart
    Begin channel scanning immediately after startup (default: disabled).

--tv-scan-period=<0.1-2.0>
    Specify delay in seconds before switching to next channel (default: 0.5). Lower values will cause faster scanning, but can detect inactive TV channels as active.

--tv-scan-threshold=<1-100>
    Threshold value for the signal strength (in percent), as reported by the device (default: 50). A signal strength higher than this value will indicate that the currently scanning channel is active.

  Cache

--cache=<kBytes|yes|no|auto>
    Set the size of the cache in kilobytes, disable it with no, or automatically enable it if needed with auto (default: auto). With auto, the cache will usually be enabled for network streams, using the size set by --cache-default. With yes, the cache will always be enabled with the size set by --cache-default (unless the stream cannot be cached, or --cache-default disables caching).

    May be useful when playing files from slow media, but can also have negative effects, especially with file formats that require a lot of seeking, such as MP4.

    Note that half the cache size will be used to allow fast seeking back. This is also the reason why a full cache is usually not reported as 100% full. The cache fill display does not include the part of the cache reserved for seeking back. The actual maximum percentage will usually be the ratio between readahead and backbuffer sizes.

--cache-default=<kBytes|no>
    Set the size of the cache in kilobytes (default: 75000 KB). Using no will not automatically enable the cache e.g. when playing from a network stream. Note that using --cache will always override this option.

--cache-initial=<kBytes>
    Playback will start when the cache has been filled up with this many kilobytes of data (default: 0).

--cache-seek-min=<kBytes>
    If a seek is to be made to a position within <kBytes> of the cache size from the current position, mpv will wait for the cache to be filled to this position rather than performing a stream seek (default: 500).

    This matters for small forward seeks. With slow streams (especially HTTP streams) there is a tradeoff between skipping the data between current position and seek destination, or performing an actual seek. Depending on the situation, either of these might be slower than the other method. This option allows control over this.

--cache-backbuffer=<kBytes>
    Size of the cache back buffer (default: 75000 KB). This will add to the total cache size, and reserved the amount for seeking back. The reserved amount will not be used for readahead, and instead preserves already read data to enable fast seeking back.

--cache-file=<TMP|path>
    Create a cache file on the filesystem.

    There are two ways of using this:

1.  Passing a path (a filename). The file will always be overwritten. When the general cache is enabled, this file cache will be used to store whatever is read from the source stream.

    This will always overwrite the cache file, and you can't use an existing cache file to resume playback of a stream. (Technically, mpv wouldn't even know which blocks in the file are valid and which not.)

    The resulting file will not necessarily contain all data of the source stream. For example, if you seek, the parts that were skipped over are never read and consequently are not written to the cache. The skipped over parts are filled with zeros. This means that the cache file doesn't necessarily correspond to a full download of the source stream.

    Both of these issues could be improved if there is any user interest.

    WARNING: Causes random corruption when used with ordered chapters or with --audio-file.

2.  Passing the string TMP. This will not be interpreted as filename. Instead, an invisible temporary file is created. It depends on your C library where this file is created (usually /tmp/), and whether filename is visible (the tmpfile() function is used). On some systems, automatic deletion of the cache file might not be guaranteed.

    If you want to use a file cache, this mode is recommended, because it doesn't break ordered chapters or --audio-file. These modes open multiple cache streams, and using the same file for them obviously clashes.

    See also: --cache-file-size.

--cache-file-size=<kBytes>
    Maximum size of the file created with --cache-file. For read accesses above this size, the cache is simply not used.

    Keep in mind that some use-cases, like playing ordered chapters with cache enabled, will actually create multiple cache files, each of which will use up to this much disk space.

    (Default: 1048576, 1 GB.)

--no-cache
    Turn off input stream caching. See --cache.

--cache-secs=<seconds>
    How many seconds of audio/video to prefetch if the cache is active. This overrides the --demuxer-readahead-secs option if and only if the cache is enabled and the value is larger. (Default: 10.)

--cache-pause, --no-cache-pause
    Whether the player should automatically pause when the cache runs low, and unpause once more data is available ("buffering").

  Network

--user-agent=<string>
    Use <string> as user agent for HTTP streaming.

--cookies, --no-cookies
    Support cookies when making HTTP requests. Disabled by default.

--cookies-file=<filename>
    Read HTTP cookies from <filename>. The file is assumed to be in Netscape format.

--http-header-fields=<field1,field2>
    Set custom HTTP fields when accessing HTTP stream.

Example

    mpv --http-header-fields='Field1: value1','Field2: value2' \
    http://localhost:1234

    Will generate HTTP request:

    GET / HTTP/1.0
    Host: localhost:1234
    User-Agent: MPlayer
    Icy-MetaData: 1
    Field1: value1
    Field2: value2
    Connection: close

--tls-ca-file=<filename>
    Certificate authority database file for use with TLS. (Silently fails with older FFmpeg or Libav versions.)

--tls-verify
    Verify peer certificates when using TLS (e.g. with https://...). (Silently fails with older FFmpeg or Libav versions.)

--tls-cert-file
    A file containing a certificate to use in the handshake with the peer.

--tls-key-file
    A file containing the private key for the certificate.

--referrer=<string>
    Specify a referrer path or URL for HTTP requests.

--network-timeout=<seconds>
    Specify the network timeout in seconds. This affects at least HTTP. The special value 0 (default) uses the FFmpeg/Libav defaults. If a protocol is used which does not support timeouts, this option is silently ignored.

--rtsp-transport=<lavf|udp|tcp|http>
    Select RTSP transport method (default: tcp). This selects the underlying network transport when playing rtsp://... URLs. The value lavf leaves the decision to libavformat.

--hls-bitrate=<no|min|max|<rate>>
    If HLS streams are played, this option controls what streams are selected by default. The option allows the following parameters:

no  Don't do anything special. Typically, this will simply pick the first audio/video streams it can find.

min Pick the streams with the lowest bitrate.

max Same, but highest bitrate. (Default.)

    Additionally, if the option is a number, the stream with the highest rate equal or below the option value is selected.

    The bitrate as used is sent by the server, and there's no guarantee it's actually meaningful.

  DVB

--dvbin-card=<1-4>
    Specifies using card number 1-4 (default: 1).

--dvbin-file=<filename>
    Instructs mpv to read the channels list from <filename>. The default is in the mpv configuration directory (usually ~/.config/mpv) with the filename channels.conf.{sat,ter,cbl,atsc} (based on your card type) or channels.conf as a last resort. For DVB-S/2 cards, a VDR 1.7.x format channel list is recommended as it allows tuning to DVB-S2 channels, enabling subtitles and decoding the PMT (which largely improves the demuxing). Classic mplayer format channel lists are still supported (without these improvements), and for other card types, only limited VDR format channel list support is implemented (patches welcome). For channels with dynamic PID switching or incomplete channels.conf, --dvbin-full-transponder or the magic PID 8192 are recommended.

--dvbin-timeout=<1-30>
    Maximum number of seconds to wait when trying to tune a frequency before giving up (default: 30).

--dvbin-full-transponder=<yes|no>
    Apply no filters on program PIDs, only tune to frequency and pass full transponder to demuxer. The player frontend selects the streams from the full TS in this case, so the program which is shown initially may not match the chosen channel. Switching between the programs is possible by cycling the program property. This is useful to record multiple programs on a single transponder, or to work around issues in the channels.conf. It is also recommended to use this for channels which switch PIDs on-the-fly, e.g. for regional news.

    Default: no

  ALSA audio output options

--alsa-device=<device>
    Deprecated, use --audio-device (requires alsa/ prefix).

--alsa-resample=yes
    Enable ALSA resampling plugin. (This is disabled by default, because some drivers report incorrect audio delay in some cases.)

--alsa-mixer-device=<device>
    Set the mixer device used with ao-volume (default: default).

--alsa-mixer-name=<name>
    Set the name of the mixer element (default: Master). This is for example PCM or Master.

--alsa-mixer-index=<number>
    Set the index of the mixer channel (default: 0). Consider the output of "amixer scontrols", then the index is the number that follows the name of the element.

--alsa-non-interleaved
    Allow output of non-interleaved formats (if the audio decoder uses this format). Currently disabled by default, because some popular ALSA plugins are utterly broken with non-interleaved formats.

--alsa-ignore-chmap
    Don't read or set the channel map of the ALSA device - only request the required number of channels, and then pass the audio as-is to it. This option most likely should not be used. It can be useful for debugging, or for static setups with a specially engineered ALSA configuration (in this case you should always force the same layout with --audio-channels, or it will work only for files which use the layout implicit to your ALSA device).

  OpenGL renderer options

The following video options are currently all specific to --vo=opengl and --vo=opengl-cb only, which are the only VOs that implement them.

--scale=<filter>
    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 opengl-hq.

lanczos
    Lanczos scaling. Provides mid quality and speed. Generally worse than spline36, but it results in a slightly sharper image which is good for some content types. The number of taps can be controlled with scale-radius, but is best left unchanged.

    (This filter is an alias for sinc-windowed sinc)

ewa_lanczos
    Elliptic weighted average Lanczos scaling. Also known as Jinc. Relatively slow, but very good quality. The radius can be controlled with scale-radius. Increasing the radius makes the filter sharper but adds more ringing.

    (This filter is an alias for jinc-windowed jinc)

ewa_lanczossharp
    A slightly sharpened version of ewa_lanczos, preconfigured to use an ideal radius and parameter. If your hardware can run it, this is probably what you should use by default.

mitchell
    Mitchell-Netravali. The B and C parameters can be set with --scale-param1 and --scale-param2. This filter is very good at downscaling (see --dscale).

oversample
    A version of nearest neighbour that (naively) oversamples pixels, so that pixels overlapping edges get linearly interpolated instead of rounded. This essentially removes the small imperfections and judder artifacts caused by nearest-neighbour interpolation, in exchange for adding some blur. This filter is good at temporal interpolation, and also known as "smoothmotion" (see --tscale).

linear
    A --tscale filter.

    There are some more filters, but most are not as useful. For a complete list, pass help as value, e.g.:

    mpv --scale=help

--cscale=<filter>
    As --scale, but for interpolating chroma information. If the image is not subsampled, this option is ignored entirely.

--dscale=<filter>
    Like --scale, but apply these filters on downscaling instead. If this option is unset, the filter implied by --scale will be applied.

--tscale=<filter>
    The filter used for interpolating the temporal axis (frames). This is only used if --interpolation is enabled. The only valid choices for --tscale are separable convolution filters (use --tscale=help to get a list). The default is mitchell.

    Note that the maximum supported filter radius is currently 3, due to limitations in the number of video textures that can be loaded simultaneously.

--scale-param1=<value>, --scale-param2=<value>, --cscale-param1=<value>, --cscale-param2=<value>, --dscale-param1=<value>, --dscale-param2=<value>, --tscale-param1=<value>, --tscale-param2=<value>
    Set filter parameters. Ignored if the filter is not tunable. Currently, this affects the following filter parameters:

bcspline
    Spline parameters (B and C). Defaults to 0.5 for both.

gaussian
    Scale parameter (t). Increasing this makes the result blurrier. Defaults to 1.

oversample
    Minimum distance to an edge before interpolation is used. Setting this to 0 will always interpolate edges, whereas setting it to 0.5 will never interpolate, thus behaving as if the regular nearest neighbour algorithm was used. Defaults to 0.0.

--scale-blur=<value>, --scale-wblur=<value>, --cscale-blur=<value>, --cscale-wblur=<value>, --dscale-blur=<value>, --dscale-wblur=<value>, --tscale-blur=<value>, --tscale-wblur=<value>
    Kernel/window scaling factor (also known as a blur factor). Decreasing this makes the result sharper, increasing it makes it blurrier (default 0). If set to 0, the kernel's preferred blur factor is used. Note that setting this too low (eg. 0.5) leads to bad results. It's generally recommended to stick to values between 0.8 and 1.2.

--scale-clamp=<0.0-1.0>, --cscale-clamp, --dscale-clamp, --tscale-clamp
    Specifies a weight bias to multiply into negative coefficients. Specifying --scale-clamp=1 has the effect of removing negative weights completely, thus effectively clamping the value range to [0-1]. Values between 0.0 and 1.0 can be specified to apply only a moderate diminishment of negative weights. This is especially useful for --tscale, where it reduces excessive ringing artifacts in the temporal domain (which typically manifest themselves as short flashes or fringes of black, mostly around moving edges) in exchange for potentially adding more blur. The default for --tscale-clamp is 1.0, the others default to 0.0.

--scale-cutoff=<value>, --cscale-cutoff=<value>, --dscale-cutoff=<value>
    Cut off the filter kernel prematurely once the value range drops below this threshold. Doing so allows more aggressive pruning of skippable coefficients by disregarding parts of the LUT which are effectively zeroed out by the window function. Only affects polar (EWA) filters. The default is 0.001 for each, which is perceptually transparent but provides a 10%-20% speedup, depending on the exact radius and filter kernel chosen.

--scale-taper=<value>, --scale-wtaper=<value>, --dscale-taper=<value>, --dscale-wtaper=<value>, --cscale-taper=<value>, --cscale-wtaper=<value>, --tscale-taper=<value>, --tscale-wtaper=<value>
    Kernel/window taper factor. Increasing this flattens the filter function. Value range is 0 to 1. A value of 0 (the default) means no flattening, a value of 1 makes the filter completely flat (equivalent to a box function). Values in between mean that some portion will be flat and the actual filter function will be squeezed into the space in between.

--scale-radius=<value>, --cscale-radius=<value>, --dscale-radius=<value>, --tscale-radius=<value>
    Set radius for tunable filters, must be a float number between 0.5 and 16.0. Defaults to the filter's preferred radius if not specified. Doesn't work for every scaler and VO combination.

    Note that depending on filter implementation details and video scaling ratio, the radius that actually being used might be different (most likely being increased a bit).

--scale-antiring=<value>, --cscale-antiring=<value>, --dscale-antiring=<value>, --tscale-antiring=<value>
    Set the antiringing strength. This tries to eliminate ringing, but can introduce other artifacts in the process. Must be a float number between 0.0 and 1.0. The default value of 0.0 disables antiringing entirely.

    Note that this doesn't affect the special filters bilinear and bicubic_fast, nor does it affect any polar (EWA) scalers.

--scale-window=<window>, --cscale-window=<window>, --dscale-window=<window>, --tscale-window=<window>
    (Advanced users only) Choose a custom windowing function for the kernel. Defaults to the filter's preferred window if unset. Use --scale-window=help to get a list of supported windowing functions.

--scale-wparam=<window>, --cscale-wparam=<window>, --cscale-wparam=<window>, --tscale-wparam=<window>
    (Advanced users only) Configure the parameter for the window function given by --scale-window etc. Ignored if the window is not tunable. Currently, this affects the following window parameters:

kaiser
    Window parameter (alpha). Defaults to 6.33.

blackman
    Window parameter (alpha). Defaults to 0.16.

gaussian
    Scale parameter (t). Increasing this makes the window wider. Defaults to 1.

--scaler-lut-size=<4..10>
    Set the size of the lookup texture for scaler kernels (default: 6). The actual size of the texture is 2^N for an option value of N. So the lookup texture with the default setting uses 64 samples.

    All weights are linearly interpolated from those samples, so increasing the size of lookup table might improve the accuracy of scaler.

--scaler-resizes-only
    Disable the scaler if the video image is not resized. In that case, bilinear is used instead of whatever is set with --scale. Bilinear will reproduce the source image perfectly if no scaling is performed. Enabled by default. Note that this option never affects --cscale.

--linear-scaling
    Scale in linear light. It should only be used with a --opengl-fbo-format that has at least 16 bit precision. This option has no effect on HDR content.

--correct-downscaling
    When using convolution based filters, extend the filter size when downscaling. Increases quality, but reduces performance while downscaling.

    This will perform slightly sub-optimally for anamorphic video (but still better than without it) since it will extend the size to match only the milder of the scale factors between the axes.

--interpolation
    Reduce stuttering caused by mismatches in the video fps and display refresh rate (also known as judder).

    WARNING: This requires setting the --video-sync option to one of the display- modes, or it will be silently disabled. This was not required before mpv 0.14.0.

    This essentially attempts to interpolate the missing frames by convoluting the video along the temporal axis. The filter used can be controlled using the --tscale setting.

    Note that this relies on vsync to work, see --opengl-swapinterval for more information. It should also only be used with an --opengl-fbo-format that has at least 16 bit precision.

--interpolation-threshold=<0..1,-1>
    Threshold below which frame ratio interpolation gets disabled (default: 0.0001). This is calculated as abs(disphz/vfps - 1) < threshold, where vfps is the speed-adjusted video FPS, and disphz the display refresh rate. (The speed-adjusted video FPS is roughly equal to the normal video FPS, but with slowdown and speedup applied. This matters if you use --video-sync=display-resample to make video run synchronously to the display FPS, or if you change the speed property.)

    The default is intended to almost always enable interpolation if the playback rate is even slightly different from the display refresh rate. But note that if you use e.g. --video-sync=display-vdrop, small deviations in the rate can disable interpolation and introduce a discontinuity every other minute.

    Set this to -1 to disable this logic.

--opengl-pbo
    Enable use of PBOs. On some drivers this can be faster, especially if the source video size is huge (e.g. so called "4K" video). On other drivers it might be slower or cause latency issues.

--dither-depth=<N|no|auto>
    Set dither target depth to N. Default: no.

no  Disable any dithering done by mpv.

auto
    Automatic selection. If output bit depth cannot be detected, 8 bits per component are assumed.

8   Dither to 8 bit output.

    Note that the depth of the connected video display device cannot be detected. Often, LCD panels will do dithering on their own, which conflicts with this option and leads to ugly output.

--dither-size-fruit=<2-8>
    Set the size of the dither matrix (default: 6). The actual size of the matrix is (2^N) x (2^N) for an option value of N, so a value of 6 gives a size of 64x64. The matrix is generated at startup time, and a large matrix can take rather long to compute (seconds).

    Used in --dither=fruit mode only.

--dither=<fruit|ordered|no>
    Select dithering algorithm (default: fruit). (Normally, the --dither-depth option controls whether dithering is enabled.)

--temporal-dither
    Enable temporal dithering. (Only active if dithering is enabled in general.) This changes between 8 different dithering patterns on each frame by changing the orientation of the tiled dithering matrix. Unfortunately, this can lead to flicker on LCD displays, since these have a high reaction time.

--temporal-dither-period=<1-128>
    Determines how often the dithering pattern is updated when --temporal-dither is in use. 1 (the default) will update on every video frame, 2 on every other frame, etc.

--opengl-debug
    Check for OpenGL errors, i.e. call glGetError(). Also, request a debug OpenGL context (which does nothing with current graphics drivers as of this writing).

--opengl-swapinterval=<n>
    Interval in displayed frames between two buffer swaps. 1 is equivalent to enable VSYNC, 0 to disable VSYNC. Defaults to 1 if not specified.

    Note that this depends on proper OpenGL vsync support. On some platforms and drivers, this only works reliably when in fullscreen mode. It may also require driver-specific hacks if using multiple monitors, to ensure mpv syncs to the right one. Compositing window managers can also lead to bad results, as can missing or incorrect display FPS information (see --display-fps).

--opengl-shaders=<file-list>
    Custom GLSL hooks. These are a flexible way to add custom fragment shaders, which can be injected at almost arbitrary points in the rendering pipeline, and access all previous intermediate textures. Each use of the option will add another file to the internal list of shaders (see List Options).

Warning

    The syntax is not stable yet and may change any time.

    The general syntax of a user shader looks like this:

    //!METADATA ARGS...
    //!METADATA ARGS...
    vec4 hook() {
       ...
       return something;
    }
    //!METADATA ARGS...
    //!METADATA ARGS...
    ...

    Each section of metadata, along with the non-metadata lines after it, defines a single block. There are currently two types of blocks, HOOKs and TEXTUREs.

    A TEXTURE block can set the following options:

TEXTURE <name> (required)
    The name of this texture. Hooks can then bind the texture under this name using BIND. This must be the first option of the texture block.

SIZE <width> [<height>] [<depth>] (required)
    The dimensions of the texture. The height and depth are optional. The type of texture (1D, 2D or 3D) depends on the number of components specified.

FORMAT <name> (required)
    The texture format for the samples. Supported texture formats are listed in debug logging when the opengl VO is initialized (look for Texture formats:). Usually, this follows OpenGL naming conventions. For example, rgb16 provides 3 channels with normalized 16 bit components. One oddity are float formats: for example, rgba16f has 16 bit internal precision, but the texture data is provided as 32 bit floats, and the driver converts the data on texture upload.

    Although format names follow a common naming convention, not all of them are available on all hardware, drivers, GL versions, and so on.

FILTER <LINEAR|NEAREST>
    The min/magnification filter used when sampling from this texture.

BORDER <CLAMP|REPEAT|MIRROR>
    The border wrapping mode used when sampling from this texture.

    Following the metadata is a string of bytes in hexadecimal notation that define the raw texture data, corresponding to the format specified by FORMAT, on a single line with no extra whitespace.

    A HOOK block can set the following options:

HOOK <name> (required)
    The texture which to hook into. May occur multiple times within a metadata block, up to a predetermined limit. See below for a list of hookable textures.

DESC <title>
    User-friendly description of the pass. This is the name used when representing this shader in the list of passes for property vo-passes.

BIND <name>
    Loads a texture (either coming from mpv or from a TEXTURE block) and makes it available to the pass. When binding textures from mpv, this will also set up macros to facilitate accessing it properly. See below for a list. By default, no textures are bound. The special name HOOKED can be used to refer to the texture that triggered this pass.

SAVE <name>
    Gives the name of the texture to save the result of this pass into. By default, this is set to the special name HOOKED which has the effect of overwriting the hooked texture.

WIDTH <szexpr>, HEIGHT <szexpr>
    Specifies the size of the resulting texture for this pass. szexpr refers to an expression in RPN (reverse polish notation), using the operators + - * / > < !, floating point literals, and references to sizes of existing texture (such as MAIN.width or CHROMA.height), OUTPUT, or NATIVE_CROPPED (size of an input texture cropped after pan-and-scan, video-align-x/y, video-pan-x/y, etc. and possibly prescaled). By default, these are set to HOOKED.w and HOOKED.h, espectively.

WHEN <szexpr>
    Specifies a condition that needs to be true (non-zero) for the shader stage to be evaluated. If it fails, it will silently be omitted. (Note that a shader stage like this which has a dependency on an optional hook point can still cause that hook point to be saved, which has some minor overhead)

OFFSET <ox> <oy>
    Indicates a pixel shift (offset) introduced by this pass. These pixel offsets will be accumulated and corrected during the next scaling pass (cscale or scale). The default values are 0 0 which correspond to no shift. Note that offsets are ignored when not overwriting the hooked texture.

COMPONENTS <n>
    Specifies how many components of this pass's output are relevant and should be stored in the texture, up to 4 (rgba). By default, this value is equal to the number of components in HOOKED.

COMPUTE <bw> <bh> [<tw> <th>]
    Specifies that this shader should be treated as a compute shader, with the block size bw and bh. The compute shader will be dispatched with however many blocks are necessary to completely tile over the output. Within each block, there will bw tw*th threads, forming a single work group. In other words: tw and th specify the work group size, which can be different from the block size. So for example, a compute shader with bw, bh = 32 and tw, th = 8 running on a 500x500 texture would dispatch 16x16 blocks (rounded up), each with 8x8 threads.

    Compute shaders in mpv are treated a bit different from fragment shaders. Instead of defining a vec4 hook that produces an output sample, you directly define void hook which writes to a fixed writeonly image unit named out_image (this is bound by mpv) using imageStore. To help translate texture coordinates in the absence of vertices, mpv provides a special function NAME_map(id) to map from the texel space of the output image to the texture coordinates for all bound textures. In particular, NAME_pos is equivalent to NAME_map(gl_GlobalInvocationID), although using this only really makes sense if (tw,th) == (bw,bh).

    Each bound mpv texture (via BIND) will make available the following definitions to that shader pass, where NAME is the name of the bound texture:

vec4 NAME_tex(vec2 pos)
    The sampling function to use to access the texture at a certain spot (in texture coordinate space, range [0,1]). This takes care of any necessary normalization conversions.

vec4 NAME_texOff(vec2 offset)
    Sample the texture at a certain offset in pixels. This works like NAME_tex but additionally takes care of necessary rotations, so that sampling at e.g. vec2(-1,0) is always one pixel to the left.

vec2 NAME_pos
    The local texture coordinate of that texture, range [0,1].

vec2 NAME_size
    The (rotated) size in pixels of the texture.

mat2 NAME_rot
    The rotation matrix associated with this texture. (Rotates pixel space to texture coordinates)

vec2 NAME_pt
    The (unrotated) size of a single pixel, range [0,1].

float NAME_mul
    The coefficient that needs to be multiplied into the texture contents in order to normalize it to the range [0,1].

sampler NAME_raw
    The raw bound texture itself. The use of this should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

    Normally, users should use either NAME_tex or NAME_texOff to read from the texture. For some shaders however , it can be better for performance to do custom sampling from NAME_raw, in which case care needs to be taken to respect NAME_mul and NAME_rot.

    In addition to these parameters, the following uniforms are also globally available:

float random
    A random number in the range [0-1], different per frame.

int frame
    A simple count of frames rendered, increases by one per frame and never resets (regardless of seeks).

vec2 input_size
    The size in pixels of the input image (possibly cropped and prescaled).

vec2 target_size
    The size in pixels of the visible part of the scaled (and possibly cropped) image.

vec2 tex_offset
    Texture offset introduced by user shaders or options like panscan, video-align-x/y, video-pan-x/y.

    Internally, vo_opengl may generate any number of the following textures. Whenever a texture is rendered and saved by vo_opengl, all of the passes that have hooked into it will run, in the order they were added by the user. This is a list of the legal hook points:

RGB, LUMA, CHROMA, ALPHA, XYZ (resizable)
    Source planes (raw). Which of these fire depends on the image format of the source.

CHROMA_SCALED, ALPHA_SCALED (fixed)
    Source planes (upscaled). These only fire on subsampled content.

NATIVE (resizable)
    The combined image, in the source colorspace, before conversion to RGB.

MAINPRESUB (resizable)
    The image, after conversion to RGB, but before --blend-subtitles=video is applied.

MAIN (resizable)
    The main image, after conversion to RGB but before upscaling.

LINEAR (fixed)
    Linear light image, before scaling. This only fires when --linear-scaling is in effect.

SIGMOID (fixed)
    Sigmoidized light, before scaling. This only fires when --sigmoid-upscaling is in effect.

PREKERNEL (fixed)
    The image immediately before the scaler kernel runs.

POSTKERNEL (fixed)
    The image immediately after the scaler kernel runs.

SCALED (fixed)
    The final upscaled image, before color management.

OUTPUT (fixed)
    The final output image, after color management but before dithering and drawing to screen.

    Only the textures labelled with resizable may be transformed by the pass. When overwriting a texture marked fixed, the WIDTH, HEIGHT and OFFSET must be left at their default values.

--opengl-shader=<file>
    CLI/config file only alias for --opengl-shaders-append.

--deband
    Enable the debanding algorithm. This greatly reduces the amount of visible banding, blocking and other quantization artifacts, at the expensive of very slightly blurring some of the finest details. In practice, it's virtually always an improvement - the only reason to disable it would be for performance.

--deband-iterations=<1..16>
    The number of debanding steps to perform per sample. Each step reduces a bit more banding, but takes time to compute. Note that the strength of each step falls off very quickly, so high numbers (>4) are practically useless. (Default 1)

--deband-threshold=<0..4096>
    The debanding filter's cut-off threshold. Higher numbers increase the debanding strength dramatically but progressively diminish image details. (Default 64)

--deband-range=<1..64>
    The debanding filter's initial radius. The radius increases linearly for each iteration. A higher radius will find more gradients, but a lower radius will smooth more aggressively. (Default 16)

    If you increase the --deband-iterations, you should probably decrease this to compensate.

--deband-grain=<0..4096>
    Add some extra noise to the image. This significantly helps cover up remaining quantization artifacts. Higher numbers add more noise. (Default 48)

--sigmoid-upscaling
    When upscaling, use a sigmoidal color transform to avoid emphasizing ringing artifacts. This also implies --linear-scaling.

--sigmoid-center
    The center of the sigmoid curve used for --sigmoid-upscaling, must be a float between 0.0 and 1.0. Defaults to 0.75 if not specified.

--sigmoid-slope
    The slope of the sigmoid curve used for --sigmoid-upscaling, must be a float between 1.0 and 20.0. Defaults to 6.5 if not specified.

--sharpen=<value>
    If set to a value other than 0, enable an unsharp masking filter. Positive values will sharpen the image (but add more ringing and aliasing). Negative values will blur the image. If your GPU is powerful enough, consider alternatives like the ewa_lanczossharp scale filter, or the --scale-blur option.

--opengl-glfinish
    Call glFinish() before and after swapping buffers (default: disabled). Slower, but might improve results when doing framedropping. Can completely ruin performance. The details depend entirely on the OpenGL driver.

--opengl-waitvsync
    Call glXWaitVideoSyncSGI after each buffer swap (default: disabled). This may or may not help with video timing accuracy and frame drop. It's possible that this makes video output slower, or has no effect at all.

    X11/GLX only.

--opengl-vsync-fences=<N>
    Synchronize the CPU to the Nth past frame using the GL_ARB_sync extension. A value of 0 disables this behavior (default). A value of 1 means it will synchronize to the current frame after rendering it. Like --glfinish and --waitvsync, this can lower or ruin performance. Its advantage is that it can span multiple frames, and effectively limit the number of frames the GPU queues ahead (which also has an influence on vsync).

--opengl-dwmflush=<no|windowed|yes|auto>
    Calls DwmFlush after swapping buffers on Windows (default: auto). It also sets SwapInterval(0) to ignore the OpenGL timing. Values are: no (disabled), windowed (only in windowed mode), yes (also in full screen).

    The value auto will try to determine whether the compositor is active, and calls DwmFlush only if it seems to be.

    This may help to get more consistent frame intervals, especially with high-fps clips - which might also reduce dropped frames. Typically, a value of windowed should be enough, since full screen may bypass the DWM.

    Windows only.

--angle-d3d11-feature-level=<11_0|10_1|10_0|9_3>
    Selects a specific feature level when using the ANGLE backend with D3D11. By default, the highest available feature level is used. This option can be used to select a lower feature level, which is mainly useful for debugging. Note that OpenGL ES 3.0 is only supported at feature level 10_1 or higher. Most extended OpenGL features will not work at lower feature levels (similar to --opengl-dumb-mode).

    Windows with ANGLE only.

--angle-d3d11-warp=<yes|no|auto>
    Use WARP (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform) when using the ANGLE backend with D3D11 (default: auto). This is a high performance software renderer. By default, it is used when the Direct3D hardware does not support Direct3D 11 feature level 9_3. While the extended OpenGL features will work with WARP, they can be very slow.

    Windows with ANGLE only.

--angle-egl-windowing=<yes|no|auto>
    Use ANGLE's built in EGL windowing functions to create a swap chain (default: auto). If this is set to no and the D3D11 renderer is in use, ANGLE's built in swap chain will not be used and a custom swap chain that is optimized for video rendering will be created instead. If set to auto, a custom swap chain will be used for D3D11 and the built in swap chain will be used for D3D9. This option is mainly for debugging purposes, in case the custom swap chain has poor performance or does not work.

    If set to yes, the --angle-max-frame-latency, --angle-swapchain-length and --angle-flip options will have no effect.

    Windows with ANGLE only.

--angle-flip=<yes|no>
    Enable flip-model presentation, which avoids unnecessarily copying the backbuffer by sharing surfaces with the DWM (default: yes). This may cause performance issues with older drivers. If flip-model presentation is not supported (for example, on Windows 7 without the platform update), mpv will automatically fall back to the older bitblt presentation model.

    If set to no, the --angle-swapchain-length option will have no effect.

    Windows with ANGLE only.

--angle-max-frame-latency=<1-16>
    Sets the maximum number of frames that the system is allowed to queue for rendering with the ANGLE backend (default: 3). Lower values should make VSync timing more accurate, but a value of 1 requires powerful hardware, since the CPU will not be able to "render ahead" of the GPU.

    Windows with ANGLE only.

--angle-renderer=<d3d9|d3d11|auto>
    Forces a specific renderer when using the ANGLE backend (default: auto). In auto mode this will pick D3D11 for systems that support Direct3D 11 feature level 9_3 or higher, and D3D9 otherwise. This option is mainly for debugging purposes. Normally there is no reason to force a specific renderer, though --angle-renderer=d3d9 may give slightly better performance on old hardware. Note that the D3D9 renderer only supports OpenGL ES 2.0, so most extended OpenGL features will not work if this renderer is selected (similar to --opengl-dumb-mode).

    Windows with ANGLE only.

--angle-swapchain-length=<2-16>
    Sets the number of buffers in the D3D11 presentation queue when using the ANGLE backend (default: 6). At least 2 are required, since one is the back buffer that mpv renders to and the other is the front buffer that is presented by the DWM. Additional buffers can improve performance, because for example, mpv will not have to wait on the DWM to release the front buffer before rendering a new frame to it. For this reason, Microsoft recommends at least 4.

    Windows with ANGLE only.

--cocoa-force-dedicated-gpu=<yes|no>
    Deactivates the automatic graphics switching and forces the dedicated GPU. (default: no)

    OS X only.

--opengl-sw
    Continue even if a software renderer is detected.

--opengl-backend=<sys>
    Specify a priority list of windowing backends to use with OpenGL. The value auto (the default) automatically probes for the most suitable backend. You can also pass help to get a complete list of compiled in backends (sorted by autoprobe order).

auto
    auto-select (default)

cocoa
    Cocoa/OS X

win Win32/WGL

angle
    Direct3D11 through the OpenGL ES translation layer ANGLE. This supports almost everything the win backend does (if the ANGLE build is new enough).

dxinterop (experimental)
    Win32, using WGL for rendering and Direct3D 9Ex for presentation. Works on Nvidia and AMD. Newer Intel chips with the latest drivers may also work.

x11 X11/GLX

x11probe
    For internal autoprobing, equivalent to x11 otherwise. Don't use directly, it could be removed without warning as autoprobing is changed.

wayland
    Wayland/EGL

drm DRM/EGL (drm-egl is a deprecated alias)

x11egl
    X11/EGL

mali-fbdev
    Direct fbdev/EGL support on some ARM/MALI devices.

vdpauglx
    Use vdpau presentation with GLX as backing. Experimental use only. Using this will have no advantage (other than additional bugs or performance problems), and is for doing experiments only. Will not be used automatically.

--opengl-es=<mode>
    Select whether to use GLES:

yes Try to prefer ES over Desktop GL

force2
    Try to request a ES 2.0 context (the driver might ignore this)

no  Try to prefer desktop GL over ES

auto
    Use the default for each backend (default)

--opengl-fbo-format=<fmt>
    Selects the internal format of textures used for FBOs. The format can influence performance and quality of the video output. fmt can be one of: rgb8, rgb10, rgb10_a2, rgb16, rgb16f, rgb32f, rgba12, rgba16, rgba16f, rgba32f. Default: auto, which maps to rgba16 on desktop GL, and rgba16f or rgb10_a2 on GLES (e.g. ANGLE), unless GL_EXT_texture_norm16 is available.

--opengl-gamma=<0.1..2.0>
    Set a gamma value (default: 1.0). If gamma is adjusted in other ways (like with the --gamma option or key bindings and the gamma property), the value is multiplied with the other gamma value.

    Recommended values based on the environmental brightness:

1.0 Brightly illuminated (default)

0.9 Slightly dim

0.8 Pitch black room

    NOTE: Typical movie content (Blu-ray etc.) already contains a gamma drop of about 0.8, so specifying it here as well will result in even darker image than intended!

--gamma-auto
    Automatically corrects the gamma value depending on ambient lighting conditions (adding a gamma boost for dark rooms).

    With ambient illuminance of 64lux, mpv will pick the 1.0 gamma value (no boost), and slightly increase the boost up until 0.8 for 16lux.

    NOTE: Only implemented on OS X.

--target-prim=<value>
    Specifies the primaries of the display. Video colors will be adapted to this colorspace when ICC color management is not being used. Valid values are:

auto
    Disable any adaptation (default)

bt.470m
    ITU-R BT.470 M

bt.601-525
    ITU-R BT.601 (525-line SD systems, eg. NTSC), SMPTE 170M/240M

bt.601-625
    ITU-R BT.601 (625-line SD systems, eg. PAL/SECAM), ITU-R BT.470 B/G

bt.709
    ITU-R BT.709 (HD), IEC 61966-2-4 (sRGB), SMPTE RP177 Annex B

bt.2020
    ITU-R BT.2020 (UHD)

apple
    Apple RGB

adobe
    Adobe RGB (1998)

prophoto
    ProPhoto RGB (ROMM)

cie1931
    CIE 1931 RGB (not to be confused with CIE XYZ)

dci-p3
    DCI-P3 (Digital Cinema Colorspace), SMPTE RP431-2

v-gamut
    Panasonic V-Gamut (VARICAM) primaries

s-gamut
    Sony S-Gamut (S-Log) primaries

--target-trc=<value>
    Specifies the transfer characteristics (gamma) of the display. Video colors will be adjusted to this curve when ICC color management is not being used. Valid values are:

auto
    Disable any adaptation (default)

bt.1886
    ITU-R BT.1886 curve (assuming infinite contrast)

srgb
    IEC 61966-2-4 (sRGB)

linear
    Linear light output

gamma1.8
    Pure power curve (gamma 1.8), also used for Apple RGB

gamma2.2
    Pure power curve (gamma 2.2)

gamma2.8
    Pure power curve (gamma 2.8), also used for BT.470-BG

prophoto
    ProPhoto RGB (ROMM)

pq  ITU-R BT.2100 PQ (Perceptual quantizer) curve, aka SMPTE ST2084

hlg ITU-R BT.2100 HLG (Hybrid Log-gamma) curve, aka ARIB STD-B67

v-log
    Panasonic V-Log (VARICAM) curve

s-log1
    Sony S-Log1 curve

s-log2
    Sony S-Log2 curve

    NOTE: When using HDR output formats, mpv will encode to the specified curve but it will not set any HDMI flags or other signalling that might be required for the target device to correctly display the HDR signal. The user should independently guarantee this before using these signal formats for display.

--tone-mapping=<value>
    Specifies the algorithm used for tone-mapping images onto the target display. This is relevant for both HDR->SDR conversion as well as gamut reduction (e.g. playing back BT.2020 content on a standard gamut display). Valid values are:

clip
    Hard-clip any out-of-range values. Use this when you care about perfect color accuracy for in-range values at the cost of completely distorting out-of-range values. Not generally recommended.

mobius
    Generalization of Reinhard to a Möbius transform with linear section. Smoothly maps out-of-range values while retaining contrast and colors for in-range material as much as possible. Use this when you care about color accuracy more than detail preservation. This is somewhere in between clip and reinhard, depending on the value of --tone-mapping-param. (default)

reinhard
    Reinhard tone mapping algorithm. Very simple continuous curve. Preserves overall image brightness but uses nonlinear contrast, which results in flattening of details and degradation in color accuracy.

hable
    Similar to reinhard but preserves both dark and bright details better (slightly sigmoidal), at the cost of slightly darkening / desaturating everything. Developed by John Hable for use in video games. Use this when you care about detail preservation more than color/brightness accuracy. This is roughly equivalent to --hdr-tone-mapping=reinhard --tone-mapping-param=0.24.

gamma
    Fits a logarithmic transfer between the tone curves.

linear
    Linearly stretches the entire reference gamut to (a linear multiple of) the display.

--tone-mapping-param=<value>
    Set tone mapping parameters. Ignored if the tone mapping algorithm is not tunable. This affects the following tone mapping algorithms:

clip
    Specifies an extra linear coefficient to multiply into the signal before clipping. Defaults to 1.0.

mobius
    Specifies the transition point from linear to mobius transform. Every value below this point is guaranteed to be mapped 1:1. The higher the value, the more accurate the result will be, at the cost of losing bright details. Defaults to 0.3, which due to the steep initial slope still preserves in-range colors fairly accurately.

reinhard
    Specifies the local contrast coefficient at the display peak. Defaults to 0.5, which means that in-gamut values will be about half as bright as when clipping.

gamma
    Specifies the exponent of the function. Defaults to 1.8.

linear
    Specifies the scale factor to use while stretching. Defaults to 1.0.

--hdr-compute-peak
    Compute the HDR peak per-frame of relying on tagged metadata. These values are averaged over local regions as well as over several frames to prevent the value from jittering around too much. This option basically gives you dynamic, per-scene tone mapping. Requires compute shaders, which is a fairly recent OpenGL feature, and will probably also perform horribly on some drivers, so enable at your own risk.

--tone-mapping-desaturate=<value>
    Apply desaturation for highlights that exceed this level of brightness. The higher the parameter, the more color information will be preserved. This setting helps prevent unnaturally blown-out colors for super-highlights, by (smoothly) turning into white instead. This makes images feel more natural, at the cost of reducing information about out-of-range colors.

    The default of 2.0 is somewhat conservative and will mostly just apply to skies or directly sunlit surfaces. A setting of 0.0 disables this option.

--gamut-warning
    If enabled, mpv will mark all clipped/out-of-gamut pixels that exceed a given threshold (currently hard-coded to 101%). The affected pixels will be inverted to make them stand out. Note: This option applies after the effects of all of mpv's color space transformation / tone mapping options, so it's a good idea to combine this with --tone-mapping=clip and use --target-gamut to set the gamut to simulate. For example, --target-gamut=bt.709 would make mpv highlight all pixels that exceed the gamut of a standard gamut (sRGB) display. This option also does not work well with ICC profiles, since the 3DLUTs are always generated against the source color space and have chromatically-accurate clipping built in.

--use-embedded-icc-profile
    Load the embedded ICC profile contained in media files such as PNG images. (Default: yes). Note that this option only works when also using a display ICC profile (--icc-profile or --icc-profile-auto), and also requires LittleCMS 2 support.

--icc-profile=<file>
    Load an ICC profile and use it to transform video RGB to screen output. Needs LittleCMS 2 support compiled in. This option overrides the --target-prim, --target-trc and --icc-profile-auto options.

--icc-profile-auto
    Automatically select the ICC display profile currently specified by the display settings of the operating system.

    NOTE: On Windows, the default profile must be an ICC profile. WCS profiles are not supported.

--icc-cache-dir=<dirname>
    Store and load the 3D LUTs created from the ICC profile in this directory. This can be used to speed up loading, since LittleCMS 2 can take a while to create a 3D LUT. Note that these files contain uncompressed LUTs. Their size depends on the --icc-3dlut-size, and can be very big.

    NOTE: This is not cleaned automatically, so old, unused cache files may stick around indefinitely.

--icc-intent=<value>
    Specifies the ICC intent used for the color transformation (when using --icc-profile).

0   perceptual

1   relative colorimetric (default)

2   saturation

3   absolute colorimetric

--icc-3dlut-size=<r>x<g>x<b>
    Size of the 3D LUT generated from the ICC profile in each dimension. Default is 64x64x64. Sizes may range from 2 to 512.

--icc-contrast=<0-100000>
    Specifies an upper limit on the target device's contrast ratio. This is detected automatically from the profile if possible, but for some profiles it might be missing, causing the contrast to be assumed as infinite. As a result, video may appear darker than intended. This only affects BT.1886 content. The default of 0 means no limit.

--blend-subtitles=<yes|video|no>
    Blend subtitles directly onto upscaled video frames, before interpolation and/or color management (default: no). Enabling this causes subtitles to be affected by --icc-profile, --target-prim, --target-trc, --interpolation, --opengl-gamma and --post-shader. It also increases subtitle performance when using --interpolation.

    The downside of enabling this is that it restricts subtitles to the visible portion of the video, so you can't have subtitles exist in the black margins below a video (for example).

    If video is selected, the behavior is similar to yes, but subs are drawn at the video's native resolution, and scaled along with the video.

    WARNING: This changes the way subtitle colors are handled. Normally, subtitle colors are assumed to be in sRGB and color managed as such. Enabling this makes them treated as being in the video's color space instead. This is good if you want things like softsubbed ASS signs to match the video colors, but may cause SRT subtitles or similar to look slightly off.

--alpha=<blend-tiles|blend|yes|no>
    Decides what to do if the input has an alpha component.

blend-tiles
    Blend the frame against a 16x16 gray/white tiles background (default).

blend
    Blend the frame against the background color (--background, normally black).

yes Try to create a framebuffer with alpha component. This only makes sense if the video contains alpha information (which is extremely rare). May not be supported on all platforms. If alpha framebuffers are unavailable, it silently falls back on a normal framebuffer. Note that if you set the --opengl-fbo-format option to a non-default value, a format with alpha must be specified, or this won't work. This does not work on X11 with EGL and Mesa (freedesktop bug 67676).

no  Ignore alpha component.

--opengl-rectangle-textures
    Force use of rectangle textures (default: no). Normally this shouldn't have any advantages over normal textures. Note that hardware decoding overrides this flag. Could be removed any time.

--background=<color>
    Color used to draw parts of the mpv window not covered by video. See --osd-color option how colors are defined.

--opengl-tex-pad-x, --opengl-tex-pad-y
    Enlarge the video source textures by this many pixels. For debugging only (normally textures are sized exactly, but due to hardware decoding interop we may have to deal with additional padding, which can be tested with these options). Could be removed any time.

--opengl-early-flush=<yes|no|auto>
    Call glFlush() after rendering a frame and before attempting to display it (default: auto). Can fix stuttering in some cases, in other cases probably causes it. The auto mode will call glFlush() only if the renderer is going to wait for a while after rendering, instead of flipping GL front and backbuffers immediately (i.e. it doesn't call it in display-sync mode).

--opengl-dumb-mode=<yes|no|auto>
    This mode is extremely restricted, and will disable most extended OpenGL features. That includes high quality scalers and custom shaders!

    It is intended for hardware that does not support FBOs (including GLES, which supports it insufficiently), or to get some more performance out of bad or old hardware.

    This mode is forced automatically if needed, and this option is mostly useful for debugging. The default of auto will enable it automatically if nothing uses features which require FBOs.

    This option might be silently removed in the future.

--opengl-shader-cache-dir=<dirname>
    Store and load compiled GL shaders in this directory. Normally, shader compilation is very fast, so this is usually not needed. But some GL implementations (notably ANGLE, the default on Windows) have relatively slow shader compilation, and can cause startup delays.

    NOTE: This is not cleaned automatically, so old, unused cache files may stick around indefinitely.

    This option might be silently removed in the future, if ANGLE fixes shader compilation speed.

--cuda-decode-device=<auto|0..>
    Choose the GPU device used for decoding when using the cuda hwdec.

    By default, the device that is being used to provide OpenGL output will also be used for decoding (and in the vast majority of cases, only one GPU will be present).

    Note that when using the cuda-copy hwdec, a different option must be passed: --vd-lavc-o=gpu=<0..>.

  Miscellaneous

--display-tags=tag1,tags2,...
    Set the list of tags that should be displayed on the terminal. Tags that are in the list, but are not present in the played file, will not be shown. If a value ends with *, all tags are matched by prefix (though there is no general globbing). Just passing * essentially filtering.

    The default includes a common list of tags, call mpv with --list-options to see it.

--mc=<seconds/frame>
    Maximum A-V sync correction per frame (in seconds)

--autosync=<factor>
    Gradually adjusts the A/V sync based on audio delay measurements. Specifying --autosync=0, the default, will cause frame timing to be based entirely on audio delay measurements. Specifying --autosync=1 will do the same, but will subtly change the A/V correction algorithm. An uneven video framerate in a video which plays fine with --no-audio can often be helped by setting this to an integer value greater than 1. The higher the value, the closer the timing will be to --no-audio. Try --autosync=30 to smooth out problems with sound drivers which do not implement a perfect audio delay measurement. With this value, if large A/V sync offsets occur, they will only take about 1 or 2 seconds to settle out. This delay in reaction time to sudden A/V offsets should be the only side effect of turning this option on, for all sound drivers.

--video-sync=<audio|...>
    How the player synchronizes audio and video.

    If you use this option, you usually want to set it to display-resample to enable a timing mode that tries to not skip or repeat frames when for example playing 24fps video on a 24Hz screen.

    The modes starting with display- try to output video frames completely synchronously to the display, using the detected display vertical refresh rate as a hint how fast frames will be displayed on average. These modes change video speed slightly to match the display. See --video-sync-... options for fine tuning. The robustness of this mode is further reduced by making a some idealized assumptions, which may not always apply in reality. Behavior can depend on the VO and the system's video and audio drivers. Media files must use constant framerate. Section-wise VFR might work as well with some container formats (but not e.g. mkv). If the sync code detects severe A/V desync, or the framerate cannot be detected, the player automatically reverts to audio mode for some time or permanently.

    The modes with desync in their names do not attempt to keep audio/video in sync. They will slowly (or quickly) desync, until e.g. the next seek happens. These modes are meant for testing, not serious use.

audio
    Time video frames to audio. This is the most robust mode, because the player doesn't have to assume anything about how the display behaves. The disadvantage is that it can lead to occasional frame drops or repeats. If audio is disabled, this uses the system clock. This is the default mode.

display-resample
    Resample audio to match the video. This mode will also try to adjust audio speed to compensate for other drift. (This means it will play the audio at a different speed every once in a while to reduce the A/V difference.)

display-resample-vdrop
    Resample audio to match the video. Drop video frames to compensate for drift.

display-resample-desync
    Like the previous mode, but no A/V compensation.

display-vdrop
    Drop or repeat video frames to compensate desyncing video. (Although it should have the same effects as audio, the implementation is very different.)

display-adrop
    Drop or repeat audio data to compensate desyncing video. See --video-sync-adrop-size. This mode will cause severe audio artifacts if the real monitor refresh rate is too different from the reported or forced rate.

display-desync
    Sync video to display, and let audio play on its own.

desync
    Sync video according to system clock, and let audio play on its own.

--video-sync-max-video-change=<value>
    Maximum speed difference in percent that is applied to video with --video-sync=display-... (default: 1). Display sync mode will be disabled if the monitor and video refresh way do not match within the given range. It tries multiples as well: playing 30 fps video on a 60 Hz screen will duplicate every second frame. Playing 24 fps video on a 60 Hz screen will play video in a 2-3-2-3-... pattern.

    The default settings are not loose enough to speed up 23.976 fps video to 25 fps. We consider the pitch change too extreme to allow this behavior by default. Set this option to a value of 5 to enable it.

    Note that in the --video-sync=display-resample mode, audio speed will additionally be changed by a small amount if necessary for A/V sync. See --video-sync-max-audio-change.

--video-sync-max-audio-change=<value>
    Maximum additional speed difference in percent that is applied to audio with --video-sync=display-... (default: 0.125). Normally, the player plays the audio at the speed of the video. But if the difference between audio and video position is too high, e.g. due to drift or other timing errors, it will attempt to speed up or slow down audio by this additional factor. Too low values could lead to video frame dropping or repeating if the A/V desync cannot be compensated, too high values could lead to chaotic frame dropping due to the audio "overshooting" and skipping multiple video frames before the sync logic can react.

--video-sync-adrop-size=<value>
    For the --video-sync=display-adrop mode. This mode duplicates/drops audio data to keep audio in sync with video. To avoid audio artifacts on jitter (which would add/remove samples all the time), this is done in relatively large, fixed units, controlled by this option. The unit is seconds.

--mf-fps=<value>
    Framerate used when decoding from multiple PNG or JPEG files with mf:// (default: 1).

--mf-type=<value>
    Input file type for mf:// (available: jpeg, png, tga, sgi). By default, this is guessed from the file extension.

--stream-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.)

--vo-mmcss-profile=<name>
    (Windows only.) Set the MMCSS profile for the video renderer thread (default: Playback).

--priority=<prio>
    (Windows only.) Set process priority for mpv according to the predefined priorities available under Windows.

    Possible values of <prio>: idle|belownormal|normal|abovenormal|high|realtime

    WARNING: Using realtime priority can cause system lockup.

--force-media-title=<string>
    Force the contents of the media-title property to this value. Useful for scripts which want to set a title, without overriding the user's setting in --title.

--external-files=<file-list>
    Load a file and add all of its tracks. This is useful to play different files together (for example audio from one file, video from another), or for advanced --lavfi-complex used (like playing two video files at the same time).

    Unlike --sub-files and --audio-files, this includes all tracks, and does not cause default stream selection over the "proper" file. This makes it slightly less intrusive.

    This is a list option. See List Options for details.

--external-file=<file>
    CLI/config file only alias for --external-files-append. Each use of this option will add a new external files.

--autoload-files=<yes|no>
    Automatically load/select external files (default: yes).

    If set to no, then do not automatically load external files as specified by --sub-auto and --audio-file-auto. If external files are forcibly added (like with --sub-files), they will not be auto-selected.

    This does not affect playlist expansion, redirection, or other loading of referenced files like with ordered chapters.

--record-file=<file>
    Record the current stream to the given target file. The target file will always be overwritten without asking.

    This remuxes the source stream without reencoding, which makes this a highly fragile and experimental feature. It's entirely possible that this writes files which are broken, not standards compliant, not playable with all players (including mpv), or incomplete.

    The target file format is determined by the file extension of the target filename. It is recommended to use the same target container as the source container if possible, and preferring Matroska as fallback.

    Seeking during stream recording, or enabling/disabling stream recording during playback, can cut off data, or produce "holes" in the output file. These are technical restrictions. In particular, video data or subtitles which were read ahead can produce such holes, which might cause playback problems with various players (including mpv).

    The behavior of this option might changed in the future, such as changing it to a template (similar to --screenshot-template), being renamed, removed, or anything else, until it is declared semi-stable.

--lavfi-complex=<string>
    Set a "complex" libavfilter filter, which means a single filter graph can take input from multiple source audio and video tracks. The graph can result in a single audio or video output (or both).

    Currently, the filter graph labels are used to select the participating input tracks and audio/video output. The following rules apply:

•   A label of the form aidN selects audio track N as input (e.g. aid1).

•   A label of the form vidN selects video track N as input.

•   A label named ao will be connected to the audio output.

•   A label named vo will be connected to the video output.

    Each label can be used only once. If you want to use e.g. an audio stream for multiple filters, you need to use the asplit filter. Multiple video or audio outputs are not possible, but you can use filters to merge them into one.

    It's not possible to change the tracks connected to the filter at runtime, unless you explicitly change the lavfi-complex property and set new track assignments. When the graph is changed, the track selection is changed according to the used labels as well.

    Other tracks, as long as they're not connected to the filter, and the corresponding output is not connected to the filter, can still be freely changed with the normal methods.

    Note that the normal filter chains (--af, --vf) are applied between the complex graphs (e.g. ao label) and the actual output.

Examples

•   --lavfi-complex='[aid1] asplit [ao] [t] ; [t] aphasemeter [vo]' Play audio track 1, and visualize it as video using the aphasemeter filter.

•   --lavfi-complex='[aid1] [aid2] amix [ao]' Play audio track 1 and 2 at the same time.

•   --lavfi-complex='[vid1] [vid2] vstack [vo]' Stack video track 1 and 2 and play them at the same time. Note that both tracks need to have the same width, or filter initialization will fail (you can add scale filters before the vstack filter to fix the size).

•   --lavfi-complex='[aid1] asplit [ao] [t] ; [t] aphasemeter [t2] ; [vid1] [t2] overlay [vo]' Play audio track 1, and overlay its visualization over video track 1.

•   --lavfi-complex='[aid1] asplit [t1] [ao] ; [t1] showvolume [t2] ; [vid1] [t2] overlay [vo]' Play audio track 1, and overlay the measured volume for each speaker over video track 1.

•   null:// --lavfi-complex='life [vo]' Conways' Life Game.

    See the FFmpeg libavfilter documentation for details on the available filters.

AUDIO OUTPUT DRIVERS

Audio output drivers are interfaces to different audio output facilities. The syntax is:

--ao=<driver1,driver2,...[,]>
    Specify a priority list of audio output drivers to be used.

    If the list has a trailing ',', mpv will fall back on drivers not contained in the list.

    NOTE: See --ao=help for a list of compiled-in audio output drivers. The driver --ao=alsa is preferred. --ao=pulse is preferred on systems where PulseAudio is used. On BSD systems, --ao=oss or --ao=sndio may work (the latter being experimental).

    Available audio output drivers are:

alsa (Linux only)
    ALSA audio output driver

    See ALSA audio output options for options specific to this AO.

    WARNING: To get multichannel/surround audio, use --audio-channels=auto. The default for this option is auto-safe, which makes this audio otuput explicitly reject multichannel output, as there is no way to detect whether a certain channel layout is actually supported.

    You can also try using the upmix plugin. This setup enables multichannel audio on the default device with automatic upmixing with shared access, so playing stereo and multichannel audio at the same time will work as expected.

oss OSS audio output driver

    The following global options are supported by this audio output:

--oss-mixer-device
    Sets the audio mixer device (default: /dev/mixer).

--oss-mixer-channel
    Sets the audio mixer channel (default: pcm). Other valid values include vol, pcm, line. For a complete list of options look for SOUND_DEVICE_NAMES in /usr/include/linux/soundcard.h.

jack
    JACK (Jack Audio Connection Kit) audio output driver.

    The following global options are supported by this audio output:

--jack-port=<name>
    Connects to the ports with the given name (default: physical ports).

--jack-name=<client>
    Client name that is passed to JACK (default: mpv). Useful if you want to have certain connections established automatically.

--jack-autostart=<yes|no>
    Automatically start jackd if necessary (default: disabled). Note that this tends to be unreliable and will flood stdout with server messages.

--jack-connect=<yes|no>
    Automatically create connections to output ports (default: enabled). When enabled, the maximum number of output channels will be limited to the number of available output ports.

--jack-std-channel-layout=<waveext|any>
    Select the standard channel layout (default: waveext). JACK itself has no notion of channel layouts (i.e. assigning which speaker a given channel is supposed to map to) - it just takes whatever the application outputs, and reroutes it to whatever the user defines. This means the user and the application are in charge of dealing with the channel layout. waveext uses WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE order, which, even though it was defined by Microsoft, is the standard on many systems. The value any makes JACK accept whatever comes from the audio filter chain, regardless of channel layout and without reordering. This mode is probably not very useful, other than for debugging or when used with fixed setups.

coreaudio (Mac OS X only)
    Native Mac OS X audio output driver using AudioUnits and the CoreAudio sound server.

    Automatically redirects to coreaudio_exclusive when playing compressed formats.

    The following global options are supported by this audio output:

--coreaudio-change-physical-format=<yes|no>
    Change the physical format to one similar to the requested audio format (default: no). This has the advantage that multichannel audio output will actually work. The disadvantage is that it will change the system-wide audio settings. This is equivalent to changing the Format setting in the Audio Devices dialog in the Audio MIDI Setup utility. Note that this does not affect the selected speaker setup.

--coreaudio-spdif-hack=<yes|no>
    Try to pass through AC3/DTS data as PCM. This is useful for drivers which do not report AC3 support. It converts the AC3 data to float, and assumes the driver will do the inverse conversion, which means a typical A/V receiver will pick it up as compressed IEC framed AC3 stream, ignoring that it's marked as PCM. This disables normal AC3 passthrough (even if the device reports it as supported). Use with extreme care.

coreaudio_exclusive (Mac OS X only)
    Native Mac OS X audio output driver using direct device access and exclusive mode (bypasses the sound server).

openal
    Experimental OpenAL audio output driver

    NOTE: This driver is not very useful. Playing multi-channel audio with it is slow.

pulse
    PulseAudio audio output driver

    The following global options are supported by this audio output:

--pulse-host=<host>
    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. Default: 250.

--pulse-latency-hacks=<yes|no>
    Enable hacks to workaround PulseAudio timing bugs (default: no). If enabled, mpv will do elaborate latency calculations on its own. If disabled, it will use PulseAudio automatically updated timing information. Disabling this might help with e.g. networked audio or some plugins, while enabling it might help in some unknown situations (it used to be required to get good behavior on old PulseAudio versions).

    If you have stuttering video when using pulse, try to enable this option. (Or try to update PulseAudio.)

sdl SDL 1.2+ audio output driver. Should work on any platform supported by SDL 1.2, but may require the SDL_AUDIODRIVER environment variable to be set appropriately for your system.

    NOTE: This driver is for compatibility with extremely foreign environments, such as systems where none of the other drivers are available.

    The following global options are supported by this audio output:

--sdl-buflen=<length>
    Sets the audio buffer length in seconds. Is used only as a hint by the sound system. Playing a file with -v will show the requested and obtained exact buffer size. A value of 0 selects the sound system default.

--sdl-bufcnt=<count>
    Sets the number of extra audio buffers in mpv. Usually needs not be changed.

null
    Produces no audio output but maintains video playback speed. You can use --ao=null --ao-null-untimed for benchmarking.

    The following global options are supported by this audio output:

--ao-null-untimed
    Do not simulate timing of a perfect audio device. This means audio decoding will go as fast as possible, instead of timing it to the system clock.

--ao-null-buffer
    Simulated buffer length in seconds.

--ao-null-outburst
    Simulated chunk size in samples.

--ao-null-speed
    Simulated audio playback speed as a multiplier. Usually, a real audio device will not go exactly as fast as the system clock. It will deviate just a little, and this option helps to simulate this.

--ao-null-latency
    Simulated device latency. This is additional to EOF.

--ao-null-broken-eof
    Simulate broken audio drivers, which always add the fixed device latency to the reported audio playback position.

--ao-null-broken-delay
    Simulate broken audio drivers, which don't report latency correctly.

--ao-null-channel-layouts
    If not empty, this is a , separated list of channel layouts the AO allows. This can be used to test channel layout selection.

pcm Raw PCM/WAVE file writer audio output

    The following global options are supported by this audio output:

--ao-pcm-waveheader=<yes|no>
    Include or do not include the WAVE header (default: included). When not included, raw PCM will be generated.

--ao-pcm-file=<filename>
    Write the sound to <filename> instead of the default audiodump.wav. If no-waveheader is specified, the default is audiodump.pcm.

--ao-pcm-append=<yes|no>
    Append to the file, instead of overwriting it. Always use this with the no-waveheader option - with waveheader it's broken, because it will write a WAVE header every time the file is opened.

rsound
    Audio output to an RSound daemon. Use --audio-device=rsound/<hostname> to set the host name (with <hostname> replaced, without the < >).

    NOTE: Completely useless, unless you intend to run RSound. Not to be confused with RoarAudio, which is something completely different.

sndio
    Audio output to the OpenBSD sndio sound system

    NOTE: Experimental. There are known bugs and issues.

    (Note: only supports mono, stereo, 4.0, 5.1 and 7.1 channel layouts.)

wasapi
    Audio output to the Windows Audio Session API.

VIDEO OUTPUT DRIVERS

Video output drivers are interfaces to different video output facilities. The syntax is:

--vo=<driver1,driver2,...[,]>
    Specify a priority list of video output drivers to be used.

    If the list has a trailing ,, mpv will fall back on drivers not contained in the list.

    NOTE: See --vo=help for a list of compiled-in video output drivers.

    The recommended output driver is --vo=opengl, which is the default. All other drivers are for compatibility or special purposes. If the default does not work, it will fallback to other drivers (in the same order as listed by --vo=help).

    Available video output drivers are:

xv (X11 only)
    Uses the XVideo extension to enable hardware-accelerated display. This is the most compatible VO on X, but may be low-quality, and has issues with OSD and subtitle display.

    NOTE: This driver is for compatibility with old systems.

    The following global options are supported by this video output:

--xv-adaptor=<number>
    Select a specific XVideo adapter (check xvinfo results).

--xv-port=<number>
    Select a specific XVideo port.

--xv-ck=<cur|use|set>
    Select the source from which the color key is taken (default: cur).

cur The default takes the color key currently set in Xv.

use Use but do not set the color key from mpv (use the --colorkey option to change it).

set Same as use but also sets the supplied color key.

--xv-ck-method=<none|man|bg|auto>
    Sets the color key drawing method (default: man).

none
    Disables color-keying.

man Draw the color key manually (reduces flicker in some cases).

bg  Set the color key as window background.

auto
    Let Xv draw the color key.

--xv-colorkey=<number>
    Changes the color key to an RGB value of your choice. 0x000000 is black and 0xffffff is white.

--xv-buffers=<number>
    Number of image buffers to use for the internal ringbuffer (default: 2). Increasing this will use more memory, but might help with the X server not responding quickly enough if video FPS is close to or higher than the display refresh rate.

x11 (X11 only)
    Shared memory video output driver without hardware acceleration that works whenever X11 is present.

    NOTE: This is a fallback only, and should not be normally used.

vdpau (X11 only)
    Uses the VDPAU interface to display and optionally also decode video. Hardware decoding is used with --hwdec=vdpau.

    NOTE: Earlier versions of mpv (and MPlayer, mplayer2) provided sub-options to tune vdpau post-processing, like deint, sharpen, denoise, chroma-deint, pullup, hqscaling. These sub-options are deprecated, and you should use the vdpaupp video filter instead.

    The following global options are supported by this video output:

--vo-vdpau-sharpen=<-1-1>
    (Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)

    For positive values, apply a sharpening algorithm to the video, for negative values a blurring algorithm (default: 0).

--vo-vdpau-denoise=<0-1>
    (Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)

    Apply a noise reduction algorithm to the video (default: 0; no noise reduction).

--vo-vdpau-deint=<-4-4>
    (Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)

    Select deinterlacing mode (default: 0). In older versions (as well as MPlayer/mplayer2) you could use this option to enable deinterlacing. This doesn't work anymore, and deinterlacing is enabled with either the d key (by default mapped to the command cycle deinterlace), or the --deinterlace option. Also, to select the default deint mode, you should use something like --vf-defaults=vdpaupp:deint-mode=temporal instead of this sub-option.

0   Pick the vdpaupp video filter default, which corresponds to 3.

1   Show only first field.

2   Bob deinterlacing.

3   Motion-adaptive temporal deinterlacing. May lead to A/V desync with slow video hardware and/or high resolution.

4   Motion-adaptive temporal deinterlacing with edge-guided spatial interpolation. Needs fast video hardware.

--vo-vdpau-chroma-deint
    (Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)

    Makes temporal deinterlacers operate both on luma and chroma (default). Use no-chroma-deint to solely use luma and speed up advanced deinterlacing. Useful with slow video memory.

--vo-vdpau-pullup
    (Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)

    Try to apply inverse telecine, needs motion adaptive temporal deinterlacing.

--vo-vdpau-hqscaling=<0-9>
    (Deprecated. See note about vdpaupp.)

0   Use default VDPAU scaling (default).

1-9 Apply high quality VDPAU scaling (needs capable hardware).

--vo-vdpau-fps=<number>
    Override autodetected display refresh rate value (the value is needed for framedrop to allow video playback rates higher than display refresh rate, and for vsync-aware frame timing adjustments). Default 0 means use autodetected value. A positive value is interpreted as a refresh rate in Hz and overrides the autodetected value. A negative value disables all timing adjustment and framedrop logic.

--vo-vdpau-composite-detect
    NVIDIA's current VDPAU implementation behaves somewhat differently under a compositing window manager and does not give accurate frame timing information. With this option enabled, the player tries to detect whether a compositing window manager is active. If one is detected, the player disables timing adjustments as if the user had specified fps=-1 (as they would be based on incorrect input). This means timing is somewhat less accurate than without compositing, but with the composited mode behavior of the NVIDIA driver, there is no hard playback speed limit even without the disabled logic. Enabled by default, use --vo-vdpau-composite-detect=no to disable.

--vo-vdpau-queuetime-windowed=<number> and queuetime-fs=<number>
    Use VDPAU's presentation queue functionality to queue future video frame changes at most this many milliseconds in advance (default: 50). See below for additional information.

--vo-vdpau-output-surfaces=<2-15>
    Allocate this many output surfaces to display video frames (default: 3). See below for additional information.

--vo-vdpau-colorkey=<#RRGGBB|#AARRGGBB>
    Set the VDPAU presentation queue background color, which in practice is the colorkey used if VDPAU operates in overlay mode (default: #020507, some shade of black). If the alpha component of this value is 0, the default VDPAU colorkey will be used instead (which is usually green).

--vo-vdpau-force-yuv
    Never accept RGBA input. This means mpv will insert a filter to convert to a YUV format before the VO. Sometimes useful to force availability of certain YUV-only features, like video equalizer or deinterlacing.

    Using the VDPAU frame queuing functionality controlled by the queuetime options makes mpv's frame flip timing less sensitive to system CPU load and allows mpv to start decoding the next frame(s) slightly earlier, which can reduce jitter caused by individual slow-to-decode frames. However, the NVIDIA graphics drivers can make other window behavior such as window moves choppy if VDPAU is using the blit queue (mainly happens if you have the composite extension enabled) and this feature is active. If this happens on your system and it bothers you then you can set the queuetime value to 0 to disable this feature. The settings to use in windowed and fullscreen mode are separate because there should be no reason to disable this for fullscreen mode (as the driver issue should not affect the video itself).

    You can queue more frames ahead by increasing the queuetime values and the output_surfaces count (to ensure enough surfaces to buffer video for a certain time ahead you need at least as many surfaces as the video has frames during that time, plus two). This could help make video smoother in some cases. The main downsides are increased video RAM requirements for the surfaces and laggier display response to user commands (display changes only become visible some time after they're queued). The graphics driver implementation may also have limits on the length of maximum queuing time or number of queued surfaces that work well or at all.

direct3d (Windows only)
    Video output driver that uses the Direct3D interface.

    NOTE: This driver is for compatibility with systems that don't provide proper OpenGL drivers, and where ANGLE does not perform well.

    NOTE: Before to 0.21.0, direct3d_shaders and direct3d were different, with direct3d not using shader by default. Now both use shaders by default, and direct3d_shaders is a deprecated alias. Use the --vo-direct3d-prefer-stretchrect or the --vo-direct3d-disable-shaders options to get the old behavior of direct3d.

    The following global options are supported by this video output:

--vo-direct3d-prefer-stretchrect
    Use IDirect3DDevice9::StretchRect over other methods if possible.

--vo-direct3d-disable-stretchrect
    Never render the video using IDirect3DDevice9::StretchRect.

--vo-direct3d-disable-textures
    Never render the video using D3D texture rendering. Rendering with textures + shader will still be allowed. Add disable-shaders to completely disable video rendering with textures.

--vo-direct3d-disable-shaders
    Never use shaders when rendering video.

--vo-direct3d-only-8bit
    Never render YUV video with more than 8 bits per component. Using this flag will force software conversion to 8-bit.

--vo-direct3d-disable-texture-align
    Normally texture sizes are always aligned to 16. With this option enabled, the video texture will always have exactly the same size as the video itself.

    Debug options. These might be incorrect, might be removed in the future, might crash, might cause slow downs, etc. Contact the developers if you actually need any of these for performance or proper operation.

--vo-direct3d-force-power-of-2
    Always force textures to power of 2, even if the device reports non-power-of-2 texture sizes as supported.

--vo-direct3d-texture-memory=<mode>
    Only affects operation with shaders/texturing enabled, and (E)OSD. Possible values:

default (default)
    Use D3DPOOL_DEFAULT, with a D3DPOOL_SYSTEMMEM texture for locking. If the driver supports D3DDEVCAPS_TEXTURESYSTEMMEMORY, D3DPOOL_SYSTEMMEM is used directly.

default-pool
    Use D3DPOOL_DEFAULT. (Like default, but never use a shadow-texture.)

default-pool-shadow
    Use D3DPOOL_DEFAULT, with a D3DPOOL_SYSTEMMEM texture for locking. (Like default, but always force the shadow-texture.)

managed
    Use D3DPOOL_MANAGED.

scratch
    Use D3DPOOL_SCRATCH, with a D3DPOOL_SYSTEMMEM texture for locking.

--vo-direct3d-swap-discard
    Use D3DSWAPEFFECT_DISCARD, which might be faster. Might be slower too, as it must(?) clear every frame.

--vo-direct3d-exact-backbuffer
    Always resize the backbuffer to window size.

opengl
    OpenGL video output driver. It supports extended scaling methods, dithering and color management.

    See OpenGL renderer options for options specific to this VO.

    By default, it tries to use fast and fail-safe settings. Use the opengl-hq profile to use this driver with defaults set to high quality rendering. (This profile is also the replacement for --vo=opengl-hq.) The profile can be applied with --profile=opengl-hq and its contents can be viewed with --show-profile=opengl-hq.

    Requires at least OpenGL 2.1.

    Some features are available with OpenGL 3 capable graphics drivers only (or if the necessary extensions are available).

    OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0 are supported as well.

    Hardware decoding over OpenGL-interop is supported to some degree. Note that in this mode, some corner case might not be gracefully handled, and color space conversion and chroma upsampling is generally in the hand of the hardware decoder APIs.

    opengl makes use of FBOs by default. Sometimes you can achieve better quality or performance by changing the --opengl-fbo-format option to rgb16f, rgb32f or rgb. Known problems include Mesa/Intel not accepting rgb16, Mesa sometimes not being compiled with float texture support, and some OS X setups being very slow with rgb16 but fast with rgb32f. If you have problems, you can also try enabling the --opengl-dumb-mode=yes option.

sdl SDL 2.0+ Render video output driver, depending on system with or without hardware acceleration. Should work on all platforms supported by SDL 2.0. For tuning, refer to your copy of the file SDL_hints.h.

    NOTE: This driver is for compatibility with systems that don't provide proper graphics drivers, or which support GLES only.

    The following global options are supported by this video output:

--sdl-sw
    Continue even if a software renderer is detected.

--sdl-switch-mode
    Instruct SDL to switch the monitor video mode when going fullscreen.

vaapi
    Intel VA API video output driver with support for hardware decoding. Note that there is absolutely no reason to use this, other than compatibility. This is low quality, and has issues with OSD.

    NOTE: This driver is for compatibility with crappy systems. You can use vaapi hardware decoding with --vo=opengl too.

    The following global options are supported by this video output:

--vo-vaapi-scaling=<algorithm>

default
    Driver default (mpv default as well).

fast
    Fast, but low quality.

hq  Unspecified driver dependent high-quality scaling, slow.

nla non-linear anamorphic scaling

--vo-vaapi-deint-mode=<mode>
    Select deinterlacing algorithm. Note that by default deinterlacing is initially always off, and needs to be enabled with the d key (default key binding for cycle deinterlace).

    This option doesn't apply if libva supports video post processing (vpp). In this case, the default for deint-mode is no, and enabling deinterlacing via user interaction using the methods mentioned above actually inserts the vavpp video filter. If vpp is not actually supported with the libva backend in use, you can use this option to forcibly enable VO based deinterlacing.

no  Don't allow deinterlacing (default for newer libva).

first-field
    Show only first field.

bob bob deinterlacing (default for older libva).

--vo-vaapi-scaled-osd=<yes|no>
    If enabled, then the OSD is rendered at video resolution and scaled to display resolution. By default, this is disabled, and the OSD is rendered at display resolution if the driver supports it.

null
    Produces no video output. Useful for benchmarking.

    Usually, it's better to disable video with --no-video instead.

    The following global options are supported by this video output:

--vo-null-fps=<value>
    Simulate display FPS. This artificially limits how many frames the VO accepts per second.

caca
    Color ASCII art video output driver that works on a text console.

    NOTE: This driver is a joke.

tct Color Unicode art video output driver that works on a text console. Depends on support of true color by modern terminals to display the images at full color range. On Windows it requires an ansi terminal such as mintty.

--vo-tct-algo=<algo>
    Select how to write the pixels to the terminal.

half-blocks
    Uses unicode LOWER HALF BLOCK character to achieve higher vertical resolution. (Default.)

plain
    Uses spaces. Causes vertical resolution to drop twofolds, but in theory works in more places.

--vo-tct-width=<width> --vo-tct-height=<height>
    Assume the terminal has the specified character width and/or height. These default to 80x25 if the terminal size cannot be determined.

--vo-tct-256=<yes|no> (default: no)
    Use 256 colors - for terminals which don't support true color.

image
    Output each frame into an image file in the current directory. Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as name.

    The following global options are supported by this video output:

--vo-image-format=<format>
    Select the image file format.

jpg JPEG files, extension .jpg. (Default.)

jpeg
    JPEG files, extension .jpeg.

png PNG files.

--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-outdir=<dirname>
    Specify the directory to save the image files to (default: ./).

wayland (Wayland only)
    Wayland shared memory video output as fallback for opengl.

    NOTE: This driver is for compatibility with systems that don't provide working OpenGL drivers.

    The following global options are supported by this video output:

--vo-wayland-alpha
    Use a buffer format that supports videos and images with alpha information

--vo-wayland-rgb565
    Use RGB565 as buffer format. This format is implemented on most platforms, especially on embedded where it is far more efficient then RGB8888.

--vo-wayland-triple-buffering
    Use 3 buffers instead of 2. This can lead to more fluid playback, but uses more memory.

opengl-cb
    For use with libmpv direct OpenGL embedding; useless in any other contexts. (See <mpv/opengl_cb.h>.)

    This also supports many of the options the opengl VO has.

rpi (Raspberry Pi)
    Native video output on the Raspberry Pi using the MMAL API.

    This is deprecated. Use --vo=opengl instead, which is the default and provides the same functionality. The rpi VO will be removed in mpv 0.23.0. Its functionality was folded into --vo=opengl, which now uses RPI hardware decoding by treating it as a hardware overlay (without applying GL filtering). Also to be changed in 0.23.0: the --fs flag will be reset to "no" by default (like on the other platforms).

    The following deprecated global options are supported by this video output:

--rpi-display=<number>
    Select the display number on which the video overlay should be shown (default: 0).

--rpi-layer=<number>
    Select the dispmanx layer on which the video overlay should be shown (default: -10). Note that mpv will also use the 2 layers above the selected layer, to handle the window background and OSD. Actual video rendering will happen on the layer above the selected layer.

--rpi-background=<yes|no>
    Whether to render a black background behind the video (default: no). Normally it's better to kill the console framebuffer instead, which gives better performance.

--rpi-osd=<yes|no>
    Enabled by default. If disabled with no, no OSD layer is created. This also means there will be no subtitles rendered.

drm (Direct Rendering Manager)
    Video output driver using Kernel Mode Setting / Direct Rendering Manager. Should be used when one doesn't want to install full-blown graphical environment (e.g. no X). Does not support hardware acceleration (if you need this, check the drm backend for opengl VO).

    The following global options are supported by this video output:

--drm-connector=[<gpu_number>.]<name>
    Select the connector to use (usually this is a monitor.) If <name> is empty or auto, mpv renders the output on the first available connector. Use --drm-connector=help to get list of available connectors. When using multiple graphic cards, use the <gpu_number> argument to disambiguate. (default: empty)

--drm-mode=<number>
    Mode ID to use (resolution, bit depth and frame rate). (default: 0)

AUDIO FILTERS

Audio filters allow you to modify the audio stream and its properties. The syntax is:

--af=...
    Setup a chain of audio filters. See --vf for the syntax.

    NOTE: To get a full list of available audio filters, see --af=help.

    Also, keep in mind that most actual filters are available via the lavfi wrapper, which gives you access to most of libavfilter's filters. This includes all filters that have been ported from MPlayer to libavfilter.

    The --vf description describes how libavfilter can be used and how to workaround deprecated mpv filters.

    See --vf group of options for info on how --af-defaults, --af-add, --af-pre, --af-del, --af-clr, and possibly others work.

    Available filters are:

lavrresample[=option1:option2:...]
    This filter uses libavresample (or libswresample, depending on the build) to change sample rate, sample format, or channel layout of the audio stream. This filter is automatically enabled if the audio output does not support the audio configuration of the file being played.

    It supports only the following sample formats: u8, s16, s32, float.

filter-size=<length>
    Length of the filter with respect to the lower sampling rate. (default: 16)

phase-shift=<count>
    Log2 of the number of polyphase entries. (..., 10->1024, 11->2048, 12->4096, ...) (default: 10->1024)

cutoff=<cutoff>
    Cutoff frequency (0.0-1.0), default set depending upon filter length.

linear
    If set then filters will be linearly interpolated between polyphase entries. (default: no)

no-detach
    Do not detach if input and output audio format/rate/channels match. (If you just want to set defaults for this filter that will be used even by automatically inserted lavrresample instances, you should prefer setting them with --af-defaults=lavrresample:....)

normalize=<yes|no|auto>
    Whether to normalize when remixing channel layouts (default: auto). auto uses the value set by --audio-normalize-downmix.

o=<string>
    Set AVOptions on the SwrContext or AVAudioResampleContext. These should be documented by FFmpeg or Libav.

lavcac3enc[=options]
    Encode multi-channel audio to AC-3 at runtime using libavcodec. Supports 16-bit native-endian input format, maximum 6 channels. The output is big-endian when outputting a raw AC-3 stream, native-endian when outputting to S/PDIF. If the input sample rate is not 48 kHz, 44.1 kHz or 32 kHz, it will be resampled to 48 kHz.

tospdif=<yes|no>
    Output raw AC-3 stream if no, output to S/PDIF for pass-through if yes (default).

bitrate=<rate>
    The bitrate use for the AC-3 stream. Set it to 384 to get 384 kbps.

    The default is 640. Some receivers might not be able to handle this.

    Valid values: 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320, 384, 448, 512, 576, 640.

    The special value auto selects a default bitrate based on the input channel number:

1ch 96

2ch 192

3ch 224

4ch 384

5ch 448

6ch 448

minch=<n>
    If the input channel number is less than <minch>, the filter will detach itself (default: 3).

encoder=<name>
    Select the libavcodec encoder used. Currently, this should be an AC-3 encoder, and using another codec will fail horribly.

equalizer=g1:g2:g3:...:g10
    10 octave band graphic equalizer, implemented using 10 IIR band-pass filters. This means that it works regardless of what type of audio is being played back. The center frequencies for the 10 bands are:
    No. | frequency
    0 | 31.25 Hz
    1 | 62.50 Hz
    2 | 125.00 Hz
    3 | 250.00 Hz
    4 | 500.00 Hz
    5 | 1.00 kHz
    6 | 2.00 kHz
    7 | 4.00 kHz
    8 | 8.00 kHz
    9 | 16.00 kHz

    If the sample rate of the sound being played is lower than the center frequency for a frequency band, then that band will be disabled. A known bug with this filter is that the characteristics for the uppermost band are not completely symmetric if the sample rate is close to the center frequency of that band. This problem can be worked around by upsampling the sound using a resampling filter before it reaches this filter.

<g1>:<g2>:<g3>:...:<g10>
    floating point numbers representing the gain in dB for each frequency band (-12-12)

Example

mpv --af=equalizer=11:11:10:5:0:-12:0:5:12:12 media.avi
    Would amplify the sound in the upper and lower frequency region while canceling it almost completely around 1 kHz.

channels=nch[:routes]
    Can be used for adding, removing, routing and copying audio channels. If only <nch> is given, the default routing is used. It works as follows: If the number of output channels is greater than the number of input channels, empty channels are inserted (except when mixing from mono to stereo; then the mono channel is duplicated). If the number of output channels is less than the number of input channels, the exceeding channels are truncated.

<nch>
    number of output channels (1-8)

<routes>
    List of , separated routes, in the form from1-to1,from2-to2,.... Each pair defines where to route each channel. There can be at most 8 routes. Without this argument, the default routing is used. Since , is also used to separate filters, you must quote this argument with [...] or similar.

Examples

mpv --af=channels=4:[0-1,1-0,2-2,3-3] media.avi
    Would change the number of channels to 4 and set up 4 routes that swap channel 0 and channel 1 and leave channel 2 and 3 intact. Observe that if media containing two channels were played back, channels 2 and 3 would contain silence but 0 and 1 would still be swapped.

mpv --af=channels=6:[0-0,0-1,0-2,0-3] media.avi
    Would change the number of channels to 6 and set up 4 routes that copy channel 0 to channels 0 to 3. Channel 4 and 5 will contain silence.

    NOTE: You should probably not use this filter. If you want to change the output channel layout, try the format filter, which can make mpv automatically up- and downmix standard channel layouts.

format=format:srate:channels:out-format:out-srate:out-channels
    Does not do any format conversion itself. Rather, it may cause the filter system to insert necessary conversion filters before or after this filter if needed. It is primarily useful for controlling the audio format going into other filters. To specify the format for audio output, see --audio-format, --audio-samplerate, and --audio-channels. This filter is able to force a particular format, whereas --audio-* may be overridden by the ao based on output compatibility.

    All parameters are optional. The first 3 parameters restrict what the filter accepts as input. They will therefore cause conversion filters to be inserted before this one. The out- parameters tell the filters or audio outputs following this filter how to interpret the data without actually doing a conversion. Setting these will probably just break things unless you really know you want this for some reason, such as testing or dealing with broken media.

<format>
    Force conversion to this format. Use --af=format=format=help to get a list of valid formats.

<srate>
    Force conversion to a specific sample rate. The rate is an integer, 48000 for example.

<channels>
    Force mixing to a specific channel layout. See --audio-channels option for possible values.

    <out-format>

    <out-srate>

    <out-channels>

    NOTE: this filter used to be named force. The old format filter used to do conversion itself, unlike this one which lets the filter system handle the conversion.

volume[=<volumedb>[:...]]
    Implements software volume control. Use this filter with caution since it can reduce the signal to noise ratio of the sound. In most cases it is best to use the Master volume control of your sound card or the volume knob on your amplifier.

    WARNING: This filter is deprecated. Use the top-level options like --volume and --replaygain... instead.

    NOTE: This filter is not reentrant and can therefore only be enabled once for every audio stream.

<volumedb>
    Sets the desired gain in dB for all channels in the stream from -200 dB to +60 dB, where -200 dB mutes the sound completely and +60 dB equals a gain of 1000 (default: 0).

replaygain-track
    Adjust volume gain according to the track-gain replaygain value stored in the file metadata.

replaygain-album
    Like replaygain-track, but using the album-gain value instead.

replaygain-preamp
    Pre-amplification gain in dB to apply to the selected replaygain gain (default: 0).

replaygain-clip=yes|no
    Prevent clipping caused by replaygain by automatically lowering the gain (default). Use replaygain-clip=no to disable this.

replaygain-fallback
    Gain in dB to apply if the file has no replay gain tags. This option is always applied if the replaygain logic is somehow inactive. If this is applied, no other replaygain options are applied.

softclip
    Turns soft clipping on. Soft-clipping can make the sound more smooth if very high volume levels are used. Enable this option if the dynamic range of the loudspeakers is very low.

    WARNING: This feature creates distortion and should be considered a last resort.

s16 Force S16 sample format if set. Lower quality, but might be faster in some situations.

detach
    Remove the filter if the volume is not changed at audio filter config time. Useful with replaygain: if the current file has no replaygain tags, then the filter will be removed if this option is enabled. (If --softvol=yes is used and the player volume controls are used during playback, a different volume filter will be inserted.)

Example

mpv --af=volume=10.1 media.avi
    Would amplify the sound by 10.1 dB and hard-clip if the sound level is too high.

pan=n:[<matrix>]
    Mixes channels arbitrarily. Basically a combination of the volume and the channels filter that can be used to down-mix many channels to only a few, e.g. stereo to mono, or vary the "width" of the center speaker in a surround sound system. This filter is hard to use, and will require some tinkering before the desired result is obtained. The number of options for this filter depends on the number of output channels. An example how to downmix a six-channel file to two channels with this filter can be found in the examples section near the end.

<n> Number of output channels (1-8).

<matrix>
    A list of values [L00,L01,L02,...,L10,L11,L12,...,Ln0,Ln1,Ln2,...], where each element Lij means how much of input channel i is mixed into output channel j (range 0-1). So in principle you first have n numbers saying what to do with the first input channel, then n numbers that act on the second input channel etc. If you do not specify any numbers for some input channels, 0 is assumed. Note that the values are separated by ,, which is already used by the option parser to separate filters. This is why you must quote the value list with [...] or similar.

Examples

mpv --af=pan=1:[0.5,0.5] media.avi
    Would downmix from stereo to mono.

mpv --af=pan=3:[1,0,0.5,0,1,0.5] media.avi
    Would give 3 channel output leaving channels 0 and 1 intact, and mix channels 0 and 1 into output channel 2 (which could be sent to a subwoofer for example).

    NOTE: If you just want to force remixing to a certain output channel layout, it is easier to use the format filter. For example, mpv '--af=format=channels=5.1' '--audio-channels=5.1' would always force remixing audio to 5.1 and output it like this.

    This filter supports the following af-command commands:

set-matrix
    Set the <matrix> argument dynamically. This can be used to change the mixing matrix at runtime, without reinitializing the entire filter chain.

scaletempo[=option1:option2:...]
    Scales audio tempo without altering pitch, optionally synced to playback speed (default).

    This works by playing 'stride' ms of audio at normal speed then consuming 'stride*scale' ms of input audio. It pieces the strides together by blending 'overlap'% of stride with audio following the previous stride. It optionally performs a short statistical analysis on the next 'search' ms of audio to determine the best overlap position.

scale=<amount>
    Nominal amount to scale tempo. Scales this amount in addition to speed. (default: 1.0)

stride=<amount>
    Length in milliseconds to output each stride. Too high of a value will cause noticeable skips at high scale amounts and an echo at low scale amounts. Very low values will alter pitch. Increasing improves performance. (default: 60)

overlap=<percent>
    Percentage of stride to overlap. Decreasing improves performance. (default: .20)

search=<amount>
    Length in milliseconds to search for best overlap position. Decreasing improves performance greatly. On slow systems, you will probably want to set this very low. (default: 14)

speed=<tempo|pitch|both|none>
    Set response to speed change.

tempo
    Scale tempo in sync with speed (default).

pitch
    Reverses effect of filter. Scales pitch without altering tempo. Add this to your input.conf to step by musical semi-tones:

    [ multiply speed 0.9438743126816935
    ] multiply speed 1.059463094352953

    WARNING: Loses sync with video.

both
    Scale both tempo and pitch.

none
    Ignore speed changes.

Examples

mpv --af=scaletempo --speed=1.2 media.ogg
    Would play media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at normal pitch. Changing playback speed would change audio tempo to match.

mpv --af=scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=none --speed=1.2 media.ogg
    Would play media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at normal pitch, but changing playback speed would have no effect on audio tempo.

mpv --af=scaletempo=stride=30:overlap=.50:search=10 media.ogg
    Would tweak the quality and performance parameters.

mpv --af=scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=pitch audio.ogg
    Would play media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at normal pitch. Changing playback speed would change pitch, leaving audio tempo at 1.2x.

rubberband
    High quality pitch correction with librubberband. This can be used in place of scaletempo, and will be used to adjust audio pitch when playing at speed different from normal. It can also be used to adjust audio pitch without changing playback speed.

<pitch-scale>
    Sets the pitch scaling factor. Frequencies are multiplied by this value.

    This filter has a number of additional sub-options. You can list them with mpv --af=rubberband=help. This will also show the default values for each option. The options are not documented here, because they are merely passed to librubberband. Look at the librubberband documentation to learn what each option does: http://breakfastquay.com/rubberband/code-doc/classRubberBand_1_1RubberBandStretcher.html (The mapping of the mpv rubberband filter sub-option names and values to those of librubberband follows a simple pattern: "Option" + Name + Value.)

    This filter supports the following af-command commands:

set-pitch
    Set the <pitch-scale> argument dynamically. This can be used to change the playback pitch at runtime. Note that speed is controlled using the standard speed property, not af-command.

lavfi=graph
    Filter audio using FFmpeg's libavfilter.

<graph>
    Libavfilter graph. See lavfi video filter for details - the graph syntax is the same.

    WARNING: Don't forget to quote libavfilter graphs as described in the lavfi video filter section.

o=<string>
    AVOptions.

VIDEO FILTERS

Video filters allow you to modify the video stream and its properties. The syntax is:

--vf=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
    Setup a chain of video filters. 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 enabled by default. It will be skipped on filter creation. This is also useful for runtime filter toggling.

    See the vf command (and toggle sub-command) for further explanations and examples.

    The general filter entry syntax is: ["@"<label-name>":"] ["!"] <filter-name> [ "=" <filter-parameter-list> ]

    or for the special "toggle" syntax (see vf command): "@"<label-name>

    and the filter-parameter-list: <filter-parameter> | <filter-parameter> "," <filter-parameter-list>

    and filter-parameter: ( <param-name> "=" <param-value> ) | <param-value>

    param-value can further be quoted in [ / ] in case the value contains characters like , or =. This is used in particular with the lavfi filter, which uses a very similar syntax as mpv (MPlayer historically) to specify filters and their parameters.

    You can also set defaults for each filter. The defaults are applied before the normal filter parameters.

--vf-defaults=<filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
    Set defaults for each filter.

    NOTE: To get a full list of available video filters, see --vf=help and http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html .

    Also, keep in mind that most actual filters are available via the lavfi wrapper, which gives you access to most of libavfilter's filters. This includes all filters that have been ported from MPlayer to libavfilter.

    Most builtin filters are deprecated in some ways, unless they're only available in mpv (such as filters which deal with mpv specifics, or which are implemented in mpv only).

    If a filter is not builtin, the lavfi-bridge will be automatically tried. This bridge does not support help output, and does not verify parameters before the filter is actually used. Although the mpv syntax is rather similar to libavfilter's, it's not the same. (Which means not everything accepted by vf_lavfi's graph option will be accepted by --vf.)

    You can also prefix the filter name with lavfi- to force the wrapper. This is helpful if the filter name collides with a deprecated mpv builtin filter. For example --vf=lavfi-scale=args would use libavfilter's scale filter over mpv's deprecated builtin one.

    Video filters are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage the filter list.

--vf-add=<filter1[,filter2,...]>
    Appends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.

--vf-pre=<filter1[,filter2,...]>
    Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.

--vf-del=<index1[,index2,...]>
    Deletes the filters at the given indexes. Index numbers start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the last).

--vf-clr
    Completely empties the filter list.

    With filters that support it, you can access parameters by their name.

--vf=<filter>=help
    Prints the parameter names and parameter value ranges for a particular filter.

--vf=<filter=named_parameter1=value1[:named_parameter2=value2:...]>
    Sets a named parameter to the given value. Use on and off or yes and no to set flag parameters.

    Available mpv-only filters are:

crop[=w:h:x:y]
    Crops the given part of the image and discards the rest. Useful to remove black bands from widescreen videos.

<w>,<h>
    Cropped width and height, defaults to original width and height.

<x>,<y>
    Position of the cropped picture, defaults to center.

expand[=w:h:x:y:aspect:round]
    Expands (not scales) video resolution to the given value and places the unscaled original at coordinates x, y.

<w>,<h>
    Expanded width,height (default: original width,height). Negative values for w and h are treated as offsets to the original size.

Example

expand=0:-50:0:0
    Adds a 50 pixel border to the bottom of the picture.

<x>,<y>
    position of original image on the expanded image (default: center)

<aspect>
    Expands to fit an aspect instead of a resolution (default: 0).

Example

expand=800::::4/3
    Expands to 800x600, unless the source is higher resolution, in which case it expands to fill a 4/3 aspect.

<round>
    Rounds up to make both width and height divisible by <r> (default: 1).

flip
    Flips the image upside down.

mirror
    Mirrors the image on the Y axis.

rotate[=0|90|180|270]
    Rotates the image by a multiple of 90 degrees clock-wise.

scale[=w:h:param:param2:chr-drop:noup:arnd
    Scales the image with the software scaler (slow) and performs a YUV<->RGB color space conversion (see also --sws).

    All parameters are optional.

<w>:<h>
    scaled width/height (default: original width/height)

0   scaled d_width/d_height

-1  original width/height

-2  Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the prescaled aspect ratio.

-3  Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the original aspect ratio.

-(n+8)
    Like -n above, but rounding the dimension to the closest multiple of 16.

<param>[:<param2>] (see also --sws)
    Set some scaling parameters depending on the type of scaler selected with --sws:

    --sws=2 (bicubic):  B (blurring) and C (ringing)
        0.00:0.60 default
        0.00:0.75 VirtualDub's "precise bicubic"
        0.00:0.50 Catmull-Rom spline
        0.33:0.33 Mitchell-Netravali spline
        1.00:0.00 cubic B-spline
    --sws=7 (Gaussian): sharpness (0 (soft) - 100 (sharp))
    --sws=9 (Lanczos):  filter length (1-10)

<chr-drop>
    chroma skipping

0   Use all available input lines for chroma (default).

1   Use only every 2. input line for chroma.

2   Use only every 4. input line for chroma.

3   Use only every 8. input line for chroma.

<noup>
    Disallow upscaling past the original dimensions.

0   Allow upscaling (default).

1   Disallow upscaling if one dimension exceeds its original value.

2   Disallow upscaling if both dimensions exceed their original values.

<arnd>
    Accurate rounding for the vertical scaler, which may be faster or slower than the default rounding.

no  Disable accurate rounding (default).

yes Enable accurate rounding.

dsize[=w:h:aspect-method:r:aspect]
    Changes the intended display aspect at an arbitrary point in the filter chain. Aspect can be given as a fraction (4/3) or floating point number (1.33). Note that this filter does not do any scaling itself; it just affects what later scalers (software or hardware) will do when auto-scaling to the correct aspect.

<w>,<h>
    New aspect ratio given by a display width and height. Unlike older mpv versions or MPlayer, this does not set the display size.

    Can also be these special values:

0   original display width and height

-1  original video width and height (default)

-2  Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the original display aspect ratio.

-3  Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the original video aspect ratio.

Example

dsize=800:-2
    Specifies a display resolution of 800x600 for a 4/3 aspect video, or 800x450 for a 16/9 aspect video.

<aspect-method>
    Modifies width and height according to original aspect ratios.

-1  Ignore original aspect ratio (default).

0   Keep display aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as maximum resolution.

1   Keep display aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as minimum resolution.

2   Keep video aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as maximum resolution.

3   Keep video aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as minimum resolution.

Example

dsize=800:600:0
    Specifies a display resolution of at most 800x600, or smaller, in order to keep aspect.

<r> Rounds up to make both width and height divisible by <r> (default: 1).

<aspect>
    Force an aspect ratio.

format=fmt=<value>:colormatrix=<value>:...
    Restricts the color space for the next filter without doing any conversion. Use together with the scale filter for a real conversion.

    NOTE: For a list of available formats, see format=fmt=help.

<fmt>
    Format name, e.g. rgb15, bgr24, 420p, etc. (default: don't change).

<outfmt>
    Format name that should be substituted for the output. If they do not have the same bytes per pixel and chroma subsampling, it will fail.

<colormatrix>
    Controls the YUV to RGB color space conversion when playing video. There are various standards. Normally, BT.601 should be used for SD video, and BT.709 for HD video. (This is done by default.) Using incorrect color space results in slightly under or over saturated and shifted colors.

    These options are not always supported. Different video outputs provide varying degrees of support. The opengl and vdpau video output drivers usually offer full support. The xv output can set the color space if the system video driver supports it, but not input and output levels. The scale video filter can configure color space and input levels, but only if the output format is RGB (if the video output driver supports RGB output, you can force this with -vf scale,format=rgba).

    If this option is set to auto (which is the default), the video's color space flag will be used. If that flag is unset, the color space will be selected automatically. This is done using a simple heuristic that attempts to distinguish SD and HD video. If the video is larger than 1279x576 pixels, BT.709 (HD) will be used; otherwise BT.601 (SD) is selected.

    Available color spaces are:

auto
    automatic selection (default)

bt.601
    ITU-R BT.601 (SD)

bt.709
    ITU-R BT.709 (HD)

bt.2020-ncl
    ITU-R BT.2020 non-constant luminance system

bt.2020-cl
    ITU-R BT.2020 constant luminance system

smpte-240m
    SMPTE-240M

<colorlevels>
    YUV color levels used with YUV to RGB conversion. This option is only necessary when playing broken files which do not follow standard color levels or which are flagged wrong. If the video does not specify its color range, it is assumed to be limited range.

    The same limitations as with <colormatrix> apply.

    Available color ranges are:

auto
    automatic selection (normally limited range) (default)

limited
    limited range (16-235 for luma, 16-240 for chroma)

full
    full range (0-255 for both luma and chroma)

<primaries>
    RGB primaries the source file was encoded with. Normally this should be set in the file header, but when playing broken or mistagged files this can be used to override the setting.

    This option only affects video output drivers that perform color management, for example opengl with the target-prim or icc-profile suboptions set.

    If this option is set to auto (which is the default), the video's primaries flag will be used. If that flag is unset, the color space will be selected automatically, using the following heuristics: If the <colormatrix> is set or determined as BT.2020 or BT.709, the corresponding primaries are used. Otherwise, if the video height is exactly 576 (PAL), BT.601-625 is used. If it's exactly 480 or 486 (NTSC), BT.601-525 is used. If the video resolution is anything else, BT.709 is used.

    Available primaries are:

auto
    automatic selection (default)

bt.601-525
    ITU-R BT.601 (SD) 525-line systems (NTSC, SMPTE-C)

bt.601-625
    ITU-R BT.601 (SD) 625-line systems (PAL, SECAM)

bt.709
    ITU-R BT.709 (HD) (same primaries as sRGB)

bt.2020
    ITU-R BT.2020 (UHD)

apple
    Apple RGB

adobe
    Adobe RGB (1998)

prophoto
    ProPhoto RGB (ROMM)

cie1931
    CIE 1931 RGB

dci-p3
    DCI-P3 (Digital Cinema)

v-gamut
    Panasonic V-Gamut primaries

<gamma>
    Gamma function the source file was encoded with. Normally this should be set in the file header, but when playing broken or mistagged files this can be used to override the setting.

    This option only affects video output drivers that perform color management.

    If this option is set to auto (which is the default), the gamma will be set to BT.1886 for YCbCr content, sRGB for RGB content and Linear for XYZ content.

    Available gamma functions are:

auto
    automatic selection (default)

bt.1886
    ITU-R BT.1886 (EOTF corresponding to BT.601/BT.709/BT.2020)

srgb
    IEC 61966-2-4 (sRGB)

linear
    Linear light

gamma1.8
    Pure power curve (gamma 1.8)

gamma2.2
    Pure power curve (gamma 2.2)

gamma2.8
    Pure power curve (gamma 2.8)

prophoto
    ProPhoto RGB (ROMM) curve

pq  ITU-R BT.2100 PQ (Perceptual quantizer) curve

hlg ITU-R BT.2100 HLG (Hybrid Log-gamma) curve

v-log
    Panasonic V-Log transfer curve

s-log1
    Sony S-Log1 transfer curve

s-log2
    Sony S-Log2 transfer curve

<sig-peak>
    Reference peak illumination for the video file, relative to the signal's reference white level. This is mostly interesting for HDR, but it can also be used tone map SDR content to simulate a different exposure. Normally inferred from tags such as MaxCLL or mastering metadata.

    The default of 0.0 will default to the source's nominal peak luminance.

<light>
    Light type of the scene. This is mostly correctly inferred based on the gamma function, but it can be useful to override this when viewing raw camera footage (e.g. V-Log), which is normally scene-referred instead of display-referred.

    Available light types are:

auto
    Automatic selection (default)

display
    Display-referred light (most content)

hlg Scene-referred using the HLG OOTF (e.g. HLG content)

709-1886
    Scene-referred using the BT709+BT1886 interaction

gamma1.2
    Scene-referred using a pure power OOTF (gamma=1.2)

<stereo-in>
    Set the stereo mode the video is assumed to be encoded in. Takes the same values as the --video-stereo-mode option.

<stereo-out>
    Set the stereo mode the video should be displayed as. Takes the same values as the --video-stereo-mode option.

<rotate>
    Set the rotation the video is assumed to be encoded with in degrees. The special value -1 uses the input format.

<dw>, <dh>
    Set the display size. Note that setting the display size such that the video is scaled in both directions instead of just changing the aspect ratio is an implementation detail, and might change later.

<dar>
    Set the display aspect ratio of the video frame. This is a float, but values such as [16:9] can be passed too ([...] for quoting to prevent the option parser from interpreting the : character).

<spherical-type>
    Type of the spherical projection:

auto
    As indicated by the file (default)

none
    Normal video

equirect
    Equirectangular

unknown
    Unknown projection

<spherical-yaw>, <spherical-pitch>, <spherical-roll>
    Reference angle in degree, if spherical video is used.

noformat[=fmt]
    Restricts the color space for the next filter without doing any conversion. Unlike the format filter, this will allow any color space except the one you specify.

    NOTE: For a list of available formats, see noformat=fmt=help.

<fmt>
    Format name, e.g. rgb15, bgr24, 420p, etc. (default: 420p).

lavfi=graph[:sws-flags[:o=opts]]
    Filter video using FFmpeg's libavfilter.

<graph>
    The libavfilter graph string. The filter must have a single video input pad and a single video output pad.

    See https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html for syntax and available filters.

    WARNING: If you want to use the full filter syntax with this option, you have to quote the filter graph in order to prevent mpv's syntax and the filter graph syntax from clashing.

Examples

-vf lavfi=[gradfun=20:30,vflip]
    gradfun filter with nonsense parameters, followed by a vflip filter. (This demonstrates how libavfilter takes a graph and not just a single filter.) The filter graph string is quoted with [ and ]. This requires no additional quoting or escaping with some shells (like bash), while others (like zsh) require additional " quotes around the option string.

'--vf=lavfi="gradfun=20:30,vflip"'
    Same as before, but uses quoting that should be safe with all shells. The outer ' quotes make sure that the shell does not remove the " quotes needed by mpv.

'--vf=lavfi=graph="gradfun=radius=30:strength=20,vflip"'
    Same as before, but uses named parameters for everything.

<sws-flags>
    If libavfilter inserts filters for pixel format conversion, this option gives the flags which should be passed to libswscale. This option is numeric and takes a bit-wise combination of SWS_ flags.

    See http://git.videolan.org/?p=ffmpeg.git;a=blob;f=libswscale/swscale.h.

<o> Set AVFilterGraph options. These should be documented by FFmpeg.

Example

'--vf=lavfi=yadif:o="threads=2,thread_type=slice"'
    forces a specific threading configuration.

pullup[=jl:jr:jt:jb:sb:mp]
    Pulldown reversal (inverse telecine) filter, capable of handling mixed hard-telecine, 24000/1001 fps progressive, and 30000/1001 fps progressive content. The pullup filter makes use of future context in making its decisions. It is stateless in the sense that it does not lock onto a pattern to follow, but it instead looks forward to the following fields in order to identify matches and rebuild progressive frames.

jl, jr, jt, and jb
    These options set the amount of "junk" to ignore at the left, right, top, and bottom of the image, respectively. Left/right are in units of 8 pixels, while top/bottom are in units of 2 lines. The default is 8 pixels on each side.

sb (strict breaks)
    Setting this option to 1 will reduce the chances of pullup generating an occasional mismatched frame, but it may also cause an excessive number of frames to be dropped during high motion sequences. Conversely, setting it to -1 will make pullup match fields more easily. This may help process video with slight blurring between the fields, but may also cause interlaced frames in the output.

mp (metric plane)
    This option may be set to u or v to use a chroma plane instead of the luma plane for doing pullup's computations. This may improve accuracy on very clean source material, but more likely will decrease accuracy, especially if there is chroma noise (rainbow effect) or any grayscale video. The main purpose of setting mp to a chroma plane is to reduce CPU load and make pullup usable in realtime on slow machines.

yadif=[mode:interlaced-only]
    Yet another deinterlacing filter

<mode>

frame
    Output 1 frame for each frame.

field
    Output 1 frame for each field (default).

frame-nospatial
    Like frame but skips spatial interlacing check.

field-nospatial
    Like field but skips spatial interlacing check.

<interlaced-only>

no  Deinterlace all frames.

yes Only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced (default).

    This filter is automatically inserted when using the d key (or any other key that toggles the deinterlace property or when using the --deinterlace switch), assuming the video output does not have native deinterlacing support.

    If you just want to set the default mode, put this filter and its options into --vf-defaults instead, and enable deinterlacing with d or --deinterlace.

    Also, note that the d key is stupid enough to insert a deinterlacer twice when inserting yadif with --vf, so using the above methods is recommended.

sub=[=bottom-margin:top-margin]
    Moves subtitle rendering to an arbitrary point in the filter chain, or force subtitle rendering in the video filter as opposed to using video output OSD support.

<bottom-margin>
    Adds a black band at the bottom of the frame. The SSA/ASS renderer can place subtitles there (with --sub-use-margins).

<top-margin>
    Black band on the top for toptitles (with --sub-use-margins).

Examples

--vf=sub,eq
    Moves sub rendering before the eq filter. This will put both subtitle colors and video under the influence of the video equalizer settings.

stereo3d[=in:out]
    Stereo3d converts between different stereoscopic image formats.

<in>
    Stereoscopic image format of input. Possible values:

sbsl or side_by_side_left_first
    side by side parallel (left eye left, right eye right)

sbsr or side_by_side_right_first
    side by side crosseye (right eye left, left eye right)

abl or above_below_left_first
    above-below (left eye above, right eye below)

abr or above_below_right_first
    above-below (right eye above, left eye below)

ab2l or above_below_half_height_left_first
    above-below with half height resolution (left eye above, right eye below)

ab2r or above_below_half_height_right_first
    above-below with half height resolution (right eye above, left eye below)

<out>
    Stereoscopic image format of output. Possible values are all the input formats as well as:

arcg or anaglyph_red_cyan_gray
    anaglyph red/cyan gray (red filter on left eye, cyan filter on right eye)

arch or anaglyph_red_cyan_half_color
    anaglyph red/cyan half colored (red filter on left eye, cyan filter on right eye)

arcc or anaglyph_red_cyan_color
    anaglyph red/cyan color (red filter on left eye, cyan filter on right eye)

arcd or anaglyph_red_cyan_dubois
    anaglyph red/cyan color optimized with the least-squares projection of Dubois (red filter on left eye, cyan filter on right eye)

agmg or anaglyph_green_magenta_gray
    anaglyph green/magenta gray (green filter on left eye, magenta filter on right eye)

agmh or anaglyph_green_magenta_half_color
    anaglyph green/magenta half colored (green filter on left eye, magenta filter on right eye)

agmc or anaglyph_green_magenta_color
    anaglyph green/magenta colored (green filter on left eye, magenta filter on right eye)

aybg or anaglyph_yellow_blue_gray
    anaglyph yellow/blue gray (yellow filter on left eye, blue filter on right eye)

aybh or anaglyph_yellow_blue_half_color
    anaglyph yellow/blue half colored (yellow filter on left eye, blue filter on right eye)

aybc or anaglyph_yellow_blue_color
    anaglyph yellow/blue colored (yellow filter on left eye, blue filter on right eye)

irl or interleave_rows_left_first
    Interleaved rows (left eye has top row, right eye starts on next row)

irr or interleave_rows_right_first
    Interleaved rows (right eye has top row, left eye starts on next row)

ml or mono_left
    mono output (left eye only)

mr or mono_right
    mono output (right eye only)

gradfun[=strength[:radius|:size=<size>]]
    Fix the banding artifacts that are sometimes introduced into nearly flat regions by truncation to 8-bit color depth. Interpolates the gradients that should go where the bands are, and dithers them.

<strength>
    Maximum amount by which the filter will change any one pixel. Also the threshold for detecting nearly flat regions (default: 1.5).

<radius>
    Neighborhood to fit the gradient to. Larger radius makes for smoother gradients, but also prevents the filter from modifying pixels near detailed regions (default: disabled).

<size>
    size of the filter in percent of the image diagonal size. This is used to calculate the final radius size (default: 1).

vapoursynth=file:buffered-frames:concurrent-frames
    Loads a VapourSynth filter script. This is intended for streamed processing: mpv actually provides a source filter, instead of using a native VapourSynth video source. The mpv source will answer frame requests only within a small window of frames (the size of this window is controlled with the buffered-frames parameter), and requests outside of that will return errors. As such, you can't use the full power of VapourSynth, but you can use certain filters.

    If you just want to play video generated by a VapourSynth (i.e. using a native VapourSynth video source), it's better to use vspipe and a FIFO to feed the video to mpv. The same applies if the filter script requires random frame access (see buffered-frames parameter).

    This filter is experimental. If it turns out that it works well and is used, it will be ported to libavfilter. Otherwise, it will be just removed.

file
    Filename of the script source. Currently, this is always a python script. The variable video_in is set to the mpv video source, and it is expected that the script reads video from it. (Otherwise, mpv will decode no video, and the video packet queue will overflow, eventually leading to audio being stopped.) The script is also expected to pass through timestamps using the _DurationNum and _DurationDen frame properties.

Example:

    import vapoursynth as vs
    core = vs.get_core()
    core.std.AddBorders(video_in, 10, 10, 20, 20).set_output()

    WARNING: The script will be reloaded on every seek. This is done to reset the filter properly on discontinuities.

buffered-frames
    Maximum number of decoded video frames that should be buffered before the filter (default: 4). This specifies the maximum number of frames the script can request in reverse direction. E.g. if buffered-frames=5, and the script just requested frame 15, it can still request frame 10, but frame 9 is not available anymore. If it requests frame 30, mpv will decode 15 more frames, and keep only frames 25-30.

    The actual number of buffered frames also depends on the value of the concurrent-frames option. Currently, both option values are multiplied to get the final buffer size.

    (Normally, VapourSynth source filters must provide random access, but mpv was made for playback, and does not provide frame-exact random access. The way this video filter works is a compromise to make simple filters work anyway.)

concurrent-frames
    Number of frames that should be requested in parallel. The level of concurrency depends on the filter and how quickly mpv can decode video to feed the filter. This value should probably be proportional to the number of cores on your machine. Most time, making it higher than the number of cores can actually make it slower.

    By default, this uses the special value auto, which sets the option to the number of detected logical CPU cores.

    The following variables are defined by mpv:

video_in
    The mpv video source as vapoursynth clip. Note that this has no length set, which confuses many filters. Using Trim on the clip with a high dummy length can turn it into a finite clip.

video_in_dw, video_in_dh
    Display size of the video. Can be different from video size if the video does not use square pixels (e.g. DVD).

container_fps
    FPS value as reported by file headers. This value can be wrong or completely broken (e.g. 0 or NaN). Even if the value is correct, if another filter changes the real FPS (by dropping or inserting frames), the value of this variable might not be useful. Note that the --fps command line option overrides this value.

    Useful for some filters which insist on having a FPS.

display_fps
    Refresh rate of the current display. Note that this value can be 0.

vapoursynth-lazy
    The same as vapoursynth, but doesn't load Python scripts. Instead, a custom backend using Lua and the raw VapourSynth API is used. The syntax is completely different, and absolutely no convenience features are provided. There's no type checking either, and you can trigger crashes.

Example:

    video_out = invoke("morpho", "Open", {clip = video_in})

    The special variable video_in is the mpv video source, while the special variable video_out is used to read video from. The 1st argument is the plugin (queried with getPluginByNs), the 2nd is the filter name, and the 3rd argument is a table with the arguments. Positional arguments are not supported. The types must match exactly. Since Lua is terrible and can't distinguish integers and floats, integer arguments must be prefixed with i_, in which case the prefix is removed and the argument is cast to an integer. Should the argument's name start with i_, you're out of luck.

    Clips (VSNodeRef) are passed as light userdata, so trying to pass any other userdata type will result in hard crashes.

vavpp
    VA-AP-API video post processing. Works with --vo=vaapi and --vo=opengl only. Currently deinterlaces. This filter is automatically inserted if deinterlacing is requested (either using the d key, by default mapped to the command cycle deinterlace, or the --deinterlace option).

deint=<method>
    Select the deinterlacing algorithm.

no  Don't perform deinterlacing.

first-field
    Show only first field.

bob bob deinterlacing (default).

weave, motion-adaptive, motion-compensated
    Advanced deinterlacing algorithms. Whether these actually work depends on the GPU hardware, the GPU drivers, driver bugs, and mpv bugs.

<interlaced-only>

no  Deinterlace all frames.

yes Only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced (default).

reversal-bug=<yes|no>

no  Use the API as it was interpreted by older Mesa drivers. While this interpretation was more obvious and inuitive, it was apparently wrong, and not shared by Intel driver developers.

yes Use Intel interpretation of surface forward and backwards references (default). This is what Intel drivers and newer Mesa drivers expect. Matters only for the advanced deinterlacing algorithms.

vdpaupp
    VDPAU video post processing. Works with --vo=vdpau and --vo=opengl only. This filter is automatically inserted if deinterlacing is requested (either using the d key, by default mapped to the command cycle deinterlace, or the --deinterlace option). When enabling deinterlacing, it is always preferred over software deinterlacer filters if the vdpau VO is used, and also if opengl is used and hardware decoding was activated at least once (i.e. vdpau was loaded).

sharpen=<-1-1>
    For positive values, apply a sharpening algorithm to the video, for negative values a blurring algorithm (default: 0).

denoise=<0-1>
    Apply a noise reduction algorithm to the video (default: 0; no noise reduction).

deint=<yes|no>
    Whether deinterlacing is enabled (default: no). If enabled, it will use the mode selected with deint-mode.

deint-mode=<first-field|bob|temporal|temporal-spatial>
    Select deinterlacing mode (default: temporal).

    Note that there's currently a mechanism that allows the vdpau VO to change the deint-mode of auto-inserted vdpaupp filters. To avoid confusion, it's recommended not to use the --vo=vdpau suboptions related to filtering.

first-field
    Show only first field.

bob Bob deinterlacing.

temporal
    Motion-adaptive temporal deinterlacing. May lead to A/V desync with slow video hardware and/or high resolution.

temporal-spatial
    Motion-adaptive temporal deinterlacing with edge-guided spatial interpolation. Needs fast video hardware.

chroma-deint
    Makes temporal deinterlacers operate both on luma and chroma (default). Use no-chroma-deint to solely use luma and speed up advanced deinterlacing. Useful with slow video memory.

pullup
    Try to apply inverse telecine, needs motion adaptive temporal deinterlacing.

interlaced-only=<yes|no>
    If yes (default), only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced.

hqscaling=<0-9>

0   Use default VDPAU scaling (default).

1-9 Apply high quality VDPAU scaling (needs capable hardware).

d3d11vpp
    Direct3D 11 video post processing. Currently requires D3D11 hardware decoding for use.

deint=<yes|no>
    Whether deinterlacing is enabled (default: no).

interlaced-only=<yes|no>
    If yes (default), only deinterlace frames marked as interlaced.

mode=<blend|bob|adaptive|mocomp|ivctc|none>
    Tries to select a video processor with the given processing capability. If a video processor supports multiple capabilities, it is not clear which algorithm is actually selected. none always falls back. On most if not all hardware, this option will probably do nothing, because a video processor usually supports all modes or none.

buffer=<num>
    Buffer <num> frames in the filter chain. This filter is probably pretty useless, except for debugging. (Note that this won't help to smooth out latencies with decoding, because the filter will never output a frame if the buffer isn't full, except on EOF.)

ENCODING

You can encode files from one format/codec to another using this facility.

--o=<filename>
    Enables encoding mode and specifies the output file name.

--of=<format>
    Specifies the output format (overrides autodetection by the file name extension of the file specified by -o). This can be a comma separated list of possible formats to try. See --of=help for a full list of supported formats.

--ofopts=<options>
    Specifies the output format options for libavformat. See --ofopts=help for a full list of supported options.

    Options are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage the options list.

--ofopts-add=<options1[,options2,...]>
    Appends the options given as arguments to the options list.

--ofopts-pre=<options1[,options2,...]>
    Prepends the options given as arguments to the options list.

--ofopts-del=<index1[,index2,...]>
    Deletes the options at the given indexes. Index numbers start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the last).

--ofopts-clr
    Completely empties the options list.

--ofps=<float value>
    Specifies the output format time base (default: 24000). Low values like 25 limit video fps by dropping frames.

--oautofps
    Sets the output format time base to the guessed frame rate of the input video (simulates MEncoder behavior, useful for AVI; may cause frame drops). Note that not all codecs and not all formats support VFR encoding, and some which do have bugs when a target bitrate is specified - use --ofps or --oautofps to force CFR encoding in these cases.

--omaxfps=<float value>
    Specifies the minimum distance of adjacent frames (default: 0, which means unset). Content of lower frame rate is not readjusted to this frame rate; content of higher frame rate is decimated to this frame rate.

--oharddup
    If set, the frame rate given by --ofps is attained not by skipping time codes, but by duplicating frames (constant frame rate mode).

--oneverdrop
    If set, frames are never dropped. Instead, time codes of video are readjusted to always increase. This may cause AV desync, though; to work around this, use a high-fps time base using --ofps and absolutely avoid --oautofps.

--oac=<codec>
    Specifies the output audio codec. This can be a comma separated list of possible codecs to try. See --oac=help for a full list of supported codecs.

--oaoffset=<value>
    Shifts audio data by the given time (in seconds) by adding/removing samples at the start.

--oacopts=<options>
    Specifies the output audio codec options for libavcodec. See --oacopts=help for a full list of supported options.

Example

--oac=libmp3lame --oacopts=b=128000
    selects 128 kbps MP3 encoding.

    Options are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage the options list.

--oacopts-add=<options1[,options2,...]>
    Appends the options given as arguments to the options list.

--oacopts-pre=<options1[,options2,...]>
    Prepends the options given as arguments to the options list.

--oacopts-del=<index1[,index2,...]>
    Deletes the options at the given indexes. Index numbers start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the last).

--oacopts-clr
    Completely empties the options list.

--oafirst
    Force the audio stream to become the first stream in the output. By default, the order is unspecified.

--ovc=<codec>
    Specifies the output video codec. This can be a comma separated list of possible codecs to try. See --ovc=help for a full list of supported codecs.

--ovoffset=<value>
    Shifts video data by the given time (in seconds) by shifting the pts values.

--ovcopts <options>
    Specifies the output video codec options for libavcodec. See --ovcopts=help for a full list of supported options.

Examples

"--ovc=mpeg4 --ovcopts=qscale=5"
    selects constant quantizer scale 5 for MPEG-4 encoding.

"--ovc=libx264 --ovcopts=crf=23"
    selects VBR quality factor 23 for H.264 encoding.

    Options are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage the options list.

--ovcopts-add=<options1[,options2,...]>
    Appends the options given as arguments to the options list.

--ovcopts-pre=<options1[,options2,...]>
    Prepends the options given as arguments to the options list.

--ovcopts-del=<index1[,index2,...]>
    Deletes the options at the given indexes. Index numbers start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the last).

--ovcopts-clr
    Completely empties the options list.

--ovfirst
    Force the video stream to become the first stream in the output. By default, the order is unspecified.

--ocopyts
    Copies input pts to the output video (not supported by some output container formats, e.g. AVI). Discontinuities are still fixed. By default, audio pts are set to playback time and video pts are synchronized to match audio pts, as some output formats do not support anything else.

--orawts
    Copies input pts to the output video (not supported by some output container formats, e.g. AVI). In this mode, discontinuities are not fixed and all pts are passed through as-is. Never seek backwards or use multiple input files in this mode!

--no-ometadata
    Turns off copying of metadata from input files to output files when encoding (which is enabled by default).

COMMAND INTERFACE

The mpv core can be controlled with commands and properties. A number of ways to interact with the player use them: key bindings (input.conf), OSD (showing information with properties), JSON IPC, the client API (libmpv), and the classic slave mode.

  input.conf

The input.conf file consists of a list of key bindings, for example:

s screenshot      # take a screenshot with the s key
LEFT seek 15      # map the left-arrow key to seeking forward by 15 seconds

Each line maps a key to an input command. Keys are specified with their literal value (upper case if combined with Shift), or a name for special keys. For example, a maps to the a key without shift, and A maps to a with shift.

The file is located in the mpv configuration directory (normally at ~/.config/mpv/input.conf depending on platform). The default bindings are defined here:

https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/etc/input.conf

A list of special keys can be obtained with mpv --input-keylist

In general, keys can be combined with Shift, Ctrl and Alt:

ctrl+q quit

mpv can be started in input test mode, which displays key bindings and the commands they're bound to on the OSD, instead of executing the commands:

mpv --input-test --force-window --idle

(Only closing the window will make mpv exit, pressing normal keys will merely display the binding, even if mapped to quit.)

  General Input Command Syntax

[Shift+][Ctrl+][Alt+][Meta+]<key> [{<section>}] [<prefixes>] <command> (<argument>)* [; <command>]

Note that by default, the right Alt key can be used to create special characters, and thus does not register as a modifier. The option --no-input-right-alt-gr changes this behavior.

Newlines always start a new binding. # starts a comment (outside of quoted string arguments). To bind commands to the # key, SHARP can be used.

<key> is either the literal character the key produces (ASCII or Unicode character), or a symbolic name (as printed by --input-keylist).

<section> (braced with { and }) is the input section for this command.

Arguments are separated by whitespace. This applies even to string arguments. For this reason, string arguments should be quoted with ". Inside quotes, C-style escaping can be used.

You can bind multiple commands to one key. For example:
a show-text "command 1" ; show-text "command 2"

It's also possible to bind a command to a sequence of keys:
a-b-c show-text "command run after a, b, c have been pressed"

(This is not shown in the general command syntax.)

If a or a-b or b are already bound, this will run the first command that matches, and the multi-key command will never be called. Intermediate keys can be remapped to ignore in order to avoid this issue. The maximum number of (non-modifier) keys for combinations is currently 4.

  List of Input Commands

ignore
    Use this to "block" keys that should be unbound, and do nothing. Useful for disabling default bindings, without disabling all bindings with --no-input-default-bindings.

seek <seconds> [relative|absolute|absolute-percent|relative-percent|exact|keyframes]
    Change the playback position. By default, seeks by a relative amount of seconds.

    The second argument consists of flags controlling the seek mode:

relative (default)
    Seek relative to current position (a negative value seeks backwards).

absolute
    Seek to a given time (a negative value starts from the end of the file).

absolute-percent
    Seek to a given percent position.

relative-percent
    Seek relative to current position in percent.

keyframes
    Always restart playback at keyframe boundaries (fast).

exact
    Always do exact/hr/precise seeks (slow).

    Multiple flags can be combined, e.g.: absolute+keyframes.

    By default, keyframes is used for relative seeks, and exact is used for absolute seeks.

    Before mpv 0.9, the keyframes and exact flags had to be passed as 3rd parameter (essentially using a space instead of +). The 3rd parameter is still parsed, but is considered deprecated.

revert-seek [mode]
    Undoes the seek command, and some other commands that seek (but not necessarily all of them). Calling this command once will jump to the playback position before the seek. Calling it a second time undoes the revert-seek command itself. This only works within a single file.

    The first argument is optional, and can change the behavior:

mark
    Mark the current time position. The next normal revert-seek command will seek back to this point, no matter how many seeks happened since last time.

    Using it without any arguments gives you the default behavior.

frame-step
    Play one frame, then pause. Does nothing with audio-only playback.

frame-back-step
    Go back by one frame, then pause. Note that this can be very slow (it tries to be precise, not fast), and sometimes fails to behave as expected. How well this works depends on whether precise seeking works correctly (e.g. see the --hr-seek-demuxer-offset option). Video filters or other video post-processing that modifies timing of frames (e.g. deinterlacing) should usually work, but might make backstepping silently behave incorrectly in corner cases. Using --hr-seek-framedrop=no should help, although it might make precise seeking slower.

    This does not work with audio-only playback.

set <property> <value>
    Set the given property to the given value.

add <property> [<value>]
    Add the given value to the property. On overflow or underflow, clamp the property to the maximum. If <value> is omitted, assume 1.

cycle <property> [up|down]
    Cycle the given property. up and down set the cycle direction. On overflow, set the property back to the minimum, on underflow set it to the maximum. If up or down is omitted, assume up.

multiply <property> <factor>
    Multiplies the value of a property with the numeric factor.

screenshot [subtitles|video|window|single|each-frame]
    Take a screenshot.

    Multiple flags are available (some can be combined with +):

<subtitles> (default)
    Save the video image, in its original resolution, and with subtitles. Some video outputs may still include the OSD in the output under certain circumstances.

<video>
    Like subtitles, but typically without OSD or subtitles. The exact behavior depends on the selected video output.

<window>
    Save the contents of the mpv window. Typically scaled, with OSD and subtitles. The exact behavior depends on the selected video output, and if no support is available, this will act like video.

<each-frame>
    Take a screenshot each frame. Issue this command again to stop taking screenshots. Note that you should disable frame-dropping when using this mode - or you might receive duplicate images in cases when a frame was dropped. This flag can be combined with the other flags, e.g. video+each-frame.

    Older mpv versions required passing single and each-frame as second argument (and did not have flags). This syntax is still understood, but deprecated and might be removed in the future.

    Setting the async flag will make encoding and writing the actual image file asynchronous in most cases. (each-frame mode ignores this flag currently.) Requesting async screenshots too early or too often could lead to the same filenames being chosen, and overwriting each others in undefined order.

screenshot-to-file <filename> [subtitles|video|window]
    Take a screenshot and save it to a given file. The format of the file will be guessed by the extension (and --screenshot-format is ignored - the behavior when the extension is missing or unknown is arbitrary).

    The second argument is like the first argument to screenshot.

    If the file already exists, it's overwritten.

    Like all input command parameters, the filename is subject to property expansion as described in Property Expansion.

    The async flag has an effect on this command (see screenshot command).

playlist-next [weak|force]
    Go to the next entry on the playlist.

weak (default)
    If the last file on the playlist is currently played, do nothing.

force
    Terminate playback if there are no more files on the playlist.

playlist-prev [weak|force]
    Go to the previous entry on the playlist.

weak (default)
    If the first file on the playlist is currently played, do nothing.

force
    Terminate playback if the first file is being played.

loadfile <file> [replace|append|append-play [options]]
    Load the given file and play it.

    Second argument:

<replace> (default)
    Stop playback of the current file, and play the new file immediately.

<append>
    Append the file to the playlist.

<append-play>
    Append the file, and if nothing is currently playing, start playback. (Always starts with the added file, even if the playlist was not empty before running this command.)

    The third argument is a list of options and values which should be set while the file is playing. It is of the form opt1=value1,opt2=value2,... Not all options can be changed this way. Some options require a restart of the player.

loadlist <playlist> [replace|append]
    Load the given playlist file (like --playlist).

playlist-clear
    Clear the playlist, except the currently played file.

playlist-remove current|<index>
    Remove the playlist entry at the given index. Index values start counting with 0. The special value current removes the current entry. Note that removing the current entry also stops playback and starts playing the next entry.

playlist-move <index1> <index2>
    Move the playlist entry at index1, so that it takes the place of the entry index2. (Paradoxically, the moved playlist entry will not have the index value index2 after moving if index1 was lower than index2, because index2 refers to the target entry, not the index the entry will have after moving.)

playlist-shuffle
    Shuffle the playlist. This is similar to what is done on start if the --shuffle option is used.

run command arg1 arg2 ...
    Run the given command. Unlike in MPlayer/mplayer2 and earlier versions of mpv (0.2.x and older), this doesn't call the shell. Instead, the command is run directly, with each argument passed separately. Each argument is expanded like in Property Expansion. Note that there is a static limit of (as of this writing) 9 arguments (this limit could be raised on demand).

    The program is run in a detached way. mpv doesn't wait until the command is completed, but continues playback right after spawning it.

    To get the old behavior, use /bin/sh and -c as the first two arguments.

Example

    run "/bin/sh" "-c" "echo ${title} > /tmp/playing"

    This is not a particularly good example, because it doesn't handle escaping, and a specially prepared file might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary shell commands. It is recommended to write a small shell script, and call that with run.

quit [<code>]
    Exit the player. If an argument is given, it's used as process exit code.

quit-watch-later [<code>]
    Exit player, and store current playback position. Playing that file later will seek to the previous position on start. The (optional) argument is exactly as in the quit command.

sub-add <file> [<flags> [<title> [<lang>]]]
    Load the given subtitle file. It is selected as current subtitle after loading.

    The flags args is one of the following values:

    <select> Select the subtitle immediately.

    <auto> Don't select the subtitle. (Or in some special situations, let the default stream selection mechanism decide.)

    <cached> Select the subtitle. If a subtitle with the same filename was already added, that one is selected, instead of loading a duplicate entry. (In this case, title/language are ignored, and if the was changed since it was loaded, these changes won't be reflected.)

    The title argument sets the track title in the UI.

    The lang argument sets the track language, and can also influence stream selection with flags set to auto.

sub-remove [<id>]
    Remove the given subtitle track. If the id argument is missing, remove the current track. (Works on external subtitle files only.)

sub-reload [<id>]
    Reload the given subtitle tracks. If the id argument is missing, reload the current track. (Works on external subtitle files only.)

    This works by unloading and re-adding the subtitle track.

sub-step <skip>
    Change subtitle timing such, that the subtitle event after the next <skip> subtitle events is displayed. <skip> can be negative to step backwards.

sub-seek <skip>
    Seek to the next (skip set to 1) or the previous (skip set to -1) subtitle. This is similar to sub-step, except that it seeks video and audio instead of adjusting the subtitle delay.

    For embedded subtitles (like with Matroska), this works only with subtitle events that have already been displayed, or are within a short prefetch range.

print-text <string>
    Print text to stdout. The string can contain properties (see Property Expansion).

show-text <string> [<duration>|- [<level>]]
    Show text on the OSD. The string can contain properties, which are expanded as described in Property Expansion. This can be used to show playback time, filename, and so on.

<duration>
    The time in ms to show the message for. By default, it uses the same value as --osd-duration.

<level>
    The minimum OSD level to show the text at (see --osd-level).

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).

show-progress
    Show the progress bar, the elapsed time and the total duration of the file on the OSD.

write-watch-later-config
    Write the resume config file that the quit-watch-later command writes, but continue playback normally.

stop
    Stop playback and clear playlist. With default settings, this is essentially like quit. Useful for the client API: playback can be stopped without terminating the player.

mouse <x> <y> [<button> [single|double]]
    Send a mouse event with given coordinate (<x>, <y>).

    Second argument:

<button>
    The button number of clicked mouse button. This should be one of 0-19. If <button> is omitted, only the position will be updated.

    Third argument:

<single> (default)
    The mouse event represents regular single click.

<double>
    The mouse event represents double-click.

keypress <key_name>
    Send a key event through mpv's input handler, triggering whatever behavior is configured to that key. key_name uses the input.conf naming scheme for keys and modifiers. Useful for the client API: key events can be sent to libmpv to handle internally.

keydown <key_name>
    Similar to keypress, but sets the KEYDOWN flag so that if the key is bound to a repeatable command, it will be run repeatedly with mpv's key repeat timing until the keyup command is called.

keyup [<key_name>]
    Set the KEYUP flag, stopping any repeated behavior that had been triggered. key_name is optional. If key_name is not given or is an empty string, KEYUP will be set on all keys. Otherwise, KEYUP will only be set on the key specified by key_name.

audio-add <file> [<flags> [<title> [<lang>]]]
    Load the given audio file. See sub-add command.

audio-remove [<id>]
    Remove the given audio track. See sub-remove command.

audio-reload [<id>]
    Reload the given audio tracks. See sub-reload command.

rescan-external-files [<mode>]
    Rescan external files according to the current --sub-auto and --audio-file-auto settings. This can be used to auto-load external files after the file was loaded.

    The mode argument is one of the following:

<reselect> (default)
    Select the default audio and subtitle streams, which typically selects external files with the highest preference. (The implementation is not perfect, and could be improved on request.)

<keep-selection>
    Do not change current track selections.

  Input Commands that are Possibly Subject to Change

af set|add|toggle|del|clr filter1=params,filter2,...
    Change audio filter chain. See vf command.

vf set|add|toggle|del|clr filter1=params,filter2,...
    Change video filter chain.

    The first argument decides what happens:

set Overwrite the previous filter chain with the new one.

add Append the new filter chain to the previous one.

toggle
    Check if the given filter (with the exact parameters) is already in the video chain. If yes, remove the filter. If no, add the filter. (If several filters are passed to the command, this is done for each filter.)

    A special variant is combining this with labels, and using @name without filter name and parameters as filter entry. This toggles the enable/disable flag.

del Remove the given filters from the video chain. Unlike in the other cases, the second parameter is a comma separated list of filter names or integer indexes. 0 would denote the first filter. Negative indexes start from the last filter, and -1 denotes the last filter.

clr Remove all filters. Note that like the other sub-commands, this does not control automatically inserted filters.

    The argument is always needed. E.g. in case of clr use vf clr "".

    You can assign labels to filter by prefixing them with @name: (where name is a user-chosen arbitrary identifier). Labels can be used to refer to filters by name in all of the filter chain modification commands. For add, using an already used label will replace the existing filter.

    The vf command shows the list of requested filters on the OSD after changing the filter chain. This is roughly equivalent to show-text ${vf}. Note that auto-inserted filters for format conversion are not shown on the list, only what was requested by the user.

    Normally, the commands will check whether the video chain is recreated successfully, and will undo the operation on failure. If the command is run before video is configured (can happen if the command is run immediately after opening a file and before a video frame is decoded), this check can't be run. Then it can happen that creating the video chain fails.

Example for input.conf

•   a vf set flip turn video upside-down on the a key

•   b vf set "" remove all video filters on b

•   c vf toggle lavfi=gradfun toggle debanding on c

Example how to toggle disabled filters at runtime

•   Add something vf-add=@deband:!lavfi=[gradfun] to mpv.conf. The @deband: is the label, and deband is an arbitrary, user-given name for this filter entry. The ! before the filter name disables the filter by default. Everything after this is the normal filter name and the filter parameters.

•   Add a vf toggle @deband to input.conf. This toggles the "disabled" flag for the filter identified with deband.

cycle-values ["!reverse"] <property> <value1> <value2> ...
    Cycle through a list of values. Each invocation of the command will set the given property to the next value in the list. The command maintains an internal counter which value to pick next, and which is initially 0. It is reset to 0 once the last value is reached.

    The internal counter is associated using the property name and the value list. If multiple commands (bound to different keys) use the same name and value list, they will share the internal counter.

    The special argument !reverse can be used to cycle the value list in reverse. Compared with a command that just lists the value in reverse, this command will actually share the internal counter with the forward-cycling key binding (as long as the rest of the arguments are the same).

    Note that there is a static limit of (as of this writing) 10 arguments (this limit could be raised on demand).

enable-section <section> [flags]
    Enable all key bindings in the named input section.

    The enabled input sections form a stack. Bindings in sections on the top of the stack are preferred to lower sections. This command puts the section on top of the stack. If the section was already on the stack, it is implicitly removed beforehand. (A section cannot be on the stack more than once.)

    The flags parameter can be a combination (separated by +) of the following flags:

<exclusive>
    All sections enabled before the newly enabled section are disabled. They will be re-enabled as soon as all exclusive sections above them are removed. In other words, the new section shadows all previous sections.

<allow-hide-cursor>
    This feature can't be used through the public API.

<allow-vo-dragging>
    Same.

disable-section <section>
    Disable the named input section. Undoes enable-section.

define-section <section> <contents> [default|force]
    Create a named input section, or replace the contents of an already existing input section. The contents parameter uses the same syntax as the input.conf file (except that using the section syntax in it is not allowed), including the need to separate bindings with a newline character.

    If the contents parameter is an empty string, the section is removed.

    The section with the name default is the normal input section.

    In general, input sections have to be enabled with the enable-section command, or they are ignored.

    The last parameter has the following meaning:

<default> (also used if parameter omitted)
    Use a key binding defined by this section only if the user hasn't already bound this key to a command.

<force>
    Always bind a key. (The input section that was made active most recently wins if there are ambiguities.)

    This command can be used to dispatch arbitrary keys to a script or a client API user. If the input section defines script-binding commands, it is also possible to get separate events on key up/down, and relatively detailed information about the key state. The special key name unmapped can be used to match any unmapped key.

overlay-add <id> <x> <y> <file> <offset> <fmt> <w> <h> <stride>
    Add an OSD overlay sourced from raw data. This might be useful for scripts and applications controlling mpv, and which want to display things on top of the video window.

    Overlays are usually displayed in screen resolution, but with some VOs, the resolution is reduced to that of the video's. You can read the osd-width and osd-height properties. At least with --vo-xv and anamorphic video (such as DVD), osd-par should be read as well, and the overlay should be aspect-compensated.

    id is an integer between 0 and 63 identifying the overlay element. The ID can be used to add multiple overlay parts, update a part by using this command with an already existing ID, or to remove a part with overlay-remove. Using a previously unused ID will add a new overlay, while reusing an ID will update it.

    x and y specify the position where the OSD should be displayed.

    file specifies the file the raw image data is read from. It can be either a numeric UNIX file descriptor prefixed with @ (e.g. @4), or a filename. The file will be mapped into memory with mmap(), copied, and unmapped before the command returns (changed in mpv 0.18.1).

    It is also possible to pass a raw memory address for use as bitmap memory by passing a memory address as integer prefixed with an & character. Passing the wrong thing here will crash the player. This mode might be useful for use with libmpv. The offset parameter is simply added to the memory address (since mpv 0.8.0, ignored before).

    offset is the byte offset of the first pixel in the source file. (The current implementation always mmap's the whole file from position 0 to the end of the image, so large offsets should be avoided. Before mpv 0.8.0, the offset was actually passed directly to mmap, but it was changed to make using it easier.)

    fmt is a string identifying the image format. Currently, only bgra is defined. This format has 4 bytes per pixels, with 8 bits per component. The least significant 8 bits are blue, and the most significant 8 bits are alpha (in little endian, the components are B-G-R-A, with B as first byte). This uses premultiplied alpha: every color component is already multiplied with the alpha component. This means the numeric value of each component is equal to or smaller than the alpha component. (Violating this rule will lead to different results with different VOs: numeric overflows resulting from blending broken alpha values is considered something that shouldn't happen, and consequently implementations don't ensure that you get predictable behavior in this case.)

    w, h, and stride specify the size of the overlay. w is the visible width of the overlay, while stride gives the width in bytes in memory. In the simple case, and with the bgra format, stride==4*w. In general, the total amount of memory accessed is stride * h. (Technically, the minimum size would be stride * (h - 1) + w * 4, but for simplicity, the player will access all stride * h bytes.)

    NOTE: Before mpv 0.18.1, you had to do manual "double buffering" when updating an overlay by replacing it with a different memory buffer. Since mpv 0.18.1, the memory is simply copied and doesn't reference any of the memory indicated by the command's arguments after the commend returns. If you want to use this command before mpv 0.18.1, reads the old docs to see how to handle this correctly.

overlay-remove <id>
    Remove an overlay added with overlay-add and the same ID. Does nothing if no overlay with this ID exists.

script-message <arg1> <arg2> ...
    Send a message to all clients, and pass it the following list of arguments. What this message means, how many arguments it takes, and what the arguments mean is fully up to the receiver and the sender. Every client receives the message, so be careful about name clashes (or use script-message-to).

script-message-to <target> <arg1> <arg2> ...
    Same as script-message, but send it only to the client named <target>. Each client (scripts etc.) has a unique name. For example, Lua scripts can get their name via mp.get_script_name().

script-binding <name>
    Invoke a script-provided key binding. This can be used to remap key bindings provided by external Lua scripts.

    The argument is the name of the binding.

    It can optionally be prefixed with the name of the script, using / as separator, e.g. script-binding scriptname/bindingname.

    For completeness, here is how this command works internally. The details could change any time. On any matching key event, script-message-to or script-message is called (depending on whether the script name is included), with the following arguments:

1.  The string key-binding.

2.  The name of the binding (as established above).

3.  The key state as string (see below).

4.  The key name (since mpv 0.15.0).

    The key state consists of 2 letters:

1.  One of d (key was pressed down), u (was released), r (key is still down, and was repeated; only if key repeat is enabled for this binding), p (key was pressed; happens if up/down can't be tracked).

2.  Whether the event originates from the mouse, either m (mouse button) or - (something else).

ab-loop
    Cycle through A-B loop states. The first command will set the A point (the ab-loop-a property); the second the B point, and the third will clear both points.

drop-buffers
    Drop audio/video/demuxer buffers, and restart from fresh. Might help with unseekable streams that are going out of sync. This command might be changed or removed in the future.

screenshot-raw [subtitles|video|window]
    Return a screenshot in memory. This can be used only through the client API. The MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP returned by this command has the w, h, stride fields set to obvious contents. 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.

vf-command <label> <cmd> <args>
    Send a command to the filter with the given <label>. Use all to send it to all filters at once. The command and argument string is filter specific. Currently, this only works with the lavfi filter - see the libavfilter documentation for which commands a filter supports.

    Note that the <label> is a mpv filter label, not a libavfilter filter name.

af-command <label> <cmd> <args>
    Same as vf-command, but for audio filters.

apply-profile <name>
    Apply the contents of a named profile. This is like using profile=name in a config file, except you can map it to a key binding to change it at runtime.

    There is no such thing as "unapplying" a profile - applying a profile merely sets all option values listed within the profile.

load-script <path>
    Load a script, similar to the --script option.

    Undocumented commands: tv-last-channel (TV/DVB only), ao-reload (experimental/internal).

  Hooks

Hooks are synchronous events between player core and a script or similar. This applies to client API (including the Lua scripting interface). Normally, events are supposed to be asynchronous, and the hook API provides an awkward and obscure way to handle events that require stricter coordination. There are no API stability guarantees made. Not following the protocol exactly can make the player freeze randomly. Basically, nobody should use this API.

There are two special commands involved. Also, the client must listen for client messages (MPV_EVENT_CLIENT_MESSAGE in the C API).

hook-add <hook-name> <id> <priority>
    Subscribe to the hook identified by the first argument (basically, the name of event). The id argument is an arbitrary integer chosen by the user. priority is used to sort all hook handlers globally across all clients. Each client can register multiple hook handlers (even for the same hook-name). Once the hook is registered, it cannot be unregistered.

    When a specific event happens, all registered handlers are run serially. This uses a protocol every client has to follow explicitly. When a hook handler is run, a client message (MPV_EVENT_CLIENT_MESSAGE) is sent to the client which registered the hook. This message has the following arguments:

1.  the string hook_run

2.  the id argument the hook was registered with as string (this can be used to correctly handle multiple hooks registered by the same client, as long as the id argument is unique in the client)

3.  something undefined, used by the hook mechanism to track hook execution (currently, it's the hook-name, but this might change without warning)

    Upon receiving this message, the client can handle the event. While doing this, the player core will still react to requests, but playback will typically be stopped.

    When the client is done, it must continue the core's hook execution by running the hook-ack command.

hook-ack <string>
    Run the next hook in the global chain of hooks. The argument is the 3rd argument of the client message that starts hook execution for the current client.

    The following hooks are currently defined:

on_load
    Called when a file is to be opened, before anything is actually done. For example, you could read and write the stream-open-filename property to redirect an URL to something else (consider support for streaming sites which rarely give the user a direct media URL), or you could set per-file options with by setting the property file-local-options/<option name>. The player will wait until all hooks are run.

on_preloaded
    Called after a file has been opened, and before tracks are selected and decoders are created. This has some usefulness if an API users wants to select tracks manually, based on the set of available tracks. It's also useful to initialize --lavfi-complex in a specific way by API, without having to "probe" the available streams at first.

    Note that this does not yet apply default track selection. Which operations exactly can be done and not be done, and what information is available and what is not yet available yet, is all subject to change.

on_unload
    Run before closing a file, and before actually uninitializing everything. It's not possible to resume playback in this state.

  Input Command Prefixes

These prefixes are placed between key name and the actual command. Multiple prefixes can be specified. They are separated by whitespace.

osd-auto
    Use the default behavior for this command. This is the default for input.conf commands. Some libmpv/scripting/IPC APIs do not use this as default, but use no-osd instead.

no-osd
    Do not use any OSD for this command.

osd-bar
    If possible, show a bar with this command. Seek commands will show the progress bar, property changing commands may show the newly set value.

osd-msg
    If possible, show an OSD message with this command. Seek command show the current playback time, property changing commands show the newly set value as text.

osd-msg-bar
    Combine osd-bar and osd-msg.

raw Do not expand properties in string arguments. (Like "${property-name}".) This is the default for some libmpv/scripting/IPC APIs.

expand-properties
    All string arguments are expanded as described in Property Expansion. This is the default for input.conf commands.

repeatable
    For some commands, keeping a key pressed doesn't run the command repeatedly. This prefix forces enabling key repeat in any case.

async
    Allow asynchronous execution (if possible). Note that only a few commands will support this (usually this is explicitly documented). Some commands are asynchronous by default (or rather, their effects might manifest after completion of the command). The semantics of this flag might change in the future. Set it only if you don't rely on the effects of this command being fully realized when it returns.

    All of the osd prefixes are still overridden by the global --osd-level settings.

  Input Sections

Input sections group a set of bindings, and enable or disable them at once. In input.conf, each key binding is assigned to an input section, rather than actually having explicit text sections.

See also: enable-section and disable-section commands.

Predefined bindings:

default
    Bindings without input section are implicitly assigned to this section. It is enabled by default during normal playback.

encode
    Section which is active in encoding mode. It is enabled exclusively, so that bindings in the default sections are ignored.

  Properties

Properties are used to set mpv options during runtime, or to query arbitrary information. They can be manipulated with the set/add/cycle commands, and retrieved with show-text, or anything else that uses property expansion. (See Property Expansion.)

The property name is annotated with RW to indicate whether the property is generally writable.

If an option is referenced, the property will normally take/return exactly the same values as the option. In these cases, properties are merely a way to change an option at runtime.

  Property list

NOTE: Most options can be set as runtime via properties as well. Just remove the leading -- from the option name. These are not documented. Only properties which do not exist as option with the same name, or which have very different behavior from the options are documented below.

audio-speed-correction, video-speed-correction
    Factor multiplied with speed at which the player attempts to play the file. Usually it's exactly 1. (Display sync mode will make this useful.)

    OSD formatting will display it in the form of +1.23456%, with the number being (raw - 1) * 100 for the given raw property value.

display-sync-active
    Return whether --video-sync=display is actually active.

filename
    Currently played file, with path stripped. If this is an URL, try to undo percent encoding as well. (The result is not necessarily correct, but looks better for display purposes. Use the path property to get an unmodified filename.)

    This has a sub-property:

filename/no-ext
    Like the filename property, but if the text contains a ., strip all text after the last .. Usually this removes the file extension.

file-size
    Length in bytes of the source file/stream. (This is the same as ${stream-end}. For ordered chapters and such, the size of the currently played segment is returned.)

estimated-frame-count
    Total number of frames in current file.

    NOTE: This is only an estimate. (It's computed from two unreliable quantities: fps and stream length.)

estimated-frame-number
    Number of current frame in current stream.

    NOTE: This is only an estimate. (It's computed from two unreliable quantities: fps and possibly rounded timestamps.)

path
    Full path of the currently played file. Usually this is exactly the same string you pass on the mpv command line or the loadfile command, even if it's a relative path. If you expect an absolute path, you will have to determine it yourself, for example by using the working-directory property.

media-title
    If the currently played file has a title tag, use that.

    Otherwise, if the media type is DVD, return the volume ID of DVD.

    Otherwise, return the filename property.

file-format
    Symbolic name of the file format. In some cases, this is a comma-separated list of format names, e.g. mp4 is mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 (the list may grow in the future for any format).

current-demuxer
    Name of the current demuxer. (This is useless.)

    (Renamed from demuxer.)

stream-path
    Filename (full path) of the stream layer filename. (This is probably useless. It looks like this can be different from path only when using e.g. ordered chapters.)

stream-pos
    Raw byte position in source stream. Technically, this returns the position of the most recent packet passed to a decoder.

stream-end
    Raw end position in bytes in source stream.

duration
    Duration of the current file in seconds. If the duration is unknown, the property is unavailable. Note that the file duration is not always exactly known, so this is an estimate.

    This replaces the length property, which was deprecated after the mpv 0.9 release. (The semantics are the same.)

avsync
    Last A/V synchronization difference. Unavailable if audio or video is disabled.

total-avsync-change
    Total A-V sync correction done. Unavailable if audio or video is disabled.

decoder-frame-drop-count
    Video frames dropped by decoder, because video is too far behind audio (when using --framedrop=decoder). Sometimes, this may be incremented in other situations, e.g. when video packets are damaged, or the decoder doesn't follow the usual rules. Unavailable if video is disabled.

    drop-frame-count is a deprecated alias.

frame-drop-count
    Frames dropped by VO (when using --framedrop=vo).

    vo-drop-frame-count is a deprecated alias.

mistimed-frame-count
    Number of video frames that were not timed correctly in display-sync mode for the sake of keeping A/V sync. This does not include external circumstances, such as video rendering being too slow or the graphics driver somehow skipping a vsync. It does not include rounding errors either (which can happen especially with bad source timestamps). For example, using the display-desync mode should never change this value from 0.

vsync-ratio
    For how many vsyncs a frame is displayed on average. This is available if display-sync is active only. For 30 FPS video on a 60 Hz screen, this will be 2. This is the moving average of what actually has been scheduled, so 24 FPS on 60 Hz will never remain exactly on 2.5, but jitter depending on the last frame displayed.

vo-delayed-frame-count
    Estimated number of frames delayed due to external circumstances in display-sync mode. Note that in general, mpv has to guess that this is happening, and the guess can be inaccurate.

percent-pos (RW)
    Position in current file (0-100). The advantage over using this instead of calculating it out of other properties is that it properly falls back to estimating the playback position from the byte position, if the file duration is not known.

time-pos (RW)
    Position in current file in seconds.

time-start
    Deprecated. Always returns 0. Before mpv 0.14, this used to return the start time of the file (could affect e.g. transport streams). See --rebase-start-time option.

time-remaining
    Remaining length of the file in seconds. Note that the file duration is not always exactly known, so this is an estimate.

audio-pts (R)
    Current audio playback position in current file in seconds. Unlike time-pos, this updates more often than once per frame. For audio-only files, it is mostly equivalent to time-pos, while for video-only files this property is not available.

playtime-remaining
    time-remaining scaled by the current speed.

playback-time (RW)
    Position in current file in seconds. Unlike time-pos, the time is clamped to the range of the file. (Inaccurate file durations etc. could make it go out of range. Useful on attempts to seek outside of the file, as the seek target time is considered the current position during seeking.)

chapter (RW)
    Current chapter number. The number of the first chapter is 0.

edition (RW)
    Current MKV edition number. Setting this property to a different value will restart playback. The number of the first edition is 0.

disc-titles
    Number of BD/DVD titles.

    This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based edition index.

disc-titles/count
    Number of titles.

disc-titles/id
    Title ID as integer. Currently, this is the same as the title index.

disc-titles/length
    Length in seconds. Can be unavailable in a number of cases (currently it works for libdvdnav only).

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
        MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each edition)
            "id"                MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "length"            MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE

disc-title-list
    List of BD/DVD titles.

disc-title (RW)
    Current BD/DVD title number. Writing works only for dvdnav:// and bd:// (and aliases for these).

chapters
    Number of chapters.

editions
    Number of MKV editions.

edition-list
    List of editions, current entry marked. Currently, the raw property value is useless.

    This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based edition index.

edition-list/count
    Number of editions. If there are no editions, this can be 0 or 1 (1 if there's a useless dummy edition).

edition-list/N/id
    Edition ID as integer. Use this to set the edition property. Currently, this is the same as the edition index.

edition-list/N/default
    yes if this is the default edition, no otherwise.

edition-list/N/title
    Edition title as stored in the file. Not always available.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
        MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each edition)
            "id"                MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "title"             MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "default"           MPV_FORMAT_FLAG

angle (RW)
    Current DVD angle.

metadata
    Metadata key/value pairs.

    If the property is accessed with Lua's mp.get_property_native, this returns a table with metadata keys mapping to metadata values. If it is accessed with the client API, this returns a MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP, with tag keys mapping to tag values.

    For OSD, it returns a formatted list. Trying to retrieve this property as a raw string doesn't work.

    This has a number of sub-properties:

metadata/by-key/<key>
    Value of metadata entry <key>.

metadata/list/count
    Number of metadata entries.

metadata/list/N/key
    Key name of the Nth metadata entry. (The first entry is 0).

metadata/list/N/value
    Value of the Nth metadata entry.

metadata/<key>
    Old version of metadata/by-key/<key>. Use is discouraged, because the metadata key string could conflict with other sub-properties.

    The layout of this property might be subject to change. Suggestions are welcome how exactly this property should work.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
        (key and string value for each metadata entry)

filtered-metadata
    Like metadata, but includes only fields listed in the --display-tags option. This is the same set of tags that is printed to the terminal.

chapter-metadata
    Metadata of current chapter. Works similar to metadata property. It also allows the same access methods (using sub-properties).

    Per-chapter metadata is very rare. Usually, only the chapter name (title) is set.

    For accessing other information, like chapter start, see the chapter-list property.

vf-metadata/<filter-label>
    Metadata added by video filters. Accessed by the filter label, which, if not explicitly specified using the @filter-label: syntax, will be <filter-name>NN.

    Works similar to metadata property. It allows the same access methods (using sub-properties).

    An example of this kind of metadata are the cropping parameters added by --vf=lavfi=cropdetect.

af-metadata/<filter-label>
    Equivalent to vf-metadata/<filter-label>, but for audio filters.

idle-active
    Return yes if no file is loaded, but the player is staying around because of the --idle option.

    (Renamed from idle.)

core-idle
    Return yes if the playback core is paused, otherwise no. This can be different pause in special situations, such as when the player pauses itself due to low network cache.

    This also returns yes if playback is restarting or if nothing is playing at all. In other words, it's only no if there's actually video playing. (Behavior since mpv 0.7.0.)

cache
    Network cache fill state (0-100.0).

cache-size (RW)
    Network cache size in KB. This is similar to --cache. This allows setting the cache size at runtime. Currently, it's not possible to enable or disable the cache at runtime using this property, just to resize an existing cache.

    This does not include the backbuffer size (changed after mpv 0.10.0).

    Note that this tries to keep the cache contents as far as possible. To make this easier, the cache resizing code will allocate the new cache while the old cache is still allocated.

    Don't use this when playing DVD or Blu-ray.

cache-free (R)
    Total free cache size in KB.

cache-used (R)
    Total used cache size in KB.

cache-speed (R)
    Current I/O read speed between the cache and the lower layer (like network). This gives the number bytes per seconds over a 1 second window (using the type MPV_FORMAT_INT64 for the client API).

cache-idle (R)
    Returns yes if the cache is idle, which means the cache is filled as much as possible, and is currently not reading more data.

demuxer-cache-duration
    Approximate duration of video buffered in the demuxer, in seconds. The guess is very unreliable, and often the property will not be available at all, even if data is buffered.

demuxer-cache-time
    Approximate time of video buffered in the demuxer, in seconds. Same as demuxer-cache-duration but returns the last timestamp of buffered data in demuxer.

demuxer-cache-idle
    Returns yes if the demuxer is idle, which means the demuxer cache is filled to the requested amount, and is currently not reading more data.

demuxer-via-network
    Returns yes if the stream demuxed via the main demuxer is most likely played via network. What constitutes "network" is not always clear, might be used for other types of untrusted streams, could be wrong in certain cases, and its definition might be changing. Also, external files (like separate audio files or streams) do not influence the value of this property (currently).

demuxer-start-time (R)
    Returns the start time reported by the demuxer in fractional seconds.

paused-for-cache
    Returns yes when playback is paused because of waiting for the cache.

cache-buffering-state
    Return the percentage (0-100) of the cache fill status until the player will unpause (related to paused-for-cache).

eof-reached
    Returns yes if end of playback was reached, no otherwise. Note that this is usually interesting only if --keep-open is enabled, since otherwise the player will immediately play the next file (or exit or enter idle mode), and in these cases the eof-reached property will logically be cleared immediately after it's set.

seeking
    Returns yes if the player is currently seeking, or otherwise trying to restart playback. (It's possible that it returns yes while a file is loaded, or when switching ordered chapter segments. This is because the same underlying code is used for seeking and resyncing.)

mixer-active
    Return yes if the audio mixer is active, no otherwise.

    This option is relatively useless. Before mpv 0.18.1, it could be used to infer behavior of the volume property.

ao-volume (RW)
    System volume. This property is available only if mpv audio output is currently active, and only if the underlying implementation supports volume control. What this option does depends on the API. For example, on ALSA this usually changes system-wide audio, while with PulseAudio this controls per-application volume.

ao-mute (RW)
    Similar to ao-volume, but controls the mute state. May be unimplemented even if ao-volume works.

audio-codec
    Audio codec selected for decoding.

audio-codec-name
    Audio codec.

audio-params
    Audio format as output by the audio decoder. This has a number of sub-properties:

audio-params/format
    The sample format as string. This uses the same names as used in other places of mpv.

audio-params/samplerate
    Samplerate.

audio-params/channels
    The channel layout as a string. This is similar to what the --audio-channels accepts.

audio-params/hr-channels
    As channels, but instead of the possibly cryptic actual layout sent to the audio device, return a hopefully more human readable form. (Usually only audio-out-params/hr-channels makes sense.)

audio-params/channel-count
    Number of audio channels. This is redundant to the channels field described above.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
        "format"            MPV_FORMAT_STRING
        "samplerate"        MPV_FORMAT_INT64
        "channels"          MPV_FORMAT_STRING
        "channel-count"     MPV_FORMAT_INT64
        "hr-channels"       MPV_FORMAT_STRING

audio-out-params
    Same as audio-params, but the format of the data written to the audio API.

colormatrix (R)
    Redirects to video-params/colormatrix. This parameter (as well as similar ones) can be overridden with the format video filter.

colormatrix-input-range (R)
    See colormatrix.

colormatrix-primaries (R)
    See colormatrix.

hwdec (RW)
    Reflects the --hwdec option.

    Writing to it may change the currently used hardware decoder, if possible. (Internally, the player may reinitialize the decoder, and will perform a seek to refresh the video properly.) You can watch the other hwdec properties to see whether this was successful.

    Unlike in mpv 0.9.x and before, this does not return the currently active hardware decoder. Since mpv 0.18.0, hwdec-current is available for this purpose.

hwdec-current
    Return the current hardware decoding in use. If decoding is active, return one of the values used by the hwdec option/property. no indicates software decoding. If no decoder is loaded, the property is unavailable.

hwdec-interop
    This returns the currently loaded hardware decoding/output interop driver. This is known only once the VO has opened (and possibly later). With some VOs (like opengl), this might be never known in advance, but only when the decoder attempted to create the hw decoder successfully. (Using --opengl-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.

    This is somewhat similar to the --opengl-hwdec-interop option, but it returns the actually loaded backend, not the value of this option.

video-format
    Video format as string.

video-codec
    Video codec selected for decoding.

width, height
    Video size. This uses the size of the video as decoded, or if no video frame has been decoded yet, the (possibly incorrect) container indicated size.

video-params
    Video parameters, as output by the decoder (with overrides like aspect etc. applied). This has a number of sub-properties:

video-params/pixelformat
    The pixel format as string. This uses the same names as used in other places of mpv.

video-params/average-bpp
    Average bits-per-pixel as integer. Subsampled planar formats use a different resolution, which is the reason this value can sometimes be odd or confusing. Can be unavailable with some formats.

video-params/plane-depth
    Bit depth for each color component as integer. This is only exposed for planar or single-component formats, and is unavailable for other formats.

video-params/w, video-params/h
    Video size as integers, with no aspect correction applied.

video-params/dw, video-params/dh
    Video size as integers, scaled for correct aspect ratio.

video-params/aspect
    Display aspect ratio as float.

video-params/par
    Pixel aspect ratio.

video-params/colormatrix
    The colormatrix in use as string. (Exact values subject to change.)

video-params/colorlevels
    The colorlevels as string. (Exact values subject to change.)

video-params/primaries
    The primaries in use as string. (Exact values subject to change.)

video-params/gamma
    The gamma function in use as string. (Exact values subject to change.)

video-params/sig-peak
    The video file's tagged signal peak as float.

video-params/light
    The light type in use as a string. (Exact values subject to change.)

video-params/chroma-location
    Chroma location as string. (Exact values subject to change.)

video-params/rotate
    Intended display rotation in degrees (clockwise).

video-params/stereo-in
    Source file stereo 3D mode. (See --video-stereo-mode option.)

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
        "pixelformat"       MPV_FORMAT_STRING
        "w"                 MPV_FORMAT_INT64
        "h"                 MPV_FORMAT_INT64
        "dw"                MPV_FORMAT_INT64
        "dh"                MPV_FORMAT_INT64
        "aspect"            MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
        "par"               MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
        "colormatrix"       MPV_FORMAT_STRING
        "colorlevels"       MPV_FORMAT_STRING
        "primaries"         MPV_FORMAT_STRING
        "gamma"             MPV_FORMAT_STRING
        "sig-peak"          MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
        "light"             MPV_FORMAT_STRING
        "chroma-location"   MPV_FORMAT_STRING
        "rotate"            MPV_FORMAT_INT64
        "stereo-in"         MPV_FORMAT_STRING

dwidth, dheight
    Video display size. This is the video size after filters and aspect scaling have been applied. The actual video window size can still be different from this, e.g. if the user resized the video window manually.

    These have the same values as video-out-params/dw and video-out-params/dh.

video-dec-params
    Exactly like video-params, but no overrides applied.

video-out-params
    Same as video-params, but after video filters have been applied. If there are no video filters in use, this will contain the same values as video-params. Note that this is still not necessarily what the video window uses, since the user can change the window size, and all real VOs do their own scaling independently from the filter chain.

    Has the same sub-properties as video-params.

video-frame-info
    Approximate information of the current frame. Note that if any of these are used on OSD, the information might be off by a few frames due to OSD redrawing and frame display being somewhat disconnected, and you might have to pause and force a redraw.

    Sub-properties:

    video-frame-info/picture-type video-frame-info/interlaced video-frame-info/tff video-frame-info/repeat

container-fps
    Container FPS. This can easily contain bogus values. For videos that use modern container formats or video codecs, this will often be incorrect.

    (Renamed from fps.)

estimated-vf-fps
    Estimated/measured FPS of the video filter chain output. (If no filters are used, this corresponds to decoder output.) This uses the average of the 10 past frame durations to calculate the FPS. It will be inaccurate if frame-dropping is involved (such as when framedrop is explicitly enabled, or after precise seeking). Files with imprecise timestamps (such as Matroska) might lead to unstable results.

window-scale (RW)
    Window size multiplier. Setting this will resize the video window to the values contained in dwidth and dheight multiplied with the value set with this property. Setting 1 will resize to original video size (or to be exact, the size the video filters output). 2 will set the double size, 0.5 halves the size.

window-minimized
    Return whether the video window is minimized or not.

display-names
    Names of the displays that the mpv window covers. On X11, these are the xrandr names (LVDS1, HDMI1, DP1, VGA1, etc.). On Windows, these are the GDI names (\.DISPLAY1, \.DISPLAY2, etc.) and the first display in the list will be the one that Windows considers associated with the window (as determined by the MonitorFromWindow API.)

display-fps (RW)
    The refresh rate of the current display. Currently, this is the lowest FPS of any display covered by the video, as retrieved by the underlying system APIs (e.g. xrandr on X11). It is not the measured FPS. It's not necessarily available on all platforms. Note that any of the listed facts may change any time without a warning.

estimated-display-fps
    Only available if display-sync mode (as selected by --video-sync) is active. Returns the actual rate at which display refreshes seem to occur, measured by system time.

vsync-jitter
    Estimated deviation factor of the vsync duration.

video-aspect (RW)
    Video aspect, see --video-aspect.

    If video is active, this reports the effective aspect value, instead of the value of the --video-aspect option.

osd-width, osd-height
    Last known OSD width (can be 0). This is needed if you want to use the overlay-add command. It gives you the actual OSD size, which can be different from the window size in some cases.

osd-par
    Last known OSD display pixel aspect (can be 0).

program (W)
    Switch TS program (write-only).

dvb-channel (W)
    Pair of integers: card,channel of current DVB stream. Can be switched to switch to another channel on the same card.

dvb-channel-name (RW)
    Name of current DVB program. On write, a channel-switch to the named channel on the same card is performed. Can also be used for channel switching.

sub-text
    Return the current subtitle text. Formatting is stripped. If a subtitle is selected, but no text is currently visible, or the subtitle is not text-based (i.e. DVD/BD subtitles), an empty string is returned.

    This property is experimental and might be removed in the future.

tv-brightness, tv-contrast, tv-saturation, tv-hue (RW)
    TV stuff.

playlist-pos (RW)
    Current position on playlist. The first entry is on position 0. Writing to the property will restart playback at the written entry.

playlist-pos-1 (RW)
    Same as playlist-pos, but 1-based.

playlist-count
    Number of total playlist entries.

playlist
    Playlist, current entry marked. Currently, the raw property value is useless.

    This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based playlist entry index.

playlist/count
    Number of playlist entries (same as playlist-count).

playlist/N/filename
    Filename of the Nth entry.

playlist/N/current, playlist/N/playing
    yes if this entry is currently playing (or being loaded). Unavailable or no otherwise. When changing files, current and playing can be different, because the currently playing file hasn't been unloaded yet; in this case, current refers to the new selection. (Since mpv 0.7.0.)

playlist/N/title
    Name of the Nth entry. Only available if the playlist file contains such fields, and only if mpv's parser supports it for the given playlist format.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
        MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each playlist entry)
            "filename"  MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "current"   MPV_FORMAT_FLAG (might be missing; since mpv 0.7.0)
            "playing"   MPV_FORMAT_FLAG (same)
            "title"     MPV_FORMAT_STRING (optional)

track-list
    List of audio/video/sub tracks, current entry marked. Currently, the raw property value is useless.

    This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based track index.

track-list/count
    Total number of tracks.

track-list/N/id
    The ID as it's used for -sid/--aid/--vid. This is unique within tracks of the same type (sub/audio/video), but otherwise not.

track-list/N/type
    String describing the media type. One of audio, video, sub.

track-list/N/src-id
    Track ID as used in the source file. Not always available.

track-list/N/title
    Track title as it is stored in the file. Not always available.

track-list/N/lang
    Track language as identified by the file. Not always available.

track-list/N/albumart
    yes if this is a video track that consists of a single picture, no or unavailable otherwise. This is used for video tracks that are really attached pictures in audio files.

track-list/N/default
    yes if the track has the default flag set in the file, no otherwise.

track-list/N/forced
    yes if the track has the forced flag set in the file, no otherwise.

track-list/N/codec
    The codec name used by this track, for example h264. Unavailable in some rare cases.

track-list/N/external
    yes if the track is an external file, no otherwise. This is set for separate subtitle files.

track-list/N/external-filename
    The filename if the track is from an external file, unavailable otherwise.

track-list/N/selected
    yes if the track is currently decoded, no otherwise.

track-list/N/ff-index
    The stream index as usually used by the FFmpeg utilities. Note that this can be potentially wrong if a demuxer other than libavformat (--demuxer=lavf) is used. For mkv files, the index will usually match even if the default (builtin) demuxer is used, but there is no hard guarantee.

track-list/N/decoder-desc
    If this track is being decoded, the human-readable decoder name,

track-list/N/demux-w, track-list/N/demux-h
    Video size hint as indicated by the container. (Not always accurate.)

track-list/N/demux-channel-count
    Number of audio channels as indicated by the container. (Not always accurate - in particular, the track could be decoded as a different number of channels.)

track-list/N/demux-channels
    Channel layout as indicated by the container. (Not always accurate.)

track-list/N/demux-samplerate
    Audio sample rate as indicated by the container. (Not always accurate.)

track-list/N/demux-fps
    Video FPS as indicated by the container. (Not always accurate.)

track-list/N/audio-channels (deprecated)
    Deprecated alias for track-list/N/demux-channel-count.

track-list/N/replaygain-track-peak, track-list/N/replaygain-track-gain
    Per-track replaygain values. Only available for audio tracks with corresponding information stored in the source file.

track-list/N/replaygain-album-peak, track-list/N/replaygain-album-gain
    Per-album replaygain values. If the file has per-track but no per-album information, the per-album values will be copied from the per-track values currently. It's possible that future mpv versions will make these properties unavailable instead in this case.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
        MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each track)
            "id"                MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "type"              MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "src-id"            MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "title"             MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "lang"              MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "albumart"          MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
            "default"           MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
            "forced"            MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
            "selected"          MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
            "external"          MPV_FORMAT_FLAG
            "external-filename" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "codec"             MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "ff-index"          MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "decoder-desc"      MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "demux-w"           MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "demux-h"           MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "demux-channel-count" MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "demux-channels"    MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "demux-samplerate"  MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "demux-fps"         MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
            "audio-channels"    MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "replaygain-track-peak" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
            "replaygain-track-gain" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
            "replaygain-album-peak" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE
            "replaygain-album-gain" MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE

chapter-list
    List of chapters, current entry marked. Currently, the raw property value is useless.

    This has a number of sub-properties. Replace N with the 0-based chapter index.

chapter-list/count
    Number of chapters.

chapter-list/N/title
    Chapter title as stored in the file. Not always available.

chapter-list/N/time
    Chapter start time in seconds as float.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
        MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each chapter)
            "title" MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "time"  MPV_FORMAT_DOUBLE

af, vf (RW)
    See --vf/--af and the vf/af command.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
        MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each filter entry)
            "name"      MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "label"     MPV_FORMAT_STRING [optional]
            "enabled"   MPV_FORMAT_FLAG [optional]
            "params"    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP [optional]
                "key"   MPV_FORMAT_STRING
                "value" MPV_FORMAT_STRING

    It's also possible to write the property using this format.

seekable
    Return whether it's generally possible to seek in the current file.

partially-seekable
    Return yes if the current file is considered seekable, but only because the cache is active. This means small relative seeks may be fine, but larger seeks may fail anyway. Whether a seek will succeed or not is generally not known in advance.

    If this property returns true, seekable will also return true.

playback-abort
    Return whether playback is stopped or is to be stopped. (Useful in obscure situations like during on_load hook processing, when the user can stop playback, but the script has to explicitly end processing.)

cursor-autohide (RW)
    See --cursor-autohide. Setting this to a new value will always update the cursor, and reset the internal timer.

osd-sym-cc
    Inserts the current OSD symbol as opaque OSD control code (cc). This makes sense only with the show-text command or options which set OSD messages. The control code is implementation specific and is useless for anything else.

osd-ass-cc
    ${osd-ass-cc/0} disables escaping ASS sequences of text in OSD, ${osd-ass-cc/1} enables it again. By default, ASS sequences are escaped to avoid accidental formatting, and this property can disable this behavior. Note that the properties return an opaque OSD control code, which only makes sense for the show-text command or options which set OSD messages.

Example

•   --osd-status-msg='This is ${osd-ass-cc/0}{\\b1}bold text'

•   show-text "This is ${osd-ass-cc/0}{\b1}bold text"

    Any ASS override tags as understood by libass can be used.

    Note that you need to escape the \ character, because the string is processed for C escape sequences before passing it to the OSD code.

    A list of tags can be found here: http://docs.aegisub.org/latest/ASS_Tags/

vo-configured
    Return whether the VO is configured right now. Usually this corresponds to whether the video window is visible. If the --force-window option is used, this is usually always returns yes.

vo-passes
    Contains introspection about the VO's active render passes and their execution times. Not implemented by all VOs.

    This is further subdivided into two frame types, vo-passes/fresh for fresh frames (which have to be uploaded, scaled, etc.) and vo-passes/redraw for redrawn frames (which only have to be re-painted). The number of passes for any given subtype can change from frame to frame, and should not be relied upon.

    Each frame type has a number of further sub-properties. Replace TYPE with the frame type, N with the 0-based pass index, and M with the 0-based sample index.

vo-passes/TYPE/count
    Number of passes.

vo-passes/TYPE/N/desc
    Human-friendy description of the pass.

vo-passes/TYPE/N/last
    Last measured execution time, in nanoseconds.

vo-passes/TYPE/N/avg
    Average execution time of this pass, in nanoseconds. The exact timeframe varies, but it should generally be a handful of seconds.

vo-passes/TYPE/N/peak
    The peak execution time (highest value) within this averaging range, in nanoseconds.

vo-passes/TYPE/N/count
    The number of samples for this pass.

vo-passes/TYPE/N/samples/M
    The raw execution time of a specific sample for this pass, in nanoseconds.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
    "TYPE" MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
        MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP
            "desc"    MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "last"    MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "avg"     MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "peak"    MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "count"   MPV_FORMAT_INT64
            "samples" MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
                 MP_FORMAT_INT64

    Note that directly accessing this structure via subkeys is not supported, the only access is through aforementioned MPV_FORMAT_NODE.

video-bitrate, audio-bitrate, sub-bitrate
    Bitrate values calculated on the packet level. This works by dividing the bit size of all packets between two keyframes by their presentation timestamp distance. (This uses the timestamps are stored in the file, so e.g. playback speed does not influence the returned values.) In particular, the video bitrate will update only per keyframe, and show the "past" bitrate. To make the property more UI friendly, updates to these properties are throttled in a certain way.

    The unit is bits per second. OSD formatting turns these values in kilobits (or megabits, if appropriate), which can be prevented by using the raw property value, e.g. with ${=video-bitrate}.

    Note that the accuracy of these properties is influenced by a few factors. If the underlying demuxer rewrites the packets on demuxing (done for some file formats), the bitrate might be slightly off. If timestamps are bad or jittery (like in Matroska), even constant bitrate streams might show fluctuating bitrate.

    How exactly these values are calculated might change in the future.

    In earlier versions of mpv, these properties returned a static (but bad) guess using a completely different method.

packet-video-bitrate, packet-audio-bitrate, packet-sub-bitrate
    Old and deprecated properties for video-bitrate, audio-bitrate, sub-bitrate. They behave exactly the same, but return a value in kilobits. Also, they don't have any OSD formatting, though the same can be achieved with e.g. ${=video-bitrate}.

    These properties shouldn't be used anymore.

audio-device-list
    Return the list of discovered audio devices. This is mostly for use with the client API, and reflects what --audio-device=help with the command line player returns.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
        MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each device entry)
            "name"          MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "description"   MPV_FORMAT_STRING

    The name is what is to be passed to the --audio-device option (and often a rather cryptic audio API-specific ID), while description is human readable free form text. The description is set to the device name (minus mpv-specific <driver>/ prefix) if no description is available or the description would have been an empty string.

    The special entry with the name set to auto selects the default audio output driver and the default device.

    The property can be watched with the property observation mechanism in the client API and in Lua scripts. (Technically, change notification is enabled the first time this property is read.)

audio-device (RW)
    Set the audio device. This directly reads/writes the --audio-device option, but on write accesses, the audio output will be scheduled for reloading.

    Writing this property while no audio output is active will not automatically enable audio. (This is also true in the case when audio was disabled due to reinitialization failure after a previous write access to audio-device.)

    This property also doesn't tell you which audio device is actually in use.

    How these details are handled may change in the future.

current-vo
    Current video output driver (name as used with --vo).

current-ao
    Current audio output driver (name as used with --ao).

audio-out-detected-device
    Return the audio device selected by the AO driver (only implemented for some drivers: currently only coreaudio).

working-directory
    Return the working directory of the mpv process. Can be useful for JSON IPC users, because the command line player usually works with relative paths.

protocol-list
    List of protocol prefixes potentially recognized by the player. They are returned without trailing :// suffix (which is still always required). In some cases, the protocol will not actually be supported (consider https if ffmpeg is not compiled with TLS support).

decoder-list
    List of decoders supported. This lists decoders which can be passed to --vd and --ad.

family
    Decoder driver. Usually lavc for libavcodec.

codec
    Canonical codec name, which identifies the format the decoder can handle.

driver
    The name of the decoder itself. Often, this is the same as codec. Sometimes it can be different. It is used to distinguish multiple decoders for the same codec.

description
    Human readable description of the decoder and codec.

    When querying the property with the client API using MPV_FORMAT_NODE, or with Lua mp.get_property_native, this will return a mpv_node with the following contents:

    MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY
        MPV_FORMAT_NODE_MAP (for each decoder entry)
            "family"        MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "codec"         MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "driver"        MPV_FORMAT_STRING
            "description"   MPV_FORMAT_STRING

encoder-list
    List of libavcodec encoders. This has the same format as decoder-list. The encoder names (driver entries) can be passed to --ovc and --oac (without the lavc: prefix required by --vd and --ad).

mpv-version
    Return the mpv version/copyright string. Depending on how the binary was built, it might contain either a release version, or just a git hash.

mpv-configuration
    Return the configuration arguments which were passed to the build system (typically the way ./waf configure ... was invoked).

ffmpeg-version
    Return the contents of the av_version_info() API call. This is a string which identifies the build in some way, either through a release version number, or a git hash. This applies to Libav as well (the property is still named the same.) This property is unavailable if mpv is linked against older FFmpeg and Libav versions.

options/<name> (RW)
    Read-only access to value of option --<name>. Most options can be changed at runtime by writing to this property. Note that many options require reloading the file for changes to take effect. If there is an equivalent property, prefer setting the property instead.

    There shouldn't be any reason to access options/<name> instead of <name>, except in situations in which the properties have different behavior or conflicting semantics.

file-local-options/<name>
    Similar to options/<name>, but when setting an option through this property, the option is reset to its old value once the current file has stopped playing. Trying to write an option while no file is playing (or is being loaded) results in an error.

    (Note that if an option is marked as file-local, even options/ will access the local value, and the old value, which will be restored on end of playback, cannot be read or written until end of playback.)

option-info/<name>
    Additional per-option information.

    This has a number of sub-properties. Replace <name> with the name of a top-level option. No guarantee of stability is given to any of these sub-properties - they may change radically in the feature.

option-info/<name>/name
    Returns the name of the option.

option-info/<name>/type
    Return the name of the option type, like String or Integer. For many complex types, this isn't very accurate.

option-info/<name>/set-from-commandline
    Return yes if the option was set from the mpv command line, no otherwise. What this is set to if the option is e.g. changed at runtime is left undefined (meaning it could change in the future).

option-info/<name>/set-locally
    Return yes if the option was set per-file. This is the case with automatically loaded profiles, file-dir configs, and other cases. It means the option value will be restored to the value before playback start when playback ends.

option-info/<name>/default-value
    The default value of the option. May not always be available.

option-info/<name>/min, option-info/<name>/max
    Integer minimum and maximum values allowed for the option. Only available if the options are numeric, and the minimum/maximum has been set internally. It's also possible that only one of these is set.

option-info/<name>/choices
    If the option is a choice option, the possible choices. Choices that are integers may or may not be included (they can be implied by min and max). Note that options which behave like choice options, but are not actual choice options internally, may not have this info available.

property-list
    Return the list of top-level properties.

profile-list
    Return the list of profiles and their contents. This is highly implementation-specific, and may change any time. Currently, it returns an array of options for each profile. Each option has a name and a value, with the value currently always being a string. Note that the options array is not a map, as order matters and duplicate entries are possible. Recursive profiles are not expanded, and show up as special profile options.

  Inconsistencies between options and properties

You can access (almost) all options as properties, though there are some caveats with some properties (due to historical reasons):

vid, aid, sid
    While playback is active, you can set existing tracks only. (The option allows setting any track ID, and which tracks to enable is chosen at loading time.)

    Option changes at runtime are affected by this as well.

video-aspect
    While video is active, always returns the effective aspect ratio. Setting a special value (like no, values <= 0) will make the property set this as option, and return whatever actual aspect was derived from the option setting.

display-fps
    If a VO is created, this will return either the actual display FPS, or an invalid value, instead of the option value.

vf, af
    If you set the properties during playback, and the filter chain fails to reinitialize, the new value will be rejected. Setting the option or setting the property outside of playback will always succeed/fail in the same way. Also, there are no vf-add etc. properties, but you can use the vf/af group of commands to achieve the same.

    Option changes at runtime are affected by this as well.

edition
    While a file is loaded, the property will always return the effective edition, and setting the auto value will show somewhat strange behavior (the property eventually switching to whatever is the default edition).

playlist
    The property is read-only and returns the current internal playlist. The option is for loading playlist during command line parsing. For client API uses, you should use the loadlist command instead.

window-scale
    Might verify the set value when setting while a window is created.

audio-file, sub-file, external-file
    These options/properties are actually lists of filenames. To make the command-line interface easier, each --audio-file=... option appends the full string to the internal list. However, when used as properties, every time you set the property as a string the internal list will be replaced with a single entry containing the string you set. , or other separators are never used. You have to use MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY (or corresponding API, e.g. mp.set_property_native() with a table in Lua) to set multiple entries.

    Strictly speaking, option access via API (e.g. mpv_set_option_string()) has the same problem, and it's only a difference between CLI/API.

playlist-pos, chapter
    These properties behave different from the deprecated options with the same names.

profile, include
    These are write-only, and will perform actions as they are written to, exactly as if they were used on the mpv CLI commandline. Their only use is when using libmpv before mpv_initialize(), which in turn is probably only useful in encoding mode. Normal libmpv users should use other mechanisms, such as the apply-profile command, and the mpv_load_config_file API function. Avoid these properties.

  Property Expansion

All string arguments to input commands as well as certain options (like --term-playing-msg) are subject to property expansion. Note that property expansion does not work in places where e.g. numeric parameters are expected. (For example, the add command does not do property expansion. The set command is an exception and not a general rule.)

Example for input.conf

i show-text Filename: ${filename}
    shows the filename of the current file when pressing the i key

    Within input.conf, property expansion can be inhibited by putting the raw prefix in front of commands.

    The following expansions are supported:

${NAME}
    Expands to the value of the property NAME. If retrieving the property fails, expand to an error string. (Use ${NAME:} with a trailing : to expand to an empty string instead.) If NAME is prefixed with =, expand to the raw value of the property (see section below).

${NAME:STR}
    Expands to the value of the property NAME, or STR if the property cannot be retrieved. STR is expanded recursively.

${?NAME:STR}
    Expands to STR (recursively) if the property NAME is available.

${!NAME:STR}
    Expands to STR (recursively) if the property NAME cannot be retrieved.

${?NAME==VALUE:STR}
    Expands to STR (recursively) if the property NAME expands to a string equal to VALUE. You can prefix NAME with = in order to compare the raw value of a property (see section below). If the property is unavailable, or other errors happen when retrieving it, the value is never considered equal. Note that VALUE can't contain any of the characters : or }. Also, it is possible that escaping with " or % might be added in the future, should the need arise.

${!NAME==VALUE:STR}
    Same as with the ? variant, but STR is expanded if the value is not equal. (Using the same semantics as with ?.)

$$  Expands to $.

$}  Expands to }. (To produce this character inside recursive expansion.)

$>  Disable property expansion and special handling of $ for the rest of the string.

    In places where property expansion is allowed, C-style escapes are often accepted as well. Example:

•   \n becomes a newline character

•   \\ expands to \

  Raw and Formatted Properties

Normally, properties are formatted as human-readable text, meant to be displayed on OSD or on the terminal. It is possible to retrieve an unformatted (raw) value from a property by prefixing its name with =. These raw values can be parsed by other programs and follow the same conventions as the options associated with the properties.

Examples

•   ${time-pos} expands to 00:14:23 (if playback position is at 14 minutes 23 seconds)

•   ${=time-pos} expands to 863.4 (same time, plus 400 milliseconds - milliseconds are normally not shown in the formatted case)

    Sometimes, the difference in amount of information carried by raw and formatted property values can be rather big. In some cases, raw values have more information, like higher precision than seconds with time-pos. Sometimes it is the other way around, e.g. aid shows track title and language in the formatted case, but only the track number if it is raw.

ON SCREEN CONTROLLER

The On Screen Controller (short: OSC) is a minimal GUI integrated with mpv to offer basic mouse-controllability. It is intended to make interaction easier for new users and to enable precise and direct seeking.

The OSC is enabled by default if mpv was compiled with Lua support. It can be disabled entirely using the --osc=no option.

  Using the OSC

By default, the OSC will show up whenever the mouse is moved inside the player window and will hide if the mouse is not moved outside the OSC for 0.5 seconds or if the mouse leaves the window.

  The Interface

+---------+----------+------------------------------------------+----------+
| pl prev | pl next  |  title                                   |    cache |
+------+--+---+------+---------+-----------+------+-------+-----+-----+----+
| play | skip | skip | time    |  seekbar  | time | audio | sub | vol | fs |
|      | back | frwd | elapsed |           | left |       |     |     |    |
+------+------+------+---------+-----------+------+-------+-----+-----+----+

pl prev
    left-click | play previous file in playlist
    right-click | show playlist
    shift+L-click | show playlist

pl next
    left-click | play next file in playlist
    right-click | show playlist
    shift+L-click | show playlist

title
    Displays current media-title, filename, or custom title

    left-click | show playlist position and length and full title
    right-click | show filename

cache
    Shows current cache fill status

play
    left-click | toggle play/pause

skip back
    left-click | go to beginning of chapter / previous chapter
    right-click | show chapters
    shift+L-click | show chapters

skip frwd
    left-click | go to next chapter
    right-click | show chapters
    shift+L-click | show chapters

time elapsed
    Shows current playback position timestamp

    left-click | toggle displaying timecodes with milliseconds

seekbar
    Indicates current playback position and position of chapters

    left-click | seek to position

time left
    Shows remaining playback time timestamp

    left-click | toggle between total and remaining time

audio and sub
    Displays selected track and amount of available tracks

    left-click | cycle audio/sub tracks forward
    right-click | cycle audio/sub tracks backwards
    shift+L-click | show available audio/sub tracks

vol
    left-click | toggle mute
    mouse wheel | volume up/down

fs
    left-click | toggle fullscreen

  Key Bindings

These key bindings are active by default if nothing else is already bound to these keys. In case of collision, the function needs to be bound to a different key. See the Script Commands section.
del | Cycles visibility between never / auto (mouse-move) / always

  Configuration

The OSC offers limited configuration through a config file lua-settings/osc.conf placed in mpv's user dir and through the --script-opts command-line option. Options provided through the command-line will override those from the config file.

  Config Syntax

The config file must exactly follow the following syntax:

# this is a comment
optionA=value1
optionB=value2

# can only be used at the beginning of a line and there may be no spaces around the = or anywhere else.

  Command-line Syntax

To avoid collisions with other scripts, all options need to be prefixed with osc-.

Example:

--script-opts=osc-optionA=value1,osc-optionB=value2

  Configurable Options

layout
    Default: bottombar

    The layout for the OSC. Currently available are: box, slimbox, bottombar and topbar. Default pre-0.21.0 was 'box'.

seekbarstyle
    Default: bar

    Sets the style of the seekbar, slider (diamond marker), knob (circle marker with guide), or bar (fill). Default pre-0.21.0 was 'slider'.

deadzonesize
    Default: 0.5

    Size of the deadzone. The deadzone is an area that makes the mouse act like leaving the window. Movement there won't make the OSC show up and it will hide immediately if the mouse enters it. The deadzone starts at the window border opposite to the OSC and the size controls how much of the window it will span. Values between 0.0 and 1.0, where 0 means the OSC will always popup with mouse movement in the window, and 1 means the OSC will only show up when the mouse hovers it. Default pre-0.21.0 was 0.

minmousemove
    Default: 0

    Minimum amount of pixels the mouse has to move between ticks to make the OSC show up. Default pre-0.21.0 was 3.

showwindowed
    Default: yes

    Enable the OSC when windowed

showfullscreen
    Default: yes

    Enable the OSC when fullscreen

scalewindowed
    Default: 1.0

    Scale factor of the OSC when windowed.

scalefullscreen
    Default: 1.0

    Scale factor of the OSC when fullscreen

scaleforcedwindow
    Default: 2.0

    Scale factor of the OSC when rendered on a forced (dummy) window

vidscale
    Default: yes

    Scale the OSC with the video no tries to keep the OSC size constant as much as the window size allows

valign
    Default: 0.8

    Vertical alignment, -1 (top) to 1 (bottom)

halign
    Default: 0.0

    Horizontal alignment, -1 (left) to 1 (right)

barmargin
    Default: 0

    Margin from bottom (bottombar) or top (topbar), in pixels

boxalpha
    Default: 80

    Alpha of the background box, 0 (opaque) to 255 (fully transparent)

hidetimeout
    Default: 500

    Duration in ms until the OSC hides if no mouse movement, must not be negative

fadeduration
    Default: 200

    Duration of fade out in ms, 0 = no fade

title
    Default: ${media-title}

    String that supports property expansion that will be displayed as OSC title. ASS tags are escaped, and newlines and trailing slashes are stripped.

tooltipborder
    Default: 1

    Size of the tooltip outline when using bottombar or topbar layouts

timetotal
    Default: no

    Show total time instead of time remaining

timems
    Default: no

    Display timecodes with milliseconds

visibility
    Default: auto (auto hide/show on mouse move)

    Also supports never and always

boxmaxchars
    Default: 80

    Max chars for the osc title at the box layout. mpv does not measure the text width on screen and so it needs to limit it by number of chars. The default is conservative to allow wide fonts to be used without overflow. However, with many common fonts a bigger number can be used. YMMV.

  Script Commands

The OSC script listens to certain script commands. These commands can bound in input.conf, or sent by other scripts.

osc-message
    Show a message on screen using the OSC. First argument is the message, second the duration in seconds.

osc-visibility
    Controls visibility mode never / auto (on mouse move) / always and also cycle to cycle between the modes

    Example

    You could put this into input.conf to hide the OSC with the a key and to set auto mode (the default) with b:

    a script-message osc-visibility never
    b script-message osc-visibility auto

osc-playlist, osc-chapterlist, osc-tracklist
    Shows a limited view of the respective type of list using the OSC. First argument is duration in seconds.

LUA SCRIPTING

mpv can load Lua scripts. Scripts passed to the --script option, or found in the scripts subdirectory of the mpv configuration directory (usually ~/.config/mpv/scripts/) will be loaded on program start. mpv also appends the scripts subdirectory to the end of Lua's path so you can import scripts from there too. Since it's added to the end, don't name scripts you want to import the same as Lua libraries because they will be overshadowed by them.

mpv provides the built-in module mp, which contains functions to send commands to the mpv core and to retrieve information about playback state, user settings, file information, and so on.

These scripts can be used to control mpv in a similar way to slave mode. Technically, the Lua code uses the client API internally.

  Example

A script which leaves fullscreen mode when the player is paused:

function on_pause_change(name, value)
    if value == true then
        mp.set_property("fullscreen", "no")
    end
end
mp.observe_property("pause", "bool", on_pause_change)

  Details on the script initialization and lifecycle

Your script will be loaded by the player at program start from the scripts configuration subdirectory, or from a path specified with the --script option. Some scripts are loaded internally (like --osc). Each script runs in its own thread. Your script is first run "as is", and once that is done, the event loop is entered. This event loop will dispatch events received by mpv and call your own event handlers which you have registered with mp.register_event, or timers added with mp.add_timeout or similar.

When the player quits, all scripts will be asked to terminate. This happens via a shutdown event, which by default will make the event loop return. If your script got into an endless loop, mpv will probably behave fine during playback, but it won't terminate when quitting, because it's waiting on your script.

Internally, the C code will call the Lua function mp_event_loop after loading a Lua script. This function is normally defined by the default prelude loaded before your script (see player/lua/defaults.lua in the mpv sources). The event loop will wait for events and dispatch events registered with mp.register_event. It will also handle timers added with mp.add_timeout and similar (by waiting with a timeout).

Since mpv 0.6.0, the player will wait until the script is fully loaded before continuing normal operation. The player considers a script as fully loaded as soon as it starts waiting for mpv events (or it exits). In practice this means the player will more or less hang until the script returns from the main chunk (and mp_event_loop is called), or the script calls mp_event_loop or mp.dispatch_events directly. This is done to make it possible for a script to fully setup event handlers etc. before playback actually starts. In older mpv versions, this happened asynchronously.

  mp functions

The mp module is preloaded, although it can be loaded manually with require 'mp'. It provides the core client API.

mp.command(string)
    Run the given command. This is similar to the commands used in input.conf. See List of Input Commands.

    By default, this will show something on the OSD (depending on the command), as if it was used in input.conf. See Input Command Prefixes how to influence OSD usage per command.

    Returns true on success, or nil, error on error.

mp.commandv(arg1, arg2, ...)
    Similar to mp.command, but pass each command argument as separate parameter. This has the advantage that you don't have to care about quoting and escaping in some cases.

    Example:

    mp.command("loadfile " .. filename .. " append")
    mp.commandv("loadfile", filename, "append")

    These two commands are equivalent, except that the first version breaks if the filename contains spaces or certain special characters.

    Note that properties are not expanded. You can use either mp.command, the expand-properties prefix, or the mp.get_property family of functions.

    Unlike mp.command, this will not use OSD by default either (except for some OSD-specific commands).

mp.command_native(table [,def])
    Similar to mp.commandv, but pass the argument list as table. This has the advantage that in at least some cases, arguments can be passed as native types.

    Returns a result table on success (usually empty), or def, error on error. def is the second parameter provided to the function, and is nil if it's missing.

mp.get_property(name [,def])
    Return the value of the given property as string. These are the same properties as used in input.conf. See Properties for a list of properties. The returned string is formatted similar to ${=name} (see Property Expansion).

    Returns the string on success, or def, error on error. def is the second parameter provided to the function, and is nil if it's missing.

mp.get_property_osd(name [,def])
    Similar to mp.get_property, but return the property value formatted for OSD. This is the same string as printed with ${name} when used in input.conf.

    Returns the string on success, or def, error on error. def is the second parameter provided to the function, and is an empty string if it's missing. Unlike get_property(), assigning the return value to a variable will always result in a string.

mp.get_property_bool(name [,def])
    Similar to mp.get_property, but return the property value as Boolean.

    Returns a Boolean on success, or def, error on error.

mp.get_property_number(name [,def])
    Similar to mp.get_property, but return the property value as number.

    Note that while Lua does not distinguish between integers and floats, mpv internals do. This function simply request a double float from mpv, and mpv will usually convert integer property values to float.

    Returns a number on success, or def, error on error.

mp.get_property_native(name [,def])
    Similar to mp.get_property, but return the property value using the best Lua type for the property. Most time, this will return a string, Boolean, or number. Some properties (for example chapter-list) are returned as tables.

    Returns a value on success, or def, error on error. Note that nil might be a possible, valid value too in some corner cases.

mp.set_property(name, value)
    Set the given property to the given string value. See mp.get_property and Properties for more information about properties.

    Returns true on success, or nil, error on error.

mp.set_property_bool(name, value)
    Similar to mp.set_property, but set the given property to the given Boolean value.

mp.set_property_number(name, value)
    Similar to mp.set_property, but set the given property to the given numeric value.

    Note that while Lua does not distinguish between integers and floats, mpv internals do. This function will test whether the number can be represented as integer, and if so, it will pass an integer value to mpv, otherwise a double float.

mp.set_property_native(name, value)
    Similar to mp.set_property, but set the given property using its native type.

    Since there are several data types which cannot represented natively in Lua, this might not always work as expected. For example, while the Lua wrapper can do some guesswork to decide whether a Lua table is an array or a map, this would fail with empty tables. Also, there are not many properties for which it makes sense to use this, instead of set_property, set_property_bool, set_property_number. For these reasons, this function should probably be avoided for now, except for properties that use tables natively.

mp.get_time()
    Return the current mpv internal time in seconds as a number. This is basically the system time, with an arbitrary offset.

mp.add_key_binding(key, name|fn [,fn [,flags]])
    Register callback to be run on a key binding. The binding will be mapped to the given key, which is a string describing the physical key. This uses the same key names as in input.conf, and also allows combinations (e.g. ctrl+a). If the key is empty or nil, no physical key is registered, but the user still can create own bindings (see below).

    After calling this function, key presses will cause the function fn to be called (unless the user remapped the key with another binding).

    The name argument should be a short symbolic string. It allows the user to remap the key binding via input.conf using the script-message command, and the name of the key binding (see below for an example). The name should be unique across other bindings in the same script - if not, the previous binding with the same name will be overwritten. You can omit the name, in which case a random name is generated internally.

    The last argument is used for optional flags. This is a table, which can have the following entries:

repeatable
    If set to true, enables key repeat for this specific binding.

complex
    If set to true, then fn is called on both key up and down events (as well as key repeat, if enabled), with the first argument being a table. This table has an event entry, which is set to one of the strings down, repeat, up or press (the latter if key up/down can't be tracked). It further has an is_mouse entry, which tells whether the event was caused by a mouse button.

    Internally, key bindings are dispatched via the script-message-to or script-binding input commands and mp.register_script_message.

    Trying to map multiple commands to a key will essentially prefer a random binding, while the other bindings are not called. It is guaranteed that user defined bindings in the central input.conf are preferred over bindings added with this function (but see mp.add_forced_key_binding).

    Example:

    function something_handler()
        print("the key was pressed")
    end
    mp.add_key_binding("x", "something", something_handler)

    This will print the message the key was pressed when x was pressed.

    The user can remap these key bindings. Then the user has to put the following into their input.conf to remap the command to the y key:

    y script-binding something

    This will print the message when the key y is pressed. (x will still work, unless the user remaps it.)

    You can also explicitly send a message to a named script only. Assume the above script was using the filename fooscript.lua:

    y script-binding fooscript/something

mp.add_forced_key_binding(...)
    This works almost the same as mp.add_key_binding, but registers the key binding in a way that will overwrite the user's custom bindings in their input.conf. (mp.add_key_binding overwrites default key bindings only, but not those by the user's input.conf.)

mp.remove_key_binding(name)
    Remove a key binding added with mp.add_key_binding or mp.add_forced_key_binding. Use the same name as you used when adding the bindings. It's not possible to remove bindings for which you omitted the name.

mp.register_event(name, fn)
    Call a specific function when an event happens. The event name is a string, and the function fn is a Lua function value.

    Some events have associated data. This is put into a Lua table and passed as argument to fn. The Lua table by default contains a name field, which is a string containing the event name. If the event has an error associated, the error field is set to a string describing the error, on success it's not set.

    If multiple functions are registered for the same event, they are run in registration order, which the first registered function running before all the other ones.

    Returns true if such an event exists, false otherwise.

    See Events and List of events for details.

mp.unregister_event(fn)
    Undo mp.register_event(..., fn). This removes all event handlers that are equal to the fn parameter. This uses normal Lua == comparison, so be careful when dealing with closures.

mp.observe_property(name, type, fn)
    Watch a property for changes. If the property name is changed, then the function fn(name) will be called. type can be nil, or be set to one of none, native, bool, string, or number. none is the same as nil. For all other values, the new value of the property will be passed as second argument to fn, using mp.get_property_<type> to retrieve it. This means if type is for example string, fn is roughly called as in fn(name, mp.get_property_string(name)).

    If possible, change events are coalesced. If a property is changed a bunch of times in a row, only the last change triggers the change function. (The exact behavior depends on timing and other things.)

    In some cases the function is not called even if the property changes. Whether this can happen depends on the property.

    If the type is none or nil, sporadic property change events are possible. This means the change function fn can be called even if the property doesn't actually change.

mp.unobserve_property(fn)
    Undo mp.observe_property(..., fn). This removes all property handlers that are equal to the fn parameter. This uses normal Lua == comparison, so be careful when dealing with closures.

mp.add_timeout(seconds, fn)
    Call the given function fn when the given number of seconds has elapsed. Note that the number of seconds can be fractional. For now, the timer's resolution may be as low as 50 ms, although this will be improved in the future.

    This is a one-shot timer: it will be removed when it's fired.

    Returns a timer object. See mp.add_periodic_timer for details.

mp.add_periodic_timer(seconds, fn)
    Call the given function periodically. This is like mp.add_timeout, but the timer is re-added after the function fn is run.

Returns a timer object. The timer object provides the following methods:

stop()
    Disable the timer. Does nothing if the timer is already disabled. This will remember the current elapsed time when stopping, so that resume() essentially unpauses the timer.

kill()
    Disable the timer. Resets the elapsed time. resume() will restart the timer.

resume()
    Restart the timer. If the timer was disabled with stop(), this will resume at the time it was stopped. If the timer was disabled with kill(), or if it's a previously fired one-shot timer (added with add_timeout()), this starts the timer from the beginning, using the initially configured timeout.

is_enabled()
    Whether the timer is currently enabled or was previously disabled (e.g. by stop() or kill()).

timeout (RW)
    This field contains the current timeout period. This value is not updated as time progresses. It's only used to calculate when the timer should fire next when the timer expires.

    If you write this, you can call t:kill() ; t:resume() to reset the current timeout to the new one. (t:stop() won't use the new timeout.)

oneshot (RW)
    Whether the timer is periodic (false) or fires just once (true). This value is used when the timer expires (but before the timer callback function fn is run).

    Note that these are method, and you have to call them using : instead of . (Refer to http://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/manual.html#3.4.9 .)

    Example:

    seconds = 0
    timer = mp.add_periodic_timer(1, function()
        print("called every second")
        # stop it after 10 seconds
        seconds = seconds + 1
        if seconds >= 10 then
            timer:kill()
        end
    end)

mp.get_opt(key)
    Return a setting from the --script-opts option. It's up to the user and the script how this mechanism is used. Currently, all scripts can access this equally, so you should be careful about collisions.

mp.get_script_name()
    Return the name of the current script. The name is usually made of the filename of the script, with directory and file extension removed. If there are several scripts which would have the same name, it's made unique by appending a number.

Example

    The script /path/to/fooscript.lua becomes fooscript.

mp.osd_message(text [,duration])
    Show an OSD message on the screen. duration is in seconds, and is optional (uses --osd-duration by default).

  Advanced mp functions

These also live in the mp module, but are documented separately as they are useful only in special situations.

mp.suspend()
    This function has been deprecated in mpv 0.21.0 and does nothing starting with mpv 0.23.0 (no replacement).

mp.resume()
    This function has been deprecated in mpv 0.21.0 and does nothing starting with mpv 0.23.0 (no replacement).

mp.resume_all()
    This function has been deprecated in mpv 0.21.0 and does nothing starting with mpv 0.23.0 (no replacement).

mp.get_wakeup_pipe()
    Calls mpv_get_wakeup_pipe() and returns the read end of the wakeup pipe. (See client.h for details.)

mp.get_next_timeout()
    Return the relative time in seconds when the next timer (mp.add_timeout and similar) expires. If there is no timer, return nil.

mp.dispatch_events([allow_wait])
    This can be used to run custom event loops. If you want to have direct control what the Lua script does (instead of being called by the default event loop), you can set the global variable mp_event_loop to your own function running the event loop. From your event loop, you should call mp.dispatch_events() to dequeue and dispatch mpv events.

    If the allow_wait parameter is set to true, the function will block until the next event is received or the next timer expires. Otherwise (and this is the default behavior), it returns as soon as the event loop is emptied. It's strongly recommended to use mp.get_next_timeout() and mp.get_wakeup_pipe() if you're interested in properly working notification of new events and working timers.

mp.register_idle(fn)
    Register an event loop idle handler. Idle handlers are called before the script goes to sleep after handling all new events. This can be used for example to delay processing of property change events: if you're observing multiple properties at once, you might not want to act on each property change, but only when all change notifications have been received.

mp.unregister_idle(fn)
    Undo mp.register_idle(fn). This removes all idle handlers that are equal to the fn parameter. This uses normal Lua == comparison, so be careful when dealing with closures.

mp.enable_messages(level)
    Set the minimum log level of which mpv message output to receive. These messages are normally printed to the terminal. By calling this function, you can set the minimum log level of messages which should be received with the log-message event. See the description of this event for details. The level is a string, see msg.log for allowed log levels.

mp.register_script_message(name, fn)
    This is a helper to dispatch script-message or script-message-to invocations to Lua functions. fn is called if script-message or script-message-to (with this script as destination) is run with name as first parameter. The other parameters are passed to fn. If a message with the given name is already registered, it's overwritten.

    Used by mp.add_key_binding, so be careful about name collisions.

mp.unregister_script_message(name)
    Undo a previous registration with mp.register_script_message. Does nothing if the name wasn't registered.

  mp.msg functions

This module allows outputting messages to the terminal, and can be loaded with require 'mp.msg'.

msg.log(level, ...)
    The level parameter is the message priority. It's a string and one of fatal, error, warn, info, v, debug. The user's settings will determine which of these messages will be visible. Normally, all messages are visible, except v and debug.

    The parameters after that are all converted to strings. Spaces are inserted to separate multiple parameters.

    You don't need to add newlines.

msg.fatal(...), msg.error(...), msg.warn(...), msg.info(...), msg.verbose(...), msg.debug(...)
    All of these are shortcuts and equivalent to the corresponding msg.log(level, ...) call.

  mp.options functions

mpv comes with a built-in module to manage options from config-files and the command-line. All you have to do is to supply a table with default options to the read_options function. The function will overwrite the default values with values found in the config-file and the command-line (in that order).

options.read_options(table [, identifier])
    A table with key-value pairs. The type of the default values is important for converting the values read from the config file or command-line back. Do not use nil as a default value!

    The identifier is used to identify the config-file and the command-line options. These needs to unique to avoid collisions with other scripts. Defaults to mp.get_script_name().

    Example implementation:

    require 'mp.options'
    local options = {
        optionA = "defaultvalueA",
        optionB = -0.5,
        optionC = true,
    }
    read_options(options, "myscript")
    print(options.optionA)

    The config file will be stored in lua-settings/identifier.conf in mpv's user folder. Comment lines can be started with # and stray spaces are not removed. Boolean values will be represented with yes/no.

    Example config:

    # comment
    optionA=Hello World
    optionB=9999
    optionC=no

    Command-line options are read from the --script-opts parameter. To avoid collisions, all keys have to be prefixed with identifier-.

    Example command-line:

    --script-opts=myscript-optionA=TEST,myscript-optionB=0,myscript-optionC=yes

  mp.utils functions

This built-in module provides generic helper functions for Lua, and have strictly speaking nothing to do with mpv or video/audio playback. They are provided for convenience. Most compensate for Lua's scarce standard library.

Be warned that any of these functions might disappear any time. They are not strictly part of the guaranteed API.

utils.getcwd()
    Returns the directory that mpv was launched from. On error, nil, error is returned.

utils.readdir(path [, filter])
    Enumerate all entries at the given path on the filesystem, and return them as array. Each entry is a directory entry (without the path). The list is unsorted (in whatever order the operating system returns it).

    If the filter argument is given, it must be one of the following strings:

files
    List regular files only. This excludes directories, special files (like UNIX device files or FIFOs), and dead symlinks. It includes UNIX symlinks to regular files.

dirs
    List directories only, or symlinks to directories. . and .. are not included.

normal
    Include the results of both files and dirs. (This is the default.)

all List all entries, even device files, dead symlinks, FIFOs, and the . and .. entries.

    On error, nil, error is returned.

utils.split_path(path)
    Split a path into directory component and filename component, and return them. The first return value is always the directory. The second return value is the trailing part of the path, the directory entry.

utils.join_path(p1, p2)
    Return the concatenation of the 2 paths. Tries to be clever. For example, if `p2 is an absolute path, p2 is returned without change.

utils.subprocess(t)
    Runs an external process and waits until it exits. Returns process status and the captured output.

    The parameter t is a table. The function reads the following entries:

args
    Array of strings. The first array entry is the executable. This can be either an absolute path, or a filename with no path components, in which case the PATH environment variable is used to resolve the executable. The other array elements are passed as command line arguments.

cancellable
    Optional. If set to true (default), then if the user stops playback or goes to the next file while the process is running, the process will be killed.

max_size
    Optional. The maximum size in bytes of the data that can be captured from stdout. (Default: 16 MB.)

    The function returns a table as result with the following entries:

status
    The raw exit status of the process. It will be negative on error.

stdout
    Captured output stream as string, limited to max_size.

error
    nil on success. The string killed if the process was terminated in an unusual way. The string init if the process could not be started.

    On Windows, killed is only returned when the process has been killed by mpv as a result of cancellable being set to true.

killed_by_us
    Set to true if the process has been killed by mpv as a result of cancellable being set to true.

utils.subprocess_detached(t)
    Runs an external process and detaches it from mpv's control.

    The parameter t is a table. The function reads the following entries:

args
    Array of strings of the same semantics as the args used in the subprocess function.

    The function returns nil.

utils.parse_json(str [, trail])
    Parses the given string argument as JSON, and returns it as a Lua table. On error, returns nil, error. (Currently, error is just a string reading error, because there is no fine-grained error reporting of any kind.)

    The returned value uses similar conventions as mp.get_property_native() to distinguish empty objects and arrays.

    If the trail parameter is true (or any value equal to true), then trailing non-whitespace text is tolerated by the function, and the trailing text is returned as 3rd return value. (The 3rd return value is always there, but with trail set, no error is raised.)

utils.format_json(v)
    Format the given Lua table (or value) as a JSON string and return it. On error, returns nil, error. (Errors usually only happen on value types incompatible with JSON.)

    The argument value uses similar conventions as mp.set_property_native() to distinguish empty objects and arrays.

utils.to_string(v)
    Turn the given value into a string. Formats tables and their contents. This doesn't do anything special; it is only needed because Lua is terrible.

  Events

Events are notifications from player core to scripts. You can register an event handler with mp.register_event.

Note that all scripts (and other parts of the player) receive events equally, and there's no such thing as blocking other scripts from receiving events.

Example:

function my_fn(event)
    print("start of playback!")
end
mp.register_event("file-loaded", my_fn)

  List of events

start-file
    Happens right before a new file is loaded. When you receive this, the player is loading the file (or possibly already done with it).

end-file
    Happens after a file was unloaded. Typically, the player will load the next file right away, or quit if this was the last file.

    The event has the reason field, which takes one of these values:

eof The file has ended. This can (but doesn't have to) include incomplete files or broken network connections under circumstances.

stop
    Playback was ended by a command.

quit
    Playback was ended by sending the quit command.

error
    An error happened. In this case, an error field is present with the error string.

redirect
    Happens with playlists and similar. Details see MPV_END_FILE_REASON_REDIRECT in the C API.

unknown
    Unknown. Normally doesn't happen, unless the Lua API is out of sync with the C API. (Likewise, it could happen that your script gets reason strings that did not exist yet at the time your script was written.)

file-loaded
    Happens after a file was loaded and begins playback.

seek
    Happens on seeking. (This might include cases when the player seeks internally, even without user interaction. This includes e.g. segment changes when playing ordered chapters Matroska files.)

playback-restart
    Start of playback after seek or after file was loaded.

idle
    Idle mode is entered. This happens when playback ended, and the player was started with --idle or --force-window. This mode is implicitly ended when the start-file or shutdown events happen.

tick
    Called after a video frame was displayed. This is a hack, and you should avoid using it. Use timers instead and maybe watch pausing/unpausing events to avoid wasting CPU when the player is paused.

shutdown
    Sent when the player quits, and the script should terminate. Normally handled automatically. See Details on the script initialization and lifecycle.

log-message
    Receives messages enabled with mp.enable_messages. The message data is contained in the table passed as first parameter to the event handler. The table contains, in addition to the default event fields, the following fields:

prefix
    The module prefix, identifies the sender of the message. This is what the terminal player puts in front of the message text when using the --v option, and is also what is used for --msg-level.

level
    The log level as string. See msg.log for possible log level names. Note that later versions of mpv might add new levels or remove (undocumented) existing ones.

text
    The log message. The text will end with a newline character. Sometimes it can contain multiple lines.

    Keep in mind that these messages are meant to be hints for humans. You should not parse them, and prefix/level/text of messages might change any time.

get-property-reply
    Undocumented (not useful for Lua scripts).

set-property-reply
    Undocumented (not useful for Lua scripts).

command-reply
    Undocumented (not useful for Lua scripts).

client-message
    Undocumented (used internally).

video-reconfig
    Happens on video output or filter reconfig.

audio-reconfig
    Happens on audio output or filter reconfig.

    The following events also happen, but are deprecated: tracks-changed, track-switched, pause, unpause, metadata-update, chapter-change. Use mp.observe_property() instead.

  Extras

This documents experimental features, or features that are "too special" to guarantee a stable interface.

mp.add_hook(type, priority, fn)
    Add a hook callback for type (a string identifying a certain kind of hook). These hooks allow the player to call script functions and wait for their result (normally, the Lua scripting interface is asynchronous from the point of view of the player core). priority is an arbitrary integer that allows ordering among hooks of the same kind. Using the value 50 is recommended as neutral default value. fn is the function that will be called during execution of the hook.

    See Hooks for currently existing hooks and what they do - only the hook list is interesting; handling hook execution is done by the Lua script function automatically.

JAVASCRIPT

JavaScript support in mpv is near identical to its Lua support. Use this section as reference on differences and availability of APIs, but otherwise you should refer to the Lua documentation for API details and general scripting in mpv.

  Example

JavaScript code which leaves fullscreen mode when the player is paused:

function on_pause_change(name, value) {
    if (value == true)
        mp.set_property("fullscreen", "no");
}
mp.observe_property("pause", "bool", on_pause_change);

  Similarities with Lua

mpv tries to load a script file as JavaScript if it has a .js extension, but otherwise, the documented Lua options, script directories, loading, etc apply to JavaScript files too.

Script initialization and lifecycle is the same as with Lua, and most of the Lua functions at the modules mp, mp.utils and mp.msg are available to JavaScript with identical APIs - including running commands, getting/setting properties, registering events/key-bindings/property-changes/hooks, etc.

  Differences from Lua

No need to load modules. mp, mp.utils and mp.msg are preloaded, and you can use e.g. var cwd = mp.utils.getcwd(); without prior setup. mp.options is currently not implemented, but mp.get_opt(...) is.

Errors are slightly different. Where the Lua APIs return nil for error, the JavaScript ones return undefined. Where Lua returns something, error JavaScript returns only something - and makes error available via mp.last_error(). Note that only some of the functions have this additional error value - typically the same ones which have it in Lua.

Standard APIs are preferred. For instance setTimeout and JSON.stringify are available, but mp.add_timeout and mp.utils.format_json are not.

No standard library. This means that interaction with anything outside of mpv is limited to the available APIs, typically via mp.utils. However, some file functions were added, and CommonJS require is available too - where the loaded modules have the same privileges as normal scripts.

  Language features - ECMAScript 5

The scripting backend which mpv currently uses is MuJS - a compatible minimal ES5 interpreter. As such, String.substring is implemented for instance, while the common but non-standard String.substr is not. Please consult the MuJS pages on language features and platform support - http://mujs.com .

  Unsupported Lua APIs and their JS alternatives

mp.add_timeout(seconds, fn) JS: id = setTimeout(fn, ms)

mp.add_periodic_timer(seconds, fn) JS: id = setInterval(fn, ms)

mp.register_idle(fn) JS: id = setTimeout(fn)

mp.unregister_idle(fn) JS: clearTimeout(id)

utils.parse_json(str [, trail]) JS: JSON.parse(str)

utils.format_json(v) JS: JSON.stringify(v)

utils.to_string(v) see dump below.

mp.suspend() JS: none (deprecated).

mp.resume() JS: none (deprecated).

mp.resume_all() JS: none (deprecated).

mp.get_next_timeout() see event loop below.

mp.dispatch_events([allow_wait]) see event loop below.

mp.options module is not implemented currently for JS.

  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). Otherwise, where the Lua APIs return nil on error, JS returns undefined.

mp.command(string) (LE)

mp.commandv(arg1, arg2, ...) (LE)

mp.command_native(table [,def]) (LE)

mp.get_property(name [,def]) (LE)

mp.get_property_osd(name [,def]) (LE)

mp.get_property_bool(name [,def]) (LE)

mp.get_property_number(name [,def]) (LE)

mp.get_property_native(name [,def]) (LE)

mp.set_property(name, value) (LE)

mp.set_property_bool(name, value) (LE)

mp.set_property_number(name, value) (LE)

mp.set_property_native(name, value) (LE)

mp.get_time()

mp.add_key_binding(key, name|fn [,fn [,flags]])

mp.add_forced_key_binding(...)

mp.remove_key_binding(name)

mp.register_event(name, fn)

mp.unregister_event(fn)

mp.observe_property(name, type, fn)

mp.unobserve_property(fn)

mp.get_opt(key)

mp.get_script_name()

mp.osd_message(text [,duration])

mp.get_wakeup_pipe()

mp.enable_messages(level)

mp.register_script_message(name, fn)

mp.unregister_script_message(name)

mp.msg.log(level, ...)

mp.msg.fatal(...)

mp.msg.error(...)

mp.msg.warn(...)

mp.msg.info(...)

mp.msg.verbose(...)

mp.msg.debug(...)

mp.utils.getcwd() (LE)

mp.utils.readdir(path [, filter]) (LE)

mp.utils.split_path(path)

mp.utils.join_path(p1, p2)

mp.utils.subprocess(t)

mp.utils.subprocess_detached(t)

mp.add_hook(type, priority, fn)

  Additional utilities

mp.last_error()
    If used after an API call which updates last error, returns an empty string if the API call succeeded, or a non-empty error reason string otherwise.

Error.stack (string)
    When using try { ... } catch(e) { ... }, then e.stack is the stack trace of the error - if it was created using the Error(...) constructor.

print (global)
    A convenient alias to mp.msg.info.

dump (global)
    Like print but also expands objects and arrays recursively.

mp.utils.getenv(name)
    Returns the value of the host environment variable name, or undefined if the variable is not defined.

mp.utils.get_user_path(path)
    Expands (mpv) meta paths like ~/x, ~~/y, ~~desktop/z etc. read_file, write_file and require already use this internaly.

mp.utils.read_file(fname [,max])
    Returns the content of file fname as string. If max is provided and not negative, limit the read to max bytes.

mp.utils.write_file(fname, str)
    (Over)write file fname with text content str. fname must be prefixed with file:// as simple protection against accidental arguments switch, e.g. mp.utils.write_file("file://~/abc.txt", "hello world").

    Note: read_file and write_file throw on errors, allow text content only.

mp.get_time_ms()
    Same as mp.get_time() but in ms instead of seconds.

mp.get_script_file()
    Returns the file name of the current script.

exit() (global)
    Make the script exit at the end of the current event loop iteration. Note: please reomve added key bindings before calling exit().

mp.utils.compile_js(fname, content_str)
    Compiles the JS code content_str as file name fname (without loading anything from the filesystem), and returns it as a function. Very similar to a Function constructor, but shows at stack traces as fname.

  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) instead of Lua's mp.register_idle(fn).

  CommonJS modules and require(id)

CommonJS Modules are a standard system where scripts can export common functions for use by other scripts. A module is a script which adds properties (functions, etc) to its invisible exports object, which another script can access by loading it with require(module-id) - which returns that exports object.

Modules and require are supported, standard compliant, and generally similar to node.js. However, most node.js modules won't run due to missing modules such as fs, process, etc, but some node.js modules with minimal dependencies do work. In general, this is for mpv modules and not a node.js replacement.

A .js file extension is always added to id, e.g. require("./foo") will load the file ./foo.js and return its exports object.

An id is relative (to the script which require'd it) if it starts with ./ or ../. Otherwise, it's considered a "top-level id" (CommonJS term).

Top level id is evaluated as absolute filesystem path if possible (e.g. /x/y or ~/x). Otherwise, it's searched at scripts/modules.js/ in mpv config dirs - in normal config search order. E.g. require("x") is searched as file x.js at those dirs, and id foo/x is searched as file foo/x.js.

No global variable, but a module's this at its top lexical scope is the global object - also in strict mode. If you have a module which needs global as the global object, you could do this.global = this; before require.

Functions and variables declared at a module don't pollute the global object.

  The event loop

The event loop poll/dispatch mpv events as long as the queue is not empty, then processes the timers, then waits for the next event, and repeats this forever.

You could put this code at your script to replace the built-in event loop, and also print every event which mpv sends to your script:

function mp_event_loop() {
    var wait = 0;
    do {
        var e = mp.wait_event(wait);
        dump(e);  // there could be a lot of prints...
        if (e.event != "none") {
            mp.dispatch_event(e);
            wait = 0;
        } else {
            wait = mp.process_timers() / 1000;
        }
    } while (mp.keep_running);
}

mp_event_loop is a name which mpv tries to call after the script loads. The internal implementation is similar to this (without dump though..).

e = mp.wait_event(wait) returns when the next mpv event arrives, or after wait seconds if positive and no mpv events arrived. wait value of 0 returns immediately (with e.event == "none" if the queue is empty).

mp.dispatch_event(e) calls back the handlers registered for e.event, if there are such (event handlers, property observers, script messages, etc).

mp.process_timers() calls back the already-added, non-canceled due timers, and returns the duration in ms till the next due timer (possibly 0), or -1 if there are no pending timers. Must not be called recursively.

Note: exit() is also registered for the shutdown event, and its implementation is a simple mp.keep_running = false.

JSON IPC

mpv can be controlled by external programs using the JSON-based IPC protocol. It can be enabled by specifying the path to a unix socket or a named pipe using the option --input-ipc-server. Clients can connect to this socket and send commands to the player or receive events from it.

WARNING: This is not intended to be a secure network protocol. It is explicitly insecure: there is no authentication, no encryption, and the commands themselves are insecure too. For example, the run command is exposed, which can run arbitrary system commands. The use-case is controlling the player locally. This is not different from the MPlayer slave protocol.

  Socat example

You can use the socat tool to send commands (and receive replies) from the shell. Assuming mpv was started with:

mpv file.mkv --input-ipc-server=/tmp/mpvsocket

Then you can control it using socat:

> echo '{ "command": ["get_property", "playback-time"] }' | socat - /tmp/mpvsocket
{"data":190.482000,"error":"success"}

In this case, socat copies data between stdin/stdout and the mpv socket connection.

See the --idle option how to make mpv start without exiting immediately or playing a file.

It's also possible to send input.conf style text-only commands:

> echo 'show-text ${playback-time}' | socat - /tmp/mpvsocket

But you won't get a reply over the socket. (This particular command shows the playback time on the player's OSD.)

  Command Prompt example

Unfortunately, it's not as easy to test the IPC protocol on Windows, since Windows ports of socat (in Cygwin and MSYS2) don't understand named pipes. In the absence of a simple tool to send and receive from bidirectional pipes, the echo command can be used to send commands, but not receive replies from the command prompt.

Assuming mpv was started with:

mpv file.mkv --input-ipc-server=\\.\pipe\mpvsocket

You can send commands from a command prompt:

echo show-text ${playback-time} >\\.\pipe\mpvsocket

To be able to simultaneously read and write from the IPC pipe, like on Linux, it's necessary to write an external program that uses overlapped file I/O (or some wrapper like .NET's NamedPipeClientStream.)

  Protocol

Clients can execute commands on the player by sending JSON messages of the following form:

{ "command": ["command_name", "param1", "param2", ...] }

where command_name is the name of the command to be executed, followed by a list of parameters. Parameters must be formatted as native JSON values (integers, strings, booleans, ...). Every message must be terminated with \n. Additionally, \n must not appear anywhere inside the message. In practice this means that messages should be minified before being sent to mpv.

mpv will then send back a reply indicating whether the command was run correctly, and an additional field holding the command-specific return data (it can also be null).

{ "error": "success", "data": null }

mpv will also send events to clients with JSON messages of the following form:

{ "event": "event_name" }

where event_name is the name of the event. Additional event-specific fields can also be present. See List of events for a list of all supported events.

Because events can occur at any time, it may be difficult at times to determine which response goes with which command. Commands may optionally include a request_id which, if provided in the command request, will be copied verbatim into the response. mpv does not intrepret the request_id in any way; it is solely for the use of the requester.

For example, this request:

{ "command": ["get_property", "time-pos"], "request_id": 100 }

Would generate this response:

{ "error": "success", "data": 1.468135, "request_id": 100 }

All commands, replies, and events are separated from each other with a line break character (\n).

If the first character (after skipping whitespace) is not {, the command will be interpreted as non-JSON text command, as they are used in input.conf (or mpv_command_string() in the client API). Additionally, lines starting with # and empty lines are ignored.

Currently, embedded 0 bytes terminate the current line, but you should not rely on this.

  Commands

In addition to the commands described in List of Input Commands, a few extra commands can also be used as part of the protocol:

client_name
    Return the name of the client as string. This is the string ipc-N with N being an integer number.

get_time_us
    Return the current mpv internal time in microseconds as a number. This is basically the system time, with an arbitrary offset.

get_property
    Return the value of the given property. The value will be sent in the data field of the replay message.

    Example:

    { "command": ["get_property", "volume"] }
    { "data": 50.0, "error": "success" }

get_property_string
    Like get_property, but the resulting data will always be a string.

    Example:

    { "command": ["get_property_string", "volume"] }
    { "data": "50.000000", "error": "success" }

set_property
    Set the given property to the given value. See Properties for more information about properties.

    Example:

    { "command": ["set_property", "pause", true] }
    { "error": "success" }

set_property_string
    Like set_property, but the argument value must be passed as string.

    Example:

    { "command": ["set_property_string", "pause", "yes"] }
    { "error": "success" }

observe_property
    Watch a property for changes. If the given property is changed, then an event of type property-change will be generated

    Example:

    { "command": ["observe_property", 1, "volume"] }
    { "error": "success" }
    { "event": "property-change", "id": 1, "data": 52.0, "name": "volume" }

    WARNING: If the connection is closed, the IPC client is destroyed internally, and the observed properties are unregistered. This happens for example when sending commands to a socket with separate socat invocations. This can make it seem like property observation does not work. You must keep the IPC connection open to make it work.

observe_property_string
    Like observe_property, but the resulting data will always be a string.

    Example:

    { "command": ["observe_property_string", 1, "volume"] }
    { "error": "success" }
    { "event": "property-change", "id": 1, "data": "52.000000", "name": "volume" }

unobserve_property
    Undo observe_property or observe_property_string. This requires the numeric id passed to the observed command as argument.

    Example:

    { "command": ["unobserve_property", 1] }
    { "error": "success" }

request_log_messages
    Enable output of mpv log messages. They will be received as events. The parameter to this command is the log-level (see mpv_request_log_messages C API function).

    Log message output is meant for humans only (mostly for debugging). Attempting to retrieve information by parsing these messages will just lead to breakages with future mpv releases. Instead, make a feature request, and ask for a proper event that returns the information you need.

enable_event, disable_event
    Enables or disables the named event. Mirrors the mpv_request_event C API function. If the string all is used instead of an event name, all events are enabled or disabled.

    By default, most events are enabled, and there is not much use for this command.

get_version
    Returns the client API version the C API of the remote mpv instance provides.

    See also: DOCS/client-api-changes.rst.

  UTF-8

Normally, all strings are in UTF-8. Sometimes it can happen that strings are in some broken encoding (often happens with file tags and such, and filenames on many Unixes are not required to be in UTF-8 either). This means that mpv sometimes sends invalid JSON. If that is a problem for the client application's parser, it should filter the raw data for invalid UTF-8 sequences and perform the desired replacement, before feeding the data to its JSON parser.

mpv will not attempt to construct invalid UTF-8 with broken escape sequences.

CHANGELOG

There is no real changelog, but you can look at the following things:

•   The release changelog, which should contain most user-visible changes, including new features and bug fixes:

    https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/releases

•   The git log, which is the "real" changelog

•   The files client-api-changes.rst and interface-changes.rst in the DOCS sub directoryon the git repository, which document API and user interface changes (the latter usually documents breaking changes only, rather than additions).

•   The file mplayer-changes.rst in the DOCS sub directory on the git repository, which used to be in place of this section. It documents some changes that happened since mplayer2 forked off MPlayer. (Not updated anymore.)

EMBEDDING INTO OTHER PROGRAMS (LIBMPV)

mpv can be embedded into other programs as video/audio playback backend. The recommended way to do so is using libmpv. See libmpv/client.h in the mpv source code repository. This provides a C API. Bindings for other languages might be available (see wiki).

Since libmpv merely allows access to underlying mechanisms that can control mpv, further documentation is spread over a few places:

•   https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/libmpv/client.h

•   http://mpv.io/manual/master/#options

•   http://mpv.io/manual/master/#list-of-input-commands

•   http://mpv.io/manual/master/#properties

•   https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv-examples/tree/master/libmpv

C PLUGINS

You can write C plugins for mpv. These use the libmpv API, although they do not use the libmpv library itself.

Currently, they must be explicitly enabled at build time with --enable-cplugins. They are available on Linux/BSD platforms only.

  C plugins location

C plugins are put into the mpv scripts directory in its config directory (see the FILES section for details). They must have a .so file extension. They can also be explicitly loaded with the --script option.

  API

A C plugin must export the following function:

int mpv_open_cplugin(mpv_handle *handle)

The plugin function will be called on loading time. This function does not return as long as your plugin is loaded (it runs in its own thread). The handle will be deallocated as soon as the plugin function returns.

The return value is interpreted as error status. A value of 0 is interpreted as success, while -1 signals an error. In the latter case, the player prints an uninformative error message that loading failed.

Return values other than 0 and -1 are reserved, and trigger undefined behavior.

Within the plugin function, you can call libmpv API functions. The handle is created by mpv_create_client() (or actually an internal equivalent), and belongs to you. You can call mpv_wait_event() to wait for things happening, and so on.

Note that the player might block until your plugin calls mpv_wait_event() for the first time. This gives you a chance to install initial hooks etc. before playback begins.

The details are quite similar to Lua scripts.

  Linkage to libmpv

The current implementation requires that your plugins are not linked against libmpv. What your plugins uses are not symbols from a libmpv binary, but symbols from the mpv host binary.

  Examples

See:

•   https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv-examples/tree/master/cplugins

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

There are a number of environment variables that can be used to control the behavior of mpv.

HOME, XDG_CONFIG_HOME
    Used to determine mpv config directory. If XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set, $HOME/.config/mpv is used.

    $HOME/.mpv is always added to the list of config search paths with a lower priority.

XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
    If set, XDG-style system configuration directories are used. Otherwise, the UNIX convention (PREFIX/etc/mpv/) is used.

MPV_HOME
    Directory where mpv looks for user settings. Overrides HOME, and mpv will try to load the config file as $MPV_HOME/mpv.conf.

MPV_VERBOSE (see also -v and --msg-level)
    Set the initial verbosity level across all message modules (default: 0). This is an integer, and the resulting verbosity corresponds to the number of --v options passed to the command line.

MPV_LEAK_REPORT
    If set to 1, enable internal talloc leak reporting.

LADSPA_PATH
    Specifies the search path for LADSPA plugins. If it is unset, fully qualified path names must be used.

DISPLAY
    Standard X11 display name to use.

FFmpeg/Libav:
    This library accesses various environment variables. However, they are not centrally documented, and documenting them is not our job. Therefore, this list is incomplete.

    Notable environment variables:

http_proxy
    URL to proxy for http:// and https:// URLs.

no_proxy
    List of domain patterns for which no proxy should be used. List entries are separated by ,. Patterns can include *.

libdvdcss:

DVDCSS_CACHE
    Specify a directory in which to store title key values. This will speed up descrambling of DVDs which are in the cache. The DVDCSS_CACHE directory is created if it does not exist, and a subdirectory is created named after the DVD's title or manufacturing date. If DVDCSS_CACHE is not set or is empty, libdvdcss will use the default value which is ${HOME}/.dvdcss/ under Unix and the roaming application data directory (%APPDATA%) under Windows. The special value "off" disables caching.

DVDCSS_METHOD
    Sets the authentication and decryption method that libdvdcss will use to read scrambled discs. Can be one of title, key or disc.

key is the default method. libdvdcss will use a set of calculated player keys to try to get the disc key. This can fail if the drive does not recognize any of the player keys.

disc
    is a fallback method when key has failed. Instead of using player keys, libdvdcss will crack the disc key using a brute force algorithm. This process is CPU intensive and requires 64 MB of memory to store temporary data.

title
    is the fallback when all other methods have failed. It does not rely on a key exchange with the DVD drive, but rather uses a crypto attack to guess the title key. On rare cases this may fail because there is not enough encrypted data on the disc to perform a statistical attack, but on the other hand it is the only way to decrypt a DVD stored on a hard disc, or a DVD with the wrong region on an RPC2 drive.

DVDCSS_RAW_DEVICE
    Specify the raw device to use. Exact usage will depend on your operating system, the Linux utility to set up raw devices is raw(8) for instance. Please note that on most operating systems, using a raw device requires highly aligned buffers: Linux requires a 2048 bytes alignment (which is the size of a DVD sector).

DVDCSS_VERBOSE
    Sets the libdvdcss verbosity level.

0   Outputs no messages at all.

1   Outputs error messages to stderr.

2   Outputs error messages and debug messages to stderr.

DVDREAD_NOKEYS
    Skip retrieving all keys on startup. Currently disabled.

HOME
    FIXME: Document this.

EXIT CODES

Normally mpv returns 0 as exit code after finishing playback successfully. If errors happen, the following exit codes can be returned:

1   Error initializing mpv. This is also returned if unknown options are passed to mpv.

2   The file passed to mpv couldn't be played. This is somewhat fuzzy: currently, playback of a file is considered to be successful if initialization was mostly successful, even if playback fails immediately after initialization.

3   There were some files that could be played, and some files which couldn't (using the definition of success from above).

4   Quit due to a signal, Ctrl+c in a VO window (by default), or from the default quit key bindings in encoding mode.

    Note that quitting the player manually will always lead to exit code 0, overriding the exit code that would be returned normally. Also, the quit input command can take an exit code: in this case, that exit code is returned.

FILES

For Windows-specifics, see FILES ON WINDOWS section.

/usr/local/etc/mpv/mpv.conf
    mpv system-wide settings (depends on --prefix passed to configure - mpv in default configuration will use /usr/local/etc/mpv/ as config directory, while most Linux distributions will set it to /etc/mpv/).

~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf
    mpv user settings (see CONFIGURATION FILES section)

~/.config/mpv/input.conf
    key bindings (see INPUT.CONF section)

~/.config/mpv/fonts.conf
    Fontconfig fonts.conf that is customized for mpv. You should include system fonts.conf in this file or mpv would not know about fonts that you already have in the system.

    Only available when libass is built with fontconfig.

~/.config/mpv/subfont.ttf
    fallback subtitle font

~/.config/mpv/fonts/
    Font files in this directory are used by mpv/libass for subtitles. Useful if you do not want to install fonts to your system. Note that files in this directory are loaded into memory before being used by mpv. If you have a lot of fonts, consider using fonts.conf (see above) to include additional fonts, which is more memory-efficient.

~/.config/mpv/scripts/
    All files in this directory are loaded as if they were passed to the --script option. They are loaded in alphabetical order, and sub-directories and files with no .lua extension are ignored. The --load-scripts=no option disables loading these files.

~/.config/mpv/watch_later/
    Contains temporary config files needed for resuming playback of files with the watch later feature. See for example the Q key binding, or the quit-watch-later input command.

    Each file is a small config file which is loaded if the corresponding media file is loaded. It contains the playback position and some (not necessarily all) settings that were changed during playback. The filenames are hashed from the full paths of the media files. It's in general not possible to extract the media filename from this hash. However, you can set the --write-filename-in-watch-later-config option, and the player will add the media filename to the contents of the resume config file.

~/.config/mpv/lua-settings/osc.conf
    This is loaded by the OSC script. See the ON SCREEN CONTROLLER docs for details.

    Other files in this directory are specific to the corresponding scripts as well, and the mpv core doesn't touch them.

    Note that the environment variables $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and $MPV_HOME can override the standard directory ~/.config/mpv/.

    Also, the old config location at ~/.mpv/ is still read, and if the XDG variant does not exist, will still be preferred.

FILES ON WINDOWS

On win32 (if compiled with MinGW, but not Cygwin), the default config file locations are different. They are generally located under %APPDATA%/mpv/. For example, the path to mpv.conf is %APPDATA%/mpv/mpv.conf, which maps to a system and user-specific path, for example C:\users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\mpv\mpv.conf

You can find the exact path by running echo %APPDATA%\mpv\mpv.conf in cmd.exe.

Other config files (such as input.conf) are in the same directory. See the FILES section above.

The environment variable $MPV_HOME completely overrides these, like on UNIX.

If a directory named portable_config next to the mpv.exe exists, all config will be loaded from this directory only. Watch later config files are written to this directory as well. (This exists on Windows only and is redundant with $MPV_HOME. However, since Windows is very scripting unfriendly, a wrapper script just setting $MPV_HOME, like you could do it on other systems, won't work. portable_config is provided for convenience to get around this restriction.)

Config files located in the same directory as mpv.exe are loaded with lower priority. Some config files are loaded only once, which means that e.g. of 2 input.conf files located in two config directories, only the one from the directory with higher priority will be loaded.

A third config directory with the lowest priority is the directory named mpv in the same directory as mpv.exe. This used to be the directory with the highest priority, but is now discouraged to use and might be removed in the future.

Note that mpv likes to mix / and \ path separators for simplicity. kernel32.dll accepts this, but cmd.exe does not.

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