MPlayer(1) The Movie Player MPlayer(1)
NAME
mplayer - movie player
SYNOPSIS
mplayer [options] [file|URL|playlist|-]
mplayer [options] file1 [specific options] [file2] [specific options]
mplayer [options] {group of files and options} [group-specific options]
mplayer [br]://[title][/device] [options]
mplayer [dvd|dvdnav]://[title|[start_title]-end_title][/device] [options]
mplayer vcd://track[/device]
mplayer tv://[channel][/input_id] [options]
mplayer radio://[channel|frequency][/capture] [options]
mplayer pvr:// [options]
mplayer dvb://[card_number@]channel [options]
mplayer mf://[filemask|@listfile] [-mf options] [options]
mplayer [cdda|cddb]://track[-endtrack][:speed][/device] [options]
mplayer cue://file[:track] [options]
mplayer [file|mms[t]|http|http_proxy|rt[s]p|ftp|udp|unsv|icyx|noicyx|smb]:// [user:pass@]URL[:port] [options]
mplayer sdp://file [options]
mplayer mpst://host[:port]/URL [options]
mplayer tivo://host/[list|llist|fsid] [options]
DESCRIPTION
mplayer is a movie player for Linux (runs on many other platforms and CPU architectures, see the documentation). It plays most MPEG/VOB,
AVI, ASF/WMA/WMV, RM, QT/MOV/MP4, Ogg/OGM, MKV, VIVO, FLI, NuppelVideo, yuv4mpeg, FILM and RoQ files, supported by many native and binary
codecs. You can watch VCD, SVCD, DVD, Blu-ray, 3ivx, DivX 3/4/5, WMV and even H.264 movies, too.
MPlayer supports a wide range of video and audio output drivers. It works with X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev, AAlib, libcaca, Di-
rectFB, Quartz, Mac OS X CoreVideo, but you can also use GGI, SDL (and all their drivers), VESA (on every VESA-compatible card, even with-
out X11), some low-level card-specific drivers (for Matrox, 3dfx and ATI) and some hardware MPEG decoder boards, such as the Siemens DVB,
Hauppauge PVR (IVTV) and DXR3/Hollywood+. Most of them support software or hardware scaling, so you can enjoy movies in fullscreen mode.
MPlayer has an onscreen display (OSD) for status information, nice big antialiased shaded subtitles and visual feedback for keyboard con-
trols. European/ISO8859-1,2 (Hungarian, English, Czech, etc), Cyrillic and Korean fonts are supported along with 12 subtitle formats (Mi-
croDVD, SubRip, OGM, SubViewer, Sami, VPlayer, RT, SSA, AQTitle, JACOsub, PJS and our own: MPsub) and DVD subtitles (SPU streams, VOBsub
and Closed Captions).
Usage examples to get you started quickly can be found at the end of this man page.
Also see the HTML documentation!
INTERACTIVE CONTROL
MPlayer has a fully configurable, command-driven control layer which allows you to control MPlayer using keyboard, mouse, joystick or re-
mote control (with LIRC). See the -input option for ways to customize it.
keyboard control
LEFT and RIGHT
Seek backward/forward 10 seconds. Shift+arrow does a 1 second exact seek (see -hr-seek; currently modifier keys like shift on-
ly work if used in an X output window).
UP and DOWN
Seek forward/backward 1 minute. Shift+arrow does a 5 second exact seek (see -hr-seek; currently modifier keys like shift only
work if used in an X output window).
PGUP and PGDWN
Seek forward/backward 10 minutes.
[ 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, even over the end.
HOME and END
next/previous playtree entry in the parent list
INS and DEL (ASX playlist only)
next/previous alternative source.
p / SPACE
Pause (pressing again unpauses).
.
Step forward. Pressing once will pause movie, every consecutive press will play one frame and then go into pause mode again.
q / ESC
Stop playing and quit.
U
Stop playing (and quit if -idle is not used).
+ and -
Adjust audio delay by +/- 0.1 seconds.
/ and *
Decrease/increase volume.
9 and 0
Decrease/increase volume.
( and )
Adjust audio balance in favor of left/right channel.
m
Mute sound.
_ (MPEG-TS, AVI and libavformat only)
Cycle through the available video tracks.
# (DVD, Blu-ray, MPEG, Matroska, AVI and libavformat only)
Cycle through the available audio tracks.
TAB (MPEG-TS and libavformat only)
Cycle through the available programs.
f
Toggle fullscreen (also see -fs).
T
Toggle stay-on-top (also see -ontop).
w and e
Decrease/increase pan-and-scan range.
o
Toggle OSD states: none / seek / seek + timer / seek + timer + total time.
d
Toggle frame dropping states: none / skip display / skip decoding (see -framedrop and -hardframedrop).
v
Toggle subtitle visibility.
j and J
Cycle through the available subtitles.
y and g
Step forward/backward in the subtitle list.
F
Toggle displaying "forced subtitles".
a
Toggle subtitle alignment: top / middle / bottom.
x and z
Adjust subtitle delay by +/- 0.1 seconds.
V
Toggle subtitle VSFilter aspect compatibility mode. See -ass-vsfilter-aspect-compat for more info.
C (-capture only)
Start/stop capturing the primary stream.
r and t
Move subtitles up/down.
i (-edlout mode only)
Set start or end of an EDL skip and write it out to the given file.
s (-vf screenshot only)
Take a screenshot.
S (-vf screenshot only)
Start/stop taking screenshots.
I
Show filename on the OSD.
P
Show progression bar, elapsed time and total duration on the OSD.
! and @
Seek to the beginning of the previous/next chapter.
D (-vo vdpau, -vf yadif, -vf kerndeint only)
Activate/deactivate deinterlacer.
A
Cycle through the available DVD angles.
c (currently -vo vdpau and -vo xv only)
Change YUV colorspace.
(The following keys are valid only when using a video output that supports the corresponding adjustment, the software equalizer (-vf
eq or -vf eq2) or hue filter (-vf hue).)
1 and 2
Adjust contrast.
3 and 4
Adjust brightness.
5 and 6
Adjust hue.
7 and 8
Adjust saturation.
(The following keys are valid only when using the quartz or corevideo video output driver.)
command + 0
Resize movie window to half its original size.
command + 1
Resize movie window to its original size.
command + 2
Resize movie window to double its original size.
command + f
Toggle fullscreen (also see -fs).
command + [ and command + ]
Set movie window alpha.
(The following keys are valid only when using the sdl video output driver.)
c
Cycle through available fullscreen modes.
n
Restore original mode.
(The following keys are valid if you have a keyboard with multimedia keys.)
PAUSE
Pause.
STOP
Stop playing and quit.
PREVIOUS and NEXT
Seek backward/forward 1 minute.
(The following keys are only valid if you compiled with TV or DVB input support and will take precedence over the keys defined
above.)
h and k
Select previous/next channel.
n
Change norm.
u
Change channel list.
(The following keys are only valid if you compiled with dvdnav support: They are used to navigate the menus.)
keypad 8
Select button up.
keypad 2
Select button down.
keypad 4
Select button left.
keypad 6
Select button right.
keypad 5
Return to main menu.
keypad 7
Return to nearest menu (the order of preference is: chapter->title->root).
keypad ENTER
Confirm choice.
(The following keys are used for controlling TV teletext. The data may come from either an analog TV source or an MPEG transport
stream.)
X
Switch teletext on/off.
Q and W
Go to next/prev teletext page.
mouse control
button 3 and button 4
Seek backward/forward 1 minute.
button 5 and button 6
Decrease/increase volume.
joystick control
left and right
Seek backward/forward 10 seconds.
up and down
Seek forward/backward 1 minute.
button 1
Pause.
button 2
Toggle OSD states: none / seek / seek + timer / seek + timer + total time.
button 3 and button 4
Decrease/increase volume.
USAGE
Every 'flag' option has a 'noflag' counterpart, e.g. the opposite of the -fs option is -nofs.
If an option is marked as (XXX only), it will only work in combination with the XXX option or if XXX is compiled in.
NOTE: The suboption parser (used for example for -ao pcm suboptions) supports a special kind of string-escaping intended for use with ex-
ternal GUIs.
It has the following format:
%n%string_of_length_n
EXAMPLES:
mplayer -ao pcm:file=%10%C:test.wav test.avi
Or in a script:
mplayer -ao pcm:file=%`expr length "$NAME"`%"$NAME" test.avi
CONFIGURATION FILES
You can put all of the options in configuration files which will be read every time MPlayer is run. The system-wide configuration file
'mplayer.conf' is in your configuration directory (e.g. /etc/mplayer or /usr/local/etc/mplayer), the user specific one is '~/.mplayer/con-
fig'. User specific options override system-wide options and options given on the command line override either. The syntax of the config-
uration files is 'option=<value>', everything after a '#' is considered a comment. Options that work without values can be enabled by set-
ting them to 'yes' or '1' or 'true' and disabled by setting them to 'no' or '0' or 'false'. Even suboptions can be specified in this way.
You can also write file-specific configuration files. If you wish to have a configuration file for a file called 'movie.avi', create a
file named 'movie.avi.conf' with the file-specific options in it and put it in ~/.mplayer/. You can also put the configuration file in the
same directory as the file to be played, as long as you give 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
~/.mplayer. In addition, the -use-filedir-conf option enables directory-specific configuration files. For this, MPlayer first tries to
load a mplayer.conf from the same directory as the file played and then tries to load any file-specific configuration.
EXAMPLE MPLAYER CONFIGURATION FILE:
# Use Matrox driver by default.
vo=xmga
# I love practicing handstands while watching videos.
flip=yes
# Decode multiple files from PNG,
# start with mf://filemask
mf=type=png:fps=25
# Eerie negative images are cool.
vf=eq2=1.0:-0.8
PROFILES
To ease working with different configurations profiles can be defined in the configuration files. A profile starts with its name between
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 op-
tions.
EXAMPLE MPLAYER PROFILE:
[protocol.dvd]
profile-desc="profile for dvd:// streams"
vf=pp=hb/vb/dr/al/fd
alang=en
[protocol.dvdnav]
profile-desc="profile for dvdnav:// streams"
profile=protocol.dvd
mouse-movements=yes
nocache=yes
[extension.flv]
profile-desc="profile for .flv files"
flip=yes
[vo.pnm]
outdir=/tmp
[ao.alsa]
device=spdif
GENERAL OPTIONS
-codecpath <dir>
Specify a directory for binary codecs.
-codecs-file <filename> (also see -afm, -ac, -vfm, -vc)
Override the standard search path and use the specified file instead of the builtin codecs.conf.
-include <configuration file>
Specify configuration file to be parsed after the default ones.
-list-options
Prints all available options.
-msgcharset <charset>
Convert console messages to the specified character set (default: autodetect). Text will be in the encoding specified with the
--charset configure option. Set this to "noconv" to disable conversion (for e.g. iconv problems).
NOTE: The option takes effect after command line parsing has finished. The MPLAYER_CHARSET environment variable can help you get
rid of the first lines of garbled output.
-msgcolor
Enable colorful console output on terminals that support ANSI color.
-msglevel <all=<level>:<module>=<level>:...>
Control verbosity directly for each module. The 'all' module changes the verbosity of all the modules not explicitly specified on
the command line. See '-msglevel help' for a list of all modules.
NOTE: Some messages are printed before the command line is parsed and are therefore not affected by -msglevel. To control these
messages you have to use the MPLAYER_VERBOSE environment variable, see its description below for details.
Available levels:
-1 complete silence
0 fatal messages only
1 error messages
2 warning messages
3 short hints
4 informational messages
5 status messages (default)
6 verbose messages
7 debug level 2
8 debug level 3
9 debug level 4
-msgmodule
Prepend module name in front of each console message.
-noconfig <options>
Do not parse selected configuration files.
NOTE: If -include or -use-filedir-conf options are specified at the command line, they will be honoured.
Available options are:
all
all configuration files
system
system configuration file
user
user configuration file
-quiet
Make console output less verbose; in particular, prevents the status line (i.e. A: 0.7 V: 0.6 A-V: 0.068 ...) from being dis-
played. Particularly useful on slow terminals or broken ones which do not properly handle carriage return (i.e.
).
-priority <prio> (Windows and OS/2 only)
Set process priority for MPlayer according to the predefined priorities available under Windows and OS/2. Possible values of
<prio>:
idle|belownormal|normal|abovenormal|high|realtime
WARNING: Using realtime priority can cause system lockup.
-profile <profile1,profile2,...>
Use the given profile(s), -profile help displays a list of the defined profiles.
-really-quiet (also see -quiet)
Display even less output and status messages than with -quiet.
-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.
WARNING: May be dangerous if playing from untrusted media.
-v
Increment verbosity level, one level for each -v found on the command line.
PLAYER OPTIONS
-autoq <quality> (use with -vf [s]pp)
Dynamically changes the level of postprocessing depending on the available spare CPU time. The number you specify will be the maxi-
mum level used. Usually you can use some big number. You have to use -vf [s]pp without parameters in order for this to work.
-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 movie which plays fine with -nosound 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 -nosound. 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.
-benchmark
Prints some statistics on CPU usage and dropped frames at the end of playback. Use in combination with -nosound and -vo null for
benchmarking only the video codec.
NOTE: With this option MPlayer will also ignore frame duration when playing only video (you can think of that as infinite fps).
-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.
-colorkey <number>
Changes the colorkey to an RGB value of your choice. 0x000000 is black and 0xffffff is white. Only supported by the fbdev, svga,
vesa, xmga, xover, xv (see -vo xv:ck) and directx video output drivers.
-nocolorkey
Disables colorkeying. Only supported by the fbdev, svga, vesa, xmga, xover, xv (see -vo xv:ck) and directx video output drivers.
-correct-pts, -nocorrect-pts
Switches MPlayer to a mode where timestamps for video frames are calculated differently and video filters which add new frames or
modify timestamps of existing ones are supported. Now enabled automatically for most common file formats. The more accurate time-
stamps can be visible for example when playing subtitles timed to scene changes with the -ass option. Without -correct-pts the sub-
title timing will typically be off by some frames. This option does not work correctly with some demuxers and codecs.
-crash-debug (DEBUG CODE)
Automatically attaches gdb upon crash or SIGTRAP. Support must be compiled in by configuring with --enable-crash-debug.
-doubleclick-time
Time in milliseconds to recognize two consecutive button presses as a double-click (default: 300). Set to 0 to let your windowing
system decide what a double-click is (-vo directx only).
-edlout <filename>
Creates a new file and writes edit decision list (EDL) records to it. During playback, the user hits 'i' to mark the start or end
of a skip block. This provides a starting point from which the user can fine-tune EDL entries later. See http://www.mplayerhq.hu/
DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html for details.
-fixed-vo, -nofixed-vo
-fixed-vo enforces a fixed video system for multiple files (one (un)initialization for all files). Therefore only one window will
be opened for all files. Now enabled by default, use -nofixed-vo to disable and create a new window whenever the video stream
changes. Some of the older drivers may not be fixed-vo compliant.
-framedrop (also see -hardframedrop, experimental without -nocorrect-pts)
Skip displaying some frames to maintain A/V sync on slow systems. Video filters are not applied to such frames. For B-frames even
decoding is skipped completely.
-h, -help, --help
Show short summary of options.
-hardframedrop (experimental without -nocorrect-pts)
More intense frame dropping (breaks decoding). Leads to image distortion! Note that especially the libmpeg2 decoder may crash with
this, so consider using "-vc ffmpeg12,".
-heartbeat-cmd
Command that is executed every 30 seconds during playback via system() - i.e. using the shell.
NOTE: MPlayer 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 -novideo
but works with -vo null).
This can be "misused" to disable screensavers that do not support the proper X API (also see -stop-xscreensaver). If you think this
is too complicated, ask the author of the screensaver program to support the proper X APIs.
EXAMPLE for xscreensaver: mplayer -heartbeat-cmd "xscreensaver-command -deactivate" file
EXAMPLE for GNOME screensaver: mplayer -heartbeat-cmd "gnome-screensaver-command -p" file
-hr-seek off|absolute|always
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 dis-
abled. This option selects the default choice to use for seeks; it's possible to explicitly override that default in the definition
of key bindings and in slave mode commands.
off 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).
always
Use precise seeks whenever possible.
-identify
Shorthand for -msglevel identify=4. Show file parameters in an easily parseable format. Also prints more detailed information
about subtitle and audio track languages and IDs. In some cases you can get more information by using -msglevel identify=6. For
example, for a DVD or Blu-ray it will list the chapters and time length of each title, as well as a disk ID. Combine this with
-frames 0 to suppress all video output. The wrapper script TOOLS/midentify.sh suppresses the other MPlayer output and (hopefully)
shellescapes the filenames.
-idle (also see -slave)
Makes MPlayer wait idly instead of quitting when there is no file to play. Mostly useful in slave mode where MPlayer can be con-
trolled through input commands.
-input <commands>
This option can be used to configure certain parts of the input system. Paths are relative to ~/.mplayer/.
NOTE: Autorepeat is currently only supported by joysticks.
Available commands are:
conf=<filename>
Specify input configuration file other than the default ~/.mplayer/input.conf. ~/.mplayer/<filename> is assumed if no full
path is given.
ar-dev=<device>
Device to be used for Apple IR Remote (default is autodetected, Linux only).
ar-delay
Delay in milliseconds before we start to autorepeat a key (0 to disable).
ar-rate
Number of key presses to generate per second on autorepeat.
(no)default-bindings
Use the key bindings that MPlayer ships with by default.
keylist
Prints all keys that can be bound to commands.
cmdlist
Prints all commands that can be bound to keys.
js-dev
Specifies the joystick device to use (default: /dev/input/js0).
file=<filename>
Read commands from the given file. Mostly useful with a FIFO.
NOTE: When the given file is a FIFO MPlayer opens both ends so you can do several 'echo "seek 10" > mp_pipe' and the pipe
will stay valid.
-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 disadvan-
tage 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.
-lircconf <filename> (LIRC only)
Specifies a configuration file for LIRC (default: ~/.lircrc).
-list-properties
Print a list of the available properties.
-loop <number>
Loops movie playback <number> times. 0 means forever.
-menu (OSD menu only)
Turn on OSD menu support.
-menu-cfg <filename> (OSD menu only)
Use an alternative menu.conf.
-menu-chroot <path> (OSD menu only)
Chroot the file selection menu to a specific location.
EXAMPLE:
-menu-chroot /home
Will restrict the file selection menu to /home and downward (i.e. no access to / will be possible, but /home/user_name
will).
-menu-keepdir (OSD menu only)
File browser starts from the last known location instead of current directory.
-menu-root <value> (OSD menu only)
Specify the main menu.
-menu-startup (OSD menu only)
Display the main menu at MPlayer startup.
-mouse-movements
Permit MPlayer to receive pointer events reported by the video output driver. Necessary to select the buttons in DVD menus. Sup-
ported for X11-based VOs (x11, xv, etc) and the gl, gl2, direct3d and corevideo VOs.
-noar Turns off AppleIR remote support.
-noconsolecontrols
Prevent MPlayer 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 slave
commands.
-noinitial-audio-sync
When starting a video file or after events such as seeking MPlayer 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. This option disables that
functionality and makes the player behave like older MPlayer 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.
-nojoystick
Turns off joystick support.
-nolirc
Turns off LIRC support.
-nomouseinput
Disable mouse button press/release input (mozplayerxp's context menu relies on this option).
-noordered-chapters
Disable support for Matroska ordered chapters. MPlayer will not load or search for video segments from other files, and will also
ignore any chapter order specified for the main file.
-pts-association-mode auto|decode|sort
Select the method used to determine which container packet timestamp corresponds to a particular output frame from the video de-
coder. Normally you shouldn't need to change this option.
auto Try to pick a working mode from the ones below automatically (default)
decoder
Use decoder reordering functionality.
sort Maintain a buffer of unused pts values and use the lowest value for the frame.
-rtc (RTC only)
Turns on usage of the Linux RTC (realtime clock - /dev/rtc) as timing mechanism. This wakes up the process every 1/1024 seconds to
check the current time. Useless with modern Linux kernels configured for desktop use as they already wake up the process with simi-
lar accuracy when using normal timed sleep.
-playing-msg <string>
Print out a string before starting playback. The following expansions are supported:
${NAME}
Expand to the value of the property NAME.
?(NAME:TEXT)
Expand TEXT only if the property NAME is available.
?(!NAME:TEXT)
Expand TEXT only if the property NAME is not available.
-playlist <filename>
Play files according to a playlist file (ASX, Winamp, SMIL, or one-file-per-line format).
WARNING: The way MPlayer parses and uses playlist files is not safe against maliciously constructed files. Such files may trigger
harmful actions. This has been the case for all 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 don't trust!
NOTE: This option is considered an entry so options found after it will apply only to the elements of this playlist.
FIXME: This needs to be clarified and documented thoroughly.
-rtc-device <device>
Use the specified device for RTC timing.
-shuffle
Play files in random order.
-slave (also see -input)
Switches on slave mode, in which MPlayer works as a backend for other programs. Instead of intercepting keyboard events, MPlayer
will read commands separated by a newline (
) from stdin.
NOTE: See -input cmdlist for a list of slave commands and DOCS/tech/slave.txt for their description. Also, this is not intended to
disable other inputs, e.g. via the video window, use some other method like -input nodefault-bindings:conf=/dev/null for that.
-softsleep
Time frames by repeatedly checking the current time instead of asking the kernel to wake up MPlayer at the correct time. Useful if
your kernel timing is imprecise and you cannot use the RTC either. Comes at the price of higher CPU consumption.
-sstep <sec>
Skip <sec> seconds after every frame. The normal framerate of the movie is kept, so playback is accelerated. Since MPlayer can on-
ly seek to the next keyframe this may be inexact.
DEMUXER/STREAM OPTIONS
-a52drc <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 and 1 (which is the default) means full compression (make loud passages more silent and vice versa). Values up to 2 are
also accepted, but are purely experimental. This option only shows an effect if the AC-3 stream contains the required range com-
pression information.
-aid <ID> (also see -alang)
Select audio channel (MPEG: 0-31, AVI/OGM: 1-99, ASF/RM: 0-127, VOB(AC-3): 128-159, VOB(LPCM): 160-191, MPEG-TS 17-8190). MPlayer
prints the available audio IDs when run in verbose (-v) mode. When playing an MPEG-TS stream, MPlayer will use the first program
(if present) with the chosen audio stream.
-ausid <ID> (also see -alang)
Select audio substream channel. Currently the valid range is 0x55..0x75 and applies only to MPEG-TS when handled by the native de-
muxer (not by libavformat). The format type may not be correctly identified because of how this information (or lack thereof) is
embedded in the stream, but it will demux correctly the audio streams when multiple substreams are present. MPlayer prints the
available substream IDs when run with -identify.
-alang <language code[,language code,...]> (also see -aid)
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 identifi-
er. MPlayer prints the available languages when run in verbose (-v) mode.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer dvd://1 -alang hu,en
Chooses the Hungarian language track on a DVD and falls back on English if Hungarian is not available.
mplayer -alang jpn example.mkv
Plays a Matroska file in Japanese.
-audio-demuxer <[+]name> (-audiofile only)
Force audio demuxer type for -audiofile. Use a '+' before the name to force it, this will skip some checks! Give the demuxer name
as printed by -audio-demuxer help. -audio-demuxer audio forces MP3.
-audiofile <filename>
Play audio from an external file (WAV, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis) while viewing a movie.
-audiofile-cache <kBytes>
Enables caching for the stream used by -audiofile, using the specified amount of memory.
-reuse-socket (udp:// only)
Allows a socket to be reused by other processes as soon as it is closed.
-bandwidth <Bytes> (network only)
Specify the maximum bandwidth for network streaming (for servers that are able to send content in different bitrates). Useful if
you want to watch live streamed media behind a slow connection. With Real RTSP streaming, it is also used to set the maximum deliv-
ery bandwidth allowing faster cache filling and stream dumping.
-bluray-angle <angle ID> (Blu-ray only)
Some Blu-ray discs contain scenes that can be viewed from multiple angles. Here you can tell MPlayer which angles to use (default:
1).
-bluray-chapter <chapter ID> (Blu-ray only)
Tells MPlayer which Blu-ray chapter to start the current title from (default: 1).
-bluray-device <path to disc> (Blu-ray only)
Specify the Blu-ray disc location. Must be a directory with Blu-ray structure.
-cache <kBytes>
This option specifies how much memory (in kBytes) to use when precaching a file or URL. Especially useful on slow media.
-nocache
Turns off caching.
-cache-min <percentage>
Playback will start when the cache has been filled up to <percentage> of the total.
-cache-seek-min <percentage>
If a seek is to be made to a position within <percentage> of the cache size from the current position, MPlayer will wait for the
cache to be filled to this position rather than performing a stream seek (default: 50).
-capture
Allows capturing the primary stream (not additional audio tracks or other kind of streams) into the file specified by -dumpfile or
by default. If this option is given, capturing can be started and stopped by pressing the key bound to this function (see section
INTERACTIVE CONTROL). Same as for -dumpstream, this will likely not produce usable results for anything else than MPEG streams.
Note that, due to cache latencies, captured data may begin and end somewhat delayed compared to what you see displayed.
-cdda <option1:option2> (CDDA only)
This option can be used to tune the CD Audio reading feature of MPlayer.
Available options are:
speed=<value>
Set CD spin speed.
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
generic-dev=<value>
Use specified generic SCSI device.
sector-size=<value>
Set atomic read size.
overlap=<value>
Force minimum overlap search during verification to <value> sectors.
toc-bias
Assume that the beginning offset of track 1 as reported in the TOC will be addressed as LBA 0. Some Toshiba drives need
this for getting track boundaries correct.
toc-offset=<value>
Add <value> sectors to the values reported when addressing tracks. May be negative.
(no)skip
(Never) accept imperfect data reconstruction.
-cdrom-device <path to device>
Specify the CD-ROM device (default: /dev/cdrom).
-channels <number> (also see -af channels)
Request the number of playback channels (default: 2). MPlayer asks the decoder to decode the audio into as many channels as speci-
fied. Then it is up to the decoder to fulfill the requirement. This is usually only important when playing videos with AC-3 audio
(like DVDs). In that case liba52 does the decoding by default and correctly downmixes the audio into the requested number of chan-
nels. To directly control the number of output channels independently of how many channels are decoded, use the channels filter.
NOTE: This option is honored by codecs (AC-3 only), filters (surround) and audio output drivers (OSS at least).
Available options are:
2 stereo
4 surround
6 full 5.1
8 full 7.1
-chapter <chapter ID>[-<endchapter ID>] (dvd:// and dvdnav:// only)
Specify which chapter to start playing at. Optionally specify which chapter to end playing at (default: 1).
-edition <edition ID> (Matroska only)
Specify the edition (set of chapters) to use, where 0 is the first. If set to -1 (the default), MPlayer will choose the first edi-
tion declared as a default, or if there is no default, the first edition defined.
-cookies (network only)
Send cookies when making HTTP requests.
-cookies-file <filename> (network only)
Read HTTP cookies from <filename> (default: ~/.mozilla/ and ~/.netscape/) and skip reading from default locations. The file is as-
sumed to be in Netscape format.
-delay <sec>
audio delay in seconds (positive or negative float value)
Negative values delay the audio, and positive values delay the video.
-ignore-start
Ignore the specified starting time for streams in AVI files. This nullifies stream delays.
-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 -demux-
er help.
-dumpaudio
Dumps raw compressed audio stream to ./stream.dump (useful with MPEG/AC-3, in most other cases the resulting file will not be
playable). If you give more than one of -dumpaudio, -dumpvideo, -dumpstream on the command line only the last one will work.
-dumpfile <filename>
Specify which file MPlayer should dump to. Should be used together with -dumpaudio / -dumpvideo / -dumpstream / -capture.
-dumpstream
Dumps the raw stream to ./stream.dump. Useful when ripping from DVD or network. If you give more than one of -dumpaudio,
-dumpvideo, -dumpstream on the command line only the last one will work.
-dumpvideo
Dump raw compressed video stream to ./stream.dump (not very usable). If you give more than one of -dumpaudio, -dumpvideo, -dump-
stream on the command line only the last one will work.
-dvbin <options> (DVB only)
Pass the following parameters to the DVB input module, in order to override the default ones:
card=<1-4>
Specifies using card number 1-4 (default: 1).
file=<filename>
Instructs MPlayer to read the channels list from <filename>. Default is ~/.mplayer/channels.conf.{sat,ter,cbl,atsc} (based
on your card type) or ~/.mplayer/channels.conf as a last resort.
timeout=<1-30>
Maximum number of seconds to wait when trying to tune a frequency before giving up (default: 30).
-dvd-device <path to device> (DVD only)
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).
-dvd-speed <factor or speed in KB/s> (DVD only)
Try to limit DVD speed (default: 0, no change). DVD base speed is about 1350KB/s, so a 8x drive can read at speeds up to 10800KB/s.
Slower speeds make the drive more quiet, for watching DVDs 2700KB/s should be quiet and fast enough. MPlayer resets the speed to
the drive default value on close. Values less than 100 mean multiples of 1350KB/s, i.e. -dvd-speed 8 selects 10800KB/s.
NOTE: You need write access to the DVD device to change the speed.
-dvdangle <angle ID> (DVD only)
Some DVD discs contain scenes that can be viewed from multiple angles. Here you can tell MPlayer which angles to use (default: 1).
-edl <filename>
Enables edit decision list (EDL) actions during playback. Video will be skipped over and audio will be muted and unmuted according
to the entries in the given file. See http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html for details on how to use this.
-endpos <[[hh:]mm:]ss[.ms]> (also see -ss and -sb)
Stop at given time.
NOTE: When used in conjunction with -ss option, -endpos time will shift forward by seconds specified with -ss.
EXAMPLE:
-endpos 56
Stop at 56 seconds.
-endpos 01:10:00
Stop at 1 hour 10 minutes.
-ss 10 -endpos 56
Stop at 1 minute 6 seconds.
-forceidx
Force index rebuilding. Useful for files with broken index (A/V desync, etc). This will enable seeking in files where seeking was
not possible.
NOTE: This option only works if the underlying media supports seeking (i.e. not with stdin, pipe, etc).
-fps <float value>
Override video framerate. Useful if the original value is wrong or missing.
-frames <number>
Play/convert only first <number> frames, then quit.
-hr-mp3-seek (MP3 only)
Hi-res MP3 seeking. Enabled when playing from an external MP3 file, as we need to seek to the very exact position to keep A/V sync.
Can be slow especially when seeking backwards since it has to rewind to the beginning to find an exact frame position.
-http-header-fields <field1,field2>
Set custom HTTP fields when accessing HTTP stream.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -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
-idx (also see -forceidx)
Rebuilds index of files if no index was found, allowing seeking. Useful with broken/incomplete downloads, or badly created files.
NOTE: This option only works if the underlying media supports seeking (i.e. not with stdin, pipe, etc).
-noidx Skip rebuilding index file.
-ipv4-only-proxy (network only)
Skip the proxy for IPv6 addresses. It will still be used for IPv4 connections.
-lavfdopts <option1:option2:...>
Specify parameters for libavformat demuxers (-demuxer lavf). Separate multiple options with a colon.
Available suboptions are:
analyzeduration=<value>
Maximum length in seconds to analyze the stream properties.
format=<value>
Force a specific libavformat demuxer.
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 AVOp-
tion system is welcome. A full list of AVOptions can be found in the FFmpeg manual. Note that some options may conflict
with MPlayer options.
EXAMPLE:
o=fflags=+ignidx
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.
cryptokey=<hexstring>
Encryption key the demuxer should use. This is the raw binary data of the key converted to a hexadecimal string.
-loadidx <index file>
The file from which to read the video index data saved by -saveidx. This index will be used for seeking, overriding any index data
contained in the AVI itself. MPlayer will not prevent you from loading an index file generated from a different AVI, but this is
sure to cause unfavorable results.
NOTE: This option is obsolete now that MPlayer has OpenDML support.
-mc <seconds/frame>
maximum A-V sync correction per frame (in seconds)
-mf <option1:option2:...>
Used when decoding from multiple PNG or JPEG files.
Available options are:
w=<value>
input file width (default: autodetect)
h=<value>
input file height (default: autodetect)
fps=<value>
output fps (default: 25)
type=<value>
input file type (available: jpeg, png, tga, sgi)
-ni (AVI only)
Force usage of non-interleaved AVI parser (fixes playback of some bad AVI files).
-nobps (AVI only)
Do not use average byte/second value for A-V sync. Helps with some AVI files with broken header.
-noextbased
Disables extension-based demuxer selection. By default, when the file type (demuxer) cannot be detected reliably (the file has no
header or it is not reliable enough), the filename extension is used to select the demuxer. Always falls back on content-based de-
muxer selection.
-passwd <password> (also see -user) (network only)
Specify password for HTTP authentication.
-prefer-ipv4 (network only)
Use IPv4 on network connections. Falls back on IPv6 automatically.
-prefer-ipv6 (IPv6 network only)
Use IPv6 on network connections. Falls back on IPv4 automatically.
-psprobe <byte position>
When playing an MPEG-PS or MPEG-PES streams, this option lets you specify how many bytes in the stream you want MPlayer to scan in
order to identify the video codec used. This option is needed to play EVO or VDR files containing H.264 streams.
-pvr <option1:option2:...> (PVR only)
This option tunes various encoding properties of the PVR capture module. It has to be used with any hardware MPEG encoder based
card supported by the V4L2 driver. The Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150/250/350/500 and all IVTV based cards are known as PVR capture cards.
Be aware that only Linux 2.6.18 kernel and above is able to handle MPEG stream through V4L2 layer. For hardware capture of an MPEG
stream and watching it with MPlayer, use 'pvr://' as a movie URL.
Available options are:
aspect=<0-3>
Specify input aspect ratio:
0: 1:1
1: 4:3 (default)
2: 16:9
3: 2.21:1
arate=<32000-48000>
Specify encoding audio rate (default: 48000 Hz, available: 32000, 44100 and 48000 Hz).
alayer=<1-3>
Specify MPEG audio layer encoding (default: 2).
abitrate=<32-448>
Specify audio encoding bitrate in kbps (default: 384).
amode=<value>
Specify audio encoding mode. Available preset values are 'stereo', 'joint_stereo', 'dual' and 'mono' (default: stereo).
vbitrate=<value>
Specify average video bitrate encoding in Mbps (default: 6).
vmode=<value>
Specify video encoding mode:
vbr: Variable BitRate (default)
cbr: Constant BitRate
vpeak=<value>
Specify peak video bitrate encoding in Mbps (only useful for VBR encoding, default: 9.6).
fmt=<value>
Choose an MPEG format for encoding:
ps: MPEG-2 Program Stream (default)
ts: MPEG-2 Transport Stream
mpeg1: MPEG-1 System Stream
vcd: Video CD compatible stream
svcd: Super Video CD compatible stream
dvd: DVD compatible stream
-radio <option1:option2:...> (radio only)
These options set various parameters of the radio capture module. For listening to radio with MPlayer use 'radio://<frequency>' (if
channels option is not given) or 'radio://<channel_number>' (if channels option is given) as a movie URL. You can see allowed fre-
quency range by running MPlayer with '-v'. To start the grabbing subsystem, use 'radio://<frequency or channel>/capture'. If the
capture keyword is not given you can listen to radio using the line-in cable only. Using capture to listen is not recommended due
to synchronization problems, which makes this process uncomfortable.
Available options are:
device=<value>
Radio device to use (default: /dev/radio0 for Linux and /dev/tuner0 for *BSD).
driver=<value>
Radio driver to use (default: v4l2 if available, otherwise v4l). Currently, v4l and v4l2 drivers are supported.
volume=<0..100>
sound volume for radio device (default 100)
freq_min=<value> (*BSD BT848 only)
minimum allowed frequency (default: 87.50)
freq_max=<value> (*BSD BT848 only)
maximum allowed frequency (default: 108.00)
channels=<frequency>-<name>,<frequency>-<name>,...
Set channel list. Use _ for spaces in names (or play with quoting ;-). The channel names will then be written using OSD
and the slave commands radio_step_channel and radio_set_channel will be usable for a remote control (see LIRC). If given,
number in movie URL will be treated as channel position in channel list.
EXAMPLE: radio://1, radio://104.4, radio_set_channel 1
adevice=<value> (radio capture only)
Name of device to capture sound from. Without such a name capture will be disabled, even if the capture keyword appears in
the URL. For ALSA devices use it in the form hw=<card>.<device>. If the device name contains a '=', the module will use
ALSA to capture, otherwise OSS.
arate=<value> (radio capture only)
Rate in samples per second (default: 44100).
NOTE: When using audio capture set also -rawaudio rate=<value> option with the same value as arate. If you have problems
with sound speed (runs too quickly), try to play with different rate values (e.g. 48000,44100,32000,...).
achannels=<value> (radio capture only)
Number of audio channels to capture.
-rawaudio <option1:option2:...>
This option lets you play raw audio files. You have to use -demuxer rawaudio as well. It may also be used to play audio CDs which
are not 44kHz 16-bit stereo. For playing raw AC-3 streams use -rawaudio format=0x2000 -demuxer rawaudio.
Available options are:
channels=<value>
number of channels
rate=<value>
rate in samples per second
samplesize=<value>
sample size in bytes
bitrate=<value>
bitrate for rawaudio files
format=<value>
fourcc in hex
-rawvideo <option1:option2:...>
This option lets you play raw video files. You have to use -demuxer rawvideo as well.
Available options are:
fps=<value>
rate in frames per second (default: 25.0)
sqcif|qcif|cif|4cif|pal|ntsc
set standard image size
w=<value>
image width in pixels
h=<value>
image height in pixels
i420|yv12|yuy2|y8
set colorspace
format=<value>
colorspace (fourcc) in hex or string constant. Use -rawvideo format=help for a list of possible strings.
size=<value>
frame size in Bytes
EXAMPLE:
mplayer foreman.qcif -demuxer rawvideo -rawvideo qcif
Play the famous "foreman" sample video.
mplayer sample-720x576.yuv -demuxer rawvideo -rawvideo w=720:h=576
Play a raw YUV sample.
-referrer <string> (network only)
Specify a referrer path or URL for HTTP requests.
-rtsp-port
Used with 'rtsp://' URLs to force the client's port number. This option may be useful if you are behind a router and want to for-
ward the RTSP stream from the server to a specific client.
-rtsp-destination
Used with 'rtsp://' URLs to force the destination IP address to be bound. This option may be useful with some RTSP server which do
not send RTP packets to the right interface. If the connection to the RTSP server fails, use -v to see which IP address MPlayer
tries to bind to and try to force it to one assigned to your computer instead.
-rtsp-stream-over-tcp (LIVE555 and NEMESI only)
Used with 'rtsp://' URLs to specify that the resulting incoming RTP and RTCP packets be streamed over TCP (using the same TCP con-
nection as RTSP). This option may be useful if you have a broken internet connection that does not pass incoming UDP packets (see
http://www.live555.com/mplayer/).
-rtsp-stream-over-http (LIVE555 only)
Used with 'http://' URLs to specify that the resulting incoming RTP and RTCP packets be streamed over HTTP.
-saveidx <filename>
Force index rebuilding and dump the index to <filename>. Currently this only works with AVI files.
NOTE: This option is obsolete now that MPlayer has OpenDML support.
-sb <byte position> (also see -ss)
Seek to byte position. Useful for playback from CD-ROM images or VOB files with junk at the beginning.
-speed <0.01-100>
Slow down or speed up playback by the factor given as parameter.
-srate <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 resample or lavcresample audio filter will be inserted into the audio filter layer to compensate
for the difference. The type of resampling can be controlled by the -af-adv option. The default is fast resampling that may cause
distortion.
-ss <time> (also see -sb)
Seek to given time position.
EXAMPLE:
-ss 56
Seeks to 56 seconds.
-ss 01:10:00
Seeks to 1 hour 10 min.
-tskeepbroken
Tells MPlayer not to discard TS packets reported as broken in the stream. Sometimes needed to play corrupted MPEG-TS files.
-tsprobe <byte position>
When playing an MPEG-TS stream, this option lets you specify how many bytes in the stream you want MPlayer to search for the desired
audio and video IDs.
-tsprog <1-65534>
When playing an MPEG-TS stream, you can specify with this option which program (if present) you want to play. Can be used with -vid
and -aid.
-tv <option1:option2:...> (TV/PVR only)
This option tunes various properties of the TV capture module. For watching TV with MPlayer, use 'tv://' or 'tv://<channel_number>'
or even 'tv://<channel_name> (see option channels for channel_name below) as a movie URL. You can also use 'tv:///<input_id>' to
start watching a movie from a composite or S-Video input (see option input for details).
Available options are:
noaudio
no sound
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).
driver=<value>
See -tv driver=help for a list of compiled-in TV input drivers. available: dummy, v4l, v4l2, bsdbt848 (default: autodetect)
device=<value>
Specify TV device (default: /dev/video0). NOTE: For the bsdbt848 driver you can provide both bktr and tuner device names
separating them with a comma, tuner after bktr (e.g. -tv device=/dev/bktr1,/dev/tuner1).
input=<value>
Specify input (default: 0 (TV), see console output for available inputs).
freq=<value>
Specify the frequency to set the tuner to (e.g. 511.250). Not compatible with the channels parameter.
outfmt=<value>
Specify the output format of the tuner with a preset value supported by the V4L driver (yv12, rgb32, rgb24, rgb16, rgb15,
uyvy, yuy2, i420) or an arbitrary format given as hex value. Try outfmt=help for a list of all available formats.
width=<value>
output window width
height=<value>
output window height
fps=<value>
framerate at which to capture video (frames per second)
buffersize=<value>
maximum size of the capture buffer in megabytes (default: dynamical)
norm=<value>
For bsdbt848 and v4l, PAL, SECAM, NTSC are available. For v4l2, see the console output for a list of all available norms,
also see the normid option below.
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.
channel=<value>
Set tuner to <value> channel.
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
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 slave com-
mands tv_step_channel, tv_set_channel and tv_last_channel will be usable for a remote control (see LIRC). Not compatible
with the frequency parameter.
NOTE: The channel number will then be the position in the 'channels' list, beginning with 1.
EXAMPLE: tv://1, tv://TV1, tv_set_channel 1, tv_set_channel TV1
[brightness|contrast|hue|saturation]=<-100-100>
Set the image equalizer on the card.
audiorate=<value>
Set input audio sample rate.
forceaudio
Capture audio even if there are no audio sources reported by v4l.
alsa
Capture from ALSA.
amode=<0-3>
Choose an audio mode:
0: mono
1: stereo
2: language 1
3: language 2
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.
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.
audioid=<value>
Choose an audio output of the capture card, if it has more than one.
[volume|bass|treble|balance]=<0-65535> (v4l1)
[volume|bass|treble|balance]=<0-100> (v4l2)
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.
gain=<0-100> (v4l2)
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.
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.
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 MPlayer will determine it automatically from the decimation value (see below).
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
quality=<0-100>
Choose the quality of the JPEG compression (< 60 recommended for full size).
tdevice=<value>
Specify TV teletext device (example: /dev/vbi0) (default: none).
tformat=<format>
Specify TV teletext display format (default: 0):
0: opaque
1: transparent
2: opaque with inverted colors
3: transparent with inverted colors
tpage=<100-899>
Specify initial TV teletext page number (default: 100).
tlang=<-1-127>
Specify default teletext language code (default: 0), which will be used as primary language until a type 28 packet is re-
ceived. Useful when the teletext system uses a non-latin character set, but language codes are not transmitted via teletext
type 28 packets for some reason. To see a list of supported language codes set this option to -1.
hidden_video_renderer (dshow only)
Terminate stream with video renderer instead of Null renderer (default: off). Will help if video freezes but audio does
not. NOTE: May not work with -vo directx and -vf crop combination.
hidden_vp_renderer (dshow only)
Terminate VideoPort pin stream with video renderer instead of removing it from the graph (default: off). Useful if your
card has a VideoPort pin and video is choppy. NOTE: May not work with -vo directx and -vf crop combination.
system_clock (dshow only)
Use the system clock as sync source instead of the default graph clock (usually the clock from one of the live sources in
graph).
normalize_audio_chunks (dshow only)
Create audio chunks with a time length equal to video frame time length (default: off). Some audio cards create audio
chunks about 0.5s in size, resulting in choppy video when using immediatemode=0.
-tvscan <option1:option2:...> (TV only)
Tune the TV channel scanner. MPlayer will also print value for "-tv channels=" option, including existing and just found channels.
Available suboptions are:
autostart
Begin channel scanning immediately after startup (default: disabled).
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.
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.
-user <username> (also see -passwd) (network only)
Specify username for HTTP authentication.
-user-agent <string>
Use <string> as user agent for HTTP streaming.
-vid <ID>
Select video channel (MPG: 0-15, ASF: 0-255, MPEG-TS: 17-8190). When playing an MPEG-TS stream, MPlayer will use the first program
(if present) with the chosen video stream.
-vivo <suboption> (DEBUG CODE)
Force audio parameters for the VIVO demuxer (for debugging purposes). FIXME: Document this.
OSD/SUBTITLE OPTIONS
NOTE: Also see -vf expand.
-ass, -noass (FreeType only)
Use libass to render all text subtitles. This enables support for the native styling of SSA/ASS subtitles, and also support for
some styling features in other subtitle formats by conversion to ASS markup. Enabled by default if the player was compiled with
libass support.
NOTE: Some of the other subtitle options were written for the old non-libass subtitle rendering system and may not work the same way
or at all with libass rendering enabled.
-ass-border-color <value>
Sets the border (outline) color for text subtitles. The color format is RRGGBBAA.
-ass-bottom-margin <value>
Adds a black band at the bottom of the frame. The SSA/ASS renderer can place subtitles there (with -ass-use-margins).
-ass-color <value>
Sets the color for text subtitles. The color format is RRGGBBAA.
-ass-font-scale <value>
Set the scale coefficient to be used for fonts in the SSA/ASS renderer.
-ass-force-style <[Style.]Param=Value[,...]>
Override some style or script info parameters.
EXAMPLE:
-ass-force-style FontName=Arial,Default.Bold=1
-ass-force-style PlayResY=768
-ass-hinting <type>
Set hinting type. <type> can be:
0 no hinting
1 FreeType autohinter, light mode
2 FreeType autohinter, normal mode
3 font native hinter
0-3 + 4
The same, but hinting will only be performed if the OSD is rendered at screen resolution and will therefore not be scaled.
The default value is 5 (use light hinter for unscaled OSD and no hinting otherwise).
-ass-line-spacing <value>
Set line spacing value for SSA/ASS renderer.
-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.
-ass-top-margin <value>
Adds a black band at the top of the frame. The SSA/ASS renderer can place toptitles there (with -ass-use-margins).
-ass-use-margins
Enables placing toptitles and subtitles in black borders when they are available.
-ass-vsfilter-aspect-compat
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 usu-
ally 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.
-dumpjacosub
Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to the time-based JACOsub subtitle format. Creates a dumpsub.js file in
the current directory.
-dumpmicrodvdsub
Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to the MicroDVD subtitle format. Creates a dumpsub.sub file in the cur-
rent directory.
-dumpmpsub
Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to MPlayer's subtitle format, MPsub. Creates a dump.mpsub file in the
current directory.
-dumpsami
Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to the time-based SAMI subtitle format. Creates a dumpsub.smi file in
the current directory.
-dumpsrtsub
Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to the time-based SubViewer (SRT) subtitle format. Creates a dump-
sub.srt file in the current directory.
NOTE: Some broken hardware players choke on SRT subtitle files with Unix line endings. If you are unlucky enough to have such a
box, pass your subtitle files through unix2dos or a similar program to replace Unix line endings with DOS/Windows line endings.
-dumpsub (BETA CODE)
Dumps the subtitle substream from VOB streams. Also see the -dump*sub options.
-noembeddedfonts
Disables use of fonts embedded in Matroska containers and ASS scripts (default: enabled). These fonts can be used for SSA/ASS sub-
title rendering (-ass option).
-ffactor <number>
Resample the font alphamap. Can be:
0 plain white fonts
0.75 very narrow black outline (default)
1 narrow black outline
10 bold black outline
-flip-hebrew (FriBiDi only)
Turns on flipping subtitles using FriBiDi.
-noflip-hebrew-commas
Change FriBiDi's assumptions about the placements of commas in subtitles. Use this if commas in subtitles are shown at the start of
a sentence instead of at the end.
-font <path to font.desc file, path to font (FreeType), font pattern (Fontconfig)>
Search for the OSD/SUB fonts in an alternative directory (default for normal fonts: ~/.mplayer/font/font.desc, default for FreeType
fonts: ~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf).
NOTE: With FreeType, this option determines the path to the text font file. With Fontconfig, this option determines the Fontconfig
font pattern.
EXAMPLE:
-font ~/.mplayer/arial-14/font.desc
-font ~/.mplayer/arialuni.ttf
-font 'Bitstream Vera Sans'
-font 'Bitstream Vera Sans:style=Bold'
-fontconfig, -nofontconfig (fontconfig only)
Enables the use of fontconfig managed fonts. Enabled by default.
-forcedsubsonly
Display only forced subtitles for the DVD subtitle stream selected by e.g. -slang.
-fribidi-charset <charset name> (FriBiDi only)
Specifies the character set that will be passed to FriBiDi when decoding non-UTF-8 subtitles (default: ISO8859-8).
-ifo <VOBsub IFO file>
Indicate the file that will be used to load palette and frame size for VOBsub subtitles.
-noautosub
Turns off automatic subtitle file loading.
-osd-duration <time>
Set the duration of the OSD messages in ms (default: 1000).
-osd-fractions <0-2>
Set how fractions of seconds of the current timestamp are printed on the OSD:
0 Do not display fractions (default).
1 Show the first two decimals.
2 Show approximate frame count within current second. This frame count is not accurate but only an approximation. For vari-
able fps, the approximation is known to be far off the correct frame count.
-osdlevel <0-3>
Specifies which mode the OSD should start in.
0 subtitles only
1 volume + seek (default)
2 volume + seek + timer + percentage
3 volume + seek + timer + percentage + total time
-overlapsub
Allows the next subtitle to be displayed while the current one is still visible (default is to enable the support only for specific
formats).
-sid <ID> (also see -slang, -vobsubid)
Display the subtitle stream specified by <ID> (0-31). MPlayer prints the available subtitle IDs when run in verbose (-v) mode. If
you cannot select one of the subtitles on a DVD, also try -vobsubid.
-nosub Disables any otherwise auto-selected internal subtitles (as e.g. the Matroska/mkv demuxer supports). Use -noautosub to disable the
loading of external subtitle files.
-slang <language code[,language code,...]> (also see -sid)
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. MPlayer
prints the available languages when run in verbose (-v) mode.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer dvd://1 -slang hu,en
Chooses the Hungarian subtitle track on a DVD and falls back on English if Hungarian is not available.
mplayer -slang jpn example.mkv
Plays a Matroska file with Japanese subtitles.
-spuaa <mode>
Antialiasing/scaling mode for DVD/VOBsub. A value of 16 may be added to <mode> in order to force scaling even when original and
scaled frame size already match. This can be employed to e.g. smooth subtitles with gaussian blur. Available modes are:
0 none (fastest, very ugly)
1 approximate (broken?)
2 full (slow)
3 bilinear (default, fast and not too bad)
4 uses swscaler gaussian blur (looks very good)
-spualign <-1-2>
Specify how SPU (DVD/VOBsub) subtitles should be aligned.
-1 original position
0 Align at top (original behavior, default).
1 Align at center.
2 Align at bottom.
-spugauss <0.0-3.0>
Variance parameter of gaussian used by -spuaa 4. Higher means more blur (default: 1.0).
-sub <subtitlefile1,subtitlefile2,...>
Use/display these subtitle files. Only one file can be displayed at the same time.
-sub-bg-alpha <0-255>
Specify the alpha channel value for subtitles and OSD backgrounds. Big values mean more transparency. 0 means completely transpar-
ent.
-sub-bg-color <0-255>
Specify the color value for subtitles and OSD backgrounds. Currently subtitles are grayscale so this value is equivalent to the in-
tensity of the color. 255 means white and 0 black.
-sub-demuxer <[+]name> (-subfile only) (BETA CODE)
Force subtitle demuxer type for -subfile. Use a '+' before the name to force it, this will skip some checks! Give the demuxer name
as printed by -sub-demuxer help.
-sub-fuzziness <mode>
Adjust matching fuzziness when searching for subtitles:
0 exact match
1 Load all subs containing movie name.
2 Load all subs in the current and -sub-paths directories.
-sub-no-text-pp
Disables any kind of text post processing done after loading the subtitles. Used for debug purposes.
-subalign <0-2>
Specify which edge of the subtitles should be aligned at the height given by -subpos.
0 Align subtitle top edge (original behavior).
1 Align subtitle center.
2 Align subtitle bottom edge (default).
-subcc <1-4>
Display DVD Closed Caption (CC) subtitles from the specified channel. These are not the VOB subtitles, these are special ASCII sub-
titles for the hearing impaired encoded in the VOB userdata stream on most region 1 DVDs. CC subtitles have not been spotted on
DVDs from other regions so far.
-subcp <codepage> (iconv only)
If your system supports iconv(3), you can use this option to specify the subtitle codepage.
EXAMPLE:
-subcp latin2
-subcp cp1250
-subcp enca:<language>:<fallback codepage> (ENCA only)
You can specify your language using a two letter language code to make ENCA detect the codepage automatically. If unsure, enter
anything and watch mplayer -v output for available languages. Fallback codepage specifies the codepage to use, when autodetection
fails.
EXAMPLE:
-subcp enca:cs:latin2
Guess the encoding, assuming the subtitles are Czech, fall back on latin 2, if the detection fails.
-subcp enca:pl:cp1250
Guess the encoding for Polish, fall back on cp1250.
-sub-paths <path1:path2:...>
Specify extra directories where to search for subtitles matching the video. Multiple directories can be separated by ":" (";" on
Windows). Paths can be relative or absolute. Relative paths are interpreted relative to video file directory.
EXAMPLE: Assuming that /path/to/movie/movie.avi is played and -sub-paths sub:subtitles:/tmp/subs is specified, MPlayer searches for
subtitle files in these directories:
/path/to/movie/
/path/to/movie/sub/
/path/to/movie/subtitles/
/tmp/subs/
~/.mplayer/sub/
-subdelay <sec>
Delays subtitles by <sec> seconds. Can be negative.
-subfile <filename> (BETA CODE)
Currently useless. Same as -audiofile, but for subtitle streams (OggDS?).
-subfont <path to font (FreeType), font pattern (Fontconfig)> (FreeType only)
Sets the subtitle font (see -font). If no -subfont is given, -font is used.
-subfont-autoscale <0-3> (FreeType only)
Sets the autoscale mode.
NOTE: 0 means that text scale and OSD scale are font heights in points.
The mode can be:
0 no autoscale
1 proportional to movie height
2 proportional to movie width
3 proportional to movie diagonal (default)
-subfont-blur <0-8> (FreeType only)
Sets the font blur radius (default: 2).
-subfont-encoding <value> (FreeType only)
Sets the font encoding. When set to 'unicode', all the glyphs from the font file will be rendered and unicode will be used (de-
fault: unicode).
-subfont-osd-scale <0-100> (FreeType only)
Sets the autoscale coefficient of the OSD elements (default: 6).
-subfont-outline <0-8> (FreeType only)
Sets the font outline thickness (default: 2).
-subfont-text-scale <0-100> (FreeType only)
Sets the subtitle text autoscale coefficient as percentage of the screen size (default: 5).
-subfps <rate>
Specify the framerate of the subtitle file (default: movie fps).
NOTE: <rate> > movie fps speeds the subtitles up for frame-based subtitle files and slows them down for time-based ones.
-subpos <0-100> (useful with -vf expand)
Specify the position of subtitles on the screen. The value is the vertical position of the subtitle in % of the screen height.
-subwidth <10-100>
Specify the maximum width of subtitles on the screen. Useful for TV-out. The value is the width of the subtitle in % of the screen
width.
-noterm-osd
Disable the display of OSD messages on the console when no video output is available.
-term-osd-esc <escape sequence>
Specify the escape sequence to use before writing an OSD message on the console. The escape sequence should move the pointer to the
beginning of the line used for the OSD and clear it (default: ^[[A
^[[K).
-unicode
Tells MPlayer to handle the subtitle file as unicode.
-unrarexec <path to unrar executable> (not supported on MingW)
Specify the path to the unrar executable so MPlayer can use it to access rar-compressed VOBsub files (default: not set, so the fea-
ture is off). The path must include the executable's filename, i.e. /usr/local/bin/unrar.
-utf8
Tells MPlayer to handle the subtitle file as UTF-8.
-vobsub <VOBsub file without extension>
Specify a VOBsub file to use for subtitles. Has to be the full pathname without extension, i.e. without the '.idx', '.ifo' or
'.sub'.
-vobsubid <0-31>
Specify the VOBsub subtitle ID.
AUDIO OUTPUT OPTIONS
-abs <value> (-ao oss only) (OBSOLETE)
Override audio driver/card buffer size detection.
-format <format> (also see the format audio filter)
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.
-gapless-audio
Try to play consecutive audio files with no silence or disruption at the point of file change. 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's 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.
-mixer <device>
Use a mixer device different from the default /dev/mixer. For ALSA this is the mixer name.
-mixer-channel <mixer line>[,mixer index] (-ao oss and -ao alsa only)
This option will tell MPlayer to use a different channel for controlling volume than the default PCM. Options for OSS include vol,
pcm, line. For a complete list of options look for SOUND_DEVICE_NAMES in /usr/include/linux/soundcard.h. For ALSA you can use the
names e.g. alsamixer displays, like Master, Line, PCM.
NOTE: ALSA mixer channel names followed by a number must be specified in the <name,number> format, i.e. a channel labeled 'PCM 1' in
alsamixer must be converted to PCM,1.
-softvol
Force the use of the software mixer, instead of using the sound card mixer.
-softvol-max <10.0-10000.0>
Set the maximum amplification level in percent (default: 110). A value of 200 will allow you to adjust the volume up to a maximum
of double the current level. With values below 100 the initial volume (which is 100%) will be above the maximum, which e.g. the OSD
cannot display correctly.
-volstep <0-100>
Set the step size of mixer volume changes in percent of the whole range (default: 3).
-volume <-1-100> (also see -af volume)
Set the startup volume in the mixer, either hardware or software (if used with -softvol). A value of -1 (the default) will not
change the volume.
AUDIO OUTPUT DRIVERS
Audio output drivers are interfaces to different audio output facilities. The syntax is:
-ao <driver1[:suboption1[=value]:...],driver2,...[,]>
Specify a priority list of audio output drivers to be used.
If the list has a trailing ',' MPlayer will fall back on drivers not contained in the list. Suboptions are optional and can mostly be
omitted.
NOTE: See -ao help for a list of compiled-in audio output drivers.
EXAMPLE:
-ao alsa,oss,
Try the ALSA driver, then the OSS driver, then others.
-ao alsa:noblock:device=hw=0.3
Sets noblock-mode and the device-name as first card, fourth device.
Available audio output drivers are:
alsa
ALSA 0.9/1.x audio output driver
noblock
Sets noblock-mode.
device=<device>
Sets the device name. Replace any ',' with '.' and any ':' with '=' in the ALSA device name. For hwac3 output via S/PDIF,
use an "iec958" or "spdif" device, unless you really know how to set it correctly.
alsa5
ALSA 0.5 audio output driver
oss
OSS audio output driver
<dsp-device>
Sets the audio output device (default: /dev/dsp).
<mixer-device>
Sets the audio mixer device (default: /dev/mixer).
<mixer-channel>
Sets the audio mixer channel (default: pcm).
sdl (SDL only)
highly platform independent SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) library audio output driver
<driver>
Explicitly choose the SDL audio driver to use (default: let SDL choose).
arts
audio output through the aRts daemon
esd
audio output through the ESD daemon
<server>
Explicitly choose the ESD server to use (default: localhost).
jack
audio output through JACK (Jack Audio Connection Kit)
port=<name>
Connects to the ports with the given name (default: physical ports).
name=<client
Client name that is passed to JACK (default: MPlayer [<PID>]). Useful if you want to have certain connections established
automatically.
(no)estimate
Estimate the audio delay, supposed to make the video playback smoother (default: enabled).
(no)autostart
Automatically start jackd if necessary (default: disabled). Note that this seems unreliable and will spam stdout with serv-
er messages.
nas
audio output through NAS
coreaudio (Mac OS X only)
native Mac OS X audio output driver
device_id=<id>
ID of output device to use (0 = default device)
help List all available output devices with their IDs.
openal
Experimental OpenAL audio output driver
pulse
PulseAudio audio output driver
[<host>][:<output sink>]
Specify the host and optionally output sink to use. An empty <host> string uses a local connection, "localhost" uses net-
work transfer (most likely not what you want).
sgi (SGI only)
native SGI audio output driver
<output device name>
Explicitly choose the output device/interface to use (default: system-wide default). For example, 'Analog Out' or 'Digital
Out'.
sun (Sun only)
native Sun audio output driver
<device>
Explicitly choose the audio device to use (default: /dev/audio).
win32 (Windows only)
native Windows waveout audio output driver
dsound (Windows only)
DirectX DirectSound audio output driver
device=<devicenum>
Sets the device number to use. Playing a file with -v will show a list of available devices.
kai (OS/2 only)
OS/2 KAI audio output driver
uniaud
Force UNIAUD mode.
dart Force DART mode.
(no)share
Open audio in shareable or exclusive mode.
bufsize=<size>
Set buffer size to <size> in samples (default: 2048).
dart (OS/2 only)
OS/2 DART audio output driver
(no)share
Open DART in shareable or exclusive mode.
bufsize=<size>
Set buffer size to <size> in samples (default: 2048).
ivtv (IVTV only)
IVTV specific MPEG audio output driver. Works with -ac hwmpa only.
v4l2 (requires Linux 2.6.22+ kernel)
Audio output driver for V4L2 cards with hardware MPEG decoder.
mpegpes (DVB only)
Audio output driver for DVB cards that writes the output to an MPEG-PES file if no DVB card is installed.
card=<1-4>
DVB card to use if more than one card is present. If not specified MPlayer will search the first usable card.
file=<filename>
output filename
null
Produces no audio output but maintains video playback speed. Use -nosound for benchmarking.
pcm
raw PCM/wave file writer audio output
(no)waveheader
Include or do not include the wave header (default: included). When not included, raw PCM will be generated.
file=<filename>
Write the sound to <filename> instead of the default audiodump.wav. If nowaveheader is specified, the default is audio-
dump.pcm.
rsound
audio output to an RSound daemon
host=<name/path>
Set the address of the server (default: localhost). Can be either a network hostname for TCP connections or a Unix domain
socket path starting with '/'.
port=<number>
Set the TCP port used for connecting to the server (default: 12345). Not used if connecting to a Unix domain socket.
plugin
plugin audio output driver
VIDEO OUTPUT OPTIONS
-adapter <value>
Set the graphics card that will receive the image. You can get a list of available cards when you run this option with -v. Cur-
rently only works with the directx video output driver.
-bpp <depth>
Override the autodetected color depth. Only supported by the fbdev, dga, svga, vesa video output drivers.
-border
Play movie with window border and decorations. Since this is on by default, use -noborder to disable the standard window decora-
tions.
-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.
-display <name> (X11 only)
Specify the hostname and display number of the X server you want to display on.
EXAMPLE:
-display xtest.localdomain:0
-dr
Turns on direct rendering (not supported by all codecs and video outputs)
WARNING: May cause OSD/SUB corruption!
-fbmode <modename> (-vo fbdev only)
Change video mode to the one that is labeled as <modename> in /etc/fb.modes.
NOTE: VESA framebuffer does not support mode changing.
-fbmodeconfig <filename> (-vo fbdev only)
Override framebuffer mode configuration file (default: /etc/fb.modes).
-force-window-position
Forcefully move MPlayer'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.
-fs (also see -zoom)
Fullscreen playback (centers movie, and paints black bands around it). Not supported by all video output drivers.
-fsmode-dontuse <0-31> (OBSOLETE, use the -fs option)
Try this option if you still experience fullscreen problems.
-fstype <type1,type2,...> (X11 only)
Specify a priority list of fullscreen modes to be used. You can negate the modes by prefixing them with '-'. If you experience
problems like the fullscreen window being covered by other windows try using a different order.
NOTE: See -fstype help for a full list of available modes.
The available types are:
above
Use the _NETWM_STATE_ABOVE hint if available.
below
Use the _NETWM_STATE_BELOW hint if available.
fullscreen
Use the _NETWM_STATE_FULLSCREEN hint if available.
layer
Use the _WIN_LAYER hint with the default layer.
layer=<0...15>
Use the _WIN_LAYER hint with the given layer number.
netwm
Force NETWM style.
none
Clear the list of modes; you can add modes to enable afterward.
stays_on_top
Use _NETWM_STATE_STAYS_ON_TOP hint if available.
EXAMPLE:
layer,stays_on_top,above,fullscreen
Default order, will be used as a fallback if incorrect or unsupported modes are specified.
-fullscreen
Fixes fullscreen switching on OpenBox 1.x.
-gamma <-100-100>
Adjust the gamma of the video signal (default: 0). Not supported by all video output drivers.
-geometry x[%][:y[%]] or [WxH][+-x+-y]
Adjust where the output is on the screen initially. The x and y specifications are in pixels measured from the top-left of the
screen to the top-left of the image being displayed, however if a percentage sign is given after the argument it turns the value in-
to a percentage of the screen size in that direction. It also supports 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, then the x and y coordi-
nates are relative to the top-left corner of the window rather than the screen. The coordinates are relative to the screen given
with -xineramascreen for the video output drivers that fully support -xineramascreen (direct3d, gl, gl2, vdpau, x11, xv, corevideo).
NOTE: May not be supported by some of the older VO drivers.
EXAMPLE:
50:40
Places the window at x=50, y=40.
50%:50%
Places the window in the middle of the screen.
100%
Places the window at the middle of the right edge of the screen.
100%:100%
Places the window at the bottom right corner of the screen.
-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.
-monitor-dotclock <range[,range,...]> (-vo fbdev and vesa only)
Specify the dotclock or pixelclock range of the monitor.
-monitor-hfreq <range[,range,...]> (-vo fbdev and vesa only)
Specify the horizontal frequency range of the monitor.
-monitor-vfreq <range[,range,...]> (-vo fbdev and vesa only)
Specify the vertical frequency range of the monitor.
-monitoraspect <ratio> (also see -aspect)
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.
EXAMPLE:
-monitoraspect 4:3 or 1.3333
-monitoraspect 16:9 or 1.7777
-monitorpixelaspect <ratio> (also see -aspect)
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).
-name (X11 only)
Set the window class name.
-nodouble
Disables double buffering, mostly for debugging purposes. Double buffering fixes flicker by storing two frames in memory, and dis-
playing one while decoding another. It can affect OSD negatively, but often removes OSD flickering.
-nograbpointer
Do not grab the mouse pointer after a video mode change (-vm). Useful for multihead setups.
-nokeepaspect
Do not keep window aspect ratio when resizing windows. By default MPlayer tries to keep the correct video aspect ratio by instruct-
ing the window manager to maintain window aspect when resizing, and by adding black bars if the window manager nevertheless allows
window shape to change. This option disables window manager aspect hints and scales the video to completely fill the window without
regard for aspect ratio.
-ontop
Makes the player window stay on top of other windows. Supported by video output drivers which use X11, except SDL, as well as di-
rectx, corevideo, quartz, ggi and gl2.
-panscan <0.0-1.0>
Enables pan-and-scan functionality (cropping the sides of e.g. a 16:9 movie 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.
NOTE: Values between -1 and 0 are allowed as well, but highly experimental and may crash or worse. Use at your own risk!
-panscanrange <-19.0-99.0> (experimental)
Change the range of the pan-and-scan functionality (default: 1). Positive values mean multiples of the default range. Negative
numbers mean you can zoom in up to a factor of -panscanrange+1. E.g. -panscanrange -3 allows a zoom factor of up to 4. This fea-
ture is experimental. Do not report bugs unless you are using -vo gl.
-refreshrate <Hz>
Set the monitor refreshrate in Hz. Currently only supported by -vo directx combined with the -vm option.
-rootwin
Play movie in the root window (desktop background). Desktop background images may cover the movie window, though. May not work
with 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.
-screenh <pixels>
Specify the screen height for video output drivers which do not know the screen resolution like fbdev, x11 and TV-out.
-screenw <pixels>
Specify the screen width for video output drivers which do not know the screen resolution like fbdev, x11 and TV-out.
-stop-xscreensaver (X11 only)
Turns off xscreensaver at startup and turns it on again on exit. If your screensaver supports neither the XSS nor XResetScreenSaver
API please use -heartbeat-cmd instead.
-title (also see -use-filename-title)
Set the window title. Supported by X11-based video output drivers.
-use-filename-title (also see -title)
Set the window title using the media filename, when not set with -title. Supported by X11-based video output drivers.
-vm
Try to change to a different video mode. Supported by the dga, x11, xv, sdl and directx video output drivers. If used with the di-
rectx video output driver the -screenw, -screenh, -bpp and -refreshrate options can be used to set the new display mode.
-vsync
Enables VBI for the vesa, dfbmga and svga video output drivers.
-wid <window ID> (X11, OpenGL and DirectX only)
This tells MPlayer to attach to an existing window. Useful to embed MPlayer in a browser (e.g. the plugger extension). This option
fills the given window completely, thus aspect scaling, panscan, etc are no longer handled by MPlayer but must be managed by the ap-
plication that created the window.
-xineramascreen <-2-...>
In Xinerama configurations (i.e. a single desktop that spans across multiple displays) this option tells MPlayer which screen to
display the movie on. A value of -2 means fullscreen across the whole virtual display (in this case Xinerama information is com-
pletely ignored), -1 means fullscreen on the display the window currently is on. The initial position set via the -geometry option
is relative to the specified screen. Will usually only work with "-fstype -fullscreen" or "-fstype none". This option is not suit-
able to only set the startup screen (because it will always display on the given screen in fullscreen mode), -geometry is the best
that is available for that purpose currently. Supported by at least the direct3d, gl, gl2, x11, xv and corevideo video output driv-
ers.
VIDEO OUTPUT DRIVERS
Video output drivers are interfaces to different video output facilities. The syntax is:
-vo <driver1[:suboption1[=value]:...],driver2,...[,]>
Specify a priority list of video output drivers to be used.
If the list has a trailing ',' MPlayer will fall back on drivers not contained in the list. Suboptions are optional and can mostly be
omitted.
NOTE: See -vo help for a list of compiled-in video output drivers.
EXAMPLE:
-vo xmga,xv,
Try the Matrox X11 driver, then the Xv driver, then others.
-vo directx:noaccel
Uses the DirectX driver with acceleration features turned off.
Available video output drivers are:
xv (X11 only)
Uses the XVideo extension of XFree86 4.x to enable hardware accelerated playback. If you cannot use a hardware specific driver,
this is probably the best option. For information about what colorkey is used and how it is drawn run MPlayer with -v option and
look out for the lines tagged with [xv common] at the beginning.
adaptor=<number>
Select a specific XVideo adaptor (check xvinfo results).
port=<number>
Select a specific XVideo port.
ck=<cur|use|set>
Select the source from which the colorkey is taken (default: cur).
cur The default takes the colorkey currently set in Xv.
use Use but do not set the colorkey from MPlayer (use -colorkey option to change it).
set Same as use but also sets the supplied colorkey.
ck-method=<man|bg|auto>
Sets the colorkey drawing method (default: man).
man Draw the colorkey manually (reduces flicker in some cases).
bg Set the colorkey as window background.
auto Let Xv draw the colorkey.
x11 (X11 only)
Shared memory video output driver without hardware acceleration that works whenever X11 is present.
xover (X11 only)
Adds X11 support to all overlay based video output drivers. Currently only supported by tdfx_vid.
<vo_driver>
Select the driver to use as source to overlay on top of X11.
vdpau (X11 only)
Uses the VDPAU interface to display and optionally also decode video. Hardware decoding is used with -vc ffmpeg12vdpau, ffwmv3vd-
pau, ffvc1vdpau, ffh264vdpau or ffodivxvdpau.
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=<-4-4>
Select deinterlacing mode (default: -3). Positive values choose mode and enable deinterlacing. Corresponding negative val-
ues select the same deinterlacing mode, but do not enable deinterlacing on startup (useful in configuration files to specify
what mode will be enabled by the "D" key). All modes respect -field-dominance.
0 same as -3
1 Show only first field, similar to -vf field.
2 Bob deinterlacing, similar to -vf tfields=1.
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.
chroma-deint
Makes temporal deinterlacers operate both on luma and chroma (default). Use nochroma-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.
colorspace=<0-3>
Select the color space for YUV to RGB conversion. In general BT.601 should be used for standard definition (SD) content and
BT.709 for high definition (HD) content. Using incorrect color space results in slightly under or over saturated and shift-
ed colors.
0 Guess the color space based on video resolution. Video with width >= 1280 or height > 576 is assumed to be HD and
BT.709 color space will be used.
1 Use ITU-R BT.601 color space (default).
2 Use ITU-R BT.709 color space.
3 Use SMPTE-240M color space.
hqscaling=<0-9>
0 Use default VDPAU scaling (default).
1-9 Apply high quality VDPAU scaling (needs capable hardware).
studio
Output video in studio level RGB (16-235). This is what TVs and video monitors generally expect. By default PC level RGB
(0-255) suitable for PC monitors is used. Providing studio level output to a device expecting PC level input results in
grey blacks and dim whites, the reverse in crushed blacks and whites.
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 posi-
tive value is interpreted as a refresh rate in Hz and overrides the autodetected value. A negative value disables all tim-
ing adjustment and framedrop logic.
queuetime_windowed=<number>
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.
output_surfaces=<2-15>
Allocate this many output surfaces to display video frames (default: 3). See below for additional information.
Using the VDPAU frame queueing functionality controlled by the queuetime options makes MPlayer's frame flip timing less sensitive to
system CPU load and allows MPlayer 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 less reason to disable this for fullscreen mode (as the driver issue
shouldn't 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 buf-
fer 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 imple-
mentation may also have limits on the length of maximum queuing time or number of queued surfaces that work well or at all.
dga (X11 only)
Play video through the XFree86 Direct Graphics Access extension. Considered obsolete.
sdl (SDL only, buggy/outdated)
Highly platform independent SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) library video output driver. Since SDL uses its own X11 layer, MPlayer
X11 options do not have any effect on SDL. Note that it has several minor bugs (-vm/-novm is mostly ignored, -fs behaves like -novm
should, window is in top-left corner when returning from fullscreen, panscan is not supported, ...).
driver=<driver>
Explicitly choose the SDL driver to use.
(no)forcexv
Use XVideo through the sdl video output driver (default: forcexv).
(no)hwaccel
Use hardware accelerated scaler (default: hwaccel).
direct3d (Windows only) (BETA CODE!)
Video output driver that uses the Direct3D interface (useful for Vista).
directx (Windows only)
Video output driver that uses the DirectX interface.
noaccel
Turns off hardware acceleration. Try this option if you have display problems.
kva (OS/2 only)
Video output driver that uses the libkva interface.
snap Force SNAP mode.
wo Force WarpOverlay! mode.
dive Force DIVE mode.
(no)t23
Enable or disable workaround for T23 laptop (default: disabled). Try to enable this option if your video card supports up-
scaling only.
quartz (Mac OS X only)
Mac OS X Quartz video output driver. Under some circumstances, it might be more efficient to force a packed YUV output format, with
e.g. -vf format=yuy2.
device_id=<number>
Choose the display device to use in fullscreen.
fs_res=<width>:<height>
Specify the fullscreen resolution (useful on slow systems).
corevideo (Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.3.9 with QuickTime 7)
Mac OS X CoreVideo video output driver
device_id=<number>
Choose the display device to use for fullscreen or set it to -1 to always use the same screen the video window is on (de-
fault: -1 - auto).
shared_buffer
Write output to a shared memory buffer instead of displaying it and try to open an existing NSConnection for communication
with a GUI.
buffer_name=<name>
Name of the shared buffer created with shm_open as well as the name of the NSConnection MPlayer will try to open (default:
"mplayerosx"). Setting buffer_name implicitly enables shared_buffer.
fbdev (Linux only)
Uses the kernel framebuffer to play video.
<device>
Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (e.g. /dev/fb0).
fbdev2 (Linux only)
Uses the kernel framebuffer to play video, alternative implementation.
<device>
Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (default: /dev/fb0).
vesa
Very general video output driver that should work on any VESA VBE 2.0 compatible card.
(no)dga
Turns DGA mode on or off (default: on).
neotv_pal
Activate the NeoMagic TV out and set it to PAL norm.
neotv_ntsc
Activate the NeoMagic TV out and set it to NTSC norm.
lvo:
Activate the Linux Video Overlay on top of VESA mode.
svga
Play video using the SVGA library.
<video mode>
Specify video mode to use. The mode can be given in a <width>x<height>x<colors> format, e.g. 640x480x16M or be a graphics
mode number, e.g. 84.
bbosd
Draw OSD into black bands below the movie (slower).
native
Use only native drawing functions. This avoids direct rendering, OSD and hardware acceleration.
retrace
Force frame switch on vertical retrace. Usable only with -double. It has the same effect as the -vsync option.
sq
Try to select a video mode with square pixels.
gl
OpenGL video output driver, simple version. Video size must be smaller than the maximum texture size of your OpenGL implementation.
Intended to work even with the most basic OpenGL implementations, but also makes use of newer extensions, which allow support for
more colorspaces and direct rendering. For optimal speed try adding the options
-dr -noslices
The code performs very few checks, so if a feature does not work, this might be because it is not supported by your card/OpenGL im-
plementation even if you do not get any error message. Use glxinfo or a similar tool to display the supported OpenGL extensions.
(no)ati-hack
ATI drivers may give a corrupted image when PBOs are used (when using -dr or force-pbo). This option fixes this, at the ex-
pense of using a bit more memory.
(no)force-pbo
Always uses PBOs to transfer textures even if this involves an extra copy. Currently this gives a little extra speed with
NVidia drivers and a lot more speed with ATI drivers. May need -noslices and the ati-hack suboption to work correctly.
(no)scaled-osd
Changes the way the OSD behaves when the size of the window changes (default: disabled). When enabled behaves more like the
other video output drivers, which is better for fixed-size fonts. Disabled looks much better with FreeType fonts and uses
the borders in fullscreen mode. Does not work correctly with ass subtitles (see -ass), you can instead render them without
OpenGL support via -vf ass.
osdcolor=<0xAARRGGBB>
Color for OSD (default: 0x00ffffff, corresponds to non-transparent white).
rectangle=<0,1,2>
Select usage of rectangular textures which saves video RAM, but often is slower (default: 0).
0: Use power-of-two textures (default).
1: Use the GL_ARB_texture_rectangle extension.
2: Use the GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two extension. In some cases only supported in software and thus very slow.
swapinterval=<n>
Minimum interval between two buffer swaps, counted in displayed frames (default: 1). 1 is equivalent to enabling VSYNC, 0
to disabling VSYNC. Values below 0 will leave it at the system default. This limits the framerate to (horizontal refresh
rate / n). Requires GLX_SGI_swap_control support to work. With some (most/all?) implementations this only works in
fullscreen mode.
ycbcr
Use the GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture extension to convert YUV to RGB. In most cases this is probably slower than doing software
conversion to RGB.
yuv=<n>
Select the type of YUV to RGB conversion. The default is auto-detection deciding between values 0 and 2.
0: Use software conversion. Compatible with all OpenGL versions. Provides brightness, contrast and saturation control.
1: Use register combiners. This uses an nVidia-specific extension (GL_NV_register_combiners). At least three texture
units are needed. Provides saturation and hue control. This method is fast but inexact.
2: Use a fragment program. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least three texture units. Provides
brightness, contrast, saturation and hue control.
3: Use a fragment program using the POW instruction. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least three tex-
ture units. Provides brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma control. Gamma can also be set independently for
red, green and blue. Method 4 is usually faster.
4: Use a fragment program with additional lookup. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least four texture
units. Provides brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma control. Gamma can also be set independently for red,
green and blue.
5: Use ATI-specific method (for older cards). This uses an ATI-specific extension (GL_ATI_fragment_shader - not
GL_ARB_fragment_shader!). At least three texture units are needed. Provides saturation and hue control. This method is
fast but inexact.
6: Use a 3D texture to do conversion via lookup. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least four texture
units. Extremely slow (software emulation) on some (all?) ATI cards since it uses a texture with border pixels. Pro-
vides brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma control. Gamma can also be set independently for red, green and
blue. Speed depends more on GPU memory bandwidth than other methods.
colorspace
Select the color space for YUV to RGB conversion.
0 Use the formula used normally by MPlayer (default).
1 Use ITU-R BT.601 color space.
2 Use ITU-R BT.709 color space.
3 Use SMPTE-240M color space.
levelconv=<n>
Select the brightness level conversion to use for the YUV to RGB conversion
0 Convert TV to PC levels (default).
1 Convert PC to TV levels.
2 Do not do any conversion.
lscale=<n>
Select the scaling function to use for luminance scaling. Only valid for yuv modes 2, 3, 4 and 6.
0 Use simple linear filtering (default).
1 Use bicubic B-spline filtering (better quality). Needs one additional texture unit. Older cards will not be able
to handle this for chroma at least in fullscreen mode.
2 Use cubic filtering in horizontal, linear filtering in vertical direction. Works on a few more cards than method 1.
3 Same as 1 but does not use a lookup texture. Might be faster on some cards.
4 Use experimental unsharp masking with 3x3 support and a default strength of 0.5 (see filter-strength).
5 Use experimental unsharp masking with 5x5 support and a default strength of 0.5 (see filter-strength).
cscale=<n>
Select the scaling function to use for chrominance scaling. For details see lscale.
filter-strength=<value>
Set the effect strength for the lscale/cscale filters that support it.
stereo=<value>
Select a method for stereo display. You may have to use -aspect to fix the aspect value. Experimental, do not expect too
much from it.
0 normal 2D display
1 Convert side by side input to full-color red-cyan stereo.
2 Convert side by side input to full-color green-magenta stereo.
3 Convert side by side input to quadbuffered stereo. Only supported by very few OpenGL cards.
The following options are only useful if writing your own fragment programs.
customprog=<filename>
Load a custom fragment program from <filename>. See TOOLS/edgedect.fp for an example.
customtex=<filename>
Load a custom "gamma ramp" texture from <filename>. This can be used in combination with yuv=4 or with the customprog op-
tion.
(no)customtlin
If enabled (default) use GL_LINEAR interpolation, otherwise use GL_NEAREST for customtex texture.
(no)customtrect
If enabled, use texture_rectangle for customtex texture. Default is disabled.
(no)mipmapgen
If enabled, mipmaps for the video are automatically generated. This should be useful together with the customprog and the
TXB instruction to implement blur filters with a large radius. For most OpenGL implementations this is very slow for any
non-RGB formats. Default is disabled.
Normally there is no reason to use the following options, they mostly exist for testing purposes.
(no)glfinish
Call glFinish() before swapping buffers. Slower but in some cases more correct output (default: disabled).
(no)manyfmts
Enables support for more (RGB and BGR) color formats (default: enabled). Needs OpenGL version >= 1.2.
slice-height=<0-...>
Number of lines copied to texture in one piece (default: 0). 0 for whole image.
NOTE: If YUV colorspace is used (see yuv suboption), special rules apply:
If the decoder uses slice rendering (see -noslices), this setting has no effect, the size of the slices as provided by
the decoder is used.
If the decoder does not use slice rendering, the default is 16.
(no)osd
Enable or disable support for OSD rendering via OpenGL (default: enabled). This option is for testing; to disable the OSD
use -osdlevel 0 instead.
(no)aspect
Enable or disable aspect scaling and pan-and-scan support (default: enabled). Disabling might increase speed.
gl2
Variant of the OpenGL video output driver. Supports videos larger than the maximum texture size but lacks many of the advanced fea-
tures and optimizations of the gl driver and is unlikely to be extended further.
(no)glfinish
same as gl (default: enabled)
yuv=<n>
Select the type of YUV to RGB conversion. If set to anything except 0 OSD will be disabled and brightness, contrast and
gamma setting is only available via the global X server settings. Apart from this the values have the same meaning as for
-vo gl.
matrixview
OpenGL-based renderer creating a Matrix-like running-text effect.
cols=<n>
Number of text columns to display. Very low values (< 16) will probably fail due to scaler limitations. Values not divisi-
ble by 16 may cause issues as well.
rows=<n>
Number of text rows to display. Very low values (< 16) will probably fail due to scaler limitations. Values not divisible
by 16 may cause issues as well.
null
Produces no video output. Useful for benchmarking.
aa
ASCII art video output driver that works on a text console. You can get a list and an explanation of available suboptions by exe-
cuting 'mplayer -vo aa:help'.
NOTE: The driver does not handle -aspect correctly.
HINT: You probably have to specify -monitorpixelaspect. Try 'mplayer -vo aa -monitorpixelaspect 0.5'.
caca
Color ASCII art video output driver that works on a text console.
bl
Video playback using the Blinkenlights UDP protocol. This driver is highly hardware specific.
<subdevice>
Explicitly choose the Blinkenlights subdevice driver to use. It is something like arcade:host=localhost:2323 or
hdl:file=name1,file=name2. You must specify a subdevice.
ggi
GGI graphics system video output driver
<driver>
Explicitly choose the GGI driver to use. Replace any ',' that would appear in the driver string by a '.'.
directfb
Play video using the DirectFB library.
(no)input
Use the DirectFB instead of the MPlayer keyboard code (default: enabled).
buffermode=single|double|triple
Double and triple buffering give best results if you want to avoid tearing issues. Triple buffering is more efficient than
double buffering as it does not block MPlayer while waiting for the vertical retrace. Single buffering should be avoided
(default: single).
fieldparity=top|bottom
Control the output order for interlaced frames (default: disabled). Valid values are top = top fields first, bottom = bot-
tom fields first. This option does not have any effect on progressive film material like most MPEG movies are. You need to
enable this option if you have tearing issues or unsmooth motions watching interlaced film material.
layer=N
Will force layer with ID N for playback (default: -1 - auto).
dfbopts=<list>
Specify a parameter list for DirectFB.
dfbmga
Matrox G400/G450/G550 specific video output driver that uses the DirectFB library to make use of special hardware features. Enables
CRTC2 (second head), displaying video independently of the first head.
(no)input
same as directfb (default: disabled)
buffermode=single|double|triple
same as directfb (default: triple)
fieldparity=top|bottom
same as directfb
(no)bes
Enable the use of the Matrox BES (backend scaler) (default: disabled). Gives very good results concerning speed and output
quality as interpolated picture processing is done in hardware. Works only on the primary head.
(no)spic
Make use of the Matrox sub picture layer to display the OSD (default: enabled).
(no)crtc2
Turn on TV-out on the second head (default: enabled). The output quality is amazing as it is a full interlaced picture with
proper sync to every odd/even field.
tvnorm=pal|ntsc|auto
Will set the TV norm of the Matrox card without the need for modifying /etc/directfbrc (default: disabled). Valid norms are
pal = PAL, ntsc = NTSC. Special norm is auto (auto-adjust using PAL/NTSC) because it decides which norm to use by looking
at the framerate of the movie.
mga (Linux only)
Matrox specific video output driver that makes use of the YUV back end scaler on Gxxx cards through a kernel module. If you have a
Matrox card, this is the fastest option.
<device>
Explicitly choose the Matrox device name to use (default: /dev/mga_vid).
xmga (Linux, X11 only)
The mga video output driver, running in an X11 window.
<device>
Explicitly choose the Matrox device name to use (default: /dev/mga_vid).
s3fb (Linux only) (also see -dr)
S3 Virge specific video output driver. This driver supports the card's YUV conversion and scaling, double buffering and direct ren-
dering features. Use -vf format=yuy2 to get hardware-accelerated YUY2 rendering, which is much faster than YV12 on this card.
<device>
Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (default: /dev/fb0).
wii (Linux only)
Nintendo Wii/GameCube specific video output driver.
3dfx (Linux only)
3dfx-specific video output driver that directly uses the hardware on top of X11. Only 16 bpp are supported.
tdfxfb (Linux only)
This driver employs the tdfxfb framebuffer driver to play movies with YUV acceleration on 3dfx cards.
<device>
Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (default: /dev/fb0).
tdfx_vid (Linux only)
3dfx-specific video output driver that works in combination with the tdfx_vid kernel module.
<device>
Explicitly choose the device name to use (default: /dev/tdfx_vid).
dxr3 (DXR3 only)
Sigma Designs em8300 MPEG decoder chip (Creative DXR3, Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus) specific video output driver. Also see the
lavc video filter.
overlay
Activates the overlay instead of TV-out.
prebuf
Turns on prebuffering.
sync
Will turn on the new sync-engine.
norm=<norm>
Specifies the TV norm.
0: Does not change current norm (default).
1: Auto-adjust using PAL/NTSC.
2: Auto-adjust using PAL/PAL-60.
3: PAL
4: PAL-60
5: NTSC
<0-3>
Specifies the device number to use if you have more than one em8300 card.
ivtv (IVTV only)
Conexant CX23415 (iCompression iTVC15) or Conexant CX23416 (iCompression iTVC16) MPEG decoder chip (Hauppauge WinTV
PVR-150/250/350/500) specific video output driver for TV-out. Also see the lavc video filter.
<device>
Explicitly choose the MPEG decoder device name to use (default: /dev/video16).
<output>
Explicitly choose the TV-out output to be used for the video signal.
v4l2 (requires Linux 2.6.22+ kernel)
Video output driver for V4L2 compliant cards with built-in hardware MPEG decoder. Also see the lavc video filter.
<device>
Explicitly choose the MPEG decoder device name to use (default: /dev/video16).
<output>
Explicitly choose the TV-out output to be used for the video signal.
mpegpes (DVB only)
Video output driver for DVB cards that writes the output to an MPEG-PES file if no DVB card is installed.
card=<1-4>
Specifies the device number to use if you have more than one DVB output card (V3 API only, such as 1.x.y series drivers).
If not specified MPlayer will search the first usable card.
<filename>
output filename (default: ./grab.mpg)
md5sum
Calculate MD5 sums of each frame and write them to a file. Supports RGB24 and YV12 colorspaces. Useful for debugging.
outfile=<value>
Specify the output filename (default: ./md5sums).
yuv4mpeg
Transforms the video stream into a sequence of uncompressed YUV 4:2:0 images and stores it in a file (default: ./stream.yuv). The
format is the same as the one employed by mjpegtools, so this is useful if you want to process the video with the mjpegtools suite.
It supports the YV12 format. If your source file has a different format and is interlaced, make sure to use -vf scale=::1 to ensure
the conversion uses interlaced mode. You can combine it with the -fixed-vo option to concatenate files with the same dimensions and
fps value.
interlaced
Write the output as interlaced frames, top field first.
interlaced_bf
Write the output as interlaced frames, bottom field first.
file=<filename>
Write the output to <filename> instead of the default stream.yuv.
NOTE: If you do not specify any option the output is progressive (i.e. not interlaced).
gif89a
Output each frame into a single animated GIF file in the current directory. It supports only RGB format with 24 bpp and the output
is converted to 256 colors.
<fps>
Float value to specify framerate (default: 5.0).
<output>
Specify the output filename (default: ./out.gif).
NOTE: You must specify the framerate before the filename or the framerate will be part of the filename.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer video.nut -vo gif89a:fps=15:output=test.gif
jpeg
Output each frame into a JPEG file in the current directory. Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as name.
[no]progressive
Specify standard or progressive JPEG (default: noprogressive).
[no]baseline
Specify use of baseline or not (default: baseline).
optimize=<0-100>
optimization factor (default: 100)
smooth=<0-100>
smooth factor (default: 0)
quality=<0-100>
quality factor (default: 75)
outdir=<dirname>
Specify the directory to save the JPEG files to (default: ./).
subdirs=<prefix>
Create numbered subdirectories with the specified prefix to save the files in instead of the current directory.
maxfiles=<value> (subdirs only)
Maximum number of files to be saved per subdirectory. Must be equal to or larger than 1 (default: 1000).
pnm
Output each frame into a PNM file in the current directory. Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as name. It
supports PPM, PGM and PGMYUV files in both raw and ASCII mode. Also see pnm(5), ppm(5) and pgm(5).
ppm
Write PPM files (default).
pgm
Write PGM files.
pgmyuv
Write PGMYUV files. PGMYUV is like PGM, but it also contains the U and V plane, appended at the bottom of the picture.
raw
Write PNM files in raw mode (default).
ascii
Write PNM files in ASCII mode.
outdir=<dirname>
Specify the directory to save the PNM files to (default: ./).
subdirs=<prefix>
Create numbered subdirectories with the specified prefix to save the files in instead of the current directory.
maxfiles=<value> (subdirs only)
Maximum number of files to be saved per subdirectory. Must be equal to or larger than 1 (default: 1000).
png
Output each frame into a PNG file in the current directory. Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as name.
24bpp RGB and BGR formats are supported.
z=<0-9>
Specifies the compression level. 0 is no compression, 9 is maximum compression.
alpha
Create PNG files with an alpha channel. Note that MPlayer in general does not support alpha, so this will only be useful in
some rare cases.
tga
Output each frame into a Targa file in the current directory. Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as name.
The purpose of this video output driver is to have a simple lossless image writer to use without any external library. It supports
the BGR[A] color format, with 15, 24 and 32 bpp. You can force a particular format with the format video filter.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer video.nut -vf format=bgr15 -vo tga
DECODING/FILTERING OPTIONS
-ac <[-|+]codec1,[-|+]codec2,...[,]>
Specify a priority list of audio codecs to be used, according to their codec name in codecs.conf. Use a '-' before the codec name
to omit it. Use a '+' before the codec name to force it, this will likely crash! If the list has a trailing ',' MPlayer will fall
back on codecs not contained in the list.
NOTE: See -ac help for a full list of available codecs.
EXAMPLE:
-ac mp3acm
Force the l3codeca.acm MP3 codec.
-ac mad,
Try libmad first, then fall back on others.
-ac hwac3,a52,
Try hardware AC-3 passthrough, software AC-3, then others.
-ac hwdts,
Try hardware DTS passthrough, then fall back on others.
-ac -ffmp3,
Skip FFmpeg's MP3 decoder.
-af-adv <force=(0-7):list=(filters)> (also see -af)
Specify advanced audio filter options:
force=<0-7>
Forces the insertion of audio filters to one of the following:
0: Use completely automatic filter insertion (currently identical to 1).
1: Optimize for accuracy (default).
2: Optimize for speed. Warning: Some features in the audio filters may silently fail, and the sound quality may drop.
3: Use no automatic insertion of filters and no optimization. Warning: It may be possible to crash MPlayer using this
setting.
4: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 0 above, but use floating point processing when possible.
5: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 1 above, but use floating point processing when possible.
6: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 2 above, but use floating point processing when possible.
7: Use no automatic insertion of filters according to 3 above, and use floating point processing when possible.
list=<filters>
Same as -af.
-afm <driver1,driver2,...>
Specify a priority list of audio codec families to be used, according to their codec name in codecs.conf. Falls back on the default
codecs if none of the given codec families work.
NOTE: See -afm help for a full list of available codec families.
EXAMPLE:
-afm ffmpeg
Try FFmpeg's libavcodec codecs first.
-afm acm,dshow
Try Win32 codecs first.
-aspect <ratio> (also see -zoom)
Override movie aspect ratio, in case aspect information is incorrect or missing in the file being played.
EXAMPLE:
-aspect 4:3 or -aspect 1.3333
-aspect 16:9 or -aspect 1.7777
-noaspect
Disable automatic movie aspect ratio compensation.
-field-dominance <-1-1>
Set first field for interlaced content. Useful for deinterlacers that double the framerate: -vf tfields=1, -vf yadif=1 and -vo vd-
pau:deint.
-1 auto (default): If the decoder does not export the appropriate information, it falls back to 0 (top field first).
0 top field first
1 bottom field first
-flip
Flip image upside-down.
-lavdopts <option1:option2:...> (DEBUG CODE)
Specify libavcodec decoding parameters. Separate multiple options with a colon.
EXAMPLE:
-lavdopts gray:skiploopfilter=all:skipframe=nonref
Available options are:
bitexact
Only use bit-exact algorithms in all decoding steps (for codec testing).
bug=<value>
Manually work around encoder bugs.
0: nothing
1: autodetect bugs (default)
2 (msmpeg4v3): some old lavc generated msmpeg4v3 files (no autodetection)
4 (mpeg4): Xvid interlacing bug (autodetected if fourcc==XVIX)
8 (mpeg4): UMP4 (autodetected if fourcc==UMP4)
16 (mpeg4): padding bug (autodetected)
32 (mpeg4): illegal vlc bug (autodetected per fourcc)
64 (mpeg4): Xvid and DivX qpel bug (autodetected per fourcc/version)
128 (mpeg4): old standard qpel (autodetected per fourcc/version)
256 (mpeg4): another qpel bug (autodetected per fourcc/version)
512 (mpeg4): direct-qpel-blocksize bug (autodetected per fourcc/version)
1024 (mpeg4): edge padding bug (autodetected per fourcc/version)
debug=<value>
Display debugging information.
0: disabled
1: picture info
2: rate control
4: bitstream
8: macroblock (MB) type
16: per-block quantization parameter (QP)
32: motion vector
0x0040: motion vector visualization (use -noslices)
0x0080: macroblock (MB) skip
0x0100: startcode
0x0200: PTS
0x0400: error resilience
0x0800: memory management control operations (H.264)
0x1000: bugs
0x2000: Visualize quantization parameter (QP), lower QP are tinted greener.
0x4000: Visualize block types.
ec=<value>
Set error concealment strategy.
1: Use strong deblock filter for damaged MBs.
2: iterative motion vector (MV) search (slow)
3: all (default)
er=<value>
Set error resilience strategy.
0: disabled
1: careful (Should work with broken encoders.)
2: normal (default) (Works with compliant encoders.)
3: aggressive (More checks, but might cause problems even for valid bitstreams.)
4: very aggressive
fast (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.264 only)
Enable optimizations which do not comply to the specification and might potentially cause problems, like simpler dequantiza-
tion, simpler motion compensation, assuming use of the default quantization matrix, assuming YUV 4:2:0 and skipping a few
checks to detect damaged bitstreams.
gray
grayscale only decoding (a bit faster than with color)
idct=<0-99> (see -lavcopts)
For best decoding quality use the same IDCT algorithm for decoding and encoding. This may come at a price in accuracy,
though.
lowres=<number>[,<w>]
Decode at lower resolutions. Low resolution decoding is not supported by all codecs, and it will often result in ugly arti-
facts. This is not a bug, but a side effect of not decoding at full resolution.
0: disabled
1: 1/2 resolution
2: 1/4 resolution
3: 1/8 resolution
If <w> is specified lowres decoding will be used only if the width of the video is major than or equal to <w>.
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.
EXAMPLE:
o=debug=pict
sb=<number> (MPEG-2 only)
Skip the given number of macroblock rows at the bottom.
st=<number> (MPEG-2 only)
Skip the given number of macroblock rows at the top.
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 no visible quality loss.
<skipvalue> can be either 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.
skipidct=<skipvalue> (MPEG-1/2 only)
Skips the IDCT step. This degrades quality a lot of in almost all cases (see skiploopfilter for available skip values).
skipframe=<skipvalue>
Skips decoding of frames completely. Big speedup, but jerky motion and sometimes bad artifacts (see skiploopfilter for
available skip values).
threads=<0-16>
Number of threads to use for decoding. Whether threading is actually supported depends on codec. 0 means autodetect number
of cores on the machine and use that, up to the maximum of 16. (default: 0)
vismv=<value>
Visualize motion vectors.
0: disabled
1: Visualize forward predicted MVs of P-frames.
2: Visualize forward predicted MVs of B-frames.
4: Visualize backward predicted MVs of B-frames.
vstats
Prints some statistics and stores them in ./vstats_*.log.
-noslices
Disable drawing video by 16-pixel height slices/bands, instead draws the whole frame in a single run. May be faster or slower, de-
pending on video card and available cache. It has effect only with libmpeg2 and libavcodec codecs.
-nosound
Do not play sound. Useful for benchmarking.
-novideo
Do not play video. With some demuxers this may not work. In those cases you can try -vc null -vo null instead; but "-vc null" is
always unreliable.
-pp <quality> (also see -vf pp)
Set the DLL postprocess level. This option is no longer usable with -vf pp. It only works with Win32 DirectShow DLLs with internal
postprocessing routines. The valid range of -pp values varies by codec, it is mostly 0-6, where 0=disable, 6=slowest/best.
-pphelp (also see -vf pp)
Show a summary about the available postprocess filters and their usage.
-ssf <mode>
Specifies software scaler parameters.
EXAMPLE:
-vf scale -ssf lgb=3.0
lgb=<0-100>
gaussian blur filter (luma)
cgb=<0-100>
gaussian blur filter (chroma)
ls=<-100-100>
sharpen filter (luma)
cs=<-100-100>
sharpen filter (chroma)
chs=<h>
chroma horizontal shifting
cvs=<v>
chroma vertical shifting
-stereo <mode>
Select type of MP2/MP3 stereo output.
0 stereo
1 left channel
2 right channel
-sws <software scaler type> (also see -vf scale and -zoom)
Specify the software scaler algorithm to be used with the -zoom option. This affects video output drivers which lack hardware ac-
celeration, e.g. x11.
Available types are:
0 fast bilinear
1 bilinear
2 bicubic (good quality) (default)
3 experimental
4 nearest neighbor (bad quality)
5 area
6 luma bicubic / chroma bilinear
7 gauss
8 sincR
9 lanczos
10 natural bicubic spline
NOTE: Some -sws options are tunable. The description of the scale video filter has further information.
-vc <[-|+]codec1,[-|+]codec2,...[,]>
Specify a priority list of video codecs to be used, according to their codec name in codecs.conf. Use a '-' before the codec name
to omit it. Use a '+' before the codec name to force it, this will likely crash! If the list has a trailing ',' MPlayer will fall
back on codecs not contained in the list.
NOTE: See -vc help for a full list of available codecs.
EXAMPLE:
-vc divx
Force Win32/VfW DivX codec, no fallback.
-vc -divxds,-divx,
Skip Win32 DivX codecs.
-vc ffmpeg12,mpeg12,
Try libavcodec's MPEG-1/2 codec, then libmpeg2, then others.
-vfm <driver1,driver2,...>
Specify a priority list of video codec families to be used, according to their names in codecs.conf. Falls back on the default
codecs if none of the given codec families work.
NOTE: See -vfm help for a full list of available codec families.
EXAMPLE:
-vfm ffmpeg,dshow,vfw
Try the libavcodec, then Directshow, then VfW codecs and fall back on others, if they do not work.
-vfm xanim
Try XAnim codecs first.
-x <x> (also see -zoom)
Scale image to width <x> (if software/hardware scaling is available). Disables aspect calculations.
-xvidopts <option1:option2:...>
Specify additional parameters when decoding with Xvid.
NOTE: Since libavcodec is faster than Xvid you might want to use the libavcodec postprocessing filter (-vf pp) and decoder (-vfm
ffmpeg) instead.
Xvid's internal postprocessing filters:
deblock-chroma (also see -vf pp)
chroma deblock filter
deblock-luma (also see -vf pp)
luma deblock filter
dering-luma (also see -vf pp)
luma deringing filter
dering-chroma (also see -vf pp)
chroma deringing filter
filmeffect (also see -vf noise)
Adds artificial film grain to the video. May increase perceived quality, while lowering true quality.
rendering methods:
dr2
Activate direct rendering method 2.
nodr2
Deactivate direct rendering method 2.
-xy <value> (also see -zoom)
value<=8
Scale image by factor <value>.
value>8
Set width to value and calculate height to keep correct aspect ratio.
-y <y> (also see -zoom)
Scale image to height <y> (if software/hardware scaling is available). Disables aspect calculations.
-zoom
Allow software scaling, where available. This will allow scaling with output drivers (like x11, fbdev) that do not support hardware
scaling where MPlayer disables scaling by default for performance reasons.
AUDIO FILTERS
Audio filters allow you to modify the audio stream and its properties. The syntax is:
-af <filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
Setup a chain of audio filters.
NOTE: To get a full list of available audio filters, see -af help.
Audio filters are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage the filter list.
-af-add <filter1[,filter2,...]>
Appends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.
-af-pre <filter1[,filter2,...]>
Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.
-af-del <index1[,index2,...]>
Deletes the filters at the given indexes. Index numbers start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the last).
-af-clr
Completely empties the filter list.
Available filters are:
resample[=srate[:sloppy[:type]]]
Changes the sample rate of the audio stream. Can be used if you have a fixed frequency sound card or if you are stuck with an old
sound card that is only capable of max 44.1kHz. This filter is automatically enabled if necessary. It only supports 16-bit integer
and float in native-endian format as input.
<srate>
output sample frequency in Hz. The valid range for this parameter is 8000 to 192000. If the input and output sample fre-
quency are the same or if this parameter is omitted the filter is automatically unloaded. A high sample frequency normally
improves the audio quality, especially when used in combination with other filters.
<sloppy>
Allow (1) or disallow (0) the output frequency to differ slightly from the frequency given by <srate> (default: 1). Can be
used if the startup of the playback is extremely slow.
<type>
Select which resampling method to use.
0: linear interpolation (fast, poor quality especially when upsampling)
1: polyphase filterbank and integer processing
2: polyphase filterbank and floating point processing (slow, best quality)
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -af resample=44100:0:0
would set the output frequency of the resample filter to 44100Hz using exact output frequency scaling and linear interpola-
tion.
lavcresample[=srate[:length[:linear[:count[:cutoff]]]]]
Changes the sample rate of the audio stream to an integer <srate> in Hz. It only supports the 16-bit native-endian format.
<srate>
the output sample rate
<length>
length of the filter with respect to the lower sampling rate (default: 16)
<linear>
if 1 then filters will be linearly interpolated between polyphase entries
<count>
log2 of the number of polyphase entries (..., 10->1024, 11->2048, 12->4096, ...) (default: 10->1024)
<cutoff>
cutoff frequency (0.0-1.0), default set depending upon filter length
lavcac3enc[=tospdif[:bitrate[:minchn]]]
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. The output sample rate of this
filter is same with the input sample rate. When input sample rate is 48kHz, 44.1kHz, or 32kHz, this filter directly use it. Other-
wise a resampling filter is auto-inserted before this filter to make the input and output sample rate be 48kHz. You need to specify
'-channels N' to make the decoder decode audio into N-channel, then the filter can encode the N-channel input to AC-3.
<tospdif>
Output raw AC-3 stream if zero or not set, output to S/PDIF for passthrough when <tospdif> is set non-zero.
<bitrate>
The bitrate to encode the AC-3 stream. Set it to either 384 or 384000 to get 384kbits. Valid values: 32, 40, 48, 56, 64,
80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256,
320, 384, 448, 512, 576, 640 Default bitrate is based on the input channel number: 1ch: 96, 2ch: 192, 3ch:
224, 4ch: 384, 5ch: 448, 6ch: 448
<minchn>
If the input channel number is less than <minchn>, the filter will detach itself (default: 5).
sweep[=speed]
Produces a sine sweep.
<0.0-1.0>
Sine function delta, use very low values to hear the sweep.
sinesuppress[=freq:decay]
Remove a sine at the specified frequency. Useful to get rid of the 50/60Hz noise on low quality audio equipment. It probably only
works on mono input.
<freq>
The frequency of the sine which should be removed (in Hz) (default: 50)
<decay>
Controls the adaptivity (a larger value will make the filter adapt to amplitude and phase changes quicker, a smaller value
will make the adaptation slower) (default: 0.0001). Reasonable values are around 0.001.
bs2b[=option1:option2:...]
Bauer stereophonic to binaural transformation using libbs2b. Improves the headphone listening experience by making the sound simi-
lar to that from loudspeakers, allowing each ear to hear both channels and taking into account the distance difference and the head
shadowing effect. It is applicable only to 2 channel audio.
fcut=<300-1000>
Set cut frequency in Hz.
feed=<10-150>
Set feed level for low frequencies in 0.1*dB.
profile=<value>
Several profiles are available for convenience:
default
will be used if nothing else was specified (fcut=700, feed=45)
cmoy
Chu Moy circuit implementation (fcut=700, feed=60)
jmeier
Jan Meier circuit implementation (fcut=650, feed=95)
If fcut or feed options are specified together with a profile, they will be applied on top of the selected profile.
hrtf[=flag]
Head-related transfer function: Converts multichannel audio to 2 channel output for headphones, preserving the spatiality of the
sound.
Flag Meaning
m matrix decoding of the rear channel
s 2-channel matrix decoding
0 no matrix decoding (default)
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 dis-
abled. 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 the resample
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:
mplayer -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 1kHz.
channels=nch[:nr:from1:to1:from2:to2:from3:to3:...]
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 bigger than the number of input channels empty channels are inserted (except mixing
from mono to stereo, then the mono channel is repeated in both of the output channels). If the number of output channels is smaller
than the number of input channels the exceeding channels are truncated.
<nch>
number of output channels (1-8)
<nr>
number of routes (1-8)
<from1:to1:from2:to2:from3:to3:...>
Pairs of numbers between 0 and 7 that define where to route each channel.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -af channels=4:4:0:1:1:0:2:2:3:3 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 in-
tact. Observe that if media containing two channels was played back, channels 2 and 3 would contain silence but 0 and 1
would still be swapped.
mplayer -af channels=6:4:0:0:0:1:0:2:0:3 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.
format[=format] (also see -format)
Convert between different sample formats. Automatically enabled when needed by the sound card or another filter.
<format>
Sets the desired format. The general form is 'sbe', where 's' denotes the sign (either 's' for signed or 'u' for unsigned),
'b' denotes the number of bits per sample (16, 24 or 32) and 'e' denotes the endianness ('le' means little-endian, 'be' big-
endian and 'ne' the endianness of the computer MPlayer is running on). Valid values (amongst others) are: 's16le', 'u32be'
and 'u24ne'. Exceptions to this rule that are also valid format specifiers: u8, s8, floatle, floatbe, floatne, mulaw, alaw,
mpeg2, ac3 and imaadpcm.
volume[=v[:sc]]
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 set the level for the PCM sound to max, leave this filter out and control the output level to your speakers
with the master volume control of the mixer. In case your sound card has a digital PCM mixer instead of an analog one, and you hear
distortion, use the MASTER mixer instead. If there is an external amplifier connected to the computer (this is almost always the
case), the noise level can be minimized by adjusting the master level and the volume knob on the amplifier until the hissing noise
in the background is gone.
This filter has a second feature: It measures the overall maximum sound level and prints out that level when MPlayer exits. This
feature currently only works with floating-point data, use e.g. -af-adv force=5, or use -af stats.
NOTE: This filter is not reentrant and can therefore only be enabled once for every audio stream.
<v>
Sets the desired gain in dB for all channels in the stream from -200dB to +60dB, where -200dB mutes the sound completely and
+60dB equals a gain of 1000 (default: 0).
<sc>
Turns soft clipping on (1) or off (0). 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.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -af volume=10.1:0 media.avi
Would amplify the sound by 10.1dB and hard-clip if the sound level is too high.
pan=n[:L00:L01:L02:...L10:L11:L12:...Ln0:Ln1:Ln2:...]
Mixes channels arbitrarily. Basically a combination of the volume and the channels filter that can be used to down-mix many chan-
nels 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 exam-
ples section near the end.
<n>
number of output channels (1-8)
<Lij>
How much of input channel i is mixed into output channel j (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.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -af pan=1:0.5:0.5 media.avi
Would down-mix from stereo to mono.
mplayer -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).
sub[=fc:ch]
Adds a subwoofer channel to the audio stream. The audio data used for creating the subwoofer channel is an average of the sound in
channel 0 and channel 1. The resulting sound is then low-pass filtered by a 4th order Butterworth filter with a default cutoff fre-
quency of 60Hz and added to a separate channel in the audio stream.
Warning: Disable this filter when you are playing DVDs with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, otherwise this filter will disrupt the sound to
the subwoofer.
<fc>
cutoff frequency in Hz for the low-pass filter (20Hz to 300Hz) (default: 60Hz) For the best result try setting the cutoff
frequency as low as possible. This will improve the stereo or surround sound experience.
<ch>
Determines the channel number in which to insert the sub-channel audio. Channel number can be between 0 and 7 (default: 5).
Observe that the number of channels will automatically be increased to <ch> if necessary.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -af sub=100:4 -channels 5 media.avi
Would add a sub-woofer channel with a cutoff frequency of 100Hz to output channel 4.
center
Creates a center channel from the front channels. May currently be low quality as it does not implement a high-pass filter for
proper extraction yet, but averages and halves the channels instead.
<ch>
Determines the channel number in which to insert the center channel. Channel number can be between 0 and 7 (default: 5).
Observe that the number of channels will automatically be increased to <ch> if necessary.
surround[=delay]
Decoder for matrix encoded surround sound like Dolby Surround. Many files with 2 channel audio actually contain matrixed surround
sound. Requires a sound card supporting at least 4 channels.
<delay>
delay time in ms for the rear speakers (0 to 1000) (default: 20) This delay should be set as follows: If d1 is the distance
from the listening position to the front speakers and d2 is the distance from the listening position to the rear speakers,
then the delay should be set to 15ms if d1 <= d2 and to 15 + 5*(d1-d2) if d1 > d2.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -af surround=15 -channels 4 media.avi
Would add surround sound decoding with 15ms delay for the sound to the rear speakers.
delay[=ch1:ch2:...]
Delays the sound to the loudspeakers such that the sound from the different channels arrives at the listening position simultaneous-
ly. It is only useful if you have more than 2 loudspeakers.
ch1,ch2,...
The delay in ms that should be imposed on each channel (floating point number between 0 and 1000).
To calculate the required delay for the different channels do as follows:
1. Measure the distance to the loudspeakers in meters in relation to your listening position, giving you the distances s1 to s5 (for
a 5.1 system). There is no point in compensating for the subwoofer (you will not hear the difference anyway).
2. Subtract the distances s1 to s5 from the maximum distance, i.e. s[i] = max(s) - s[i]; i = 1...5.
3. Calculate the required delays in ms as d[i] = 1000*s[i]/342; i = 1...5.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -af delay=10.5:10.5:0:0:7:0 media.avi
Would delay front left and right by 10.5ms, the two rear channels and the sub by 0ms and the center channel by 7ms.
export[=mmapped_file[:nsamples]]
Exports the incoming signal to other processes using memory mapping (mmap()). Memory mapped areas contain a header:
int nch /*number of channels*/
int size /*buffer size*/
unsigned long long counter /*Used to keep sync, updated every
time new data is exported.*/
The rest is payload (non-interleaved) 16 bit data.
<mmapped_file>
file to map data to (default: ~/.mplayer/mplayer-af_export)
<nsamples>
number of samples per channel (default: 512)
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -af export=/tmp/mplayer-af_export:1024 media.avi
Would export 1024 samples per channel to '/tmp/mplayer-af_export'.
extrastereo[=mul]
(Linearly) increases the difference between left and right channels which adds some sort of "live" effect to playback.
<mul>
Sets the difference coefficient (default: 2.5). 0.0 means mono sound (average of both channels), with 1.0 sound will be un-
changed, with -1.0 left and right channels will be swapped.
volnorm[=method:target]
Maximizes the volume without distorting the sound.
<method>
Sets the used method.
1: Use a single sample to smooth the variations via the standard weighted mean over past samples (default).
2: Use several samples to smooth the variations via the standard weighted mean over past samples.
<target>
Sets the target amplitude as a fraction of the maximum for the sample type (default: 0.25).
ladspa=file:label[:controls...]
Load a LADSPA (Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plugin API) plugin. This filter is reentrant, so multiple LADSPA plugins can be used
at once.
<file>
Specifies the LADSPA plugin library file. If LADSPA_PATH is set, it searches for the specified file. If it is not set, you
must supply a fully specified pathname.
<label>
Specifies the filter within the library. Some libraries contain only one filter, but others contain many of them. Entering
'help' here, will list all available filters within the specified library, which eliminates the use of 'listplugins' from
the LADSPA SDK.
<controls>
Controls are zero or more floating point values that determine the behavior of the loaded plugin (for example delay, thresh-
old or gain). In verbose mode (add -v to the MPlayer command line), all available controls and their valid ranges are
printed. This eliminates the use of 'analyseplugin' from the LADSPA SDK.
comp
Compressor/expander filter usable for microphone input. Prevents artifacts on very loud sound and raises the volume on very low
sound. This filter is untested, maybe even unusable.
gate
Noise gate filter similar to the comp audio filter. This filter is untested, maybe even unusable.
karaoke
Simple voice removal filter exploiting the fact that voice is usually recorded with mono gear and later 'center' mixed onto the fi-
nal audio stream. Beware that this filter will turn your signal into mono. Works well for 2 channel tracks; do not bother trying
it on anything but 2 channel stereo.
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 value will cause noticable 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 '[ speed_mult 0.9438743126816935' and ']
speed_mult 1.059463094352953' to your input.conf to step by musical semi-tones. WARNING: Loses sync with video.
both Scale both tempo and pitch.
none Ignore speed changes.
EXAMPLE:
mplayer -af scaletempo -speed 1.2 media.ogg
Would playback media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at normal pitch. Changing playback speed, would change audio tempo to
match.
mplayer -af scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=none -speed 1.2 media.ogg
Would playback media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at normal pitch, but changing playback speed has no effect on audio
tempo.
mplayer -af scaletempo=stride=30:overlap=.50:search=10 media.ogg
Would tweak the quality and performace parameters.
mplayer -af format=floatne,scaletempo media.ogg
Would make scaletempo use float code. Maybe faster on some platforms.
mplayer -af scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=pitch audio.ogg
Would playback audio file at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at normal pitch. Changing playback speed, would change pitch,
leaving audio tempo at 1.2x.
stats
Collects and prints statistics about the audio stream, especially the volume. These statistics are especially intended to help ad-
justing the volume while avoiding clipping. The volumes are printed in dB and compatible with the volume audio filter.
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.
Many parameters are optional and set to default values if omitted. To explicitly use a default value set a parameter to '-1'. Parameters
w:h means width x height in pixels, x:y means x;y position counted from the upper left corner of the bigger image.
NOTE: To get a full list of available video filters, see -vf help.
Video filters are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage the filter list.
-vf-add <filter1[,filter2,...]>
Appends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.
-vf-pre <filter1[,filter2,...]>
Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.
-vf-del <index1[,index2,...]>
Deletes the filters at the given indexes. Index numbers start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the last).
-vf-clr
Completely empties the filter list.
With filters that support it, you can access parameters by their name.
-vf <filter>=help
Prints the parameter names and parameter value ranges for a particular filter.
-vf <filter=named_parameter1=value1[:named_parameter2=value2:...]>
Sets a named parameter to the given value. Use on and off or yes and no to set flag parameters.
Available filters are:
crop[=w:h:x:y]
Crops the given part of the image and discards the rest. Useful to remove black bands from widescreen movies.
<w>,<h>
Cropped width and height, defaults to original width and height.
<x>,<y>
Position of the cropped picture, defaults to center.
cropdetect[=limit:round[:reset]]
Calculates necessary cropping parameters and prints the recommended parameters to stdout.
<limit>
Threshold, which can be optionally specified from nothing (0) to everything (255) (default: 24).
<round>
Value which the width/height should be divisible by (default: 16). The offset is automatically adjusted to center the
video. Use 2 to get only even dimensions (needed for 4:2:2 video). 16 is best when encoding to most video codecs.
<reset>
Counter that determines after how many frames cropdetect will reset the previously detected largest video area and start
over to detect the current optimal crop area (default: 0). This can be useful when channel logos distort the video area. 0
indicates never reset and return the largest area encountered during playback.
rectangle[=w:h:x:y]
Draws a rectangle of the requested width and height at the specified coordinates over the image and prints current rectangle parame-
ters to the console. This can be used to find optimal cropping parameters. If you bind the input.conf directive 'change_rectangle'
to keystrokes, you can move and resize the rectangle on the fly.
<w>,<h>
width and height (default: -1, maximum possible width where boundaries are still visible.)
<x>,<y>
top left corner position (default: -1, uppermost leftmost)
expand[=w:h:x:y:o:a:r]
Expands (not scales) movie resolution to the given value and places the unscaled original at coordinates x, y. Can be used for
placing subtitles/OSD in the resulting black bands.
<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)
<o>
OSD/subtitle rendering
0: disable (default)
1: enable
<a>
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.
<r>
Rounds up to make both width and height divisible by <r> (default: 1).
flip (also see -flip)
Flips the image upside down.
mirror
Mirrors the image on the Y axis.
rotate[=<0-7>]
Rotates the image by 90 degrees and optionally flips it. For values between 4-7 rotation is only done if the movie geometry is por-
trait and not landscape.
0 Rotate by 90 degrees clockwise and flip (default).
1 Rotate by 90 degrees clockwise.
2 Rotate by 90 degrees counterclockwise.
3 Rotate by 90 degrees counterclockwise and flip.
scale[=w:h[:interlaced[:chr_drop[:par[:par2[:presize[:noup[:arnd]]]]]]]]
Scales the image with the software scaler (slow) and performs a YUV<->RGB colorspace conversion (also see -sws).
<w>,<h>
scaled width/height (default: original width/height)
NOTE: If -zoom is used, and underlying filters (including libvo) are incapable of scaling, it defaults to d_width/d_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.
<interlaced>
Toggle interlaced scaling.
0: off (default)
1: on
<chr_drop>
chroma skipping
0: Use all available input lines for chroma.
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.
<par>[:<par2>] (also see -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)
<presize>
Scale to preset sizes.
qntsc: 352x240 (NTSC quarter screen)
qpal: 352x288 (PAL quarter screen)
ntsc: 720x480 (standard NTSC)
pal: 720x576 (standard PAL)
sntsc: 640x480 (square pixel NTSC)
spal: 768x576 (square pixel PAL)
<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.
0: Disable accurate rounding (default).
1: Enable accurate rounding.
dsize[=aspect|w:h:aspect-method:r]
Changes the intended display size/aspect at an arbitrary point in the filter chain. Aspect can be given as a fraction (4/3) or
floating point number (1.33). Alternatively, you may specify the exact display width and height desired. 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 correct as-
pect.
<w>,<h>
New display width and height. 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).
yvu9
Forces software YVU9 to YV12 colorspace conversion. Deprecated in favor of the software scaler.
yuvcsp
Clamps YUV color values to the CCIR 601 range without doing real conversion.
palette
RGB/BGR 8 -> 15/16/24/32bpp colorspace conversion using palette.
format[=fourcc[:outfourcc]]
Restricts the colorspace for the next filter without doing any conversion. Use together with the scale filter for a real conver-
sion.
NOTE: For a list of available formats see format=fmt=help.
<fourcc>
format name like rgb15, bgr24, yv12, etc (default: yuy2)
<outfourcc>
Format name that should be substituted for the output. If this is not 100% compatible with the <fourcc> value it will
crash.
Valid examples:
format=rgb24:bgr24 format=yuyv:yuy2
Invalid examples (will crash):
format=rgb24:yv12
noformat[=fourcc]
Restricts the colorspace for the next filter without doing any conversion. Unlike the format filter, this will allow any colorspace
except the one you specify.
NOTE: For a list of available formats see noformat=fmt=help.
<fourcc>
format name like rgb15, bgr24, yv12, etc (default: yv12)
pp[=filter1[:option1[:option2...]]/[-]filter2...] (also see -pphelp)
Enables the specified chain of postprocessing subfilters. Subfilters must be separated by '/' and can be disabled by prepending a
'-'. Each subfilter and some options have a short and a long name that can be used interchangeably, i.e. dr/dering are the same.
All subfilters share common options to determine their scope:
a/autoq
Automatically switch the subfilter off if the CPU is too slow.
c/chrom
Do chrominance filtering, too (default).
y/nochrom
Do luminance filtering only (no chrominance).
n/noluma
Do chrominance filtering only (no luminance).
NOTE: -pphelp shows a list of available subfilters.
Available subfilters are
hb/hdeblock[:difference[:flatness]]
horizontal deblocking filter
<difference>: Difference factor where higher values mean more deblocking (default: 32).
<flatness>: Flatness threshold where lower values mean more deblocking (default: 39).
vb/vdeblock[:difference[:flatness]]
vertical deblocking filter
<difference>: Difference factor where higher values mean more deblocking (default: 32).
<flatness>: Flatness threshold where lower values mean more deblocking (default: 39).
ha/hadeblock[:difference[:flatness]]
accurate horizontal deblocking filter
<difference>: Difference factor where higher values mean more deblocking (default: 32).
<flatness>: Flatness threshold where lower values mean more deblocking (default: 39).
va/vadeblock[:difference[:flatness]]
accurate vertical deblocking filter
<difference>: Difference factor where higher values mean more deblocking (default: 32).
<flatness>: Flatness threshold where lower values mean more deblocking (default: 39).
The horizontal and vertical deblocking filters share the difference and flatness values so you cannot set different horizontal
and vertical thresholds.
h1/x1hdeblock
experimental horizontal deblocking filter
v1/x1vdeblock
experimental vertical deblocking filter
dr/dering
deringing filter
tn/tmpnoise[:threshold1[:threshold2[:threshold3]]]
temporal noise reducer
<threshold1>: larger -> stronger filtering
<threshold2>: larger -> stronger filtering
<threshold3>: larger -> stronger filtering
al/autolevels[:f/fullyrange]
automatic brightness / contrast correction
f/fullyrange: Stretch luminance to (0-255).
lb/linblenddeint
Linear blend deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by filtering all lines with a (1 2 1) filter.
li/linipoldeint
Linear interpolating deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by linearly interpolating every second line.
ci/cubicipoldeint
Cubic interpolating deinterlacing filter deinterlaces the given block by cubically interpolating every second line.
md/mediandeint
Median deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by applying a median filter to every second line.
fd/ffmpegdeint
FFmpeg deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by filtering every second line with a (-1 4 2 4 -1) filter.
l5/lowpass5
Vertically applied FIR lowpass deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by filtering all lines with a (-1 2 6
2 -1) filter.
fq/forceQuant[:quantizer]
Overrides the quantizer table from the input with the constant quantizer you specify.
<quantizer>: quantizer to use
de/default
default pp filter combination (hb:a,vb:a,dr:a)
fa/fast
fast pp filter combination (h1:a,v1:a,dr:a)
ac
high quality pp filter combination (ha:a:128:7,va:a,dr:a)
EXAMPLE:
-vf pp=hb/vb/dr/al
horizontal and vertical deblocking, deringing and automatic brightness/contrast
-vf pp=de/-al
default filters without brightness/contrast correction
-vf pp=default/tmpnoise:1:2:3
Enable default filters & temporal denoiser.
-vf pp=hb:y/vb:a
Horizontal deblocking on luminance only, and switch vertical deblocking on or off automatically depending on available CPU
time.
spp[=quality[:qp[:mode]]]
Simple postprocessing filter that compresses and decompresses the image at several (or - in the case of quality level 6 - all)
shifts and averages the results.
<quality>
0-6 (default: 3)
<qp>
Force quantization parameter (default: 0, use QP from video).
<mode>
0: hard thresholding (default)
1: soft thresholding (better deringing, but blurrier)
4: like 0, but also use B-frames' QP (may cause flicker)
5: like 1, but also use B-frames' QP (may cause flicker)
uspp[=quality[:qp]]
Ultra simple & slow postprocessing filter that compresses and decompresses the image at several (or - in the case of quality level 8
- all) shifts and averages the results. The way this differs from the behavior of spp is that uspp actually encodes & decodes each
case with libavcodec Snow, whereas spp uses a simplified intra only 8x8 DCT similar to MJPEG.
<quality>
0-8 (default: 3)
<qp>
Force quantization parameter (default: 0, use QP from video).
fspp[=quality[:qp[:strength[:bframes]]]]
faster version of the simple postprocessing filter
<quality>
4-5 (equivalent to spp; default: 4)
<qp>
Force quantization parameter (default: 0, use QP from video).
<-15-32>
Filter strength, lower values mean more details but also more artifacts, while higher values make the image smoother but al-
so blurrier (default: 0 - PSNR optimal).
<bframes>
0: do not use QP from B-frames (default)
1: use QP from B-frames too (may cause flicker)
pp7[=qp[:mode]]
Variant of the spp filter, similar to spp=6 with 7 point DCT where only the center sample is used after IDCT.
<qp>
Force quantization parameter (default: 0, use QP from video).
<mode>
0: hard thresholding
1: soft thresholding (better deringing, but blurrier)
2: medium thresholding (default, good results)
qp=equation
quantization parameter (QP) change filter
<equation>
some equation like "2+2*sin(PI*qp)"
geq=equation
generic equation change filter
<equation>
Some equation, e.g. 'p(W-X,Y)' to flip the image horizontally. You can use whitespace to make the equation more readable.
There are a couple of constants that can be used in the equation:
PI: the number pi
E: the number e
X / Y: the coordinates of the current sample
W / H: width and height of the image
SW / SH: width/height scale depending on the currently filtered plane, e.g. 1,1 and 0.5,0.5 for YUV 4:2:0.
p(x,y): returns the value of the pixel at location x/y of the current plane.
test
Generate various test patterns.
rgbtest[=width:height]
Generate an RGB test pattern useful for detecting RGB vs BGR issues. You should see a red, green and blue stripe from top to bot-
tom.
<width>
Desired width of generated image (default: 0). 0 means width of input image.
<height>
Desired height of generated image (default: 0). 0 means height of input image.
lavc[=quality:fps]
Fast software YV12 to MPEG-1 conversion with libavcodec for use with DVB/DXR3/IVTV/V4L2.
<quality>
1-31: fixed qscale
32-: fixed bitrate in kbits
<fps>
force output fps (float value) (default: 0, autodetect based on height)
dvbscale[=aspect]
Set up optimal scaling for DVB cards, scaling the x axis in hardware and calculating the y axis scaling in software to keep aspect.
Only useful together with expand and scale.
<aspect>
Control aspect ratio, calculate as DVB_HEIGHT*ASPECTRATIO (default: 576*4/3=768), set it to 576*(16/9)=1024 for a 16:9 TV.
EXAMPLE:
-vf dvbscale,scale=-1:0,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1,lavc
FIXME: Explain what this does.
noise[=luma[u][t|a][h][p]:chroma[u][t|a][h][p]]
Adds noise.
<0-100>
luma noise
<0-100>
chroma noise
u uniform noise (gaussian otherwise)
t temporal noise (noise pattern changes between frames)
a averaged temporal noise (smoother, but a lot slower)
h high quality (slightly better looking, slightly slower)
p mix random noise with a (semi)regular pattern
denoise3d[=luma_spatial:chroma_spatial:luma_tmp:chroma_tmp]
This filter aims to reduce image noise producing smooth images and making still images really still (This should enhance compress-
ibility.).
<luma_spatial>
spatial luma strength (default: 4)
<chroma_spatial>
spatial chroma strength (default: 3)
<luma_tmp>
luma temporal strength (default: 6)
<chroma_tmp>
chroma temporal strength (default: luma_tmp*chroma_spatial/luma_spatial)
hqdn3d[=luma_spatial:chroma_spatial:luma_tmp:chroma_tmp]
High precision/quality version of the denoise3d filter. Parameters and usage are the same.
ow[=depth[:luma_strength[:chroma_strength]]]
Overcomplete Wavelet denoiser.
<depth>
Larger depth values will denoise lower frequency components more, but slow down filtering (default: 8).
<luma_strength>
luma strength (default: 1.0)
<chroma_strength>
chroma strength (default: 1.0)
eq[=brightness:contrast] (OBSOLETE)
Software equalizer with interactive controls just like the hardware equalizer, for cards/drivers that do not support brightness and
contrast controls in hardware.
<-100-100>
initial brightness
<-100-100>
initial contrast
eq2[=gamma:contrast:brightness:saturation:rg:gg:bg:weight]
Alternative software equalizer that uses lookup tables (very slow), allowing gamma correction in addition to simple brightness and
contrast adjustment. Note that it uses the same MMX optimized code as -vf eq if all gamma values are 1.0. The parameters are given
as floating point values.
<0.1-10>
initial gamma value (default: 1.0)
<-2-2>
initial contrast, where negative values result in a negative image (default: 1.0)
<-1-1>
initial brightness (default: 0.0)
<0-3>
initial saturation (default: 1.0)
<0.1-10>
gamma value for the red component (default: 1.0)
<0.1-10>
gamma value for the green component (default: 1.0)
<0.1-10>
gamma value for the blue component (default: 1.0)
<0-1>
The weight parameter can be used to reduce the effect of a high gamma value on bright image areas, e.g. keep them from get-
ting overamplified and just plain white. A value of 0.0 turns the gamma correction all the way down while 1.0 leaves it at
its full strength (default: 1.0).
hue[=hue:saturation]
Software equalizer with interactive controls just like the hardware equalizer, for cards/drivers that do not support hue and satura-
tion controls in hardware.
<-180-180>
initial hue (default: 0.0)
<-100-100>
initial saturation, where negative values result in a negative chroma (default: 1.0)
halfpack[=f]
Convert planar YUV 4:2:0 to half-height packed 4:2:2, downsampling luma but keeping all chroma samples. Useful for output to low-
resolution display devices when hardware downscaling is poor quality or is not available. Can also be used as a primitive luma-only
deinterlacer with very low CPU usage.
<f>
By default, halfpack averages pairs of lines when downsampling. Any value different from 0 or 1 gives the default (averag-
ing) behavior.
0: Only use even lines when downsampling.
1: Only use odd lines when downsampling.
ilpack[=mode]
When interlaced video is stored in YUV 4:2:0 formats, chroma interlacing does not line up properly due to vertical downsampling of
the chroma channels. This filter packs the planar 4:2:0 data into YUY2 (4:2:2) format with the chroma lines in their proper loca-
tions, so that in any given scanline, the luma and chroma data both come from the same field.
<mode>
Select the sampling mode.
0: nearest-neighbor sampling, fast but incorrect
1: linear interpolation (default)
decimate[=max:hi:lo:frac]
Drops frames that do not differ greatly from the previous frame in order to reduce framerate. The main use of this filter is for
very-low-bitrate encoding (e.g. streaming over dialup modem), but it could in theory be used for fixing movies that were inverse-
telecined incorrectly.
<max>
Sets the maximum number of consecutive frames which can be dropped (if positive), or the minimum interval between dropped
frames (if negative).
<hi>,<lo>,<frac>
A frame is a candidate for dropping if no 8x8 region differs by more than a threshold of <hi>, and if not more than <frac>
portion (1 meaning the whole image) differs by more than a threshold of <lo>. Values of <hi> and <lo> are for 8x8 pixel
blocks and represent actual pixel value differences, so a threshold of 64 corresponds to 1 unit of difference for each pix-
el, or the same spread out differently over the block.
dint[=sense:level]
The drop-deinterlace (dint) filter detects and drops the first from a set of interlaced video frames.
<0.0-1.0>
relative difference between neighboring pixels (default: 0.1)
<0.0-1.0>
What part of the image has to be detected as interlaced to drop the frame (default: 0.15).
lavcdeint (OBSOLETE)
FFmpeg deinterlacing filter, same as -vf pp=fd
kerndeint[=thresh[:map[:order[:sharp[:twoway]]]]]
Donald Graft's adaptive kernel deinterlacer. Deinterlaces parts of a video if a configurable threshold is exceeded.
<0-255>
threshold (default: 10)
<map>
0: Ignore pixels exceeding the threshold (default).
1: Paint pixels exceeding the threshold white.
<order>
0: Leave fields alone (default).
1: Swap fields.
<sharp>
0: Disable additional sharpening (default).
1: Enable additional sharpening.
<twoway>
0: Disable twoway sharpening (default).
1: Enable twoway sharpening.
unsharp[=l|cWxH:amount[:l|cWxH:amount]]
unsharp mask / gaussian blur
l
Apply effect on luma component.
c
Apply effect on chroma components.
<width>x<height>
width and height of the matrix, odd sized in both directions (min = 3x3, max = 13x11 or 11x13, usually something between 3x3
and 7x7)
amount
Relative amount of sharpness/blur to add to the image (a sane range should be -1.5-1.5).
<0: blur
>0: sharpen
swapuv
Swap U & V plane.
il[=d|i][s][:[d|i][s]]
(De)interleaves lines. The goal of this filter is to add the ability to process interlaced images pre-field without deinterlacing
them. You can filter your interlaced DVD and play it on a TV without breaking the interlacing. While deinterlacing (with the post-
processing filter) removes interlacing permanently (by smoothing, averaging, etc) deinterleaving splits the frame into 2 fields (so
called half pictures), so you can process (filter) them independently and then re-interleave them.
d deinterleave (placing one above the other)
i interleave
s swap fields (exchange even & odd lines)
fil[=i|d]
(De)interleaves lines. This filter is very similar to the il filter but much faster, the main disadvantage is that it does not al-
ways work. Especially if combined with other filters it may produce randomly messed up images, so be happy if it works but do not
complain if it does not for your combination of filters.
d Deinterleave fields, placing them side by side.
i Interleave fields again (reversing the effect of fil=d).
field[=n]
Extracts a single field from an interlaced image using stride arithmetic to avoid wasting CPU time. The optional argument n speci-
fies whether to extract the even or the odd field (depending on whether n is even or odd).
detc[=var1=value1:var2=value2:...]
Attempts to reverse the 'telecine' process to recover a clean, non-interlaced stream at film framerate. This was the first and most
primitive inverse telecine filter to be added to MPlayer. It works by latching onto the telecine 3:2 pattern and following it as
long as possible. This makes it suitable for perfectly-telecined material, even in the presence of a fair degree of noise, but it
will fail in the presence of complex post-telecine edits. Development on this filter is no longer taking place, as ivtc, pullup,
and filmdint are better for most applications. The following arguments (see syntax above) may be used to control detc's behavior:
<dr>
Set the frame dropping mode.
0: Do not drop frames to maintain fixed output framerate (default).
1: Always drop a frame when there have been no drops or telecine merges in the past 5 frames.
2: Always maintain exact 5:4 input to output frame ratio.
<am>
Analysis mode.
0: Fixed pattern with initial frame number specified by <fr>.
1: aggressive search for telecine pattern (default)
<fr>
Set initial frame number in sequence. 0-2 are the three clean progressive frames; 3 and 4 are the two interlaced frames.
The default, -1, means 'not in telecine sequence'. The number specified here is the type for the imaginary previous frame
before the movie starts.
<t0>, <t1>, <t2>, <t3>
Threshold values to be used in certain modes.
ivtc[=1]
Experimental 'stateless' inverse telecine filter. Rather than trying to lock on to a pattern like the detc filter does, ivtc makes
its decisions independently for each frame. This will give much better results for material that has undergone heavy editing after
telecine was applied, but as a result it is not as forgiving of noisy input, for example TV capture. The optional parameter
(ivtc=1) corresponds to the dr=1 option for the detc filter, and should not be used with MPlayer. Further development on ivtc has
stopped, as the pullup and filmdint filters appear to be much more accurate.
pullup[=jl:jr:jt:jb:sb:mp]
Third-generation pulldown reversal (inverse telecine) filter, capable of handling mixed hard-telecine, 24000/1001 fps progressive,
and 30000/1001 fps progressive content. The pullup filter is designed to be much more robust than detc or ivtc, by taking advantage
of future context in making its decisions. Like ivtc, pullup is stateless in the sense that it does not lock onto a pattern to fol-
low, but it instead looks forward to the following fields in order to identify matches and rebuild progressive frames. It is still
under development, but believed to be quite accurate.
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 processing of video where there is slight blurring between the fields, but may also
cause there to be interlaced frames in the output.
mp (metric plane)
This option may be set to 1 or 2 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.
filmdint[=options]
Inverse telecine filter, similar to the pullup filter above. It is designed to handle any pulldown pattern, including mixed soft
and hard telecine and limited support for movies that are slowed down or sped up from their original framerate for TV. Only the
luma plane is used to find the frame breaks. If a field has no match, it is deinterlaced with simple linear approximation. If the
source is MPEG-2, this must be the first filter to allow access to the field-flags set by the MPEG-2 decoder. Depending on the
source MPEG, you may be fine ignoring this advice, as long as you do not see lots of "Bottom-first field" warnings. With no options
it does normal inverse telecine. When this filter is used with MPlayer, it will result in an uneven framerate during playback, but
it is still generally better than using pp=lb or no deinterlacing at all. Multiple options can be specified separated by /.
crop=<w>:<h>:<x>:<y>
Just like the crop filter, but faster, and works on mixed hard and soft telecined content as well as when y is not a multi-
ple of 4. If x or y would require cropping fractional pixels from the chroma planes, the crop area is extended. This usu-
ally means that x and y must be even.
io=<ifps>:<ofps>
For each ifps input frames the filter will output ofps frames. This could be used to filter movies that are broadcast on TV
at a frame rate different from their original framerate.
luma_only=<n>
If n is nonzero, the chroma plane is copied unchanged. This is useful for YV12 sampled TV, which discards one of the chroma
fields.
mmx2=<n>
On x86, if n=1, use MMX2 optimized functions, if n=2, use 3DNow! optimized functions, otherwise, use plain C. If this op-
tion is not specified, MMX2 and 3DNow! are auto-detected, use this option to override auto-detection.
fast=<n>
The larger n will speed up the filter at the expense of accuracy. The default value is n=3. If n is odd, a frame immedi-
ately following a frame marked with the REPEAT_FIRST_FIELD MPEG flag is assumed to be progressive, thus filter will not
spend any time on soft-telecined MPEG-2 content. This is the only effect of this flag if MMX2 or 3DNow! is available.
Without MMX2 and 3DNow, if n=0 or 1, the same calculations will be used as with n=2 or 3. If n=2 or 3, the number of luma
levels used to find the frame breaks is reduced from 256 to 128, which results in a faster filter without losing much accu-
racy. If n=4 or 5, a faster, but much less accurate metric will be used to find the frame breaks, which is more likely to
misdetect high vertical detail as interlaced content.
verbose=<n>
If n is nonzero, print the detailed metrics for each frame. Useful for debugging.
dint_thres=<n>
Deinterlace threshold. Used during de-interlacing of unmatched frames. Larger value means less deinterlacing, use n=256 to
completely turn off deinterlacing. Default is n=8.
comb_thres=<n>
Threshold for comparing a top and bottom fields. Defaults to 128.
diff_thres=<n>
Threshold to detect temporal change of a field. Default is 128.
sad_thres=<n>
Sum of Absolute Difference threshold, default is 64.
divtc[=options]
Inverse telecine for deinterlaced video. If 3:2-pulldown telecined video has lost one of the fields or is deinterlaced using a
method that keeps one field and interpolates the other, the result is a juddering video that has every fourth frame duplicated.
This filter is intended to find and drop those duplicates and restore the original film framerate. Two different modes are avail-
able: One pass mode is the default and is straightforward to use, but has the disadvantage that any changes in the telecine phase
(lost frames or bad edits) cause momentary judder until the filter can resync again. Two pass mode avoids this by analyzing the
whole video beforehand so it will have forward knowledge about the phase changes and can resync at the exact spot. These passes do
not correspond to pass one and two of the encoding process. You must run an extra pass using divtc pass one before the actual en-
coding throwing the resulting video away. Use -nosound -ovc raw -o /dev/null to avoid wasting CPU power for this pass. You may add
something like crop=2:2:0:0 after divtc to speed things up even more. Then use divtc pass two for the actual encoding. If you use
multiple encoder passes, use divtc pass two for all of them. The options are:
pass=1|2
Use two pass mode.
file=<filename>
Set the two pass log filename (default: "framediff.log").
threshold=<value>
Set the minimum strength the telecine pattern must have for the filter to believe in it (default: 0.5). This is used to
avoid recognizing false pattern from the parts of the video that are very dark or very still.
window=<numframes>
Set the number of past frames to look at when searching for pattern (default: 30). Longer window improves the reliability
of the pattern search, but shorter window improves the reaction time to the changes in the telecine phase. This only af-
fects the one pass mode. The two pass mode currently uses fixed window that extends to both future and past.
phase=0|1|2|3|4
Sets the initial telecine phase for one pass mode (default: 0). The two pass mode can see the future, so it is able to use
the correct phase from the beginning, but one pass mode can only guess. It catches the correct phase when it finds it, but
this option can be used to fix the possible juddering at the beginning. The first pass of the two pass mode also uses this,
so if you save the output from the first pass, you get constant phase result.
deghost=<value>
Set the deghosting threshold (0-255 for one pass mode, -255-255 for two pass mode, default 0). If nonzero, deghosting mode
is used. This is for video that has been deinterlaced by blending the fields together instead of dropping one of the
fields. Deghosting amplifies any compression artifacts in the blended frames, so the parameter value is used as a threshold
to exclude those pixels from deghosting that differ from the previous frame less than specified value. If two pass mode is
used, then negative value can be used to make the filter analyze the whole video in the beginning of pass-2 to determine
whether it needs deghosting or not and then select either zero or the absolute value of the parameter. Specify this option
for pass-2, it makes no difference on pass-1.
phase[=t|b|p|a|u|T|B|A|U][:v]
Delay interlaced video by one field time so that the field order changes. The intended use is to fix PAL movies that have been cap-
tured with the opposite field order to the film-to-video transfer. The options are:
t Capture field order top-first, transfer bottom-first. Filter will delay the bottom field.
b Capture bottom-first, transfer top-first. Filter will delay the top field.
p Capture and transfer with the same field order. This mode only exists for the documentation of the other options to refer
to, but if you actually select it, the filter will faithfully do nothing ;-)
a Capture field order determined automatically by field flags, transfer opposite. Filter selects among t and b modes on a
frame by frame basis using field flags. If no field information is available, then this works just like u.
u Capture unknown or varying, transfer opposite. Filter selects among t and b on a frame by frame basis by analyzing the im-
ages and selecting the alternative that produces best match between the fields.
T Capture top-first, transfer unknown or varying. Filter selects among t and p using image analysis.
B Capture bottom-first, transfer unknown or varying. Filter selects among b and p using image analysis.
A Capture determined by field flags, transfer unknown or varying. Filter selects among t, b and p using field flags and image
analysis. If no field information is available, then this works just like U. This is the default mode.
U Both capture and transfer unknown or varying. Filter selects among t, b and p using image analysis only.
v Verbose operation. Prints the selected mode for each frame and the average squared difference between fields for t, b, and
p alternatives.
telecine[=start]
Apply 3:2 'telecine' process to increase framerate by 20%. This most likely will not work correctly with MPlayer. The optional
start parameter tells the filter where in the telecine pattern to start (0-3).
tinterlace[=mode]
Temporal field interlacing - merge pairs of frames into an interlaced frame, halving the framerate. Even frames are moved into the
upper field, odd frames to the lower field. This can be used to fully reverse the effect of the tfields filter (in mode 0). Avail-
able modes are:
0 Move odd frames into the upper field, even into the lower field, generating a full-height frame at half framerate.
1 Only output odd frames, even frames are dropped; height unchanged.
2 Only output even frames, odd frames are dropped; height unchanged.
3 Expand each frame to full height, but pad alternate lines with black; framerate unchanged.
4 Interleave even lines from even frames with odd lines from odd frames. Height unchanged at half framerate.
tfields[=mode[:field_dominance]]
Temporal field separation - split fields into frames, doubling the output framerate.
<mode>
0: Leave fields unchanged (will jump/flicker).
1: Interpolate missing lines. (The algorithm used might not be so good.)
2: Translate fields by 1/4 pixel with linear interpolation (no jump).
4: Translate fields by 1/4 pixel with 4tap filter (higher quality) (default).
<field_dominance> (DEPRECATED)
-1: auto (default) Only works if the decoder exports the appropriate information and no other filters which discard that in-
formation come before tfields in the filter chain, otherwise it falls back to 0 (top field first).
0: top field first
1: bottom field first
NOTE: This option will possibly be removed in a future version. Use -field-dominance instead.
yadif=[mode[:field_dominance]]
Yet another deinterlacing filter
<mode>
0: Output 1 frame for each frame.
1: Output 1 frame for each field.
2: Like 0 but skips spatial interlacing check.
3: Like 1 but skips spatial interlacing check.
<field_dominance> (DEPRECATED)
Operates like tfields.
NOTE: This option will possibly be removed in a future version. Use -field-dominance instead.
mcdeint=[mode[:parity[:qp]]]
Motion compensating deinterlacer. It needs one field per frame as input and must thus be used together with tfields=1 or yadif=1/3
or equivalent.
<mode>
0: fast
1: medium
2: slow, iterative motion estimation
3: extra slow, like 2 plus multiple reference frames
<parity>
0 or 1 selects which field to use (note: no autodetection yet!).
<qp>
Higher values should result in a smoother motion vector field but less optimal individual vectors.
boxblur=radius:power[:radius:power]
box blur
<radius>
blur filter strength
<power>
number of filter applications
sab=radius:pf:colorDiff[:radius:pf:colorDiff]
shape adaptive blur
<radius>
blur filter strength (~0.1-4.0) (slower if larger)
<pf>
prefilter strength (~0.1-2.0)
<colorDiff>
maximum difference between pixels to still be considered (~0.1-100.0)
smartblur=radius:strength:threshold[:radius:strength:threshold]
smart blur
<radius>
blur filter strength (~0.1-5.0) (slower if larger)
<strength>
blur (0.0-1.0) or sharpen (-1.0-0.0)
<threshold>
filter all (0), filter flat areas (0-30) or filter edges (-30-0)
perspective=x0:y0:x1:y1:x2:y2:x3:y3:t
Correct the perspective of movies not filmed perpendicular to the screen.
<x0>,<y0>,...
coordinates of the top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right corners
<t>
linear (0) or cubic resampling (1)
2xsai
Scale and smooth the image with the 2x scale and interpolate algorithm.
1bpp
1bpp bitmap to YUV/BGR 8/15/16/32 conversion
down3dright[=lines]
Reposition and resize stereoscopic images. Extracts both stereo fields and places them side by side, resizing them to maintain the
original movie aspect.
<lines>
number of lines to select from the middle of the image (default: 12)
bmovl=hidden:opaque:fifo
The bitmap overlay filter reads bitmaps from a FIFO and displays them on top of the movie, allowing some transformations on the im-
age. Also see TOOLS/bmovl-test.c for a small bmovl test program.
<hidden>
Set the default value of the 'hidden' flag (0=visible, 1=hidden).
<opaque>
Set the default value of the 'opaque' flag (0=transparent, 1=opaque).
<fifo>
path/filename for the FIFO (named pipe connecting 'mplayer -vf bmovl' to the controlling application)
FIFO commands are:
RGBA32 width height xpos ypos alpha clear
followed by width*height*4 Bytes of raw RGBA32 data.
ABGR32 width height xpos ypos alpha clear
followed by width*height*4 Bytes of raw ABGR32 data.
RGB24 width height xpos ypos alpha clear
followed by width*height*3 Bytes of raw RGB24 data.
BGR24 width height xpos ypos alpha clear
followed by width*height*3 Bytes of raw BGR24 data.
ALPHA width height xpos ypos alpha
Change alpha transparency of the specified area.
CLEAR width height xpos ypos
Clear area.
OPAQUE
Disable all alpha transparency. Send "ALPHA 0 0 0 0 0" to enable it again.
HIDE
Hide bitmap.
SHOW
Show bitmap.
Arguments are:
<width>, <height>
image/area size
<xpos>, <ypos>
Start blitting at position x/y.
<alpha>
Set alpha difference. If you set this to -255 you can then send a sequence of ALPHA-commands to set the area to -225, -200,
-175 etc for a nice fade-in-effect! ;)
0: same as original
255: Make everything opaque.
-255: Make everything transparent.
<clear>
Clear the framebuffer before blitting.
0: The image will just be blitted on top of the old one, so you do not need to send 1.8MB of RGBA32 data every time a
small part of the screen is updated.
1: clear
framestep=I|[i]step
Renders only every nth frame or every intra frame (keyframe).
If you call the filter with I (uppercase) as the parameter, then only keyframes are rendered. For DVDs it generally means one in
every 15/12 frames (IBBPBBPBBPBBPBB), for AVI it means every scene change or every keyint value.
When a keyframe is found, an 'I!' string followed by a newline character is printed, leaving the current line of MPlayer output on
the screen, because it contains the time (in seconds) and frame number of the keyframe (You can use this information to split the
AVI.).
If you call the filter with a numeric parameter 'step' then only one in every 'step' frames is rendered.
If you put an 'i' (lowercase) before the number then an 'I!' is printed (like the I parameter).
If you give only the i then nothing is done to the frames, only I! is printed.
tile=xtiles:ytiles:output:start:delta
Tile a series of images into a single, bigger image. If you omit a parameter or use a value less than 0, then the default value is
used. You can also stop when you are satisfied (... -vf tile=10:5 ...). It is probably a good idea to put the scale filter before
the tile :-)
The parameters are:
<xtiles>
number of tiles on the x axis (default: 5)
<ytiles>
number of tiles on the y axis (default: 5)
<output>
Render the tile when 'output' number of frames are reached, where 'output' should be a number less than xtile * ytile.
Missing tiles are left blank. You could, for example, write an 8 * 7 tile every 50 frames to have one image every 2 seconds
@ 25 fps.
<start>
outer border thickness in pixels (default: 2)
<delta>
inner border thickness in pixels (default: 4)
delogo[=x:y:w:h:t]
Suppresses a TV station logo by a simple interpolation of the surrounding pixels. Just set a rectangle covering the logo and watch
it disappear (and sometimes something even uglier appear - your mileage may vary).
<x>,<y>
top left corner of the logo
<w>,<h>
width and height of the cleared rectangle
<t> Thickness of the fuzzy edge of the rectangle (added to w and h). When set to -1, a green rectangle is drawn on the screen
to simplify finding the right x,y,w,h parameters.
file=<file>
You can specify a text file to load the coordinates from. Each line must have a timestamp (in seconds, and in ascending or-
der) and the "x:y:w:h:t" coordinates (t can be omitted).
remove-logo=/path/to/logo_bitmap_file_name.pgm
Suppresses a TV station logo, using a PGM or PPM image file to determine which pixels comprise the logo. The width and height of
the image file must match those of the video stream being processed. Uses the filter image and a circular blur algorithm to remove
the logo.
/path/to/logo_bitmap_file_name.pgm
[path] + filename of the filter image.
screenshot
Allows acquiring screenshots of the movie using slave mode commands that can be bound to keypresses. See the slave mode documenta-
tion and the INTERACTIVE CONTROL section for details. Files named 'shotNNNN.png' will be saved in the working directory, using the
first available number - no files will be overwritten. The filter has no overhead when not used and accepts an arbitrary col-
orspace, so it is safe to add it to the configuration file. Make sure that the screenshot filter is added after all other filters
whose effect you want to record on the saved image. E.g. it should be the last filter if you want to have an exact screenshot of
what you see on the monitor.
ass
Moves SSA/ASS subtitle rendering to an arbitrary point in the filter chain. Only useful with the -ass option.
EXAMPLE:
-vf ass,screenshot
Moves SSA/ASS rendering before the screenshot filter. Screenshots taken this way will contain subtitles.
blackframe[=amount:threshold]
Detect frames that are (almost) completely black. Can be useful to detect chapter transitions or commercials. Output lines consist
of the frame number of the detected frame, the percentage of blackness, the frame type and the frame number of the last encountered
keyframe.
<amount>
Percentage of the pixels that have to be below the threshold (default: 98).
<threshold>
Threshold below which a pixel value is considered black (default: 32).
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)
abl 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)
NOTE: To use either of the interleaved-rows output formats to display full-screen on a row-interleaved 3D display, you will need
to scale the video to the correct height first using the "scale" filter, if it is not already the right height. Typically, that
is 1080 rows (so use e.g. "-vf scale=1440:1080,stereo3d=sbsl:irl" for a 720p side-by-side encoded movie).
gradfun[=strength[:radius]]
Fix the banding artifacts that are sometimes introduced into nearly flat regions by truncation to 8bit colordepth. Interpolates the
gradients that should go where the bands are, and dithers them.
This filter is designed for playback only. Do not use it prior to lossy compression, because compression tends to lose the dither
and bring back the bands.
<strength>
Maximum amount by which the filter will change any one pixel. Also the threshold for detecting nearly flat regions (de-
fault: 1.2).
<radius>
Neighborhood to fit the gradient to. Larger radius makes for smoother gradients, but also prevents the filter from modify-
ing pixels near detailed regions (default: 16).
fixpts[=options]
Fixes the presentation timestamps (PTS) of the frames. By default, the PTS passed to the next filter is dropped, but the following
options can change that:
print
Print the incoming PTS.
fps=<fps>
Specify a frame per second value.
start=<pts>
Specify an initial value for the PTS.
autostart=<n>
Uses the nth incoming PTS as the initial PTS. All previous PTS are kept, so setting a huge value or -1 keeps the PTS in-
tact.
autofps=<n>
Uses the nth incoming PTS after the end of autostart to determine the framerate.
EXAMPLE:
-vf fixpts=fps=24000/1001,ass,fixpts
Generates a new sequence of PTS, uses it for ASS subtitles, then drops it. Generating a new sequence is useful when the
timestamps are reset during the program; this is frequent on DVDs. Dropping it may be necessary to avoid confusing en-
coders.
NOTE: Using this filter together with any sort of seeking (including -ss and EDLs) may make demons fly out of your nose.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
There are a number of environment variables that can be used to control the behavior of MPlayer.
MPLAYER_CHARSET (also see -msgcharset)
Convert console messages to the specified charset (default: autodetect). A value of "noconv" means no conversion.
MPLAYER_HOME
Directory where MPlayer looks for user settings.
MPLAYER_LOCALEDIR
Directory where MPlayer looks for gettext translation files (if enabled).
MPLAYER_VERBOSE (also see -v and -msglevel)
Set the initial verbosity level across all message modules (default: 0). The resulting verbosity corresponds to that of -msglevel 5
plus the value of MPLAYER_VERBOSE.
libaf:
LADSPA_PATH
If LADSPA_PATH is set, it searches for the specified file. If it is not set, you must supply a fully specified pathname. FIXME:
This is also mentioned in the ladspa section.
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 DVDC-
SS_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 "C:Docu-
ments and Settings$USERApplication Datadvdcss" under Win32. 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 and 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 in 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.
libao2:
AO_SUN_DISABLE_SAMPLE_TIMING
FIXME: Document this.
AUDIODEV
FIXME: Document this.
AUDIOSERVER
Specifies the Network Audio System server to which the nas audio output driver should connect and the transport that should be used.
If unset DISPLAY is used instead. The transport can be one of tcp and unix. Syntax is tcp/<somehost>:<someport>, <somehost>:<in-
stancenumber> or [unix]:<instancenumber>. The NAS base port is 8000 and <instancenumber> is added to that.
EXAMPLES:
AUDIOSERVER=somehost:0
Connect to NAS server on somehost using default port and transport.
AUDIOSERVER=tcp/somehost:8000
Connect to NAS server on somehost listening on TCP port 8000.
AUDIOSERVER=(unix)?:0
Connect to NAS server instance 0 on localhost using unix domain sockets.
DISPLAY
FIXME: Document this.
osdep:
TERM FIXME: Document this.
libvo:
DISPLAY
FIXME: Document this.
FRAMEBUFFER
FIXME: Document this.
HOME FIXME: Document this.
libmpdemux:
HOME FIXME: Document this.
HOMEPATH
FIXME: Document this.
http_proxy
FIXME: Document this.
LOGNAME
FIXME: Document this.
USERPROFILE
FIXME: Document this.
GUI:
CHARSET
FIXME: Document this.
DISPLAY
FIXME: Document this.
HOME FIXME: Document this.
libavformat:
AUDIO_FLIP_LEFT
FIXME: Document this.
BKTR_DEV
FIXME: Document this.
BKTR_FORMAT
FIXME: Document this.
BKTR_FREQUENCY
FIXME: Document this.
http_proxy
FIXME: Document this.
no_proxy
FIXME: Document this.
FILES
/usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
MPlayer system-wide settings
~/.mplayer/config
MPlayer user settings
~/.mplayer/input.conf
input bindings (see '-input keylist' for the full list)
~/.mplayer/font/
font directory (There must be a font.desc file and files with .RAW extension.)
~/.mplayer/DVDkeys/
cached CSS keys
EXAMPLES OF MPLAYER USAGE
Quickstart Blu-ray playing:
mplayer br:////path/to/disc
mplayer br:// -bluray-device /path/to/disc
Quickstart DVD playing:
mplayer dvd://1
Play in Japanese with English subtitles:
mplayer dvd://1 -alang ja -slang en
Play only chapters 5, 6, 7:
mplayer dvd://1 -chapter 5-7
Play only titles 5, 6, 7:
mplayer dvd://5-7
Play a multiangle DVD:
mplayer dvd://1 -dvdangle 2
Play from a different DVD device:
mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /dev/dvd2
Play DVD video from a directory with VOB files:
mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /path/to/directory/
Copy a DVD title to hard disk, saving to file title1.vob :
mplayer dvd://1 -dumpstream -dumpfile title1.vob
Play a DVD with dvdnav from path /dev/sr1:
mplayer dvdnav:////dev/sr1
Stream from HTTP:
mplayer http://mplayer.hq/example.avi
Stream using RTSP:
mplayer rtsp://server.example.com/streamName
Convert subtitles to MPsub format:
mplayer dummy.avi -sub source.sub -dumpmpsub
Convert subtitles to MPsub format without watching the movie:
mplayer /dev/zero -rawvideo pal:fps=xx -demuxer rawvideo -vc null -vo null -noframedrop -benchmark -sub source.sub -dumpmpsub
input from standard V4L:
mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l:width=640:height=480:outfmt=i420 -vc rawi420 -vo xv
Play DTS-CD with passthrough:
mplayer -ac hwdts -rawaudio format=0x2001 -cdrom-device /dev/cdrom cdda://
You can also use -afm hwac3 instead of -ac hwdts. Adjust '/dev/cdrom' to match the CD-ROM device on your system. If your external receiv-
er supports decoding raw DTS streams, you can directly play it via cdda:// without setting format, hwac3 or hwdts.
Play a 6-channel AAC file with only two speakers:
mplayer -rawaudio format=0xff -demuxer rawaudio -af pan=2:.32:.32:.39:.06:.06:.39:.17:-.17:-.17:.17:.33:.33 adts_he-aac160_51.aac
You might want to play a bit with the pan values (e.g multiply with a value) to increase volume or avoid clipping.
checkerboard invert with geq filter:
mplayer -vf geq='128+(p(X,Y)-128)*(0.5-gt(mod(X/SW,128),64))*(0.5-gt(mod(Y/SH,128),64))*4'
AUTHORS
MPlayer was initially written by Arpad Gereoffy. See the AUTHORS file for a list of some of the many other contributors.
MPlayer is (C) 2000-2011 The MPlayer Team
This man page was written mainly by Gabucino, Jonas Jermann and Diego Biurrun.
The MPlayer Project 2009-03-25 MPlayer(1)