gmplayer; man page
Man Pages Index
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 [dvd|dvdnav]://[title|[start_title]-end_title] [options]
mplayer vcd://track[/device]
mplayer tv://[channel] [options]
mplayer radio://[channel|frequency][/capture] [options]
mplayer pvr:// [options]
mplayer dvb://[card_number@]channel [options]
mplayer mf://filemask [-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]://
[user:pass@]URL[:port] [options]
mplayer sdp://file [options]
mplayer mpst://host[:port]/URL [options]
mplayer tivo://host/[list|llist|fsid] [options]
gmplayer [options] [-skin skin]
mencoder [options] file [file|URL|-] [-o file]
mencoder [options] file1 [specific options] [file2] [specific 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 Video CD, SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, DivX 3/4/5 and even
WMV 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 without
X11), some low-level card-specific drivers (for Matrox, 3dfx and ATI)
and some hardware MPEG decoder boards, such as the Siemens DVB, Haup‐
pauge PVR (IVTV), DXR2 and DXR3/Hollywood+. Most of them support soft‐
ware 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 controls.
European/ISO8859-1,2 (Hungarian, English, Czech, etc), Cyrillic and Ko‐
rean fonts are supported along with 12 subtitle formats (MicroDVD, Sub‐
Rip, OGM, SubViewer, Sami, VPlayer, RT, SSA, AQTitle, JACOsub, PJS and
our own: MPsub) and DVD subtitles (SPU streams, VOBsub and Closed Cap‐
tions).
mencoder (MPlayer’s Movie Encoder) is a simple movie encoder, designed
to encode MPlayer-playable movies (see above) to other MPlayer-playable
formats (see below). It encodes to MPEG-4 (DivX/XviD), one of the
libavcodec codecs and PCM/MP3/VBRMP3 audio in 1, 2 or 3 passes. Fur‐
allows you to control MPlayer using keyboard, mouse, joystick or remote
control (with LIRC). See the -input option for ways to customize it.
keyboard control
<- and ->
Seek backward/forward 10 seconds.
up and down
Seek forward/backward 1 minute.
pgup and pgdown
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 con‐
secutive press will play one frame and then go into pause
mode again (any other key unpauses).
q / ESC
Stop playing and quit.
+ and -
Adjust audio delay by +/- 0.1 seconds.
/ and *
Decrease/increase volume.
9 and 0
Decrease/increase volume.
m
Mute sound.
# (MPEG and Matroska only)
Cycle through the available audio tracks.
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
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.
! and @
Seek to the beginning of the previous/next chapter.
(The following keys are valid only when using a hardware accel‐
erated video output (xv, (x)vidix, (x)mga, etc), 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 ma‐
cosx 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 out‐
put driver.)
c
Cycle through available fullscreen modes.
n
Restore original mode.
(The following keys are valid if you have a keyboard with multi‐
media keys.)
l
Load file.
t
Load subtitle.
c
Open skin browser.
p
Open playlist.
r
Open preferences.
(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: chap‐
ter->title->root).
keypad ENTER
Confirm choice.
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
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 exter‐
nal 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/MEncoder 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 ’~/.mplay‐
er/config’. The configuration file for MEncoder is ’mencoder.conf’ in
your configuration directory (e.g. /etc/mplayer or /usr/local/etc/
mplayer), the user specific one is ’~/.mplayer/mencoder.conf. User
specific options override system-wide options and options given on the
command line override either. The syntax of the configuration files is
’option=<value>’, everything after a ’#’ is considered a comment. Op‐
tions that work without values can be enabled by setting 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 con‐
fig file).
EXAMPLE MPLAYER CONFIGURATION FILE:
# Use Matrox driver by default.
vo=xmga
# I love practicing handstands while watching videos.
flip=yes
# Decode/encode multiple files from PNG,
# start with mf://filemask
mf=type=png:fps=25
# Eerie negative images are cool.
vf=eq2=1.0:-0.8
EXAMPLE MENCODER CONFIGURATION FILE:
# Make MEncoder output to a default filename.
o=encoded.avi
subfont-text-scale=4
subalign=2
subpos=96
spuaa=20
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 de‐
fined with the profile-desc option. To end the profile, start another
one or use the profile name ’default’ to continue with normal options.
EXAMPLE MENCODER PROFILE:
[mpeg4]
profile-desc="MPEG4 encoding"
ovc=lacv=yes
lavcopts=vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1200
[mpeg4-hq]
profile-desc="HQ MPEG4 encoding"
profile=mpeg4
lavcopts=mbd=2:trell=yes:v4mv=yes
GENERAL OPTIONS
-codecs-file <filename> (also see -afm, -ac, -vfm, -vc)
Override the standard search path and use the specified file in‐
stead 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 (de‐
fault: 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.
-msglevel <all=<level>:<module>=<level>:...>
Control verbosity directly for each module. The ’all’ module
changes the verbosity of all the modules not explicitly speci‐
fied on the command line. See ’-msglevel help’ for a list of
all modules.
NOTE: Messages printed before the command line is parsed can be
-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
displayed. Particularly useful on slow terminals or broken ones
which do not properly handle carriage return (i.e. \r).
-priority <prio> (Windows only)
Set process priority for MPlayer according to the predefined
priorities available under Windows. Possible values of <prio>:
idle|belownormal|normal|abovenormal|high|realtime
WARNING: Using realtime priority can cause system lockup.
-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 directo‐
ry 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 (MPLAYER ONLY)
-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
maximum 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 measure‐
ments. Specifying -autosync 0, the default, will cause frame
timing to be based entirely on audio delay measurements. Speci‐
fying -autosync 1 will do the same, but will subtly change the
A/V correction algorithm. An uneven video framerate in a 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
is black and 0xffffff is white. Only supported by the cvidix,
fbdev, svga, vesa, winvidix, xmga, xvidix, xover, xv (see -vo
xv:ck), xvmc (see -vo xv:ck) and directx video output drivers.
-nocolorkey
Disables colorkeying. Only supported by the cvidix, fbdev, sv‐
ga, vesa, winvidix, xmga, xvidix, xover, xv (see -vo xv:ck),
xvmc (see -vo xv:ck) and directx video output drivers.
-crash-debug (DEBUG CODE)
Automatically attaches gdb upon crash or SIGTRAP. Support must
be compiled in by configuring with --enable-crash-debug.
-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.mplay‐
erhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html for details.
-enqueue (GUI only)
Enqueue files given on the command line in the playlist instead
of playing them immediately.
-fixed-vo
Enforces a fixed video system for multiple files (one (un)ini‐
tialization for all files). Therefore only one window will be
opened for all files. Currently the following drivers are
fixed-vo compliant: gl, gl2, mga, svga, x11, xmga, xv, xvidix
and dfbmga.
-framedrop (also see -hardframedrop)
Skip displaying some frames to maintain A/V sync on slow sys‐
tems. Video filters are not applied to such frames. For B-
frames even decoding is skipped completely.
-(no)gui
Enable or disable the GUI interface (default depends on binary
name). Only works as the first argument on the command line.
Does not work as a config-file option.
-h, -help, --help
Show short summary of options.
-hardframedrop
More intense frame dropping (breaks decoding). Leads to image
distortion!
-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
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-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 autore‐
peat.
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/in‐
put/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:
10). A FIFO of size n can buffer (n-1) events. If it is too
small some events may be lost (leading to "stuck mouse buttons"
and similar effects). If it is too big, MPlayer may seem to
hang while it processes the buffered events. To get the same
behavior as before this option was introduced, set it to 2 for
Linux or 1024 for Windows.
-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.
cally 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.
-nojoystick
Turns off joystick support.
-nolirc
Turns off LIRC support.
-nomouseinput (X11 only)
Disable mouse button press/release input (mozplayerxp’s context
menu relies on this option).
-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 sec‐
onds to check the current time. Useless with modern Linux ker‐
nels configured for desktop use as they already wake up the pro‐
cess with similar accuracy when using normal timed sleep.
-playing-msg <string>
Print out a string before starting playback. The following ex‐
pansions are supported:
${NAME}
Expand to the value of the property NAME.
$(NAME:TEXT)
Expand TEXT only if the property NAME is available.
-playlist <filename>
Play files according to a playlist file (ASX, Winamp, SMIL, or
one-file-per-line format).
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.
-skin <name> (GUI only)
Loads a skin from the directory given as parameter below the de‐
fault skin directories, /usr/local/share/mplayer/skins/ and
~/.mplayer/skins/.
EXAMPLE:
ful 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 only seek to the next keyframe this may be inexact.
DEMUXER/STREAM OPTIONS
-a52drc <level>
Select the Dynamic Range Compression level for AC3 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).
This option only shows an effect if the AC3 stream contains the
required range compression information.
-aid <ID> (also see -alang)
Select audio channel (MPEG: 0-31, AVI/OGM: 1-99, ASF/RM: 0-127,
VOB(AC3): 128-159, VOB(LPCM): 160-191, MPEG-TS 17-8190). MPlay‐
er prints the available audio IDs when run in verbose (-v) mode.
When playing an MPEG-TS stream, MPlayer/MEncoder will use the
first program (if present) with the chosen audio stream.
-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 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. For backward compati‐
bility it also accepts the demuxer ID as defined in libmpdemux/
demuxer.h. -audio-demuxer audio or -audio-demuxer 17 forces
MP3.
-audiofile <filename>
Play audio from an external file (WAV, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis) while
viewing a movie.
-audiofile-cache <kBytes>
-nocache
Turns off caching.
-cache-min <percentage>
Playback will start when the cache has been filled up to <per‐
centage> 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).
-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 address‐
ing tracks. May be negative.
(no)skip
(Never) accept imperfect data reconstruction.
round) and audio output drivers (OSS at least).
Available options are:
2 stereo
4 surround
6 full 5.1
-chapter <chapter ID>[-<endchapter ID>] (DVD only)
Specify which chapter to start playing at. Optionally specify
which chapter to end playing at (default: 1).
-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 assumed to be in Netscape format.
-delay <sec>
audio delay in seconds (positive or negative float value)
NOTE: When used with MEncoder, this is not guaranteed to work
correctly with -ovc copy; use -audio-delay instead.
-ignore-start
Ignore the specified starting time for streams in AVI files. In
MPlayer, this nullifies stream delays in files encoded with the
-audio-delay option. During encoding, this option prevents MEn‐
coder from transferring original stream start times to the new
file; the -audio-delay option is not affected. Note that MEn‐
coder sometimes adjusts stream starting times automatically to
compensate for anticipated decoding delays, so don’t use this
option for encoding without testing it first.
-demuxer <[+]name>
Force demuxer type. Use a ’+’ before the name to force it, this
will skip some checks! Give the demuxer name as printed by -de‐
muxer help. For backward compatibility it also accepts the de‐
muxer ID as defined in libmpdemux/demuxer.h. -demuxer audio or
-demuxer 17 forces MP3.
-dumpaudio (MPlayer only)
Dumps raw compressed audio stream to ./stream.dump (useful with
MPEG/AC3). If you give more than one of -dumpaudio, -dumpvideo,
-dumpstream on the command line only the last one will work.
-dumpfile <filename> (MPlayer only)
Specify which file MPlayer should dump to. Should be used to‐
gether with -dumpaudio / -dumpvideo / -dumpstream.
-dumpstream (MPlayer only)
card=<1-4>
Specifies using card number 1-4 (default: 1).
file=<filename>
Instructs MPlayer to read the channels list from <file‐
name>. Default is ~/.mplayer/chan‐
nels.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 (default: /dev/dvd). You can also speci‐
fy a directory that contains files previously copied directly
from a DVD (with e.g. vobcopy). Note that using -dumpstream is
usually a better way to copy DVD titles in the first place (see
the examples).
-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 accord‐
ing to the entries in the given file. See http://www.mplayer‐
hq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html for details on how to use this.
-endpos <[[hh:]mm:]ss[.ms]|size[b|kb|mb]> (also see -ss and -sb)
Stop at given time or byte position.
NOTE: Byte position is enabled only for MEncoder and will not be
accurate, as it can only stop at a frame boundary. 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.
-endpos 100mb
Encode only 100 MB.
-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. You can fix the index permanently with MEn‐
coder (see the documentation).
NOTE: This option only works if the underlying media supports
-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).
-ipv4-only-proxy (network only)
Skip the proxy for IPv6 addresses. It will still be used for
IPv4 connections.
-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 pre‐
vent 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 sup‐
port.
-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 exten‐
sion is used to select the demuxer. Always falls back on con‐
tent-based demuxer selection.
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/MEncoder,
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, avail‐
able: 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’ (de‐
fault: 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
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 -de‐
muxer 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
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.
-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
forward 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 connec‐
tion 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 only)
Used with ’rtsp://’ URLs to specify that the resulting incoming
RTP and RTCP packets be streamed over TCP (using the same TCP
connection as RTSP). This option may be useful if you have a
broken internet connection that does not pass incoming UDP pack‐
Not guaranteed to work correctly with -oac copy.
-srate <Hz>
Selects the output sample rate to be used (of course sound cards
have limits on this). If the sample frequency selected is dif‐
ferent from that of the current media, the resample or lavcre‐
sample 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 resam‐
pling 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 de‐
sired 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.
-radio <option1:option2:...> (radio only)
These options set various parameters of the radio capture mod‐
ule. For listening to radio with MPlayer use ’radio://<frequen‐
cy>’ (if channels option is not given) or ’radio://<channel_num‐
ber>’ (if channels option is given) as a movie URL. To start
the grabbing subsystem, use ’radio://<frequency or channel>/cap‐
ture’. 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).
driver=<value>
Radio driver to use (default: v4l2 if available, other‐
adevice=<value>
Name of device to capture sound from. Without such a
name capture will be disabled, even if the capture key‐
word 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>
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>
Number of audio channels to capture.
-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_num‐
ber>’ or even ’tv://<channel_name> (see option channels for
channel_name below) as a movie URL.
Available options are:
noaudio
no sound
driver=<value>
available: dummy, v4l, v4l2, bsdbt848
device=<value>
Specify TV device (default: /dev/video0).
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>
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: europe-east, europe-west, us-bcast, us-cable,
etc
channels=<channel>-<name>,<channel>-<name>,...
Set names for channels. Use _ for spaces in names (or
play with quoting ;-). The channel names will then be
written using OSD, and the slave commands tv_step_chan‐
nel, 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 audio capture bitrate.
forceaudio
Capture audio even if there are no audio sources report‐
ed 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 de‐
termined 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
[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 val‐
ue of the control, as reported by the driver.
immediatemode=<bool>
A value of 0 means capture and buffer audio and video
together (default for MEncoder). A value of 1 (default
for MPlayer) 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 decima‐
tion 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 recom‐
mended for full size).
-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/MEncoder will use the
first program (if present) with the chosen video stream.
-vivo <sub-options> (DEBUG CODE)
Force audio parameters for the VIVO demuxer (for debugging pur‐
poses).
Adds a black band at the bottom of the frame. The SSA/ASS ren‐
derer can place subtitles there (with -ass-use-margins).
-ass-color <value>
Sets the color for text subtitles. The color format is RRGGB‐
BAA.
-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 parameters.
EXAMPLE:
-ass-force-style FontName=Arial,Default.Bold=1
-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).
-(no)ass-use-margins
Enables/disables placing toptitles and subtitles in black bor‐
ders when they are available (default: no).
-dumpjacosub (MPlayer only)
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 (MPlayer only)
Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to
the MicroDVD subtitle format. Creates a dumpsub.sub file in the
current directory.
-dumpmpsub (MPlayer only)
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 (MPlayer only)
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.
-embeddedfonts (FreeType only)
Enables extraction of Matroska embedded fonts. These fonts can
be used for SSA/ASS subtitle rendering (-ass option).
-ffactor <number> (OSD only)
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> (OSD only)
Search for the OSD/SUB fonts in an alternative directory (de‐
fault 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 fontcon‐
fig font name.
EXAMPLE:
-font ~/.mplayer/arial-14/font.desc
-font ~/.mplayer/arialuni.ttf
-font ’Bitstream Vera Sans’
-fontconfig (fontconfig only)
Enables the usage of fontconfig managed fonts.
-forcedsubsonly
Display only forced subtitles for the DVD subtitle stream se‐
lected 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>
-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.
-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> (OSD only)
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> (OSD only)
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> (OSD only)
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 dis‐
played at the same time.
-sub-bg-alpha <0-255>
Specify the alpha channel value for subtitles and OSD back‐
grounds. Big values mean more transparency. 0 means completely
transparent.
0 exact match
1 Load all subs containing movie name.
2 Load all subs in the current directory.
-sub-no-text-pp
Disables any kind of text post processing done after loading the
subtitles. Used for debug purposes.
-subalign <0-2> (OSD only)
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
Display DVD Closed Caption (CC) subtitles. These are not the
VOB subtitles, these are special ASCII subtitles 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 re‐
gions 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, en‐
ter anything and watch mplayer -v output for available lan‐
guages. 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.
-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-autoscale <0-3> (FreeType only)
-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
(default: 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: Only for frame-based subtitle files, i.e. MicroDVD format.
-subpos <0-100> (useful with -vf expand) (OSD only)
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> (OSD only)
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 (de‐
fault: ^[[A\r^[[K).
-unicode
Tells MPlayer to handle the subtitle file as unicode.
-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.
This option will tell MPlayer to use a different channel for
controlling volume than the default PCM. Options for OSS in‐
clude 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 maxi‐
mum of double the current level. With values below 100 the ini‐
tial 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).
AUDIO OUTPUT DRIVERS (MPLAYER ONLY)
Audio output drivers are interfaces to different audio output facili‐
ties. 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 omit‐
ted.
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
Sets the audio mixer channel (default: pcm).
sdl (SDL only)
highly platform independent SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) li‐
brary 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: local‐
host).
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 connec‐
tions established automatically.
(no)estimate
Estimate the audio delay, supposed to make the video
playback smoother (default: enabled).
nas
audio output through NAS
macosx (Mac OS X only)
native Mac OS X audio output driver
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
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.
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: in‐
cluded). When not included, raw PCM will be generated.
file=<filename>
Write the sound to <filename> instead of the default au‐
diodump.wav. If nowaveheader is specified, the default
is audiodump.pcm.
fast
Try to dump faster than realtime. Make sure the output
does not get truncated (usually with "Too many video
packets in buffer" message). It is normal that you get
a "Your system is too SLOW to play this!" message.
plugin
plugin audio output driver
VIDEO OUTPUT OPTIONS (MPLAYER ONLY)
-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.
Currently 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. Supported by the directx video output driver.
-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 sup‐
ported by all video output drivers.
This option is used to control the dxr2 video output driver.
ar-mode=<value>
aspect ratio mode (0 = normal, 1 = pan-and-scan, 2 =
letterbox (default))
iec958-encoded
Set iec958 output mode to encoded.
iec958-decoded
Set iec958 output mode to decoded (default).
macrovision=<value>
macrovision mode (0 = off (default), 1 = agc, 2 = agc 2
colorstripe, 3 = agc 4 colorstripe)
mute
mute sound output
unmute
unmute sound output
ucode=<value>
path to the microcode
TV output
75ire
enable 7.5 IRE output mode
no75ire
disable 7.5 IRE output mode (default)
bw
b/w TV output
color
color TV output (default)
interlaced
interlaced TV output (default)
nointerlaced
disable interlaced TV output
norm=<value>
TV norm (ntsc (default), pal, pal60, palm, paln, palnc)
square-pixel
set pixel mode to square
ccir601-pixel
Set the bottom cropping value (default: 0).
ck-[r|g|b]=<0-255>
Set the r(ed), g(reen) or b(lue) gain of the overlay
color-key.
ck-[r|g|b]min=<0-255>
minimum value for the respective color key
ck-[r|g|b]max=<0-255>
maximum value for the respective color key
ignore-cache
Ignore cached overlay settings.
update-cache
Update cached overlay settings.
ol-osd
Enable overlay onscreen display.
nool-osd
Disable overlay onscreen display (default).
ol[h|w|x|y]-cor=<-20-20>
Adjust the overlay size (h,w) and position (x,y) in case
it does not match the window perfectly (default: 0).
overlay
Activate overlay (default).
nooverlay
Activate TVout.
overlay-ratio=<1-2500>
Tune the overlay (default: 1000).
-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).
-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.
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
Do not set fullscreen window layer.
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.
-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
into a percentage of the screen size in that direction. It also
supports the standard X11 -geometry option format. If an exter‐
nal window is specified using the -wid option, then the x and y
coordinates are relative to the top-left corner of the window
rather than the screen.
NOTE: This option is only supported by the x11, xmga, xv, xvmc,
xvidix, gl, gl2, directx and tdfxfb video output 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.
-guiwid <window ID> (also see -wid) (GUI only)
This tells the GUI to also use an X11 window and stick itself to
the bottom of the video, which is useful to embed a mini-GUI in
a browser (with the MPlayer plugin for instance).
-hue <-100-100>
Adjust the hue of the video signal (default: 0). You can get a
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: disabled). Overrides the -monitoraspect setting. A
value of 0 disables, a value of 1 means square pixels (correct
for (almost?) all LCDs).
-nodouble
Disables double buffering, mostly for debugging purposes. Dou‐
ble buffering fixes flicker by storing two frames in memory, and
displaying one while decoding another. It can affect OSD nega‐
tively, 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. Only
works with the x11, xv, xmga, xvidix, directx video output
drivers. Furthermore under X11 your window manager has to honor
window aspect hints.
-ontop
Makes the player window stay on top of other windows. Supported
by video output drivers which use X11, except SDL, as well as
directx, macosx, 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. Only works
with the xv, xmga, mga, gl, gl2, quartz, macosx and xvidix video
output drivers.
-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
feature is experimental. Do not report bugs unless you are us‐
ing -vo gl.
-refreshrate <Hz>
Set the monitor refreshrate in Hz. Currently only supported by
-vo directx combined with the -vm option.
-rootwin
-screenw <pixels>
Specify the horizontal screen resolution for video output
drivers which do not know the screen resolution like fbdev, x11
and TVout.
-stop-xscreensaver (X11 only)
Turns off xscreensaver at startup and turns it on again on exit.
-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
directx 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> (also see -guiwid) (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).
-xineramascreen <-2-...> (X11 only)
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, -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 usu‐
ally only work with "-fstype -fullscreen" or "-fstype none".
-zrbw (-vo zr only)
Display in black and white. For optimal performance, this can
be combined with ’-lavdopts gray’.
-zrcrop <[width]x[height]+[x offset]+[y offset]> (-vo zr only)
Select a part of the input image to display, multiple occur‐
rences of this option switch on cinerama mode. In cinerama mode
the movie is distributed over more than one TV (or beamer) to
create a larger image. Options appearing after the n-th -zrcrop
apply to the n-th MJPEG card, each card should at least have a
-zrdev in addition to the -zrcrop. For examples, see the output
of -zrhelp and the Zr section of the documentation.
-zrdev <device> (-vo zr only)
Specify the device special file that belongs to your MJPEG card,
by default the zr video output driver takes the first v4l device
it can find.
-zrfd (-vo zr only)
Force decimation: Decimation, as specified by -zrhdec and
-zrvdec, only happens if the hardware scaler can stretch the im‐
-zrquality <1-20> (-vo zr only)
A number from 1 (best) to 20 (worst) representing the JPEG en‐
coding quality.
-zrvdec <1|2|4> (-vo zr only)
Vertical decimation: Ask the driver to send only every 2nd or
4th line/pixel of the input image to the MJPEG card and use the
scaler of the MJPEG card to stretch the image to its original
size.
-zrxdoff <x display offset> (-vo zr only)
If the movie is smaller than the TV screen, this option speci‐
fies the x offset from the upper-left corner of the TV screen
(default: centered).
-zrydoff <y display offset> (-vo zr only)
If the movie is smaller than the TV screen, this option speci‐
fies the y offset from the upper-left corner of the TV screen
(default: centered).
VIDEO OUTPUT DRIVERS (MPLAYER ONLY)
Video output drivers are interfaces to different video output facili‐
ties. 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 omit‐
ted.
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 oth‐
ers.
-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 ac‐
celerated playback. If you cannot use a hardware specific driv‐
er, 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.
port=<number>
Select a specific XVideo port.
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.
xvmc (X11 with -vc ffmpeg12mc only)
Video output driver that uses the XvMC (X Video Motion Compensa‐
tion) extension of XFree86 4.x to speed up MPEG-1/2 and VCR2 de‐
coding.
port=<number>
Select a specific XVideo port.
(no)benchmark
Disables image display. Necessary for proper benchmark‐
ing of drivers that change image buffers on monitor re‐
trace only (nVidia). Default is not to disable image
display (nobenchmark).
(no)bobdeint
Very simple deinterlacer. Might not look better than
-vf tfields=1, but it is the only deinterlacer for xvmc
(default: nobobdeint).
(no)queue
Queue frames for display to allow more parallel work of
the video hardware. May add a small (not noticeable)
constant A/V desync (default: noqueue).
(no)sleep
Use sleep function while waiting for rendering to finish
(not recommended on Linux) (default: nosleep).
ck=cur|use|set
Same as -vo xv:ck (see -vo xv).
ck-method=man|bg|auto
Same as -vo xv:ck-method (see -vo xv).
dga (X11 only)
Play video through the XFree86 Direct Graphics Access extension.
Considered obsolete.
sdl (SDL only)
Highly platform independent SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) li‐
brary video output driver. Since SDL uses its own X11 layer,
MPlayer X11 options do not have any effect on SDL.
driver=<driver>
Explicitly choose the SDL driver to use.
(no)forcexv
Use XVideo through the sdl video output driver (default:
forcexv).
xvidix (X11 only)
X11 frontend for VIDIX
<subdevice>
same as vidix
cvidix
Generic and platform independent VIDIX frontend, can even run in
a text console with nVidia cards.
<subdevice>
same as vidix
winvidix (Windows only)
Windows frontend for VIDIX
<subdevice>
same as vidix
directx (Windows only)
Video output driver that uses the DirectX interface.
noaccel
Turns off hardware acceleration. Try this option if you
have display problems.
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 sys‐
tems).
macosx (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 in fullscreen.
fbdev (Linux only)
Uses the kernel framebuffer to play video.
<device>
Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (e.g.
/dev/fb0) or the name of the VIDIX subdevice if the de‐
vice name starts with ’vidix’ (e.g. ’vidixsis_vid’ for
the sis driver).
fbdev2 (Linux only)
Uses the kernel framebuffer to play video, alternative implemen‐
tation.
<device>
Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (default:
/dev/fb0).
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 op‐
tion.
sq
Try to select a video mode with square pixels.
vidix
Use svga with VIDIX.
gl
OpenGL video output driver, simple version. Video size must be
smaller than the maximum texture size of your OpenGL implementa‐
tion. Intended to work even with the most basic OpenGL imple‐
mentations, but also makes use of newer extensions, which allow
support for more colorspaces and direct rendering. Please use
-dr if it works with your OpenGL implementation, since for high‐
er resolutions this provides a big speedup. 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 implementation
even if you do not get any error message. Use glxinfo or a sim‐
ilar tool to display the supported OpenGL extensions.
(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:
4). 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 de‐
fault is 16.
(no)osd
Enable or disable support for OSD rendering via OpenGL
(default: enabled). This option is for testing; to dis‐
able the OSD use -osdlevel 0 instead.
(no)scaled-osd
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.
(no)glfinish
Call glFinish() before swapping buffers. Slower but in
some cases more correct output (default: disabled).
swapinterval=<n>
Minimum interval between two buffer swaps, counted in
displayed frames (default: 1). 1 is equivalent to en‐
abling VSYNC, 0 to disabling VSYNC. Values below 0 will
leave it at the system default. This limits the framer‐
ate to (horizontal refresh rate / n). Requires
GLX_SGI_swap_control support to work. With some
(most/all?) implementations this only works in
fullscreen mode.
yuv=<n>
Select the type of YUV to RGB conversion.
0: Use software conversion (default). Compatible
with all OpenGL versions. Provides brightness, con‐
trast and saturation control.
1: Use register combiners. This uses an nVidia-spe‐
cific 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_frag‐
ment_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 texture units. Provides brightness, con‐
trast, 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, con‐
trast, 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_shad‐
er - 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. Provides brightness,
ing. For details see lscale.
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 option.
(no)customtlin
If enabled (default) use GL_LINEAR interpolation, other‐
wise use GL_NEAREST for customtex texture.
(no)customtrect
If enabled, use texture_rectangle for customtex texture.
Default is disabled.
gl2
OpenGL video output driver, second generation. Supports OSD and
videos larger than the maximum texture size.
(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.
null
Produces no video output. Useful for benchmarking.
aa
ASCII art video output driver that works on a text console.
caca
Color ASCII art video output driver that works on a text con‐
sole.
bl
Video playback using the Blinkenlights UDP protocol. This driv‐
er 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 subde‐
vice.
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 ’.’.
bottom = bottom 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. En‐
ables 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) (de‐
fault: disabled). Gives very good results concerning
speed and output quality as interpolated picture pro‐
cessing 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 (de‐
fault: /dev/mga_vid).
xmga (Linux, X11 only)
FIXME: It’ ok the difference between 3dfx, tdfxfb and tdfx_vid?
tdfxfb (Linux only)
This driver employs the tdfx framebuffer driver to play movies
with YUV acceleration on 3dfx cards. FIXME: It’ ok the differ‐
ence between 3dfx, tdfxfb and tdfx_vid?
<device>
Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (default:
/dev/fb0).
tdfx_vid (Linux only)
3dfx specific video output driver. This driver directly uses
the tdfx_vid kernel module. FIXME: It’ ok the difference be‐
tween 3dfx, tdfxfb and tdfx_vid?
<device>
Explicitly choose the device name to use (default: /dev/
tdfx_vid).
dxr2 (also see -dxr2) (DXR2 only)
Creative DXR2 specific video output driver.
<vo_driver>
Output video subdriver to use as overlay (x11, xv).
dxr3 (DXR3 only)
Sigma Designs em8300 MPEG decoder chip (Creative DXR3, Sigma De‐
signs Hollywood Plus) specific video output driver. Also see
the lavc video filter.
overlay
Activates the overlay instead of TVOut.
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
output filename (default: ./grab.mpg)
zr (also see -zr* and -zrhelp)
Video output driver for a number of MJPEG capture/playback
cards.
zr2 (also see the zrmjpeg video filter)
Video output driver for a number of MJPEG capture/playback
cards, second generation.
dev=<device>
Specifies the video device to use.
norm=<PAL|NTSC|SECAM|auto>
Specifies the video norm to use (default: auto).
(no)prebuf
(De)Activate prebuffering, not yet supported.
md5sum
Calculate MD5 sums of each frame and write them to a file. Sup‐
ports 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 mjpeg‐
tools suite. It supports the YV12, RGB (24 bpp) and BGR (24
bpp) format. 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 out‐
put is converted to 256 colors.
<fps>
Float value to specify framerate (default: 5.0).
<filename>
Specify the output filename (default: ./out.gif).
NOTE: You must specify the framerate before the filename or the
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 (de‐
fault: ./).
subdirs=<prefix>
Create numbered subdirectories with the specified prefix
to save the files in instead of the current directory.
maxfiles=<value>
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>
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.
tga
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 AC3 passthrough, software AC3, 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 fol‐
lowing:
0: Use completely automatic filter insertion.
1: Optimize for accuracy (default).
2: Optimize for speed. Warning: Some features in the
audio filters may silently fail, and the sound quali‐
ty may drop.
3: Use no automatic insertion of filters and no opti‐
mization. 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 possi‐
ble.
5: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 1
above, but use floating point processing when possi‐
ble.
6: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 2
above, but use floating point processing when possi‐
ble.
7: Use no automatic insertion of filters according to
3 above, and use floating point processing when pos‐
sible.
list=<filters>
Same as -af.
-afm <driver1,driver2,...>
Specify a priority list of audio codec families to be used, ac‐
cording 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.
-noaspect
Disable automatic movie aspect ratio compensation.
-flip
Flip image upside-down.
-lavdopts <option1:option2:...> (DEBUG CODE)
Specify libavcodec decoding parameters. Separate multiple op‐
tions 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 four‐
cc/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)
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 only)
Enable optimizations which do not comply to the specifi‐
cation and might potentially cause problems, like sim‐
pler dequantization, assuming use of the default quanti‐
zation 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 artifacts. 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>.
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>
Skips the loop filter (AKA deblocking) during H.264 de‐
coding. 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.
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 skiploop‐
filter for available skip values).
threads=<1-8>
number of threads to use for decoding (default: 1)
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 ./vs‐
tats_*.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,
depending on video card and available cache. It has effect only
with libmpeg2 and libavcodec codecs.
-nosound
Do not play/encode sound. Useful for benchmarking.
-novideo
Do not play/encode video. In many cases this will not work, use
-vc null -vo null instead.
-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 in‐
ternal 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>
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
acceleration, 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, ac‐
cording to their names in codecs.conf. Falls back on the de‐
fault 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
XviD’s internal postprocessing filters:
deblock-chroma
chroma deblock filter
deblock-luma
luma deblock filter
dering-luma
luma deringing filter
dering-chroma
chroma deringing filter
filmeffect
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) (MPlayer only)
Scale image to height <y> (if software/hardware scaling is
available). Disables aspect calculations.
-zoom
Allow software scaling, where available. This will allow scal‐
ing 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.
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
<type>
Selects which resampling method to use.
0: linear interpolation (fast, poor quality especial‐
ly 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
interpolation.
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 for‐
mat.
NOTE: With MEncoder, you need to also use -srate <srate>.
<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
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.
of audio is being played back. The center frequencies for the
10 bands are:
No. frequency
0 31.25 Hz
1 62.50 Hz
2 125.00 Hz
3 250.00 Hz
4 500.00 Hz
5 1.00 kHz
6 2.00 kHz
7 4.00 kHz
8 8.00 kHz
9 16.00 kHz
If the sample rate of the sound being played is lower than the
center frequency for a frequency band, then that band will be
disabled. A known bug with this filter is that the characteris‐
tics 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 re‐
peated in both of the output channels). If the number of output
channels is smaller than the number of input channels the ex‐
ceeding channels are truncated.
<nch>
number of output channels (1-6)
<nr>
number of routes (1-6)
<from1:to1:from2:to2:from3:to3:...>
Pairs of numbers between 0 and 5 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 chan‐
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 endi‐
anness 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 cau‐
tion 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 maxi‐
mum sound level and prints out that level when MPlayer exits.
This volume estimate can be used for setting the sound level in
MEncoder such that the maximum dynamic range is utilized.
NOTE: This filter is not reentrant and can therefore only be en‐
abled 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 (de‐
fault: 0).
<sc>
Turns soft clipping on (1) or off (0). Soft-clipping
can make the sound more smooth if very high volume lev‐
els 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 vol‐
ume and the channels filter that can be used to down-mix many
channels to only a few, e.g. stereo to mono or vary the "width"
of the center speaker in a surround sound system. This filter
is hard to use, and will require some tinkering before the de‐
sired result is obtained. The number of o