MPlayer(1) The Movie Player MPlayer(1)NAMEmplayer - movie player
mencoder - movie encoder
SYNOPSISmplayer [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]
gmplayer [options] [-skin skin]
mencoder [options] file [file|URL|-] [-o file | file://file |
smb://[user:pass@]host/filepath]
mencoder [options] file1 [specific options] [file2] [specific options]
DESCRIPTIONmplayer 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 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‐
thermore it has stream copying abilities, a powerful filter system
(crop, expand, flip, postprocess, rotate, scale, noise, RGB/YUV conver‐
sion) and more.
gmplayer is MPlayer with a graphical user interface. Besides some own
options (stored in gui.conf), it has the same options as MPlayer, how‐
ever some MPlayer options will be stored in gui.conf so that they can
be chosen independently from MPlayer. (See GUI CONFIGURATION FILE be‐
low.)
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 remote
control (with LIRC). See the -input option for ways to customize it.
keyboard control
LEFT and RIGHT
Seek backward/forward 10 seconds.
UP and DOWN
Seek forward/backward 1 minute.
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 con‐
secutive press will play one frame and then go into pause
mode again (any other key unpauses).
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.
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 xvmc, -vo vdpau, -vf yadif, -vf kerndeint only)
Activate/deactivate deinterlacer.
A Cycle through the available DVD angles.
(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
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 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.)
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: chap‐
ter->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 trans‐
port 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 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/share/mplayer), the user specific one is '~/
.mplayer/config'. The configuration file for MEncoder is 'men‐
coder.conf' in your configuration directory (e.g. /etc/mplayer or /usr/
local/share/mplayer), the user specific one is '~/.mplayer/men‐
coder.conf'. User specific options override system-wide options (in
case of gmplayer, gui.conf options override user specific options) and
options given on the command line override all. The syntax of the con‐
figuration files is 'option=<value>', everything after a '#' is consid‐
ered a comment. Options 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
config file). If a file-specific configuration file is found in the
same directory, no file-specific configuration is loaded from ~/.mplay‐
er. In addition, the -use-filedir-conf option enables directory-spe‐
cific 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/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
# OSD progress bar vertical alignment
progbar-align=50
EXAMPLE MENCODER CONFIGURATION FILE:
# Make MEncoder output to a default filename.
o=encoded.avi
# The next 4 lines allow mencoder tv:// to start capturing immediately.
oac=pcm=yes
ovc=lavc=yes
lavcopts=vcodec=mjpeg
tv=driver=v4l2:input=1:width=768:height=576:device=/dev/video0:audiorate=48000
# more complex default encoding option set
lavcopts=vcodec=mpeg4:autoaspect=1
lameopts=aq=2:vbr=4
ovc=lavc=1
oac=lavc=1
passlogfile=pass1stats.log
noautoexpand=1
subfont-autoscale=3
subfont-osd-scale=6
subfont-text-scale=4
subalign=2
subpos=96
spuaa=20
GUI CONFIGURATION FILE
GUI's own options are (MPlayer option names in parentheses): ao_al‐
sa_device (alsa:device=) (ALSA only), ao_alsa_mixer (mixer) (ALSA on‐
ly), ao_alsa_mixer_channel (mixer-channel) (ALSA only), ao_esd_device
(esd:) (ESD only), ao_extra_stereo (af extrastereo) (default: 1.0),
ao_extra_stereo_coefficient (af extrastereo=), ao_oss_device (oss:)
(OSS only), ao_oss_mixer (mixer) (OSS only), ao_oss_mixer_channel (mix‐
er-channel) (OSS only), ao_sdl_subdriver (sdl:) (SDL only), ao_surround
(unused), ao_volnorm (af volnorm), autosync (enable/disable), au‐
tosync_size (autosync), cache (enable/disable), cache_size (cache), en‐
able_audio_equ (af equalizer), equ_band_00 ... equ_band_59, (af equal‐
izer=), equ_channel_1 ... equ_channel_6 (af channels=), gui_main_pos_x,
gui_main_pos_y, gui_save_pos (yes/no), gui_tv_digital (yes/no),
gui_video_out_pos_x, gui_video_out_pos_y, load_fullscreen (yes/no),
playbar (enable/disable), show_videowin (yes/no), vf_lavc (vf lavc)
(DXR3 only), vf_pp (vf pp), vo_dxr3_device (unused) (DXR3 only).
MPlayer options stored in gui.conf (GUI option names, MPlayer option
names in parentheses) are: a_afm (afm), ao_driver (ao), ass_bottom_mar‐
gin (ass-bottom-margin) (ASS only), ass_enabled (ass) (ASS only),
ass_top_margin (ass-top-margin) (ASS only), ass_use_margins (ass-use-
margins) (ASS only), cdrom_device (cdrom-device), dvd_device (dvd-de‐
vice), font_autoscale (subfont-autoscale) (FreeType only), font_blur
(subfont-blur) (FreeType only), font_encoding (subfont-encoding),
font_factor (ffactor), font_name (font), font_osd_scale (subfont-osd-
scale) (FreeType only), font_outline (subfont-outline) (FreeType only),
font_text_scale (subfont-text-scale) (FreeType only), gui_skin (skin),
idle (idle), osd_level (osdlevel), softvol (softvol), stopxscreensaver
(stop-xscreensaver), sub_auto_load (autosub), sub_cp (subcp) (iconv on‐
ly), sub_overlap (overlapsub), sub_pos (subpos), sub_unicode (unicode),
sub_utf8 (utf8), v_flip (flip), v_framedrop (framedrop), v_idx (idx),
v_ni (ni), v_vfm (vfm), vf_autoq (autoq), vo_direct_render (panscan),
vo_doublebuffering (dr), vo_driver (vo), vo_panscan (double).
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 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
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-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 in‐
stead of the builtin codecs.conf.
-include <configuration file> (also see -gui-include)
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.
-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 speci‐
fied 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
gui (GUI only)
GUI configuration file
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
displayed. Particularly useful on slow terminals or broken ones
which do not properly handle carriage return (i.e. \r).
-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.
Also suppresses the GUI error message boxes.
-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
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).
-colorkey <number>
Changes the colorkey to an RGB value of your choice. 0x000000
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.
-correct-pts (EXPERIMENTAL)
Switches MPlayer to an experimental mode where timestamps for
video frames are calculated differently and video filters which
add new frames or modify timestamps of existing ones are sup‐
ported. The more accurate timestamps can be visible for example
when playing subtitles timed to scene changes with the -ass op‐
tion. Without -correct-pts the subtitle 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 window‐
ing system decide what a double-click is (-vo directx only).
NOTE: You will get slightly different behaviour depending on
whether you bind MOUSE_BTN0_DBL or MOUSE_BTN0-MOUSE_BTN0_DBL.
-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.
-edl-backward-delay <number>
When using EDL during playback and jumping backwards it is pos‐
sible to end up in the middle of an EDL record. In that case
MPlayer will seek further backwards to the start position of the
EDL record and then immediately skip the scene specified in the
EDL record. To avoid this kind of behavior, MPlayer jumps to a
fixed time interval before the start of the EDL record. This
parameter allows you to specify that time interval in seconds
(default: 2 seconds).
-edl-start-pts
Adjust positions in EDL records according to playing file's
start time. Some formats, especially MPEG TS usually start with
non-zero PTS values and when producing EDL file with -edlout op‐
tion, EDL records contain absolute values that are correct only
for this particular file. If re-encoded into a different for‐
mat, this EDL file no longer applies. Specifying -edl-start-pts
will automatically adjust EDL positions according to start time:
when producing EDL file, it will substract start time from every
EDL record, when playing with EDL file, it will add file's start
time to every EDL position.
-noedl-start-pts
Disable adjusting EDL positions.
-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, gl_tiled, mga, svga, x11, xmga, xv,
xvidix and dfbmga.
-framedrop (also see -hardframedrop, experimental without -nocor‐
rect-pts)
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.
-gui-include <GUI configuration file> (also see -include) (GUI only)
Specify a GUI configuration file to be parsed after the default
gui.conf.
-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 sup‐
port 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 "xscreen‐
saver-command -deactivate" file
EXAMPLE for GNOME screensaver: mplayer-heartbeat-cmd
"gnome-screensaver-command -p" file
-heartbeat-interval
Specify how often the -heartbeat-cmd should be executed, in sec‐
onds between executions (default: 30.0).
-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
controlled through input commands.
For gmplayer -idle is the default, -noidle will quit the GUI af‐
ter all files have been played.
-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 au‐
todetected, 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 autore‐
peat.
(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/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:
7). A FIFO of size n can buffer (n-1) events. If it is too
small some events may be lost. 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. For small value you should dis‐
able double-clicks by setting -doubleclick-time to 0 so they do
not compete with regular events for buffer space.
-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 down‐
ward (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 cur‐
rent 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.
Supported for X11-based VOs (x11, xv, xvmc, etc) and the gl,
gl_tiled, 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 automati‐
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
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
process with similar accuracy when using normal timed sleep.
-pausing <0-3> (MPlayer only)
Specifies the default pausing behaviour of commands, i.e.
whether MPlayer will continue playback or stay paused after the
command has finished. See DOCS/tech/slave.txt for further de‐
tails.
0 resume
1 pause (pausing)
2 keep the paused / playing status (pausing_keep)
3 toggle the paused / playing status (pausing_toggle)
4 pause without frame step (experimental) (paus‐
ing_keep_force)
-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.
?(!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.
-allow-dangerous-playlist-parsing
This enables parsing any file as a playlist if e.g. a server ad‐
vertises a file as playlist. Only enable if you know all
servers involved are trustworthy. MPlayer's playlist code is
not designed to handle malicious playlist files.
-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, ~/.mplayer/skins/ and /usr/local/share/
mplayer/skins/.
EXAMPLE:
-skin fittyfene
Tries ~/.mplayer/skins/fittyfene and afterwards /usr/lo‐
cal/share/mplayer/skins/fittyfene.
-slave (also see -input)
Switches on slave mode, in which MPlayer works as a backend for
other programs. Instead of intercepting keyboard events, MPlay‐
er will read commands separated by a newline (\n) 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. Use‐
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.
-udp-ip <ip>
Sets the destination address for datagrams sent by the -udp-mas‐
ter. Setting it to a broadcast address allows multiple slaves
having the same broadcast address to sync to the master (de‐
fault: 127.0.0.1).
-udp-master
Send a datagram to -udp-ip on -udp-port just before playing each
frame. The datagram indicates the master's position in the
file.
-udp-port <port>
Sets the destination port for datagrams sent by the -udp-master,
and the port a -udp-slave listens on (default: 23867).
-udp-seek-threshold <sec>
When the master seeks, the slave has to decide whether to seek
as well, or to catch up by decoding frames without pausing be‐
tween frames. If the master is more than <sec> seconds away
from the slave, the slave seeks. Otherwise, it "runs" to catch
up or waits for the master. This should almost always be left
at its default setting of 1 second.
-udp-slave
Listen on -udp-port and match the master's position.
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 compression 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/MEncoder 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 na‐
tive demuxer (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
identifier. 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>
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 de‐
livery bandwidth allowing faster cache filling and stream dump‐
ing.
-bluray-angle <angle ID> (Blu-ray only)
Some Blu-ray discs contain scenes that can be viewed from multi‐
ple angles. Here you can tell MPlayer which angles to use (de‐
fault: 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 <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).
-capture (MPlayer only)
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 start‐
ed 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 dis‐
played.
-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.
-cdrom-device <path to device>
Specify the CD-ROM device (default: /dev/cd0).
-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
specified. Then it is up to the decoder to fulfill the require‐
ment. 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 channels. 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>]
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)
Negative values delay the audio, and positive values delay the
video. Note that this is the exact opposite of the -audio-delay
MEncoder option.
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 do not 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.
-dumpaudio (MPlayer only)
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> (MPlayer only)
Specify which file MPlayer should dump to. Should be used to‐
gether with -dumpaudio / -dumpvideo / -dumpstream / -capture.
-dumpstream (MPlayer only)
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 (MPlayer only)
Dump raw compressed video stream to ./stream.dump (not very us‐
able). If you give more than one of -dumpaudio, -dumpvideo,
-dumpstream 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 <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=<1-240>
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/cd0).
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 watch‐
ing DVDs 2700KB/s should be quiet and fast enough. MPlayer re‐
sets 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 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 may 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 if
not a byte position. In addition it may not work well or not at
all when used with any of the -dump options.
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.
mplayer-endpos 100mb
Stop playback after reading 100MB of the input file.
mencoder -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
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. MEncoder skips writing the index
with this option.
-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)
-mc 0 should always be combined with -noskip for mencoder, oth‐
erwise it will almost certainly cause A-V desync.
-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 Force treating files as non-interleaved. In particular forces
usage of non-interleaved AVI parser (fixes playback of some bad
AVI files). Can also help playing files that otherwise play au‐
dio and video alternating instead of at the same time.
-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.
-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 automati‐
cally.
-prefer-ipv6 (IPv6 network only)
Use IPv6 on network connections. Falls back on IPv4 automati‐
cally.
-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/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
-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. You can see
allowed frequency range by running MPlayer with '-v'. 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 for Linux and
/dev/tuner0 for *BSD).
driver=<value>
Radio driver to use (default: v4l2 if available, other‐
wise v4l). Currently, v4l and v4l2 drivers are support‐
ed.
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 writ‐
ten using OSD and the slave commands radio_step_channel
and radio_set_channel will be usable for a remote con‐
trol (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 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> (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 -de‐
muxer 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 -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 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
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 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
connection as RTSP). This option may be useful if you have a
broken internet connection that does not pass incoming UDP pack‐
ets (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>. Cur‐
rently this only works with AVI files.
NOTE: This option is obsolete now that MPlayer has OpenDML sup‐
port.
-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.
Not guaranteed to work correctly with -oac copy. Add -af
scaletempo to get past the 4x limit on playback.
-srate <Hz>
Select the output sample rate to be used (of course sound cards
have limits on this). If the sample frequency selected is dif‐
ferent from that of the current media, the 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. Use -ss nopts to disable seeking,
-ss 0 has different behaviour.
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.
-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. 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 au‐
tomute=100 will be enough. Default is 0 (automute dis‐
abled).
driver=<value>
See -tv driver=help for a list of compiled-in TV input
drivers. available: dummy, v4l, v4l2, bsdbt848 (de‐
fault: autodetect)
device=<value>
Specify TV device (default: /dev/video0). NOTE: For the
bsdbt848 driver you can provide both bktr and tuner de‐
vice names separating them with a comma, tuner after bk‐
tr (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 (de‐
fault: 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 commands 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 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
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 val‐
ue 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 (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).
tdevice=<value>
Specify TV teletext device (example: /dev/vbi0) (de‐
fault: 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 received. Useful when the teletext system us‐
es a non-latin character set, but language codes are not
transmitted via teletext type 28 packets for some rea‐
son. 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 in‐
stead 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 de‐
fault 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 cre‐
ate audio chunks about 0.5s in size, resulting in choppy
video when using immediatemode=0.
-tvscan <option1:option2:...> (TV and MPlayer only)
Tune the TV channel scanner. MPlayer will also print value for
"-tv channels=" option, including existing and just found chan‐
nels.
Available suboptions are:
autostart
Begin channel scanning immediately after startup (de‐
fault: disabled).
period=<0.1-2.0>
Specify delay in seconds before switching to next chan‐
nel (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/MEncoder 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 pur‐
poses). FIXME: Document this.
OSD/SUBTITLE OPTIONS
NOTE: Also see -vf expand.
-ass (FreeType only)
Turn on SSA/ASS subtitle rendering. With this option, libass
will be used for SSA/ASS external subtitles and Matroska tracks.
You may also want to use -embeddedfonts.
NOTE: Unlike normal OSD, libass uses fontconfig by default. To
disable it, use -nofontconfig.
-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 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 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 7 (use native 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.
-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.
-dumpsrtsub (MPlayer only)
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 end‐
ings.
-dumpsub (MPlayer only) (BETA CODE)
Dumps the subtitle substream from VOB streams. Also see the
-dump*sub and -vobsubout* options.
-embeddedfonts (FreeType only)
Enables extraction of Matroska embedded fonts (default: dis‐
abled). These fonts can be used for SSA/ASS subtitle rendering
(-ass option). Font files are created in the ~/.mplayer/fonts
directory.
NOTE: With FontConfig 2.4.2 or newer, embedded fonts are opened
directly from memory, and this option is enabled by default.
-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/subtitle fonts in an alternative directory
(default for normal fonts: ~/.mplayer/font/font.desc, default
for FreeType fonts: ~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf, default for Fontcon‐
fig: "sans-serif").
NOTE: With FreeType, this option determines the path to the 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 (fontconfig only)
Enables the usage of fontconfig managed fonts (default: autode‐
tect).
NOTE: By default fontconfig is used for libass-rendered subti‐
tles and not used for OSD. With -fontconfig it is used for both
libass and OSD, with -nofontconfig it is not used at all, i.e.
only then -font and -subfont will work with a given path to
font.
-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>
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 print‐
ed on the OSD:
0 Do not display fractions (default).
1 Show the first two decimals.
2 Show approximated frame count within current second.
This frame count is not accurate but only an approxima‐
tion. For variable fps, the approximation is known to
be far off the correct frame count.
-osdlevel <0-3> (MPlayer only)
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 spe‐
cific formats).
-progbar-align <0-100>
Specify the vertical alignment of the progress bar (0: top, 100:
bottom, default is 50, i.e. centered).
-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 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.
-sub-bg-color <0-255>
Specify the color value for subtitles and OSD backgrounds. Cur‐
rently subtitles are grayscale so this value is equivalent to
the intensity 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. For backward compatibili‐
ty it also accepts the demuxer ID as defined in subreader.h.
-sub-fuzziness <mode>
Adjust matching fuzziness when searching for subtitles:
0 exact match (default)
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 <1-8>
Display DVD Closed Caption (CC) subtitles from the specified
channel. Values 5 to 8 select a mode that can extract EIA-608
compatibility streams from EIA-708 data. These are not the VOB
subtitles, these are special ASCII subtitles for the hearing im‐
paired 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. It takes priority over both -utf8
and -unicode.
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.
-sub-paths <path1,path2,...>
Specify extra subtitle paths to track in the media directory.
EXAMPLE: Assuming that /path/to/movie/movie.avi is played and
-sub-paths sub,subtitles,/tmp/subs is specified, MPlayer search‐
es 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>
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). (Without FreeType, setting any other value
than 'unicode' will disable unicode glyphs rendering for
font.desc files. With FreeType and for other values than 'uni‐
code' your system has to support iconv(3) in order for this to
work.)
-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 <0-150> (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.
Values larger than 100 allow part of the subtitle to be cut off.
-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 (de‐
fault: ^[[A\r^[[K).
-unicode
Tells MPlayer to handle the subtitle file as unicode. (It will
only take effect if neither -subcp nor -utf8 is given.)
-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
feature is off). The path must include the executable's file‐
name, i.e. /usr/local/bin/unrar.
-utf8
Tells MPlayer to handle the subtitle file as UTF-8. (It will on‐
ly take effect if -subcp isn't given, and it takes priority over
-unicode.)
-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 (MPLAYER ONLY)-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.
-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 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).
-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 (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
':' 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.
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) 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)
(no)connect
Automatically create connections to output ports (de‐
fault: enabled). When enabled, the maximum number of
output channels will be limited to the number of avail‐
able output ports.
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).
(no)autostart
Automatically start jackd if necessary (default: dis‐
abled). Note that this seems unreliable and will spam
stdout with server 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>[:broken_pause]]]
Specify the host and optionally output sink to use. An
empty <host> string uses a local connection, "localhost"
uses network transfer (most likely not what you want).
You can also explicitly force the workaround for broken
pause functionality (default: autodetected). To only
enable that without specifying a host/sink the syntax is
-ao pulse:::broken_pause
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).
dxr2 (also see -dxr2) (DXR2 only)
Creative DXR2 specific output driver
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: 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.
-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.
-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). This can result in significantly faster blitting on
some systems, on most the difference will be minimal. In some
cases, particularly with decoders specifying their buffer re‐
quirements badly, it can be vastly slower.
WARNING: May cause OSD/SUB corruption!
-dxr2 <option1:option2:...>
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 pixel mode to ccir601
overlay
cr-left=<0-500>
Set the left cropping value (default: 50).
cr-right=<0-500>
Set the right cropping value (default: 300).
cr-top=<0-500>
Set the top cropping value (default: 0).
cr-bottom=<0-500>
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 TV-out.
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.
-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 win‐
dows 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 af‐
terward.
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.
-fs-border-left <pixels>
-fs-border-right <pixels>
-fs-border-top <pixels>
-fs-border-bottom <pixels>
Specify extra borders in full screen mode. The borders apply to
all displayed elements: video, OSD and EOSD. The number of pix‐
els is specified in terms of screen resolution. Currently only
supported with by the gl video output driver.
-gamma <-100-100>
Adjust the gamma of the video signal (default: 0). Not support‐
ed 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
into 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 be‐
yond the right and 10 pixels beyond the top border". If an ex‐
ternal 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. The coordinates are relative to the
screen given with -screen for the video output drivers that ful‐
ly support -screen (direct3d, gl, gl_tiled, vdpau, x11, xv,
xvmc, corevideo).
NOTE: This option is only supported by the x11, xmga, xv, xvmc,
xvidix, gl, gl_tiled, direct3d, directx, fbdev, sdl, dfxfb and
corevideo 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.
-gui-wid <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
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). Over‐
rides 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. 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 driv‐
ers. 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, corevideo, quartz, ggi and gl_tiled.
-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 directx, xv, xmga, mga, gl, gl_tiled, quartz, corevideo
and xvidix 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
feature is experimental.
-border-pos-x <0.0-1.0> (-vo gl,xv,xvmc,vdpau,direct3d only, default
0.5)
When black borders are added to adjust for aspect, this deter‐
mines where they are placed. 0.0 places borders on the right,
1.0 on the left. Values outside the range 0.0 - 1.0 will add
extra black borders on one side and remove part of the image on
the other side.
-border-pos-y <0.0-1.0> (-vo gl,xv,xvmc,vdpau,direct3d only, default
0.5)
As -border-pos-x but for top/bottom borders. 0.0 places borders
on the bottom, 1.0 on the top.
-monitor-orientation <0-3> (experimental)
Rotate display by 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Rotates also the OSD,
not just the video image itself. Currently only supported by
the gl video output driver. For all other video outputs -vf
ass,expand=osd=1,rotate=n can be used, in the future this might
even happen automatically.
-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. Only
works with the x11, xv, xmga, xvidix, quartz, corevideo and di‐
rectx 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.
-(no)stop-xscreensaver (X11 only)
Turns off xscreensaver at startup and turns it on again on exit
(default: enabled). 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 driv‐
ers.
-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
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 -gui-wid) (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 man‐
aged by the application that created the window.
-screen <-2-...> (alias for -xineramascreen)
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
completely ignored), -1 means fullscreen on the display the win‐
dow 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 suitable to only set the startup screen (because it will
always display on the given screen in fullscreen mode), -geome‐
try is the best that is available for that purpose currently.
Supported by at least the direct3d, gl, gl_tiled, x11, xv and
corevideo video output drivers.
-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‐
age to its original size. Use this option to force decimation.
-zrhdec <1|2|4> (-vo zr only)
Horizontal 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.
-zrhelp (-vo zr only)
Display a list of all -zr* options, their default values and a
cinerama mode example.
-zrnorm <norm> (-vo zr only)
Specify the TV norm as PAL or NTSC (default: no change).
-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.
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 (de‐
fault: 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 (with -vc ffmpeg12vdpau, ffwmv3vdpau, ffvc1vdpau, ffh264vdpau or
ffodivxvdpau)
Video output that uses VDPAU to decode video via hardware. Also
supports displaying of software-decoded video.
sharpen=<-1-1>
For positive values, apply a sharpening algorithm to the
video, for negative values a blurring algorithm (de‐
fault: 0).
denoise=<0-1>
Apply a noise reduction algorithm to the video (default:
0, no noise reduction).
deint=<0-4>
Select the deinterlacer (default: 0). All modes > 0 re‐
spect -field-dominance.
0 no deinterlacing
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. This is the default if "D" is
used to enable deinterlacing.
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 skip deinterlacing for progressive frames, useful
for watching telecined content, needs fast video hard‐
ware for high resolutions. Only works with motion adap‐
tive temporal deinterlacing.
colorspace
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) con‐
tent. Using incorrect color space results in slightly
under or over saturated and shifted colors.
0 Guess the color space based on video resolution.
Video with width >= 1280 or height > 576 is as‐
sumed 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 Use default VDPAU scaling (default).
1-9 Apply high quality VDPAU scaling (needs capable
hardware).
force-mixer
Forces the use of the VDPAU mixer, which implements all
above options (default). Use noforce-mixer to allow
displaying BGRA colorspace. (Disables all above options
and the hardware equalizer if image format BGRA is actu‐
ally used.)
xvmc (X11 with FFmpeg MPEG-1/2 decoder 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.
adaptor=<number>
Select a specific XVideo adaptor (check xvinfo results).
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, buggy/outdated)
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. 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).
vidix
VIDIX (VIDeo Interface for *niX) is an interface to the video
acceleration features of different graphics cards. Very fast
video output driver on cards that support it.
<subdevice>
Explicitly choose the VIDIX subdevice driver to use.
Available subdevice drivers are cyberblade, ivtv,
mach64, mga_crtc2, mga, nvidia, pm2, pm3, radeon,
rage128, s3, sh_veu, sis_vid and unichrome.
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
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 upscaling 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 sys‐
tems).
corevideo (Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.3.9 with QuickTime 7)
Mac OS X CoreVideo video output driver
device_id=<number>
DEPRECATED, use -screen instead. Choose the display de‐
vice to use for fullscreen or set it to -1 to always use
the same screen the video window is on (default: -1-
auto).
shared_buffer
Write output to a shared memory buffer instead of dis‐
playing 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) 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).
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.
vidix
Use the VIDIX driver.
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 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. 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 implementation even if you do not get any error mes‐
sage. Use glxinfo or a similar tool to display the supported
OpenGL extensions.
backend=<n>
Select the backend/OpenGL implementation to use (de‐
fault: -1).
-1: Autoselect
0: Win32/WGL
1: X11/GLX
2: SDL
3: X11/EGL (highly experimental)
4: OSX/Cocoa
5: Android (very bad hack, only for testing)
(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 expense of using a bit more memory.
(no)force-pbo
Always uses PBOs to transfer textures even if this in‐
volves an extra copy. Currently this gives a little ex‐
tra speed with NVidia drivers and a lot more speed with
ATI drivers. May need -noslices and the ati-hack subop‐
tion to work correctly.
(no)scaled-osd
Changes the way the OSD behaves when the size of the
window changes (default: disabled). When enabled be‐
haves 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 sup‐
port 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 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.
ycbcr
Use the GL_APPLE_ycbcr_422 extension to convert YUV to
RGB. Default is disabled if yuv= is specified, auto-de‐
tected otherwise. Note that this will enable a few spe‐
cial settings to get into a special driver fast-path.
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-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 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.
3: Same as 2. They exist as distinct values for
legacy reasons, MPlayer now inserts the extra in‐
structions for gamma control on-demand.
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,
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 (de‐
fault).
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 scal‐
ing. 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 fil‐
tering 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 sup‐
port and a default strength of 0.5 (see filter-
strength).
5 Use experimental unsharp masking with 5x5 sup‐
port and a default strength of 0.5 (see filter-
strength).
64 Use nearest-neighbor scaling.
cscale=<n>
Select the scaling function to use for chrominance scal‐
ing. For details see lscale.
filter-strength=<value>
Set the effect strength for the lscale/cscale filters
that support it.
noise-strength=<value>
Set how much noise to add. 0 to disable (default), 1.0
for level suitable for dithering to 6 bit.
stereo=<value>
Select a method for stereo display. You may have to use
-aspect to fix the aspect value. Add 32 to swap left
and right side. 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.
4 Mix left and right in a pixel pattern. Pattern
is given by stipple option.
stipple=<bit
Lowest 16 bit give the 4x4 pattern to use (default:
0x0f0f). Examples to try: 0x0f0f, 0xf0f0: horizontal
lines; 0xaaaa, 0x5555: vertical lines; 0xa5a5, 0x5a5a:
checkerboard pattern
The following options are only useful if writing your own frag‐
ment 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 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.
(no)mipmapgen
If enabled, mipmaps for the video are automatically gen‐
erated. This should be useful together with the custom‐
prog 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 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)aspect
Enable or disable aspect scaling and pan-and-scan sup‐
port (default: enabled). Disabling might increase
speed.
gl_tiled
Variant of the OpenGL video output driver. Supports videos
larger than the maximum texture size but lacks many of the ad‐
vanced features and optimizations of the gl driver and is un‐
likely 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 ef‐
fect.
cols=<n>
Number of text columns to display. Very low values (<
16) will probably fail due to scaler limitations. Val‐
ues not divisible 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.
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 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 '.'.
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 = 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)
The mga video output driver, running in an X11 window.
<device>
Explicitly choose the Matrox device name to use (de‐
fault: /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
rendering features. Use -vf format=yuy2 to get hardware-accel‐
erated 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 hard‐
ware 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).
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 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 hard‐
ware 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)
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 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 out‐
put 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: nopro‐
gressive).
[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 (de‐
fault: ./).
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.
outdir=<dirname>
Specify the directory to save the PNG files to (default:
./).
prefix=<prefix>
Specify the prefix to be used for the PNG filenames (de‐
fault: no prefix).
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.
mng
Output video into an animated MNG file using 24 bpp RGB images
with lossless compression.
output=<filename>
Specify the output filename (default: out.mng).
EXAMPLE:
mplayer video.mkv -vo mng:output=test.mng
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 sim‐
ple 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 oth‐
ers.
-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 (cur‐
rently 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 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.
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 in‐
correct 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 deinterlac‐
ers that double the framerate: -vf tfields=1, -vf yadif=1, -vo
vdpau:deint and -vo xvmc:bobdeint.
-1 auto (default): If the decoder does not export the ap‐
propriate 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 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)
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 specifi‐
cation and might potentially cause problems, like sim‐
pler dequantization, simpler motion compensation, assum‐
ing use of the default quantization matrix, assuming YUV
4:2:0 and skipping a few checks to detect damaged bit‐
streams.
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>.
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. Note that some options may conflict with MEncoder
options.
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 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.
<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 skiploop‐
filter for available skip values).
threads=<1-8> (MPEG-1/2 and H.264 only)
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.
wait_keyframe
Wait for a keyframe before displaying anything. Avoids
broken frames at startup or after seeking with some for‐
mats.
-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>
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
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
fall back on others, if they do not work.
-vfm xanim
Try XAnim codecs first.
-x <x> (also see -zoom) (MPlayer only)
Scale image to width <x> (if software/hardware scaling is avail‐
able). 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) (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.
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.
NOTE: With MEncoder, you need to also use -srate <srate>.
<srate>
output sample frequency in Hz. The valid range for this
parameter is 8000 to 192000. If the input and output
sample frequency 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 ex‐
tremely slow.
<type>
Select 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
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, na‐
tive-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. Otherwise 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 au‐
dio into N-channel, then the filter can encode the N-channel in‐
put 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 bi‐
trate 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
similar 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 chan‐
nel 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
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 (1-8)
<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 chan‐
nel 2 and 3 intact. 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 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. 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 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 options for this filter
depends on the number of output channels. An example how to
downmix a six-channel file to two channels with this filter can
be found in the examples section near the end.
<n>
number of output channels (1-8)
<Lij>
How much of input channel i is mixed into output channel
j (0-1). So in principle you first have n numbers say‐
ing what to do with the first input channel, then n num‐
bers 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 in‐
tact, 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 de‐
fault cutoff frequency of 60Hz and added to a separate channel
in the audio stream.
Warning: Disable this filter when you are playing DVDs with Dol‐
by 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 im‐
prove 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 in‐
stead.
<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 sur‐
round sound. Requires a sound card supporting at least 4 chan‐
nels.
<delay>
delay time in ms for the rear speakers (0 to 1000) (de‐
fault: 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 posi‐
tion 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 simul‐
taneously. It is only useful if you have more than 2 loudspeak‐
ers.
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 rela‐
tion 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 map‐
ping (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_ex‐
port)
<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 chan‐
nels 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 unchanged, with -1.0 left and right chan‐
nels 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 (de‐
fault).
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) plug‐
in. 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 de‐
termine the behavior of the loaded plugin (for example
delay, threshold 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. Pre‐
vents 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 final audio stream. Beware that this filter will turn your
signal into mono. Works well for 2 channel tracks; do not both‐
er 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 deter‐
mine 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 noticeable skips at high scale
amounts and an echo at low scale amounts. Very low val‐
ues 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 posi‐
tion. Decreasing improves performance greatly. On slow
systems, you will probably want to set this very low.
(default: 14)
speed=<tempo|pitch|both|none>
Set response to speed change.
tempo
Scale tempo in sync with speed (default).
pitch
Reverses effect of filter. Scales pitch without
altering tempo. Add ´[ 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 au‐
dio tempo to match.
mplayer-af scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=none -speed 1.2 me‐
dia.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 me‐
dia.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 au‐
dio at normal pitch. Changing playback speed, would
change pitch, leaving audio tempo at 1.2x.
stats
Collects and prints statistics about the audio stream, especial‐
ly the volume. These statistics are especially intended to help
adjusting the volume while avoiding clipping. The volumes are
printed in dB and compatible with the volume audio filter, they
are always rounded towards -0dB.
The 'n_samples' field is the total number of samples seen by the
filter. The 'mean_volume' field is the root mean square. The
'max_volume' field is exactly what it says. The 'histogram_Xdb'
fields count how many samples were at -XdB, for X just below
max_volume.
For example, if max_volume is -7dB and histogram_7dB is 19,
'volume=7' will not cause clipping and 'volume=8' will cause
clipping on exactly 19 samples.
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 par‐
ticular 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 recom‐
mended parameters to stdout.
<limit>
Threshold, which can be optionally specified from noth‐
ing (0) to everything (255) (default: 24).
<round>
Value which the width/height should be divisible by (de‐
fault: 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 re‐
turn the largest area encountered during playback.
rectangle[=w:h:x:y]
Draws a rectangle of the requested width and height at the spec‐
ified coordinates over the image and prints current rectangle
parameters 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 left‐
most)
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 (de‐
fault: center)
<o>
OSD/subtitle rendering
0: disable (default)
1: enable
<a>
Expands to fit an aspect instead of a resolution (de‐
fault: 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 portrait 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[:pre‐
size[: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 (includ‐
ing 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 fil‐
ter does not do any scaling itself; it just affects what later
scalers (software or hardware) will do when auto-scaling to cor‐
rect aspect.
<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 as‐
pect.
<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 con‐
version.
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 col‐
orspace 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. Sub‐
filters must be separated by '/' and can be disabled by prepend‐
ing 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 dif‐
ference and flatness values so you cannot set different hori‐
zontal 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) fil‐
ter.
li/linipoldeint
Linear interpolating deinterlacing filter that deinter‐
laces 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 auto‐
matic 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 ver‐
tical 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 sim‐
plified 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 also 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 hori‐
zontally. 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 current‐
ly 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 is‐
sues. You should see a red, green and blue stripe from top to
bottom.
<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*ASPECTRA‐
TIO (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 com‐
pressibility.).
<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_spa‐
tial/luma_spatial)
hqdn3d[=luma_spatial:chroma_spatial:luma_tmp:chroma_tmp]
High precision/quality version of the denoise3d filter. Parame‐
ters and usage are the same.
ow[=depth[:luma_strength[:chroma_strength]]]
Overcomplete Wavelet denoiser.
<depth>
Larger depth values will denoise lower frequency compo‐
nents 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 hard‐
ware equalizer, for cards/drivers that do not support brightness
and contrast controls in hardware. Might also be useful with
MEncoder, either for fixing poorly captured movies, or for
slightly reducing contrast to mask artifacts and get by with
lower bitrates.
<-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 bright‐
ness and contrast adjustment. Note that it uses the same MMX
optimized code as -vf eq if all gamma values are 1.0. The pa‐
rameters 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 neg‐
ative 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 getting overamplified and just plain white. A val‐
ue 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 hard‐
ware equalizer, for cards/drivers that do not support hue and
saturation 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, downsam‐
pling 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 down‐
sampling. Any value different from 0 or 1 gives the de‐
fault (averaging) 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 in‐
terlacing 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
locations, 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)
harddup
Only useful with MEncoder. If harddup is used when encoding, it
will force duplicate frames to be encoded in the output. This
uses slightly more space, but is necessary for output to MPEG
files or if you plan to demux and remux the video stream after
encoding. Should be placed at or near the end of the filter
chain unless you have a good reason to do otherwise.
softskip
Only useful with MEncoder. Softskip moves the frame skipping
(dropping) step of encoding from before the filter chain to some
point during the filter chain. This allows filters which need
to see all frames (inverse telecine, temporal denoising, etc.)
to function properly. Should be placed after the filters which
need to see all frames and before any subsequent filters that
are CPU-intensive.
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 mo‐
dem), 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 be‐
tween 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 ac‐
tual pixel value differences, so a threshold of 64 cor‐
responds to 1 unit of difference for each pixel, 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
lavfi=filtergraph
FFmpeg libavfilter wrapper. filtergraph defines a whole libav‐
filter graph with one input and one output. See http://www.ffm‐
peg.org/libavfilter.html#SEC4 for details.
As a special case, if filtergraph is $word then the value of the
word environment variable is used; this is necessary if commas
are present in the graph description, as mplayer uses them as a
delimiter between filters.
NOTE: This filter is considered experimental, it may interact
strangely with other filters.
EXAMPLE:
overlay="movie=$small_video, scale=160:120 [ca]; [in] [ca] over‐
lay=16:8" mplayer-vf lavfi='$overlay' $big_video
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 direc‐
tions (min = 3x3, max = 13x11 or 11x13, usually some‐
thing 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 deinter‐
lacing them. You can filter your interlaced DVD and play it on
a TV without breaking the interlacing. While deinterlacing
(with the postprocessing 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 always 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 fil‐
ters.
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
specifies whether to extract the even or the odd field (depend‐
ing 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/
MEncoder. 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 fram‐
erate (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.
NOTE: Use mode 1 or 2 with MEncoder.
<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 se‐
quence'. 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 be used with MEncoder but not with MPlayer.
As with detc, you must specify the correct output framerate
(-ofps 24000/1001) when using MEncoder. 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 progres‐
sive, 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 follow, 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, set‐
ting 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 computa‐
tions. This may improve accuracy on very clean source
material, but more likely will decrease accuracy, espe‐
cially 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 us‐
able in realtime on slow machines.
NOTE: Always follow pullup with the softskip filter when encod‐
ing to ensure that pullup is able to see each frame. Failure to
do so will lead to incorrect output and will usually crash, due
to design limitations in the codec/filter layer.
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 ac‐
cess 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, and should be used
together with mencoder -fps 30000/1001 -ofps 24000/1001. 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 multiple of 4. If x or y would require crop‐
ping fractional pixels from the chroma planes, the crop
area is extended. This usually means that x and y must
be even.
io=<ifps>:<ofps>
For each ifps input frames the filter will output ofps
frames. The ratio of ifps/ofps should match the
-fps/-ofps ratio. 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 option is not specified, MMX2 and 3DNow! are au‐
to-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 immediately following a frame marked with the RE‐
PEAT_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 accuracy.
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 deinterlac‐
ing, use n=256 to completely turn off deinterlacing.
Default is n=8.
comb_thres=<n>
Threshold for comparing a top and bottom fields. De‐
faults 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.
softpulldown
This filter works only correct with MEncoder and acts on the
MPEG-2 flags used for soft 3:2 pulldown (soft telecine). If you
want to use the ivtc or detc filter on movies that are partly
soft telecined, inserting this filter before them should make
them more reliable.
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 du‐
plicated. This filter is intended to find and drop those dupli‐
cates and restore the original film framerate. When using this
filter, you must specify -ofps that is 4/5 of the fps of the in‐
put file and place the softskip later in the filter chain to
make sure that divtc sees all the frames. Two different modes
are available: One pass mode is the default and is straightfor‐
ward 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 encoding 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 pass‐
es, 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: "framed‐
iff.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 affects the one pass mode.
The two pass mode currently uses fixed window that ex‐
tends to both future and past.
phase=0|1|2|3|4
Sets the initial telecine phase for one pass mode (de‐
fault: 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 in‐
stead of dropping one of the fields. Deghosting ampli‐
fies 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 previ‐
ous 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
captured 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 op‐
tions 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 ana‐
lyzing the images 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. Fil‐
ter 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 de‐
fault 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, but it can be
used with 'mencoder -fps 30000/1001 -ofps 30000/1001 -vf
telecine'. Both fps options are essential! (A/V sync will
break if they are wrong.) 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 in‐
terlaced 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). Available modes are:
0 Move odd frames into the upper field, even into the low‐
er field, generating a full-height frame at half framer‐
ate.
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. Like the telecine filter, tfields might
not work completely right unless used with MEncoder and both
-fps and -ofps set to the desired (double) 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 interpola‐
tion (no jump).
4: Translate fields by 1/4 pixel with 4tap filter (high‐
er quality) (default).
<field_dominance> (DEPRECATED)
-1: auto (default) Only works if the decoder exports the
appropriate information and no other filters which dis‐
card that information 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 autodetec‐
tion 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 al‐
gorithm.
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
image. Also see TOOLS/bmovl-test.c for a small bmovl test pro‐
gram.
<hidden>
Set the default value of the 'hidden' flag (0=visible,
1=hidden).
<opaque>
Set the default value of the 'opaque' flag (0=transpar‐
ent, 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 (see -lavcopts keyint= value
if you use MEncoder to encode the video).
When a keyframe is found, an 'I!' string followed by a newline
character is printed, leaving the current line of MPlayer/MEn‐
coder output on the screen, because it contains the time (in
seconds) and frame number of the keyframe (You can use this in‐
formation 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 parame‐
ters.
file=<file>
You can specify a text file to load the coordinates
from. Each line must have a timestamp (in seconds, and
in ascending order) 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.
zrmjpeg[=options]
Software YV12 to MJPEG encoder for use with the zr2 video output
device.
maxheight=<h>|maxwidth=<w>
These options set the maximum width and height the zr
card can handle (the MPlayer filter layer currently can‐
not query those).
{dc10+,dc10,buz,lml33}-{PAL|NTSC}
Use these options to set maxwidth and maxheight automat‐
ically to the values known for card/mode combo. For ex‐
ample, valid options are: dc10-PAL and buz-NTSC (de‐
fault: dc10+PAL)
color|bw
Select color or black and white encoding. Black and
white encoding is faster. Color is the default.
hdec={1,2,4}
Horizontal decimation 1, 2 or 4.
vdec={1,2,4}
Vertical decimation 1, 2 or 4.
quality=1-20
Set JPEG compression quality [BEST] 1 - 20 [VERY BAD].
fd|nofd
By default, decimation is only performed if the Zoran
hardware can upscale the resulting MJPEG images to the
original size. The option fd instructs the filter to
always perform the requested decimation (ugly).
screenshot=prefix
Allows acquiring screenshots of the movie using slave mode com‐
mands that can be bound to keypresses. See the slave mode docu‐
mentation and the INTERACTIVE CONTROL section for details. By
default files named 'shotNNNN.png' will be saved in the working
directory, using the first available number - no files will be
overwritten. Specify a prefix to change the name or location,
e.g. -vf screenshot=shots/now will save the files in the direc‐
tory shots with nowNNNN.png as name. The filter has no overhead
when not used and accepts an arbitrary colorspace, so it is safe
to add it to the configuration file. Make sure that the screen‐
shot 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 con‐
sist 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)
sbs2l or side_by_side_half_width_left_first
side by side with half width resolution (left eye
left, right eye right)
sbs2r or side_by_side_half_width_right_first
side by side with half width resolution (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. Typi‐
cally, 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. Interpo‐
lates 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 re‐
gions (default: 1.2).
<radius>
Neighborhood to fit the gradient to. Larger radius
makes for smoother gradients, but also prevents the fil‐
ter from modifying pixels near detailed regions (de‐
fault: 16).
fixpts[=options]
Fixes the presentation timestamps (PTS) of the frames. By de‐
fault, 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 pre‐
vious PTS are kept, so setting a huge value or -1 keeps
the PTS intact.
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 subti‐
tles, then drops it. Generating a new sequence is use‐
ful when the timestamps are reset during the program;
this is frequent on DVDs. Dropping it may be necessary
to avoid confusing encoders.
NOTE: Using this filter together with any sort of seeking (in‐
cluding -ss and EDLs) may make demons fly out of your nose.
GENERAL ENCODING OPTIONS (MENCODER ONLY)-audio-delay <any floating-point number>
Delays either audio or video by setting a delay field in the
header (default: 0.0). This does not delay either stream while
encoding, but the player will see the delay field and compensate
accordingly. Positive values delay the audio, and negative val‐
ues delay the video. Note that this is the exact opposite of
the -delay option. For example, if a video plays correctly with
-delay 0.2, you can fix the video with MEncoder by using -au‐
dio-delay -0.2.
Currently, this option only works with the default muxer (-of
avi). If you are using a different muxer, then you must use
-delay instead.
-audio-density <1-50>
Number of audio chunks per second (default is 2 for 0.5s long
audio chunks).
NOTE: CBR only, VBR ignores this as it puts each packet in a new
chunk.
-audio-preload <0.0-2.0>
Sets up the audio buffering time interval (default: 0.5s).
-fafmttag <format>
Can be used to override the audio format tag of the output file.
EXAMPLE:
-fafmttag 0x55
Will have the output file contain 0x55 (mp3) as audio
format tag.
-ffourcc <fourcc>
Can be used to override the video fourcc of the output file.
EXAMPLE:
-ffourcc div3
Will have the output file contain 'div3' as video four‐
cc.
-force-avi-aspect <0.2-3.0>
Override the aspect stored in the AVI OpenDML vprp header. This
can be used to change the aspect ratio with '-ovc copy'.
-frameno-file <filename> (DEPRECATED)
Specify the name of the audio file with framenumber mappings
created in the first (audio only) pass of a special three pass
encoding mode.
NOTE: Using this mode will most likely give you A-V desync. Do
not use it. It is kept for backwards compatibility only and
will possibly be removed in a future version.
-hr-edl-seek
Use a more precise, but much slower method for skipping areas.
Areas marked for skipping are not seeked over, instead all
frames are decoded, but only the necessary frames are encoded.
This allows starting at non-keyframe boundaries.
NOTE: Not guaranteed to work right with '-ovc copy'.
-info <option1:option2:...> (AVI only)
Specify the info header of the resulting AVI file.
Available options are:
help
Show this description.
name=<value>
title of the work
artist=<value>
artist or author of the work
genre=<value>
original work category
subject=<value>
contents of the work
copyright=<value>
copyright information
srcform=<value>
original format of the digitized material
comment=<value>
general comments about the work
-noautoexpand
Do not automatically insert the expand filter into the MEncoder
filter chain. Useful to control at which point of the filter
chain subtitles are rendered when hardcoding subtitles onto a
movie.
-noencodedups
Do not attempt to encode duplicate frames in duplicate; always
output zero-byte frames to indicate duplicates. Zero-byte
frames will be written anyway unless a filter or encoder capable
of doing duplicate encoding is loaded. Currently the only such
filter is harddup.
-noodml (-of avi only)
Do not write OpenDML index for AVI files >1GB.
-noskip
Do not skip frames.
-o <filename>
Outputs to the given filename.
If you want a default output filename, you can put this option
in the MEncoder config file.
-oac <codec name>
Encode with the given audio codec (no default set).
NOTE: Use -oac help to get a list of available audio codecs.
EXAMPLE:
-oac copy
no encoding, just streamcopy
-oac pcm
Encode to uncompressed PCM.
-oac mp3lame
Encode to MP3 (using LAME).
-oac lavc
Encode with a libavcodec codec.
-of <format> (BETA CODE!)
Encode to the specified container format (default: AVI).
NOTE: Use -of help to get a list of available container formats.
EXAMPLE:
-of avi
Encode to AVI.
-of mpeg
Encode to MPEG (also see -mpegopts).
-of lavf
Encode with libavformat muxers (also see -lavfopts).
-of rawvideo
raw video stream (no muxing - one video stream only)
-of rawaudio
raw audio stream (no muxing - one audio stream only)
-ofps <fps>
Specify a frames per second (fps) value for the output file,
which can be different from that of the source material. Must
be set for variable fps (ASF, some MOV) and progressive
(30000/1001 fps telecined MPEG) files.
-ovc <codec name>
Encode with the given video codec (no default set).
NOTE: Use -ovc help to get a list of available video codecs.
EXAMPLE:
-ovc copy
no encoding, just streamcopy
-ovc raw
Encode to an arbitrary uncompressed format (use '-vf
format' to select).
-ovc lavc
Encode with a libavcodec codec.
-passlogfile <filename>
Dump first pass information to <filename> instead of the default
divx2pass.log in two pass encoding mode.
-skiplimit <value>
Specify the maximum number of frames that may be skipped after
encoding one frame (-noskiplimit for unlimited).
-vobsubout <basename>
Specify the basename for the output .idx and .sub files. This
turns off subtitle rendering in the encoded movie and diverts it
to VOBsub subtitle files.
-vobsuboutid <langid>
Specify the language two letter code for the subtitles. This
overrides what is read from the DVD or the .ifo file.
-vobsuboutindex <index>
Specify the index of the subtitles in the output files (default:
0).
-force-key-frames <time>,<time>,...
Force key frames at the specified timestamps, more precisely at
the first frame after each specified time.
This option can be used to ensure that a seek point is present
at a chapter mark or any other designated place in the output
file.
The timestamps must be specified in ascending order.
Since MEncoder does not send timestamps along the filter chain,
you probably need to use the fixpts filter for this option to
work.
Not all codecs support forced key frames. Currently, support is
only implemented for the following encoders: lavc, x264, xvid.
CODEC SPECIFIC ENCODING OPTIONS (MENCODER ONLY)
You can specify codec specific encoding parameters using the following
syntax:
-<codec>opts <option1[=value1]:option2[=value2]:...>
Where <codec> may be: lavc, xvidenc, mp3lame, toolame, twolame, nuv,
xvfw, faac, x264enc, mpeg, lavf.
mp3lame (-lameopts)
help
get help
vbr=<0-4>
variable bitrate method
0 cbr
1 mt
2 rh (default)
3 abr
4 mtrh
abr
average bitrate
cbr
constant bitrate Also forces CBR mode encoding on subsequent ABR
presets modes.
br=<0-1024>
bitrate in kbps (CBR and ABR only)
q=<0-9>
quality (0 - highest, 9 - lowest) (VBR only)
aq=<0-9>
algorithmic quality (0 - best/slowest, 9 - worst/fastest)
ratio=<1-100>
compression ratio
vol=<0-10>
audio input gain
mode=<0-3>
(default: auto)
0 stereo
1 joint-stereo
2 dualchannel
3 mono
padding=<0-2>
0 none
1 all
2 adjust
fast
Switch on faster encoding on subsequent VBR presets modes. This
results in slightly lower quality and higher bitrates.
highpassfreq=<freq>
Set a highpass filtering frequency in Hz. Frequencies below the
specified one will be cut off. A value of -1 will disable fil‐
tering, a value of 0 will let LAME choose values automatically.
lowpassfreq=<freq>
Set a lowpass filtering frequency in Hz. Frequencies above the
specified one will be cut off. A value of -1 will disable fil‐
tering, a value of 0 will let LAME choose values automatically.
preset=<value>
preset values
help
Print additional options and information about presets
settings.
medium
VBR encoding, good quality, 150-180 kbps bitrate range
standard
VBR encoding, high quality, 170-210 kbps bitrate range
extreme
VBR encoding, very high quality, 200-240 kbps bitrate
range
insane
CBR encoding, highest preset quality, 320 kbps bitrate
<8-320>
ABR encoding at average given kbps bitrate
EXAMPLES:
fast:preset=standard
suitable for most people and most music types and al‐
ready quite high quality
cbr:preset=192
Encode with ABR presets at a 192 kbps forced constant
bitrate.
preset=172
Encode with ABR presets at a 172 kbps average bitrate.
preset=extreme
for people with extremely good hearing and similar
equipment
toolame and twolame (-toolameopts and -twolameopts respectively)
br=<32-384>
In CBR mode this parameter indicates the bitrate in kbps, when
in VBR mode it is the minimum bitrate allowed per frame. VBR
mode will not work with a value below 112.
vbr=<-50-50> (VBR only)
variability range; if negative the encoder shifts the average
bitrate towards the lower limit, if positive towards the higher.
When set to 0 CBR is used (default).
maxvbr=<32-384> (VBR only)
maximum bitrate allowed per frame, in kbps
mode=<stereo | jstereo | mono | dual>
(default: mono for 1-channel audio, stereo otherwise)
psy=<-1-4>
psychoacoustic model (default: 2)
errprot=<0 | 1>
Include error protection.
debug=<0-10>
debug level
faac (-faacopts)
br=<bitrate>
average bitrate in kbps (mutually exclusive with quality)
quality=<1-1000>
quality mode, the higher the better (mutually exclusive with br)
object=<1-4>
object type complexity
1 MAIN (default)
2 LOW
3 SSR
4 LTP (extremely slow)
mpeg=<2|4>
MPEG version (default: 4)
tns
Enables temporal noise shaping.
cutoff=<0-sampling_rate/2>
cutoff frequency (default: sampling_rate/2)
raw
Stores the bitstream as raw payload with extradata in the con‐
tainer header (default: 0, corresponds to ADTS). Do not set
this flag if not explicitly required or you will not be able to
remux the audio stream later on.
lavc (-lavcopts)
Many libavcodec (lavc for short) options are tersely documented. Read
the source for full details.
EXAMPLE:
vcodec=msmpeg4:vbitrate=1800:vhq:keyint=250
o=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
Pass AVOptions to libavcodec encoder. Note, a patch to make the
o= unneeded and pass all unknown options through the AVOption
system is welcome. A full list of AVOptions can be found in the
FFmpeg manual. Note that some AVOptions may conflict with MEn‐
coder options.
EXAMPLE:
o=bt=100k
acodec=<value>
audio codec (default: mp2)
ac3
Dolby Digital (AC-3)
adpcm_*
Adaptive PCM formats - see the HTML documentation for
details.
flac
Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
g726
G.726 ADPCM
libfaac
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) - using FAAC
libmp3lame
MPEG-1 audio layer 3 (MP3) - using LAME
mp2
MPEG-1 audio layer 2 (MP2)
pcm_*
PCM formats - see the HTML documentation for details.
roq_dpcm
Id Software RoQ DPCM
sonic
experimental simple lossy codec
sonicls
experimental simple lossless codec
vorbis
Vorbis
wmav1
Windows Media Audio v1
wmav2
Windows Media Audio v2
abitrate=<value>
audio bitrate in kbps (default: 224)
atag=<value>
Use the specified Windows audio format tag (e.g. atag=0x55).
bit_exact
Use only bit exact algorithms (except (I)DCT). Additionally
bit_exact disables several optimizations and thus should only be
used for regression tests, which need binary identical files
even if the encoder version changes. This also suppresses the
user_data header in MPEG-4 streams. Do not use this option un‐
less you know exactly what you are doing.
threads=<1-8>
Maximum number of threads to use (default: 1). May have a
slight negative effect on motion estimation.
vcodec=<value>
Employ the specified codec (default: mpeg4).
asv1
ASUS Video v1
asv2
ASUS Video v2
dvvideo
Sony Digital Video
ffv1
FFmpeg's lossless video codec
ffvhuff
nonstandard 20% smaller HuffYUV using YV12
flv
Sorenson H.263 used in Flash Video
h261
H.261
h263
H.263
h263p
H.263+
huffyuv
HuffYUV
libtheora
Theora
libx264
x264 H.264/AVC MPEG-4 Part 10
libxvid
Xvid MPEG-4 Part 2 (ASP)
ljpeg
Lossless JPEG
mjpeg
Motion JPEG
mpeg1video
MPEG-1 video
mpeg2video
MPEG-2 video
mpeg4
MPEG-4 (DivX 4/5)
msmpeg4
DivX 3
msmpeg4v2
MS MPEG4v2
roqvideo
ID Software RoQ Video
rv10
an old RealVideo codec
snow (also see: vstrict)
FFmpeg's experimental wavelet-based codec
svq1
Apple Sorenson Video 1
wmv1
Windows Media Video, version 1 (AKA WMV7)
wmv2
Windows Media Video, version 2 (AKA WMV8)
vqmin=<1-31>
minimum quantizer
1 Not recommended (much larger file, little quality dif‐
ference and weird side effects: msmpeg4, h263 will be
very low quality, ratecontrol will be confused resulting
in lower quality and some decoders will not be able to
decode it).
2 Recommended for normal mpeg4/mpeg1video encoding (de‐
fault).
3 Recommended for h263(p)/msmpeg4. The reason for prefer‐
ring 3 over 2 is that 2 could lead to overflows. (This
will be fixed for h263(p) by changing the quantizer per
MB in the future, msmpeg4 cannot be fixed as it does not
support that.)
lmin=<0.01-255.0>
Minimum frame-level Lagrange multiplier for ratecontrol (de‐
fault: 2.0). Lavc will rarely use quantizers below the value of
lmin. Lowering lmin will make lavc more likely to choose lower
quantizers for some frames, but not lower than the value of
vqmin. Likewise, raising lmin will make lavc less likely to
choose low quantizers, even if vqmin would have allowed them.
You probably want to set lmin approximately equal to vqmin.
When adaptive quantization is in use, changing lmin/lmax may
have less of an effect; see mblmin/mblmax.
lmax=<0.01-255.0>
maximum Lagrange multiplier for ratecontrol (default: 31.0)
mblmin=<0.01-255.0>
Minimum macroblock-level Lagrange multiplier for ratecontrol
(default:2.0). This parameter affects adaptive quantization op‐
tions like qprd, lumi_mask, etc..
mblmax=<0.01-255.0>
Maximum macroblock-level Lagrange multiplier for ratecontrol
(default: 31.0).
vqscale=<0-31>
Constant quantizer / constant quality encoding (selects fixed
quantizer mode). A lower value means better quality but larger
files (default: -1). In case of snow codec, value 0 means loss‐
less encoding. Since the other codecs do not support this, vqs‐
cale=0 will have an undefined effect. 1 is not recommended (see
vqmin for details).
vqmax=<1-31>
Maximum quantizer, 10-31 should be a sane range (default: 31).
vqdiff=<1-31>
maximum quantizer difference between consecutive I- or P-frames
(default: 3)
vmax_b_frames=<0-4>
maximum number of B-frames between non-B-frames:
0 no B-frames (default)
0-2 sane range for MPEG-4
vme=<0-5>
motion estimation method. Available methods are:
0 none (very low quality)
1 full (slow, currently unmaintained and disabled)
2 log (low quality, currently unmaintained and disabled)
3 phods (low quality, currently unmaintained and disabled)
4 EPZS: size=1 diamond, size can be adjusted with the *dia
options (default)
5 X1 (experimental, currently aliased to EPZS)
8 iter (iterative overlapped block, only used in snow)
NOTE: 0-3 currently ignores the amount of bits spent, so quality
may be low.
me_range=<0-9999>
motion estimation search range (default: 0 (unlimited))
mbd=<0-2> (also see *cmp, qpel)
Macroblock decision algorithm (high quality mode), encode each
macro block in all modes and choose the best. This is slow but
results in better quality and file size. When mbd is set to 1
or 2, the value of mbcmp is ignored when comparing macroblocks
(the mbcmp value is still used in other places though, in par‐
ticular the motion search algorithms). If any comparison set‐
ting (precmp, subcmp, cmp, or mbcmp) is nonzero, however, a
slower but better half-pel motion search will be used, regard‐
less of what mbd is set to. If qpel is set, quarter-pel motion
search will be used regardless.
0 Use comparison function given by mbcmp (default).
1 Select the MB mode which needs the fewest bits (=vhq).
2 Select the MB mode which has the best rate distortion.
vhq
Same as mbd=1, kept for compatibility reasons.
v4mv
Allow 4 motion vectors per macroblock (slightly better quality).
Works better if used with mbd>0.
obmc
overlapped block motion compensation (H.263+)
loop
loop filter (H.263+) note, this is broken
keyint=<0-300>
maximum interval between keyframes in frames (default: 250 or
one keyframe every ten seconds in a 25fps movie. This is the
recommended default for MPEG-4). Most codecs require regular
keyframes in order to limit the accumulation of mismatch error.
Keyframes are also needed for seeking, as seeking is only possi‐
ble to a keyframe - but keyframes need more space than other
frames, so larger numbers here mean slightly smaller files but
less precise seeking. 0 is equivalent to 1, which makes every
frame a keyframe. Values >300 are not recommended as the quali‐
ty might be bad depending upon decoder, encoder and luck. It is
common for MPEG-1/2 to use values <=30.
sc_threshold=<-1000000000-1000000000>
Threshold for scene change detection. A keyframe is inserted by
libavcodec when it detects a scene change. You can specify the
sensitivity of the detection with this option. -1000000000
means there is a scene change detected at every frame,
1000000000 means no scene changes are detected (default: 0).
sc_factor=<any positive integer>
Causes frames with higher quantizers to be more likely to trig‐
ger a scene change detection and make libavcodec use an I-frame
(default: 1). 1-16 is a sane range. Values between 2 and 6 may
yield increasing PSNR (up to approximately 0.04 dB) and better
placement of I-frames in high-motion scenes. Higher values than
6 may give very slightly better PSNR (approximately 0.01 dB more
than sc_factor=6), but noticably worse visual quality.
vb_strategy=<0-2> (pass one only)
strategy to choose between I/P/B-frames:
0 Always use the maximum number of B-frames (default).
1 Avoid B-frames in high motion scenes. See the b_sensi‐
tivity option to tune this strategy.
2 Places B-frames more or less optimally to yield maximum
quality (slower). You may want to reduce the speed im‐
pact of this option by tuning the option brd_scale.
b_sensitivity=<any integer greater than 0>
Adjusts how sensitively vb_strategy=1 detects motion and avoids
using B-frames (default: 40). Lower sensitivities will result
in more B-frames. Using more B-frames usually improves PSNR,
but too many B-frames can hurt quality in high-motion scenes.
Unless there is an extremely high amount of motion, b_sensitivi‐
ty can safely be lowered below the default; 10 is a reasonable
value in most cases.
brd_scale=<0-10>
Downscales frames for dynamic B-frame decision (default: 0).
Each time brd_scale is increased by one, the frame dimensions
are divided by two, which improves speed by a factor of four.
Both dimensions of the fully downscaled frame must be even num‐
bers, so brd_scale=1 requires the original dimensions to be mul‐
tiples of four, brd_scale=2 requires multiples of eight, etc.
In other words, the dimensions of the original frame must both
be divisible by 2^(brd_scale+1) with no remainder.
bidir_refine=<0-4>
Refine the two motion vectors used in bidirectional macroblocks,
rather than re-using vectors from the forward and backward
searches. This option has no effect without B-frames.
0 Disabled (default).
1-4 Use a wider search (larger values are slower).
vpass=<1-3>
Activates internal two (or more) pass mode, only specify if you
wish to use two (or more) pass encoding.
1 first pass (also see turbo)
2 second pass
3 Nth pass (second and subsequent passes of N-pass encod‐
ing)
Here is how it works, and how to use it:
The first pass (vpass=1) writes the statistics file. You might
want to deactivate some CPU-hungry options, like "turbo" mode
does.
In two pass mode, the second pass (vpass=2) reads the statistics
file and bases ratecontrol decisions on it.
In N-pass mode, the second pass (vpass=3, that is not a typo)
does both: It first reads the statistics, then overwrites them.
You might want to backup divx2pass.log before doing this if
there is any possibility that you will have to cancel MEncoder.
You can use all encoding options, except very CPU-hungry options
like "qns".
You can run this same pass over and over to refine the encode.
Each subsequent pass will use the statistics from the previous
pass to improve. The final pass can include any CPU-hungry en‐
coding options.
If you want a 2 pass encode, use first vpass=1, and then
vpass=2.
If you want a 3 or more pass encode, use vpass=1 for the first
pass and then vpass=3 and then vpass=3 again and again until you
are satisfied with the encode.
huffyuv:
pass 1
Saves statistics.
pass 2
Encodes with an optimal Huffman table based upon statis‐
tics from the first pass.
turbo (two pass only)
Dramatically speeds up pass one using faster algorithms and dis‐
abling CPU-intensive options. This will probably reduce global
PSNR a little bit (around 0.01dB) and change individual frame
type and PSNR a little bit more (up to 0.03dB).
aspect=<x/y>
Store movie aspect internally, just like with MPEG files. Much
nicer than rescaling, because quality is not decreased. Only
MPlayer will play these files correctly, other players will dis‐
play them with wrong aspect. The aspect parameter can be given
as a ratio or a floating point number.
EXAMPLE:
aspect=16/9 or aspect=1.78
autoaspect
Same as the aspect option, but automatically computes aspect,
taking into account all the adjustments (crop/expand/scale/etc.)
made in the filter chain. Does not incur a performance penalty,
so you can safely leave it always on.
vbitrate=<value>
Specify bitrate (default: 800).
WARNING: 1kbit = 1000 bits
4-16000
(in kbit)
16001-24000000
(in bit)
vratetol=<value>
approximated file size tolerance in kbit. 1000-100000 is a sane
range. (warning: 1kbit = 1000 bits) (default: 8000)
NOTE: vratetol should not be too large during the second pass or
there might be problems if vrc_(min|max)rate is used.
vrc_maxrate=<value>
maximum bitrate in kbit/sec (default: 0, unlimited)
vrc_minrate=<value>
minimum bitrate in kbit/sec (default: 0, unlimited)
vrc_buf_size=<value>
buffer size in kbit For MPEG-1/2 this also sets the vbv buffer
size, use 327 for VCD, 917 for SVCD and 1835 for DVD.
vrc_buf_aggressivity
currently useless
vrc_strategy
Ratecontrol method. Note that some of the ratecontrol-affecting
options will have no effect if vrc_strategy is not set to 0.
0 Use internal lavc ratecontrol (default).
1 Use Xvid ratecontrol (experimental; requires MEncoder to
be compiled with support for Xvid 1.1 or higher).
vb_qfactor=<-31.0-31.0>
quantizer factor between B- and non-B-frames (default: 1.25)
vi_qfactor=<-31.0-31.0>
quantizer factor between I- and non-I-frames (default: 0.8)
vb_qoffset=<-31.0-31.0>
quantizer offset between B- and non-B-frames (default: 1.25)
vi_qoffset=<-31.0-31.0>
(default: 0.0)
if v{b|i}_qfactor > 0
I/B-frame quantizer = P-frame quantizer * v{b|i}_qfactor +
v{b|i}_qoffset
else
do normal ratecontrol (do not lock to next P-frame quantizer)
and set q= -q * v{b|i}_qfactor + v{b|i}_qoffset
HINT: To do constant quantizer encoding with different quantiz‐
ers for I/P- and B-frames you can use: lmin= <ip_quant>:lmax=
<ip_quant>:vb_qfactor= <b_quant/ip_quant>.
vqblur=<0.0-1.0> (pass one)
Quantizer blur (default: 0.5), larger values will average the
quantizer more over time (slower change).
0.0 Quantizer blur disabled.
1.0 Average the quantizer over all previous frames.
vqblur=<0.0-99.0> (pass two)
Quantizer gaussian blur (default: 0.5), larger values will aver‐
age the quantizer more over time (slower change).
vqcomp=<0.0-1.0>
Quantizer compression, vrc_eq depends upon this (default: 0.5).
NOTE: Perceptual quality will be optimal somewhere in between
the range's extremes.
vrc_eq=<equation>
main ratecontrol equation
1+(tex/avgTex-1)*qComp
approximately the equation of the old ratecontrol code
tex^qComp
with qcomp 0.5 or something like that (default)
infix operators:
+,-,*,/,^
variables:
tex
texture complexity
iTex,pTex
intra, non-intra texture complexity
avgTex
average texture complexity
avgIITex
average intra texture complexity in I-frames
avgPITex
average intra texture complexity in P-frames
avgPPTex
average non-intra texture complexity in P-frames
avgBPTex
average non-intra texture complexity in B-frames
mv
bits used for motion vectors
fCode
maximum length of motion vector in log2 scale
iCount
number of intra macroblocks / number of macroblocks
var
spatial complexity
mcVar
temporal complexity
qComp
qcomp from the command line
isI, isP, isB
Is 1 if picture type is I/P/B else 0.
Pi,E
See your favorite math book.
functions:
max(a,b),min(a,b)
maximum / minimum
gt(a,b)
is 1 if a>b, 0 otherwise
lt(a,b)
is 1 if a<b, 0 otherwise
eq(a,b)
is 1 if a==b, 0 otherwise
sin, cos, tan, sinh, cosh, tanh, exp, log, abs
vrc_override=<options>
User specified quality for specific parts (ending, credits,
...). The options are <start-frame>, <end-frame>, <quali‐
ty>[/<start-frame>, <end-frame>, <quality>[/...]]:
quality (2-31)
quantizer
quality (-500-0)
quality correction in %
vrc_init_cplx=<0-1000>
initial complexity (pass 1)
vrc_init_occupancy=<0.0-1.0>
initial buffer occupancy, as a fraction of vrc_buf_size (de‐
fault: 0.9)
vqsquish=<0|1>
Specify how to keep the quantizer between qmin and qmax.
0 Use clipping.
1 Use a nice differentiable function (default).
vlelim=<-1000-1000>
Sets single coefficient elimination threshold for luminance.
Negative values will also consider the DC coefficient (should be
at least -4 or lower for encoding at quant=1):
0 disabled (default)
-4 JVT recommendation
vcelim=<-1000-1000>
Sets single coefficient elimination threshold for chrominance.
Negative values will also consider the DC coefficient (should be
at least -4 or lower for encoding at quant=1):
0 disabled (default)
7 JVT recommendation
vstrict=<-2|-1|0|1>
strict standard compliance
0 disabled
1 Only recommended if you want to feed the output into the
MPEG-4 reference decoder.
-1 Allow libavcodec specific extensions (default).
-2 Enables experimental codecs and features which may not
be playable with future MPlayer versions (snow).
vdpart
Data partitioning. Adds 2 Bytes per video packet, improves er‐
ror-resistance when transferring over unreliable channels (e.g.
streaming over the internet). Each video packet will be encoded
in 3 separate partitions:
1. MVs
movement
2. DC coefficients
low res picture
3. AC coefficients
details
MV & DC are most important, losing them looks far worse than
losing the AC and the 1. & 2. partition. (MV & DC) are far
smaller than the 3. partition (AC) meaning that errors will hit
the AC partition much more often than the MV & DC partitions.
Thus, the picture will look better with partitioning than with‐
out, as without partitioning an error will trash AC/DC/MV equal‐
ly.
vpsize=<0-10000> (also see vdpart)
Video packet size, improves error-resistance.
0
disabled (default)
100-1000
good choice
ss
slice structured mode for H.263+
gray
grayscale only encoding (faster)
vfdct=<0-10>
DCT algorithm
0 Automatically select a good one (default).
1 fast integer
2 accurate integer
3 MMX
4 mlib
5 AltiVec
6 floating point AAN
idct=<0-99>
IDCT algorithm
NOTE: To the best of our knowledge all these IDCTs do pass the
IEEE1180 tests.
0 Automatically select a good one (default).
1 JPEG reference integer
2 simple
3 simplemmx
4 libmpeg2mmx (inaccurate, do not use for encoding with
keyint >100)
5 ps2
6 mlib
7 arm
8 AltiVec
9 sh4
10 simplearm
11 H.264
12 VP3
13 IPP
14 xvidmmx
15 CAVS
16 simplearmv5te
17 simplearmv6
lumi_mask=<0.0-1.0>
Luminance masking is a 'psychosensory' setting that is supposed
to make use of the fact that the human eye tends to notice fewer
details in very bright parts of the picture. Luminance masking
compresses bright areas stronger than medium ones, so it will
save bits that can be spent again on other frames, raising over‐
all subjective quality, while possibly reducing PSNR.
WARNING: Be careful, overly large values can cause disastrous
things.
WARNING: Large values might look good on some monitors but may
look horrible on other monitors.
0.0
disabled (default)
0.0-0.3
sane range
dark_mask=<0.0-1.0>
Darkness masking is a 'psychosensory' setting that is supposed
to make use of the fact that the human eye tends to notice fewer
details in very dark parts of the picture. Darkness masking
compresses dark areas stronger than medium ones, so it will save
bits that can be spent again on other frames, raising overall
subjective quality, while possibly reducing PSNR.
WARNING: Be careful, overly large values can cause disastrous
things.
WARNING: Large values might look good on some monitors but may
look horrible on other monitors / TV / TFT.
0.0
disabled (default)
0.0-0.3
sane range
tcplx_mask=<0.0-1.0>
Temporal complexity masking (default: 0.0 (disabled)). Imagine
a scene with a bird flying across the whole scene; tcplx_mask
will raise the quantizers of the bird's macroblocks (thus de‐
creasing their quality), as the human eye usually does not have
time to see all the bird's details. Be warned that if the
masked object stops (e.g. the bird lands) it is likely to look
horrible for a short period of time, until the encoder figures
out that the object is not moving and needs refined blocks. The
saved bits will be spent on other parts of the video, which may
increase subjective quality, provided that tcplx_mask is care‐
fully chosen.
scplx_mask=<0.0-1.0>
Spatial complexity masking. Larger values help against blocki‐
ness, if no deblocking filter is used for decoding, which is
maybe not a good idea.
Imagine a scene with grass (which usually has great spatial com‐
plexity), a blue sky and a house; scplx_mask will raise the
quantizers of the grass' macroblocks, thus decreasing its quali‐
ty, in order to spend more bits on the sky and the house.
HINT: Crop any black borders completely as they will reduce the
quality of the macroblocks (also applies without scplx_mask).
0.0
disabled (default)
0.0-0.5
sane range
NOTE: This setting does not have the same effect as using a cus‐
tom matrix that would compress high frequencies harder, as sc‐
plx_mask will reduce the quality of P blocks even if only DC is
changing. The result of scplx_mask will probably not look as
good.
p_mask=<0.0-1.0> (also see vi_qfactor)
Reduces the quality of inter blocks. This is equivalent to in‐
creasing the quality of intra blocks, because the same average
bitrate will be distributed by the rate controller to the whole
video sequence (default: 0.0 (disabled)). p_mask=1.0 doubles
the bits allocated to each intra block.
border_mask=<0.0-1.0>
border-processing for MPEG-style encoders. Border processing
increases the quantizer for macroblocks which are less than
1/5th of the frame width/height away from the frame border,
since they are often visually less important.
naq
Normalize adaptive quantization (experimental). When using
adaptive quantization (*_mask), the average per-MB quantizer may
no longer match the requested frame-level quantizer. Naq will
attempt to adjust the per-MB quantizers to maintain the proper
average.
ildct
Use interlaced DCT.
ilme
Use interlaced motion estimation (mutually exclusive with qpel).
alt
Use alternative scantable.
top=<-1-1>
-1 automatic
0 bottom field first
1 top field first
format=<value>
YV12
default
444P
for ffv1
422P
for HuffYUV, lossless JPEG, dv and ffv1
411P
for lossless JPEG, dv and ffv1
YVU9
for lossless JPEG, ffv1 and svq1
BGR32
for lossless JPEG and ffv1
pred
(for HuffYUV)
0 left prediction
1 plane/gradient prediction
2 median prediction
pred
(for lossless JPEG)
0 left prediction
1 top prediction
2 topleft prediction
3 plane/gradient prediction
6 mean prediction
coder
(for ffv1)
0 vlc coding (Golomb-Rice)
1 arithmetic coding (CABAC)
context
(for ffv1)
0 small context model
1 large context model
(for ffvhuff)
0 predetermined Huffman tables (builtin or two pass)
1 adaptive Huffman tables
qpel
Use quarter pel motion compensation (mutually exclusive with
ilme).
HINT: This seems only useful for high bitrate encodings.
mbcmp=<0-2000>
Sets the comparison function for the macroblock decision, has
only an effect if mbd=0. This is also used for some motion
search functions, in which case it has an effect regardless of
mbd setting.
0 (SAD)
sum of absolute differences, fast (default)
1 (SSE)
sum of squared errors
2 (SATD)
sum of absolute Hadamard transformed differences
3 (DCT)
sum of absolute DCT transformed differences
4 (PSNR)
sum of squared quantization errors (avoid, low quality)
5 (BIT)
number of bits needed for the block
6 (RD)
rate distortion optimal, slow
7 (ZERO)
0
8 (VSAD)
sum of absolute vertical differences
9 (VSSE)
sum of squared vertical differences
10 (NSSE)
noise preserving sum of squared differences
11 (W53)
5/3 wavelet, only used in snow
12 (W97)
9/7 wavelet, only used in snow
+256
Also use chroma, currently does not work (correctly)
with B-frames.
ildctcmp=<0-2000>
Sets the comparison function for interlaced DCT decision (see
mbcmp for available comparison functions).
precmp=<0-2000>
Sets the comparison function for motion estimation pre pass (see
mbcmp for available comparison functions) (default: 0).
cmp=<0-2000>
Sets the comparison function for full pel motion estimation (see
mbcmp for available comparison functions) (default: 0).
subcmp=<0-2000>
Sets the comparison function for sub pel motion estimation (see
mbcmp for available comparison functions) (default: 0).
skipcmp=<0-2000>
FIXME: Document this.
nssew=<0-1000000>
This setting controls NSSE weight, where larger weights will re‐
sult in more noise. 0 NSSE is identical to SSE You may find
this useful if you prefer to keep some noise in your encoded
video rather than filtering it away before encoding (default:
8).
predia=<-99-6>
diamond type and size for motion estimation pre-pass
dia=<-99-6>
Diamond type & size for motion estimation. Motion search is an
iterative process. Using a small diamond does not limit the
search to finding only small motion vectors. It is just some‐
what more likely to stop before finding the very best motion
vector, especially when noise is involved. Bigger diamonds al‐
low a wider search for the best motion vector, thus are slower
but result in better quality.
Big normal diamonds are better quality than shape-adaptive dia‐
monds.
Shape-adaptive diamonds are a good tradeoff between speed and
quality.
NOTE: The sizes of the normal diamonds and shape adaptive ones
do not have the same meaning.
-3 shape adaptive (fast) diamond with size 3
-2 shape adaptive (fast) diamond with size 2
-1 uneven multi-hexagon search (slow)
1 normal size=1 diamond (default) =EPZS type diamond
0
000
0
2 normal size=2 diamond
0
000
00000
000
0
trell
Trellis searched quantization. This will find the optimal en‐
coding for each 8x8 block. Trellis searched quantization is
quite simply an optimal quantization in the PSNR versus bitrate
sense (Assuming that there would be no rounding errors intro‐
duced by the IDCT, which is obviously not the case.). It simply
finds a block for the minimum of error and lambda*bits.
lambda
quantization parameter (QP) dependent constant
bits
amount of bits needed to encode the block
error
sum of squared errors of the quantization
cbp
Rate distorted optimal coded block pattern. Will select the
coded block pattern which minimizes distortion + lambda*rate.
This can only be used together with trellis quantization.
mv0
Try to encode each MB with MV=<0,0> and choose the better one.
This has no effect if mbd=0.
mv0_threshold=<any non-negative integer>
When surrounding motion vectors are <0,0> and the motion estima‐
tion score of the current block is less than mv0_threshold,
<0,0> is used for the motion vector and further motion estima‐
tion is skipped (default: 256). Lowering mv0_threshold to 0 can
give a slight (0.01dB) PSNR increase and possibly make the en‐
coded video look slightly better; raising mv0_threshold past 320
results in diminished PSNR and visual quality. Higher values
speed up encoding very slightly (usually less than 1%, depending
on the other options used).
NOTE: This option does not require mv0 to be enabled.
qprd (mbd=2 only)
rate distorted optimal quantization parameter (QP) for the given
lambda of each macroblock
last_pred=<0-99>
amount of motion predictors from the previous frame
0 (default)
a Will use 2a+1 x 2a+1 macroblock square of motion vector
predictors from the previous frame.
preme=<0-2>
motion estimation pre-pass
0 disabled
1 only after I-frames (default)
2 always
subq=<1-8>
subpel refinement quality (for qpel) (default: 8 (high quality))
NOTE: This has a significant effect on speed.
refs=<1-8>
number of reference frames to consider for motion compensation
(Snow only) (default: 1)
psnr
print the PSNR (peak signal to noise ratio) for the whole video
after encoding and store the per frame PSNR in a file with a
name like 'psnr_hhmmss.log'. Returned values are in dB (deci‐
bel), the higher the better.
mpeg_quant
Use MPEG quantizers instead of H.263.
aic
Enable AC prediction for MPEG-4 or advanced intra prediction for
H.263+. This will improve quality very slightly (around 0.02 dB
PSNR) and slow down encoding very slightly (about 1%).
NOTE: vqmin should be 8 or larger for H.263+ AIC.
aiv
alternative inter vlc for H.263+
umv
unlimited MVs (H.263+ only) Allows encoding of arbitrarily long
MVs.
ibias=<-256-256>
intra quantizer bias (256 equals 1.0, MPEG style quantizer de‐
fault: 96, H.263 style quantizer default: 0)
NOTE: The H.263 MMX quantizer cannot handle positive biases (set
vfdct=1 or 2), the MPEG MMX quantizer cannot handle negative bi‐
ases (set vfdct=1 or 2).
pbias=<-256-256>
inter quantizer bias (256 equals 1.0, MPEG style quantizer de‐
fault: 0, H.263 style quantizer default: -64)
NOTE: The H.263 MMX quantizer cannot handle positive biases (set
vfdct=1 or 2), the MPEG MMX quantizer cannot handle negative bi‐
ases (set vfdct=1 or 2).
HINT: A more positive bias (-32 - -16 instead of -64) seems to
improve the PSNR.
nr=<0-100000>
Noise reduction, 0 means disabled. 0-600 is a useful range for
typical content, but you may want to turn it up a bit more for
very noisy content (default: 0). Given its small impact on
speed, you might want to prefer to use this over filtering noise
away with video filters like denoise3d or hqdn3d.
qns=<0-3>
Quantizer noise shaping. Rather than choosing quantization to
most closely match the source video in the PSNR sense, it choos‐
es quantization such that noise (usually ringing) will be masked
by similar-frequency content in the image. Larger values are
slower but may not result in better quality. This can and
should be used together with trellis quantization, in which case
the trellis quantization (optimal for constant weight) will be
used as startpoint for the iterative search.
0 disabled (default)
1 Only lower the absolute value of coefficients.
2 Only change coefficients before the last non-zero coef‐
ficient + 1.
3 Try all.
inter_matrix=<comma separated matrix>
Use custom inter matrix. It needs a comma separated string of
64 integers.
intra_matrix=<comma separated matrix>
Use custom intra matrix. It needs a comma separated string of
64 integers.
vqmod_amp
experimental quantizer modulation
vqmod_freq
experimental quantizer modulation
dc
intra DC precision in bits (default: 8). If you specify
vcodec=mpeg2video this value can be 8, 9, 10 or 11.
cgop (also see sc_threshold)
Close all GOPs. Currently it only works if scene change detec‐
tion is disabled (sc_threshold=1000000000).
gmc
Enable Global Motion Compensation.
(no)lowdelay
Sets the low delay flag for MPEG-1/2 (disables B-frames).
vglobal=<0-3>
Control writing global video headers.
0 Codec decides where to write global headers (default).
1 Write global headers only in extradata (needed for
.mp4/MOV/NUT).
2 Write global headers only in front of keyframes.
3 Combine 1 and 2.
aglobal=<0-3>
Same as vglobal for audio headers.
level=<value>
Set CodecContext Level. Use 31 or 41 to play video on a
Playstation 3.
skip_exp=<0-1000000>
FIXME: Document this.
skip_factor=<0-1000000>
FIXME: Document this.
skip_threshold=<0-1000000>
FIXME: Document this.
nuv (-nuvopts)
Nuppel video is based on RTJPEG and LZO. By default frames are first
encoded with RTJPEG and then compressed with LZO, but it is possible to
disable either or both of the two passes. As a result, you can in fact
output raw i420, LZO compressed i420, RTJPEG, or the default LZO com‐
pressed RTJPEG.
NOTE: The nuvrec documentation contains some advice and examples about
the settings to use for the most common TV encodings.
c=<0-20>
chrominance threshold (default: 1)
l=<0-20>
luminance threshold (default: 1)
lzo
Enable LZO compression (default).
nolzo
Disable LZO compression.
q=<3-255>
quality level (default: 255)
raw
Disable RTJPEG encoding.
rtjpeg
Enable RTJPEG encoding (default).
xvidenc (-xvidencopts)
There are three modes available: constant bitrate (CBR), fixed quantiz‐
er and two pass.
pass=<1|2>
Specify the pass in two pass mode.
turbo (two pass only)
Dramatically speeds up pass one using faster algorithms and dis‐
abling CPU-intensive options. This will probably reduce global
PSNR a little bit and change individual frame type and PSNR a
little bit more.
bitrate=<value> (CBR or two pass mode)
Sets the bitrate to be used in kbits/second if <16000 or in
bits/second if >16000. If <value> is negative, Xvid will use
its absolute value as the target size (in kBytes) of the video
and compute the associated bitrate automagically (default: 687
kbits/s).
fixed_quant=<1-31>
Switch to fixed quantizer mode and specify the quantizer to be
used.
zones=<zone0>[/<zone1>[/...]] (CBR or two pass mode)
User specified quality for specific parts (ending, credits,
...). Each zone is <start-frame>,<mode>,<value> where <mode>
may be
q Constant quantizer override, where value=<2.0-31.0> rep‐
resents the quantizer value.
w Ratecontrol weight override, where value=<0.01-2.00>
represents the quality correction in %.
EXAMPLE:
zones=90000,q,20
Encodes all frames starting with frame 90000 at constant
quantizer 20.
zones=0,w,0.1/10001,w,1.0/90000,q,20
Encode frames 0-10000 at 10% bitrate, encode frames
90000 up to the end at constant quantizer 20. Note that
the second zone is needed to delimit the first zone, as
without it everything up until frame 89999 would be en‐
coded at 10% bitrate.
me_quality=<0-6>
This option controls the motion estimation subsystem. The high‐
er the value, the more precise the estimation should be (de‐
fault: 6). The more precise the motion estimation is, the more
bits can be saved. Precision is gained at the expense of CPU
time so decrease this setting if you need realtime encoding.
(no)qpel
MPEG-4 uses a half pixel precision for its motion search by de‐
fault. The standard proposes a mode where encoders are allowed
to use quarter pixel precision. This option usually results in
a sharper image. Unfortunately it has a great impact on bitrate
and sometimes the higher bitrate use will prevent it from giving
a better image quality at a fixed bitrate. It is better to test
with and without this option and see whether it is worth acti‐
vating.
(no)gmc
Enable Global Motion Compensation, which makes Xvid generate
special frames (GMC-frames) which are well suited for Pan/Zoom/
Rotating images. Whether or not the use of this option will
save bits is highly dependent on the source material.
(no)trellis
Trellis Quantization is a kind of adaptive quantization method
that saves bits by modifying quantized coefficients to make them
more compressible by the entropy encoder. Its impact on quality
is good, and if VHQ uses too much CPU for you, this setting can
be a good alternative to save a few bits (and gain quality at
fixed bitrate) at a lesser cost than with VHQ (default: on).
(no)cartoon
Activate this if your encoded sequence is an anime/cartoon. It
modifies some Xvid internal thresholds so Xvid takes better de‐
cisions on frame types and motion vectors for flat looking car‐
toons.
(no)chroma_me
The usual motion estimation algorithm uses only the luminance
information to find the best motion vector. However for some
video material, using the chroma planes can help find better
vectors. This setting toggles the use of chroma planes for mo‐
tion estimation (default: on).
(no)chroma_opt
Enable a chroma optimizer prefilter. It will do some extra mag‐
ic on color information to minimize the stepped-stairs effect on
edges. It will improve quality at the cost of encoding speed.
It reduces PSNR by nature, as the mathematical deviation to the
original picture will get bigger, but the subjective image qual‐
ity will raise. Since it works with color information, you
might want to turn it off when encoding in grayscale.
(no)hq_ac
Activates high-quality prediction of AC coefficients for intra
frames from neighbor blocks (default: on).
vhq=<0-4>
The motion search algorithm is based on a search in the usual
color domain and tries to find a motion vector that minimizes
the difference between the reference frame and the encoded
frame. With this setting activated, Xvid will also use the fre‐
quency domain (DCT) to search for a motion vector that minimizes
not only the spatial difference but also the encoding length of
the block. Fastest to slowest:
0 off
1 mode decision (inter/intra MB) (default)
2 limited search
3 medium search
4 wide search
(no)lumi_mask
Adaptive quantization allows the macroblock quantizers to vary
inside each frame. This is a 'psychosensory' setting that is
supposed to make use of the fact that the human eye tends to no‐
tice fewer details in very bright and very dark parts of the
picture. It compresses those areas more strongly than medium
ones, which will save bits that can be spent again on other
frames, raising overall subjective quality and possibly reducing
PSNR.
(no)grayscale
Make Xvid discard chroma planes so the encoded video is
grayscale only. Note that this does not speed up encoding, it
just prevents chroma data from being written in the last stage
of encoding.
(no)interlacing
Encode the fields of interlaced video material. Turn this op‐
tion on for interlaced content.
NOTE: Should you rescale the video, you would need an interlace-
aware resizer, which you can activate with -vf
scale=<width>:<height>:1.
min_iquant=<0-31>
minimum I-frame quantizer (default: 2)
max_iquant=<0-31>
maximum I-frame quantizer (default: 31)
min_pquant=<0-31>
minimum P-frame quantizer (default: 2)
max_pquant=<0-31>
maximum P-frame quantizer (default: 31)
min_bquant=<0-31>
minimum B-frame quantizer (default: 2)
max_bquant=<0-31>
maximum B-frame quantizer (default: 31)
min_key_interval=<value> (two pass only)
minimum interval between keyframes (default: 0)
max_key_interval=<value>
maximum interval between keyframes (default: 10*fps)
quant_type=<h263|mpeg>
Sets the type of quantizer to use. For high bitrates, you will
find that MPEG quantization preserves more detail. For low bi‐
trates, the smoothing of H.263 will give you less block noise.
When using custom matrices, MPEG quantization must be used.
quant_intra_matrix=<filename>
Load a custom intra matrix file. You can build such a file with
xvid4conf's matrix editor.
quant_inter_matrix=<filename>
Load a custom inter matrix file. You can build such a file with
xvid4conf's matrix editor.
keyframe_boost=<0-1000> (two pass mode only)
Shift some bits from the pool for other frame types to intra
frames, thus improving keyframe quality. This amount is an ex‐
tra percentage, so a value of 10 will give your keyframes 10%
more bits than normal (default: 0).
kfthreshold=<value> (two pass mode only)
Works together with kfreduction. Determines the minimum dis‐
tance below which you consider that two frames are considered
consecutive and treated differently according to kfreduction
(default: 10).
kfreduction=<0-100> (two pass mode only)
The above two settings can be used to adjust the size of
keyframes that you consider too close to the first (in a row).
kfthreshold sets the range in which keyframes are reduced, and
kfreduction determines the bitrate reduction they get. The last
I-frame will get treated normally (default: 30).
max_bframes=<0-4>
Maximum number of B-frames to put between I/P-frames (default:
2).
bquant_ratio=<0-1000>
quantizer ratio between B- and non-B-frames, 150=1.50 (default:
150)
bquant_offset=<-1000-1000>
quantizer offset between B- and non-B-frames, 100=1.00 (default:
100)
bf_threshold=<-255-255>
This setting allows you to specify what priority to place on the
use of B-frames. The higher the value, the higher the probabil‐
ity of B-frames being used (default: 0). Do not forget that B-
frames usually have a higher quantizer, and therefore aggressive
production of B-frames may cause worse visual quality.
(no)closed_gop
This option tells Xvid to close every GOP (Group Of Pictures
bounded by two I-frames), which makes GOPs independent from each
other. This just implies that the last frame of the GOP is ei‐
ther a P-frame or a N-frame but not a B-frame. It is usually a
good idea to turn this option on (default: on).
(no)packed
This option is meant to solve frame-order issues when encoding
to container formats like AVI that cannot cope with out-of-order
frames. In practice, most decoders (both software and hardware)
are able to deal with frame-order themselves, and may get con‐
fused when this option is turned on, so you can safely leave if
off, unless you really know what you are doing.
WARNING: This will generate an illegal bitstream, and will not
be decodable by ISO-MPEG-4 decoders except DivX/libavcodec/Xvid.
WARNING: This will also store a fake DivX version in the file so
the bug autodetection of some decoders might be confused.
frame_drop_ratio=<0-100> (max_bframes=0 only)
This setting allows the creation of variable framerate video
streams. The value of the setting specifies a threshold under
which, if the difference of the following frame to the previous
frame is below or equal to this threshold, a frame gets not cod‐
ed (a so called n-vop is placed in the stream). On playback,
when reaching an n-vop the previous frame will be displayed.
WARNING: Playing with this setting may result in a jerky video,
so use it at your own risks!
rc_reaction_delay_factor=<value>
This parameter controls the number of frames the CBR rate con‐
troller will wait before reacting to bitrate changes and compen‐
sating for them to obtain a constant bitrate over an averaging
range of frames.
rc_averaging_period=<value>
Real CBR is hard to achieve. Depending on the video material,
bitrate can be variable, and hard to predict. Therefore Xvid
uses an averaging period for which it guarantees a given amount
of bits (minus a small variation). This settings expresses the
"number of frames" for which Xvid averages bitrate and tries to
achieve CBR.
rc_buffer=<value>
size of the rate control buffer
curve_compression_high=<0-100>
This setting allows Xvid to take a certain percentage of bits
away from high bitrate scenes and give them back to the bit
reservoir. You could also use this if you have a clip with so
many bits allocated to high-bitrate scenes that the low(er)-bi‐
trate scenes start to look bad (default: 0).
curve_compression_low=<0-100>
This setting allows Xvid to give a certain percentage of extra
bits to the low bitrate scenes, taking a few bits from the en‐
tire clip. This might come in handy if you have a few low-bi‐
trate scenes that are still blocky (default: 0).
overflow_control_strength=<0-100>
During pass one of two pass encoding, a scaled bitrate curve is
computed. The difference between that expected curve and the
result obtained during encoding is called overflow. Obviously,
the two pass rate controller tries to compensate for that over‐
flow, distributing it over the next frames. This setting con‐
trols how much of the overflow is distributed every time there
is a new frame. Low values allow lazy overflow control, big
rate bursts are compensated for more slowly (could lead to lack
of precision for small clips). Higher values will make changes
in bit redistribution more abrupt, possibly too abrupt if you
set it too high, creating artifacts (default: 5).
NOTE: This setting impacts quality a lot, play with it careful‐
ly!
max_overflow_improvement=<0-100>
During the frame bit allocation, overflow control may increase
the frame size. This parameter specifies the maximum percentage
by which the overflow control is allowed to increase the frame
size, compared to the ideal curve allocation (default: 5).
max_overflow_degradation=<0-100>
During the frame bit allocation, overflow control may decrease
the frame size. This parameter specifies the maximum percentage
by which the overflow control is allowed to decrease the frame
size, compared to the ideal curve allocation (default: 5).
container_frame_overhead=<0...>
Specifies a frame average overhead per frame, in bytes. Most of
the time users express their target bitrate for video w/o taking
care of the video container overhead. This small but (mostly)
constant overhead can cause the target file size to be exceeded.
Xvid allows users to set the amount of overhead per frame the
container generates (give only an average per frame). 0 has a
special meaning, it lets Xvid use its own default values (de‐
fault: 24 - AVI average overhead).
profile=<profile_name>
Restricts options and VBV (peak bitrate over a short period) ac‐
cording to the Simple, Advanced Simple and DivX profiles. The
resulting videos should be playable on standalone players adher‐
ing to these profile specifications.
unrestricted
no restrictions (default)
sp0
simple profile at level 0
sp1
simple profile at level 1
sp2
simple profile at level 2
sp3
simple profile at level 3
sp4a
simple profile at level 4a
sp5
simple profile at level 5
sp6
simple profile at level 6
asp0
advanced simple profile at level 0
asp1
advanced simple profile at level 1
asp2
advanced simple profile at level 2
asp3
advanced simple profile at level 3
asp4
advanced simple profile at level 4
asp5
advanced simple profile at level 5
dxnhandheld
DXN handheld profile
dxnportntsc
DXN portable NTSC profile
dxnportpal
DXN portable PAL profile
dxnhtntsc
DXN home theater NTSC profile
dxnhtpal
DXN home theater PAL profile
dxnhdtv
DXN HDTV profile
NOTE: These profiles should be used in conjunction with an ap‐
propriate -ffourcc. Generally DX50 is applicable, as some play‐
ers do not recognize Xvid but most recognize DivX.
par=<mode>
Specifies the Pixel Aspect Ratio mode (not to be confused with
DAR, the Display Aspect Ratio). PAR is the ratio of the width
and height of a single pixel. So both are related like this:
DAR = PAR * (width/height).
MPEG-4 defines 5 pixel aspect ratios and one extended one, giv‐
ing the opportunity to specify a specific pixel aspect ratio. 5
standard modes can be specified:
vga11
It is the usual PAR for PC content. Pixels are a square
unit.
pal43
PAL standard 4:3 PAR. Pixels are rectangles.
pal169
same as above
ntsc43
same as above
ntsc169
same as above (Do not forget to give the exact ratio.)
ext
Allows you to specify your own pixel aspect ratio with
par_width and par_height.
NOTE: In general, setting aspect and autoaspect options is
enough.
par_width=<1-255> (par=ext only)
Specifies the width of the custom pixel aspect ratio.
par_height=<1-255> (par=ext only)
Specifies the height of the custom pixel aspect ratio.
aspect=<x/y | f (float value)>
Store movie aspect internally, just like MPEG files. Much nicer
solution than rescaling, because quality is not decreased.
MPlayer and a few others players will play these files correct‐
ly, others will display them with the wrong aspect. The aspect
parameter can be given as a ratio or a floating point number.
(no)autoaspect
Same as the aspect option, but automatically computes aspect,
taking into account all the adjustments (crop/expand/scale/etc.)
made in the filter chain.
psnr
Print the PSNR (peak signal to noise ratio) for the whole video
after encoding and store the per frame PSNR in a file with a
name like 'psnr_hhmmss.log' in the current directory. Returned
values are in dB (decibel), the higher the better.
debug
Save per-frame statistics in ./xvid.dbg. (This is not the two
pass control file.)
The following options are only available in Xvid 1.1.x and later.
bvhq=<0|1>
This setting allows vector candidates for B-frames to be used
for the encoding chosen using a rate distortion optimized opera‐
tor, which is what is done for P-frames by the vhq option. This
produces nicer-looking B-frames while incurring almost no per‐
formance penalty (default: 1).
vbv_bufsize=<0...> (two pass mode only)
Specify the video buffering verifier (VBV) buffer size in bits
(default: 0 - VBV check disabled). VBV allows restricting peak
bitrate to make the video play properly on hardware players.
For example, the Home profile uses vbv_bufsize=3145728. If you
set vbv_bufsize you should set also vbv_maxrate. Note that
there is no vbv_peakrate because Xvid does not actually use it
for bitrate controlling; the other VBV options are enough to re‐
strict the peak bitrate.
vbv_initial=<0...vbv_bufsize> (two pass mode only)
Specify the initial fill of the VBV buffer in bits (default: 75%
of vbv_bufsize). The default is probably what you want.
vbv_maxrate=<0...> (two pass mode only)
Specify the maximum processing rate in bits/s (default: 0). For
example, the Home profile uses vbv_maxrate=4854000.
The following option is only available in Xvid 1.2.x and later.
threads=<0-n>
Create n threads to run the motion estimation (default: 0). The
maximum number of threads that can be used is the picture height
divided by 16.
x264enc (-x264encopts)
bitrate=<value>
Sets the average bitrate to be used in kbits/second (default:
off). Since local bitrate may vary, this average may be inaccu‐
rate for very short videos (see ratetol). Constant bitrate can
be achieved by combining this with vbv_maxrate, at significant
reduction in quality.
qp=<0-51>
This selects the quantizer to use for P-frames. I- and B-frames
are offset from this value by ip_factor and pb_factor, respec‐
tively. 20-40 is a useful range. Lower values result in better
fidelity, but higher bitrates. 0 is lossless. Note that quan‐
tization in H.264 works differently from MPEG-1/2/4: H.264's
quantization parameter (QP) is on a logarithmic scale. The map‐
ping is approximately H264QP = 12 + 6*log2(MPEGQP). For exam‐
ple, MPEG at QP=2 is equivalent to H.264 at QP=18. Generally,
this option should be avoided and crf should be used instead as
crf will yield better visual results for the same size.
crf=<1.0-50.0>
Enables constant quality mode, and selects the quality. The
scale is similar to QP. Like the bitrate-based modes, this al‐
lows each frame to use a different QP based on the frame's com‐
plexity. This option should generally be used instead of qp.
crf_max=<float>
With CRF and VBV, limit RF to this value (may cause VBV under‐
flows!).
pass=<1-3>
Enable 2 or 3-pass mode. It is recommended to always encode in
2 or 3-pass mode as it leads to a better bit distribution and
improves overall quality.
1 first pass
2 second pass (of two pass encoding)
3 Nth pass (second and third passes of three pass encod‐
ing)
Here is how it works, and how to use it:
The first pass (pass=1) collects statistics on the video and
writes them to a file. You might want to deactivate some CPU-
hungry options, apart from the ones that are on by default.
In two pass mode, the second pass (pass=2) reads the statistics
file and bases ratecontrol decisions on it.
In three pass mode, the second pass (pass=3, that is not a typo)
does both: It first reads the statistics, then overwrites them.
You can use all encoding options, except very CPU-hungry op‐
tions.
The third pass (pass=3) is the same as the second pass, except
that it has the second pass' statistics to work from. You can
use all encoding options, including CPU-hungry ones.
The first pass may use either average bitrate or constant quan‐
tizer. ABR is recommended, since it does not require guessing a
quantizer. Subsequent passes are ABR, and must specify bitrate.
profile=<name>
Constrain options to be compatible with an H.264 profile.
baseline
no8x8dct bframes=0 nocabac cqm=flat weightp=0 nointer‐
laced qp>0
main no8x8dct cqm=flat qp>0
high qp>0 (default)
preset=<name>
Use a preset to select encoding settings.
ultrafast
no8x8dct aq_mode=0 b_adapt=0 bframes=0 nodeblock nomb‐
tree me=dia nomixed_refs partitions=none ref=1 scene‐
cut=0 subq=0 trellis=0 noweight_b weightp=0
superfast
nombtree me=dia nomixed_refs partitions=i8x8,i4x4 ref=1
subq=1 trellis=0 weightp=0
veryfast
nombtree nomixed_refs ref=1 subq=2 trellis=0 weightp=0
faster
nomixed_refs rc_lookahead=20 ref=5 subq=4 weightp=1
fast rc_lookahead=30 ref=2 subq=6
medium
Default settings apply.
slow b_adapt=2 direct=auto me=umh rc_lookahead=50 ref=5
subq=8
slower
b_adapt=2 direct=auto me=umh partitions=all rc_looka‐
head=60 ref=8 subq=9 trellis=2
veryslow
b_adapt=2 b_frames=8 direct=auto me=umh me_range=24 par‐
titions=all ref=16 subq=10 trellis=2 rc_lookahead=60
placebo
bframes=16 b_adapt=2 direct=auto nofast_pskip me=tesa
me_range=24 partitions=all rc_lookahead=60 ref=16
subq=10 trellis=2
tune=<name,[name,...]>
Tune the settings for a particular type of source or situation.
All tuned settings are overridden by explicit user-settings.
Multiple tunings are separated by commas, but only one psy tun‐
ing can be used at a time.
film (psy tuning)
deblock=-1,-1 psy-rd=<unset>,0.15
animation (psy tuning)
b_frames={+2} deblock=1,1 psy-rd=0.4:<unset>
aq_strength=0.6 ref={double if >1 else 1}
grain (psy tuning)
aq_strength=0.5 nodct_decimate deadzone_inter=6 dead‐
zone_intra=6 deblock=-2,-2 ipratio=1.1 pbratio=1.1 psy-
rd=<unset>,0.25 qcomp=0.8
stillimage (psy tuning)
aq_strength=1.2 deblock=-3,-3 psy-rd=2.0,0.7
psnr (psy tuning)
aq_mode=0 nopsy
ssim (psy tuning)
aq_mode=2 nopsy
fastdecode
nocabac nodeblock noweight_b weightp=0
zerolatency
bframes=0 force_cfr rc_lookahead=0 sync_lookahead=0
sliced_threads
slow_firstpass
Disables the following faster options with pass=1: no_8x8dct
me=dia partitions=none ref=1 subq={2 if >2 else unchanged} trel‐
lis=0 fast_pskip. These settings significantly improve encoding
speed while having little or no impact on the quality of the fi‐
nal pass.
This option is implied with preset=placebo.
keyint=<value>
Sets maximum interval between IDR-frames (default: 250). Larger
values save bits, thus improve quality, at the cost of seeking
precision. Unlike MPEG-1/2/4, H.264 does not suffer from DCT
drift with large values of keyint.
keyint_min=<1-keyint/2>
Sets minimum interval between IDR-frames (default: auto). If
scenecuts appear within this interval, they are still encoded as
I-frames, but do not start a new GOP. In H.264, I-frames do not
necessarily bound a closed GOP because it is allowable for a P-
frame to be predicted from more frames than just the one frame
before it (also see frameref). Therefore, I-frames are not nec‐
essarily seekable. IDR-frames restrict subsequent P-frames from
referring to any frame prior to the IDR-frame.
scenecut=<-1-100>
Controls how aggressively to insert extra I-frames (default:
40). With small values of scenecut, the codec often has to
force an I-frame when it would exceed keyint. Good values of
scenecut may find a better location for the I-frame. Large val‐
ues use more I-frames than necessary, thus wasting bits. -1
disables scene-cut detection, so I-frames are inserted only once
every other keyint frames, even if a scene-cut occurs earlier.
This is not recommended and wastes bitrate as scenecuts encoded
as P-frames are just as big as I-frames, but do not reset the
"keyint counter".
(no)intra_refresh
Periodic intra block refresh instead of keyframes (default: dis‐
abled). This option disables IDR-frames, and, instead, uses a
moving vertical bar of intra-coded blocks. This reduces compres‐
sion efficiency but benefits low-latency streaming and re‐
silience to packet loss.
frameref=<1-16>
Number of previous frames used as predictors in B- and P-frames
(default: 3). This is effective in anime, but in live-action
material the improvements usually drop off very rapidly above 6
or so reference frames. This has no effect on decoding speed,
but does increase the memory needed for decoding. Some decoders
can only handle a maximum of 15 reference frames.
bframes=<0-16>
maximum number of consecutive B-frames between I- and P-frames
(default: 3)
(no)b_adapt
Automatically decides when to use B-frames and how many, up to
the maximum specified above (default: on). If this option is
disabled, then the maximum number of B-frames is used.
b_bias=<-100-100>
Controls the decision performed by b_adapt. A higher b_bias
produces more B-frames (default: 0).
b_pyramid=<normal|strict|none>
Allows B-frames to be used as references for predicting other
frames. For example, consider 3 consecutive B-frames: I0 B1 B2
B3 P4. Without this option, B-frames follow the same pattern as
MPEG-[124]. So they are coded in the order I0 P4 B1 B2 B3, and
all the B-frames are predicted from I0 and P4. With this op‐
tion, they are coded as I0 P4 B2 B1 B3. B2 is the same as
above, but B1 is predicted from I0 and B2, and B3 is predicted
from B2 and P4. This usually results in slightly improved com‐
pression, at almost no speed cost. However, this is an experi‐
mental option: it is not fully tuned and may not always help.
Requires bframes >= 2. Disadvantage: increases decoding delay
to 2 frames.
normal
Allow B-frames as references as described above (not
Blu-ray compatible).
strict
Disallow P-frames referencing B-frames. Gives worse com‐
pression, but is required for Blu-ray compatibility.
none
Disable using B-frames as references.
(no)open_gop
Use recovery points to close GOPs; only available with bframes.
(no)bluray_compat
Enable compatibility hacks for Blu-Ray support.
(no)fake_interlaced
Flag stream as interlaced but encode progressive. Makes it poss‐
sible to encode 25p and 30p Blu-Ray streams. Ignored in inter‐
laced mode.
frame_packing=<0-5>
Define frame arrangement for stereoscopic videos.
0 Checkerboard - pixels are alternately from L and R.
1 Column alternation - L and R are interlaced by column.
2 Row alternation - L and R are interlaced by row.
3 Side by side - L is on the left, R is on the right.
4 Top-bottom - L is on top, R is on the bottom.
5 Frame alternation - one view per frame.
(no)deblock
Use deblocking filter (default: on). As it takes very little
time compared to its quality gain, it is not recommended to dis‐
able it.
deblock=<-6-6>,<-6-6>
The first parameter is AlphaC0 (default: 0). This adjusts
thresholds for the H.264 in-loop deblocking filter. First, this
parameter adjusts the maximum amount of change that the filter
is allowed to cause on any one pixel. Secondly, this parameter
affects the threshold for difference across the edge being fil‐
tered. A positive value reduces blocking artifacts more, but
will also smear details.
The second parameter is Beta (default: 0). This affects the de‐
tail threshold. Very detailed blocks are not filtered, since
the smoothing caused by the filter would be more noticeable than
the original blocking.
The default behavior of the filter almost always achieves opti‐
mal quality, so it is best to either leave it alone, or make on‐
ly small adjustments. However, if your source material already
has some blocking or noise which you would like to remove, it
may be a good idea to turn it up a little bit.
(no)cabac
Use CABAC (Context-Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding) (default:
on). Slightly slows down encoding and decoding, but should save
10-15% bitrate. Unless you are looking for decoding speed, you
should not disable it.
qp_min=<1-51> (ABR or two pass)
Minimum quantizer, 10-30 seems to be a useful range (default:
10).
qp_max=<1-51> (ABR or two pass)
maximum quantizer (default: 51)
qp_step=<1-50> (ABR or two pass)
maximum value by which the quantizer may be incremented/decre‐
mented between frames (default: 4)
(no)mbtree
Enable macroblock tree ratecontrol (default: enabled). Use a
large lookahead to track temporal propagation of data and weight
quality accordingly. In multi-pass mode, this writes to a sepa‐
rate stats file named <passlogfile>.mbtree.
rc_lookahead=<0-250>
Adjust the mbtree lookahead distance (default: 40). Larger val‐
ues will be slower and cause x264 to consume more memory, but
can yield higher quality.
ratetol=<0.1-100.0> (ABR or two pass)
allowed variance in average bitrate (no particular units) (de‐
fault: 1.0)
vbv_maxrate=<value> (ABR or two pass)
maximum local bitrate, in kbits/second (default: disabled)
vbv_bufsize=<value> (ABR or two pass)
averaging period for vbv_maxrate, in kbits (default: none, must
be specified if vbv_maxrate is enabled)
vbv_init=<0.0-1.0> (ABR or two pass)
initial buffer occupancy, as a fraction of vbv_bufsize (default:
0.9)
ip_factor=<value>
quantizer factor between I- and P-frames (default: 1.4)
pb_factor=<value>
quantizer factor between P- and B-frames (default: 1.3)
qcomp=<0-1> (ABR or two pass)
quantizer compression (default: 0.6). A lower value makes the
bitrate more constant, while a higher value makes the quantiza‐
tion parameter more constant.
cplx_blur=<0-999> (two pass only)
Temporal blur of the estimated frame complexity, before curve
compression (default: 20). Lower values allow the quantizer
value to jump around more, higher values force it to vary more
smoothly. cplx_blur ensures that each I-frame has quality com‐
parable to the following P-frames, and ensures that alternating
high and low complexity frames (e.g. low fps animation) do not
waste bits on fluctuating quantizer.
qblur=<0-99> (two pass only)
Temporal blur of the quantization parameter, after curve com‐
pression (default: 0.5). Lower values allow the quantizer value
to jump around more, higher values force it to vary more smooth‐
ly.
zones=<zone0>[/<zone1>[/...]]
User specified quality for specific parts (ending, credits,
...). Each zone is <start-frame>,<end-frame>,<option> where op‐
tion may be
q=<0-51>
quantizer
b=<0.01-100.0>
bitrate multiplier
NOTE: The quantizer option is not strictly enforced. It affects
only the planning stage of ratecontrol, and is still subject to
overflow compensation and qp_min/qp_max.
direct_pred=<name>
Determines the type of motion prediction used for direct mac‐
roblocks in B-frames.
none Direct macroblocks are not used.
spatial
Motion vectors are extrapolated from neighboring blocks.
(default)
temporal
Motion vectors are extrapolated from the following P-
frame.
auto The codec selects between spatial and temporal for each
frame.
Spatial and temporal are approximately the same speed and PSNR,
the choice between them depends on the video content. Auto is
slightly better, but slower. Auto is most effective when com‐
bined with multipass. direct_pred=none is both slower and lower
quality.
weightp
Weighted P-frame prediction mode (default: 2).
0 disabled (fastest)
1 weighted refs (better quality)
2 weighted refs + duplicates (best)
(no)weight_b
Use weighted prediction in B-frames. Without this option, bidi‐
rectionally predicted macroblocks give equal weight to each ref‐
erence frame. With this option, the weights are determined by
the temporal position of the B-frame relative to the references.
Requires bframes > 1.
partitions=<list>
Enable some optional macroblock types (default:
p8x8,b8x8,i8x8,i4x4).
p8x8 Enable types p16x8, p8x16, p8x8.
p4x4 Enable types p8x4, p4x8, p4x4. p4x4 is recommended only
with subq >= 5, and only at low resolutions.
b8x8 Enable types b16x8, b8x16, b8x8.
i8x8 Enable type i8x8. i8x8 has no effect unless 8x8dct is
enabled.
i4x4 Enable type i4x4.
all Enable all of the above types.
none Disable all of the above types.
Regardless of this option, macroblock types p16x16, b16x16, and
i16x16 are always enabled.
The idea is to find the type and size that best describe a cer‐
tain area of the picture. For example, a global pan is better
represented by 16x16 blocks, while small moving objects are bet‐
ter represented by smaller blocks.
(no)8x8dct
Adaptive spatial transform size: allows macroblocks to choose
between 4x4 and 8x8 DCT. Also allows the i8x8 macroblock type.
Without this option, only 4x4 DCT is used.
me=<name>
Select fullpixel motion estimation algorithm.
dia diamond search, radius 1 (fast)
hex hexagon search, radius 2 (default)
umh uneven multi-hexagon search (slow)
esa exhaustive search (very slow, and no better than umh)
me_range=<4-64>
radius of exhaustive or multi-hexagon motion search (default:
16)
subq=<0-11>
Adjust subpel refinement quality. This parameter controls qual‐
ity versus speed tradeoffs involved in the motion estimation de‐
cision process. subq=5 can compress up to 10% better than
subq=1.
0 Runs fullpixel precision motion estimation on all candi‐
date macroblock types. Then selects the best type with
SAD metric (faster than subq=1, not recommended unless
you're looking for ultra-fast encoding).
1 Does as 0, then refines the motion of that type to fast
quarterpixel precision (fast).
2 Runs halfpixel precision motion estimation on all candi‐
date macroblock types. Then selects the best type with
SATD metric. Then refines the motion of that type to
fast quarterpixel precision.
3 As 2, but uses a slower quarterpixel refinement.
4 Runs fast quarterpixel precision motion estimation on
all candidate macroblock types. Then selects the best
type with SATD metric. Then finishes the quarterpixel
refinement for that type.
5 Runs best quality quarterpixel precision motion estima‐
tion on all candidate macroblock types, before selecting
the best type. Also refines the two motion vectors used
in bidirectional macroblocks with SATD metric, rather
than reusing vectors from the forward and backward
searches.
6 Enables rate-distortion optimization of macroblock types
in I- and P-frames.
7 Enables rate-distortion optimization of macroblock types
in all frames (default).
8 Enables rate-distortion optimization of motion vectors
and intra prediction modes in I- and P-frames.
9 Enables rate-distortion optimization of motion vectors
and intra prediction modes in all frames.
10 QP-RD; requires trellis=2 and aq_mode=1 or higher
(best).
11 Full RD; disable all early terminations.
In the above, "all candidates" does not exactly mean all enabled
types: 4x4, 4x8, 8x4 are tried only if 8x8 is better than 16x16.
(no)chroma_me
Takes into account chroma information during subpixel motion
search (default: enabled). Requires subq>=5.
(no)mixed_refs
Allows each 8x8 or 16x8 motion partition to independently select
a reference frame. Without this option, a whole macroblock must
use the same reference. Requires frameref>1.
trellis=<0-2> (cabac only)
rate-distortion optimal quantization
0 disabled
1 enabled only for the final encode (default)
2 enabled during all mode decisions (slow, requires
subq>=6)
psy-rd=rd[,trell]
Sets the strength of the psychovisual optimization.
rd=<0.0-10.0>
psy optimization strength (requires subq>=6) (default:
1.0)
trell=<0.0-10.0>
trellis (requires trellis, experimental) (default: 0.0)
(no)psy
Enable psychovisual optimizations that hurt PSNR and SSIM but
ought to look better (default: enabled).
deadzone_inter=<0-32>
Set the size of the inter luma quantization deadzone for non-
trellis quantization (default: 21). Lower values help to pre‐
serve fine details and film grain (typically useful for high bi‐
trate/quality encode), while higher values help filter out these
details to save bits that can be spent again on other mac‐
roblocks and frames (typically useful for bitrate-starved en‐
codes). It is recommended that you start by tweaking dead‐
zone_intra before changing this parameter.
deadzone_intra=<0-32>
Set the size of the intra luma quantization deadzone for non-
trellis quantization (default: 11). This option has the same
effect as deadzone_inter except that it affects intra frames.
It is recommended that you start by tweaking this parameter be‐
fore changing deadzone_inter.
(no)fast_pskip
Performs early skip detection in P-frames (default: enabled).
This usually improves speed at no cost, but it can sometimes
produce artifacts in areas with no details, like sky.
(no)dct_decimate
Eliminate dct blocks in P-frames containing only a small single
coefficient (default: enabled). This will remove some details,
so it will save bits that can be spent again on other frames,
hopefully raising overall subjective quality. If you are com‐
pressing non-anime content with a high target bitrate, you may
want to disable this to preserve as much detail as possible.
nr=<0-100000>
Noise reduction, 0 means disabled. 100-1000 is a useful range
for typical content, but you may want to turn it up a bit more
for very noisy content (default: 0). Given its small impact on
speed, you might want to prefer to use this over filtering noise
away with video filters like denoise3d or hqdn3d.
chroma_qp_offset=<-12-12>
Use a different quantizer for chroma as compared to luma. Use‐
ful values are in the range <-2-2> (default: 0).
aq_mode=<0-2>
Defines how adaptive quantization (AQ) distributes bits:
0 disabled
1 Avoid moving bits between frames.
2 Move bits between frames (by default).
aq_strength=<positive float value>
Controls how much adaptive quantization (AQ) reduces blocking
and blurring in flat and textured areas (default: 1.0). A value
of 0.5 will lead to weak AQ and less details, when a value of
1.5 will lead to strong AQ and more details.
cqm=<flat|jvt|<filename>>
Either uses a predefined custom quantization matrix or loads a
JM format matrix file.
flat
Use the predefined flat 16 matrix (default).
jvt
Use the predefined JVT matrix.
<filename>
Use the provided JM format matrix file.
NOTE: Windows CMD.EXE users may experience problems with parsing
the command line if they attempt to use all the CQM lists. This
is due to a command line length limitation. In this case it is
recommended the lists be put into a JM format CQM file and load‐
ed as specified above.
cqm4iy=<list> (also see cqm)
Custom 4x4 intra luminance matrix, given as a list of 16 comma
separated values in the 1-255 range.
cqm4ic=<list> (also see cqm)
Custom 4x4 intra chrominance matrix, given as a list of 16 comma
separated values in the 1-255 range.
cqm4py=<list> (also see cqm)
Custom 4x4 inter luminance matrix, given as a list of 16 comma
separated values in the 1-255 range.
cqm4pc=<list> (also see cqm)
Custom 4x4 inter chrominance matrix, given as a list of 16 comma
separated values in the 1-255 range.
cqm8iy=<list> (also see cqm)
Custom 8x8 intra luminance matrix, given as a list of 64 comma
separated values in the 1-255 range.
cqm8py=<list> (also see cqm)
Custom 8x8 inter luminance matrix, given as a list of 64 comma
separated values in the 1-255 range.
level_idc=<10-51>
Set the bitstream's level as defined by annex A of the H.264
standard (default: 51 - level 5.1). This is used for telling
the decoder what capabilities it needs to support. Use this pa‐
rameter only if you know what it means, and you have a need to
set it.
(no)cpu_independent
Ensure exact reproducibility across different CPUs instead of
chosing different algorithms when available/better (default:en‐
abled).
threads=<0-16>
Spawn threads to encode in parallel on multiple CPUs (default:
0). This has a slight penalty to compression quality. 0 or
'auto' tells x264 to detect how many CPUs you have and pick an
appropriate number of threads.
(no)sliced_threads
Use slice-based threading (default: disabled). Unlike normal
threading, this option adds no encoding latency, but is slightly
slower and less effective at compression.
slice_max_size=<0 or positive integer>
Maximum slice size in bytes (default: 0). A value of zero dis‐
ables the maximum.
slice_max_mbs=<0 or positive integer>
Maximum slice size in number of macroblocks (default: 0). A
value of zero disables the maximum.
slices=<0 or positive integer>
Maximum number of slices per frame (default: 0). A value of ze‐
ro disables the maximum.
sync_lookahead=<0-250>
Adjusts the size of the threaded lookahead buffer (default: 0).
0 or 'auto' tells x264 to automatically determine buffer size.
(no)deterministic
Use only deterministic optimizations with multithreaded encoding
(default: enabled).
(no)global_header
Causes SPS and PPS to appear only once, at the beginning of the
bitstream (default: disabled). Some players, such as the Sony
PSP, require the use of this option. The default behavior caus‐
es SPS and PPS to repeat prior to each IDR frame.
(no)tff
Enable interlaced mode, top field first (default: disabled)
(no)bff
Enable interlaced mode, bottom field first (default: disabled)
nal_hrd=<none|vbr|cbr>
Signal HRD information (requires vbv_bufsize) (default: none).
(no)pic_struct
Force pic_struct in Picture Timing SEI (default: disabled).
(no)constrained_intra
Enable constrained intra prediction (default: disabled). This
significantly reduces compression, but is required for the base
layer of SVC encodes.
output_csp=<i420|i422|i444|rgb>
Specify output colorspace (default: i420).
(no)aud
Write access unit delimeters to the stream (default: disabled).
Enable this only if your target container format requires access
unit delimiters.
overscan=<undef|show|crop>
Include VUI overscan information in the stream (default: dis‐
abled). See doc/vui.txt in the x264 source code for more infor‐
mation.
videoformat=<component|pal|ntsc|secam|mac|undef>
Include VUI video format information in the stream (default:
disabled). This is a purely informative setting for describing
the original source. See doc/vui.txt in the x264 source code
for more information.
(no)fullrange
Include VUI full range information in the stream (default: dis‐
abled). Use this option if your source video is not range lim‐
ited. See doc/vui.txt in the x264 source code for more informa‐
tion.
colorprim=<bt709|bt470m|bt470bg|smpte170m|smpte240m|film|undef>
Include color primaries information (default: disabled). This
can be used for color correction. See doc/vui.txt in the x264
source code for more information.
transfer=<bt709|bt470m|bt470bg|lin‐
ear|log100|log316|smpte170m|smpte240m>
Include VUI transfer characteristics information in the stream
(default: disabled). This can be used for color correction.
See doc/vui.txt in the x264 source code for more information.
colormatrix=<bt709|fcc|bt470bg|smpte170m|smpte240m|GBR|YCgCo>
Include VUI matrix coefficients in the stream (default: dis‐
abled). This can be used for color correction. See doc/vui.txt
in the x264 source code for more information.
chromaloc=<0-5>
Include VUI chroma sample location information in the stream
(default: disabled). Use this option to ensure alignment of the
chroma and luma planes after color space conversions. See
doc/vui.txt in the x264 source code for more information.
log=<-1-3>
Adjust the amount of logging info printed to the screen.
-1 none
0 Print errors only.
1 warnings
2 PSNR and other analysis statistics when the encode fin‐
ishes (default)
3 PSNR, QP, frametype, size, and other statistics for ev‐
ery frame
(no)psnr
Print signal-to-noise ratio statistics.
NOTE: The 'Y', 'U', 'V', and 'Avg' PSNR fields in the summary
are not mathematically sound (they are simply the average of
per-frame PSNRs). They are kept only for comparison to the JM
reference codec. For all other purposes, please use either the
'Global' PSNR, or the per-frame PSNRs printed by log=3.
(no)ssim
Print the Structural Similarity Metric results. This is an al‐
ternative to PSNR, and may be better correlated with the per‐
ceived quality of the compressed video.
(no)visualize
Enable x264 visualizations during encoding. If the x264 on your
system supports it, a new window will be opened during the en‐
coding process, in which x264 will attempt to present an over‐
view of how each frame gets encoded. Each block type on the vi‐
sualized movie will be colored as follows:
dump_yuv=<file name>
Dump YUV frames to the specified file. For debugging use.
red/pink
intra block
blue
inter block
green
skip block
yellow
B-block
This feature can be considered experimental and subject to
change. In particular, it depends on x264 being compiled with
visualizations enabled. Note that as of writing this, x264
pauses after encoding and visualizing each frame, waiting for
the user to press a key, at which point the next frame will be
encoded.
xvfw (-xvfwopts)
Encoding with Video for Windows codecs is mostly obsolete unless you
wish to encode to some obscure fringe codec.
codec=<name>
The name of the binary codec file with which to encode.
compdata=<file>
The name of the codec settings file (like firstpass.mcf) created
by vfw2menc.
MPEG muxer (-mpegopts)
The MPEG muxer can generate 5 types of streams, each of which has rea‐
sonable default parameters that the user can override. Generally, when
generating MPEG files, it is advisable to disable MEncoder's frame-skip
code (see -noskip, -mc as well as the harddup and softskip video fil‐
ters).
EXAMPLE:
format=mpeg2:tsaf:vbitrate=8000
format=<mpeg1 | mpeg2 | xvcd | xsvcd | dvd | pes1 | pes2>
stream format (default: mpeg2). pes1 and pes2 are very broken
formats (no pack header and no padding), but VDR uses them; do
not choose them unless you know exactly what you are doing.
size=<up to 65535>
Pack size in bytes, do not change unless you know exactly what
you are doing (default: 2048).
muxrate=<int>
Nominal muxrate in kbit/s used in the pack headers (default:
1800 kb/s). Will be updated as necessary in the case of 'for‐
mat=mpeg1' or 'mpeg2'.
tsaf
Sets timestamps on all frames, if possible; recommended when
format=dvd. If dvdauthor complains with a message like "..audio
sector out of range...", you probably did not enable this op‐
tion.
interleaving2
Uses a better algorithm to interleave audio and video packets,
based on the principle that the muxer will always try to fill
the stream with the largest percentage of free space.
vdelay=<1-32760>
Initial video delay time, in milliseconds (default: 0), use it
if you want to delay video with respect to audio. It doesn't
work with :drop.
adelay=<1-32760>
Initial audio delay time, in milliseconds (default: 0), use it
if you want to delay audio with respect to video.
drop
When used with vdelay the muxer drops the part of audio that was
anticipated.
vwidth, vheight=<1-4095>
Set the video width and height when video is MPEG-1/2.
vpswidth, vpsheight=<1-4095>
Set pan and scan video width and height when video is MPEG-2.
vaspect=<1 | 4/3 | 16/9 | 221/100>
Sets the display aspect ratio for MPEG-2 video. Do not use it
on MPEG-1 or the resulting aspect ratio will be completely
wrong.
vbitrate=<int>
Sets the video bitrate in kbit/s for MPEG-1/2 video.
vframerate=<24000/1001 | 24 | 25 | 30000/1001 | 30 | 50 | 60000/1001 |
60 >
Sets the framerate for MPEG-1/2 video. This option will be ig‐
nored if used with the telecine option.
telecine
Enables 3:2 pulldown soft telecine mode: The muxer will make the
video stream look like it was encoded at 30000/1001 fps. It on‐
ly works with MPEG-2 video when the output framerate is
24000/1001 fps, convert it with -ofps if necessary. Any other
framerate is incompatible with this option.
film2pal
Enables FILM to PAL and NTSC to PAL soft telecine mode: The mux‐
er will make the video stream look like it was encoded at 25
fps. It only works with MPEG-2 video when the output framerate
is 24000/1001 fps, convert it with -ofps if necessary. Any oth‐
er framerate is incompatible with this option.
tele_src and tele_dest
Enables arbitrary telecining using Donand Graft's DGPulldown
code. You need to specify the original and the desired framer‐
ate; the muxer will make the video stream look like it was en‐
coded at the desired framerate. It only works with MPEG-2 video
when the input framerate is smaller than the output framerate
and the framerate increase is <= 1.5.
EXAMPLE:
tele_src=25,tele_dest=30000/1001
PAL to NTSC telecining
vbuf_size=<40-1194>
Sets the size of the video decoder's buffer, expressed in kilo‐
bytes. Specify it only if the bitrate of the video stream is
too high for the chosen format and if you know perfectly well
what you are doing. A too high value may lead to an unplayable
movie, depending on the player's capabilities. When muxing HDTV
video a value of 400 should suffice.
abuf_size=<4-64>
Sets the size of the audio decoder's buffer, expressed in kilo‐
bytes. The same principle as for vbuf_size applies.
FFmpeg libavformat demuxers (-lavfdopts)
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/MEncoder options.
EXAMPLE:
o=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.
FFmpeg libavformat muxers (-lavfopts) (also see -of lavf)
delay=<value>
Currently only meaningful for MPEG[12]: Maximum allowed dis‐
tance, in seconds, between the reference timer of the output
stream (SCR) and the decoding timestamp (DTS) for any stream
present (demux to decode delay). Default is 0.7 (as mandated by
the standards defined by MPEG). Higher values require larger
buffers and must not be used.
format=<container_format>
Override which container format to mux into (default: autodetect
from output file extension).
mpg
MPEG-1 systems and MPEG-2 PS
asf
Advanced Streaming Format
avi
Audio Video Interleave file
wav
Waveform Audio
swf
Macromedia Flash
flv
Macromedia Flash video files
rm
RealAudio and RealVideo
au
SUN AU format
nut
NUT open container format (experimental)
mov
QuickTime
mp4
MPEG-4 format
ipod
MPEG-4 format with extra header flags required by Apple
iPod firmware
dv
Sony Digital Video container
matroska
Matroska
muxrate=<rate>
Nominal bitrate of the multiplex, in bits per second; currently
it is meaningful only for MPEG[12]. Sometimes raising it is
necessary in order to avoid "buffer underflows".
o=<key>=<value>[,<key>=<value>[,...]]
Pass AVOptions to libavformat muxer. Note, a patch to make the
o= unneeded and pass all unknown options through the AVOption
system is welcome. A full list of AVOptions can be found in the
FFmpeg manual. Note that some options may conflict with MEn‐
coder options.
EXAMPLE:
o=packetsize=100
packetsize=<size>
Size, expressed in bytes, of the unitary packet for the chosen
format. When muxing to MPEG[12] implementations the default
values are: 2324 for [S]VCD, 2048 for all others formats.
preload=<distance>
Currently only meaningful for MPEG[12]: Initial distance, in
seconds, between the reference timer of the output stream (SCR)
and the decoding timestamp (DTS) for any stream present (demux
to decode delay).
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
There are a number of environment variables that can be used to control
the behavior of MPlayer and MEncoder.
MPLAYER_CHARSET (also see -msgcharset)
Convert console messages to the specified charset (default: au‐
todetect). A value of "noconv" means no conversion.
MPLAYER_HOME
Directory where MPlayer looks for user settings.
MPLAYER_VERBOSE (also see -v and -msglevel)
Set the initial verbosity level across all message modules (de‐
fault: 0). The resulting verbosity corresponds to that of -ms‐
glevel 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
DVDCSS_CACHE directory is created if it does not exist, and a
subdirectory is created named after the DVD's title or manufac‐
turing date. If DVDCSS_CACHE is not set or is empty, libdvdcss
will use the default value which is "${HOME}/.dvdcss/" under
Unix and "C:\Documents and Settings\$USER\Application Data\dvdc‐
ss\" 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 cal‐
culated 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 us‐
ing a brute force algorithm. This process is CPU inten‐
sive and requires 64 MB of memory to store temporary da‐
ta.
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 en‐
crypted data on the disc to perform a statistical at‐
tack, but in the other hand it is the only way to de‐
crypt 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 sys‐
tems, using a raw device requires highly aligned buffers: Linux
requires a 2048 bytes alignment (which is the size of a DVD sec‐
tor).
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>:<instancenumber> 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.
vidix:
VIDIX_CRT
FIXME: Document this.
VIDIXIVTVALPHA
Set this to 'disable' in order to stop the VIDIX driver from
controlling alphablending settings. You can then manipulate it
yourself with 'ivtvfbctl'.
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:
DISPLAY
The name of the display to which the GUI should connect.
HOME The home directory of the current user.
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/share/mplayer/mplayer.conf
MPlayer system-wide settings
/usr/local/share/mplayer/mencoder.conf
MEncoder system-wide settings
~/.mplayer/config
MPlayer user settings
~/.mplayer/mencoder.conf
MEncoder user settings
~/.mplayer/input.conf
input bindings (see '-input keylist' for the full list)
~/.mplayer/gui.conf
GUI configuration file
~/.mplayer/gui.history
GUI directory history
~/.mplayer/gui.pl
GUI playlist
~/.mplayer/gui.url
GUI URL 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/cd0
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
Playback on Zoran cards (old style, deprecated):
mplayer-vo zr -vf scale=352:288 file.avi
Playback on Zoran cards (new style):
mplayer-vo zr2 -vf scale=352:288,zrmjpeg file.avi
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 receiver
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'
EXAMPLES OF MENCODER USAGE
Encode DVD title #2, only selected chapters:
mencoder dvd://2 -chapter 10-15 -o title2.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4
Encode DVD title #2, resizing to 640x480:
mencoder dvd://2 -vf scale=640:480 -o title2.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4
Encode DVD title #2, resizing to 512xHHH (keep aspect ratio):
mencoder dvd://2 -vf scale -zoom -xy 512 -o title2.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4
The same, but with bitrate set to 1800kbit and optimized macroblocks:
mencoder dvd://2 -o title2.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=1:vbitrate=1800
The same, but with MJPEG compression:
mencoder dvd://2 -o title2.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg:mbd=1:vbitrate=1800
Encode all *.jpg files in the current directory:
mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=25 -o output.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4
Encode from a tuner (specify a format with -vf format):
mencoder -tv driver=v4l:width=640:height=480 tv:// -o tv.avi -ovc raw
Encode from a pipe:
rar p test-SVCD.rar | mencoder -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=800 -ofps 24 -
BUGS
Don't panic. If you find one, report it to us, but please make sure
you have read all of the documentation first. Also look out for smi‐
leys. :) Many bugs are the result of incorrect setup or parameter us‐
age. The bug reporting section of the documentation (http://www.mplay‐
erhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html) explains how to create useful bug
reports.
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) 2000-2015 The MPlayer Team
This man page was written mainly by Gabucino, Jonas Jermann and Diego
Biurrun. It is maintained by Diego Biurrun. Please send mails about
it to the MPlayer-DOCS mailing list. Translation specific mails belong
on the MPlayer-translations mailing list.
The MPlayer Project 2015-02-13 MPlayer(1)
