mplayer2 manual page¶

Synopsis¶

DESCRIPTION¶

mplayer is a movie player for Linux (runs on many other platforms and CPU architectures, see the documentation). It supports a wide variety of video file formats, audio and video codecs, and subtitle types. Special input URL types are available to read input from a variety of sources other than disk files. Depending on platform, a variety of different video and audio output methods are supported.

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

INTERACTIVE CONTROL¶

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.

USAGE¶

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

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

CONFIGURATION FILES¶

You can put all of the options in configuration files which will be read every time MPlayer is run. The system-wide configuration file ‘mplayer.conf’ is in your configuration directory (e.g. /etc/mplayer or /usr/local/etc/mplayer), the user specific one is ~/.mplayer/config. User specific options override system-wide options and options given on the command line override either. The syntax of the configuration files is option=<value>, everything after a # is considered a comment. Options that work without values can be enabled by setting them to yes or 1 or true and disabled by setting them to no or 0 or false. Even suboptions can be specified in this way.

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

EXAMPLE MPLAYER CONFIGURATION FILE:

PROFILES¶

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

EXAMPLE MPLAYER PROFILE:

OPTIONS¶

AUDIO OUTPUT DRIVERS¶

Audio output drivers are interfaces to different audio output facilities. The syntax is:

If the list has a trailing ‘,’ MPlayer will fall back on drivers not contained in the list. Suboptions are optional and can mostly be omitted.

NOTE: See --ao=help for a list of compiled-in audio output drivers.

EXAMPLE:

• --ao=alsa,oss, Try the ALSA driver, then the OSS driver, then others.
• --ao=alsa:noblock:device=hw=0.3 Sets noblock-mode and the device-name as first card, fourth device.

Available audio output drivers are:

alsa

ALSA 0.9/1.x audio output driver

noblock

Sets noblock-mode.

device=<device>

Sets the device name. Replace any ‘,’ with ‘.’ and any ‘:’ with ‘=’ in the ALSA device name. For hwac3 output via S/PDIF, use an “iec958” or “spdif” device, unless you really know how to set it correctly.

alsa5

ALSA 0.5 audio output driver

oss

OSS audio output driver

<dsp-device>

Sets the audio output device (default: /dev/dsp).

<mixer-device>

Sets the audio mixer device (default: /dev/mixer).

<mixer-channel>

Sets the audio mixer channel (default: pcm).

sdl (SDL only)

highly platform independent SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) library audio output driver

<driver>

Explicitly choose the SDL audio driver to use (default: let SDL choose).

jack

audio output through JACK (Jack Audio Connection Kit)

port=<name>

Connects to the ports with the given name (default: physical ports).

name=<client

Client name that is passed to JACK (default: MPlayer [<PID>]). Useful if you want to have certain connections established automatically.

(no-)estimate

Estimate the audio delay, supposed to make the video playback smoother (default: enabled).

(no-)autostart

Automatically start jackd if necessary (default: disabled). Note that this seems unreliable and will spam stdout with 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>]

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).

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.

ivtv (IVTV only)

IVTV specific MPEG audio output driver. Works with --ac=hwmpa only.

v4l2 (requires Linux 2.6.22+ kernel)

Audio output driver for V4L2 cards with hardware MPEG decoder.

mpegpes (DVB only)

Audio output driver for DVB cards that writes the output to an MPEG-PES file if no DVB card is installed.

card=<1-4>

DVB card to use if more than one card is present. If not specified MPlayer will search the first usable card.

file=<filename>

output filename

null

Produces no audio output but maintains video playback speed. Use --nosound for benchmarking.

pcm

raw PCM/wave file writer audio output

(no-)waveheader

Include or do not include the wave header (default: included). When not included, raw PCM will be generated.

file=<filename>

Write the sound to <filename> instead of the default audiodump.wav. If nowaveheader is specified, the default is audiodump.pcm.

rsound

audio output to an RSound daemon

host=<name/path>

Set the address of the server (default: localhost). Can be either a network hostname for TCP connections or a Unix domain socket path starting with ‘/’.

port=<number>

Set the TCP port used for connecting to the server (default: 12345). Not used if connecting to a Unix domain socket.

plugin

plugin audio output driver

VIDEO OUTPUT DRIVERS¶

Video output drivers are interfaces to different video output facilities. The syntax is:

If the list has a trailing ‘,’ MPlayer will fall back on drivers not contained in the list. Suboptions are optional and can mostly be omitted.

NOTE: See --vo=help for a list of compiled-in video output drivers.

EXAMPLE:

--vo=xmga,xv,

Try the Matrox X11 driver, then the Xv driver, then others.

--vo=directx:noaccel

Uses the DirectX driver with acceleration features turned off.

Available video output drivers are:

xv (X11 only)

Uses the XVideo extension to enable hardware accelerated playback. If you cannot use a hardware specific driver, this is probably the best option. For information about what colorkey is used and how it is drawn run MPlayer with -v option and look out for the lines tagged with [xv common] at the beginning.

adaptor=<number>

Select a specific XVideo adaptor (check xvinfo results).

port=<number>

Select a specific XVideo port.

ck=<cur|use|set>

Select the source from which the colorkey is taken (default: cur).

cur

The default takes the colorkey currently set in Xv.

use

Use but do not set the colorkey from MPlayer (use the --colorkey option to change it).

set

Same as use but also sets the supplied colorkey.

ck-method=<man|bg|auto>

Sets the colorkey drawing method (default: man).

man

Draw the colorkey manually (reduces flicker in some cases).

bg

Set the colorkey as window background.

auto

Let Xv draw the colorkey.

x11 (X11 only)

Shared memory video output driver without hardware acceleration that works whenever X11 is present.

xover (X11 only)

Adds X11 support to all overlay based video output drivers. Currently only supported by tdfx_vid.

<vo_driver>

Select the driver to use as source to overlay on top of X11.

vdpau (X11 only)

Uses the VDPAU interface to display and optionally also decode video. Hardware decoding is used with --vc=ffmpeg12vdpau, --vc=ffwmv3vdpau, --vc=ffvc1vdpau, --vc=ffh264vdpau or --vc=ffodivxvdpau.

sharpen=<-1-1>

For positive values, apply a sharpening algorithm to the video, for negative values a blurring algorithm (default: 0).

denoise=<0-1>

Apply a noise reduction algorithm to the video (default: 0, no noise reduction).

deint=<-4-4>

Select deinterlacing mode (default: -3). Positive values choose mode and enable deinterlacing. Corresponding negative values select the same deinterlacing mode, but do not enable deinterlacing on startup (useful in configuration files to specify what mode will be enabled by the “D” key). All modes respect --field-dominance.

0

same as -3

1

Show only first field, similar to --vf=field.

2

Bob deinterlacing, similar to --vf=tfields=1.

3

motion adaptive temporal deinterlacing. May lead to A/V desync with slow video hardware and/or high resolution.

4

motion adaptive temporal deinterlacing with edge-guided spatial interpolation. Needs fast video hardware.

chroma-deint

Makes temporal deinterlacers operate both on luma and chroma (default). Use nochroma-deint to solely use luma and speed up advanced deinterlacing. Useful with slow video memory.

pullup

Try to apply inverse telecine, needs motion adaptive temporal deinterlacing.

hqscaling=<0-9>

0

Use default VDPAU scaling (default).

1-9

Apply high quality VDPAU scaling (needs capable hardware).

fps=<number>

Override autodetected display refresh rate value (the value is needed for framedrop to allow video playback rates higher than display refresh rate, and for vsync-aware frame timing adjustments). Default 0 means use autodetected value. A positive value is interpreted as a refresh rate in Hz and overrides the autodetected value. A negative value disables all timing adjustment and framedrop logic.

queuetime_windowed=<number> and queuetime_fs=<number>

Use VDPAU’s presentation queue functionality to queue future video frame changes at most this many milliseconds in advance (default: 50). See below for additional information.

output_surfaces=<2-15>

Allocate this many output surfaces to display video frames (default: 3). See below for additional information.

Using the VDPAU frame queueing functionality controlled by the queuetime options makes MPlayer’s frame flip timing less sensitive to system CPU load and allows MPlayer to start decoding the next frame(s) slightly earlier which can reduce jitter caused by individual slow-to-decode frames. However the NVIDIA graphics drivers can make other window behavior such as window moves choppy if VDPAU is using the blit queue (mainly happens if you have the composite extension enabled) and this feature is active. If this happens on your system and it bothers you then you can set the queuetime value to 0 to disable this feature. The settings to use in windowed and fullscreen mode are separate because there should be less reason to disable this for fullscreen mode (as the driver issue shouldn’t affect the video itself).

You can queue more frames ahead by increasing the queuetime values and the output_surfaces count (to ensure enough surfaces to buffer video for a certain time ahead you need at least as many surfaces as the video has frames during that time, plus two). This could help make video smoother in some cases. The main downsides are increased video RAM requirements for the surfaces and laggier display response to user commands (display changes only become visible some time after they’re queued). The graphics driver implementation may also have limits on the length of maximum queuing time or number of queued surfaces that work well or at all.

dga (X11 only)

Play video through the XFree86 Direct Graphics Access extension. Considered obsolete.

sdl (SDL only, buggy/outdated)

Highly platform independent SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) library video output driver. Since SDL uses its own X11 layer, MPlayer X11 options do not have any effect on SDL. Note that it has several minor bugs (--vm/--no-vm is mostly ignored, --fs behaves like --no-vm should, window is in top-left corner when returning from fullscreen, panscan is not supported, ...).

driver=<driver>

Explicitly choose the SDL driver to use.

(no-)forcexv

Use XVideo through the sdl video output driver (default: forcexv).

(no-)hwaccel

Use hardware accelerated scaler (default: hwaccel).

direct3d (Windows only) (BETA CODE!)

Video output driver that uses the Direct3D interface (useful for Vista).

directx (Windows only)

Video output driver that uses the DirectX interface.

noaccel

Turns off hardware acceleration. Try this option if you have display problems.

corevideo (Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.3.9 with QuickTime 7)

Mac OS X CoreVideo video output driver

device_id=<number>

Choose the display device to use for fullscreen or set it to -1 to always use the same screen the video window is on (default: -1 - auto).

shared_buffer

Write output to a shared memory buffer instead of displaying it and try to open an existing NSConnection for communication with a GUI.

buffer_name=<name>

Name of the shared buffer created with shm_open as well as the name of the NSConnection MPlayer will try to open (default: “mplayerosx”). Setting buffer_name implicitly enables shared_buffer.

fbdev (Linux only)

Uses the kernel framebuffer to play video.

<device>

Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (e.g. /dev/fb0).

fbdev2 (Linux only)

Uses the kernel framebuffer to play video, alternative implementation.

<device>

Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (default: /dev/fb0).

vesa

Very general video output driver that should work on any VESA VBE 2.0 compatible card.

(no-)dga

Turns DGA mode on or off (default: on).

neotv_pal

Activate the NeoMagic TV out and set it to PAL norm.

neotv_ntsc

Activate the NeoMagic TV out and set it to NTSC norm.

lvo

Activate the Linux Video Overlay on top of VESA mode.

svga

Play video using the SVGA library.

<video mode>

Specify video mode to use. The mode can be given in a <width>x<height>x<colors> format, e.g. 640x480x16M or be a graphics mode number, e.g. 84.

bbosd

Draw OSD into black bands below the movie (slower).

native

Use only native drawing functions. This avoids direct rendering, OSD and hardware acceleration.

retrace

Force frame switch on vertical retrace. Usable only with --double. It has the same effect as the --vsync option.

sq

Try to select a video mode with square pixels.

gl

OpenGL video output driver, simple version. Video size must be smaller than the maximum texture size of your OpenGL implementation. Intended to work even with the most basic OpenGL implementations, but also makes use of newer extensions, which allow support for more colorspaces and direct rendering. For optimal speed try adding the options --dr=-noslices

The code performs very few checks, so if a feature does not work, this might be because it is not supported by your card/OpenGL implementation even if you do not get any error message. Use glxinfo or a similar tool to display the supported OpenGL extensions.

(no-)ati-hack

ATI drivers may give a corrupted image when PBOs are used (when using --dr or force-pbo). This option fixes this, at the expense of using a bit more memory.

(no-)force-pbo

Always uses PBOs to transfer textures even if this involves an extra copy. Currently this gives a little extra speed with NVidia drivers and a lot more speed with ATI drivers. May need --no-slices and the ati-hack suboption to work correctly.

(no-)scaled-osd

Changes the way the OSD behaves when the size of the window changes (default: disabled). When enabled behaves more like the other video output drivers, which is better for fixed-size fonts. Disabled looks much better with FreeType fonts and uses the borders in fullscreen mode. Does not work correctly with ass subtitles (see --ass), you can instead render them without OpenGL support via --vf=ass.

osdcolor=<0xAARRGGBB>

Color for OSD (default: 0x00ffffff, corresponds to non-transparent white).

rectangle=<0,1,2>

Select usage of rectangular textures which saves video RAM, but often is slower (default: 0).

0

Use power-of-two textures (default).

1

Use the GL_ARB_texture_rectangle extension.

2

Use the GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two extension. In some cases only supported in software and thus very slow.

swapinterval=<n>

Minimum interval between two buffer swaps, counted in displayed frames (default: 1). 1 is equivalent to enabling VSYNC, 0 to disabling VSYNC. Values below 0 will leave it at the system default. This limits the framerate to (horizontal refresh rate / n). Requires GLX_SGI_swap_control support to work. With some (most/all?) implementations this only works in fullscreen mode.

ycbcr

Use the GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture extension to convert YUV to RGB. In most cases this is probably slower than doing software conversion to RGB.

yuv=<n>

Select the type of YUV to RGB conversion. The default is auto-detection deciding between values 0 and 2.

0

Use software conversion. Compatible with all OpenGL versions. Provides brightness, contrast and saturation control.

1

Same as 2. This used to use nVidia-specific extensions, which didn’t provide any advantages over using fragment programs, except possibly on very ancient graphic cards. It produced a gray-ish output, which is why it has been removed.

2

Use a fragment program. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least three texture units. Provides brightness, contrast, saturation and hue control.

3

Use a fragment program using the POW instruction. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least three texture units. Provides brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma control. Gamma can also be set independently for red, green and blue. Method 4 is usually faster.

4

Use a fragment program with additional lookup. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least four texture units. Provides brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma control. Gamma can also be set independently for red, green and blue.

5

Use ATI-specific method (for older cards). This uses an ATI-specific extension (GL_ATI_fragment_shader - not GL_ARB_fragment_shader!). At least three texture units are needed. Provides saturation and hue control. This method is fast but inexact.

6

Use a 3D texture to do conversion via lookup. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least four texture units. Extremely slow (software emulation) on some (all?) ATI cards since it uses a texture with border pixels. 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.

lscale=<n>

Select the scaling function to use for luminance scaling. Only valid for yuv modes 2, 3, 4 and 6.

0

Use simple linear filtering (default).

1

Use bicubic B-spline filtering (better quality). Needs one additional texture unit. Older cards will not be able to handle this for chroma at least in fullscreen mode.

2

Use cubic filtering in horizontal, linear filtering in vertical direction. Works on a few more cards than method 1.

3

Same as 1 but does not use a lookup texture. Might be faster on some cards.

4

Use experimental unsharp masking with 3x3 support and a default strength of 0.5 (see filter-strength).

5

Use experimental unsharp masking with 5x5 support and a default strength of 0.5 (see filter-strength).

cscale=<n>

Select the scaling function to use for chrominance scaling. For details see lscale.

filter-strength=<value>

Set the effect strength for the lscale/cscale filters that support it.

stereo=<value>

Select a method for stereo display. You may have to use --aspect to fix the aspect value. Experimental, do not expect too much from it.

0

Normal 2D display

1

Convert side by side input to full-color red-cyan stereo.

2

Convert side by side input to full-color green-magenta stereo.

3

Convert side by side input to quadbuffered stereo. Only supported by very few OpenGL cards.

The following options are only useful if writing your own fragment programs.

customprog=<filename>

Load a custom fragment program from <filename>. See TOOLS/edgedect.fp for an example.

customtex=<filename>

Load a custom “gamma ramp” texture from <filename>. This can be used in combination with yuv=4 or with the customprog option.

(no-)customtlin

If enabled (default) use GL_LINEAR interpolation, otherwise use GL_NEAREST for customtex texture.

(no-)customtrect

If enabled, use texture_rectangle for customtex texture. Default is disabled.

(no-)mipmapgen

If enabled, mipmaps for the video are automatically generated. This should be useful together with the customprog and the TXB instruction to implement blur filters with a large radius. For most OpenGL implementations this is very slow for any non-RGB formats. Default is disabled.

Normally there is no reason to use the following options, they mostly exist for testing purposes.

(no-)glfinish

Call glFinish() before swapping buffers. Slower but in some cases more correct output (default: disabled).

(no-)manyfmts

Enables support for more (RGB and BGR) color formats (default: enabled). Needs OpenGL version >= 1.2.

slice-height=<0-...>

Number of lines copied to texture in one piece (default: 0). 0 for whole image.

NOTE: If YUV colorspace is used (see yuv suboption), special rules apply: If the decoder uses slice rendering (see --no-slices), this setting has no effect, the size of the slices as provided by the decoder is used. If the decoder does not use slice rendering, the default is 16.

(no-)osd

Enable or disable support for OSD rendering via OpenGL (default: enabled). This option is for testing; to disable the OSD use --osdlevel=0 instead.

null

Produces no video output. Useful for benchmarking.

aa

ASCII art video output driver that works on a text console. You can get a list and an explanation of available suboptions by executing mplayer --vo=aa:help.

NOTE: The driver does not handle --aspect correctly.

HINT: You probably have to specify --monitorpixelaspect. Try mplayer --vo=aa --monitorpixelaspect=0.5.

caca

Color ASCII art video output driver that works on a text console.

bl

Video playback using the Blinkenlights UDP protocol. This driver is highly hardware specific.

<subdevice>

Explicitly choose the Blinkenlights subdevice driver to use. It is something like arcade:host=localhost:2323 or hdl:file=name1,file=name2. You must specify a subdevice.

ggi

GGI graphics system video output driver

<driver>

Explicitly choose the GGI driver to use. Replace any ‘,’ that would appear in the driver string by a ‘.’.

directfb

Play video using the DirectFB library.

(no-)input

Use the DirectFB instead of the MPlayer keyboard code (default: enabled).

buffermode=single|double|triple

Double and triple buffering give best results if you want to avoid tearing issues. Triple buffering is more efficient than double buffering as it does not block MPlayer while waiting for the vertical retrace. Single buffering should be avoided (default: single).

fieldparity=top|bottom

Control the output order for interlaced frames (default: disabled). Valid values are top = top fields first, bottom = 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. Enables CRTC2 (second head), displaying video independently of the first head.

(no-)input

same as directfb (default: disabled)

buffermode=single|double|triple

same as directfb (default: triple)

fieldparity=top|bottom

same as directfb

(no-)bes

Enable the use of the Matrox BES (backend scaler) (default: disabled). Gives very good results concerning speed and output quality as interpolated picture processing is done in hardware. Works only on the primary head.

(no-)spic

Make use of the Matrox sub picture layer to display the OSD (default: enabled).

(no-)crtc2

Turn on TV-out on the second head (default: enabled). The output quality is amazing as it is a full interlaced picture with proper sync to every odd/even field.

tvnorm=pal|ntsc|auto

Will set the TV norm of the Matrox card without the need for modifying /etc/directfbrc (default: disabled). Valid norms are pal = PAL, ntsc = NTSC. Special norm is auto (auto-adjust using PAL/NTSC) because it decides which norm to use by looking at the framerate of the movie.

mga (Linux only)

Matrox specific video output driver that makes use of the YUV back end scaler on Gxxx cards through a kernel module. If you have a Matrox card, this is the fastest option.

<device>

Explicitly choose the Matrox device name to use (default: /dev/mga_vid).

xmga (Linux, X11 only)

The mga video output driver, running in an X11 window.

<device>

Explicitly choose the Matrox device name to use (default: /dev/mga_vid).

s3fb (Linux only) (see also --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-accelerated YUY2 rendering, which is much faster than YV12 on this card.

<device>

Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (default: /dev/fb0).

wii (Linux only)

Nintendo Wii/GameCube specific video output driver.

3dfx (Linux only)

3dfx-specific video output driver that directly uses the hardware on top of X11. Only 16 bpp are supported.

tdfxfb (Linux only)

This driver employs the tdfxfb framebuffer driver to play movies with YUV acceleration on 3dfx cards.

<device>

Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (default: /dev/fb0).

tdfx_vid (Linux only)

3dfx-specific video output driver that works in combination with the tdfx_vid kernel module.

<device>

Explicitly choose the device name to use (default: /dev/tdfx_vid).

dxr3 (DXR3 only)

Sigma Designs em8300 MPEG decoder chip (Creative DXR3, Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus) specific video output driver. See also 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. See also the lavc video filter.

<device>

Explicitly choose the MPEG decoder device name to use (default: /dev/video16).

<output>

Explicitly choose the TV-out output to be used for the video signal.

v4l2 (requires Linux 2.6.22+ kernel)

Video output driver for V4L2 compliant cards with built-in hardware MPEG decoder. See also the lavc video filter.

<device>

Explicitly choose the MPEG decoder device name to use (default: /dev/video16).

<output>

Explicitly choose the TV-out output to be used for the video signal.

mpegpes (DVB only)

Video output driver for DVB cards that writes the output to an MPEG-PES file if no DVB card is installed.

card=<1-4>

Specifies the device number to use if you have more than one DVB output card (V3 API only, such as 1.x.y series drivers). If not specified MPlayer will search the first usable card.

<filename>

output filename (default: ./grab.mpg)

md5sum

Calculate MD5 sums of each frame and write them to a file. Supports RGB24 and YV12 colorspaces. Useful for debugging.

outfile=<value>

Specify the output filename (default: ./md5sums).

yuv4mpeg

Transforms the video stream into a sequence of uncompressed YUV 4:2:0 images and stores it in a file (default: ./stream.yuv). The format is the same as the one employed by mjpegtools, so this is useful if you want to process the video with the mjpegtools suite. It supports the YV12 format. If your source file has a different format and is interlaced, make sure to use --vf=scale=::1 to ensure the conversion uses interlaced mode. You can combine it with the --fixed-vo option to concatenate files with the same dimensions and fps value.

interlaced

Write the output as interlaced frames, top field first.

interlaced_bf

Write the output as interlaced frames, bottom field first.

file=<filename>

Write the output to <filename> instead of the default stream.yuv.

NOTE: If you do not specify any option the output is progressive (i.e. not interlaced).

gif89a

Output each frame into a single animated GIF file in the current directory. It supports only RGB format with 24 bpp and the output is converted to 256 colors.

<fps>

Float value to specify framerate (default: 5.0).

<output>

Specify the output filename (default: ./out.gif).

NOTE: You must specify the framerate before the filename or the framerate will be part of the filename.

EXAMPLE: mplayer video.nut --vo=gif89a:fps=15:output=test.gif

jpeg

Output each frame into a JPEG file in the current directory. Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as name.

[no]progressive

Specify standard or progressive JPEG (default: noprogressive).

[no]baseline

Specify use of baseline or not (default: baseline).

optimize=<0-100>

optimization factor (default: 100)

smooth=<0-100>

smooth factor (default: 0)

quality=<0-100>

quality factor (default: 75)

outdir=<dirname>

Specify the directory to save the JPEG files to (default: ./).

subdirs=<prefix>

Create numbered subdirectories with the specified prefix to save the files in instead of the current directory.

maxfiles=<value> (subdirs only)

Maximum number of files to be saved per subdirectory. Must be equal to or larger than 1 (default: 1000).

pnm

Output each frame into a PNM file in the current directory. Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as name. It supports PPM, PGM and PGMYUV files in both raw and ASCII mode. See also pnm(5), ppm(5) and pgm(5).

ppm

Write PPM files (default).

pgm

Write PGM files.

pgmyuv

Write PGMYUV files. PGMYUV is like PGM, but it also contains the U and V plane, appended at the bottom of the picture.

raw

Write PNM files in raw mode (default).

ascii

Write PNM files in ASCII mode.

outdir=<dirname>

Specify the directory to save the PNM files to (default: ./).

subdirs=<prefix>

Create numbered subdirectories with the specified prefix to save the files in instead of the current directory.

maxfiles=<value> (subdirs only)

Maximum number of files to be saved per subdirectory. Must be equal to or larger than 1 (default: 1000).

png

Output each frame into a PNG file in the current directory. Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as name. 24bpp RGB and BGR formats are supported.

z=<0-9>

Specifies the compression level. 0 is no compression, 9 is maximum compression.

alpha

Create PNG files with an alpha channel. Note that MPlayer in general does not support alpha, so this will only be useful in some rare cases.

tga

Output each frame into a Targa file in the current directory. Each file takes the frame number padded with leading zeros as name. The purpose of this video output driver is to have a simple lossless image writer to use without any external library. It supports the BGR[A] color format, with 15, 24 and 32 bpp. You can force a particular format with the format video filter.

EXAMPLE: mplayer video.nut --vf=format=bgr15 --vo=tga

AUDIO FILTERS¶

Audio filters allow you to modify the audio stream and its properties. The syntax is:

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.

Available filters are:

resample[=srate[:sloppy[:type]]]

Changes the sample rate of the audio stream. Can be used if you have a fixed frequency sound card or if you are stuck with an old sound card that is only capable of max 44.1kHz. This filter is automatically enabled if necessary. It only supports 16-bit integer and float in native-endian format as input.

<srate>

output sample frequency in Hz. The valid range for this parameter is 8000 to 192000. If the input and output sample 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 extremely slow.

<type>

Select which resampling method to use.

0:	linear interpolation (fast, poor quality especially when upsampling)
1:	polyphase filterbank and integer processing
2:	polyphase filterbank and floating point processing (slow, best quality)

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=resample=44100:0:0

would set the output frequency of the resample filter to 44100Hz using exact output frequency scaling and linear 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 format.

<srate>

the output sample rate

<length>

length of the filter with respect to the lower sampling rate (default: 16)

<linear>

if 1 then filters will be linearly interpolated between polyphase entries

<count>

log2 of the number of polyphase entries (..., 10->1024, 11->2048, 12->4096, ...) (default: 10->1024)

<cutoff>

cutoff frequency (0.0-1.0), default set depending upon filter length

lavcac3enc[=tospdif[:bitrate[:minchn]]]

Encode multi-channel audio to AC-3 at runtime using libavcodec. Supports 16-bit native-endian input format, maximum 6 channels. The output is big-endian when outputting a raw AC-3 stream, native-endian when outputting to S/PDIF. The output sample rate of this filter is same with the input sample rate. When input sample rate is 48kHz, 44.1kHz, or 32kHz, this filter directly use it. 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 audio into N-channel, then the filter can encode the N-channel input to AC-3.

<tospdif>

Output raw AC-3 stream if zero or not set, output to S/PDIF for passthrough when <tospdif> is set non-zero.

<bitrate>

The bitrate to encode the AC-3 stream. Set it to either 384 or 384000 to get 384kbits.

Valid values: 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320, 384, 448, 512, 576, 640.

Default bitrate is based on the input channel number:

1ch:	96
2ch:	192
3ch:	224
4ch:	384
5ch:	448
6ch:	448

<minchn>

If the input channel number is less than <minchn>, the filter will detach itself (default: 5).

sweep[=speed]

Produces a sine sweep.

<0.0-1.0>

Sine function delta, use very low values to hear the sweep.

sinesuppress[=freq:decay]

Remove a sine at the specified frequency. Useful to get rid of the 50/60Hz noise on low quality audio equipment. It probably only works on mono input.

<freq>

The frequency of the sine which should be removed (in Hz) (default: 50)

<decay>

Controls the adaptivity (a larger value will make the filter adapt to amplitude and phase changes quicker, a smaller value will make the adaptation slower) (default: 0.0001). Reasonable values are around 0.001.

bs2b[=option1:option2:...]

Bauer stereophonic to binaural transformation using libbs2b. Improves the headphone listening experience by making the sound 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 channel audio.

fcut=<300-1000>

Set cut frequency in Hz.

feed=<10-150>

Set feed level for low frequencies in 0.1*dB.

profile=<value>

Several profiles are available for convenience:

default:	will be used if nothing else was specified (fcut=700, feed=45)
cmoy:	Chu Moy circuit implementation (fcut=700, feed=60)
jmeier:	Jan Meier circuit implementation (fcut=650, feed=95)

If fcut or feed options are specified together with a profile, they will be applied on top of the selected profile.

hrtf[=flag]

Head-related transfer function: Converts multichannel audio to 2 channel output for headphones, preserving the spatiality of the sound.

Flag	Meaning
m	matrix decoding of the rear channel
s	2-channel matrix decoding
0	no matrix decoding (default)

equalizer=[g1:g2:g3:...:g10]

10 octave band graphic equalizer, implemented using 10 IIR band pass filters. This means that it works regardless of what type of audio is being played back. The center frequencies for the 10 bands are:

No.	frequency
0	31.25 Hz
1	62.50 Hz
2	125.00 Hz
3	250.00 Hz
4	500.00 Hz
5	1.00 kHz
6	2.00 kHz
7	4.00 kHz
8	8.00 kHz
9	16.00 kHz

If the sample rate of the sound being played is lower than the center frequency for a frequency band, then that band will be disabled. A known bug with this filter is that the characteristics for the uppermost band are not completely symmetric if the sample rate is close to the center frequency of that band. This problem can be worked around by upsampling the sound using the resample filter before it reaches this filter.

<g1>:<g2>:<g3>:...:<g10>

floating point numbers representing the gain in dB for each frequency band (-12-12)

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=equalizer=11:11:10:5:0:-12:0:5:12:12 media.avi

Would amplify the sound in the upper and lower frequency region while canceling it almost completely around 1kHz.

channels=nch[:nr:from1:to1:from2:to2:from3:to3:...]

Can be used for adding, removing, routing and copying audio channels. If only <nch> is given the default routing is used, it works as follows: If the number of output channels is bigger than the number of input channels empty channels are inserted (except mixing from mono to stereo, then the mono channel is repeated in both of the output channels). If the number of output channels is smaller than the number of input channels the exceeding channels are truncated.

<nch>

number of output channels (1-8)

<nr>

number of routes (1-8)

<from1:to1:from2:to2:from3:to3:...>

Pairs of numbers between 0 and 7 that define where to route each channel.

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=channels=4:4:0:1:1:0:2:2:3:3 media.avi

Would change the number of channels to 4 and set up 4 routes that swap channel 0 and channel 1 and leave channel 2 and 3 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]

Convert between different sample formats. Automatically enabled when needed by the sound card or another filter. See also --format.

<format>

Sets the desired format. The general form is ‘sbe’, where ‘s’ denotes the sign (either ‘s’ for signed or ‘u’ for unsigned), ‘b’ denotes the number of bits per sample (16, 24 or 32) and ‘e’ denotes the endianness (‘le’ means little-endian, ‘be’ big-endian and ‘ne’ the endianness of the computer MPlayer is running on). Valid values (amongst others) are: ‘s16le’, ‘u32be’ and ‘u24ne’. Exceptions to this rule that are also valid format specifiers: u8, s8, floatle, floatbe, floatne, mulaw, alaw, mpeg2, ac3 and imaadpcm.

volume[=v[:sc]]

Implements software volume control. Use this filter with caution since it can reduce the signal to noise ratio of the sound. In most cases it is best to set the level for the PCM sound to max, leave this filter out and control the output level to your speakers with the master volume control of the mixer. In case your sound card has a digital PCM mixer instead of an analog one, and you hear distortion, use the MASTER mixer instead. If there is an external amplifier connected to the computer (this is almost always the case), the noise level can be minimized by adjusting the master level and the volume knob on the amplifier until the hissing noise in the background is gone.

This filter has a second feature: It measures the overall maximum sound level and prints out that level when MPlayer exits. This feature currently only works with floating-point data, use e.g. --af-adv=force=5, or use --af=stats.

NOTE: This filter is not reentrant and can therefore only be enabled once for every audio stream.

<v>

Sets the desired gain in dB for all channels in the stream from -200dB to +60dB, where -200dB mutes the sound completely and +60dB equals a gain of 1000 (default: 0).

<sc>

Turns soft clipping on (1) or off (0). Soft-clipping can make the sound more smooth if very high volume levels are used. Enable this option if the dynamic range of the loudspeakers is very low.

WARNING: This feature creates distortion and should be considered a last resort.

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=volume=10.1:0 media.avi

Would amplify the sound by 10.1dB and hard-clip if the sound level is too high.

pan=n[:L00:L01:L02:...L10:L11:L12:...Ln0:Ln1:Ln2:...]

Mixes channels arbitrarily. Basically a combination of the volume and the channels filter that can be used to down-mix many channels to only a few, e.g. stereo to mono or vary the “width” of the center speaker in a surround sound system. This filter is hard to use, and will require some tinkering before the desired result is obtained. The number of options for this filter depends on the number of output channels. An example how to downmix a six-channel file to two channels with this filter can be found in the examples section near the end.

<n>

number of output channels (1-8)

<Lij>

How much of input channel i is mixed into output channel j (0-1). So in principle you first have n numbers saying what to do with the first input channel, then n numbers that act on the second input channel etc. If you do not specify any numbers for some input channels, 0 is assumed.

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=pan=1:0.5:0.5 media.avi

Would down-mix from stereo to mono.

mplayer --af=pan=3:1:0:0.5:0:1:0.5 media.avi

Would give 3 channel output leaving channels 0 and 1 intact, and mix channels 0 and 1 into output channel 2 (which could be sent to a subwoofer for example).

sub[=fc:ch]

Adds a subwoofer channel to the audio stream. The audio data used for creating the subwoofer channel is an average of the sound in channel 0 and channel 1. The resulting sound is then low-pass filtered by a 4th order Butterworth filter with a default cutoff frequency of 60Hz and added to a separate channel in the audio stream.

Warning: Disable this filter when you are playing DVDs with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, otherwise this filter will disrupt the sound to the subwoofer.

<fc>

cutoff frequency in Hz for the low-pass filter (20Hz to 300Hz) (default: 60Hz) For the best result try setting the cutoff frequency as low as possible. This will improve the stereo or surround sound experience.

<ch>

Determines the channel number in which to insert the sub-channel audio. Channel number can be between 0 and 7 (default: 5). Observe that the number of channels will automatically be increased to <ch> if necessary.

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=sub=100:4 --channels=5 media.avi

Would add a sub-woofer channel with a cutoff frequency of 100Hz to output channel 4.

center

Creates a center channel from the front channels. May currently be low quality as it does not implement a high-pass filter for proper extraction yet, but averages and halves the channels instead.

<ch>

Determines the channel number in which to insert the center channel. Channel number can be between 0 and 7 (default: 5). Observe that the number of channels will automatically be increased to <ch> if necessary.

surround[=delay]

Decoder for matrix encoded surround sound like Dolby Surround. Many files with 2 channel audio actually contain matrixed surround sound. Requires a sound card supporting at least 4 channels.

<delay>

delay time in ms for the rear speakers (0 to 1000) (default: 20) This delay should be set as follows: If d1 is the distance from the listening position to the front speakers and d2 is the distance from the listening position to the rear speakers, then the delay should be set to 15ms if d1 <= d2 and to 15 + 5*(d1-d2) if d1 > d2.

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=surround=15 --channels=4 media.avi

Would add surround sound decoding with 15ms delay for the sound to the rear speakers.

delay[=ch1:ch2:...]

Delays the sound to the loudspeakers such that the sound from the different channels arrives at the listening position simultaneously. It is only useful if you have more than 2 loudspeakers.

ch1,ch2,...

The delay in ms that should be imposed on each channel (floating point number between 0 and 1000).

To calculate the required delay for the different channels do as follows:

1. Measure the distance to the loudspeakers in meters in relation to your listening position, giving you the distances s1 to s5 (for a 5.1 system). There is no point in compensating for the subwoofer (you will not hear the difference anyway).
2. Subtract the distances s1 to s5 from the maximum distance, i.e. s[i] = max(s) - s[i]; i = 1...5.
3. Calculate the required delays in ms as d[i] = 1000*s[i]/342; i = 1...5.

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=delay=10.5:10.5:0:0:7:0 media.avi

Would delay front left and right by 10.5ms, the two rear channels and the sub by 0ms and the center channel by 7ms.

export[=mmapped_file[:nsamples]]

Exports the incoming signal to other processes using memory mapping (mmap()). Memory mapped areas contain a header:

int nch /* number of channels */

int size /* buffer size */

unsigned long long counter /* Used to keep sync, updated every time new data is exported. */

The rest is payload (non-interleaved) 16 bit data.

<mmapped_file>

file to map data to (default: ~/.mplayer/mplayer-af_export)

<nsamples>

number of samples per channel (default: 512)

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=export=/tmp/mplayer-af_export:1024 media.avi

Would export 1024 samples per channel to /tmp/mplayer-af_export.

extrastereo[=mul]

(Linearly) increases the difference between left and right channels which adds some sort of “live” effect to playback.

<mul>

Sets the difference coefficient (default: 2.5). 0.0 means mono sound (average of both channels), with 1.0 sound will be unchanged, with -1.0 left and right channels will be swapped.

volnorm[=method:target]

Maximizes the volume without distorting the sound.

<method>

Sets the used method.

1

Use a single sample to smooth the variations via the standard weighted mean over past samples (default).

2

Use several samples to smooth the variations via the standard weighted mean over past samples.

<target>

Sets the target amplitude as a fraction of the maximum for the sample type (default: 0.25).

ladspa=file:label[:controls...]

Load a LADSPA (Linux Audio Developer’s Simple Plugin API) plugin. This filter is reentrant, so multiple LADSPA plugins can be used at once.

<file>

Specifies the LADSPA plugin library file. If LADSPA_PATH is set, it searches for the specified file. If it is not set, you must supply a fully specified pathname.

<label>

Specifies the filter within the library. Some libraries contain only one filter, but others contain many of them. Entering ‘help’ here, will list all available filters within the specified library, which eliminates the use of ‘listplugins’ from the LADSPA SDK.

<controls>

Controls are zero or more floating point values that determine the behavior of the loaded plugin (for example delay, 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. Prevents artifacts on very loud sound and raises the volume on very low sound. This filter is untested, maybe even unusable.

gate

Noise gate filter similar to the comp audio filter. This filter is untested, maybe even unusable.

karaoke

Simple voice removal filter exploiting the fact that voice is usually recorded with mono gear and later ‘center’ mixed onto the final audio stream. Beware that this filter will turn your signal into mono. Works well for 2 channel tracks; do not bother trying it on anything but 2 channel stereo.

scaletempo[=option1:option2:...]

Scales audio tempo without altering pitch, optionally synced to playback speed (default).

This works by playing ‘stride’ ms of audio at normal speed then consuming ‘stride*scale’ ms of input audio. It pieces the strides together by blending ‘overlap’% of stride with audio following the previous stride. It optionally performs a short statistical analysis on the next ‘search’ ms of audio to determine the best overlap position.

scale=<amount>

Nominal amount to scale tempo. Scales this amount in addition to speed. (default: 1.0)

stride=<amount>

Length in milliseconds to output each stride. Too high of value will cause noticable skips at high scale amounts and an echo at low scale amounts. Very low values will alter pitch. Increasing improves performance. (default: 60)

overlap=<percent>

Percentage of stride to overlap. Decreasing improves performance. (default: .20)

search=<amount>

Length in milliseconds to search for best overlap position. Decreasing improves performance greatly. On slow systems, you will probably want to set this very low. (default: 14)

speed=<tempo|pitch|both|none>

Set response to speed change.

tempo

Scale tempo in sync with speed (default).

pitch

Reverses effect of filter. Scales pitch without altering tempo. Add [ speed_mult 0.9438743126816935 and ] speed_mult 1.059463094352953 to your input.conf to step by musical semi-tones.

WARNING: Loses sync with video.

both

Scale both tempo and pitch.

none

Ignore speed changes.

EXAMPLE:

mplayer --af=scaletempo --speed=1.2 media.ogg

Would playback media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at normal pitch. Changing playback speed, would change audio tempo to match.

mplayer --af=scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=none --speed=1.2 media.ogg

Would playback media at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at normal pitch, but changing playback speed has no effect on audio tempo.

mplayer --af=scaletempo=stride=30:overlap=.50:search=10 media.ogg

Would tweak the quality and performace parameters.

mplayer --af=format=floatne,scaletempo media.ogg

Would make scaletempo use float code. Maybe faster on some platforms.

mplayer --af=scaletempo=scale=1.2:speed=pitch audio.ogg

Would playback audio file at 1.2x normal speed, with audio at normal pitch. Changing playback speed, would change pitch, leaving audio tempo at 1.2x.

stats

Collects and prints statistics about the audio stream, especially the volume. These statistics are especially intended to help adjusting the volume while avoiding clipping. The volumes are printed in dB and compatible with the volume audio filter.

VIDEO FILTERS¶

Video filters allow you to modify the video stream and its properties. The syntax is:

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.

With filters that support it, you can access parameters by their name.

–vf=<filter>=help

Prints the parameter names and parameter value ranges for a particular filter.

Available filters are:

crop[=w:h:x:y]

Crops the given part of the image and discards the rest. Useful to remove black bands from widescreen movies.

<w>,<h>

Cropped width and height, defaults to original width and height.

<x>,<y>

Position of the cropped picture, defaults to center.

cropdetect[=limit:round[:reset]]

Calculates necessary cropping parameters and prints the recommended parameters to stdout.

<limit>

Threshold, which can be optionally specified from nothing (0) to everything (255) (default: 24).

<round>

Value which the width/height should be divisible by (default: 16). The offset is automatically adjusted to center the video. Use 2 to get only even dimensions (needed for 4:2:2 video). 16 is best when encoding to most video codecs.

<reset>

Counter that determines after how many frames cropdetect will reset the previously detected largest video area and start over to detect the current optimal crop area (default: 0). This can be useful when channel logos distort the video area. 0 indicates never reset and return the largest area encountered during playback.

rectangle[=w:h:x:y]

Draws a rectangle of the requested width and height at the specified coordinates over the image and prints current rectangle 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 leftmost)

expand[=w:h:x:y:osd:aspect:round]

Expands (not scales) movie resolution to the given value and places the unscaled original at coordinates x, y. Can be used for placing subtitles/OSD in the resulting black bands.

<w>,<h>

Expanded width,height (default: original width,height). Negative values for w and h are treated as offsets to the original size.

EXAMPLE:

expand=0:-50:0:0

Adds a 50 pixel border to the bottom of the picture.

<x>,<y>

position of original image on the expanded image (default: center)

<osd>

OSD/subtitle rendering

0:	disable (default)
1:	enable

<aspect>

Expands to fit an aspect instead of a resolution (default: 0).

EXAMPLE:

expand=800:::::4/3

Expands to 800x600, unless the source is higher resolution, in which case it expands to fill a 4/3 aspect.

<round>

Rounds up to make both width and height divisible by <r> (default: 1).

flip

Flips the image upside down. See also --flip.

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[:presize[:noup[:arnd]]]]]]]]

Scales the image with the software scaler (slow) and performs a YUV<->RGB colorspace conversion (see also --sws).

<w>,<h>

scaled width/height (default: original width/height)

NOTE: If --zoom is used, and underlying filters (including libvo) are incapable of scaling, it defaults to d_width/d_height!

0:	scaled d_width/d_height
-1:	original width/height
-2:	Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the prescaled aspect ratio.
-3:	Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the original aspect ratio.
-(n+8):	Like -n above, but rounding the dimension to the closest multiple of 16.

<interlaced>

Toggle interlaced scaling.

0:	off (default)
1:	on

<chr_drop>

chroma skipping

0:	Use all available input lines for chroma.
1:	Use only every 2. input line for chroma.
2:	Use only every 4. input line for chroma.
3:	Use only every 8. input line for chroma.

<par>[:<par2>] (see also --sws)

Set some scaling parameters depending on the type of scaler selected with --sws.

–sws=2 (bicubic): B (blurring) and C (ringing)

0.00:0.60 default

0.00:0.75 VirtualDub’s “precise bicubic”

0.00:0.50 Catmull-Rom spline

0.33:0.33 Mitchell-Netravali spline

1.00:0.00 cubic B-spline

–sws=7 (gaussian): sharpness (0 (soft) - 100 (sharp))

–sws=9 (lanczos): filter length (1-10)

<presize>

Scale to preset sizes.

qntsc:	352x240 (NTSC quarter screen)
qpal:	352x288 (PAL quarter screen)
ntsc:	720x480 (standard NTSC)
pal:	720x576 (standard PAL)
sntsc:	640x480 (square pixel NTSC)
spal:	768x576 (square pixel PAL)

<noup>

Disallow upscaling past the original dimensions.

0:	Allow upscaling (default).
1:	Disallow upscaling if one dimension exceeds its original value.
2:	Disallow upscaling if both dimensions exceed their original values.

<arnd>

Accurate rounding for the vertical scaler, which may be faster or slower than the default rounding.

0:	Disable accurate rounding (default).
1:	Enable accurate rounding.

dsize[=aspect|w:h:aspect-method:r]

Changes the intended display size/aspect at an arbitrary point in the filter chain. Aspect can be given as a fraction (4/3) or floating point number (1.33). Alternatively, you may specify the exact display width and height desired. Note that this filter does not do any scaling itself; it just affects what later scalers (software or hardware) will do when auto-scaling to correct 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 aspect.

<r>

Rounds up to make both width and height divisible by <r> (default: 1).

yvu9

Forces software YVU9 to YV12 colorspace conversion. Deprecated in favor of the software scaler.

yuvcsp

Clamps YUV color values to the CCIR 601 range without doing real conversion.

palette

RGB/BGR 8 -> 15/16/24/32bpp colorspace conversion using palette.

format[=fourcc[:outfourcc]]

Restricts the colorspace for the next filter without doing any conversion. Use together with the scale filter for a real conversion.

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.

EXAMPLE

Valid	Invalid (will crash)
format=rgb24:bgr24	format=rgb24:yv12
format=yuyv:yuy2

noformat[=fourcc]

Restricts the colorspace for the next filter without doing any conversion. Unlike the format filter, this will allow any colorspace except the one you specify.

NOTE: For a list of available formats see noformat=fmt=help.

<fourcc>

format name like rgb15, bgr24, yv12, etc (default: yv12)

pp[=filter1[:option1[:option2...]]/[-]filter2...]

Enables the specified chain of postprocessing subfilters. Subfilters must be separated by ‘/’ and can be disabled by prepending a ‘-‘. Each subfilter and some options have a short and a long name that can be used interchangeably, i.e. dr/dering are the same. All subfilters share common options to determine their scope:

a/autoq

Automatically switch the subfilter off if the CPU is too slow.

c/chrom

Do chrominance filtering, too (default).

y/nochrom

Do luminance filtering only (no chrominance).

n/noluma

Do chrominance filtering only (no luminance).

NOTE: --pphelp shows a list of available subfilters.

Available subfilters are:

hb/hdeblock[:difference[:flatness]]

horizontal deblocking filter

<difference>:	Difference factor where higher values mean more deblocking (default: 32).
<flatness>:	Flatness threshold where lower values mean more deblocking (default: 39).

vb/vdeblock[:difference[:flatness]]

vertical deblocking filter

<difference>:	Difference factor where higher values mean more deblocking (default: 32).
<flatness>:	Flatness threshold where lower values mean more deblocking (default: 39).

ha/hadeblock[:difference[:flatness]]

accurate horizontal deblocking filter

<difference>:	Difference factor where higher values mean more deblocking (default: 32).
<flatness>:	Flatness threshold where lower values mean more deblocking (default: 39).

va/vadeblock[:difference[:flatness]]

accurate vertical deblocking filter

<difference>:	Difference factor where higher values mean more deblocking (default: 32).
<flatness>:	Flatness threshold where lower values mean more deblocking (default: 39).

The horizontal and vertical deblocking filters share the difference and flatness values so you cannot set different horizontal and vertical thresholds.

h1/x1hdeblock

experimental horizontal deblocking filter

v1/x1vdeblock

experimental vertical deblocking filter

dr/dering

deringing filter

tn/tmpnoise[:threshold1[:threshold2[:threshold3]]]

temporal noise reducer

<threshold1>:	larger -> stronger filtering
<threshold2>:	larger -> stronger filtering
<threshold3>:	larger -> stronger filtering

al/autolevels[:f/fullyrange]

automatic brightness / contrast correction

f/fullyrange:	Stretch luminance to (0-255).

lb/linblenddeint

Linear blend deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by filtering all lines with a (1 2 1) filter.

li/linipoldeint

Linear interpolating deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by linearly interpolating every second line.

ci/cubicipoldeint

Cubic interpolating deinterlacing filter deinterlaces the given block by cubically interpolating every second line.

md/mediandeint

Median deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by applying a median filter to every second line.

fd/ffmpegdeint

FFmpeg deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by filtering every second line with a (-1 4 2 4 -1) filter.

l5/lowpass5

Vertically applied FIR lowpass deinterlacing filter that deinterlaces the given block by filtering all lines with a (-1 2 6 2 -1) filter.

fq/forceQuant[:quantizer]

Overrides the quantizer table from the input with the constant quantizer you specify.

<quantizer>:	quantizer to use

de/default

default pp filter combination (hb:a,vb:a,dr:a)

fa/fast

fast pp filter combination (h1:a,v1:a,dr:a)

ac

high quality pp filter combination (ha:a:128:7,va:a,dr:a)

EXAMPLE:

--vf=pp=hb/vb/dr/al

horizontal and vertical deblocking, deringing and automatic brightness/contrast

--vf=pp=de/-al

default filters without brightness/contrast correction

--vf=pp=default/tmpnoise:1:2:3

Enable default filters & temporal denoiser.

--vf=pp=hb:y/vb:a

Horizontal deblocking on luminance only, and switch vertical deblocking on or off automatically depending on available CPU time.

spp[=quality[:qp[:mode]]]

Simple postprocessing filter that compresses and decompresses the image at several (or - in the case of quality level 6 - all) shifts and averages the results.

<quality>

0-6 (default: 3)

<qp>

Force quantization parameter (default: 0, use QP from video).

<mode>

0:	hard thresholding (default)
1:	soft thresholding (better deringing, but blurrier)
4:	like 0, but also use B-frames’ QP (may cause flicker)
5:	like 1, but also use B-frames’ QP (may cause flicker)

uspp[=quality[:qp]]

Ultra simple & slow postprocessing filter that compresses and decompresses the image at several (or - in the case of quality level 8 - all) shifts and averages the results.

The way this differs from the behavior of spp is that uspp actually encodes & decodes each case with libavcodec Snow, whereas spp uses a simplified intra only 8x8 DCT similar to MJPEG.

<quality>

0-8 (default: 3)

<qp>

Force quantization parameter (default: 0, use QP from video).

fspp[=quality[:qp[:strength[:bframes]]]]

faster version of the simple postprocessing filter

<quality>

4-5 (equivalent to spp; default: 4)

<qp>

Force quantization parameter (default: 0, use QP from video).

<-15-32>

Filter strength, lower values mean more details but also more artifacts, while higher values make the image smoother but 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 horizontally. You can use whitespace to make the equation more readable. There are a couple of constants that can be used in the equation:

PI:	the number pi
E:	the number e
X / Y:	the coordinates of the current sample
W / H:	width and height of the image
SW / SH:	width/height scale depending on the currently filtered plane, e.g. 1,1 and 0.5,0.5 for YUV 4:2:0.
p(x,y):	returns the value of the pixel at location x/y of the current plane.

test

Generate various test patterns.

rgbtest[=width:height]

Generate an RGB test pattern useful for detecting RGB vs BGR issues. You should see a red, green and blue stripe from top to 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*ASPECTRATIO (default: 576*4/3=768), set it to 576*(16/9)=1024 for a 16:9 TV.

EXAMPLE:

--vf=dvbscale,scale=-1:0,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1,lavc

FIXME: Explain what this does.

noise[=luma[u][t|a][h][p]:chroma[u][t|a][h][p]]

Adds noise.

<0-100>:	luma noise
<0-100>:	chroma noise
u:	uniform noise (gaussian otherwise)
t:	temporal noise (noise pattern changes between frames)
a:	averaged temporal noise (smoother, but a lot slower)
h:	high quality (slightly better looking, slightly slower)
p:	mix random noise with a (semi)regular pattern

denoise3d[=luma_spatial:chroma_spatial:luma_tmp:chroma_tmp]

This filter aims to reduce image noise producing smooth images and making still images really still (This should enhance compressibility.).

<luma_spatial>

spatial luma strength (default: 4)

<chroma_spatial>

spatial chroma strength (default: 3)

<luma_tmp>

luma temporal strength (default: 6)

<chroma_tmp>

chroma temporal strength (default: luma_tmp*chroma_spatial/luma_spatial)

hqdn3d[=luma_spatial:chroma_spatial:luma_tmp:chroma_tmp]

High precision/quality version of the denoise3d filter. Parameters and usage are the same.

ow[=depth[:luma_strength[:chroma_strength]]]

Overcomplete Wavelet denoiser.

<depth>

Larger depth values will denoise lower frequency components more, but slow down filtering (default: 8).

<luma_strength>

luma strength (default: 1.0)

<chroma_strength>

chroma strength (default: 1.0)

eq[=brightness:contrast] (OBSOLETE)

Software equalizer with interactive controls just like the hardware equalizer, for cards/drivers that do not support brightness and contrast controls in hardware.

<-100-100>

initial brightness

<-100-100>

initial contrast

eq2[=gamma:contrast:brightness:saturation:rg:gg:bg:weight]

Alternative software equalizer that uses lookup tables (very slow), allowing gamma correction in addition to simple brightness and contrast adjustment. Note that it uses the same MMX optimized code as --vf=eq if all gamma values are 1.0. The parameters are given as floating point values.

<0.1-10>

initial gamma value (default: 1.0)

<-2-2>

initial contrast, where negative values result in a negative image (default: 1.0)

<-1-1>

initial brightness (default: 0.0)

<0-3>

initial saturation (default: 1.0)

<0.1-10>

gamma value for the red component (default: 1.0)

<0.1-10>

gamma value for the green component (default: 1.0)

<0.1-10>

gamma value for the blue component (default: 1.0)

<0-1>

The weight parameter can be used to reduce the effect of a high gamma value on bright image areas, e.g. keep them from getting overamplified and just plain white. A value of 0.0 turns the gamma correction all the way down while 1.0 leaves it at its full strength (default: 1.0).

hue[=hue:saturation]

Software equalizer with interactive controls just like the hardware equalizer, for cards/drivers that do not support hue and 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, downsampling luma but keeping all chroma samples. Useful for output to low-resolution display devices when hardware downscaling is poor quality or is not available. Can also be used as a primitive luma-only deinterlacer with very low CPU usage.

<f>

By default, halfpack averages pairs of lines when downsampling. Any value different from 0 or 1 gives the default (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 interlacing does not line up properly due to vertical downsampling of the chroma channels. This filter packs the planar 4:2:0 data into YUY2 (4:2:2) format with the chroma lines in their proper 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)

decimate[=max:hi:lo:frac]

Drops frames that do not differ greatly from the previous frame in order to reduce framerate. The main use of this filter is for very-low- bitrate encoding (e.g. streaming over dialup modem), but it could in theory be used for fixing movies that were inverse-telecined incorrectly.

<max>

Sets the maximum number of consecutive frames which can be dropped (if positive), or the minimum interval between dropped frames (if negative).

<hi>,<lo>,<frac>

A frame is a candidate for dropping if no 8x8 region differs by more than a threshold of <hi>, and if not more than <frac> portion (1 meaning the whole image) differs by more than a threshold of <lo>. Values of <hi> and <lo> are for 8x8 pixel blocks and represent actual pixel value differences, so a threshold of 64 corresponds to 1 unit of difference for each 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

kerndeint[=thresh[:map[:order[:sharp[:twoway]]]]]

Donald Graft’s adaptive kernel deinterlacer. Deinterlaces parts of a video if a configurable threshold is exceeded.

<0-255>

threshold (default: 10)

<map>

0:	Ignore pixels exceeding the threshold (default).
1:	Paint pixels exceeding the threshold white.

<order>

0:	Leave fields alone (default).
1:	Swap fields.

<sharp>

0:	Disable additional sharpening (default).
1:	Enable additional sharpening.

<twoway>

0:	Disable twoway sharpening (default).
1:	Enable twoway sharpening.

unsharp[=l|cWxH:amount[:l|cWxH:amount]]

unsharp mask / gaussian blur

l

Apply effect on luma component.

c

Apply effect on chroma components.

<width>x<height>

width and height of the matrix, odd sized in both directions (min = 3x3, max = 13x11 or 11x13, usually something between 3x3 and 7x7)

amount

Relative amount of sharpness/blur to add to the image (a sane range should be -1.5-1.5).

<0:	blur
>0:	sharpen

swapuv

Swap U & V plane.

il[=d|i][s][:[d|i][s]]

(De)interleaves lines. The goal of this filter is to add the ability to process interlaced images pre-field without deinterlacing them. You can filter your interlaced DVD and play it on a TV without breaking the interlacing. While deinterlacing (with the 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 filters.

d:	Deinterleave fields, placing them side by side.
i:	Interleave fields again (reversing the effect of fil=d).

field[=n]

Extracts a single field from an interlaced image using stride arithmetic to avoid wasting CPU time. The optional argument n specifies whether to extract the even or the odd field (depending on whether n is even or odd).

detc[=var1=value1:var2=value2:...]

Attempts to reverse the ‘telecine’ process to recover a clean, non-interlaced stream at film framerate. This was the first and most primitive inverse telecine filter to be added to MPlayer. It works by latching onto the telecine 3:2 pattern and following it as long as possible. This makes it suitable for perfectly-telecined material, even in the presence of a fair degree of noise, but it will fail in the presence of complex post-telecine edits. Development on this filter is no longer taking place, as ivtc, pullup, and filmdint are better for most applications. The following arguments (see syntax above) may be used to control detc’s behavior:

<dr>

Set the frame dropping mode.

0:	Do not drop frames to maintain fixed output framerate (default).
1:	Always drop a frame when there have been no drops or telecine merges in the past 5 frames.
2:	Always maintain exact 5:4 input to output frame ratio.

<am>

Analysis mode.

0:	Fixed pattern with initial frame number specified by <fr>.
1:	aggressive search for telecine pattern (default)

<fr>

Set initial frame number in sequence. 0-2 are the three clean progressive frames; 3 and 4 are the two interlaced frames. The default, -1, means ‘not in telecine sequence’. The number specified here is the type for the imaginary previous frame before the movie starts.

<t0>, <t1>, <t2>, <t3>

Threshold values to be used in certain modes.

ivtc[=1]

Experimental ‘stateless’ inverse telecine filter. Rather than trying to lock on to a pattern like the detc filter does, ivtc makes its decisions independently for each frame. This will give much better results for material that has undergone heavy editing after telecine was applied, but as a result it is not as forgiving of noisy input, for example TV capture. The optional parameter (ivtc=1) corresponds to the dr=1 option for the detc filter, and should not be used with MPlayer. Further development on ivtc has stopped, as the pullup and filmdint filters appear to be much more accurate.

pullup[=jl:jr:jt:jb:sb:mp]

Third-generation pulldown reversal (inverse telecine) filter, capable of handling mixed hard-telecine, 24000/1001 fps progressive, and 30000/1001 fps progressive content. The pullup filter is designed to be much more robust than detc or ivtc, by taking advantage of future context in making its decisions. Like ivtc, pullup is stateless in the sense that it does not lock onto a pattern to 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, setting it to -1 will make pullup match fields more easily. This may help processing of video where there is slight blurring between the fields, but may also cause there to be interlaced frames in the output.

mp (metric plane)

This option may be set to 1 or 2 to use a chroma plane instead of the luma plane for doing pullup’s computations. This may improve accuracy on very clean source material, but more likely will decrease accuracy, especially if there is chroma noise (rainbow effect) or any grayscale video. The main purpose of setting mp to a chroma plane is to reduce CPU load and make pullup usable in realtime on slow machines.

filmdint[=options]

Inverse telecine filter, similar to the pullup filter above. It is designed to handle any pulldown pattern, including mixed soft and hard telecine and limited support for movies that are slowed down or sped up from their original framerate for TV. Only the luma plane is used to find the frame breaks. If a field has no match, it is deinterlaced with simple linear approximation. If the source is MPEG-2, this must be the first filter to allow access to the field-flags set by the MPEG-2 decoder. Depending on the source MPEG, you may be fine ignoring this advice, as long as you do not see lots of “Bottom-first field” warnings. With no options it does normal inverse telecine. When this filter is used with MPlayer, it will result in an uneven framerate during playback, but it is still generally better than using pp=lb or no deinterlacing at all. Multiple options can be specified separated by /.

crop=<w>:<h>:<x>:<y>

Just like the crop filter, but faster, and works on mixed hard and soft telecined content as well as when y is not a multiple of 4. If x or y would require cropping 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. 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 auto-detected, use this option to override auto-detection.

fast=<n>

The larger n will speed up the filter at the expense of accuracy. The default value is n=3. If n is odd, a frame immediately following a frame marked with the REPEAT_FIRST_FIELD MPEG flag is assumed to be progressive, thus filter will not spend any time on soft-telecined MPEG-2 content. This is the only effect of this flag if MMX2 or 3DNow! is available. Without MMX2 and 3DNow, if n=0 or 1, the same calculations will be used as with n=2 or 3. If n=2 or 3, the number of luma levels used to find the frame breaks is reduced from 256 to 128, which results in a faster filter without losing much 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 deinterlacing, use n=256 to completely turn off deinterlacing. Default is n=8.

comb_thres=<n>

Threshold for comparing a top and bottom fields. Defaults to 128.

diff_thres=<n>

Threshold to detect temporal change of a field. Default is 128.

sad_thres=<n>

Sum of Absolute Difference threshold, default is 64.

divtc[=options]

Inverse telecine for deinterlaced video. If 3:2-pulldown telecined video has lost one of the fields or is deinterlaced using a method that keeps one field and interpolates the other, the result is a juddering video that has every fourth frame duplicated. This filter is intended to find and drop those duplicates and restore the original film framerate. Two different modes are available: One pass mode is the default and is straightforward to use, but has the disadvantage that any changes in the telecine phase (lost frames or bad edits) cause momentary judder until the filter can resync again. Two pass mode avoids this by analyzing the whole video beforehand so it will have forward knowledge about the phase changes and can resync at the exact spot. These passes do not correspond to pass one and two of the encoding process. You must run an extra pass using divtc pass one before the actual 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 passes, use divtc pass two for all of them. The options are:

pass=1|2

Use two pass mode.

file=<filename>

Set the two pass log filename (default: framediff.log).

threshold=<value>

Set the minimum strength the telecine pattern must have for the filter to believe in it (default: 0.5). This is used to avoid recognizing false pattern from the parts of the video that are very dark or very still.

window=<numframes>

Set the number of past frames to look at when searching for pattern (default: 30). Longer window improves the reliability of the pattern search, but shorter window improves the reaction time to the changes in the telecine phase. This only affects the one pass mode. The two pass mode currently uses fixed window that extends to both future and past.

phase=0|1|2|3|4

Sets the initial telecine phase for one pass mode (default: 0). The two pass mode can see the future, so it is able to use the correct phase from the beginning, but one pass mode can only guess. It catches the correct phase when it finds it, but this option can be used to fix the possible juddering at the beginning. The first pass of the two pass mode also uses this, so if you save the output from the first pass, you get constant phase result.

deghost=<value>

Set the deghosting threshold (0-255 for one pass mode, -255-255 for two pass mode, default 0). If nonzero, deghosting mode is used. This is for video that has been deinterlaced by blending the fields together instead of dropping one of the fields. Deghosting amplifies any compression artifacts in the blended frames, so the parameter value is used as a threshold to exclude those pixels from deghosting that differ from the previous frame less than specified value. If two pass mode is used, then negative value can be used to make the filter analyze the whole video in the beginning of pass-2 to determine whether it needs deghosting or not and then select either zero or the absolute value of the parameter. Specify this option for pass-2, it makes no difference on pass-1.

phase[=t|b|p|a|u|T|B|A|U][:v]

Delay interlaced video by one field time so that the field order changes. The intended use is to fix PAL movies that have been 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 options to refer to, but if you actually select it, the filter will faithfully do nothing ;-)

a

Capture field order determined automatically by field flags, transfer opposite. Filter selects among t and b modes on a frame by frame basis using field flags. If no field information is available, then this works just like u.

u

Capture unknown or varying, transfer opposite. Filter selects among t and b on a frame by frame basis by analyzing the 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. Filter selects among b and p using image analysis.

A

Capture determined by field flags, transfer unknown or varying. Filter selects among t, b and p using field flags and image analysis. If no field information is available, then this works just like U. This is the default mode.

U

Both capture and transfer unknown or varying. Filter selects among t, b and p using image analysis only.

v

Verbose operation. Prints the selected mode for each frame and the average squared difference between fields for t, b, and p alternatives.

telecine[=start]

Apply 3:2 ‘telecine’ process to increase framerate by 20%. This most likely will not work correctly with MPlayer. The optional start parameter tells the filter where in the telecine pattern to start (0-3).

tinterlace[=mode]

Temporal field interlacing - merge pairs of frames into an interlaced frame, halving the framerate. Even frames are moved into the upper field, odd frames to the lower field. This can be used to fully reverse the effect of the tfields filter (in mode 0). Available modes are:

0:	Move odd frames into the upper field, even into the lower field, generating a full-height frame at half framerate.
1:	Only output odd frames, even frames are dropped; height unchanged.
2:	Only output even frames, odd frames are dropped; height unchanged.
3:	Expand each frame to full height, but pad alternate lines with black; framerate unchanged.
4:	Interleave even lines from even frames with odd lines from odd frames. Height unchanged at half framerate.

tfields[=mode[:field_dominance]]

Temporal field separation - split fields into frames, doubling the output framerate.

<mode>

0:	Leave fields unchanged (will jump/flicker).
1:	Interpolate missing lines. (The algorithm used might not be so good.)
2:	Translate fields by 1/4 pixel with linear interpolation (no jump).
4:	Translate fields by 1/4 pixel with 4tap filter (higher quality) (default).

<field_dominance> (DEPRECATED)

-1:	auto (default) Only works if the decoder exports the appropriate information and no other filters which discard that 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 autodetection yet!).

<qp>

Higher values should result in a smoother motion vector field but less optimal individual vectors.

boxblur=radius:power[:radius:power]

box blur

<radius>

blur filter strength

<power>

number of filter applications

sab=radius:pf:colorDiff[:radius:pf:colorDiff]

shape adaptive blur

<radius>

blur filter strength (~0.1-4.0) (slower if larger)

<pf>

prefilter strength (~0.1-2.0)

<colorDiff>

maximum difference between pixels to still be considered (~0.1-100.0)

smartblur=radius:strength:threshold[:radius:strength:threshold]

smart blur

<radius>

blur filter strength (~0.1-5.0) (slower if larger)

<strength>

blur (0.0-1.0) or sharpen (-1.0-0.0)

<threshold>

filter all (0), filter flat areas (0-30) or filter edges (-30-0)

perspective=x0:y0:x1:y1:x2:y2:x3:y3:t

Correct the perspective of movies not filmed perpendicular to the screen.

<x0>,<y0>,...

coordinates of the top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right corners

<t>

linear (0) or cubic resampling (1)

2xsai

Scale and smooth the image with the 2x scale and interpolate algorithm.

1bpp

1bpp bitmap to YUV/BGR 8/15/16/32 conversion

down3dright[=lines]

Reposition and resize stereoscopic images. Extracts both stereo fields and places them side by side, resizing them to maintain the original movie aspect.

<lines>

number of lines to select from the middle of the image (default: 12)

bmovl=hidden:opaque:fifo

The bitmap overlay filter reads bitmaps from a FIFO and displays them on top of the movie, allowing some transformations on the image. See also TOOLS/bmovl-test.c for a small bmovl test program.

<hidden>

Set the default value of the ‘hidden’ flag (0=visible, 1=hidden).

<opaque>

Set the default value of the ‘opaque’ flag (0=transparent, 1=opaque).

<fifo>

path/filename for the FIFO (named pipe connecting mplayer --vf=bmovl to the controlling application)

FIFO commands are:

RGBA32 width height xpos ypos alpha clear

followed by width*height*4 Bytes of raw RGBA32 data.

ABGR32 width height xpos ypos alpha clear

followed by width*height*4 Bytes of raw ABGR32 data.

RGB24 width height xpos ypos alpha clear

followed by width*height*3 Bytes of raw RGB24 data.

BGR24 width height xpos ypos alpha clear

followed by width*height*3 Bytes of raw BGR24 data.

ALPHA width height xpos ypos alpha

Change alpha transparency of the specified area.

CLEAR width height xpos ypos

Clear area.

OPAQUE

Disable all alpha transparency. Send “ALPHA 0 0 0 0 0” to enable it again.

HIDE

Hide bitmap.

SHOW

Show bitmap.

Arguments are:

<width>, <height>

image/area size

<xpos>, <ypos>

Start blitting at position x/y.

<alpha>

Set alpha difference. If you set this to -255 you can then send a sequence of ALPHA-commands to set the area to -225, -200, -175 etc for a nice fade-in-effect! ;)

0:	same as original
255:	Make everything opaque.
-255:	Make everything transparent.

<clear>

Clear the framebuffer before blitting.

0:	The image will just be blitted on top of the old one, so you do not need to send 1.8MB of RGBA32 data every time a small part of the screen is updated.
1:	clear

framestep=I|[i]step

Renders only every nth frame or every intra frame (keyframe).

If you call the filter with I (uppercase) as the parameter, then only keyframes are rendered. For DVDs it generally means one in every 15/12 frames (IBBPBBPBBPBBPBB), for AVI it means every scene change or every keyint value.

When a keyframe is found, an ‘I!’ string followed by a newline character is printed, leaving the current line of MPlayer output on the screen, because it contains the time (in seconds) and frame number of the keyframe (You can use this information to split the AVI.).

If you call the filter with a numeric parameter ‘step’ then only one in every ‘step’ frames is rendered.

If you put an ‘i’ (lowercase) before the number then an ‘I!’ is printed (like the I parameter).

If you give only the i then nothing is done to the frames, only I! is printed.

tile=xtiles:ytiles:output:start:delta

Tile a series of images into a single, bigger image. If you omit a parameter or use a value less than 0, then the default value is used. You can also stop when you are satisfied (... --vf=tile=10:5 ...). It is probably a good idea to put the scale filter before the tile :-)

The parameters are:

<xtiles>

number of tiles on the x axis (default: 5)

<ytiles>

number of tiles on the y axis (default: 5)

<output>

Render the tile when ‘output’ number of frames are reached, where ‘output’ should be a number less than xtile * ytile. Missing tiles are left blank. You could, for example, write an 8 * 7 tile every 50 frames to have one image every 2 seconds @ 25 fps.

<start>

outer border thickness in pixels (default: 2)

<delta>

inner border thickness in pixels (default: 4)

delogo[=x:y:w:h:t]

Suppresses a TV station logo by a simple interpolation of the surrounding pixels. Just set a rectangle covering the logo and watch it disappear (and sometimes something even uglier appear - your mileage may vary).

<x>,<y>

top left corner of the logo

<w>,<h>

width and height of the cleared rectangle

<t>

Thickness of the fuzzy edge of the rectangle (added to w and h). When set to -1, a green rectangle is drawn on the screen to simplify finding the right x,y,w,h parameters.

file=<file>

You can specify a text file to load the coordinates from. Each line must have a timestamp (in seconds, and in ascending 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.

screenshot

Allows acquiring screenshots of the movie using slave mode commands that can be bound to keypresses. See the slave mode documentation and the INTERACTIVE CONTROL section for details. Files named shotNNNN.png will be saved in the working directory, using the first available number - no files will be overwritten. The filter has no overhead when not used. It does however break playback in some cases, especially VDPAU hardware decoding is incompatible with the filter. Thus it is not completely safe to add the filter to default configuration “just in case you might want to take screenshots”. Make sure that the screenshot filter is added after all other filters whose effect you want to record on the saved image. E.g. it should be the last filter if you want to have an exact screenshot of what you see on the monitor.

ass

Moves SSA/ASS subtitle rendering to an arbitrary point in the filter chain. See the --ass option.

EXAMPLE:

--vf=ass,screenshot

Moves SSA/ASS rendering before the screenshot filter. Screenshots taken this way will contain subtitles.

blackframe[=amount:threshold]

Detect frames that are (almost) completely black. Can be useful to detect chapter transitions or commercials. Output lines consist of the frame number of the detected frame, the percentage of blackness, the frame type and the frame number of the last encountered keyframe.

<amount>

Percentage of the pixels that have to be below the threshold (default: 98).

<threshold>

Threshold below which a pixel value is considered black (default: 32).

stereo3d[=in:out]

Stereo3d converts between different stereoscopic image formats.

<in>

Stereoscopic image format of input. Possible values:

sbsl or side_by_side_left_first

side by side parallel (left eye left, right eye right)

sbsr or side_by_side_right_first

side by side crosseye (right eye left, left eye right)

abl or above_below_left_first

above-below (left eye above, right eye below)

abl or above_below_right_first

above-below (right eye above, left eye below)

ab2l or above_below_half_height_left_first

above-below with half height resolution (left eye above, right eye below)

ab2r or above_below_half_height_right_first

above-below with half height resolution (right eye above, left eye below)

<out>

Stereoscopic image format of output. Possible values are all the input formats as well as:

arcg or anaglyph_red_cyan_gray

anaglyph red/cyan gray (red filter on left eye, cyan filter on right eye)

arch or anaglyph_red_cyan_half_color

anaglyph red/cyan half colored (red filter on left eye, cyan filter on right eye)

arcc or anaglyph_red_cyan_color

anaglyph red/cyan color (red filter on left eye, cyan filter on right eye)

arcd or anaglyph_red_cyan_dubois

anaglyph red/cyan color optimized with the least squares projection of dubois (red filter on left eye, cyan filter on right eye)

agmg or anaglyph_green_magenta_gray

anaglyph green/magenta gray (green filter on left eye, magenta filter on right eye)

agmh or anaglyph_green_magenta_half_color

anaglyph green/magenta half colored (green filter on left eye, magenta filter on right eye)

agmc or anaglyph_green_magenta_color

anaglyph green/magenta colored (green filter on left eye, magenta filter on right eye)

aybg or anaglyph_yellow_blue_gray

anaglyph yellow/blue gray (yellow filter on left eye, blue filter on right eye)

aybh or anaglyph_yellow_blue_half_color

anaglyph yellow/blue half colored (yellow filter on left eye, blue filter on right eye)

aybc or anaglyph_yellow_blue_color

anaglyph yellow/blue colored (yellow filter on left eye, blue filter on right eye)

irl or interleave_rows_left_first

Interleaved rows (left eye has top row, right eye starts on next row)

irr or interleave_rows_right_first

Interleaved rows (right eye has top row, left eye starts on next row)

ml or mono_left

mono output (left eye only)

mr or mono_right

mono output (right eye only)

gradfun[=strength[:radius]]

Fix the banding artifacts that are sometimes introduced into nearly flat regions by truncation to 8bit colordepth. Interpolates the gradients that should go where the bands are, and dithers them.

This filter is designed for playback only. Do not use it prior to lossy compression, because compression tends to lose the dither and bring back the bands.

<strength>

Maximum amount by which the filter will change any one pixel. Also the threshold for detecting nearly flat regions (default: 1.2).

<radius>

Neighborhood to fit the gradient to. Larger radius makes for smoother gradients, but also prevents the filter from modifying pixels near detailed regions (default: 16).

fixpts[=options]

Fixes the presentation timestamps (PTS) of the frames. By default, the PTS passed to the next filter is dropped, but the following options can change that:

print

Print the incoming PTS.

fps=<fps>

Specify a frame per second value.

start=<pts>

Specify an initial value for the PTS.

autostart=<n>

Uses the nth incoming PTS as the initial PTS. All previous PTS are kept, so setting a huge value or -1 keeps the PTS 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 subtitles, then drops it. Generating a new sequence is useful when the timestamps are reset during the program; this is frequent on DVDs. Dropping it may be necessary to avoid confusing encoders.

NOTE: Using this filter together with any sort of seeking (including --ss) may make demons fly out of your nose.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶

There are a number of environment variables that can be used to control the behavior of MPlayer.

MPLAYER_CHARSET (see also --msgcharset)

Convert console messages to the specified charset (default: autodetect). A value of “noconv” means no conversion.

MPLAYER_HOME

Directory where MPlayer looks for user settings.

MPLAYER_LOCALEDIR

Directory where MPlayer looks for gettext translation files (if enabled).

MPLAYER_VERBOSE (see also -v and --msglevel)

Set the initial verbosity level across all message modules (default: 0). The resulting verbosity corresponds to that of --msglevel=5 plus the value of MPLAYER_VERBOSE.

libaf:

LADSPA_PATH

If LADSPA_PATH is set, it searches for the specified file. If it is not set, you must supply a fully specified pathname.

FIXME: This is also mentioned in the ladspa section.

libdvdcss:

DVDCSS_CACHE

Specify a directory in which to store title key values. This will speed up descrambling of DVDs which are in the cache. The DVDCSS_CACHE directory is created if it does not exist, and a subdirectory is created named after the DVD’s title or manufacturing date. If DVDCSS_CACHE is not set or is empty, libdvdcss will use the default value which is ${HOME}/.dvdcss/ under Unix and C:\Documents and Settings\$USER\Application Data\dvdcss\ under Win32. The special value “off” disables caching.

DVDCSS_METHOD

Sets the authentication and decryption method that libdvdcss will use to read scrambled discs. Can be one of title, key or disc.

key

is the default method. libdvdcss will use a set of calculated player keys to try and get the disc key. This can fail if the drive does not recognize any of the player keys.

disc

is a fallback method when key has failed. Instead of using player keys, libdvdcss will crack the disc key using a brute force algorithm. This process is CPU intensive and requires 64 MB of memory to store temporary data.

title

is the fallback when all other methods have failed. It does not rely on a key exchange with the DVD drive, but rather uses a crypto attack to guess the title key. On rare cases this may fail because there is not enough encrypted data on the disc to perform a statistical attack, but in the other hand it is the only way to decrypt a DVD stored on a hard disc, or a DVD with the wrong region on an RPC2 drive.

DVDCSS_RAW_DEVICE

Specify the raw device to use. Exact usage will depend on your operating system, the Linux utility to set up raw devices is raw(8) for instance. Please note that on most operating systems, using a raw device requires highly aligned buffers: Linux requires a 2048 bytes alignment (which is the size of a DVD sector).

DVDCSS_VERBOSE

Sets the libdvdcss verbosity level.

0:	Outputs no messages at all.
1:	Outputs error messages to stderr.
2:	Outputs error messages and debug messages to stderr.

DVDREAD_NOKEYS

Skip retrieving all keys on startup. Currently disabled.

HOME

FIXME: Document this.

libao2:

AO_SUN_DISABLE_SAMPLE_TIMING

FIXME: Document this.

AUDIODEV

FIXME: Document this.

AUDIOSERVER

Specifies the Network Audio System server to which the nas audio output driver should connect and the transport that should be used. If unset DISPLAY is used instead. The transport can be one of tcp and unix. Syntax is tcp/<somehost>:<someport>, <somehost>:<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.

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.

libavformat:

AUDIO_FLIP_LEFT

FIXME: Document this.

BKTR_DEV

FIXME: Document this.

BKTR_FORMAT

FIXME: Document this.

BKTR_FREQUENCY

FIXME: Document this.

http_proxy

FIXME: Document this.

no_proxy

FIXME: Document this.

FILES¶

/usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf

MPlayer system-wide settings

~/.mplayer/config

MPlayer user settings

~/.mplayer/input.conf

input bindings (see --input=keylist for the full list)

~/.mplayer/font/

font directory (There must be a font.desc file and files with .RAW extension.)

~/.mplayer/DVDkeys/

cached CSS keys

EXAMPLES OF MPLAYER USAGE¶

Quickstart Blu-ray playing:

• mplayer br:////path/to/disc
• mplayer br:// --bluray-device=/path/to/disc

Quickstart DVD playing:

mplayer dvd://1

Play in Japanese with English subtitles:

mplayer dvd://1 --alang=ja --slang=en

Play only chapters 5, 6, 7:

mplayer dvd://1 --chapter=5-7

Play only titles 5, 6, 7:

mplayer dvd://5-7

Play a multiangle DVD:

mplayer dvd://1 --dvdangle=2

Play from a different DVD device:

mplayer dvd://1 --dvd-device=/dev/dvd2

Play DVD video from a directory with VOB files:

mplayer dvd://1 --dvd-device=/path/to/directory/

Copy a DVD title to hard disk, saving to file title1.vob :

mplayer dvd://1 --dumpstream --dumpfile=title1.vob

Play a DVD with dvdnav from path /dev/sr1:

mplayer dvdnav:////dev/sr1

Stream from HTTP:

mplayer http://mplayer.hq/example.avi

Stream using RTSP:

mplayer rtsp://server.example.com/streamName

Convert subtitles to MPsub format:

mplayer dummy.avi --sub=source.sub --dumpmpsub

Convert subtitles to MPsub format without watching the movie:

mplayer /dev/zero --rawvideo=pal:fps=xx --demuxer=rawvideo --vc=null --vo=null --noframedrop --benchmark --sub=source.sub --dumpmpsub

input from standard V4L:

mplayer tv:// --tv=driver=v4l:width=640:height=480:outfmt=i420 --vc=rawi420 --vo=xv

Play DTS-CD with passthrough:

mplayer --ac=hwdts --rawaudio=format=0x2001 --cdrom-device=/dev/cdrom cdda://

You can also use --afm=hwac3 instead of --ac=hwdts. Adjust /dev/cdrom to match the CD-ROM device on your system. If your external 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'