MPlayer

Specify a directory for binary codecs.

-codecs-file (also see -afm, -ac, -vfm, -vc)

Override the standard search path and use the specified file instead of the builtin codecs.conf.

-include (also see -gui-include)

Specify configuration file to be parsed after the default ones.

-list-options

Prints all available options.

-msgcharset

Convert console messages to the specified character set (default: autodetect). Text will be in the encoding specified with the --charset configure option. Set this to "noconv" to disable conversion (for e.g. iconv problems).
NOTE: The option takes effect after command line parsing has finished. The MPLAYER_CHARSET environment variable can help you get rid of the first lines of garbled output.

-msgcolor

Enable colorful console output on terminals that support ANSI color.

-msglevel :=:...>

Control verbosity directly for each module. The ’all’ module changes the verbosity of all the modules not explicitly specified on the command line. See ’-msglevel help’ for a list of all modules.
NOTE: Some messages are printed before the command line is parsed and are therefore not affected by -msglevel. To control these messages you have to use the MPLAYER_VERBOSE environment variable, see its description below for details.
Available levels:

-msgmodule

Prepend module name in front of each console message.

-noconfig

Do not parse selected configuration files.
NOTE: If -include or -use-filedir-conf options are specified at the command line, they will be honoured.

Available options are:

all  

all configuration files

gui (GUI only)

GUI configuration file

system

system configuration file

user 

user configuration file

-quiet 

Make console output less verbose; in particular, prevents the status line (i.e. A: 0.7 V: 0.6 A-V: 0.068 ...) from being displayed. Particularly useful on slow terminals or broken ones which do not properly handle carriage return (i.e. \r).

-priority (Windows and OS/2 only)

Set process priority for MPlayer according to the predefined priorities available under Windows and OS/2. Possible values of :

idle|belownormal|normal|abovenormal|high|realtime

WARNING: Using realtime priority can cause system lockup.

-profile

Use the given profile(s), -profile help displays a list of the defined profiles.

-really-quiet (also see -quiet)

Display even less output and status messages than with -quiet. Also suppresses the GUI error message boxes.

-show-profile

Show the description and content of a profile.

-use-filedir-conf

Look for a file-specific configuration file in the same directory as the file that is being played.
WARNING: May be dangerous if playing from untrusted media.

-v     

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

PLAYER OPTIONS (MPLAYER ONLY)

-autoq (use with -vf [s]pp)

Dynamically changes the level of postprocessing depending on the available spare CPU time. The number you specify will be the maximum level used. Usually you can use some big number. You have to use -vf [s]pp without parameters in order for this to work.

-autosync

Gradually adjusts the A/V sync based on audio delay measurements. Specifying -autosync 0, the default, will cause frame timing to be based entirely on audio delay measurements. Specifying -autosync 1 will do the same, but will subtly change the A/V correction algorithm. An uneven video framerate in a movie which plays fine with -nosound can often be helped by setting this to an integer value greater than 1. The higher the value, the closer the timing will be to -nosound. Try -autosync 30 to smooth out problems with sound drivers which do not implement a perfect audio delay measurement. With this value, if large A/V sync offsets occur, they will only take about 1 or 2 seconds to settle out. This delay in reaction time to sudden A/V offsets should be the only side-effect of turning this option on, for all sound drivers.

-benchmark

Prints some statistics on CPU usage and dropped frames at the end of playback. Use in combination with -nosound and -vo null for benchmarking only the video codec.
NOTE: With this option MPlayer will also ignore frame duration when playing only video (you can think of that as infinite fps).

-colorkey

Changes the colorkey to an RGB value of your choice. 0x000000 is black and 0xffffff is white. Only supported by the cvidix, fbdev, svga, vesa, winvidix, xmga, xvidix, xover, xv (see -vo xv:ck), xvmc (see -vo xv:ck) and directx video output drivers.

-nocolorkey

Disables colorkeying. Only supported by the cvidix, fbdev, svga, vesa, winvidix, xmga, xvidix, xover, xv (see -vo xv:ck), xvmc (see -vo xv:ck) and directx video output drivers.

-correct-pts (EXPERIMENTAL)

Switches MPlayer to an experimental mode where timestamps for video frames are calculated differently and video filters which add new frames or modify timestamps of existing ones are supported. The more accurate timestamps can be visible for example when playing subtitles timed to scene changes with the -ass option. Without -correct-pts the subtitle timing will typically be off by some frames. This option does not work correctly with some demuxers and codecs.

-crash-debug (DEBUG CODE)

Automatically attaches gdb upon crash or SIGTRAP. Support must be compiled in by configuring with --enable-crash-debug.

-doubleclick-time

Time in milliseconds to recognize two consecutive button presses as a double-click (default: 300). Set to 0 to let your windowing system decide what a double-click is (-vo directx only).
NOTE: You will get slightly different behaviour depending on whether you bind MOUSE_BTN0_DBL or MOUSE_BTN0-MOUSE_BTN0_DBL.

-edlout

Creates a new file and writes edit decision list (EDL) records to it. During playback, the user hits ’i’ to mark the start or end of a skip block. This provides a starting point from which the user can fine-tune EDL entries later. See http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html for details.

-edl-backward-delay

When using EDL during playback and jumping backwards it is possible to end up in the middle of an EDL record. In that case MPlayer will seek further backwards to the start position of the EDL record and then immediately skip the scene specified in the EDL record. To avoid this kind of behavior, MPlayer jumps to a fixed time interval before the start of the EDL record. This parameter allows you to specify that time interval in seconds (default: 2 seconds).

-edl-start-pts

Adjust positions in EDL records according to playing file’s start time. Some formats, especially MPEG TS usually start with non-zero PTS values and when producing EDL file with -edlout option, EDL records contain absolute values that are correct only for this particular file. If re-encoded into a different format, this EDL file no longer applies. Specifying -edl-start-pts will automatically adjust EDL positions according to start time: when producing EDL file, it will substract start time from every EDL record, when playing with EDL file, it will add file’s start time to every EDL position.

-noedl-start-pts

Disable adjusting EDL positions.

-enqueue (GUI only)

Enqueue files given on the command line in the playlist instead of playing them immediately.

-fixed-vo

Enforces a fixed video system for multiple files (one (un)initialization for all files). Therefore only one window will be opened for all files. Currently the following drivers are fixed-vo compliant: gl, gl_tiled, mga, svga, x11, xmga, xv, xvidix and dfbmga.

-framedrop (also see -hardframedrop, experimental without
-nocorrect-pts)

Skip displaying some frames to maintain A/V sync on slow systems. Video filters are not applied to such frames. For B-frames even decoding is skipped completely.

-(no)gui

Enable or disable the GUI interface (default depends on binary name). Only works as the first argument on the command line. Does not work as a config-file option.

-gui-include (also see -include) (GUI only)

Specify a GUI configuration file to be parsed after the default gui.conf.

-h, -help, --help

Show short summary of options.

-hardframedrop (experimental without -nocorrect-pts)

More intense frame dropping (breaks decoding). Leads to image distortion! Note that especially the libmpeg2 decoder may crash with this, so consider using "-vc ffmpeg12,".

-heartbeat-cmd

Command that is executed every 30 seconds during playback via system() - i.e. using the shell.

NOTE: MPlayer uses this command without any checking, it is your responsibility to ensure it does not cause security problems (e.g. make sure to use full paths if "." is in your path like on Windows). It also only works when playing video (i.e. not with -novideo but works with -vo null).

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

EXAMPLE for xscreensaver: mplayer -heartbeat-cmd "xscreensaver-command -deactivate" file

EXAMPLE for GNOME screensaver: mplayer -heartbeat-cmd "gnome-screensaver-command -p" file

-heartbeat-interval

Specify how often the -heartbeat-cmd should be executed, in seconds between executions (default: 30.0).

-identify

Shorthand for -msglevel identify=6. Show file parameters in an easily parseable format. Also prints more detailed information about subtitle and audio track languages and IDs. For example, for a DVD or Blu-ray it will list the chapters and time length of each title, as well as a disk ID. Combine this with -frames 0 to suppress all video output. The wrapper script TOOLS/ midentify.sh suppresses the other MPlayer output and (hopefully) shellescapes the filenames. You can get less information by using -msglevel identify=4.

-idle (also see -slave)

Makes MPlayer wait idly instead of quitting when there is no file to play. Mostly useful in slave mode where MPlayer can be controlled through input commands.
For gmplayer -idle is the default, -noidle will quit the GUI after all files have been played.

-input

This option can be used to configure certain parts of the input system. Paths are relative to ~/.mplayer/.
NOTE: Autorepeat is currently only supported by joysticks.

Available commands are:

conf=

Specify input configuration file other than the default ~/.mplayer/input.conf. ~/.mplayer/ is assumed if no full path is given.

ar-dev=

Device to be used for Apple IR Remote (default is autodetected, Linux only).

ar-delay

Delay in milliseconds before we start to autorepeat a key (0 to disable).

ar-rate

Number of key presses to generate per second on autorepeat.

(no)default-bindings

Use the key bindings that MPlayer ships with by default.

keylist

Prints all keys that can be bound to commands.

cmdlist

Prints all commands that can be bound to keys.

js-dev

Specifies the joystick device to use (default: /dev/ input/js0).

file=

Read commands from the given file. Mostly useful with a FIFO.
NOTE: When the given file is a FIFO MPlayer opens both ends so you can do several ’echo "seek 10" > mp_pipe’ and the pipe will stay valid.

-key-fifo-size <2-65000>

Specify the size of the FIFO that buffers key events (default: 7). A FIFO of size n can buffer (n-1) events. If it is too small some events may be lost. If it is too big, MPlayer may seem to hang while it processes the buffered events. To get the same behavior as before this option was introduced, set it to 2 for Linux or 1024 for Windows. For small value you should disable double-clicks by setting -doubleclick-time to 0 so they do not compete with regular events for buffer space.

-lircconf (LIRC only)

Specifies a configuration file for LIRC (default: ~/.lircrc).

-list-properties

Print a list of the available properties.

-loop

Loops movie playback times. 0 means forever. Use -loop 0 to automatically reconnect to live streaming URLs.

-menu (OSD menu only)

Turn on OSD menu support.

-menu-cfg (OSD menu only)

Use an alternative menu.conf.

-menu-chroot (OSD menu only)

Chroot the file selection menu to a specific location.

EXAMPLE:

-menu-chroot /home

Will restrict the file selection menu to /home and downward (i.e. no access to / will be possible, but /home/user_name will).

-menu-keepdir (OSD menu only)

File browser starts from the last known location instead of current directory.

-menu-root (OSD menu only)

Specify the main menu.

-menu-startup (OSD menu only)

Display the main menu at MPlayer startup.

-mouse-movements

Permit MPlayer to receive pointer events reported by the video output driver. Necessary to select the buttons in DVD menus. Supported for X11-based VOs (x11, xv, xvmc, etc) and the gl, gl_tiled, direct3d and corevideo VOs.

-noconsolecontrols

Prevent MPlayer from reading key events from standard input. Useful when reading data from standard input. This is automatically enabled when - is found on the command line. There are situations where you have to set it manually, e.g. if you open /dev/stdin (or the equivalent on your system), use stdin in a playlist or intend to read from stdin later on via the loadfile or loadlist slave commands.

-nojoystick

Turns off joystick support.

-nolirc

Turns off LIRC support.

-nomouseinput

Disable mouse button press/release input (mozplayerxp’s context menu relies on this option).

-rtc (RTC only)

Turns on usage of the Linux RTC (realtime clock - /dev/rtc) as timing mechanism. This wakes up the process every 1/1024 seconds to check the current time. Useless with modern Linux kernels configured for desktop use as they already wake up the process with similar accuracy when using normal timed sleep.

-pausing <0-3> (MPlayer only)

Specifies the default pausing behaviour of commands, i.e. whether MPlayer will continue playback or stay paused after the command has finished. See DOCS/tech/slave.txt for further details.

-playing-msg

Print out a string before starting playback. The following expansions are supported:

${NAME}

Expand to the value of the property NAME.

?(NAME:TEXT)

Expand TEXT only if the property NAME is available.

?(!NAME:TEXT)

Expand TEXT only if the property NAME is not available.

-playlist

Play files according to a playlist file (ASX, Winamp, SMIL, or one-file-per-line format).
WARNING: The way MPlayer parses and uses playlist files is not safe against maliciously constructed files. Such files may trigger harmful actions. This has been the case for all MPlayer versions, but unfortunately this fact was not well documented earlier, and some people have even misguidedly recommended use of -playlist with untrusted sources. Do NOT use -playlist with random internet sources or files you don’t trust!
NOTE: This option is considered an entry so options found after it will apply only to the elements of this playlist.
FIXME: This needs to be clarified and documented thoroughly.

-allow-dangerous-playlist-parsing

This enables parsing any file as a playlist if e.g. a server advertises a file as playlist. Only enable if you know all servers involved are trustworthy. MPlayer’s playlist code is not designed to handle malicious playlist files.

-rtc-device

Use the specified device for RTC timing.

-shuffle

Play files in random order.

-skin (GUI only)

Loads a skin from the directory given as parameter below the default skin directories, ~/.mplayer/skins/ and /usr/local/ share/mplayer/skins/.

EXAMPLE:

-skin fittyfene

Tries ~/.mplayer/skins/fittyfene and afterwards /usr/ local/share/mplayer/skins/fittyfene.

-slave (also see -input)

Switches on slave mode, in which MPlayer works as a backend for other programs. Instead of intercepting keyboard events, MPlayer will read commands separated by a newline (\n) from stdin.
NOTE: See -input cmdlist for a list of slave commands and DOCS/tech/slave.txt for their description. Also, this is not intended to disable other inputs, e.g. via the video window, use some other method like -input nodefault-bindings:conf=/dev/null for that.

-softsleep

Time frames by repeatedly checking the current time instead of asking the kernel to wake up MPlayer at the correct time. Useful if your kernel timing is imprecise and you cannot use the RTC either. Comes at the price of higher CPU consumption.

-sstep

Skip seconds after every frame. The normal framerate of the movie is kept, so playback is accelerated. Since MPlayer can only seek to the next keyframe this may be inexact.

-udp-ip

Sets the destination address for datagrams sent by the -udp-master. Setting it to a broadcast address allows multiple slaves having the same broadcast address to sync to the master (default: 127.0.0.1).

-udp-master

Send a datagram to -udp-ip on -udp-port just before playing each frame. The datagram indicates the master’s position in the file.

-udp-port

Sets the destination port for datagrams sent by the -udp-master, and the port a -udp-slave listens on (default: 23867).

-udp-seek-threshold

When the master seeks, the slave has to decide whether to seek as well, or to catch up by decoding frames without pausing between frames. If the master is more than seconds away from the slave, the slave seeks. Otherwise, it "runs" to catch up or waits for the master. This should almost always be left at its default setting of 1 second.

-udp-slave

Listen on -udp-port and match the master’s position.

DEMUXER/STREAM OPTIONS

-a52drc

Select the Dynamic Range Compression level for AC-3 audio streams. is a float value ranging from 0 to 1, where 0 means no compression and 1 (which is the default) means full compression (make loud passages more silent and vice versa). Values up to 2 are also accepted, but are purely experimental. This option only shows an effect if the AC-3 stream contains the required range compression information.

-aid (also see -alang)

Select audio channel (MPEG: 0-31, AVI/OGM: 1-99, ASF/RM: 0-127, VOB(AC-3): 128-159, VOB(LPCM): 160-191, MPEG-TS 17-8190). MPlayer prints the available audio IDs when run in verbose (-v) mode. When playing an MPEG-TS stream, MPlayer/MEncoder will use the first program (if present) with the chosen audio stream.

-ausid (also see -alang)

Select audio substream channel. Currently the valid range is 0x55..0x75 and applies only to MPEG-TS when handled by the native demuxer (not by libavformat). The format type may not be correctly identified because of how this information (or lack thereof) is embedded in the stream, but it will demux correctly the audio streams when multiple substreams are present. MPlayer prints the available substream IDs when run with -identify.

-alang (also see -aid)

Specify a priority list of audio languages to use. Different container formats employ different language codes. DVDs use ISO 639-1 two letter language codes, Matroska, MPEG-TS and NUT use ISO 639-2 three letter language codes while OGM uses a free-form identifier. MPlayer prints the available languages when run in verbose (-v) mode.

EXAMPLE:

mplayer dvd://1 -alang hu,en

Chooses the Hungarian language track on a DVD and falls back on English if Hungarian is not available.

mplayer -alang jpn example.mkv

Plays a Matroska file in Japanese.

-audio-demuxer <[+]name> (-audiofile only)

Force audio demuxer type for -audiofile. Use a ’+’ before the name to force it, this will skip some checks! Give the demuxer name as printed by -audio-demuxer help. For backward compatibility it also accepts the demuxer ID as defined in libmpdemux/demuxer.h. -audio-demuxer audio or -audio-demuxer 17 forces MP3.

-audiofile

Play audio from an external file (WAV, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis) while viewing a movie.

-audiofile-cache

Enables caching for the stream used by -audiofile, using the specified amount of memory.

-reuse-socket (udp:// only)

Allows a socket to be reused by other processes as soon as it is closed.

-bandwidth (network only)

Specify the maximum bandwidth for network streaming (for servers that are able to send content in different bitrates). Useful if you want to watch live streamed media behind a slow connection. With Real RTSP streaming, it is also used to set the maximum delivery bandwidth allowing faster cache filling and stream dumping.

-bluray-angle (Blu-ray only)

Some Blu-ray discs contain scenes that can be viewed from multiple angles. Here you can tell MPlayer which angles to use (default: 1).

-bluray-device (Blu-ray only)

Specify the Blu-ray disc location. Must be a directory with Blu-ray structure.

-cache

This option specifies how much memory (in kBytes) to use when precaching a file or URL. Especially useful on slow media.

-nocache

Turns off caching.

-cache-min

Playback will start when the cache has been filled up to of the total.

-cache-seek-min

If a seek is to be made to a position within of the cache size from the current position, MPlayer will wait for the cache to be filled to this position rather than performing a stream seek (default: 50).

-capture (MPlayer only)

Allows capturing the primary stream (not additional audio tracks or other kind of streams) into the file specified by -dumpfile or by default. If this option is given, capturing can be started and stopped by pressing the key bound to this function (see section INTERACTIVE CONTROL). Same as for -dumpstream, this will likely not produce usable results for anything else than MPEG streams. Note that, due to cache latencies, captured data may begin and end somewhat delayed compared to what you see displayed.

-cdda (CDDA only)

This option can be used to tune the CD Audio reading feature of MPlayer.

Available options are:

speed=

Set CD spin speed.

paranoia=<0-2>

Set paranoia level. Values other than 0 seem to break playback of anything but the first track.

0: disable checking (default)
1: overlap checking only
2: full data correction and verification

generic-dev=

Use specified generic SCSI device.

sector-size=

Set atomic read size.

overlap=

Force minimum overlap search during verification to sectors.

toc-bias

Assume that the beginning offset of track 1 as reported in the TOC will be addressed as LBA 0. Some Toshiba drives need this for getting track boundaries correct.

toc-offset=

Add sectors to the values reported when addressing tracks. May be negative.

(no)skip

(Never) accept imperfect data reconstruction.

-cdrom-device

Specify the CD-ROM device (default: /dev/cdrom).

-channels (also see -af channels)

Request the number of playback channels (default: 2). MPlayer asks the decoder to decode the audio into as many channels as specified. Then it is up to the decoder to fulfill the requirement. This is usually only important when playing videos with AC-3 audio (like DVDs). In that case liba52 does the decoding by default and correctly downmixes the audio into the requested number of channels. To directly control the number of output channels independently of how many channels are decoded, use the channels filter.
NOTE: This option is honored by codecs (AC-3 only), filters (surround) and audio output drivers (OSS at least).

Available options are:

-chapter [-]

Specify which chapter to start playing at. Optionally specify which chapter to end playing at (default: 1).

-cookies (network only)

Send cookies when making HTTP requests.

-cookies-file (network only)

Read HTTP cookies from (default: ~/.mozilla/ and ~/.netscape/) and skip reading from default locations. The file is assumed to be in Netscape format.

-delay

audio delay in seconds (positive or negative float value)
Negative values delay the audio, and positive values delay the video. Note that this is the exact opposite of the -audio-delay MEncoder option.
NOTE: When used with MEncoder, this is not guaranteed to work correctly with -ovc copy; use -audio-delay instead.

-ignore-start

Ignore the specified starting time for streams in AVI files. In MPlayer, this nullifies stream delays in files encoded with the -audio-delay option. During encoding, this option prevents MEncoder from transferring original stream start times to the new file; the -audio-delay option is not affected. Note that MEncoder sometimes adjusts stream starting times automatically to compensate for anticipated decoding delays, so do not use this option for encoding without testing it first.

-demuxer <[+]name>

Force demuxer type. Use a ’+’ before the name to force it, this will skip some checks! Give the demuxer name as printed by -demuxer help. For backward compatibility it also accepts the demuxer ID as defined in libmpdemux/demuxer.h.

-dumpaudio (MPlayer only)

Dumps raw compressed audio stream to ./stream.dump (useful with MPEG/AC-3, in most other cases the resulting file will not be playable). If you give more than one of -dumpaudio, -dumpvideo, -dumpstream on the command line only the last one will work.

-dumpfile (MPlayer only)

Specify which file MPlayer should dump to. Should be used together with -dumpaudio / -dumpvideo / -dumpstream / -capture.

-dumpstream (MPlayer only)

Dumps the raw stream to ./stream.dump. Useful when ripping from DVD or network. If you give more than one of -dumpaudio, -dumpvideo, -dumpstream on the command line only the last one will work.

-dumpvideo (MPlayer only)

Dump raw compressed video stream to ./stream.dump (not very usable). If you give more than one of -dumpaudio, -dumpvideo, -dumpstream on the command line only the last one will work.

-dvbin (DVB only)

Pass the following parameters to the DVB input module, in order to override the default ones:

card=<1-4>

Specifies using card number 1-4 (default: 1).

file=

Instructs MPlayer to read the channels list from . Default is ~/.mplayer/ channels.conf.{sat,ter,cbl,atsc} (based on your card type) or ~/.mplayer/channels.conf as a last resort.

timeout=<1-240>

Maximum number of seconds to wait when trying to tune a frequency before giving up (default: 30).

-dvd-device (DVD only)

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

-dvd-speed (DVD only)

Try to limit DVD speed (default: 0, no change). DVD base speed is about 1350KB/s, so a 8x drive can read at speeds up to 10800KB/s. Slower speeds make the drive more quiet, for watching DVDs 2700KB/s should be quiet and fast enough. MPlayer resets the speed to the drive default value on close. Values less than 100 mean multiples of 1350KB/s, i.e. -dvd-speed 8 selects 10800KB/s.
NOTE: You need write access to the DVD device to change the speed.

-dvdangle (DVD only)

Some DVD discs contain scenes that can be viewed from multiple angles. Here you can tell MPlayer which angles to use (default: 1).

-edl

Enables edit decision list (EDL) actions during playback. Video will be skipped over and audio will be muted and unmuted according to the entries in the given file. See http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html for details on how to use this.

-endpos <[[hh:]mm:]ss[.ms]|size[b|kb|mb]> (also see -ss and -sb)

Stop at given time or byte position.
NOTE: Byte position may not be accurate, as it can only stop at a frame boundary. When used in conjunction with -ss option, -endpos time will shift forward by seconds specified with -ss if not a byte position. In addition it may not work well or not at all when used with any of the -dump options.

EXAMPLE:

-endpos 56

Stop at 56 seconds.

-endpos 01:10:00

Stop at 1 hour 10 minutes.

-ss 10 -endpos 56

Stop at 1 minute 6 seconds.

mplayer -endpos 100mb

Stop playback after reading 100MB of the input file.

mencoder -endpos 100mb

Encode only 100 MB.

-forceidx

Force index rebuilding. Useful for files with broken index (A/V desync, etc). This will enable seeking in files where seeking was not possible. You can fix the index permanently with MEncoder (see the documentation).
NOTE: This option only works if the underlying media supports seeking (i.e. not with stdin, pipe, etc).

-fps

Override video framerate. Useful if the original value is wrong or missing.

-frames

Play/convert only first frames, then quit.

-hr-mp3-seek (MP3 only)

Hi-res MP3 seeking. Enabled when playing from an external MP3 file, as we need to seek to the very exact position to keep A/V sync. Can be slow especially when seeking backwards since it has to rewind to the beginning to find an exact frame position.

-http-header-fields

Set custom HTTP fields when accessing HTTP stream.

EXAMPLE:

Will generate HTTP request:

GET / HTTP/1.0
Host: localhost:1234
User-Agent: MPlayer
Icy-MetaData: 1
Field1: value1
Field2: value2
Connection: close

-idx (also see -forceidx)

Rebuilds index of files if no index was found, allowing seeking. Useful with broken/incomplete downloads, or badly created files.
NOTE: This option only works if the underlying media supports seeking (i.e. not with stdin, pipe, etc).

-ipv4-only-proxy (network only)

Skip the proxy for IPv6 addresses. It will still be used for IPv4 connections.

-lavfstreamopts

Specify extra options for libavformat based streams.

-loadidx

The file from which to read the video index data saved by -saveidx. This index will be used for seeking, overriding any index data contained in the AVI itself. MPlayer will not prevent you from loading an index file generated from a different AVI, but this is sure to cause unfavorable results.
NOTE: This option is obsolete now that MPlayer has OpenDML support.

-mc

maximum A-V sync correction per frame (in seconds)
-mc 0 should always be combined with -noskip for mencoder, otherwise it will almost certainly cause A-V desync.

-mf

Used when decoding from multiple PNG or JPEG files.

Available options are:

w=

input file width (default: autodetect)

h=

input file height (default: autodetect)

fps=

output fps (default: 25)

type=

input file type (available: jpeg, png, tga, sgi)

-nobps (AVI only)

Do not use average byte/second value for A-V sync. Helps with some AVI files with broken header.

-noextbased

Disables extension-based demuxer selection. By default, when the file type (demuxer) cannot be detected reliably (the file has no header or it is not reliable enough), the filename extension is used to select the demuxer. Always falls back on content-based demuxer selection.

-passwd (also see -user) (network only)

Specify password for HTTP authentication.

-prefer-ipv4 (network only)

Use IPv4 on network connections. Falls back on IPv6 automatically.

-prefer-ipv6 (IPv6 network only)

Use IPv6 on network connections. Falls back on IPv4 automatically.

-psprobe

When playing an MPEG-PS or MPEG-PES streams, this option lets you specify how many bytes in the stream you want MPlayer to scan in order to identify the video codec used. This option is needed to play EVO or VDR files containing H.264 streams.

-pvr (PVR only)

This option tunes various encoding properties of the PVR capture module. It has to be used with any hardware MPEG encoder based card supported by the V4L2 driver. The Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150/250/350/500 and all IVTV based cards are known as PVR capture cards. Be aware that only Linux 2.6.18 kernel and above is able to handle MPEG stream through V4L2 layer. For hardware capture of an MPEG stream and watching it with MPlayer/MEncoder, use ’pvr://’ as a movie URL.

Available options are:

aspect=<0-3>

Specify input aspect ratio:

0: 1:1
1: 4:3 (default)
2: 16:9
3: 2.21:1

arate=<32000-48000>

Specify encoding audio rate (default: 48000 Hz, available: 32000, 44100 and 48000 Hz).

alayer=<1-5>

Specify MPEG audio layer encoding (default: 2).

abitrate=<32-448>

Specify audio encoding bitrate in kbps (default: 384).

amode=

Specify audio encoding mode. Available preset values are ’stereo’, ’joint_stereo’, ’dual’ and ’mono’ (default: stereo).

vbitrate=

Specify average video bitrate encoding in Mbps (default: 6).

vmode=

Specify video encoding mode:

vbr: Variable BitRate (default)
cbr: Constant BitRate

vpeak=

Specify peak video bitrate encoding in Mbps (only useful for VBR encoding, default: 9.6).

fmt=

Choose an MPEG format for encoding:

ps: MPEG-2 Program Stream (default)
ts: MPEG-2 Transport Stream
mpeg1: MPEG-1 System Stream
vcd: Video CD compatible stream
svcd: Super Video CD compatible stream
dvd: DVD compatible stream

-radio (radio only)

These options set various parameters of the radio capture module. For listening to radio with MPlayer use ’radio://’ (if channels option is not given) or ’radio://’ (if channels option is given) as a movie URL. You can see allowed frequency range by running MPlayer with ’-v’. To start the grabbing subsystem, use ’radio:///capture’. If the capture keyword is not given you can listen to radio using the line-in cable only. Using capture to listen is not recommended due to synchronization problems, which makes this process uncomfortable.

Available options are:

device=

Radio device to use (default: /dev/radio0 for Linux and /dev/tuner0 for *BSD).

driver=

Radio driver to use (default: v4l2 if available, otherwise v4l). Currently, v4l and v4l2 drivers are supported.

volume=<0..100>

sound volume for radio device (default 100)

freq_min= (*BSD BT848 only)

minimum allowed frequency (default: 87.50)

freq_max= (*BSD BT848 only)

maximum allowed frequency (default: 108.00)

channels=-,-,...

Set channel list. Use _ for spaces in names (or play with quoting ;-). The channel names will then be written using OSD and the slave commands radio_step_channel and radio_set_channel will be usable for a remote control (see LIRC). If given, number in movie URL will be treated as channel position in channel list.
EXAMPLE: radio://1, radio://104.4, radio_set_channel 1

adevice= (radio capture only)

Name of device to capture sound from. Without such a name capture will be disabled, even if the capture keyword appears in the URL. For ALSA devices use it in the form hw=.. If the device name contains a ’=’, the module will use ALSA to capture, otherwise OSS.

arate= (radio capture only)

Rate in samples per second (default: 44100).
NOTE: When using audio capture set also -rawaudio rate= option with the same value as arate. If you have problems with sound speed (runs too quickly), try to play with different rate values (e.g. 48000,44100,32000,...).

achannels= (radio capture only)

Number of audio channels to capture.

-rawaudio

This option lets you play raw audio files. You have to use -demuxer rawaudio as well. It may also be used to play audio CDs which are not 44kHz 16-bit stereo. For playing raw AC-3 streams use -rawaudio format=0x2000 -demuxer rawaudio.

Available options are:

channels=

number of channels

rate=

rate in samples per second

samplesize=

sample size in bytes

bitrate=

bitrate for rawaudio files

format=

fourcc in hex

-rawvideo

This option lets you play raw video files. You have to use -demuxer rawvideo as well.

Available options are:

fps=

rate in frames per second (default: 25.0)

sqcif|qcif|cif|4cif|pal|ntsc

set standard image size

w=

image width in pixels

h=

image height in pixels

i420|yv12|yuy2|y8

set colorspace

format=

colorspace (fourcc) in hex or string constant. Use -rawvideo format=help for a list of possible strings.

size=

frame size in Bytes

EXAMPLE:

mplayer foreman.qcif -demuxer rawvideo -rawvideo qcif

Play the famous "foreman" sample video.

mplayer sample-720x576.yuv -demuxer rawvideo -rawvideo
w=720:h=576

Play a raw YUV sample.

-referrer (network only)

Specify a referrer path or URL for HTTP requests.

-rtsp-port

Used with ’rtsp://’ URLs to force the client’s port number. This option may be useful if you are behind a router and want to forward the RTSP stream from the server to a specific client.

-rtsp-destination

Used with ’rtsp://’ URLs to force the destination IP address to be bound. This option may be useful with some RTSP server which do not send RTP packets to the right interface. If the connection to the RTSP server fails, use -v to see which IP address MPlayer tries to bind to and try to force it to one assigned to your computer instead.

-rtsp-stream-over-tcp (LIVE555 and NEMESI only)

Used with ’rtsp://’ URLs to specify that the resulting incoming RTP and RTCP packets be streamed over TCP (using the same TCP connection as RTSP). This option may be useful if you have a broken internet connection that does not pass incoming UDP packets (see http://www.live555.com/mplayer/).

-rtsp-stream-over-http (LIVE555 only)

Used with ’http://’ URLs to specify that the resulting incoming RTP and RTCP packets be streamed over HTTP.

-saveidx

Force index rebuilding and dump the index to . Currently this only works with AVI files.
NOTE: This option is obsolete now that MPlayer has OpenDML support.

-sb (also see -ss)

Seek to byte position. Useful for playback from CD-ROM images or VOB files with junk at the beginning.

-speed <0.01-100>

Slow down or speed up playback by the factor given as parameter. Not guaranteed to work correctly with -oac copy. Add -af scaletempo to get past the 4x limit on playback.

-srate

Select the output sample rate to be used (of course sound cards have limits on this). If the sample frequency selected is different from that of the current media, the resample or lavcresample audio filter will be inserted into the audio filter layer to compensate for the difference. The type of resampling can be controlled by the -af-adv option. The default is fast resampling that may cause distortion.

-ss (also see -sb)

Seek to given time position. Use -ss nopts to disable seeking, -ss 0 has different behaviour.

EXAMPLE:

-ss 56

Seeks to 56 seconds.

-ss 01:10:00

Seeks to 1 hour 10 min.

-tskeepbroken

Tells MPlayer not to discard TS packets reported as broken in the stream. Sometimes needed to play corrupted MPEG-TS files.

-tsprobe

When playing an MPEG-TS stream, this option lets you specify how many bytes in the stream you want MPlayer to search for the desired audio and video IDs.

-tsprog <1-65534>

When playing an MPEG-TS stream, you can specify with this option which program (if present) you want to play. Can be used with -vid and -aid.

-tv (TV/PVR only)

This option tunes various properties of the TV capture module. For watching TV with MPlayer, use ’tv://’ or ’tv://’ or even ’tv:// (see option channels for channel_name below) as a movie URL. You can also use ’tv:///’ to start watching a movie from a composite or S-Video input (see option input for details).

Available options are:

noaudio

no sound

automute=<0-255> (v4l and v4l2 only)

If signal strength reported by device is less than this value, audio and video will be muted. In most cases automute=100 will be enough. Default is 0 (automute disabled).

driver=

See -tv driver=help for a list of compiled-in TV input drivers. available: dummy, v4l, v4l2, bsdbt848 (default: autodetect)

device=

Specify TV device (default: /dev/video0). NOTE: For the bsdbt848 driver you can provide both bktr and tuner device names separating them with a comma, tuner after bktr (e.g. -tv device=/dev/bktr1,/dev/tuner1).

input=

Specify input (default: 0 (TV), see console output for available inputs).

freq=

Specify the frequency to set the tuner to (e.g. 511.250). Not compatible with the channels parameter.

outfmt=

Specify the output format of the tuner with a preset value supported by the V4L driver (yv12, rgb32, rgb24, rgb16, rgb15, uyvy, yuy2, i420) or an arbitrary format given as hex value. Try outfmt=help for a list of all available formats.

width=

output window width

height=

output window height

fps=

framerate at which to capture video (frames per second)

buffersize=

maximum size of the capture buffer in megabytes (default: dynamical)

norm=

For bsdbt848 and v4l, PAL, SECAM, NTSC are available. For v4l2, see the console output for a list of all available norms, also see the normid option below.

normid= (v4l2 only)

Sets the TV norm to the given numeric ID. The TV norm depends on the capture card. See the console output for a list of available TV norms.

channel=

Set tuner to channel.

chanlist=

available: argentina, australia, china-bcast, europe-east, europe-west, france, ireland, italy, japan-bcast, japan-cable, newzealand, russia, southafrica, us-bcast, us-cable, us-cable-hrc

channels=-[=],-[=],...

Set names for channels. NOTE: If is an integer greater than 1000, it will be treated as frequency (in kHz) rather than channel name from frequency table.
Use _ for spaces in names (or play with quoting ;-). The channel names will then be written using OSD, and the slave commands tv_step_channel, tv_set_channel and tv_last_channel will be usable for a remote control (see LIRC). Not compatible with the frequency parameter.
NOTE: The channel number will then be the position in the ’channels’ list, beginning with 1.
EXAMPLE: tv://1, tv://TV1, tv_set_channel 1, tv_set_channel TV1

[brightness|contrast|hue|saturation]=<-100-100>

Set the image equalizer on the card.

audiorate=

Set input audio sample rate.

forceaudio

Capture audio even if there are no audio sources reported by v4l.

alsa 

Capture from ALSA.

amode=<0-3>

Choose an audio mode:

0: mono
1: stereo
2: language 1
3: language 2

forcechan=<1-2>

By default, the count of recorded audio channels is determined automatically by querying the audio mode from the TV card. This option allows forcing stereo/mono recording regardless of the amode option and the values returned by v4l. This can be used for troubleshooting when the TV card is unable to report the current audio mode.

adevice=

Set an audio device. should be /dev/xxx for OSS and a hardware ID for ALSA. You must replace any ’:’ by a ’.’ in the hardware ID for ALSA.

audioid=

Choose an audio output of the capture card, if it has more than one.

[volume|bass|treble|balance]=<0-65535> (v4l1)
[volume|bass|treble|balance]=<0-100> (v4l2)

These options set parameters of the mixer on the video capture card. They will have no effect, if your card does not have one. For v4l2 50 maps to the default value of the control, as reported by the driver.

gain=<0-100> (v4l2)

Set gain control for video devices (usually webcams) to the desired value and switch off automatic control. A value of 0 enables automatic control. If this option is omitted, gain control will not be modified.

immediatemode=

A value of 0 means capture and buffer audio and video together (default for MEncoder). A value of 1 (default for MPlayer) means to do video capture only and let the audio go through a loopback cable from the TV card to the sound card.

mjpeg

Use hardware MJPEG compression (if the card supports it). When using this option, you do not need to specify the width and height of the output window, because MPlayer will determine it automatically from the decimation value (see below).

decimation=<1|2|4>

choose the size of the picture that will be compressed by hardware MJPEG compression:

1: full size
704x576 PAL
704x480 NTSC
2: medium size
352x288 PAL
352x240 NTSC
4: small size
176x144 PAL
176x120 NTSC

quality=<0-100>

Choose the quality of the JPEG compression (< 60 recommended for full size).

tdevice=

Specify TV teletext device (example: /dev/vbi0) (default: none).

tformat=

Specify TV teletext display format (default: 0):

0: opaque
1: transparent
2: opaque with inverted colors
3: transparent with inverted colors

tpage=<100-899>

Specify initial TV teletext page number (default: 100).

tlang=<-1-127>

Specify default teletext language code (default: 0), which will be used as primary language until a type 28 packet is received. Useful when the teletext system uses a non-latin character set, but language codes are not transmitted via teletext type 28 packets for some reason. To see a list of supported language codes set this option to -1.

hidden_video_renderer (dshow only)

Terminate stream with video renderer instead of Null renderer (default: off). Will help if video freezes but audio does not. NOTE: May not work with -vo directx and -vf crop combination.

hidden_vp_renderer (dshow only)

Terminate VideoPort pin stream with video renderer instead of removing it from the graph (default: off). Useful if your card has a VideoPort pin and video is choppy. NOTE: May not work with -vo directx and -vf crop combination.

system_clock (dshow only)

Use the system clock as sync source instead of the default graph clock (usually the clock from one of the live sources in graph).

normalize_audio_chunks (dshow only)

Create audio chunks with a time length equal to video frame time length (default: off). Some audio cards create audio chunks about 0.5s in size, resulting in choppy video when using immediatemode=0.

-tvscan (TV and MPlayer only)

Tune the TV channel scanner. MPlayer will also print value for "-tv channels=" option, including existing and just found channels.

Available suboptions are:

autostart

Begin channel scanning immediately after startup (default: disabled).

period=<0.1-2.0>

Specify delay in seconds before switching to next channel (default: 0.5). Lower values will cause faster scanning, but can detect inactive TV channels as active.

threshold=<1-100>

Threshold value for the signal strength (in percent), as reported by the device (default: 50). A signal strength higher than this value will indicate that the currently scanning channel is active.

-user (also see -passwd) (network only)

Specify username for HTTP authentication.

-user-agent

Use as user agent for HTTP streaming.

-vid

Select video channel (MPG: 0-15, ASF: 0-255, MPEG-TS: 17-8190). When playing an MPEG-TS stream, MPlayer/MEncoder will use the first program (if present) with the chosen video stream.

-vivo (DEBUG CODE)

Force audio parameters for the VIVO demuxer (for debugging purposes). FIXME: Document this.

OSD/SUBTITLE OPTIONS

NOTE: Also see -vf expand.
-ass (FreeType only)

Turn on SSA/ASS subtitle rendering. With this option, libass will be used for SSA/ASS external subtitles and Matroska tracks. You may also want to use -embeddedfonts.
NOTE: Unlike normal OSD, libass uses fontconfig by default. To disable it, use -nofontconfig.

-ass-border-color

Sets the border (outline) color for text subtitles. The color format is RRGGBBAA.

-ass-bottom-margin

Adds a black band at the bottom of the frame. The SSA/ASS renderer can place subtitles there (with -ass-use-margins).

-ass-color

Sets the color for text subtitles. The color format is RRGGBBAA.

-ass-font-scale

Set the scale coefficient to be used for fonts in the SSA/ASS renderer.

-ass-force-style <[Style.]Param=Value[,...]>

Override some style or script info parameters.

EXAMPLE:

-ass-force-style FontName=Arial,Default.Bold=1
-ass-force-style PlayResY=768

-ass-hinting

Set hinting type. can be:

0-3 + 4

The same, but hinting will only be performed if the OSD is rendered at screen resolution and will therefore not be scaled.

The default value is 7 (use native hinter for unscaled OSD and no hinting otherwise).

-ass-line-spacing

Set line spacing value for SSA/ASS renderer.

-ass-styles

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

-ass-top-margin

Adds a black band at the top of the frame. The SSA/ASS renderer can place toptitles there (with -ass-use-margins).

-ass-use-margins

Enables placing toptitles and subtitles in black borders when they are available.

-dumpjacosub (MPlayer only)

Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to the time-based JACOsub subtitle format. Creates a dumpsub.js file in the current directory.

-dumpmicrodvdsub (MPlayer only)

Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to the MicroDVD subtitle format. Creates a dumpsub.sub file in the current directory.

-dumpmpsub (MPlayer only)

Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to MPlayer’s subtitle format, MPsub. Creates a dump.mpsub file in the current directory.

-dumpsami (MPlayer only)

Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to the time-based SAMI subtitle format. Creates a dumpsub.smi file in the current directory.

-dumpsrtsub (MPlayer only)

Convert the given subtitle (specified with the -sub option) to the time-based SubViewer (SRT) subtitle format. Creates a dumpsub.srt file in the current directory.
NOTE: Some broken hardware players choke on SRT subtitle files with Unix line endings. If you are unlucky enough to have such a box, pass your subtitle files through unix2dos or a similar program to replace Unix line endings with DOS/Windows line endings.

-dumpsub (MPlayer only) (BETA CODE)

Dumps the subtitle substream from VOB streams. Also see the -dump*sub and -vobsubout* options.

-embeddedfonts (FreeType only)

Enables extraction of Matroska embedded fonts (default: disabled). These fonts can be used for SSA/ASS subtitle rendering (-ass option). Font files are created in the ~/.mplayer/fonts directory.
NOTE: With FontConfig 2.4.2 or newer, embedded fonts are opened directly from memory, and this option is enabled by default.

-ffactor

Resample the font alphamap. Can be:

-flip-hebrew (FriBiDi only)

Turns on flipping subtitles using FriBiDi.

-noflip-hebrew-commas

Change FriBiDi’s assumptions about the placements of commas in subtitles. Use this if commas in subtitles are shown at the start of a sentence instead of at the end.

-font (Fontconfig)>

Search for the OSD/subtitle fonts in an alternative directory (default for normal fonts: ~/.mplayer/font/font.desc, default for FreeType fonts: ~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf, default for Fontconfig: "sans-serif").
NOTE: With FreeType, this option determines the path to the font file. With Fontconfig, this option determines the Fontconfig font pattern.

EXAMPLE:

-font ~/.mplayer/arial-14/font.desc
-font ~/.mplayer/arialuni.ttf
-font ’Bitstream Vera Sans’
-font ’Bitstream Vera Sans:style=Bold’

-fontconfig (fontconfig only)

Enables the usage of fontconfig managed fonts (default: autodetect).
NOTE: By default fontconfig is used for libass-rendered subtitles and not used for OSD. With -fontconfig it is used for both libass and OSD, with -nofontconfig it is not used at all, i.e. only then -font and -subfont will work with a given path to font.

-forcedsubsonly

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

-fribidi-charset (FriBiDi only)

Specifies the character set that will be passed to FriBiDi when decoding non-UTF-8 subtitles (default: ISO8859-8).

-ifo

Indicate the file that will be used to load palette and frame size for VOBsub subtitles.

-noautosub

Turns off automatic subtitle file loading. Note: VOBsub subtitles are not affected.

-osd-duration

Set the duration of the OSD messages in ms (default: 1000).

-osd-fractions <0-2>

Set how fractions of seconds of the current timestamp are printed on the OSD:

-osdlevel <0-3> (MPlayer only)

Specifies which mode the OSD should start in.

-overlapsub

Allows the next subtitle to be displayed while the current one is still visible (default is to enable the support only for specific formats).

-progbar-align <0-100>

Specify the vertical alignment of the progress bar (0: top, 100: bottom, default is 50, i.e. centered).

-sid (also see -slang, -vobsubid)

Display the subtitle stream specified by (0-31). MPlayer prints the available subtitle IDs when run in verbose (-v) mode. If you cannot select one of the subtitles on a DVD, also try -vobsubid.

-slang (also see -sid)

Specify a priority list of subtitle languages to use. Different container formats employ different language codes. DVDs use ISO 639-1 two letter language codes, Matroska uses ISO 639-2 three letter language codes while OGM uses a free-form identifier. MPlayer prints the available languages when run in verbose (-v) mode.

EXAMPLE:

mplayer dvd://1 -slang hu,en

Chooses the Hungarian subtitle track on a DVD and falls back on English if Hungarian is not available.

mplayer -slang jpn example.mkv

Plays a Matroska file with Japanese subtitles.

-spuaa

Antialiasing/scaling mode for DVD/VOBsub. A value of 16 may be added to in order to force scaling even when original and scaled frame size already match. This can be employed to e.g. smooth subtitles with gaussian blur. Available modes are:

-spualign <-1-2>

Specify how SPU (DVD/VOBsub) subtitles should be aligned.

-spugauss <0.0-3.0>

Variance parameter of gaussian used by -spuaa 4. Higher means more blur (default: 1.0).

-sub

Use/display these subtitle files. Only one file can be displayed at the same time.

-sub-bg-alpha <0-255>

Specify the alpha channel value for subtitles and OSD backgrounds. Big values mean more transparency. 0 means completely transparent.

-sub-bg-color <0-255>

Specify the color value for subtitles and OSD backgrounds. Currently subtitles are grayscale so this value is equivalent to the intensity of the color. 255 means white and 0 black.

-sub-demuxer <[+]name> (-subfile only) (BETA CODE)

Force subtitle demuxer type for -subfile. Use a ’+’ before the name to force it, this will skip some checks! Give the demuxer name as printed by -sub-demuxer help. For backward compatibility it also accepts the demuxer ID as defined in subreader.h.

-sub-fuzziness

Adjust matching fuzziness when searching for subtitles (does not apply to VOBsub):

-sub-no-text-pp

Disables any kind of text post processing done after loading the subtitles. Used for debug purposes.

-subalign <0-2>

Specify which edge of the subtitles should be aligned at the height given by -subpos.

-subcc <1-8> 

Display DVD Closed Caption (CC) subtitles from the specified channel. Values 5 to 8 select a mode that can extract EIA-608 compatibility streams from EIA-708 data. These are not the VOB subtitles, these are special ASCII subtitles for the hearing impaired encoded in the VOB userdata stream on most region 1 DVDs. CC subtitles have not been spotted on DVDs from other regions so far.

-subcp (iconv only)

If your system supports iconv(3), you can use this option to specify the subtitle codepage. It takes priority over both -utf8 and -unicode.

EXAMPLE:

-subcp latin2
-subcp cp1250

-subcp enca:: (ENCA only)

You can specify your language using a two letter language code to make ENCA detect the codepage automatically. If unsure, enter anything and watch mplayer -v output for available languages. Use __ (two underscores) if your language is not supported. Fallback codepage specifies the codepage to use, when autodetection fails.

EXAMPLE:

-subcp enca:cs:latin2

Guess the encoding, assuming the subtitles are Czech, fall back on latin 2, if the detection fails.

-subcp enca:pl:cp1250

Guess the encoding for Polish, fall back on cp1250.

-subcp enca:__:latin1

Generic detection (mostly unicode) with latin1 fallback.

-sub-paths

Specify extra subtitle paths to track in the media directory.

EXAMPLE: Assuming that /path/to/movie/movie.avi is played and -sub-paths sub,subtitles,/tmp/subs is specified, MPlayer searches for subtitle files in these directories:

/path/to/movie/
/path/to/movie/sub/
/path/to/movie/subtitles/
/tmp/subs/
~/.mplayer/sub/

-subdelay

Delays subtitles by seconds. Can be negative.

-subfile (BETA CODE)

Currently useless. Same as -audiofile, but for subtitle streams (OggDS?).

-subfont (FreeType
only)

Sets the subtitle font (see -font). If no -subfont is given, -font is used.

-subfont-autoscale <0-3> (FreeType only)

Sets the autoscale mode.
NOTE: 0 means that text scale and OSD scale are font heights in points.

The mode can be:

-subfont-blur <0-8> (FreeType only)

Sets the font blur radius (default: 2).

-subfont-encoding

Sets the font encoding. When set to ’unicode’, all the glyphs from the font file will be rendered and unicode will be used (default: unicode). (Without FreeType, setting any other value than ’unicode’ will disable unicode glyphs rendering for font.desc files. With FreeType and for other values than ’unicode’ your system has to support iconv(3) in order for this to work.)

-subfont-osd-scale <0-100> (FreeType only)

Sets the autoscale coefficient of the OSD elements (default: 6).

-subfont-outline <0-8> (FreeType only)

Sets the font outline thickness (default: 2).

-subfont-text-scale <0-100> (FreeType only)

Sets the subtitle text autoscale coefficient as percentage of the screen size (default: 5).

-subfps

Specify the framerate of the subtitle file (default: movie fps).
NOTE: > movie fps speeds the subtitles up for frame-based subtitle files and slows them down for time-based ones.

-subpos <0-150> (useful with -vf expand)

Specify the position of subtitles on the screen. The value is the vertical position of the subtitle in % of the screen height. Values larger than 100 allow part of the subtitle to be cut off.

-subwidth <10-100>

Specify the maximum width of subtitles on the screen. Useful for TV-out. The value is the width of the subtitle in % of the screen width.

-noterm-osd

Disable the display of OSD messages on the console when no video output is available.

-term-osd-esc

Specify the escape sequence to use before writing an OSD message on the console. The escape sequence should move the pointer to the beginning of the line used for the OSD and clear it (default: ^[[A\r^[[K).

-unicode

Tells MPlayer to handle the subtitle file as unicode. (It will only take effect if neither -subcp nor -utf8 is given.)

-unrarexec (not supported on MingW)

Specify the path to the unrar executable so MPlayer can use it to access rar-compressed VOBsub files (default: not set, so the feature is off). The path must include the executable’s filename, i.e. /usr/local/bin/unrar.

-utf8   

Tells MPlayer to handle the subtitle file as UTF-8. (It will only take effect if -subcp isn’t given, and it takes priority over -unicode.)

-vobsub

Specify a VOBsub file to use for subtitles. Has to be the full pathname without extension, i.e. without the ’.idx’, ’.ifo’ or ’.sub’.

-vobsubid <0-31>

Specify the VOBsub subtitle ID.

AUDIO OUTPUT OPTIONS (MPLAYER ONLY)

-abs (-ao oss only) (OBSOLETE)

Override audio driver/card buffer size detection.

-format (also see the format audio filter)

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

-mixer

Use a mixer device different from the default /dev/mixer. For ALSA this is the mixer name.

-mixer-channel [,mixer index] (-ao oss and -ao alsa only)

This option will tell MPlayer to use a different channel for controlling volume than the default PCM. Options for OSS include vol, pcm, line. For a complete list of options look for SOUND_DEVICE_NAMES in /usr/include/linux/soundcard.h. For ALSA you can use the names e.g. alsamixer displays, like Master, Line, PCM.
NOTE: ALSA mixer channel names followed by a number must be specified in the format, i.e. a channel labeled ’PCM 1’ in alsamixer must be converted to PCM,1.

-softvol

Force the use of the software mixer, instead of using the sound card mixer.

-softvol-max <10.0-10000.0>

Set the maximum amplification level in percent (default: 110). A value of 200 will allow you to adjust the volume up to a maximum of double the current level. With values below 100 the initial volume (which is 100%) will be above the maximum, which e.g. the OSD cannot display correctly.

-volstep <0-100>

Set the step size of mixer volume changes in percent of the whole range (default: 3).

-volume <-1-100> (also see -af volume)

Set the startup volume in the mixer, either hardware or software (if used with -softvol). A value of -1 (the default) will not change the volume.

AUDIO OUTPUT DRIVERS (MPLAYER ONLY)

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

Specify a priority list of audio output drivers to be used.

If the list has a trailing ’,’ MPlayer will fall back on drivers not contained in the list. Suboptions are optional and can mostly be omitted.
NOTE: See -ao help for a list of compiled-in audio output drivers.

EXAMPLE:

-ao alsa,oss,

Try the ALSA driver, then the OSS driver, then others.

-ao alsa:noblock:device=hw=0.3

Sets noblock-mode and the device-name as first card, fourth device.

Available audio output drivers are:
alsa   

ALSA 0.9/1.x audio output driver

noblock

Sets noblock-mode.

device=

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

oss    

OSS audio output driver

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

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

Sets the audio mixer channel (default: pcm).

sdl (SDL only)

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

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

arts   

audio output through the aRts daemon

esd    

audio output through the ESD daemon

Explicitly choose the ESD server to use (default: localhost).

jack    

audio output through JACK (Jack Audio Connection Kit)

(no)connect

Automatically create connections to output ports (default: enabled). When enabled, the maximum number of output channels will be limited to the number of available output ports.

port=

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

name=

Client name that is passed to JACK (default: MPlayer []). 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 of output device to use (0 = default device)

openal 

Experimental OpenAL audio output driver

pulse  

PulseAudio audio output driver

[[:

[:broken_pause]]]

Specify the host and optionally output sink to use. An empty string uses a local connection, "localhost" uses network transfer (most likely not what you want). You can also explicitly force the workaround for broken pause functionality (default: autodetected). To only enable that without specifying a host/sink the syntax is -ao pulse:::broken_pause

sgi (SGI only)

native SGI audio output driver

Explicitly choose the output device/interface to use (default: system-wide default). For example, ’Analog Out’ or ’Digital Out’.

sun (Sun only)

native Sun audio output driver

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=

Sets the device number to use. Playing a file with -v will show a list of available devices.

kai (OS/2 only)

OS/2 KAI audio output driver

uniaud

Force UNIAUD mode.

(no)share

Open audio in shareable or exclusive mode.

bufsize=

Set buffer size to in samples (default: 2048).

dart (OS/2 only)

OS/2 DART audio output driver

(no)share

Open DART in shareable or exclusive mode.

bufsize=

Set buffer size to in samples (default: 2048).

dxr2 (also see -dxr2) (DXR2 only)

Creative DXR2 specific output driver

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=

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=

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

fast 

Try to dump faster than realtime. Make sure the output does not get truncated (usually with "Too many video packets in buffer" message). It is normal that you get a "Your system is too SLOW to play this!" message.

plugin  

plugin audio output driver

VIDEO OUTPUT OPTIONS (MPLAYER ONLY)

-adapter

Set the graphics card that will receive the image. You can get a list of available cards when you run this option with -v. Currently only works with the directx video output driver.

-bpp

Override the autodetected color depth. Only supported by the fbdev, dga, svga, vesa video output drivers.

-border

Play movie with window border and decorations. Since this is on by default, use -noborder to disable the standard window decorations.

-brightness <-100-100>

Adjust the brightness of the video signal (default: 0). Not supported by all video output drivers.

-contrast <-100-100>

Adjust the contrast of the video signal (default: 0). Not supported by all video output drivers.

-display (X11 only)

Specify the hostname and display number of the X server you want to display on.

EXAMPLE:

-display xtest.localdomain:0

-dr    

Turns on direct rendering (not supported by all codecs and video outputs). This can result in significantly faster blitting on some systems, on most the difference will be minimal. In some cases, particularly with decoders specifying their buffer requirements badly, it can be vastly slower.
WARNING: May cause OSD/SUB corruption!

-dxr2

This option is used to control the dxr2 video output driver.

ar-mode=

aspect ratio mode (0 = normal, 1 = pan-and-scan, 2 = letterbox (default))

iec958-encoded

Set iec958 output mode to encoded.

iec958-decoded

Set iec958 output mode to decoded (default).

macrovision=

macrovision mode (0 = off (default), 1 = agc, 2 = agc 2 colorstripe, 3 = agc 4 colorstripe)

mute 

mute sound output

unmute

unmute sound output

ucode=

path to the microcode

TV output

75ire

enable 7.5 IRE output mode

no75ire

disable 7.5 IRE output mode (default)

bw   

b/w TV output

color

color TV output (default)

interlaced

interlaced TV output (default)

nointerlaced

disable interlaced TV output

norm=

TV norm (ntsc (default), pal, pal60, palm, paln, palnc)

square-pixel

set pixel mode to square

ccir601-pixel

set pixel mode to ccir601

overlay

cr-left=<0-500>

Set the left cropping value (default: 50).

cr-right=<0-500>

Set the right cropping value (default: 300).

cr-top=<0-500>

Set the top cropping value (default: 0).

cr-bottom=<0-500>

Set the bottom cropping value (default: 0).

ck-[r|g|b]=<0-255>

Set the r(ed), g(reen) or b(lue) gain of the overlay color-key.

ck-[r|g|b]min=<0-255>

minimum value for the respective color key

ck-[r|g|b]max=<0-255>

maximum value for the respective color key

ignore-cache

Ignore cached overlay settings.

update-cache

Update cached overlay settings.

ol-osd

Enable overlay onscreen display.

nool-osd

Disable overlay onscreen display (default).

ol[h|w|x|y]-cor=<-20-20>

Adjust the overlay size (h,w) and position (x,y) in case it does not match the window perfectly (default: 0).

overlay

Activate overlay (default).

nooverlay

Activate TV-out.

overlay-ratio=<1-2500>

Tune the overlay (default: 1000).

-fbmode (-vo fbdev only)

Change video mode to the one that is labeled as in /etc/fb.modes.
NOTE: VESA framebuffer does not support mode changing.

-fbmodeconfig (-vo fbdev only)

Override framebuffer mode configuration file (default: /etc/ fb.modes).

-fs (also see -zoom)

Fullscreen playback (centers movie, and paints black bands around it). Not supported by all video output drivers.

-fsmode-dontuse <0-31> (OBSOLETE, use the -fs option)

Try this option if you still experience fullscreen problems.

-fstype (X11 only)

Specify a priority list of fullscreen modes to be used. You can negate the modes by prefixing them with ’-’. If you experience problems like the fullscreen window being covered by other windows try using a different order.
NOTE: See -fstype help for a full list of available modes.

The available types are:

above

Use the _NETWM_STATE_ABOVE hint if available.

below

Use the _NETWM_STATE_BELOW hint if available.

fullscreen

Use the _NETWM_STATE_FULLSCREEN hint if available.

layer

Use the _WIN_LAYER hint with the default layer.

layer=<0...15>

Use the _WIN_LAYER hint with the given layer number.

netwm

Force NETWM style.

none 

Clear the list of modes; you can add modes to enable afterward.

stays_on_top

Use _NETWM_STATE_STAYS_ON_TOP hint if available.

EXAMPLE:

layer,stays_on_top,above,fullscreen

Default order, will be used as a fallback if incorrect or unsupported modes are specified.

-fullscreen

Fixes fullscreen switching on OpenBox 1.x.

-fs-border-left
-fs-border-right
-fs-border-top
-fs-border-bottom

Specify extra borders in full screen mode. The borders apply to all displayed elements: video, OSD and EOSD. The number of pixels is specified in terms of screen resolution. Currently only supported with by the gl video output driver.

-gamma <-100-100>

Adjust the gamma of the video signal (default: 0). Not supported by all video output drivers.

-geometry x[%][:y[%]] or [WxH][+-x+-y]

Adjust where the output is on the screen initially. The x and y specifications are in pixels measured from the top-left of the screen to the top-left of the image being displayed, however if a percentage sign is given after the argument it turns the value into a percentage of the screen size in that direction. It also supports the standard X11 -geometry option format, in which e.g. +10-50 means "place 10 pixels from the left border and 50 pixels from the lower border" and "--20+-10" means "place 20 pixels beyond the right and 10 pixels beyond the top border". If an external window is specified using the -wid option, then the x and y coordinates are relative to the top-left corner of the window rather than the screen. The coordinates are relative to the screen given with -screen for the video output drivers that fully support -screen (direct3d, gl, gl_tiled, vdpau, x11, xv, xvmc, corevideo).
NOTE: This option is only supported by the x11, xmga, xv, xvmc, xvidix, gl, gl_tiled, direct3d, directx, fbdev, sdl, dfxfb and corevideo video output drivers.

EXAMPLE:

50:40

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

50%:50%

Places the window in the middle of the screen.

100% 

Places the window at the middle of the right edge of the screen.

100%:100%

Places the window at the bottom right corner of the screen.

-gui-wid (also see -wid) (GUI only)

This tells the GUI to also use an X11 window and stick itself to the bottom of the video, which is useful to embed a mini-GUI in a browser (with the MPlayer plugin for instance).

-hue <-100-100>

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

-monitor-dotclock (-vo fbdev and vesa only)

Specify the dotclock or pixelclock range of the monitor.

-monitor-hfreq (-vo fbdev and vesa only)

Specify the horizontal frequency range of the monitor.

-monitor-vfreq (-vo fbdev and vesa only)

Specify the vertical frequency range of the monitor.

-monitoraspect (also see -aspect)

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

EXAMPLE:

-monitoraspect 4:3 or 1.3333
-monitoraspect 16:9 or 1.7777

-monitorpixelaspect (also see -aspect)

Set the aspect of a single pixel of your monitor or TV screen (default: 1). A value of 1 means square pixels (correct for (almost?) all LCDs).

-name (X11 only)

Set the window class name.

-nodouble

Disables double buffering, mostly for debugging purposes. Double buffering fixes flicker by storing two frames in memory, and displaying one while decoding another. It can affect OSD negatively, but often removes OSD flickering.

-nograbpointer

Do not grab the mouse pointer after a video mode change (-vm). Useful for multihead setups.

-nokeepaspect

Do not keep window aspect ratio when resizing windows. Only works with the x11, xv, xmga, xvidix, directx video output drivers. Furthermore under X11 your window manager has to honor window aspect hints.

-ontop 

Makes the player window stay on top of other windows. Supported by video output drivers which use X11, except SDL, as well as directx, corevideo, quartz, ggi and gl_tiled.

-panscan <0.0-1.0>

Enables pan-and-scan functionality (cropping the sides of e.g. a 16:9 movie to make it fit a 4:3 display without black bands). The range controls how much of the image is cropped. Only works with the directx, xv, xmga, mga, gl, gl_tiled, quartz, corevideo and xvidix video output drivers.
NOTE: Values between -1 and 0 are allowed as well, but highly experimental and may crash or worse. Use at your own risk!

-panscanrange <-19.0-99.0> (experimental)

Change the range of the pan-and-scan functionality (default: 1). Positive values mean multiples of the default range. Negative numbers mean you can zoom in up to a factor of -panscanrange+1. E.g. -panscanrange -3 allows a zoom factor of up to 4. This feature is experimental.

-border-pos-x <0.0-1.0> (-vo gl,xv,xvmc,vdpau,direct3d only, default
0.5)

When black borders are added to adjust for aspect, this determines where they are placed. 0.0 places borders on the right, 1.0 on the left. Values outside the range 0.0 - 1.0 will add extra black borders on one side and remove part of the image on the other side.

-border-pos-y <0.0-1.0> (-vo gl,xv,xvmc,vdpau,direct3d only, default
0.5)

As -border-pos-x but for top/bottom borders. 0.0 places borders on the bottom, 1.0 on the top.

-monitor-orientation <0-3> (experimental)

Rotate display by 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Rotates also the OSD, not just the video image itself. Currently only supported by the gl video output driver. For all other video outputs -vf ass,expand=osd=1,rotate=n can be used, in the future this might even happen automatically.

-refreshrate

Set the monitor refreshrate in Hz. Currently only supported by -vo directx combined with the -vm option.

-rootwin

Play movie in the root window (desktop background). Desktop background images may cover the movie window, though. Only works with the x11, xv, xmga, xvidix, quartz, corevideo and directx video output drivers.

-saturation <-100-100>

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

-screenh

Specify the screen height for video output drivers which do not know the screen resolution like fbdev, x11 and TV-out.

-screenw

Specify the screen width for video output drivers which do not know the screen resolution like fbdev, x11 and TV-out.

-(no)stop-xscreensaver (X11 only)

Turns off xscreensaver at startup and turns it on again on exit (default: enabled). If your screensaver supports neither the XSS nor XResetScreenSaver API please use -heartbeat-cmd instead.

-title (also see -use-filename-title)

Set the window title. Supported by X11-based video output drivers.

-use-filename-title (also see -title)

Set the window title using the media filename, when not set with -title. Supported by X11-based video output drivers.

-vm    

Try to change to a different video mode. Supported by the dga, x11, xv, sdl and directx video output drivers. If used with the directx video output driver the -screenw, -screenh, -bpp and -refreshrate options can be used to set the new display mode.

-vsync   

Enables VBI for the vesa, dfbmga and svga video output drivers.

-wid (also see -gui-wid) (X11, OpenGL and DirectX only)

This tells MPlayer to attach to an existing window. Useful to embed MPlayer in a browser (e.g. the plugger extension). This option fills the given window completely, thus aspect scaling, panscan, etc are no longer handled by MPlayer but must be managed by the application that created the window.

-screen <-2-...> (alias for -xineramascreen)

In Xinerama configurations (i.e. a single desktop that spans across multiple displays) this option tells MPlayer which screen to display the movie on. A value of -2 means fullscreen across the whole virtual display (in this case Xinerama information is completely ignored), -1 means fullscreen on the display the window currently is on. The initial position set via the -geometry option is relative to the specified screen. Will usually only work with "-fstype -fullscreen" or "-fstype none". This option is not suitable to only set the startup screen (because it will always display on the given screen in fullscreen mode), -geometry is the best that is available for that purpose currently. Supported by at least the direct3d, gl, gl_tiled, x11, xv and corevideo video output drivers.

-zrbw (-vo zr only)

Display in black and white. For optimal performance, this can be combined with ’-lavdopts gray’.

-zrcrop <[width]x[height]+[x offset]+[y offset]> (-vo zr only)

Select a part of the input image to display, multiple occurrences of this option switch on cinerama mode. In cinerama mode the movie is distributed over more than one TV (or beamer) to create a larger image. Options appearing after the n-th -zrcrop apply to the n-th MJPEG card, each card should at least have a -zrdev in addition to the -zrcrop. For examples, see the output of -zrhelp and the Zr section of the documentation.

-zrdev (-vo zr only)

Specify the device special file that belongs to your MJPEG card, by default the zr video output driver takes the first v4l device it can find.

-zrfd (-vo zr only)

Force decimation: Decimation, as specified by -zrhdec and -zrvdec, only happens if the hardware scaler can stretch the image to its original size. Use this option to force decimation.

-zrhdec <1|2|4> (-vo zr only)

Horizontal decimation: Ask the driver to send only every 2nd or 4th line/pixel of the input image to the MJPEG card and use the scaler of the MJPEG card to stretch the image to its original size.

-zrhelp (-vo zr only)

Display a list of all -zr* options, their default values and a cinerama mode example.

-zrnorm (-vo zr only)

Specify the TV norm as PAL or NTSC (default: no change).

-zrquality <1-20> (-vo zr only)

A number from 1 (best) to 20 (worst) representing the JPEG encoding quality.

-zrvdec <1|2|4> (-vo zr only)

Vertical decimation: Ask the driver to send only every 2nd or 4th line/pixel of the input image to the MJPEG card and use the scaler of the MJPEG card to stretch the image to its original size.

-zrxdoff (-vo zr only)

If the movie is smaller than the TV screen, this option specifies the x offset from the upper-left corner of the TV screen (default: centered).

-zrydoff (-vo zr only)

If the movie is smaller than the TV screen, this option specifies the y offset from the upper-left corner of the TV screen (default: centered).

VIDEO OUTPUT DRIVERS (MPLAYER ONLY)

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

Specify a priority list of video output drivers to be used.

If the list has a trailing ’,’ MPlayer will fall back on drivers not contained in the list. Suboptions are optional and can mostly be omitted.
NOTE: See -vo help for a list of compiled-in video output drivers.

EXAMPLE:

-vo xmga,xv,

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

-vo directx:noaccel

Uses the DirectX driver with acceleration features turned off.

Available video output drivers are:
xv (X11 only)

Uses the XVideo extension of XFree86 4.x to enable hardware accelerated playback. If you cannot use a hardware specific driver, this is probably the best option. For information about what colorkey is used and how it is drawn run MPlayer with -v option and look out for the lines tagged with [xv common] at the beginning.

adaptor=

Select a specific XVideo adaptor (check xvinfo results).

port=

Select a specific XVideo port.

ck=

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

ck-method=

Sets the colorkey drawing method (default: man).

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.

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

vdpau (with -vc ffmpeg2vdpau, ffwmv3vdpau, ffvc1vdpau, ffh264vdpau or
ffodivxvdpau)

Video output that uses VDPAU to decode video via hardware. Also supports displaying of software-decoded video.

sharpen=<-1-1>

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

denoise=<0-1>

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

deint=<0-4>

Select the deinterlacer (default: 0). All modes > 0 respect -field-dominance.

chroma-deint

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

pullup

Try to skip deinterlacing for progressive frames, useful for watching telecined content, needs fast video hardware for high resolutions. Only works with motion adaptive temporal deinterlacing.

colorspace

Select the color space for YUV to RGB conversion. In general BT.601 should be used for standard definition (SD) content and BT.709 for high definition (HD) content. Using incorrect color space results in slightly under or over saturated and shifted colors.

hqscaling

force-mixer

Forces the use of the VDPAU mixer, which implements all above options (default). Use noforce-mixer to allow displaying BGRA colorspace. (Disables all above options and the hardware equalizer if image format BGRA is actually used.)

xvmc (X11 with FFmpeg MPEG-1/2 decoder only)

Video output driver that uses the XvMC (X Video Motion Compensation) extension of XFree86 4.x to speed up MPEG-1/2 and VCR2 decoding.

adaptor=

Select a specific XVideo adaptor (check xvinfo results).

port=

Select a specific XVideo port.

(no)benchmark

Disables image display. Necessary for proper benchmarking of drivers that change image buffers on monitor retrace only (nVidia). Default is not to disable image display (nobenchmark).

(no)bobdeint

Very simple deinterlacer. Might not look better than -vf tfields=1, but it is the only deinterlacer for xvmc (default: nobobdeint).

(no)queue

Queue frames for display to allow more parallel work of the video hardware. May add a small (not noticeable) constant A/V desync (default: noqueue).

(no)sleep

Use sleep function while waiting for rendering to finish (not recommended on Linux) (default: nosleep).

ck=cur|use|set

Same as -vo xv:ck (see -vo xv).

ck-method=man|bg|auto

Same as -vo xv:ck-method (see -vo xv).

dga (X11 only)

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

sdl (SDL only, buggy/outdated)

Highly platform independent SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) library video output driver. Since SDL uses its own X11 layer, MPlayer X11 options do not have any effect on SDL. Note that it has several minor bugs (-vm/-novm is mostly ignored, -fs behaves like -novm should, window is in top-left corner when returning from fullscreen, panscan is not supported, ...).

driver=

Explicitly choose the SDL driver to use.

(no)forcexv

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

(no)hwaccel

Use hardware accelerated scaler (default: hwaccel).

vidix  

VIDIX (VIDeo Interface for *niX) is an interface to the video acceleration features of different graphics cards. Very fast video output driver on cards that support it.

Explicitly choose the VIDIX subdevice driver to use. Available subdevice drivers are cyberblade, ivtv, mach64, mga_crtc2, mga, nvidia, pm2, pm3, radeon, rage128, s3, sh_veu, sis_vid and unichrome.

xvidix (X11 only)

X11 frontend for VIDIX

same as vidix

cvidix 

Generic and platform independent VIDIX frontend, can even run in a text console with nVidia cards.

same as vidix

winvidix (Windows only)

Windows frontend for VIDIX

same as vidix

direct3d (Windows only) (BETA CODE!)

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

directx (Windows only)

Video output driver that uses the DirectX interface.

noaccel

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

kva (OS/2 only)

Video output driver that uses the libkva interface.

(no)t23

Enable or disable workaround for T23 laptop (default: disabled). Try to enable this option if your video card supports upscaling only.

quartz (Mac OS X only)

Mac OS X Quartz video output driver. Under some circumstances, it might be more efficient to force a packed YUV output format, with e.g. -vf format=yuy2.

device_id=

Choose the display device to use in fullscreen.

fs_res=:

Specify the fullscreen resolution (useful on slow systems).

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

Mac OS X CoreVideo video output driver

device_id=

DEPRECATED, use -screen instead. 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 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.

Explicitly choose the fbdev device name to use (e.g. /dev/fb0) or the name of the VIDIX subdevice if the device name starts with ’vidix’ (e.g. ’vidixsis_vid’ for the sis driver).

fbdev2 (Linux only)

Uses the kernel framebuffer to play video, alternative implementation.

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

vesa   

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

(no)dga

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

neotv_pal

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

neotv_ntsc

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

vidix

Use the VIDIX driver.

lvo:   

Activate the Linux Video Overlay on top of VESA mode.

svga   

Play video using the SVGA library.

Specify video mode to use. The mode can be given in a xx 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.

vidix

Use svga with VIDIX.

gl     

OpenGL video output driver, simple version. Video size must be smaller than the maximum texture size of your OpenGL 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.

backend=

Select the backend/OpenGL implementation to use (default: -1).

-1: Autoselect
0: Win32/WGL
1: X11/GLX
2: SDL
3: X11/EGL (highly experimental)
4: OSX/Cocoa
5: Android (very bad hack, only for testing)

(no)ati-hack

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

(no)force-pbo

Always uses PBOs to transfer textures even if this involves an extra copy. Currently this gives a little extra speed with NVidia drivers and a lot more speed with ATI drivers. May need -noslices and the ati-hack suboption to work correctly.

(no)scaled-osd

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

osdcolor=<0xAARRGGBB>

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

rectangle=<0,1,2>

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

0: Use power-of-two textures (default).
1: Use the GL_ARB_texture_rectangle extension.
2: Use the GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two extension. In some cases only supported in software and thus very slow.

swapinterval=

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_APPLE_ycbcr_422 extension to convert YUV to RGB. Default is disabled if yuv= is specified, auto-detected otherwise. Note that this will enable a few special settings to get into a special driver fast-path.

yuv=

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

0: Use software conversion. Compatible with all OpenGL versions. Provides brightness, contrast and saturation control.
1: Use register combiners. This uses an nVidia-specific extension (GL_NV_register_combiners). At least three texture units are needed. Provides saturation and hue control. This method is fast but inexact.
2: Use a fragment program 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.
3: Same as 2. They exist as distinct values for legacy reasons, MPlayer now inserts the extra instructions for gamma control on-demand.
4: Use a fragment program with additional lookup. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least four texture units. Provides brightness, 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.

colorspace

Select the color space for YUV to RGB conversion.

levelconv=

Select the brightness level conversion to use for the YUV to RGB conversion

lscale=

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

cscale=

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

filter-strength=

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

noise-strength=

Set how much noise to add. 0 to disable (default), 1.0 for level suitable for dithering to 6 bit.

stereo=

Select a method for stereo display. You may have to use -aspect to fix the aspect value. Add 32 to swap left and right side. Experimental, do not expect too much from it.

stipple=

Lowest 16 bit give the 4x4 pattern to use (default: 0x0f0f). Examples to try: 0x0f0f, 0xf0f0: horizontal lines; 0xaaaa, 0x5555: vertical lines; 0xa5a5, 0x5a5a: checkerboard pattern

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

customprog=

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

customtex=

Load a custom "gamma ramp" texture from . 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 -noslices), this setting has no effect, the size of the slices as provided by the decoder is used.
If the decoder does not use slice rendering, the default is 16.

(no)osd

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

(no)aspect

Enable or disable aspect scaling and pan-and-scan support (default: enabled). Disabling might increase speed.

gl_tiled

Variant of the OpenGL video output driver. Supports videos larger than the maximum texture size but lacks many of the advanced features and optimizations of the gl driver and is unlikely to be extended further.

(no)glfinish

same as gl (default: enabled)

yuv=

Select the type of YUV to RGB conversion. If set to anything except 0 OSD will be disabled and brightness, contrast and gamma setting is only available via the global X server settings. Apart from this the values have the same meaning as for -vo gl.

matrixview

OpenGL-based renderer creating a Matrix-like running-text effect.

cols=

Number of text columns to display. Very low values (< 16) will probably fail due to scaler limitations. Values not divisible by 16 may cause issues as well.

rows=

Number of text rows to display. Very low values (< 16) will probably fail due to scaler limitations. Values not divisible by 16 may cause issues as well.

null   

Produces no video output. Useful for benchmarking.

aa     

ASCII art video output driver that works on a text console.
NOTE: The driver does not handle -aspect correctly.
HINT: You probably have to specify -monitorpixelaspect. Try ’mplayer -vo aa -monitorpixelaspect 0.5’.

caca   

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

bl     

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

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

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=

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.

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.

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

s3fb (Linux only) (also see -dr)

S3 Virge specific video output driver. This driver supports the card’s YUV conversion and scaling, double buffering and direct rendering features. Use -vf format=yuy2 to get hardware-accelerated YUY2 rendering, which is much faster than YV12 on this card.

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.

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.

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

dxr2 (also see -dxr2) (DXR2 only)

Creative DXR2 specific video output driver.

Output video subdriver to use as overlay (x11, xv).

dxr3 (DXR3 only)

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

overlay

Activates the overlay instead of TV-out.

prebuf

Turns on prebuffering.

sync 

Will turn on the new sync-engine.

norm=

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.

v4l2 (requires Linux 2.6.22+ kernel)

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

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

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.

output filename (default: ./grab.mpg)

zr (also see -zr* and -zrhelp)

Video output driver for a number of MJPEG capture/playback cards.

zr2 (also see the zrmjpeg video filter)

Video output driver for a number of MJPEG capture/playback cards, second generation.

dev=

Specifies the video device to use.

norm=

Specifies the video norm to use (default: auto).

(no)prebuf

(De)Activate prebuffering, not yet supported.

md5sum 

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

outfile=

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=

Write the output to 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.

Float value to specify framerate (default: 5.0).

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=

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

subdirs=

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

maxfiles= (subdirs only)

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

pnm    

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

ppm  

Write PPM files (default).

pgm  

Write PGM files.

pgmyuv

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

raw  

Write PNM files in raw mode (default).

ascii

Write PNM files in ASCII mode.

outdir=

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

subdirs=

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

maxfiles= (subdirs only)

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

png    

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

z=<0-9>

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

outdir=

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

prefix=

Specify the prefix to be used for the PNG filenames (default: no prefix).

alpha

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

mng    

Output video into an animated MNG file using 24 bpp RGB images with lossless compression.

output=

Specify the output filename (default: out.mng).

EXAMPLE:

mplayer video.mkv -vo mng:output=test.mng

tga    

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

EXAMPLE:

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

DECODING/FILTERING OPTIONS

-ac <[-|+]codec1,[-|+]codec2,...[,]>

Specify a priority list of audio codecs to be used, according to their codec name in codecs.conf. Use a ’-’ before the codec name to omit it. Use a ’+’ before the codec name to force it, this will likely crash! If the list has a trailing ’,’ MPlayer will fall back on codecs not contained in the list.
NOTE: See -ac help for a full list of available codecs.

EXAMPLE:

-ac mp3acm

Force the l3codeca.acm MP3 codec.

-ac mad,

Try libmad first, then fall back on others.

-ac hwac3,a52,

Try hardware AC-3 passthrough, software AC-3, then others.

-ac hwdts,

Try hardware DTS passthrough, then fall back on others.

-ac -ffmp3,

Skip FFmpeg’s MP3 decoder.

-af-adv (also see -af)

Specify advanced audio filter options:

force=<0-7>

Forces the insertion of audio filters to one of the following:

0: Use completely automatic filter insertion (currently identical to 1).
1: Optimize for accuracy (default).
2: Optimize for speed. Warning: Some features in the audio filters may silently fail, and the sound quality may drop.
3: Use no automatic insertion of filters and no optimization. Warning: It may be possible to crash MPlayer using this setting.
4: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 0 above, but use floating point processing when possible.
5: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 1 above, but use floating point processing when possible.
6: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 2 above, but use floating point processing when possible.
7: Use no automatic insertion of filters according to 3 above, and use floating point processing when possible.

list=

Same as -af.

-afm

Specify a priority list of audio codec families to be used, according to their codec name in codecs.conf. Falls back on the default codecs if none of the given codec families work.
NOTE: See -afm help for a full list of available codec families.

EXAMPLE:

-afm ffmpeg

Try FFmpeg’s libavcodec codecs first.

-afm acm,dshow

Try Win32 codecs first.

-aspect (also see -zoom)

Override movie aspect ratio, in case aspect information is incorrect or missing in the file being played.

EXAMPLE:

-aspect 4:3 or -aspect 1.3333
-aspect 16:9 or -aspect 1.7777

-noaspect

Disable automatic movie aspect ratio compensation.

-field-dominance <-1-1>

Set first field for interlaced content. Useful for deinterlacers that double the framerate: -vf tfields=1, -vf yadif=1, -vo vdpau:deint and -vo xvmc:bobdeint.

-flip  

Flip image upside-down.

-lavdopts (DEBUG CODE)

Specify libavcodec decoding parameters. Separate multiple options with a colon.

EXAMPLE:

-lavdopts gray:skiploopfilter=all:skipframe=nonref

Available options are:

bitexact

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

bug=

Manually work around encoder bugs.

0: nothing
1: autodetect bugs (default)
2 (msmpeg4v3): some old lavc generated msmpeg4v3 files (no autodetection)
4 (mpeg4): Xvid interlacing bug (autodetected if fourcc==XVIX)
8 (mpeg4): UMP4 (autodetected if fourcc==UMP4)
16 (mpeg4): padding bug (autodetected)
32 (mpeg4): illegal vlc bug (autodetected per fourcc)
64 (mpeg4): Xvid and DivX qpel bug (autodetected per fourcc/version)
128 (mpeg4): old standard qpel (autodetected per fourcc/version)
256 (mpeg4): another qpel bug (autodetected per fourcc/version)
512 (mpeg4): direct-qpel-blocksize bug (autodetected per fourcc/version)
1024 (mpeg4): edge padding bug (autodetected per fourcc/version)

debug=

Display debugging information.

0: disabled
1: picture info
2: rate control
4: bitstream
8: macroblock (MB) type
16: per-block quantization parameter (QP)
32: motion vector
0x0040: motion vector visualization (use -noslices)
0x0080: macroblock (MB) skip
0x0100: startcode
0x0200: PTS
0x0400: error resilience
0x0800: memory management control operations (H.264)
0x1000: bugs
0x2000: Visualize quantization parameter (QP), lower QP are tinted greener.
0x4000: Visualize block types.

ec=

Set error concealment strategy.

1: Use strong deblock filter for damaged MBs.
2: iterative motion vector (MV) search (slow)
3: all (default)

er=

Set error resilience strategy.

0: disabled
1: careful (Should work with broken encoders.)
2: normal (default) (Works with compliant encoders.)
3: aggressive (More checks, but might cause problems even for valid bitstreams.)
4: very aggressive

fast (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.264 only)

Enable optimizations which do not comply to the specification and might potentially cause problems, like simpler dequantization, simpler motion compensation, assuming use of the default quantization matrix, assuming YUV 4:2:0 and skipping a few checks to detect damaged bitstreams.

gray 

grayscale only decoding (a bit faster than with color)

idct=<0-99> (see -lavcopts)

For best decoding quality use the same IDCT algorithm for decoding and encoding. This may come at a price in accuracy, though.

lowres=[,]

Decode at lower resolutions. Low resolution decoding is not supported by all codecs, and it will often result in ugly artifacts. This is not a bug, but a side effect of not decoding at full resolution.

0: disabled
1: 1/2 resolution
2: 1/4 resolution
3: 1/8 resolution

If is specified lowres decoding will be used only if the width of the video is major than or equal to .

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

EXAMPLE:

o=debug=pict

sb= (MPEG-2 only)

Skip the given number of macroblock rows at the bottom.

st= (MPEG-2 only)

Skip the given number of macroblock rows at the top.

skiploopfilter= (H.264 only)

Skips the loop filter (AKA deblocking) during H.264 decoding. Since the filtered frame is supposed to be used as reference for decoding dependent frames this has a worse effect on quality than not doing deblocking on e.g. MPEG-2 video. But at least for high bitrate HDTV this provides a big speedup with no visible quality loss.

can be either one of the following:

none: Never skip.
default: Skip useless processing steps (e.g. 0 size packets in AVI).
nonref: Skip frames that are not referenced (i.e. not used for decoding other frames, the error cannot "build up").
bidir: Skip B-Frames.
nonkey: Skip all frames except keyframes.
all: Skip all frames.

skipidct= (MPEG-1/2 only)

Skips the IDCT step. This degrades quality a lot of in almost all cases (see skiploopfilter for available skip values).

skipframe=

Skips decoding of frames completely. Big speedup, but jerky motion and sometimes bad artifacts (see skiploopfilter for available skip values).

threads=<1-32>

Maximum number of threads used for decoding. Not all decoders support threading and decoders with support might stay below the provided limit at their choice. (default: 1)

vismv=

Visualize motion vectors.

0: disabled
1: Visualize forward predicted MVs of P-frames.
2: Visualize forward predicted MVs of B-frames.
4: Visualize backward predicted MVs of B-frames.

vstats

Prints some statistics and stores them in ./vstats_*.log.

wait_keyframe

Wait for a keyframe before displaying anything. Avoids broken frames at startup or after seeking with some formats.

-noslices

Disable drawing video by 16-pixel height slices/bands, instead draws the whole frame in a single run. May be faster or slower, depending on video card and available cache. It has effect only with libmpeg2 and libavcodec codecs.

-nosound

Do not play/encode sound. Useful for benchmarking.

-novideo

Do not play/encode video. In many cases this will not work, use -vc null -vo null instead.

-pp (also see -vf pp)

Set the DLL postprocess level. This option is no longer usable with -vf pp. It only works with Win32 DirectShow DLLs with internal postprocessing routines. The valid range of -pp values varies by codec, it is mostly 0-6, where 0=disable, 6=slowest/ best.

-pphelp (also see -vf pp)

Show a summary about the available postprocess filters and their usage.

-ssf

Specifies software scaler parameters.

EXAMPLE:

-vf scale -ssf lgb=3.0
lgb=<0-100>

gaussian blur filter (luma)

cgb=<0-100>

gaussian blur filter (chroma)

ls=<-100-100>

sharpen filter (luma)

cs=<-100-100>

sharpen filter (chroma)

chs=

chroma horizontal shifting

cvs=

chroma vertical shifting

-stereo

Select type of MP2/MP3 stereo output.

-sws (also see -vf scale and -zoom)

Specify the software scaler algorithm to be used with the -zoom option. This affects video output drivers which lack hardware acceleration, e.g. x11.

Available types are:

NOTE: Some -sws options are tunable. The description of the scale video filter has further information.

-swsopts

Specify advanced software scaler options provided by libswscale. Set to "help" to get a list of supported options.

-vc <[-|+]codec1,[-|+]codec2,...[,]>

Specify a priority list of video codecs to be used, according to their codec name in codecs.conf. Use a ’-’ before the codec name to omit it. Use a ’+’ before the codec name to force it, this will likely crash! If the list has a trailing ’,’ MPlayer will fall back on codecs not contained in the list.
NOTE: See -vc help for a full list of available codecs.

EXAMPLE:

-vc divx

Force Win32/VfW DivX codec, no fallback.

-vc -divxds,-divx,

Skip Win32 DivX codecs.

-vc ffmpeg12,mpeg12,

Try libavcodec’s MPEG-1/2 codec, then libmpeg2, then others.

-vfm

Specify a priority list of video codec families to be used, according to their names in codecs.conf. Falls back on the default codecs if none of the given codec families work.
NOTE: See -vfm help for a full list of available codec families.

EXAMPLE:

-vfm ffmpeg,dshow,vfw

Try the libavcodec, then Directshow, then VfW codecs and fall back on others, if they do not work.

-vfm xanim

Try XAnim codecs first.

-x (also see -zoom) (MPlayer only)

Scale image to width (if software/hardware scaling is available). Disables aspect calculations.

-xvidopts

Specify additional parameters when decoding with Xvid.
NOTE: Since libavcodec is faster than Xvid you might want to use the libavcodec postprocessing filter (-vf pp) and decoder (-vfm ffmpeg) instead.

Xvid’s internal postprocessing filters:

deblock-chroma (also see -vf pp)

chroma deblock filter

deblock-luma (also see -vf pp)

luma deblock filter

dering-luma (also see -vf pp)

luma deringing filter

dering-chroma (also see -vf pp)

chroma deringing filter

filmeffect (also see -vf noise)

Adds artificial film grain to the video. May increase perceived quality, while lowering true quality.

rendering methods:

dr2  

Activate direct rendering method 2.

nodr2

Deactivate direct rendering method 2.

-xy (also see -zoom)

value<=8

Scale image by factor .

value>8

Set width to value and calculate height to keep correct aspect ratio.

-y (also see -zoom) (MPlayer only)

Scale image to height (if software/hardware scaling is available). Disables aspect calculations.

-zoom  

Allow software scaling, where available. This will allow scaling with output drivers (like x11, fbdev) that do not support hardware scaling where MPlayer disables scaling by default for performance reasons.

AUDIO FILTERS

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

Setup a chain of audio filters.

NOTE: To get a full list of available audio filters, see -af help.

Audio filters are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage the filter list.
-af-add

Appends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.

-af-pre

Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.

-af-del

Deletes the filters at the given indexes. Index numbers start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the last).

-af-clr

Completely empties the filter list.

Available filters are:
resample[=srate[:sloppy[:type]]]

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

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.

Allow (1) or disallow (0) the output frequency to differ slightly from the frequency given by (default: 1). Can be used if the startup of the playback is extremely slow.

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 in Hz. It only supports the 16-bit native-endian format.
NOTE: With MEncoder, you need to also use -srate .

the output sample rate

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

if 1 then filters will be linearly interpolated between polyphase entries

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

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.

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

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

If the input channel number is less than , 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.

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

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=

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.

:::...:

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 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.

number of output channels (1-8)

number of routes (1-8)

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] (also see -format)

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

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 volume estimate can be used for setting the sound level in MEncoder such that the maximum dynamic range is utilized. This feature currently only works with floating-point data, use e.g. -af-adv force=5, or use -af stats.
NOTE: This filter is not reentrant and can therefore only be enabled once for every audio stream.

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).

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.

number of output channels (1-8)

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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 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:

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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=

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

stride=

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

overlap=

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

search=

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=

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.

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, they are always rounded towards -0dB.

The ’n_samples’ field is the total number of samples seen by the filter. The ’mean_volume’ field is the root mean square. The ’max_volume’ field is exactly what it says. The ’histogram_Xdb’ fields count how many samples were at -XdB, for X just below max_volume.

For example, if max_volume is -7dB and histogram_7dB is 19, ’volume=7’ will not cause clipping and ’volume=8’ will cause clipping on exactly 19 samples.

VIDEO FILTERS

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

Setup a chain of video filters.

Many parameters are optional and set to default values if omitted. To explicitly use a default value set a parameter to ’-1’. Parameters w:h means width x height in pixels, x:y means x;y position counted from the upper left corner of the bigger image.
NOTE: To get a full list of available video filters, see -vf help.

Video filters are managed in lists. There are a few commands to manage the filter list.
-vf-add

Appends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.

-vf-pre

Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.

-vf-del

Deletes the filters at the given indexes. Index numbers start at 0, negative numbers address the end of the list (-1 is the last).

-vf-clr

Completely empties the filter list.

With filters that support it, you can access parameters by their name.
-vf =help

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

-vf

Sets a named parameter to the given value. Use on and off or yes and no to set flag parameters.

Available filters are:
crop[=w:h:x:y]

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

,

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

,

Position of the cropped picture, defaults to center.

cropdetect[=limit:round[:reset]]

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

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

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.

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.

,

width and height (default: -1, maximum possible width where boundaries are still visible.)

,

top left corner position (default: -1, uppermost leftmost)

expand[=w:h:x:y:o:a:r]

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

,

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.

,

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

OSD/subtitle rendering

0: disable (default)
1: enable

GENERAL ENCODING OPTIONS (MENCODER ONLY)

-audio-delay

Delays either audio or video by setting a delay field in the header (default: 0.0). This does not delay either stream while encoding, but the player will see the delay field and compensate accordingly. Positive values delay the audio, and negative values delay the video. Note that this is the exact opposite of the -delay option. For example, if a video plays correctly with -delay 0.2, you can fix the video with MEncoder by using -audio-delay -0.2.

Currently, this option only works with the default muxer (-of avi). If you are using a different muxer, then you must use -delay instead.

-audio-density <1-50>

Number of audio chunks per second (default is 2 for 0.5s long audio chunks).
NOTE: CBR only, VBR ignores this as it puts each packet in a new chunk.

-audio-preload <0.0-2.0>

Sets up the audio buffering time interval (default: 0.5s).

-fafmttag

Can be used to override the audio format tag of the output file.

EXAMPLE:

-fafmttag 0x55

Will have the output file contain 0x55 (mp3) as audio format tag.

-ffourcc

Can be used to override the video fourcc of the output file.

EXAMPLE:

-ffourcc div3

Will have the output file contain ’div3’ as video fourcc.

-force-avi-aspect <0.2-3.0>

Override the aspect stored in the AVI OpenDML vprp header. This can be used to change the aspect ratio with ’-ovc copy’.

-frameno-file (DEPRECATED)

Specify the name of the audio file with framenumber mappings created in the first (audio only) pass of a special three pass encoding mode.
NOTE: Using this mode will most likely give you A-V desync. Do not use it. It is kept for backwards compatibility only and will possibly be removed in a future version.

-hr-edl-seek

Use a more precise, but much slower method for skipping areas. Areas marked for skipping are not seeked over, instead all frames are decoded, but only the necessary frames are encoded. This allows starting at non-keyframe boundaries.
NOTE: Not guaranteed to work right with ’-ovc copy’.

-info (AVI only)

Specify the info header of the resulting AVI file.

Available options are:

help 

Show this description.

name=

title of the work

artist=

artist or author of the work

genre=

original work category

subject=

contents of the work

copyright=

copyright information

srcform=

original format of the digitized material

comment=

general comments about the work

-noautoexpand

Do not automatically insert the expand filter into the MEncoder filter chain. Useful to control at which point of the filter chain subtitles are rendered when hardcoding subtitles onto a movie.

-noencodedups

Do not attempt to encode duplicate frames in duplicate; always output zero-byte frames to indicate duplicates. Zero-byte frames will be written anyway unless a filter or encoder capable of doing duplicate encoding is loaded. Currently the only such filter is harddup.

-noodml (-of avi only)

Do not write OpenDML index for AVI files >1GB.

-noskip

Do not skip frames.

-o

Outputs to the given filename.
If you want a default output filename, you can put this option in the MEncoder config file.

-oac

Encode with the given audio codec (no default set).
NOTE: Use -oac help to get a list of available audio codecs.

EXAMPLE:

-oac copy

no encoding, just streamcopy

-oac pcm

Encode to uncompressed PCM.

-oac mp3lame

Encode to MP3 (using LAME).

-oac lavc

Encode with a libavcodec codec.

-of (BETA CODE!)

Encode to the specified container format (default: AVI).
NOTE: Use -of help to get a list of available container formats.

EXAMPLE:

-of avi

Encode to AVI.

-of mpeg

Encode to MPEG (also see -mpegopts).

-of lavf

Encode with libavformat muxers (also see -lavfopts).

-of rawvideo

raw video stream (no muxing - one video stream only)

-of rawaudio

raw audio stream (no muxing - one audio stream only)

-ofps

Specify a frames per second (fps) value for the output file, which can be different from that of the source material. Must be set for variable fps (ASF, some MOV) and progressive (30000/1001 fps telecined MPEG) files.

-ovc

Encode with the given video codec (no default set).
NOTE: Use -ovc help to get a list of available video codecs.

EXAMPLE:

-ovc copy

no encoding, just streamcopy

-ovc raw

Encode to an arbitrary uncompressed format (use ’-vf format’ to select).

-ovc lavc

Encode with a libavcodec codec.

-passlogfile

Dump first pass information to instead of the default divx2pass.log in two pass encoding mode.

-skiplimit

Specify the maximum number of frames that may be skipped after encoding one frame (-noskiplimit for unlimited).

-vobsubout

Specify the basename for the output .idx and .sub files. This turns off subtitle rendering in the encoded movie and diverts it to VOBsub subtitle files.

-vobsuboutid

Specify the language two letter code for the subtitles. This overrides what is read from the DVD or the .ifo file.

-vobsuboutindex

Specify the index of the subtitles in the output files (default: 0).

-force-key-frames ,,...

Force key frames at the specified timestamps, more precisely at the first frame after each specified time.

This option can be used to ensure that a seek point is present at a chapter mark or any other designated place in the output file.

The timestamps must be specified in ascending order.

Since MEncoder does not send timestamps along the filter chain, you probably need to use the fixpts filter for this option to work.

Not all codecs support forced key frames. Currently, support is only implemented for the following encoders: lavc, x264, xvid.

CODEC SPECIFIC ENCODING OPTIONS (MENCODER ONLY)

You can specify codec specific encoding parameters using the following syntax:
-opts

Where may be: lavc, xvidenc, mp3lame, toolame, twolame, nuv, xvfw, faac, x264enc, mpeg, lavf.

mp3lame (-lameopts)
help   

get help

vbr=<0-4>

variable bitrate method

abr    

average bitrate

cbr    

constant bitrate Also forces CBR mode encoding on subsequent ABR presets modes.

br=<0-1024>

bitrate in kbps (CBR and ABR only)

q=<0-9>

quality (0 - highest, 9 - lowest) (VBR only)

aq=<0-9>

algorithmic quality (0 - best/slowest, 9 - worst/fastest)

ratio=<1-100>

compression ratio

vol=<0-10>

audio input gain

mode=<0-3>

(default: auto)

padding=<0-2>

fast   

Switch on faster encoding on subsequent VBR presets modes. This results in slightly lower quality and higher bitrates.

highpassfreq=

Set a highpass filtering frequency in Hz. Frequencies below the specified one will be cut off. A value of -1 will disable filtering, a value of 0 will let LAME choose values automatically.

lowpassfreq=

Set a lowpass filtering frequency in Hz. Frequencies above the specified one will be cut off. A value of -1 will disable filtering, a value of 0 will let LAME choose values automatically.

preset=

preset values

help 

Print additional options and information about presets settings.

medium

VBR encoding, good quality, 150-180 kbps bitrate range

standard

VBR encoding, high quality, 170-210 kbps bitrate range

extreme

VBR encoding, very high quality, 200-240 kbps bitrate range

insane

CBR encoding, highest preset quality, 320 kbps bitrate

<8-320>

ABR encoding at average given kbps bitrate

EXAMPLES:

fast:preset=standard

suitable for most people and most music types and already quite high quality

cbr:preset=192

Encode with ABR presets at a 192 kbps forced constant bitrate.

preset=172

Encode with ABR presets at a 172 kbps average bitrate.

preset=extreme

for people with extremely good hearing and similar equipment

toolame and twolame (-toolameopts and -twolameopts respectively)
br=<32-384>

In CBR mode this parameter indicates the bitrate in kbps, when in VBR mode it is the minimum bitrate allowed per frame. VBR mode will not work with a value below 112.

vbr=<-50-50> (VBR only)

variability range; if negative the encoder shifts the average bitrate towards the lower limit, if positive towards the higher. When set to 0 CBR is used (default).

maxvbr=<32-384> (VBR only)

maximum bitrate allowed per frame, in kbps

mode=

(default: mono for 1-channel audio, stereo otherwise)

psy=<-1-4>

psychoacoustic model (default: 2)

errprot=<0 | 1>

Include error protection.

debug=<0-10>

debug level

faac (-faacopts)
br=

average bitrate in kbps (mutually exclusive with quality)

quality=<1-1000>

quality mode, the higher the better (mutually exclusive with br)

object=<1-4>

object type complexity

mpeg=<2|4>

MPEG version (default: 4)

tns    

Enables temporal noise shaping.

cutoff=<0-sampling_rate/2>

cutoff frequency (default: sampling_rate/2)

raw    

Stores the bitstream as raw payload with extradata in the container header (default: 0, corresponds to ADTS). Do not set this flag if not explicitly required or you will not be able to remux the audio stream later on.

lavc (-lavcopts)
Many libavcodec (lavc for short) options are tersely documented. Read the source for full details.

EXAMPLE:

vcodec=msmpeg4:vbitrate=1800:vhq:keyint=250

o==[,=[,...]]

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

EXAMPLE:

o=bt=100k

acodec=

audio codec (default: mp2)

ac3  

Dolby Digital (AC-3)

adpcm_*

Adaptive PCM formats - see the HTML documentation for details.

flac 

Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)

g726 

G.726 ADPCM

libfaac

Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) - using FAAC

libmp3lame

MPEG-1 audio layer 3 (MP3) - using LAME

mp2  

MPEG-1 audio layer 2 (MP2)

pcm_*

PCM formats - see the HTML documentation for details.

roq_dpcm

Id Software RoQ DPCM

sonic

experimental simple lossy codec

sonicls

experimental simple lossless codec

vorbis

Vorbis

wmav1

Windows Media Audio v1

wmav2

Windows Media Audio v2

abitrate=

audio bitrate in kbps (default: 224)

atag=

Use the specified Windows audio format tag (e.g. atag=0x55).

bit_exact

Use only bit exact algorithms (except (I)DCT). Additionally bit_exact disables several optimizations and thus should only be used for regression tests, which need binary identical files even if the encoder version changes. This also suppresses the user_data header in MPEG-4 streams. Do not use this option unless you know exactly what you are doing.

threads=<1-16>

Maximum number of threads to use (default: 1). May have a slight negative effect on motion estimation.

vcodec=

Employ the specified codec (default: mpeg4).

asv1 

ASUS Video v1

asv2 

ASUS Video v2

dvvideo

Sony Digital Video

ffv1 

FFmpeg’s lossless video codec

ffvhuff

nonstandard 20% smaller HuffYUV using YV12

flv  

Sorenson H.263 used in Flash Video

h261 

H.261

h263 

H.263

h263p

H.263+

huffyuv

HuffYUV

libtheora

Theora

libx264

x264 H.264/AVC MPEG-4 Part 10

libxvid

Xvid MPEG-4 Part 2 (ASP)

ljpeg

Lossless JPEG

mjpeg

Motion JPEG

mpeg1video

MPEG-1 video

mpeg2video

MPEG-2 video

mpeg4

MPEG-4 (DivX 4/5)

msmpeg4

DivX 3

msmpeg4v2

MS MPEG4v2

roqvideo

ID Software RoQ Video

rv10 

an old RealVideo codec

snow (also see: vstrict)

FFmpeg’s experimental wavelet-based codec

svq1 

Apple Sorenson Video 1

wmv1 

Windows Media Video, version 1 (AKA WMV7)

wmv2 

Windows Media Video, version 2 (AKA WMV8)

vqmin=<1-31>

minimum quantizer

lmin=<0.01-255.0>

Minimum frame-level Lagrange multiplier for ratecontrol (default: 2.0). Lavc will rarely use quantizers below the value of lmin. Lowering lmin will make lavc more likely to choose lower quantizers for some frames, but not lower than the value of vqmin. Likewise, raising lmin will make lavc less likely to choose low quantizers, even if vqmin would have allowed them. You probably want to set lmin approximately equal to vqmin. When adaptive quantization is in use, changing lmin/lmax may have less of an effect; see mblmin/mblmax.

lmax=<0.01-255.0>

maximum Lagrange multiplier for ratecontrol (default: 31.0)

mblmin=<0.01-255.0>

Minimum macroblock-level Lagrange multiplier for ratecontrol (default:2.0). This parameter affects adaptive quantization options like qprd, lumi_mask, etc..

mblmax=<0.01-255.0>

Maximum macroblock-level Lagrange multiplier for ratecontrol (default: 31.0).

vqscale=<0-31>

Constant quantizer / constant quality encoding (selects fixed quantizer mode). A lower value means better quality but larger files (default: -1). In case of snow codec, value 0 means lossless encoding. Since the other codecs do not support this, vqscale=0 will have an undefined effect. 1 is not recommended (see vqmin for details).

vqmax=<1-31>

Maximum quantizer, 10-31 should be a sane range (default: 31).

vqdiff=<1-31>

maximum quantizer difference between consecutive I- or P-frames (default: 3)

vmax_b_frames=<0-4>

maximum number of B-frames between non-B-frames:

vme=<0-5>

motion estimation method. Available methods are:

NOTE: 0-3 currently ignores the amount of bits spent, so quality may be low.

me_range=<0-9999>

motion estimation search range (default: 0 (unlimited))

mbd=<0-2> (also see *cmp, qpel)

Macroblock decision algorithm (high quality mode), encode each macro block in all modes and choose the best. This is slow but results in better quality and file size. When mbd is set to 1 or 2, the value of mbcmp is ignored when comparing macroblocks (the mbcmp value is still used in other places though, in particular the motion search algorithms). If any comparison setting (precmp, subcmp, cmp, or mbcmp) is nonzero, however, a slower but better half-pel motion search will be used, regardless of what mbd is set to. If qpel is set, quarter-pel motion search will be used regardless.

vhq    

Same as mbd=1, kept for compatibility reasons.

v4mv   

Allow 4 motion vectors per macroblock (slightly better quality). Works better if used with mbd>0.

obmc   

overlapped block motion compensation (H.263+)

loop   

loop filter (H.263+) note, this is broken

keyint=<0-300>

maximum interval between keyframes in frames (default: 250 or one keyframe every ten seconds in a 25fps movie. This is the recommended default for MPEG-4). Most codecs require regular keyframes in order to limit the accumulation of mismatch error. Keyframes are also needed for seeking, as seeking is only possible to a keyframe - but keyframes need more space than other frames, so larger numbers here mean slightly smaller files but less precise seeking. 0 is equivalent to 1, which makes every frame a keyframe. Values >300 are not recommended as the quality might be bad depending upon decoder, encoder and luck. It is common for MPEG-1/2 to use values <=30.

sc_threshold=<-1000000000-1000000000>

Threshold for scene change detection. A keyframe is inserted by libavcodec when it detects a scene change. You can specify the sensitivity of the detection with this option. -1000000000 means there is a scene change detected at every frame, 1000000000 means no scene changes are detected (default: 0).

sc_factor=

Causes frames with higher quantizers to be more likely to trigger a scene change detection and make libavcodec use an I-frame (default: 1). 1-16 is a sane range. Values between 2 and 6 may yield increasing PSNR (up to approximately 0.04 dB) and better placement of I-frames in high-motion scenes. Higher values than 6 may give very slightly better PSNR (approximately 0.01 dB more than sc_factor=6), but noticably worse visual quality.

vb_strategy=<0-2> (pass one only)

strategy to choose between I/P/B-frames:

b_sensitivity=

Adjusts how sensitively vb_strategy=1 detects motion and avoids using B-frames (default: 40). Lower sensitivities will result in more B-frames. Using more B-frames usually improves PSNR, but too many B-frames can hurt quality in high-motion scenes. Unless there is an extremely high amount of motion, b_sensitivity can safely be lowered below the default; 10 is a reasonable value in most cases.

brd_scale=<0-10>

Downscales frames for dynamic B-frame decision (default: 0). Each time brd_scale is increased by one, the frame dimensions are divided by two, which improves speed by a factor of four. Both dimensions of the fully downscaled frame must be even numbers, so brd_scale=1 requires the original dimensions to be multiples of four, brd_scale=2 requires multiples of eight, etc. In other words, the dimensions of the original frame must both be divisible by 2^(brd_scale+1) with no remainder.

bidir_refine=<0-4>

Refine the two motion vectors used in bidirectional macroblocks, rather than re-using vectors from the forward and backward searches. This option has no effect without B-frames.

vpass=<1-3>

Activates internal two (or more) pass mode, only specify if you wish to use two (or more) pass encoding.

Here is how it works, and how to use it:
The first pass (vpass=1) writes the statistics file. You might want to deactivate some CPU-hungry options, like "turbo" mode does.
In two pass mode, the second pass (vpass=2) reads the statistics file and bases ratecontrol decisions on it.
In N-pass mode, the second pass (vpass=3, that is not a typo) does both: It first reads the statistics, then overwrites them. You might want to backup divx2pass.log before doing this if there is any possibility that you will have to cancel MEncoder. You can use all encoding options, except very CPU-hungry options like "qns".
You can run this same pass over and over to refine the encode. Each subsequent pass will use the statistics from the previous pass to improve. The final pass can include any CPU-hungry encoding options.
If you want a 2 pass encode, use first vpass=1, and then vpass=2.
If you want a 3 or more pass encode, use vpass=1 for the first pass and then vpass=3 and then vpass=3 again and again until you are satisfied with the encode.

huffyuv:

pass 1

Saves statistics.

pass 2

Encodes with an optimal Huffman table based upon statistics from the first pass.

turbo (two pass only)

Dramatically speeds up pass one using faster algorithms and disabling CPU-intensive options. This will probably reduce global PSNR a little bit (around 0.01dB) and change individual frame type and PSNR a little bit more (up to 0.03dB).

aspect=

Store movie aspect internally, just like with MPEG files. Much nicer than rescaling, because quality is not decreased. Only MPlayer will play these files correctly, other players will display them with wrong aspect. The aspect parameter can be given as a ratio or a floating point number.

EXAMPLE:

aspect=16/9 or aspect=1.78

autoaspect

Same as the aspect option, but automatically computes aspect, taking into account all the adjustments (crop/expand/scale/etc.) made in the filter chain. Does not incur a performance penalty, so you can safely leave it always on.

vbitrate=

Specify bitrate (default: 800).
WARNING: 1kbit = 1000 bits

4-16000

(in kbit)

16001-24000000

(in bit)

vratetol=

approximated file size tolerance in kbit. 1000-100000 is a sane range. (warning: 1kbit = 1000 bits) (default: 8000)
NOTE: vratetol should not be too large during the second pass or there might be problems if vrc_(min|max)rate is used.

vrc_maxrate=

maximum bitrate in kbit/sec (default: 0, unlimited)

vrc_minrate=

minimum bitrate in kbit/sec (default: 0, unlimited)

vrc_buf_size=

buffer size in kbit For MPEG-1/2 this also sets the vbv buffer size, use 327 for VCD, 917 for SVCD and 1835 for DVD.

vrc_buf_aggressivity

currently useless

vrc_strategy

Ratecontrol method. Note that some of the ratecontrol-affecting options will have no effect if vrc_strategy is not set to 0.

vb_qfactor=<-31.0-31.0>

quantizer factor between B- and non-B-frames (default: 1.25)

vi_qfactor=<-31.0-31.0>

quantizer factor between I- and non-I-frames (default: 0.8)

vb_qoffset=<-31.0-31.0>

quantizer offset between B- and non-B-frames (default: 1.25)

vi_qoffset=<-31.0-31.0>

(default: 0.0)
if v{b|i}_qfactor > 0
I/B-frame quantizer = P-frame quantizer * v{b|i}_qfactor + v{b|i}_qoffset
else
do normal ratecontrol (do not lock to next P-frame quantizer) and set q= -q * v{b|i}_qfactor + v{b|i}_qoffset
HINT: To do constant quantizer encoding with different quantizers for I/P- and B-frames you can use: lmin= :lmax= :vb_qfactor= .

vqblur=<0.0-1.0> (pass one)

Quantizer blur (default: 0.5), larger values will average the quantizer more over time (slower change).

vqblur=<0.0-99.0> (pass two)

Quantizer gaussian blur (default: 0.5), larger values will average the quantizer more over time (slower change).

vqcomp=<0.0-1.0>

Quantizer compression, vrc_eq depends upon this (default: 0.5). NOTE: Perceptual quality will be optimal somewhere in between the range’s extremes.

vrc_eq=

main ratecontrol equation

1+(tex/avgTex-1)*qComp

approximately the equation of the old ratecontrol code

tex^qComp

with qcomp 0.5 or something like that (default)

infix operators:

+,-,*,/,^

variables:

tex  

texture complexity

iTex,pTex

intra, non-intra texture complexity

avgTex

average texture complexity

avgIITex

average intra texture complexity in I-frames

avgPITex

average intra texture complexity in P-frames

avgPPTex

average non-intra texture complexity in P-frames

avgBPTex

average non-intra texture complexity in B-frames

mv   

bits used for motion vectors

fCode

maximum length of motion vector in log2 scale

iCount

number of intra macroblocks / number of macroblocks

var  

spatial complexity

mcVar

temporal complexity

qComp

qcomp from the command line

isI, isP, isB

Is 1 if picture type is I/P/B else 0.

Pi,E 

See your favorite math book.

functions:

max(a,b),min(a,b)

maximum / minimum

gt(a,b)

is 1 if a>b, 0 otherwise

lt(a,b)

is 1 if a

eq(a,b)

is 1 if a==b, 0 otherwise

sin, cos, tan, sinh, cosh, tanh, exp, log, abs

vrc_override=

User specified quality for specific parts (ending, credits, ...). The options are , , [/, , [/...]]:

quality (2-31)

quantizer

quality (-500-0)

quality correction in %

vrc_init_cplx=<0-1000>

initial complexity (pass 1)

vrc_init_occupancy=<0.0-1.0>

initial buffer occupancy, as a fraction of vrc_buf_size (default: 0.9)

vqsquish=<0|1>

Specify how to keep the quantizer between qmin and qmax.

vlelim=<-1000-1000>

Sets single coefficient elimination threshold for luminance. Negative values will also consider the DC coefficient (should be at least -4 or lower for encoding at quant=1):

vcelim=<-1000-1000>

Sets single coefficient elimination threshold for chrominance. Negative values will also consider the DC coefficient (should be at least -4 or lower for encoding at quant=1):

vstrict=<-2|-1|0|1>

strict standard compliance

vdpart 

Data partitioning. Adds 2 Bytes per video packet, improves error-resistance when transferring over unreliable channels (e.g. streaming over the internet). Each video packet will be encoded in 3 separate partitions:

1. MVs

movement

2. DC coefficients

low res picture

3. AC coefficients

details

MV & DC are most important, losing them looks far worse than losing the AC and the 1. & 2. partition. (MV & DC) are far smaller than the 3. partition (AC) meaning that errors will hit the AC partition much more often than the MV & DC partitions. Thus, the picture will look better with partitioning than without, as without partitioning an error will trash AC/DC/MV equally.

vpsize=<0-10000> (also see vdpart)

Video packet size, improves error-resistance.

0    

disabled (default)

100-1000

good choice

ss     

slice structured mode for H.263+

gray   

grayscale only encoding (faster)

vfdct=<0-10>

DCT algorithm

idct=<0-99>

IDCT algorithm
NOTE: To the best of our knowledge all these IDCTs do pass the IEEE1180 tests.

lumi_mask=<0.0-1.0>

Luminance masking is a ’psychosensory’ setting that is supposed to make use of the fact that the human eye tends to notice fewer details in very bright parts of the picture. Luminance masking compresses bright areas stronger than medium ones, so it will save bits that can be spent again on other frames, raising overall subjective quality, while possibly reducing PSNR.
WARNING: Be careful, overly large values can cause disastrous things.
WARNING: Large values might look good on some monitors but may look horrible on other monitors.

0.0  

disabled (default)

0.0-0.3

sane range

dark_mask=<0.0-1.0>

Darkness masking is a ’psychosensory’ setting that is supposed to make use of the fact that the human eye tends to notice fewer details in very dark parts of the picture. Darkness masking compresses dark areas stronger than medium ones, so it will save bits that can be spent again on other frames, raising overall subjective quality, while possibly reducing PSNR.
WARNING: Be careful, overly large values can cause disastrous things.
WARNING: Large values might look good on some monitors but may look horrible on other monitors / TV / TFT.

0.0  

disabled (default)

0.0-0.3

sane range

tcplx_mask=<0.0-1.0>

Temporal complexity masking (default: 0.0 (disabled)). Imagine a scene with a bird flying across the whole scene; tcplx_mask will raise the quantizers of the bird’s macroblocks (thus decreasing their quality), as the human eye usually does not have time to see all the bird’s details. Be warned that if the masked object stops (e.g. the bird lands) it is likely to look horrible for a short period of time, until the encoder figures out that the object is not moving and needs refined blocks. The saved bits will be spent on other parts of the video, which may increase subjective quality, provided that tcplx_mask is carefully chosen.

scplx_mask=<0.0-1.0>

Spatial complexity masking. Larger values help against blockiness, if no deblocking filter is used for decoding, which is maybe not a good idea.
Imagine a scene with grass (which usually has great spatial complexity), a blue sky and a house; scplx_mask will raise the quantizers of the grass’ macroblocks, thus decreasing its quality, in order to spend more bits on the sky and the house.
HINT: Crop any black borders completely as they will reduce the quality of the macroblocks (also applies without scplx_mask).

0.0  

disabled (default)

0.0-0.5

sane range

NOTE: This setting does not have the same effect as using a custom matrix that would compress high frequencies harder, as scplx_mask will reduce the quality of P blocks even if only DC is changing. The result of scplx_mask will probably not look as good.

p_mask=<0.0-1.0> (also see vi_qfactor)

Reduces the quality of inter blocks. This is equivalent to increasing the quality of intra blocks, because the same average bitrate will be distributed by the rate controller to the whole video sequence (default: 0.0 (disabled)). p_mask=1.0 doubles the bits allocated to each intra block.

border_mask=<0.0-1.0>

border-processing for MPEG-style encoders. Border processing increases the quantizer for macroblocks which are less than 1/5th of the frame width/height away from the frame border, since they are often visually less important.

naq    

Normalize adaptive quantization (experimental). When using adaptive quantization (*_mask), the average per-MB quantizer may no longer match the requested frame-level quantizer. Naq will attempt to adjust the per-MB quantizers to maintain the proper average.

ildct  

Use interlaced DCT.

ilme   

Use interlaced motion estimation (mutually exclusive with qpel).

alt    

Use alternative scantable.

top=<-1-1>   

format=

YV12 

default

444P 

for ffv1

422P 

for HuffYUV, lossless JPEG, dv and ffv1

411P 

for lossless JPEG, dv and ffv1

YVU9 

for lossless JPEG, ffv1 and svq1

BGR32

for lossless JPEG and ffv1

pred   

(for HuffYUV)

pred   

(for lossless JPEG)

coder  

(for ffv1)

context

(for ffv1)

(for ffvhuff)

qpel   

Use quarter pel motion compensation (mutually exclusive with ilme).
HINT: This seems only useful for high bitrate encodings.

mbcmp=<0-2000>

Sets the comparison function for the macroblock decision, has only an effect if mbd=0. This is also used for some motion search functions, in which case it has an effect regardless of mbd setting.

0 (SAD)

sum of absolute differences, fast (default)

1 (SSE)

sum of squared errors

2 (SATD)

sum of absolute Hadamard transformed differences

3 (DCT)

sum of absolute DCT transformed differences

4 (PSNR)

sum of squared quantization errors (avoid, low quality)

5 (BIT)

number of bits needed for the block

6 (RD)

rate distortion optimal, slow

7 (ZERO)

0

8 (VSAD)

sum of absolute vertical differences

9 (VSSE)

sum of squared vertical differences

10 (NSSE)

noise preserving sum of squared differences

11 (W53)

5/3 wavelet, only used in snow

12 (W97)

9/7 wavelet, only used in snow

+256 

Also use chroma, currently does not work (correctly) with B-frames.

ildctcmp=<0-2000>

Sets the comparison function for interlaced DCT decision (see mbcmp for available comparison functions).

precmp=<0-2000>

Sets the comparison function for motion estimation pre pass (see mbcmp for available comparison functions) (default: 0).

cmp=<0-2000>

Sets the comparison function for full pel motion estimation (see mbcmp for available comparison functions) (default: 0).

subcmp=<0-2000>

Sets the comparison function for sub pel motion estimation (see mbcmp for available comparison functions) (default: 0).

skipcmp=<0-2000>

FIXME: Document this.

nssew=<0-1000000>

This setting controls NSSE weight, where larger weights will result in more noise. 0 NSSE is identical to SSE You may find this useful if you prefer to keep some noise in your encoded video rather than filtering it away before encoding (default: 8).

predia=<-99-6>

diamond type and size for motion estimation pre-pass

dia=<-99-6>

Diamond type & size for motion estimation. Motion search is an iterative process. Using a small diamond does not limit the search to finding only small motion vectors. It is just somewhat more likely to stop before finding the very best motion vector, especially when noise is involved. Bigger diamonds allow a wider search for the best motion vector, thus are slower but result in better quality.
Big normal diamonds are better quality than shape-adaptive diamonds.
Shape-adaptive diamonds are a good tradeoff between speed and quality.
NOTE: The sizes of the normal diamonds and shape adaptive ones do not have the same meaning.

0
000
0

0
000
00000
000
0

trell  

Trellis searched quantization. This will find the optimal encoding for each 8x8 block. Trellis searched quantization is quite simply an optimal quantization in the PSNR versus bitrate sense (Assuming that there would be no rounding errors introduced by the IDCT, which is obviously not the case.). It simply finds a block for the minimum of error and lambda*bits.

lambda

quantization parameter (QP) dependent constant

bits 

amount of bits needed to encode the block

error

sum of squared errors of the quantization

cbp    

Rate distorted optimal coded block pattern. Will select the coded block pattern which minimizes distortion + lambda*rate. This can only be used together with trellis quantization.

mv0    

Try to encode each MB with MV=<0,0> and choose the better one. This has no effect if mbd=0.

mv0_threshold=

When surrounding motion vectors are <0,0> and the motion estimation score of the current block is less than mv0_threshold, <0,0> is used for the motion vector and further motion estimation is skipped (default: 256). Lowering mv0_threshold to 0 can give a slight (0.01dB) PSNR increase and possibly make the encoded video look slightly better; raising mv0_threshold past 320 results in diminished PSNR and visual quality. Higher values speed up encoding very slightly (usually less than 1%, depending on the other options used).
NOTE: This option does not require mv0 to be enabled.

qprd (mbd=2 only)

rate distorted optimal quantization parameter (QP) for the given lambda of each macroblock

last_pred=<0-99>

amount of motion predictors from the previous frame

preme=<0-2>

motion estimation pre-pass

subq=<1-8>

subpel refinement quality (for qpel) (default: 8 (high quality))
NOTE: This has a significant effect on speed.

refs=<1-8>

number of reference frames to consider for motion compensation (Snow only) (default: 1)

psnr   

print the PSNR (peak signal to noise ratio) for the whole video after encoding and store the per frame PSNR in a file with a name like ’psnr_hhmmss.log’. Returned values are in dB (decibel), the higher the better.

mpeg_quant

Use MPEG quantizers instead of H.263.

aic    

Enable AC prediction for MPEG-4 or advanced intra prediction for H.263+. This will improve quality very slightly (around 0.02 dB PSNR) and slow down encoding very slightly (about 1%).
NOTE: vqmin should be 8 or larger for H.263+ AIC.

aiv    

alternative inter vlc for H.263+

umv    

unlimited MVs (H.263+ only) Allows encoding of arbitrarily long MVs.

ibias=<-256-256>

intra quantizer bias (256 equals 1.0, MPEG style quantizer default: 96, H.263 style quantizer default: 0)
NOTE: The H.263 MMX quantizer cannot handle positive biases (set vfdct=1 or 2), the MPEG MMX quantizer cannot handle negative biases (set vfdct=1 or 2).

pbias=<-256-256>

inter quantizer bias (256 equals 1.0, MPEG style quantizer default: 0, H.263 style quantizer default: -64)
NOTE: The H.263 MMX quantizer cannot handle positive biases (set vfdct=1 or 2), the MPEG MMX quantizer cannot handle negative biases (set vfdct=1 or 2).
HINT: A more positive bias (-32 - -16 instead of -64) seems to improve the PSNR.

nr=<0-100000>

Noise reduction, 0 means disabled. 0-600 is a useful range for typical content, but you may want to turn it up a bit more for very noisy content (default: 0). Given its small impact on speed, you might want to prefer to use this over filtering noise away with video filters like denoise3d or hqdn3d.

qns=<0-3>

Quantizer noise shaping. Rather than choosing quantization to most closely match the source video in the PSNR sense, it chooses quantization such that noise (usually ringing) will be masked by similar-frequency content in the image. Larger values are slower but may not result in better quality. This can and should be used together with trellis quantization, in which case the trellis quantization (optimal for constant weight) will be used as startpoint for the iterative search.

inter_matrix=

Use custom inter matrix. It needs a comma separated string of 64 integers.

intra_matrix=

Use custom intra matrix. It needs a comma separated string of 64 integers.

vqmod_amp

experimental quantizer modulation

vqmod_freq

experimental quantizer modulation

dc     

intra DC precision in bits (default: 8). If you specify vcodec=mpeg2video this value can be 8, 9, 10 or 11.

cgop (also see sc_threshold)

Close all GOPs. Currently it only works if scene change detection is disabled (sc_threshold=1000000000).

gmc    

Enable Global Motion Compensation.

(no)lowdelay

Sets the low delay flag for MPEG-1/2 (disables B-frames).

vglobal=<0-3>

Control writing global video headers.

aglobal=<0-3>

Same as vglobal for audio headers.

level=

Set CodecContext Level. Use 31 or 41 to play video on a Playstation 3.

skip_exp=<0-1000000>

FIXME: Document this.

skip_factor=<0-1000000>

FIXME: Document this.

skip_threshold=<0-1000000>

FIXME: Document this.

nuv (-nuvopts)
Nuppel video is based on RTJPEG and LZO. By default frames are first encoded with RTJPEG and then compressed with LZO, but it is possible to disable either or both of the two passes. As a result, you can in fact output raw i420, LZO compressed i420, RTJPEG, or the default LZO compressed RTJPEG.
NOTE: The nuvrec documentation contains some advice and examples about the settings to use for the most common TV encodings.
c=<0-20>

chrominance threshold (default: 1)

l=<0-20>

luminance threshold (default: 1)

lzo    

Enable LZO compression (default).

nolzo  

Disable LZO compression.

q=<3-255>

quality level (default: 255)

raw    

Disable RTJPEG encoding.

rtjpeg 

Enable RTJPEG encoding (default).

xvidenc (-xvidencopts)
There are three modes available: constant bitrate (CBR), fixed quantizer and two pass.
pass=<1|2>

Specify the pass in two pass mode.

turbo (two pass only)

Dramatically speeds up pass one using faster algorithms and disabling CPU-intensive options. This will probably reduce global PSNR a little bit and change individual frame type and PSNR a little bit more.

bitrate= (CBR or two pass mode)

Sets the bitrate to be used in kbits/second if <16000 or in bits/second if >16000. If is negative, Xvid will use its absolute value as the target size (in kBytes) of the video and compute the associated bitrate automagically (default: 687 kbits/s).

fixed_quant=<1-31>

Switch to fixed quantizer mode and specify the quantizer to be used.

zones=[/[/...]] (CBR or two pass mode)

User specified quality for specific parts (ending, credits, ...). Each zone is ,, where may be

EXAMPLE:

zones=90000,q,20

Encodes all frames starting with frame 90000 at constant quantizer 20.

zones=0,w,0.1/10001,w,1.0/90000,q,20

Encode frames 0-10000 at 10% bitrate, encode frames 90000 up to the end at constant quantizer 20. Note that the second zone is needed to delimit the first zone, as without it everything up until frame 89999 would be encoded at 10% bitrate.

me_quality=<0-6>

This option controls the motion estimation subsystem. The higher the value, the more precise the estimation should be (default: 6). The more precise the motion estimation is, the more bits can be saved. Precision is gained at the expense of CPU time so decrease this setting if you need realtime encoding.

(no)qpel

MPEG-4 uses a half pixel precision for its motion search by default. The standard proposes a mode where encoders are allowed to use quarter pixel precision. This option usually results in a sharper image. Unfortunately it has a great impact on bitrate and sometimes the higher bitrate use will prevent it from giving a better image quality at a fixed bitrate. It is better to test with and without this option and see whether it is worth activating.

(no)gmc

Enable Global Motion Compensation, which makes Xvid generate special frames (GMC-frames) which are well suited for Pan/Zoom/ Rotating images. Whether or not the use of this option will save bits is highly dependent on the source material.

(no)trellis

Trellis Quantization is a kind of adaptive quantization method that saves bits by modifying quantized coefficients to make them more compressible by the entropy encoder. Its impact on quality is good, and if VHQ uses too much CPU for you, this setting can be a good alternative to save a few bits (and gain quality at fixed bitrate) at a lesser cost than with VHQ (default: on).

(no)cartoon

Activate this if your encoded sequence is an anime/cartoon. It modifies some Xvid internal thresholds so Xvid takes better decisions on frame types and motion vectors for flat looking cartoons.

(no)chroma_me

The usual motion estimation algorithm uses only the luminance information to find the best motion vector. However for some video material, using the chroma planes can help find better vectors. This setting toggles the use of chroma planes for motion estimation (default: on).

(no)chroma_opt

Enable a chroma optimizer prefilter. It will do some extra magic on color information to minimize the stepped-stairs effect on edges. It will improve quality at the cost of encoding speed. It reduces PSNR by nature, as the mathematical deviation to the original picture will get bigger, but the subjective image quality will raise. Since it works with color information, you might want to turn it off when encoding in grayscale.

(no)hq_ac

Activates high-quality prediction of AC coefficients for intra frames from neighbor blocks (default: on).

vhq=<0-4>

The motion search algorithm is based on a search in the usual color domain and tries to find a motion vector that minimizes the difference between the reference frame and the encoded frame. With this setting activated, Xvid will also use the frequency domain (DCT) to search for a motion vector that minimizes not only the spatial difference but also the encoding length of the block. Fastest to slowest:

(no)lumi_mask

Adaptive quantization allows the macroblock quantizers to vary inside each frame. This is a ’psychosensory’ setting that is supposed to make use of the fact that the human eye tends to notice fewer details in very bright and very dark parts of the picture. It compresses those areas more strongly than medium ones, which will save bits that can be spent again on other frames, raising overall subjective quality and possibly reducing PSNR.

(no)grayscale

Make Xvid discard chroma planes so the encoded video is grayscale only. Note that this does not speed up encoding, it just prevents chroma data from being written in the last stage of encoding.

(no)interlacing

Encode the fields of interlaced video material. Turn this option on for interlaced content.
NOTE: Should you rescale the video, you would need an interlace-aware resizer, which you can activate with -vf scale=::1.

min_iquant=<0-31>

minimum I-frame quantizer (default: 2)

max_iquant=<0-31>

maximum I-frame quantizer (default: 31)

min_pquant=<0-31>

minimum P-frame quantizer (default: 2)

max_pquant=<0-31>

maximum P-frame quantizer (default: 31)

min_bquant=<0-31>

minimum B-frame quantizer (default: 2)

max_bquant=<0-31>

maximum B-frame quantizer (default: 31)

min_key_interval= (two pass only)

minimum interval between keyframes (default: 0)

max_key_interval=

maximum interval between keyframes (default: 10*fps)

quant_type=

Sets the type of quantizer to use. For high bitrates, you will find that MPEG quantization preserves more detail. For low bitrates, the smoothing of H.263 will give you less block noise. When using custom matrices, MPEG quantization must be used.

quant_intra_matrix=

Load a custom intra matrix file. You can build such a file with xvid4conf’s matrix editor.

quant_inter_matrix=

Load a custom inter matrix file. You can build such a file with xvid4conf’s matrix editor.

keyframe_boost=<0-1000> (two pass mode only)

Shift some bits from the pool for other frame types to intra frames, thus improving keyframe quality. This amount is an extra percentage, so a value of 10 will give your keyframes 10% more bits than normal (default: 0).

kfthreshold= (two pass mode only)

Works together with kfreduction. Determines the minimum distance below which you consider that two frames are considered consecutive and treated differently according to kfreduction (default: 10).

kfreduction=<0-100> (two pass mode only)

The above two settings can be used to adjust the size of keyframes that you consider too close to the first (in a row). kfthreshold sets the range in which keyframes are reduced, and kfreduction determines the bitrate reduction they get. The last I-frame will get treated normally (default: 30).

max_bframes=<0-4>

Maximum number of B-frames to put between I/P-frames (default: 2).

bquant_ratio=<0-1000>

quantizer ratio between B- and non-B-frames, 150=1.50 (default: 150)

bquant_offset=<-1000-1000>

quantizer offset between B- and non-B-frames, 100=1.00 (default: 100)

bf_threshold=<-255-255>

This setting allows you to specify what priority to place on the use of B-frames. The higher the value, the higher the probability of B-frames being used (default: 0). Do not forget that B-frames usually have a higher quantizer, and therefore aggressive production of B-frames may cause worse visual quality.

(no)closed_gop

This option tells Xvid to close every GOP (Group Of Pictures bounded by two I-frames), which makes GOPs independent from each other. This just implies that the last frame of the GOP is either a P-frame or a N-frame but not a B-frame. It is usually a good idea to turn this option on (default: on).

(no)packed

This option is meant to solve frame-order issues when encoding to container formats like AVI that cannot cope with out-of-order frames. In practice, most decoders (both software and hardware) are able to deal with frame-order themselves, and may get confused when this option is turned on, so you can safely leave if off, unless you really know what you are doing.
WARNING: This will generate an illegal bitstream, and will not be decodable by ISO-MPEG-4 decoders except DivX/libavcodec/Xvid.
WARNING: This will also store a fake DivX version in the file so the bug autodetection of some decoders might be confused.

frame_drop_ratio=<0-100> (max_bframes=0 only)

This setting allows the creation of variable framerate video streams. The value of the setting specifies a threshold under which, if the difference of the following frame to the previous frame is below or equal to this threshold, a frame gets not coded (a so called n-vop is placed in the stream). On playback, when reaching an n-vop the previous frame will be displayed.
WARNING: Playing with this setting may result in a jerky video, so use it at your own risks!

rc_reaction_delay_factor=

This parameter controls the number of frames the CBR rate controller will wait before reacting to bitrate changes and compensating for them to obtain a constant bitrate over an averaging range of frames.

rc_averaging_period=

Real CBR is hard to achieve. Depending on the video material, bitrate can be variable, and hard to predict. Therefore Xvid uses an averaging period for which it guarantees a given amount of bits (minus a small variation). This settings expresses the "number of frames" for which Xvid averages bitrate and tries to achieve CBR.

rc_buffer=

size of the rate control buffer

curve_compression_high=<0-100>

This setting allows Xvid to take a certain percentage of bits away from high bitrate scenes and give them back to the bit reservoir. You could also use this if you have a clip with so many bits allocated to high-bitrate scenes that the low(er)-bitrate scenes start to look bad (default: 0).

curve_compression_low=<0-100>

This setting allows Xvid to give a certain percentage of extra bits to the low bitrate scenes, taking a few bits from the entire clip. This might come in handy if you have a few low-bitrate scenes that are still blocky (default: 0).

overflow_control_strength=<0-100>

During pass one of two pass encoding, a scaled bitrate curve is computed. The difference between that expected curve and the result obtained during encoding is called overflow. Obviously, the two pass rate controller tries to compensate for that overflow, distributing it over the next frames. This setting controls how much of the overflow is distributed every time there is a new frame. Low values allow lazy overflow control, big rate bursts are compensated for more slowly (could lead to lack of precision for small clips). Higher values will make changes in bit redistribution more abrupt, possibly too abrupt if you set it too high, creating artifacts (default: 5).
NOTE: This setting impacts quality a lot, play with it carefully!

max_overflow_improvement=<0-100>

During the frame bit allocation, overflow control may increase the frame size. This parameter specifies the maximum percentage by which the overflow control is allowed to increase the frame size, compared to the ideal curve allocation (default: 5).

max_overflow_degradation=<0-100>

During the frame bit allocation, overflow control may decrease the frame size. This parameter specifies the maximum percentage by which the overflow control is allowed to decrease the frame size, compared to the ideal curve allocation (default: 5).

container_frame_overhead=<0...>

Specifies a frame average overhead per frame, in bytes. Most of the time users express their target bitrate for video w/o taking care of the video container overhead. This small but (mostly) constant overhead can cause the target file size to be exceeded. Xvid allows users to set the amount of overhead per frame the container generates (give only an average per frame). 0 has a special meaning, it lets Xvid use its own default values (default: 24 - AVI average overhead).

profile=

Restricts options and VBV (peak bitrate over a short period) according to the Simple, Advanced Simple and DivX profiles. The resulting videos should be playable on standalone players adhering to these profile specifications.

unrestricted

no restrictions (default)

sp0  

simple profile at level 0

sp1  

simple profile at level 1

sp2  

simple profile at level 2

sp3  

simple profile at level 3

sp4a  

simple profile at level 4a

sp5  

simple profile at level 5

sp6  

simple profile at level 6

asp0 

advanced simple profile at level 0

asp1 

advanced simple profile at level 1

asp2 

advanced simple profile at level 2

asp3 

advanced simple profile at level 3

asp4 

advanced simple profile at level 4

asp5 

advanced simple profile at level 5

dxnhandheld

DXN handheld profile

dxnportntsc

DXN portable NTSC profile

dxnportpal

DXN portable PAL profile

dxnhtntsc

DXN home theater NTSC profile

dxnhtpal

DXN home theater PAL profile

dxnhdtv

DXN HDTV profile

NOTE: These profiles should be used in conjunction with an appropriate -ffourcc. Generally DX50 is applicable, as some players do not recognize Xvid but most recognize DivX.

par=

Specifies the Pixel Aspect Ratio mode (not to be confused with DAR, the Display Aspect Ratio). PAR is the ratio of the width and height of a single pixel. So both are related like this: DAR = PAR * (width/height).
MPEG-4 defines 5 pixel aspect ratios and one extended one, giving the opportunity to specify a specific pixel aspect ratio. 5 standard modes can be specified:

vga11

It is the usual PAR for PC content. Pixels are a square unit.

pal43

PAL standard 4:3 PAR. Pixels are rectangles.

pal169

same as above

ntsc43

same as above

ntsc169

same as above (Do not forget to give the exact ratio.)

ext  

Allows you to specify your own pixel aspect ratio with par_width and par_height.

NOTE: In general, setting aspect and autoaspect options is enough.

par_width=<1-255> (par=ext only)

Specifies the width of the custom pixel aspect ratio.

par_height=<1-255> (par=ext only)

Specifies the height of the custom pixel aspect ratio.

aspect=

Store movie aspect internally, just like MPEG files. Much nicer solution than rescaling, because quality is not decreased. MPlayer and a few others players will play these files correctly, others will display them with the wrong aspect. The aspect parameter can be given as a ratio or a floating point number.

(no)autoaspect

Same as the aspect option, but automatically computes aspect, taking into account all the adjustments (crop/expand/scale/etc.) made in the filter chain.

psnr   

Print the PSNR (peak signal to noise ratio) for the whole video after encoding and store the per frame PSNR in a file with a name like ’psnr_hhmmss.log’ in the current directory. Returned values are in dB (decibel), the higher the better.

debug  

Save per-frame statistics in ./xvid.dbg. (This is not the two pass control file.)

The following options are only available in Xvid 1.1.x and later.
bvhq=<0|1>

This setting allows vector candidates for B-frames to be used for the encoding chosen using a rate distortion optimized operator, which is what is done for P-frames by the vhq option. This produces nicer-looking B-frames while incurring almost no performance penalty (default: 1).

vbv_bufsize=<0...> (two pass mode only)

Specify the video buffering verifier (VBV) buffer size in bits (default: 0 - VBV check disabled). VBV allows restricting peak bitrate to make the video play properly on hardware players. For example, the Home profile uses vbv_bufsize=3145728. If you set vbv_bufsize you should set also vbv_maxrate. Note that there is no vbv_peakrate because Xvid does not actually use it for bitrate controlling; the other VBV options are enough to restrict the peak bitrate.

vbv_initial=<0...vbv_bufsize> (two pass mode only)

Specify the initial fill of the VBV buffer in bits (default: 75% of vbv_bufsize). The default is probably what you want.

vbv_maxrate=<0...> (two pass mode only)

Specify the maximum processing rate in bits/s (default: 0). For example, the Home profile uses vbv_maxrate=4854000.

The following option is only available in Xvid 1.2.x and later.
threads=<0-n>

Create n threads to run the motion estimation (default: 0). The maximum number of threads that can be used is the picture height divided by 16.

x264enc (-x264encopts)
bitrate=

Sets the average bitrate to be used in kbits/second (default: off). Since local bitrate may vary, this average may be inaccurate for very short videos (see ratetol). Constant bitrate can be achieved by combining this with vbv_maxrate, at significant reduction in quality.

qp=<0-51>

This selects the quantizer to use for P-frames. I- and B-frames are offset from this value by ip_factor and pb_factor, respectively. 20-40 is a useful range. Lower values result in better fidelity, but higher bitrates. 0 is lossless. Note that quantization in H.264 works differently from MPEG-1/2/4: H.264’s quantization parameter (QP) is on a logarithmic scale. The mapping is approximately H264QP = 12 + 6*log2(MPEGQP). For example, MPEG at QP=2 is equivalent to H.264 at QP=18. Generally, this option should be avoided and crf should be used instead as crf will yield better visual results for the same size.

crf=<1.0-50.0>

Enables constant quality mode, and selects the quality. The scale is similar to QP. Like the bitrate-based modes, this allows each frame to use a different QP based on the frame’s complexity. This option should generally be used instead of qp.

crf_max=

With CRF and VBV, limit RF to this value (may cause VBV underflows!).

pass=<1-3>

Enable 2 or 3-pass mode. It is recommended to always encode in 2 or 3-pass mode as it leads to a better bit distribution and improves overall quality.