mpv is a media player built around command-line control, high-quality video output and extensive configuration. It plays a wide range of audio and video formats through FFmpeg and supports numerous subtitle formats.
The player keeps its graphical interface deliberately minimal. Basic controls are available through an on-screen controller, while most behaviour can be changed with command-line options, configuration files and custom input bindings.
mpv can also act as a playback engine for other applications through libmpv, while its scripting system makes it possible to extend and automate the player.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- High-quality video rendering using OpenGL, Vulkan and D3D11 backends.
- Video scaling with high-quality algorithms, colour management, frame timing, interpolation and HDR support.
- Hardware-accelerated video decoding through platform-specific APIs, including VA-API and NVDEC on Linux.
- Extensive keyboard, mouse and remote-control configuration through custom input bindings.
- Profiles and configuration files can apply different playback settings automatically or on demand.
- Gapless audio playback, audio filters, channel mapping and configurable output devices.
- Lua and JavaScript scripting interfaces for extending playback behaviour and automating tasks.
- libmpv C API lets other software embed mpv as a playback engine.
- Precise seeking, screenshots, playback speed adjustment, playlists, chapters and A-B looping.
- Native Wayland support alongside X11 on Linux.
Website: mpv.io
Support:
Developer: mpv team
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
mpv is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Media Players | |
|---|---|
| VLC | Cross-platform multimedia player and framework |
| mpv | Media player for the command line. libmpv is used by many front-ends |
| QMPlay2 | Qt based video and audio player |
| MPlayer | Movie player which runs on many systems |
| SMPlayer | Qt based MPlayer front-end |
| GridPlayer | Play multiple videos simultaneously |
| Parole | Modern simple media player based on the GStreamer framework |
| MPC-QT | Clone of Media Player Classic |
| clapper | GNOME media player built using GJS with GTK4 toolkit |
| Totem | Movie player for the GNOME desktop based on GStreamer |
| Dragon Player | Multimedia player with a focus on simplicity rather than features |
| xine | Video player for playing CDs, DVDs, BluRays and VCDs. |
| Showtime | GNOME media player |
| Glide | Simple and minimalistic media player |
| Phantom Player | Simple video player |
| Daikhan | Media player for the modern desktop |
| QtAV | Cross-platform multimedia framework based on Qt and FFmpeg |
| SparkPlayer | Terminal-based media player for local music and video collections |
| Rage | Simple video and audio player |
| Kaffeine | Simple, easy to use, full featured media player |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Video Converters | |
|---|---|
| HandBrake | Multithreaded cross-platform media transcoding application |
| FFmpeg | Multimedia player, server and encoder |
| Shutter Encoder | Graphical frontend to FFmpeg with editing features |
| FastFlix | GUI for H.264, HEVC and AV1 hardware and software encoding |
| Videomass | Cross-platform GUI for FFmpeg and youtube-dl |
| avconv | Part of libav-tools; fork of FFmpeg |
| VLC | Vdeo player which also converts multimedia to different formats |
| mpv | Cross-platform media player with video encoding support |
| ab-av1 | AV1 encoder with automatic quality selection through sample testing |
| MEncoder | MEncoder is included in MPlayer |
| FFQueue | Graphical frontend to FFmpeg written in C++ |
| Edconv | User-friendly FFmpeg GUI |
| transcode | Utility to encode raw video/audio streams |
| OmniGet | Uses FFmpeg to perform the video conversion |
| MystiQ | GUI for FFmpeg, a powerful media converter |
| Frame | Desktop media conversion utility |
| ffdash | VP9 video encoder |
| Constrict | Compress videos to target sizes |
| Leonardo | Media conversion application |
| Ciano | Easy way to convert your multimedia files to the most popular formats |
| Recoder | GTK4 video transcoding application |
| VidCom | Simple utility for video archiving and compression |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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