-abs <value> (-ao oss only) (OBSOLETE)

Override audio driver/:card buffer size detection.

-format <format> (also see the format audio filter)

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

-mixer <device>

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

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

This option will tell MPlayer to use a different channel for controlling volume than the default PCM. Options for OSS 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 <name,number> format, i.e. a channel labeled 'PCM 1' in alsamixer must be converted to PCM,1.

-softvol

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

-softvol-max <10.0-10000.0>

Set the maximum amplification level in percent (default: 110). A value of 200 will allow you to adjust the volume up to a 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).

-ao <driver1[:suboption1[=value]:...],driver2,...[,]>

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

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

EXAMPLE:

s

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

s

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

s

Sets noblock-mode.

s

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

alsa5

ALSA 0.5 audio output driver

oss

OSS audio output driver

s

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

s

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

s

Sets the audio mixer channel (default: pcm).

sdl (SDL only)

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

s

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

s

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

jack

audio output through JACK (Jack Audio Connection Kit)

s

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

s

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

s

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

nas

audio output through NAS

macosx (Mac OS X only)

native Mac OS X audio output driver

sgi (SGI only)

native SGI audio output driver

s

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

s

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

s

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

dxr2 (also see -dxr2) (DXR2 only)

Creative DXR2 specific output driver

ivtv (IVTV only)

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

mpegpes (DVB only)

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

s

DVB card to use if more than one card is present.

s

output filename

null

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

pcm

raw PCM/wave file writer audio output

s

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

s

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

s

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

-adapter <value>

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

-bpp <depth>

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

-border

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

-brightness <-100-100>

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

-contrast <-100-100>

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

-display <name> (X11 only)

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

EXAMPLE:

-display xtest.localdomain:0

-dr

Turns on direct rendering (not supported by all codecs and video outputs) WARNING: May cause OSD/SUB corruption!

-dxr2 <option1:option2:...>

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

s

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

s

Set iec958 output mode to encoded.

s

Set iec958 output mode to decoded (default).

s

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

s

mute sound output

s

unmute sound output

s

path to the microcode

TV output

s

enable 7.5 IRE output mode

s

disable 7.5 IRE output mode (default)

s

b/w TV output

s

color TV output (default)

s

interlaced TV output (default)

s

disable interlaced TV output

s

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

s

set pixel mode to square

s

set pixel mode to ccir601

overlay

s

Set the left cropping value (default: 50).

s

Set the right cropping value (default: 300).

s

Set the top cropping value (default: 0).

s

Set the bottom cropping value (default: 0).

s

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

s

minimum value for the respective color key

s

maximum value for the respective color key

s

Ignore cached overlay settings.

s

Update cached overlay settings.

s

Enable overlay onscreen display.

s

Disable overlay onscreen display (default).

s

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

s

Activate overlay (default).

s

Activate TVout.

s

Tune the overlay (default: 1000).

-fbmode <modename> (-vo fbdev only)

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

-fbmodeconfig <filename> (-vo fbdev only)

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

-fs (also see -zoom)

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

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

Try this option if you still experience fullscreen problems.

-fstype <type1,type2,...> (X11 only)

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

The available types are:

s

Use the _NETWM_STATE_ABOVE hint if available.

s

Use the _NETWM_STATE_BELOW hint if available.

s

Use the _NETWM_STATE_FULLSCREEN hint if available.

s

Use the _WIN_LAYER hint with the default layer.

s

Use the _WIN_LAYER hint with the given layer number.

s

Force NETWM style.

s

Do not set fullscreen window layer.

s

Use _NETWM_STATE_STAYS_ON_TOP hint if available.

EXAMPLE:

s

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

s

Fixes fullscreen switching on OpenBox 1.x.

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

Adjust where the output is on the screen initially. The x and y specifications are in pixels measured from the top-left of the screen to the top-left of the image being displayed, however if a percentage sign is given after the argument it turns the value into a percentage of the screen size in that direction. It also supports the standard X11 -geometry option format. If an 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. NOTE: This option is only supported by the x11, xmga, xv, xvmc, xvidix, gl, gl2, directx and tdfxfb video output drivers.

EXAMPLE:

s

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

s

Places the window in the middle of the screen.

s

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

s

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

-guiwid <window ID> (also see -wid) (GUI only)

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

-hue <-100-100>

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

-monitor-dotclock <range[,range,...]> (-vo fbdev and vesa only)

Specify the dotclock or pixelclock range of the monitor.

-monitor-hfreq <range[,range,...]> (-vo fbdev and vesa only)

Specify the horizontal frequency range of the monitor.

-monitor-vfreq <range[,range,...]> (-vo fbdev and vesa only)

Specify the vertical frequency range of the monitor.

-monitoraspect <ratio> (also see -aspect)

Set the aspect ratio of your monitor or TV screen.

EXAMPLE:

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

-monitorpixelaspect <ratio> (also see -aspect)

Set the aspect of a single pixel of your monitor or TV screen (default: disabled). Overrides the -monitoraspect setting. A value of 0 disables, a value of 1 means square pixels (correct for (almost?) all LCDs).

-nodouble

Disables double buffering, mostly for debugging purposes. 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, macosx, quartz, ggi and gl2.

-panscan <0.0-1.0>

Enables pan-and-scan functionality (cropping the sides of e.g. a 16:9 movie to make it fit a 4:3 display without black bands). The range controls how much of the image is cropped. Only works with the xv, xmga, mga, gl, gl2, quartz, macosx and xvidix video output drivers.

-panscanrange <-19.0-99.0> (experimental)

Change the range of the pan-and-scan functionality (default: 1). Positive values mean multiples of the default range. Negative numbers mean you can zoom in up to a factor of -panscanrange+1. E.g. -panscanrange -3 allows a zoom factor of up to 4. This feature is experimental. Do not report bugs unless you are using -vo gl.

-refreshrate <Hz>

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

-rootwin

Play movie in the root window (desktop background). Desktop background images may cover the movie window, though. Only works with the x11, xv, xmga, xvidix, quartz, macosx 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 <pixels>

Specify the vertical screen resolution for video output drivers which do not know the screen resolution like fbdev, x11 and TVout.

-screenw <pixels>

Specify the horizontal screen resolution for video output drivers which do not know the screen resolution like fbdev, x11 and TVout.

-stop-xscreensaver (X11 only)

Turns off xscreensaver at startup and turns it on again on exit.

-vm

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

-vsync

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

-wid <window ID> (also see -guiwid) (X11, OpenGL and DirectX only)

This tells MPlayer to attach to an existing window. Useful to embed MPlayer in a browser (e.g. the plugger extension).

-xineramascreen <-2-...> (X11 only)

In Xinerama configurations (i.e. a single desktop that spans across multiple displays) this option tells MPlayer which screen to display the movie on. A value of -2 means fullscreen across the whole virtual display, -1 means fullscreen on the display the window currently is on. The initial position set via the -geometry option is relative to the specified screen. Will usually only work with "-fstype -fullscreen" or "-fstype none".

-zrbw (-vo zr only)

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

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

Select a part of the input image to display, multiple 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 <device> (-vo zr only)

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

-zrfd (-vo zr only)

Force decimation: Decimation, as specified by -zrhdec and -zrvdec, only happens if the hardware scaler can stretch the 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 <norm> (-vo zr only)

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

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

A number from 1 (best) to 20 (worst) representing the JPEG 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 <x display offset> (-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 <y display offset> (-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).

-vo <driver1[:suboption1[=value]:...],driver2,...[,]>

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

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

EXAMPLE:

s

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

s

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.

s

Select a specific XVideo port.

s

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

s

The default takes the colorkey currently set in Xv.

s

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

s

Same as use but also sets the supplied colorkey.

s

Sets the colorkey drawing method (default: man).

s

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

s

Set the colorkey as window background.

s

Let Xv draw the colorkey.

x11 (X11 only)

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

xover (X11 only)

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

s

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

xvmc (X11 with -vc ffmpeg12mc only)

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

s

Select a specific XVideo port.

s

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).

s

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

s

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).

s

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

s

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

s

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

dga (X11 only)

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

sdl (SDL only)

Highly platform independent SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) library video output driver. Since SDL uses its own X11 layer, MPlayer X11 options do not have any effect on SDL.

s

Explicitly choose the SDL driver to use.

s

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

s

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.

s

Explicitly choose the VIDIX subdevice driver to use. Available subdevice drivers are cyberblade_vid.so, mach64_vid.so, mga_crtc2_vid.so, mga_vid.so, nvidia_vid.so, pm3_vid.so, radeon_vid.so, rage128_vid.so, sis_vid.so and unichrome_vid.so.

xvidix (X11 only)

X11 frontend for VIDIX

s

same as vidix

cvidix

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

s

same as vidix

winvidix (Windows only)

Windows frontend for VIDIX

s

same as vidix

directx (Windows only)

Video output driver that uses the DirectX interface.

s

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

quartz (Mac OS X only)

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

s

Choose the display device to use in fullscreen.

s

Specify the fullscreen resolution (useful on slow systems).

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

Mac OS X CoreVideo video output driver

s

Choose the display device to use in fullscreen.

fbdev (Linux only)

Uses the kernel framebuffer to play video.

s

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.

s

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.

s

Turns on DGA mode.

s

Turns off DGA mode.

s

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

s

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

s

Use the VIDIX driver.

s

Activate the Linux Video Overlay on top of VESA mode.

svga

Play video using the SVGA library.

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

Try to select a video mode with square pixels.

s

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. Please use -dr if it works with your OpenGL implementation, since for higher resolutions this provides a big speedup. The code performs very few checks, so if a feature does not work, this might be because it is not supported by your card/OpenGL implementation even if you do not get any error message. Use glxinfo or a similar tool to display the supported OpenGL extensions.

s

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

s

Number of lines copied to texture in one piece (default: 4). 0 for whole image. NOTE: If YUV colorspace is used (see yuv suboption), special rules apply:

If the decoder uses slice rendering (see -noslices), this setting has no effect, the size of the slices as provided by the decoder is used. If the decoder does not use slice rendering, the default is 16.

s

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

s

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.

s

Color for OSD (default: 0xffffff, corresponds to white).

s

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

s

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.

s

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

s

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.

s

Select the type of YUV to RGB conversion.

0: Use software conversion (default). 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. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least three texture units. Provides brightness, contrast, saturation and hue control. 3: Use a fragment program using the POW instruction. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least three texture units. Provides brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma control. Gamma can also be set independently for red, green and blue. Method 4 is usually faster. 4: Use a fragment program with additional lookup. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least four texture units. Provides brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma control. Gamma can also be set independently for red, green and blue. 5: Use ATI-specific method (for older cards). This uses an ATI-specific extension (GL_ATI_fragment_shader - not GL_ARB_fragment_shader!). At least three texture units are needed. Provides saturation and hue control. This method is fast but inexact. 6: Use a 3D texture to do conversion via lookup. Needs the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and at least four texture units. Extremely slow (software emulation) on some (all?) ATI cards since it uses a texture with border pixels. Provides brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma control. Gamma can also be set independently for red, green and blue. Speed depends more on GPU memory bandwidth than other methods.

s

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

0: Use simple linear filtering (default). 1: Use bicubic filtering (better quality). Needs one additional texture unit. Older cards will not be able to handle this for chroma at least in fullscreen mode.

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

gl2

OpenGL video output driver, second generation. Supports OSD and videos larger than the maximum texture size.

s

same as gl (default: enabled)

s

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

null

Produces no video output. Useful for benchmarking.

aa

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

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.

s

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

s

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.

s

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

s

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).

s

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.

s

Will force layer with ID N for playback (default: -1 - auto).

s

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.

s

same as directfb (default: disabled)

s

same as directfb (default: triple)

s

same as directfb

s

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.

s

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

s

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.

s

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.

s

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.

s

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

syncfb

Video output driver for the SyncFB kernel module, which provides special hardware features of Matrox Gxxx cards like hardware deinterlacing, scaling and synchronizing your video output to the vertical retrace of your monitor.

3dfx (Linux only)

3dfx specific video output driver. This driver directly uses the 3dfx hardware on top of X11. Only 16 bpp are supported. FIXME: It' ok the difference between 3dfx, tdfxfb and tdfx_vid?

tdfxfb (Linux only)

This driver employs the tdfx framebuffer driver to play movies with YUV acceleration on 3dfx cards. FIXME: It' ok the difference between 3dfx, tdfxfb and tdfx_vid?

s

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

tdfx_vid (Linux only)

3dfx specific video output driver. This driver directly uses the tdfx_vid kernel module. FIXME: It' ok the difference between 3dfx, tdfxfb and tdfx_vid?

s

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

dxr2 (also see -dxr2) (DXR2 only)

Creative DXR2 specific video output driver.

s

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.

s

Activates the overlay instead of TVOut.

s

Turns on prebuffering.

s

Will turn on the new sync-engine.

s

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

s

Specifies the device number to use if you have more than one em8300 card.

ivtv (IVTV only)

Conexant CX23415 (iCompression iTVC15) or Conexant CX23416 (iCompression iTVC16) MPEG decoder chip (Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150/250/350/500) specific video output driver for TV-Out. Also see the lavc video filter.

s

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

s

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.

s

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).

s

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.

s

Specifies the video device to use.

s

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

s

(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.

s

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, RGB (24 bpp) and BGR (24 bpp) format. You can combine it with the -fixed-vo option to concatenate files with the same dimensions and fps value.

s

Write the output as interlaced frames, top field first.

s

Write the output as interlaced frames, bottom field first.

s

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

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

gif89a

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

s

Float value to specify framerate (default: 5.0).

s

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=15.0:filename=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.

s

Specify standard or progressive JPEG (default: noprogressive).

s

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

s

optimization factor (default: 100)

s

smooth factor (default: 0)

s

quality factor (default: 75)

s

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

s

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

s

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 ppm(5) and pgm(5).

s

Write PPM files (default).

s

Write PGM files.

s

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

s

Write PNM files in raw mode (default).

s

Write PNM files in ASCII mode.

s

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

s

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

s

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.

s

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

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

-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:

s

Force the l3codeca.acm MP3 codec.

s

Try libmad first, then fall back on others.

s

Try hardware AC3 passthrough, software AC3, then others.

s

Try hardware DTS passthrough, then fall back on others.

s

Skip FFmpeg's MP3 decoder.

-af-adv <force=(0-7):list=(filters)> (also see -af)

Specify advanced audio filter options:

s

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

0: Use completely automatic filter insertion. 1: Optimize for accuracy (default). 2: Optimize for speed. Warning: Some features in the audio filters may silently fail, and the sound 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.

s

Same as -af.

-afm <driver1,driver2,...>

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:

s

Try FFmpeg's libavcodec codecs first.

s

Try Win32 codecs first.

-aspect <ratio> (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.

-flip

Flip image upside-down.

-lavdopts <option1:option2:...> (DEBUG CODE)

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

EXAMPLE:

-lavdopts gray:skiploopfilter=all:skipframe=nonref

Available options are:

s

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

s

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)

s

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.

s

Set error concealment strategy.

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

s

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

s

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

s

grayscale only decoding (a bit faster than with color)

s

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

s

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

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

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

s

Skip the given number of macroblock rows at the bottom.

s

Skip the given number of macroblock rows at the top.

s

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.

<skipvalue> can be either one of the following:

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

s

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

s

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

s

number of threads to use for decoding (default: 1)

s

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.

s

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

-noslices

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

-nosound

Do not play/:encode sound. Useful for benchmarking.

-novideo

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

-pp <quality> (also see -vf pp)

Set the DLL postprocess level. This option is no longer usable with -vf pp. It only works with Win32 DirectShow DLLs with 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 <mode>

Specifies software scaler parameters.

EXAMPLE:

-vf scale -ssf lgb=3.0

s

gaussian blur filter (luma)

s

gaussian blur filter (chroma)

s

sharpen filter (luma)

s

sharpen filter (chroma)

s

chroma horizontal shifting

s

chroma vertical shifting

-stereo <mode>

Select type of MP2/:MP3 stereo output.

s

stereo

s

left channel

s

right channel

-sws <software scaler type> (also see -vf scale and -zoom)

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

Available types are:

s

fast bilinear

s

bilinear

s

bicubic (good quality) (default)

s

experimental

s

nearest neighbor (bad quality)

s

area

s

luma bicubic / chroma bilinear

s

gauss

s

sincR

s

lanczos

s

natural bicubic spline

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

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

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

EXAMPLE:

s

Force Win32/:VfW DivX codec, no fallback.

s

Skip Win32 DivX codecs.

s

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

-vfm <driver1,driver2,...>

Specify a priority list of video codec families to be used, 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:

s

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

s

Try XAnim codecs first.

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

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

-xvidopts <option1:option2:...>

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

XviD's internal postprocessing filters:

s

chroma deblock filter

s

luma deblock filter

s

luma deringing filter

s

chroma deringing filter

s

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

rendering methods:

s

Activate direct rendering method 2.

s

Deactivate direct rendering method 2.

-xy <value> (also see -zoom)

s

Scale image by factor <value>.

s

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

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

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

-zoom

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

-af <filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>

Setup a chain of audio filters.

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

Available filters are:

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

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

s

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.

s

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

s

Selects 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:

s

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

lavcresample[=srate[:length[:linear[:count[:cutoff]]]]]

Changes the sample rate of the audio stream to an integer <srate> in Hz. It only supports the 16-bit native-endian format. NOTE: With MEncoder, you need to also use -srate <srate>.

s

the output sample rate

s

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

s

if 1 then filters will be linearly interpolated between polyphase entries

s

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

s

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

sweep[=speed]

Produces a sine sweep.

s

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.

s

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

s

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.

hrtf[=flag]

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

s

s

s

s

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:

s

s

s

s

s

s

s

s

s

s

s

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.

s

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

EXAMPLE:

s

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

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

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

s

number of output channels (1-6)

s

number of routes (1-6)

s

Pairs of numbers between 0 and 5 that define where to route each channel.

EXAMPLE:

s

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.

s

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.

s

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

s

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).

s

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:

s

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.

s

number of output channels (1-6)

s

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:

s

Would down-mix from stereo to mono.

s

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.

s

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.

s

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

EXAMPLE:

s

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.

s

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

surround[=delay]

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

s

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:

s

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.

s

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

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

1.

Measure the distance to the loudspeakers in meters in relation to your listening position, giving you the distances s1 to s5 (for a 5.1 system). There is no point in compensating for the subwoofer (you will not hear the difference anyway).

2.

Subtract the distances s1 to s5 from the maximum distance, i.e. s[i] = max(s) - s[i]; i = 1...5.

3.

Calculate the required delays in ms as d[i] = 1000*s[i]/342; i = 1...5.

EXAMPLE:

s

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.

s

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

s

number of samples per channel (default: 512)

EXAMPLE:

s

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.

s

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.

s

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.

s

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.

s

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.

s

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.

s

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.

-vf <filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>

Setup a chain of video filters.

-vop <...,filter2[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter1> (OBSOLETE)

Setup a chain of video filters, to be applied in reverse order. Deprecated in favor of -vf.

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

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

-vf-add <filter1[,filter2,...]>

Appends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.

-vf-pre <filter1[,filter2,...]>

Prepends the filters given as arguments to the filter list.

-vf-del <index1[,index2,...]>

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

-vf-clr

Completely empties the filter list.

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

-vf <filter>=help

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

-vf <filter=named_parameter1=value1[:named_parameter2=value2:...]>

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

Available filters are:

crop[=w:h:x:y]

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

s

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

s

Position of the cropped picture, defaults to center.

cropdetect[=limit:round]

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

s

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

s

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.

rectangle[=w:h:x:y]

The plugin responds to the input.conf directive 'change_rectangle' that takes two parameters.

s

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

s

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. placing subtitles/:OSD in the resulting black bands.

s

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.

s

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

s

OSD/:subtitle rendering

OSD/:subtitle rendering

0: disable (default) 1: enable

s

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

EXAMPLE:

expand=800::::4/3

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

s

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

flip (also see -flip)

Flips the image upside down.

mirror

Mirrors the image on the Y axis.

rotate[=<0-7>]

Rotates the image by 90 degrees and optionally flips it. For values between 4-7 rotation is only done if the movie geometry is portrait and not landscape.

s

Rotate by 90 degrees clockwise and flip (default).

s

Rotate by 90 degrees clockwise.

s

Rotate by 90 degrees counterclockwise.

s

Rotate by 90 degrees counterclockwise and flip.

scale[=w:h[:ilaced[:chr_drop[:par[:par2[:presize[:noup[:arnd]]]]]]]]

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

s

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

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

s

Toggle interlaced scaling.

0: off (default) 1: on

s

chroma skipping

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

s

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

-sws 2 (bicubic): B (blurring) and C (ringing) 0.00:0.60 default 0.00:0.75 VirtualDub's "precise bicubic" 0.00:0.50 Catmull-Rom spline 0.33:0.33 Mitchell-Netravali spline 1.00:0.00 cubic B-spline -sws 7 (gaussian): sharpness (0 (soft) - 100 (sharp)) -sws 9 (lanczos): filter length (1-10)

s

Scale to preset sizes.

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

s

Disallow upscaling past the original dimensions.

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

s

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

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

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

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

s

New display width and height. Can also be these special values:

0: original display width and height -1: original video width and height (default) -2: Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the original display aspect ratio. -3: Calculate w/h using the other dimension and the original video aspect ratio.

EXAMPLE:

dsize=800:-2

Specifies a display resolution of 800x600 for a 4/3 aspect video, or 800x450 for a 16/9 aspect video.

s

Modifies width and height according to original aspect ratios.

-1: Ignore original aspect ratio (default). 0: Keep display aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as maximum resolution. 1: Keep display aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as minimum resolution. 2: Keep video aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as maximum resolution. 3: Keep video aspect ratio by using <w> and <h> as minimum resolution.

EXAMPLE:

dsize=800:600:0

Specifies a display resolution of at most 800x600, or smaller, in order to keep aspect.

s

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

yuy2

Forces software YV12/:I420/:422P to YUY2 conversion. Useful for video cards/:drivers with slow YV12 but fast YUY2 support.

yvu9

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

yuvcsp

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

rgb2bgr[=swap]

RGB 24/32 <-> BGR 24/32 colorspace conversion.

s

Also perform R <-> B swapping.

palette

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

format[=fourcc]

Restricts the colorspace for the next filter without doing any conversion. Use together with the scale filter for a real conversion. NOTE: For a list of available formats see format=fmt=help.

s

format name like rgb15, bgr24, yv12, etc (default: yuy2)

noformat[=fourcc]

Restricts the colorspace for the next filter without doing any conversion. Unlike the format filter, this will allow any colorspace except the one you specify. NOTE: For a list of available formats see noformat=fmt=help.

s

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

pp[=filter1[:option1[:option2...]]/[-]filter2...] (also see -pphelp)

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

s

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

s

Do chrominance filtering, too (default).

s

Do luminance filtering only (no chrominance).

s

Do chrominance filtering only (no luminance).

NOTE: -pphelp shows a list of available subfilters.

Available subfilters are

s

horizontal deblocking filter

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

s

vertical deblocking filter

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

s

accurate horizontal deblocking filter

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

s

accurate vertical deblocking filter

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

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

s

experimental horizontal deblocking filter

s

experimental vertical deblocking filter

s

deringing filter

s

temporal noise reducer

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

s

automatic brightness / contrast correction

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

<quantizer>: quantizer to use

s

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

s

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

s

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

EXAMPLE:

s

horizontal and vertical deblocking, deringing and automatic brightness/:contrast

s

default filters without brightness/:contrast correction

s

Enable default filters & temporal denoiser.

s

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

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

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

s

0-6 (default: 3)

s

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

s

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

uspp[=quality[:qp]]

Ultra simple & slow postprocessing filter that compresses and decompresses the image at several (or - in the case of quality level 8 - all) shifts and averages the results. The way this differs from the behavior of spp is that uspp actually encodes & decodes each case with libavcodec Snow, whereas spp uses a simplified intra only 8x8 DCT similar to MJPEG.

s

0-8 (default: 3)

s

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

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

faster version of the simple postprocessing filter

s

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

s

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

s

Filter strength, lower values mean more details but also more artifacts, while higher values make the image smoother but also blurrier (default: 0 - PSNR optimal).

s

0: do not use QP from B-frames (default) 1: use QP from B-frames too (may cause flicker)

pp7[=qp[:mode]]

Variant of the spp filter, similar to spp=6 with 7 point DCT where only the center sample is used after IDCT.

s

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

s

0: hard thresholding 1: soft thresholding (better deringing, but blurrier) 2: medium thresholding (default, good results)

qp=equation

quantization parameter (QP) change filter

s

some equation like "2+2*sin(PI*qp)"

test

Generate various test patterns.

rgbtest

Generate an RGB test pattern useful for detecting RGB vs BGR issues. You should see a red, green and blue stripe from top to bottom.

lavc[=quality:fps]

Fast software YV12 to MPEG-1 conversion with libavcodec for use with DVB/:DXR3/:IVTV. Faster and of better quality than -vf fame.

s

1-31: fixed qscale 32-: fixed bitrate in kbits

s

force output fps (float value) (default: 0, autodetect based on height)

fame

Fast software YV12 to MPEG-1 conversion with libfame for use with DVB/:DXR3/:IVTV.

dvbscale[=aspect]

Set up optimal scaling for DVB cards, scaling the x axis in hardware and calculating the y axis scaling in software to keep aspect. Only useful together with expand and scale.

s

Control aspect ratio, calculate as DVB_HEIGHT*ASPECTRATIO (default: 576*4/3=768), set it to 576*(16/9)=1024 for a 16:9 TV.

EXAMPLE:

s

FIXME: Explain what this does.

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

Adds noise.

s

luma noise

s

chroma noise

s

uniform noise (gaussian otherwise)

s

temporal noise (noise pattern changes between frames)

s

averaged temporal noise (smoother, but a lot slower)

s

high quality (slightly better looking, slightly slower)

s

mix random noise with a (semi)regular pattern

denoise3d[=luma:chroma:time]

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

s

spatial luma strength (default: 4)

s

spatial chroma strength (default: 3)

s

temporal strength (default: 6)

hqdn3d[=luma:chroma:time]

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

eq[=brightness:contrast] (OBSOLETE)

Software equalizer with interactive controls just like the hardware equalizer, for cards/:drivers that do not support brightness and contrast controls in hardware. Might also be useful with MEncoder, either for fixing poorly captured movies, or for slightly reducing contrast to mask artifacts and get by with lower bitrates.

s

initial brightness

s

initial contrast

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

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

s

initial gamma value (default: 1.0)

s

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

s

initial brightness (default: 0.0)

s

initial saturation (default: 1.0)

s

gamma value for the red component (default: 1.0)

s

gamma value for the green component (default: 1.0)

s

gamma value for the blue component (default: 1.0)

s

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

hue[=hue:saturation]

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

s

initial hue (default: 0.0)

s

initial saturation, where negative values result in a negative chroma (default: 1.0)

halfpack[=f]

Convert planar YUV 4:2:0 to half-height packed 4:2:2, downsampling luma but keeping all chroma samples. Useful for output to low-resolution display devices when hardware downscaling is poor quality or is not available. Can also be used as a primitive luma-only deinterlacer with very low CPU usage.

s

By default, halfpack averages pairs of lines when downsampling. Any value different from 0 or 1 gives the default (averaging) behavior.

0: Only use even lines when downsampling. 1: Only use odd lines when downsampling.

ilpack[=mode]

When interlaced video is stored in YUV 4:2:0 formats, chroma interlacing does not line up properly due to vertical downsampling of the chroma channels. This filter packs the planar 4:2:0 data into YUY2 (4:2:2) format with the chroma lines in their proper locations, so that in any given scanline, the luma and chroma data both come from the same field.

s

Select the sampling mode.

0: nearest-neighbor sampling, fast but incorrect 1: linear interpolation (default)

harddup

Only useful with MEncoder. If harddup is used when encoding, it will force duplicate frames to be encoded in the output. This uses slightly more space, but is necessary for output to MPEG files or if you plan to demux and remux the video stream after encoding. Should be placed at or near the end of the filter chain unless you have a good reason to do otherwise.

softskip

Only useful with MEncoder. Softskip moves the frame skipping (dropping) step of encoding from before the filter chain to some point during the filter chain. This allows filters which need to see all frames (inverse telecine, temporal denoising, etc.) to function properly. Should be placed after the filters which need to see all frames and before any subsequent filters that are CPU-intensive.

decimate[=max:hi:lo:frac]

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

s

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

s

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

dint[=sense:level]

The drop-deinterlace (dint) filter detects and drops the first from a set of interlaced video frames.

s

relative difference between neighboring pixels (default: 0.1)

s

What part of the image has to be detected as interlaced to drop the frame (default: 0.15).

lavcdeint (OBSOLETE)

FFmpeg deinterlacing filter, same as -vf pp=fd

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

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

s

threshold (default: 10)

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

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

unsharp mask / gaussian blur

s

Apply effect on luma component.

s

Apply effect on chroma components.

s

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

s

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

<0: blur >0: sharpen

swapuv

Swap U & V plane.

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

(De)interleaves lines. The goal of this filter is to add the ability to process interlaced images pre-field without deinterlacing them. You can filter your interlaced DVD and play it on a TV without breaking the interlacing. While deinterlacing (with the postprocessing filter) removes interlacing permanently (by smoothing, averaging, etc) deinterleaving splits the frame into 2 fields (so called half pictures), so you can process (filter) them independently and then re-interleave them.

s

deinterleave (placing one above the other)

s

interleave

s

swap fields (exchange even & odd lines)

fil[=i|d]

(De)interleaves lines. This filter is very similar to the il filter but much faster, the main disadvantage is that it does not always work. Especially if combined with other filters it may produce randomly messed up images, so be happy if it works but do not complain if it does not for your combination of filters.

s

Deinterleave fields, placing them side by side.

s

Interleave fields again (reversing the effect of fil=d).

field[=n]

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

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

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

s

Set the frame dropping mode.

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

s

Analysis mode.

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

s

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

s

Threshold values to be used in certain modes.

ivtc[=1]

Experimental 'stateless' inverse telecine filter. Rather than trying to lock on to a pattern like the detc filter does, ivtc makes its decisions independently for each frame. This will give much better results for material that has undergone heavy editing after telecine was applied, but as a result it is not as forgiving of noisy input, for example TV capture. The optional parameter (ivtc=1) corresponds to the dr=1 option for the detc filter, and should be used with MEncoder but not with MPlayer. As with detc, you must specify the correct output framerate (-ofps 24000/1001) when using MEncoder. Further development on ivtc has stopped, as the pullup and filmdint filters appear to be much more accurate.

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

Third-generation pulldown reversal (inverse telecine) filter, capable of handling mixed hard-telecine, 24000/1001 fps progressive, and 30000/1001 fps progressive content. The pullup filter is designed to be much more robust than detc or ivtc, by taking advantage of future context in making its decisions. Like ivtc, pullup is stateless in the sense that it does not lock onto a pattern to follow, but it instead looks forward to the following fields in order to identify matches and rebuild progressive frames. It is still under development, but believed to be quite accurate. The jl, jr, jt, and jb options set the amount of "junk" to ignore at the left, right, top, and bottom of the image, respectively. Left/:right are in units of 8 pixels, while top/:bottom are in units of 2 lines. The default is 8 pixels on each side. Setting the sb (strict breaks) option to 1 will reduce the chances of pullup generating an occasional mismatched frame, but it may also cause an excessive number of frames to be dropped during high motion sequences. Conversely, setting it to -1 will make pullup match fields more easily. This may help processing of video where there is slight blurring between the fields, but may also cause there to be interlaced frames in the output. The mp (metric plane) option may be set to 1 or 2 to use a chroma plane instead of the luma plane for doing pullup's computations. This may improve accuracy on very clean source material, but more likely will decrease accuracy, especially if there is chroma noise (rainbow effect) or any grayscale video. The main purpose of setting mp to a chroma plane is to reduce CPU load and make pullup usable in realtime on slow machines. NOTE: Always follow pullup with the softskip filter when encoding to ensure that pullup is able to see each frame. Failure to do so will lead to incorrect output and will usually crash, due to design limitations in the codec/:filter layer.

filmdint[=options]

Inverse telecine filter, similar to the pullup filter above. It is designed to handle any pulldown pattern, including mixed soft and hard telecine and limited support for movies that are slowed down or sped up from their original framerate for TV. Only the luma plane is used to find the frame breaks. If a field has no match, it is deinterlaced with simple linear approximation. If the source is MPEG-2, this must be the first filter to allow access to the field-flags set by the MPEG-2 decoder. Depending on the source MPEG, you may be fine ignoring this advice, as long as you do not see lots of "Bottom-first field" warnings. With no options it does normal inverse telecine, and should be used together with mencoder -fps 30000/1001 -ofps 24000/1001. When this filter is used with mplayer, it will result in an uneven framerate during playback, but it is still generally better than using pp=lb or no deinterlacing at all. Multiple options can be specified separated by /.

s

Just like the crop filter, but faster, and works on mixed hard and soft telecined content as well as when y is not a multiple of 4. If x or y would require cropping fractional pixels from the chroma planes, the crop area is extended. This usually means that x and y must be even.

s

For each ifps input frames the filter will output ofps frames. The ratio of ifps/:ofps should match the -fps/-ofps ratio. This could be used to filter movies that are broadcast on TV at a frame rate different from their original framerate.

s

If n is nonzero, the chroma plane is copied unchanged. This is useful for YV12 sampled TV, which discards one of the chroma fields.

s

On x86, if n=1, use MMX2 optimized functions, if n=2, use 3DNow! optimized functions, otherwise, use plain C. If this option is not specified, MMX2 and 3DNow! are auto-detected, use this option to override auto-detection.

s

The larger n will speed up the filter at the expense of accuracy. The default value is n=3. If n is odd, a frame immediately following a frame marked with the REPEAT_FIRST_FIELD MPEG flag is assumed to be progressive, thus filter will not spend any time on soft-telecined MPEG-2 content. This is the only effect of this flag if MMX2 or 3DNow! is available. Without MMX2 and 3DNow, if n=0 or 1, the same calculations will be used as with n=2 or 3. If n=2 or 3, the number of luma levels used to find the frame breaks is reduced from 256 to 128, which results in a faster filter without losing much accuracy. If n=4 or 5, a faster, but much less accurate metric will be used to find the frame breaks, which is more likely to misdetect high vertical detail as interlaced content.

s

If n is nonzero, print the detailed metrics for each frame. Useful for debugging.

s

Deinterlace threshold. Used during de-interlacing of unmatched frames. Larger value means less deinterlacing, use n=256 to completely turn off deinterlacing. Default is n=8.

s

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

s

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

s

Sum of Absolute Difference threshold, default is 64.

softpulldown

This filter works only correct with MEncoder and acts on the MPEG-2 flags used for soft 3:2 pulldown (soft telecine). If you want to use the ivtc or detc filter on movies that are partly soft telecined, inserting this filter before them should make them more reliable.

divtc[=options]

Inverse telecine for deinterlaced video. If 3:2-pulldown telecined video has lost one of the fields or is deinterlaced using a method that keeps one field and interpolates the other, the result is a juddering video that has every fourth frame duplicated. This filter is intended to find and drop those duplicates and restore the original film framerate. When using this filter, you must specify -ofps that is 4/5 of the fps of the input file and place the softskip later in the filter chain to make sure that divtc sees all the frames. Two different modes are available: One pass mode is the default and is straightforward to use, but has the disadvantage that any changes in the telecine phase (lost frames or bad edits) cause momentary judder until the filter can resync again. Two pass mode avoids this by analyzing the whole video beforehand so it will have forward knowledge about the phase changes and can resync at the exact spot. These passes do not correspond to pass one and two of the encoding process. You must run an extra pass using divtc pass one before the actual encoding throwing the resulting video away. Use -nosound -ovc raw -o /dev/null to avoid wasting CPU power for this pass. You may add something like crop=2:2:0:0 after divtc to speed things up even more. Then use divtc pass two for the actual encoding. If you use multiple encoder passes, use divtc pass two for all of them. The options are:

s

Use two pass mode.

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

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

Delay interlaced video by one field time so that the field order changes. The intended use is to fix PAL movies that have been captured with the opposite field order to the film-to-video transfer. The options are:

s

Capture field order top-first, transfer bottom-first. Filter will delay the bottom field.

s

Capture bottom-first, transfer top-first. Filter will delay the top field.

s

Capture and transfer with the same field order. This mode only exists for the documentation of the other options to refer to, but if you actually select it, the filter will faithfully do nothing ;-)

s

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

s

Capture unknown or varying, transfer opposite. Filter selects among t and b on a frame by frame basis by analyzing the images and selecting the alternative that produces best match between the fields.

s

Capture top-first, transfer unknown or varying. Filter selects among t and p using image analysis.

s

Capture bottom-first, transfer unknown or varying. Filter selects among b and p using image analysis.

s

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

s

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

s

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

telecine[=start]

Apply 3:2 'telecine' process to increase framerate by 20%. This most likely will not work correctly with MPlayer, but it can be used with 'mencoder -fps 30000/1001 -ofps 30000/1001 -vf telecine'. Both fps options are essential! (A/V sync will break if they are wrong.) The optional start parameter tells the filter where in the telecine pattern to start (0-3).

tinterlace[=mode]

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

s

Move odd frames into the upper field, even into the lower field, generating a full-height frame at half framerate.

s

Only output odd frames, even frames are dropped; height unchanged.

s

Only output even frames, odd frames are dropped; height unchanged.

s

Expand each frame to full height, but pad alternate lines with black; framerate unchanged.

s

Interleave even lines from even frames with odd lines from odd frames. Generates full-height frame at half framerate.

tfields[=mode[:field_dominance]]

Temporal field separation - split fields into frames, doubling the output framerate. Like the telecine filter, tfields will only work properly with MEncoder, and only if both -fps and -ofps are set to the desired (double) framerate!

s

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

s

-1: auto (default) Only works if the decoder exports the appropriate information and no other filters which discard that information come before tfields in the filter chain, otherwise it falls back to 0 (top field first). 0: top field first 1: bottom field first

yadif=[mode[:field_dominance]]

Yet another deinterlacing filter

s

0: Output 1 frame for each frame. 1: Output 1 frame for each field. 2: Like 0 but skips spatial interlacing check. 3: Like 1 but skips spatial interlacing check.

s

Operates like tfields.

mcdeint=[mode[:parity[:qp]]]

Motion compensating deinterlacer. It needs one field per frame as input and must thus be used together with tfields=1 or yadif=1/3 or equivalent.

s

0: fast 1: medium 2: slow, iterative motion estimation 3: extra slow, like 2 plus multiple reference frames

s

0 or 1 selects which field to use (note: no autodetection yet!).

s

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

boxblur=radius:power[:radius:power]

box blur

s

blur filter strength

s

number of filter applications

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

shape adaptive blur

s

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

s

prefilter strength (~0.1-2.0)

s

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

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

smart blur

s

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

s

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

s

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

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

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

s

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

s

linear (0) or cubic resampling (1)

2xsai

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

1bpp

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

down3dright[=lines]

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

s

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

bmovl=hidden:opaque:fifo

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

FIFO commands are:

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

Change alpha transparency of the specified area.

s

Clear area.

s

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

s

Hide bitmap.

s

Show bitmap.

Arguments are:

s

image/area size

s

Start blitting at position x/y.

s

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

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

s

Clear the framebuffer before blitting.

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

framestep=I|[i]step

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

If you call the filter with I (uppercase) as the parameter, then only keyframes are rendered. For DVDs it generally means one in every 15/12 frames (IBBPBBPBBPBBPBB), for AVI it means every scene change or every keyint value (see -lavcopts keyint= value if you use MEncoder to encode the video).

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

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

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

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

tile=xtiles:ytiles:output:start:delta

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

The parameters are:

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

outer border thickness in pixels (default: 2)

s

inner border thickness in pixels (default: 4)

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

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

s

top left corner of the logo

s

width and height of the cleared rectangle

s

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

remove-logo=/path/to/logo_bitmap_file_name.pgm

Suppresses a TV station logo, using a PGM or PPM image file to determine which pixels comprise the logo. The width and height of the image file must match those of the video stream being processed. Uses the filter image and a circular blur algorithm to remove the logo.

s

[path] + filename of the filter image.

zrmjpeg[=options]

Software YV12 to MJPEG encoder for use with the zr2 video output device.

s

These options set the maximum width and height the zr card can handle (the MPlayer filter layer currently cannot query those).

s

Use these options to set maxwidth and maxheight automatically to the values known for card/:mode combo. For example, valid options are: dc10-PAL and buz-NTSC (default: dc10+PAL)

s

Select color or black and white encoding. Black and white encoding is faster. Color is the default.

s

Horizontal decimation 1, 2 or 4.

s

Vertical decimation 1, 2 or 4.

s

Set JPEG compression quality [BEST] 1 - 20 [VERY BAD].

s

By default, decimation is only performed if the Zoran hardware can upscale the resulting MJPEG images to the original size. The option fd instructs the filter to always perform the requested decimation (ugly).

screenshot

Allows acquiring screenshots of the movie using slave mode commands that can be bound to keypresses. See the slave mode documentation and the INTERACTIVE CONTROL section for details. Files named 'shotNNNN.png' will be saved in the working directory, using the first available number - no files will be overwritten. The filter has no overhead when not used and accepts an arbitrary colorspace, so it is safe to add it to the configuration file.

ass

Moves SSA/ASS subtitle rendering to an arbitrary point in the

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

blackframe[=amount:threshold]

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

s

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

s

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

-audio-delay <any floating-point number>

Delays either audio or video by setting a delay field in the header (default: 0.0). This does not delay either stream while encoding, but the player will see the delay field and compensate accordingly. Positive values delay the audio, and negative 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 <format>

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

EXAMPLE:

s

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

-ffourcc <fourcc>

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

EXAMPLE:

s

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 <filename> (DEPRECATED)

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

-hr-edl-seek

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

-info <option1:option2:...> (AVI only)

Specify the info header of the resulting AVI file.

Available options are:

s

Show this description.

s

title of the work

title of the work

s

artist or author of the work

s

original work category

s

contents of the work

s

copyright information

s

original format of the digitized material

s

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. subtitles are rendered when hardcoding subtitles onto a movie.

-noencodedups

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

-noodml (-of avi only)

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

-noskip

Do not skip frames.

-o <filename>

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

-oac <codec name>

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

EXAMPLE:

s

no encoding, just streamcopy

s

Encode to uncompressed PCM.

s

Encode to MP3 (using LAME).

s

Encode with a libavcodec codec.

-of <format> (BETA CODE!)

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

EXAMPLE:

s

Encode to AVI.

s

Encode to MPEG (also see -mpegopts).

s

Encode with libavformat muxers (also see -lavfopts).

s

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

s

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

-ofps <fps>

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

-ovc <codec name>

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

EXAMPLE:

s

no encoding, just streamcopy

s

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

s

Encode with a libavcodec codec.

-passlogfile <filename>

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

-skiplimit <value>

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

-vobsubout <basename>

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

-vobsuboutid <langid>

Specify the language two letter code for the subtitles. This

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

-vobsuboutindex <index>

Specify the index of the subtitles in the output files

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

-<codec>opts <option1[=value],option2,...>

Where <codec> may be: lavc, xvidenc, lame, toolame, twolame, nuv, xvfw, faac, x264enc, mpeg, lavf.

help

get help

vbr=<0-4>

variable bitrate method

s

cbr

s

mt

s

rh (default)

s

abr

s

mtrh

abr

average bitrate

cbr

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

br=<0-1024>

bitrate in kbps (CBR and ABR only)

q=<0-9>

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

aq=<0-9>

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

ratio=<1-100>

compression ratio

vol=<0-10>

audio input gain

mode=<0-3>

(default: auto)

s

stereo

s

joint-stereo

s

dualchannel

s

mono

padding=<0-2>

s

none

s

all

s

adjust

fast

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

highpassfreq=<freq>

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

lowpassfreq=<freq>

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

preset=<value>

preset values

s

Print additional options and information about presets settings.

s

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

s

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

s

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

s

CBR encoding, highest preset quality, 320 kbps bitrate

s

ABR encoding at average given kbps bitrate

EXAMPLES:

s

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

s

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

s

Encode with ABR presets at a 172 kbps average bitrate.

s

for people with extremely good hearing and similar equipment

br=<32-384>

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

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

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

maxvbr=<32-384> (VBR only)

maximum bitrate allowed per frame, in kbps

mode=<stereo | jstereo | mono | dual>

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

psy=<-1-4>

psychoacoustic model (default: 2)

errprot=<0 | 1>

Include error protection.

debug=<0-10>

debug level

br=<bitrate>

average bitrate in kbps (mutually exclusive with quality)

quality=<1-1000>

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

object=<1-4>

object type complexity

s

MAIN (default)

s

LOW

s

SSR

s

LTP (extremely slow)

mpeg=<2|4>

MPEG version (default: 4)

tns

Enables temporal noise shaping.

cutoff=<0-sampling_rate/2>

cutoff frequency (default: sampling_rate/2)

raw

Stores the bitstream as raw payload with extradata in the 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.

EXAMPLE:

s

acodec=<value>

audio codec (default: mp2)

s

MPEG Layer 2

s

MPEG Layer 3

s

AC3

s

IMA Adaptive PCM (4bits per sample, 4:1 compression)

s

Experimental lossy/lossless codec

abitrate=<value>

audio bitrate in kbps (default: 224)

atag=<value>

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

bit_exact

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

threads=<1-8>

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

vcodec=<value>

Employ the specified codec (default: mpeg4).

s

Motion JPEG

s

Lossless JPEG

s

H.261

s

H.263

s

H.263+

s

MPEG-4 (DivX 4/5)

s

DivX 3

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MS MPEG4v2

s

Windows Media Video, version 1 (AKA WMV7)

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Windows Media Video, version 2 (AKA WMV8)

s

an old RealVideo codec

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MPEG-1 video

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MPEG-2 video

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HuffYUV

s

nonstandard 20% smaller HuffYUV using YV12

s

ASUS Video v1

s

ASUS Video v2

s

FFmpeg's lossless video codec

s

Sorenson H.263 used in Flash Video

s

Sony Digital Video

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Apple Sorenson Video 1

s

FFmpeg's experimental wavelet-based codec

vqmin=<1-31>

minimum quantizer (pass 1/2)

s

Not recommended (much larger file, little quality difference and weird side effects: msmpeg4, h263 will be very low quality, ratecontrol will be confused resulting in lower quality and some decoders will not be able to decode it).

s

Recommended for normal mpeg4/:mpeg1video encoding (default).

s

Recommended for h263(p)/:msmpeg4. The reason for preferring 3 over 2 is that 2 could lead to overflows. (This will be fixed for h263(p) by changing the quantizer per MB in the future, msmpeg4 cannot be fixed as it does not support that.)

lmin=<0.01-255.0>

Minimum Lagrange multiplier for ratecontrol, you probably want it to be equal to or lower than vqmin (default: 2.0).

lmax=<0.01-255.0>

maximum 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: 0). In case of snow codec, value 0 means lossless encoding. Since the other codecs do not support this, vqscale=0 will be ignored and variable quantizers are used, which is the default. 1 is not recommended (see vqmin for details).

vqmax=<1-31>

Maximum quantizer (pass 1/2), 10-31 should be a sane range (default: 31).

mbqmin=<1-31>

obsolete, use vqmin

mbqmax=<1-31>

obsolete, use vqmax

vqdiff=<1-31>

maximum quantizer difference between consecutive I- or P-frames (pass 1/2) (default: 3)

vmax_b_frames=<0-4>

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

s

no B-frames (default)

s

sane range for MPEG-4

vme=<0-5>

motion estimation method. Available methods are:

s

none (very low quality)

s

full (slow, currently unmaintained and disabled)

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log (low quality, currently unmaintained and disabled)

s

phods (low quality, currently unmaintained and disabled)

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EPZS: size=1 diamond, size can be adjusted with the *dia options (default)

s

X1 (experimental, currently aliased to EPZS)

s

iter (iterative overlapped block, only used in snow)

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

me_range=<0-9999>

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

mbd=<0-2>

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.

s

Use mbcmp (default).

s

Select the MB mode which needs the fewest bits (=vhq).

s

Select the MB mode which has the best rate distortion.

vhq

Same as mbd=1, kept for compatibility reasons.

v4mv

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

obmc

overlapped block motion compensation (H.263+)

loop

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

inter_threshold <-1000-1000>

Does absolutely nothing at the moment.

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 a common for MPEG-1/2 to use values <=30.

sc_threshold=<-1000000000-1000000000>

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

sc_factor=<any positive integer>

Causes frames with higher quantizers to be more likely to 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:

s

Always use the maximum number of B-frames (default).

s

Avoid B-frames in high motion scenes. See the b_sensitivity option to tune this strategy.

s

Places B-frames more or less optimally to yield maximum quality (slower). You may want to reduce the speed impact of this option by tuning the option brd_scale.

b_sensitivity=<any integer greater than 0>

Adjusts how sensitively vb_strategy=1 detects motion and avoids using B-frames (default: 40). Lower sensitivities will result in more B-frames. Using more B-frames usually improves PSNR, but too many B-frames can hurt quality in high-motion scenes. Unless there is an extremely high amount of motion, b_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.

s

Disabled (default).

s

Use a wider search (larger values are slower).

vpass=<1-3>

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

s

first pass (also see turbo)

s

second pass

s

Nth pass (second and subsequent passes of N-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:

s

Saves statistics.

s

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=<x/y>

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

EXAMPLE:

s

autoaspect

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

vbitrate=<value>

Specify bitrate (pass 1/2) (default: 800). WARNING: 1kbit = 1000 bits

s

(in kbit)

s

(in bit)

vratetol=<value>

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

vrc_maxrate=<value>

maximum bitrate in kbit/:sec (pass 1/2) (default: 0, unlimited)

vrc_minrate=<value>

minimum bitrate in kbit/:sec (pass 1/2) (default: 0, unlimited)

vrc_buf_size=<value>

buffer size in kbit (pass 1/2). 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.

s

Use internal lavc ratecontrol (default).

s

Use XviD ratecontrol (experimental; requires MEncoder to be compiled with support for XviD 1.1 or higher).

vb_qfactor=<-31.0-31.0>

quantizer factor between B- and non-B-frames (pass 1/2) (default: 1.25)

vi_qfactor=<-31.0-31.0>

quantizer factor between I- and non-I-frames (pass 1/2) (default: 0.8)

vb_qoffset=<-31.0-31.0>

quantizer offset between B- and non-B-frames (pass 1/2) (default: 1.25)

vi_qoffset=<-31.0-31.0>

(pass 1/2) (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= <ip_quant>:lmax= <ip_quant>:vb_qfactor= <b_quant/:ip_quant>.

vqblur=<0.0-1.0> (pass one)

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

s

Quantizer blur disabled.

s

Average the quantizer over all previous frames.

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 (pass 1/2) (default: 0.5). For instance, assuming the default rate control equation is used, if vqcomp=1.0, the ratecontrol allocates to each frame the number of bits needed to encode them all at the same QP. If vqcomp=0.0, the ratecontrol allocates the same number of bits to each frame, i.e. strict CBR. NOTE: Those are extreme settings and should never be used. Perceptual quality will be optimal somewhere in between these two extremes.

vrc_eq=<equation>

main ratecontrol equation (pass 1/2)

s

constant bitrate

s

constant quality

s

approximately the equation of the old ratecontrol code

s

with qcomp 0.5 or something like that (default)

infix operators:

s

variables:

s

texture complexity

s

intra, non-intra texture complexity

s

average texture complexity

s

average intra texture complexity in I-frames

s

average intra texture complexity in P-frames

s

average non-intra texture complexity in P-frames

s

average non-intra texture complexity in B-frames

s

bits used for motion vectors

s

maximum length of motion vector in log2 scale

s

number of intra macroblocks / number of macroblocks

s

spatial complexity

s

temporal complexity

s

qcomp from the command line

s

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

s

See your favorite math book.

functions:

s

maximum / minimum

s

is 1 if a>b, 0 otherwise

s

is 1 if a<b, 0 otherwise

s

is 1 if a==b, 0 otherwise

s

vrc_override=<options>

User specified quality for specific parts (ending, credits, ...) (pass 1/2). The options are <start-frame>, <end-frame>, <quality>[/<start-frame>, <end-frame>, <quality>[/...]]:

s

quantizer

s

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 (pass 1/2).

s

Use clipping.

s

Use a nice differentiable function (default).

vlelim=<-1000-1000>

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

s

disabled (default)

s

JVT recommendation

vcelim=<-1000-1000>

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

s

disabled (default)

s

JVT recommendation

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

strict standard compliance

s

disabled

s

Only recommended if you want to feed the output into the MPEG-4 reference decoder.

s

Allow libavcodec specific extensions (default).

s

Enables experimental codecs and features which may not be playable with future MPlayer versions (snow, ffvhuff, ffv1).

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:

s

movement

s

low res picture

s

details

MV & DC are most important, loosing them looks far worse than loosing 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.

s

disabled (default)

s

good choice

ss

slice structured mode for H.263+

gray

grayscale only encoding (faster)

vfdct=<0-10>

DCT algorithm

s

Automatically select a good one (default).

s

fast integer

s

accurate integer

s

MMX

s

mlib

s

AltiVec

s

floating point AAN

idct=<0-99>

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

s

Automatically select a good one (default).

s

JPEG reference integer

s

simple

s

simplemmx

s

libmpeg2mmx (inaccurate, do not use for encoding with keyint >100)

s

ps2

s

mlib

s

arm

s

AltiVec

s

sh4

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.

s

disabled (default)

s

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.

s

disabled (default)

s

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).

s

disabled (default)

s

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>

s

automatic

s

bottom field first

s

top field first

format=<value>

s

default

s

for ffv1

s

for HuffYUV, lossless JPEG and ffv1

s

for lossless JPEG and ffv1

s

for lossless JPEG and ffv1

pred

(for HuffYUV)

s

left prediction

s

plane/:gradient prediction

s

median prediction

pred

(for lossless JPEG)

s

left prediction

s

top prediction

s

topleft prediction

s

plane/:gradient prediction

s

mean prediction

coder

(for ffv1)

s

vlc coding (Golomb-Rice)

s

arithmetic coding (CABAC)

context

(for ffv1)

s

small context model

s

large context model

(for ffvhuff)

s

predetermined Huffman tables (builtin or two pass)

s

adaptive Huffman tables

qpel

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

mbcmp=<0-2000>

Sets the comparison function for the macroblock decision, only used if mbd=0.

s

sum of absolute differences, fast (default)

s

sum of squared errors

s

sum of absolute Hadamard transformed differences

s

sum of absolute DCT transformed differences

s

sum of squared quantization errors (avoid, low quality)

s

number of bits needed for the block

s

rate distortion optimal, slow

s

0

s

sum of absolute vertical differences

s

sum of squared vertical differences

s

noise preserving sum of squared differences

s

5/3 wavelet, only used in snow

s

9/7 wavelet, only used in snow

s

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).

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.

s

shape adaptive (fast) diamond with size 3

s

shape adaptive (fast) diamond with size 2

s

slightly special: Can be slower and/or better than dia=-2.

s

normal size=1 diamond (default) =EPZS type diamond

      0
     000
      0

s

normal size=2 diamond

      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.

s

quantization parameter (QP) dependent constant

s

amount of bits needed to encode the block

s

sum of squared errors of the quantization

cbp

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

mv0

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

mv0_threshold=<any non-negative integer>

When surrounding motion vectors are <0,0> and the motion 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

s

(default)

s

Will use 2a+1 x 2a+1 macroblock square of motion vector predictors from the previous frame.

preme=<0-2>

motion estimation pre-pass

s

disabled

s

only after I-frames (default)

s

always

subq=<1-8>

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

refs=<1-8>

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

psnr

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

s

disabled (default)

s

Only lower the absolute value of coefficients.

s

Only change coefficients before the last non-zero coefficient + 1.

s

Try all.

inter_matrix=<comma separated matrix>

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

intra_matrix=<comma separated matrix>

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

vqmod_amp

experimental quantizer modulation

vqmod_freq

experimental quantizer modulation

dc

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

cgop (also see sc_threshold)

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

vglobal=<0-3>

Control writing global video headers.

s

Codec decides where to write global headers (default).

s

Write global headers only in extradata (needed for .mp4/MOV/NUT).

s

Write global headers only in front of keyframes.

s

Combine 1 and 2.

aglobal=<0-3>

Same as vglobal for audio headers.

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).

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=<value> (CBR or two pass mode)

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

fixed_quant=<1-31>

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

zones=<zone0>[/<zone1>[/...]] (CBR or two pass mode)

User specified quality for specific parts (ending, credits, ...). Each zone is <start-frame>,<mode>,<value> where <mode> may be

s

Constant quantizer override, where value=<2.0-31.0> represents the quantizer value.

s

Ratecontrol weight override, where value=<0.01-2.00> represents the quality correction in %.

EXAMPLE:

s

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

s

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)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=<width>:<height>:1.

4mv

Use 4 motion vectors per macroblock. This might give better compression, but slows down encoding. WARNING: As of XviD-1.0.x, this option is no longer available separately, and its functionality is included in the me_quality option. When me_quality > 4, 4mv is activated.

rc_reaction_delay_factor=<value>

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=<value>

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

rc_buffer=<value>

size of the rate control buffer

quant_range=<1-31>-<1-31>[/<1-31>-<1-31>]

CBR mode: min & max quantizer for all frames (default: 2-31) two pass mode: min & max quantizer for I/P-frames (default: 2-31/:2-31) WARNING: As of XviD-1.0.x, this option is replaced by the [min|max]_[i|p|b]quant options.

min_key_interval=<value> (two pass only)

minimum interval between keyframes (default: 0)

max_key_interval=<value>

maximum interval between keyframes (default: 10*fps)

mpeg_quant

Use MPEG quantizers instead of H.263. 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 must be used. WARNING: As of XviD-1.0.x, this option is replaced by the quant_type option.

mod_quant

Decide whether to use MPEG or H.263 quantizers on a frame-by-frame basis (two pass mode only). WARNING: This will generate an illegal bitstream, and most likely not be decodable by any MPEG-4 decoder besides libavcodec or XviD. WARNING: As of XviD-1.0.x, this option is no longer available.

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=<value> (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).

divx5bvop

Generate DivX5 compatible B-frames (default: on). This seems to be mandatory only for old versions of DivX's decoder. WARNING: As of XviD-1.0.x, this option is replaced by the closed_gop option.

(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.

debug

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

The following options are only available with the latest stable releases of XviD 1.0.x (api4).

(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.

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).

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!

(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.

quant_type=<h263|mpeg>

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

(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:

s

off

s

mode decision (inter/:intra MB) (default)

s

limited search

s

medium search

s

wide search

(no)lumi_mask

Adaptive quantization allows the macroblock quantizers to vary inside each frame. This is a 'psychosensory' setting that is supposed to make use of the fact that the human eye tends to 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.

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)

quant_intra_matrix=<filename>

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

quant_inter_matrix=<filename>

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

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=<profile_name>

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.

s

no restrictions (default)

s

simple profile at level 0

s

simple profile at level 1

s

simple profile at level 2

s

simple profile at level 3

s

advanced simple profile at level 0

s

advanced simple profile at level 1

s

advanced simple profile at level 2

s

advanced simple profile at level 3

s

advanced simple profile at level 4

s

advanced simple profile at level 5

s

DXN handheld profile

s

DXN portable NTSC profile

s

DXN portable PAL profile

s

DXN home theater NTSC profile

s

DXN home theater PAL profile

s

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=<mode>

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

s

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

s

PAL standard 4:3 PAR. Pixels are rectangles.

s

same as above

s

same as above

s

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

s

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

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

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

Specifies the width of the custom pixel aspect ratio.

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

Specifies the height of the custom pixel aspect ratio.

aspect=<x/y | f (float value)>

Store movie aspect internally, just like MPEG files. Much nicer solution than rescaling, because quality is not decreased. MPlayer and a few others players will play these files 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.

The following option is only available in XviD 1.1.x.

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).

The following option is only available in the CVS version of XviD.

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.

bitrate=<value>

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 (default: 26). 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.

crf=<1-50>

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.

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.

s

first pass

s

second pass (of two pass encoding)

s

Nth pass (second and third passes of three pass encoding)

Here is how it works, and how to use it: The first pass (pass=1) collects statistics on the video and writes them to a file. You might want to deactivate some CPU-hungry options, apart from the ones that are on by default. In two pass mode, the second pass (pass=2) reads the statistics file and bases ratecontrol decisions on it. In three pass mode, the second pass (pass=3, that is not a typo) does both: It first reads the statistics, then overwrites them. You can use all encoding options, except very CPU-hungry options. The third pass (pass=3) is the same as the second pass, except that it has the second pass' statistics to work from. You can use all encoding options, including CPU-hungry ones. The first pass may use either average bitrate or constant quantizer. ABR is recommended, since it does not require guessing a quantizer. Subsequent passes are ABR, and must specify bitrate.

turbo=<0-2>

Fast first pass mode. During the first pass of a two or more pass encode it is possible to gain speed by disabling some options with negligible or even no impact on the final pass output quality.

s

disabled (default)

s

Reduce subq, frameref and disable some inter-macroblock partition analysis modes.

s

Reduce subq and frameref to 1, use a diamond ME search and disable all partition analysis modes.

Level 1 can increase first pass speed up to 2x with no change in the global PSNR of the final pass compared to a full quality first pass. Level 2 can increase first pass speed up to 4x with about +/- 0.05dB change in the global PSNR of the final pass compared to a full quality first pass.

keyint=<value>

Sets maximum interval between IDR-frames (default: 250). Larger values save bits, thus improve quality, at the cost of seeking precision. Unlike MPEG-1/2/4, H.264 does not suffer from DCT drift with large values of keyint.

keyint_min=<1-keyint/2>

Sets minimum interval between IDR-frames (default: 25). If scenecuts appear within this interval, they are still encoded as I-frames, but do not start a new GOP. In H.264, I-frames do not necessarily bound a closed GOP because it is allowable for a P-frame to be predicted from more frames than just the one frame before it (also see frameref). Therefore, I-frames are not necessarily seekable. IDR-frames restrict subsequent P-frames from referring to any frame prior to the IDR-frame.

scenecut=<-1-100>

Controls how aggressively to insert extra I-frames (default: 40). With small values of scenecut, the codec often has to force an I-frame when it would exceed keyint. Good values of scenecut may find a better location for the I-frame. Large values use more I-frames than necessary, thus wasting bits. -1 disables scene-cut detection, so I-frames are inserted only once every other keyint frames, even if a scene-cut occurs earlier. This is not recommended and wastes bitrate as scenecuts encoded as P-frames are just as big as I-frames, but do not reset the "keyint counter".

frameref=<1-16>

Number of previous frames used as predictors in B- and P-frames (default: 1). This is effective in anime, but in live-action material the improvements usually drop off very rapidly above 6 or so reference frames. This has no effect on decoding speed, but does increase the memory needed for decoding. Some decoders can only handle a maximum of 15 reference frames.

bframes=<0-16>

maximum number of consecutive B-frames between I- and P-frames (default: 0)

(no)b_adapt

Automatically decides when to use B-frames and how many, up to the maximum specified above (default: on). If this option is disabled, then the maximum number of B-frames is used.

b_bias=<-100-100>

Controls the decision performed by b_adapt. A higher b_bias produces more B-frames (default: 0).

(no)b_pyramid

Allows B-frames to be used as references for predicting other frames. For example, consider 3 consecutive B-frames: I0 B1 B2 B3 P4. Without this option, B-frames follow the same pattern as MPEG-[124]. So they are coded in the order I0 P4 B1 B2 B3, and all the B-frames are predicted from I0 and P4. With this option, they are coded as I0 P4 B2 B1 B3. B2 is the same as above, but B1 is predicted from I0 and B2, and B3 is predicted from B2 and P4. This usually results in slightly improved compression, at almost no speed cost. However, this is an experimental option: it is not fully tuned and may not always help. Requires bframes >= 2. Disadvantage: increases decoding delay to 2 frames.

(no)deblock

Use deblocking filter (default: on). As it takes very little time compared to its quality gain, it is not recommended to disable it.

deblock=<-6-6>,<-6-6>

The first parameter is AlphaC0 (default: 0). This adjusts thresholds for the H.264 in-loop deblocking filter. First, this parameter adjusts the maximum amount of change that the filter is allowed to cause on any one pixel. Secondly, this parameter affects the threshold for difference across the edge being filtered. A positive value reduces blocking artifacts more, but will also smear details. The second parameter is Beta (default: 0). This affects the detail threshold. Very detailed blocks are not filtered, since the smoothing caused by the filter would be more noticeable than the original blocking. The default behavior of the filter almost always achieves optimal quality, so it is best to either leave it alone, or make only small adjustments. However, if your source material already has some blocking or noise which you would like to remove, it may be a good idea to turn it up a little bit.

(no)cabac

Use CABAC (Context-Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding) (default: on). Slightly slows down encoding and decoding, but should save 10-15% bitrate. Unless you are looking for decoding speed, you should not disable it.

qp_min=<1-51> (ABR or two pass)

Minimum quantizer, 10-30 seems to be a useful range (default: 10).

qp_max=<1-51> (ABR or two pass)

maximum quantizer (default: 51)

qp_step=<1-50> (ABR or two pass)

maximum value by which the quantizer may be incremented/decremented between frames (default: 4)

ratetol=<0.1-100.0> (ABR or two pass)

allowed variance in average bitrate (no particular units) (default: 1.0)

vbv_maxrate=<value> (ABR or two pass)

maximum local bitrate, in kbits/:second (default: disabled)

vbv_bufsize=<value> (ABR or two pass)

averaging period for vbv_maxrate, in kbits (default: none, must be specified if vbv_maxrate is enabled)

vbv_init=<0.0-1.0> (ABR or two pass)

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

ip_factor=<value>

quantizer factor between I- and P-frames (default: 1.4)

pb_factor=<value>

quantizer factor between P- and B-frames (default: 1.3)

qcomp=<0-1> (ABR or two pass)

quantizer compression (default: 0.6). A lower value makes the bitrate more constant, while a higher value makes the quantization parameter more constant.

cplx_blur=<0-999> (two pass only)

Temporal blur of the estimated frame complexity, before curve compression (default: 20). Lower values allow the quantizer value to jump around more, higher values force it to vary more smoothly. cplx_blur ensures that each I-frame has quality comparable to the following P-frames, and ensures that alternating high and low complexity frames (e.g. low fps animation) do not waste bits on fluctuating quantizer.

qblur=<0-99> (two pass only)

Temporal blur of the quantization parameter, after curve compression (default: 0.5). Lower values allow the quantizer value to jump around more, higher values force it to vary more smoothly.

zones=<zone0>[/<zone1>[/...]]

User specified quality for specific parts (ending, credits, ...). Each zone is <start-frame>,<end-frame>,<option> where option may be

s

quantizer

s

bitrate multiplier

NOTE: The quantizer option is not strictly enforced. It affects only the planning stage of ratecontrol, and is still subject to overflow compensation and qp_min/qp_max.

direct_pred=<name>

Determines the type of motion prediction used for direct macroblocks in B-frames.

s

Direct macroblocks are not used.

s

Motion vectors are extrapolated from neighboring blocks. (default)

s

Motion vectors are interpolated from the following P-frame.

s

The codec selects between spatial and temporal for each frame.

Spatial and temporal are approximately the same speed and PSNR, the choice between them depends on the video content. Auto is slightly better, but slower. Auto is most effective when combined with multipass. direct_pred=none is both slower and lower quality.

(no)weight_b

Use weighted prediction in B-frames. Without this option, bidirectionally predicted macroblocks give equal weight to each reference frame. With this option, the weights are determined by the temporal position of the B-frame relative to the references. Requires bframes > 1.

partitions=<list>

Enable some optional macroblock types (default: p8x8,b8x8,i8x8,i4x4).

s

Enable types p16x8, p8x16, p8x8.

s

Enable types p8x4, p4x8, p4x4. p4x4 is recommended only with subq >= 5, and only at low resolutions.

s

Enable types b16x8, b8x16, b8x8.

s

Enable type i8x8. i8x8 has no effect unless 8x8dct is enabled.

s

Enable type i4x4.

s

Enable all of the above types.

s

Disable all of the above types.

Regardless of this option, macroblock types p16x16, b16x16, and i16x16 are always enabled. The idea is to find the type and size that best describe a certain area of the picture. For example, a global pan is better represented by 16x16 blocks, while small moving objects are better represented by smaller blocks.

(no)8x8dct

Adaptive spatial transform size: allows macroblocks to choose between 4x4 and 8x8 DCT. Also allows the i8x8 macroblock type. Without this option, only 4x4 DCT is used.

me=<name>

Select fullpixel motion estimation algorithm.

s

diamond search, radius 1 (fast)

s

hexagon search, radius 2 (default)

s

uneven multi-hexagon search (slow)

s

exhaustive search (very slow, and no better than umh)

me_range=<4-64>

radius of exhaustive or multi-hexagon motion search (default: 16)

subq=<1-7>

Adjust subpel refinement quality. This parameter controls quality versus speed tradeoffs involved in the motion estimation decision process. subq=5 can compress up to 10% better than subq=1.

s

Runs fullpixel precision motion estimation on all candidate macroblock types. Then selects the best type. Then refines the motion of that type to fast quarterpixel precision (fastest).

s

Runs halfpixel precision motion estimation on all candidate macroblock types. Then selects the best type. Then refines the motion of that type to fast quarterpixel precision.

s

As 2, but uses a slower quarterpixel refinement.

s

Runs fast quarterpixel precision motion estimation on all candidate macroblock types. Then selects the best type. Then finishes the quarterpixel refinement for that type.

s

Runs best quality quarterpixel precision motion estimation on all candidate macroblock types, before selecting the best type (default).

s

Enables rate-distortion optimization of macroblock types in I- and P-frames.

s

Enables rate-distortion optimization of motion vectors and intra modes. (best)

In the above, "all candidates" does not exactly mean all enabled types: 4x4, 4x8, 8x4 are tried only if 8x8 is better than 16x16.

(no)chroma_me

Takes into account chroma information during subpixel motion search (default: enabled). Requires subq>=5.

(no)mixed_refs

Allows each 8x8 or 16x8 motion partition to independently select a reference frame. Without this option, a whole macroblock must use the same reference. Requires frameref>1.

(no)brdo

Enables rate-distortion optimization of macroblock types in B-frames. Requires subq>=6.

(no)bime

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.

trellis=<0-2>

rate-distortion optimal quantization

s

disabled (default)

s

enabled only for the final encode

s

enabled during all mode decisions (slow, requires subq>=6)

deadzone_inter=<0-32>

Set the size of the inter luma quantization deadzone for non-trellis quantization (default: 21).

deadzone_intra=<0-32>

Set the size of the intra luma quantization deadzone for non-trellis quantization (default: 11).

(no)fast_pskip

Performs early skip detection in P-frames (default: enabled). This usually improves speed at no cost, but it can sometimes produce artifacts in areas with no details, like sky.

(no)dct_decimate

Eliminate dct blocks in P-frames containing only a small single coefficient (default: enabled). This will remove some details, so it will save bits that can be spent again on other frames, hopefully raising overall subjective quality. If you are compressing non-anime content with a high target bitrate, you may want to disable this to preserve as much detail as possible.

nr=<0-100000>

Noise reduction, 0 means disabled. 100-1000 is a useful range for typical content, but you may want to turn it up a bit more for very noisy content (default: 0). Given its small impact on speed, you might want to prefer to use this over filtering noise away with video filters like denoise3d or hqdn3d.

chroma_qp_offset=<-12-12>

Use a different quantizer for chroma as compared to luma. Useful values are in the range <-2-2> (default: 0).

cqm=<flat|jvt|<filename>>

Either uses a predefined custom quantization matrix or loads a JM format matrix file.

s

Use the predefined flat 16 matrix (default).

s

Use the predefined JVT matrix.

s

Use the provided JM format matrix file.

NOTE: Windows CMD.EXE users may experience problems with parsing the command line if they attempt to use all the CQM lists. This is due to a command line length limitation. In this case it is recommended the lists be put into a JM format CQM file and loaded as specified above.

cqm4iy=<list> (also see cqm)

Custom 4x4 intra luminance matrix, given as a list of 16 comma separated values in the 1-255 range.

cqm4ic=<list> (also see cqm)

Custom 4x4 intra chrominance matrix, given as a list of 16 comma separated values in the 1-255 range.

cqm4py=<list> (also see cqm)

Custom 4x4 inter luminance matrix, given as a list of 16 comma separated values in the 1-255 range.

cqm4pc=<list> (also see cqm)

Custom 4x4 inter chrominance matrix, given as a list of 16 comma separated values in the 1-255 range.

cqm8iy=<list> (also see cqm)

Custom 8x8 intra luminance matrix, given as a list of 64 comma separated values in the 1-255 range.

cqm8py=<list> (also see cqm)

Custom 8x8 inter luminance matrix, given as a list of 64 comma separated values in the 1-255 range.

level_idc=<10-51>

Set the bitstream's level as defined by annex A of the H.264 standard (default: 51 - Level 5.1). This is used for telling the decoder what capabilities it needs to support. Use this parameter only if you know what it means, and you have a need to set it.

threads=<1-4>

Split each frame into slices and encode them in parallel (default: 1). Also allows multithreaded decoding if the decoder supports it (lavc does not). This has a slight penalty to compression. Requires that libx264 was compiled with pthread support; if not, this option will produce a warning and enables slices but not multithreading.

(no)global_header

Causes SPS and PPS to appear only once, at the beginning of the bitstream (default: disabled). Some players, such as the Sony PSP, require the use of this option. The default behavior causes SPS and PPS to repeat prior to each IDR frame.

(no)interlaced

Treat the video content as interlaced.

log=<-1-3>

Adjust the amount of logging info printed to the screen.

s

none

s

Print errors only.

s

warnings

s

PSNR and other analysis statistics when the encode finishes (default)

s

PSNR, QP, frametype, size, and other statistics for every frame

(no)psnr

Print signal-to-noise ratio statistics. NOTE: The 'Y', 'U', 'V', and 'Avg' PSNR fields in the summary are not mathematically sound (they are simply the average of per-frame PSNRs). They are kept only for comparison to the JM reference codec. For all other purposes, please use either the 'Global' PSNR, or the per-frame PSNRs printed by log=3.

(no)ssim

Print the Structural Similarity Metric results. This is an alternative to PSNR, and may be better correlated with the perceived quality of the compressed video.

(no)visualize

Enable x264 visualizations during encoding. If the x264 on your system supports it, a new window will be opened during the encoding process, in which x264 will attempt to present an overview of how each frame gets encoded. Each block type on the visualized movie will be colored as follows:

s

intra block

s

inter block

s

skip block

s

B-block

This feature can be considered experimental and subject to change. In particular, it depends on x264 being compiled with visualizations enabled. Note that as of writing this, x264 pauses after encoding and visualizing each frame, waiting for the user to press a key, at which point the next frame will be encoded.

codec=<name>

The name of the binary codec file with which to encode.

EXAMPLE:

s

format=<mpeg1 | mpeg2 | xvcd | xsvcd | dvd>

stream format (default: mpeg2)

size=<up to 65535>

Pack size in bytes, do not change unless you know exactly what you are doing (default: 2048).

muxrate=<int>

Nominal muxrate in kbit/s used in the pack headers (default: 1800 kb/s). Will be updated as necessary in the case of 'format=mpeg1' or 'mpeg2'.

tsaf

Sets timestamps on all frames, if possible.

init_vpts=<100-700>

initial video pts, in milliseconds (default: 200)

init_apts=<100-700>

initial audio pts, in milliseconds (default: 200)

vdelay=<1-32760>

Initial video delay time, in milliseconds (default: 0), use it if you want to delay video with respect to audio.

drop

When used with init_adelay the muxer drops the part of audio that was anticipated.

vwidth, vheight=<1-4095>

Set the video width and height when video is MPEG-1/2.

vpswidth, vpsheight=<1-4095>

Set pan and scan video width and height when video is MPEG-2.

vaspect=<1 | 4/3 | 16/9 | 221/100>

Sets the display aspect ratio for MPEG-2 video. Do not use it on MPEG-1 or the resulting aspect ratio will be completely wrong.

vbitrate=<int>

Sets the video bitrate in kbit/s for MPEG-1/2 video.

vframerate=<24000/1001 | 24 | 25 | 30000/1001 | 30 | 50 | 60000/1001 | 60 >

Sets the framerate for MPEG-1/2 video. This option will be ignored if used with the telecine option.

telecine

Enables 3:2 pulldown soft telecine mode: The muxer will make the video stream look like it was encoded at 30000/1001 or 30 fps. It only works with MPEG-2 video when the output framerate, converted with -ofps, is either 24000/1001 or 24 fps. Any other framerate is incompatible with this option.

film2pal

Enables FILM to PAL and NTSC to PAL soft telecine mode: The muxer will make the video stream look like it was encoded at 25 fps. It only works with MPEG-2 video when the output framerate, converted with -ofps, is either 24000/1001 or 24 fps. Any other framerate is incompatible with this option.

probesize=<value>

Maximum amount of data to probe during the detection phase. In the case of MPEG-TS this value identifies the maximum number of TS packets to scan.

delay=<value>

Currently only meaningful for MPEG[12]: Maximum allowed distance, in seconds, between the reference timer of the output stream (SCR) and the decoding timestamp (DTS) for any stream present (demux to decode delay). Default is 0.7 (as mandated by the standards defined by MPEG). Higher values require larger buffers and must not be used.

format=<container_format>

Override which container format to mux into (default: autodetect from output file extension).

s

MPEG-1 systems and MPEG-2 PS

s

Advanced Streaming Format

s

Audio Video Interleave file

s

Waveform Audio

s

Macromedia Flash

s

Macromedia Flash video files

s

RealAudio and RealVideo

s

SUN AU format

s

NUT open container format (experimental)

s

QuickTime

s

MPEG-4 format

s

Sony Digital Video container

i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames

MEncoder cannot assign correct timestamps when there are B-frames in the video stream, resulting in broken encodes.

muxrate=<rate>

Nominal bitrate of the multiplex, in bits per second; currently it is meaningful only for MPEG[12]. Sometimes raising it is necessary in order to avoid "buffer underflows".

packetsize=<size>

Size, expressed in bytes, of the unitary packet for the chosen format. When muxing to MPEG[12] implementations the default values are: 2324 for [S]VCD, 2048 for all others formats.

preload=<distance>

Currently only meaningful for MPEG[12]: Initial distance, in seconds, between the reference timer of the output stream (SCR) and the decoding timestamp (DTS) for any stream present (demux to decode delay).

MPLAYER_CHARSET (also see -msgcharset)

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

MPLAYER_HOME

Directory where MPlayer looks for user settings.

MPLAYER_VERBOSE (also see -v and -msglevel)

Set the initial verbosity level across all message modules (default: 0). Negative values result in fewer messages while positive values result in more.

LADSPA_PATH

If LADSPA_PATH is set, it searches for the specified file. If it is not set, you must supply a fully specified pathname. FIXME: This is also mentioned in the ladspa section.

DVDCSS_CACHE

Specify a directory in which to store title key values. This

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

DVDCSS_METHOD

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

s

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

s

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

s

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

DVDCSS_RAW_DEVICE

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

DVDCSS_VERBOSE

Sets the libdvdcss verbosity level.

s

Outputs no messages at all.

s

Outputs error messages to stderr.

s

Outputs error messages and debug messages to stderr.

DVDREAD_NOKEYS

Skip retrieving all keys on startup. Currently disabled.

HOME

FIXME: Document this.

AO_SUN_DISABLE_SAMPLE_TIMING

FIXME: Document this.

AUDIODEV

FIXME: Document this.

AUDIOSERVER

Specifies the Network Audio System server to which the nas audio output driver should connect and the transport that should be used. If unset DISPLAY is used instead. The transport can be one of tcp and unix. Syntax is tcp/<somehost>:<someport>, <somehost>:<instancenumber> or [unix]:<instancenumber>. The NAS base port is 8000 and <instancenumber> is added to that.

EXAMPLES:

s

Connect to NAS server on somehost using default port and transport.

s

Connect to NAS server on somehost listening on TCP port 8000.

s

Connect to NAS server instance 0 on localhost using unix domain sockets.

DISPLAY

FIXME: Document this.

VIDIX_CRT

FIXME: Document this.

TERM

FIXME: Document this.

DISPLAY

FIXME: Document this.

FRAMEBUFFER

FIXME: Document this.

HOME

FIXME: Document this.

HOME

FIXME: Document this.

HOMEPATH

FIXME: Document this.

http_proxy

FIXME: Document this.

LOGNAME

FIXME: Document this.

USERPROFILE

FIXME: Document this.

XANIM_MOD_DIR

FIXME: Document this.

CHARSET

FIXME: Document this.

DISPLAY

FIXME: Document this.

HOME

FIXME: Document this.

AUDIO_FLIP_LEFT

FIXME: Document this.

BKTR_DEV

FIXME: Document this.

BKTR_FORMAT

FIXME: Document this.

BKTR_FREQUENCY

FIXME: Document this.

http_proxy

FIXME: Document this.

no_proxy

FIXME: Document this.

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

MPlayer system-wide settings

/usr/:local/:etc/:mplayer/:mencoder.conf

MEncoder system-wide settings

~/.mplayer/:config

MPlayer user settings

~/.mplayer/:mencoder.conf

MEncoder user settings

~/.mplayer/:input.conf

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

~/.mplayer/:gui.conf

GUI configuration file

~/.mplayer/:gui.pl

GUI playlist

~/.mplayer/:font/

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

~/.mplayer/:DVDkeys/

cached CSS keys

Assuming that /path/:to/:movie.avi is played, MPlayer searches for sub files

in this order:

/path/:to/:movie.sub ~/.mplayer/:sub/:movie.sub

Quickstart DVD playing:

mplayer dvd://1

Play in Japanese with English subtitles:

Play in Japanese with English subtitles:

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

Play only chapters 5, 6, 7:

mplayer dvd://1 -chapter 5-7

Play only titles 5, 6, 7:

Play only titles 5, 6, 7:

mplayer dvd://5-7

Play a multiangle DVD:

mplayer dvd://1 -dvdangle 2

Play from a different DVD device:

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

Play DVD video from a directory with VOB files:

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

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

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

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

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

Stream from HTTP: