ffplay - FFplay media player
ffplay [options] [input_url]
FFplay is a very simple and portable media player using the FFmpeg
libraries and the SDL library. It is mostly used as a testbed for the
various FFmpeg APIs.
All the numerical options, if not specified otherwise, accept a
string representing a number as input, which may be followed by one of the
SI unit prefixes, for example: 'K', 'M', or 'G'.
If 'i' is appended to the SI unit prefix, the complete prefix will
be interpreted as a unit prefix for binary multiples, which are based on
powers of 1024 instead of powers of 1000. Appending 'B' to the SI unit
prefix multiplies the value by 8. This allows using, for example: 'KB',
'MiB', 'G' and 'B' as number suffixes.
Options which do not take arguments are boolean options, and set
the corresponding value to true. They can be set to false by prefixing the
option name with "no". For example using "-nofoo" will
set the boolean option with name "foo" to false.
Some options are applied per-stream, e.g. bitrate or codec. Stream
specifiers are used to precisely specify which stream(s) a given option
belongs to.
A stream specifier is a string generally appended to the option
name and separated from it by a colon. E.g.
"-codec:a:1 ac3" contains the
"a:1" stream specifier, which matches the
second audio stream. Therefore, it would select the ac3 codec for the second
audio stream.
A stream specifier can match several streams, so that the option
is applied to all of them. E.g. the stream specifier in
"-b:a 128k" matches all audio streams.
An empty stream specifier matches all streams. For example,
"-codec copy" or
"-codec: copy" would copy all the streams
without reencoding.
Possible forms of stream specifiers are:
- stream_index
- Matches the stream with this index. E.g. "-threads:1
4" would set the thread count for the second stream to 4. If
stream_index is used as an additional stream specifier (see below),
then it selects stream number stream_index from the matching
streams. Stream numbering is based on the order of the streams as detected
by libavformat except when a program ID is also specified. In this case it
is based on the ordering of the streams in the program.
- stream_type[:additional_stream_specifier]
- stream_type is one of following: 'v' or 'V' for video, 'a' for
audio, 's' for subtitle, 'd' for data, and 't' for attachments. 'v'
matches all video streams, 'V' only matches video streams which are not
attached pictures, video thumbnails or cover arts. If
additional_stream_specifier is used, then it matches streams which
both have this type and match the additional_stream_specifier.
Otherwise, it matches all streams of the specified type.
- p:program_id[:additional_stream_specifier]
- Matches streams which are in the program with the id program_id. If
additional_stream_specifier is used, then it matches streams which
both are part of the program and match the
additional_stream_specifier.
- #stream_id or i:stream_id
- Match the stream by stream id (e.g. PID in MPEG-TS container).
- m:key[:value]
- Matches streams with the metadata tag key having the specified
value. If value is not given, matches streams that contain the
given tag with any value.
- u
- Matches streams with usable configuration, the codec must be defined and
the essential information such as video dimension or audio sample rate
must be present.
Note that in ffmpeg, matching by metadata will only
work properly for input files.
These options are shared amongst the ff* tools.
- -L
- Show license.
- -h, -?, -help, --help
[arg]
- Show help. An optional parameter may be specified to print help about a
specific item. If no argument is specified, only basic (non advanced) tool
options are shown.
Possible values of arg are:
- long
- Print advanced tool options in addition to the basic tool options.
- full
- Print complete list of options, including shared and private options for
encoders, decoders, demuxers, muxers, filters, etc.
- decoder=decoder_name
- Print detailed information about the decoder named decoder_name.
Use the -decoders option to get a list of all decoders.
- encoder=encoder_name
- Print detailed information about the encoder named encoder_name.
Use the -encoders option to get a list of all encoders.
- demuxer=demuxer_name
- Print detailed information about the demuxer named demuxer_name.
Use the -formats option to get a list of all demuxers and
muxers.
- muxer=muxer_name
- Print detailed information about the muxer named muxer_name. Use
the -formats option to get a list of all muxers and demuxers.
- filter=filter_name
- Print detailed information about the filter name filter_name. Use
the -filters option to get a list of all filters.
- bsf=bitstream_filter_name
- Print detailed information about the bitstream filter name
bitstream_filter_name. Use the -bsfs option to get a list of
all bitstream filters.
- -version
- Show version.
- -formats
- Show available formats (including devices).
- -demuxers
- Show available demuxers.
- -muxers
- Show available muxers.
- -devices
- Show available devices.
- -codecs
- Show all codecs known to libavcodec.
Note that the term 'codec' is used throughout this
documentation as a shortcut for what is more correctly called a media
bitstream format.
- -decoders
- Show available decoders.
- -encoders
- Show all available encoders.
- -bsfs
- Show available bitstream filters.
- -protocols
- Show available protocols.
- -filters
- Show available libavfilter filters.
- -pix_fmts
- Show available pixel formats.
- -sample_fmts
- Show available sample formats.
- -layouts
- Show channel names and standard channel layouts.
- -colors
- Show recognized color names.
- -sources
device[,opt1=val1[,opt2=val2]...]
- Show autodetected sources of the input device. Some devices may provide
system-dependent source names that cannot be autodetected. The returned
list cannot be assumed to be always complete.
ffmpeg -sources pulse,server=192.168.0.4
- -sinks
device[,opt1=val1[,opt2=val2]...]
- Show autodetected sinks of the output device. Some devices may provide
system-dependent sink names that cannot be autodetected. The returned list
cannot be assumed to be always complete.
ffmpeg -sinks pulse,server=192.168.0.4
- -loglevel
[flags+]loglevel | -v
[flags+]loglevel
- Set logging level and flags used by the library.
The optional flags prefix can consist of the following
values:
- repeat
- Indicates that repeated log output should not be compressed to the first
line and the "Last message repeated n times" line will be
omitted.
- level
- Indicates that log output should add a
"[level]" prefix to each message line.
This can be used as an alternative to log coloring, e.g. when dumping the
log to file.
Flags can also be used alone by adding a '+'/'-' prefix to
set/reset a single flag without affecting other flags or changing
loglevel. When setting both flags and loglevel, a '+'
separator is expected between the last flags value and before
loglevel.
loglevel is a string or a number containing one of the
following values:
- quiet, -8
- Show nothing at all; be silent.
- panic, 0
- Only show fatal errors which could lead the process to crash, such as an
assertion failure. This is not currently used for anything.
- fatal, 8
- Only show fatal errors. These are errors after which the process
absolutely cannot continue.
- error, 16
- Show all errors, including ones which can be recovered from.
- warning,
24
- Show all warnings and errors. Any message related to possibly incorrect or
unexpected events will be shown.
- info, 32
- Show informative messages during processing. This is in addition to
warnings and errors. This is the default value.
- verbose,
40
- Same as "info", except more
verbose.
- debug, 48
- Show everything, including debugging information.
- trace, 56
For example to enable repeated log output, add the
"level" prefix, and set loglevel to
"verbose":
ffmpeg -loglevel repeat+level+verbose -i input output
Another example that enables repeated log output without affecting
current state of "level" prefix flag or
loglevel:
ffmpeg [...] -loglevel +repeat
By default the program logs to stderr. If coloring is supported by
the terminal, colors are used to mark errors and warnings. Log coloring can
be disabled setting the environment variable AV_LOG_FORCE_NOCOLOR, or
can be forced setting the environment variable
AV_LOG_FORCE_COLOR.
- -report
- Dump full command line and log output to a file named
"program-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.log"
in the current directory. This file can be useful for bug reports. It also
implies "-loglevel debug".
Setting the environment variable FFREPORT to any value
has the same effect. If the value is a ':'-separated key=value sequence,
these options will affect the report; option values must be escaped if
they contain special characters or the options delimiter ':' (see the
``Quoting and escaping'' section in the ffmpeg-utils manual).
The following options are recognized:
- file
- set the file name to use for the report; %p is
expanded to the name of the program, %t is
expanded to a timestamp, "%%" is
expanded to a plain "%"
- level
- set the log verbosity level using a numerical value (see
"-loglevel").
For example, to output a report to a file named
ffreport.log using a log level of 32 (alias
for log level "info"):
FFREPORT=file=ffreport.log:level=32 ffmpeg -i input output
Errors in parsing the environment variable are not fatal, and will
not appear in the report.
- -hide_banner
- Suppress printing banner.
All FFmpeg tools will normally show a copyright notice, build
options and library versions. This option can be used to suppress
printing this information.
- -cpuflags flags
(global)
- Allows setting and clearing cpu flags. This option is intended for
testing. Do not use it unless you know what you're doing.
ffmpeg -cpuflags -sse+mmx ...
ffmpeg -cpuflags mmx ...
ffmpeg -cpuflags 0 ...
Possible flags for this option are:
These options are provided directly by the libavformat,
libavdevice and libavcodec libraries. To see the list of available
AVOptions, use the -help option. They are separated into two
categories:
- generic
- These options can be set for any container, codec or device. Generic
options are listed under AVFormatContext options for containers/devices
and under AVCodecContext options for codecs.
- private
- These options are specific to the given container, device or codec.
Private options are listed under their corresponding
containers/devices/codecs.
For example to write an ID3v2.3 header instead of a default
ID3v2.4 to an MP3 file, use the id3v2_version private option of the
MP3 muxer:
ffmpeg -i input.flac -id3v2_version 3 out.mp3
All codec AVOptions are per-stream, and thus a stream specifier
should be attached to them:
ffmpeg -i multichannel.mxf -map 0:v:0 -map 0:a:0 -map 0:a:0 -c:a:0 ac3 -b:a:0 640k -ac:a:1 2 -c:a:1 aac -b:2 128k out.mp4
In the above example, a multichannel audio stream is mapped twice
for output. The first instance is encoded with codec ac3 and bitrate 640k.
The second instance is downmixed to 2 channels and encoded with codec aac. A
bitrate of 128k is specified for it using absolute index of the output
stream.
Note: the -nooption syntax cannot be used for boolean
AVOptions, use -option 0/-option 1.
Note: the old undocumented way of specifying per-stream AVOptions
by prepending v/a/s to the options name is now obsolete and will be removed
soon.
- -x width
- Force displayed width.
- -y height
- Force displayed height.
- -s size
- Set frame size (WxH or abbreviation), needed for videos which do not
contain a header with the frame size like raw YUV. This option has been
deprecated in favor of private options, try -video_size.
- -fs
- Start in fullscreen mode.
- -an
- Disable audio.
- -vn
- Disable video.
- -sn
- Disable subtitles.
- -ss pos
- Seek to pos. Note that in most formats it is not possible to seek
exactly, so ffplay will seek to the nearest seek point to
pos.
pos must be a time duration specification, see the
Time duration section in the ffmpeg-utils(1)
manual.
- -t duration
- Play duration seconds of audio/video.
duration must be a time duration specification, see
the Time duration section in the ffmpeg-utils(1)
manual.
- -bytes
- Seek by bytes.
- -seek_interval
- Set custom interval, in seconds, for seeking using left/right keys.
Default is 10 seconds.
- -nodisp
- Disable graphical display.
- -noborder
- Borderless window.
- -alwaysontop
- Window always on top. Available on: X11 with SDL >= 2.0.5, Windows SDL
>= 2.0.6.
- -volume
- Set the startup volume. 0 means silence, 100 means no volume reduction or
amplification. Negative values are treated as 0, values above 100 are
treated as 100.
- -f fmt
- Force format.
- -window_title
title
- Set window title (default is the input filename).
- -left
title
- Set the x position for the left of the window (default is a centered
window).
- -top
title
- Set the y position for the top of the window (default is a centered
window).
- -loop
number
- Loops movie playback <number> times. 0 means forever.
- -showmode
mode
- Set the show mode to use. Available values for mode are:
- 0, video
- show video
- 1, waves
- show audio waves
- 2, rdft
- show audio frequency band using RDFT ((Inverse) Real Discrete Fourier
Transform)
Default value is "video", if video is not present or
cannot be played "rdft" is automatically selected.
You can interactively cycle through the available show modes by
pressing the key w.
- -vf
filtergraph
- Create the filtergraph specified by filtergraph and use it to
filter the video stream.
filtergraph is a description of the filtergraph to
apply to the stream, and must have a single video input and a single
video output. In the filtergraph, the input is associated to the label
"in", and the output to the label
"out". See the ffmpeg-filters manual
for more information about the filtergraph syntax.
You can specify this parameter multiple times and cycle
through the specified filtergraphs along with the show modes by pressing
the key w.
- -af
filtergraph
- filtergraph is a description of the filtergraph to apply to the
input audio. Use the option "-filters" to show all the available
filters (including sources and sinks).
- -i input_url
- Read input_url.
- -pix_fmt
format
- Set pixel format. This option has been deprecated in favor of private
options, try -pixel_format.
- -stats
- Print several playback statistics, in particular show the stream duration,
the codec parameters, the current position in the stream and the
audio/video synchronisation drift. It is shown by default, unless the log
level is lower than "info". Its display
can be forced by manually specifying this option. To disable it, you need
to specify "-nostats".
- -fast
- Non-spec-compliant optimizations.
- -genpts
- Generate pts.
- -sync
type
- Set the master clock to audio
("type=audio"), video
("type=video") or external
("type=ext"). Default is audio. The
master clock is used to control audio-video synchronization. Most media
players use audio as master clock, but in some cases (streaming or high
quality broadcast) it is necessary to change that. This option is mainly
used for debugging purposes.
- -ast
audio_stream_specifier
- Select the desired audio stream using the given stream specifier. The
stream specifiers are described in the Stream specifiers chapter.
If this option is not specified, the "best" audio stream is
selected in the program of the already selected video stream.
- -vst
video_stream_specifier
- Select the desired video stream using the given stream specifier. The
stream specifiers are described in the Stream specifiers chapter.
If this option is not specified, the "best" video stream is
selected.
- -sst
subtitle_stream_specifier
- Select the desired subtitle stream using the given stream specifier. The
stream specifiers are described in the Stream specifiers chapter.
If this option is not specified, the "best" subtitle stream is
selected in the program of the already selected video or audio
stream.
- -autoexit
- Exit when video is done playing.
- -exitonkeydown
- Exit if any key is pressed.
- -exitonmousedown
- Exit if any mouse button is pressed.
- -codec:media_specifier
codec_name
- Force a specific decoder implementation for the stream identified by
media_specifier, which can assume the values
"a" (audio),
"v" (video), and
"s" subtitle.
- -acodec
codec_name
- Force a specific audio decoder.
- -vcodec
codec_name
- Force a specific video decoder.
- -scodec
codec_name
- Force a specific subtitle decoder.
- -autorotate
- Automatically rotate the video according to file metadata. Enabled by
default, use -noautorotate to disable it.
- -framedrop
- Drop video frames if video is out of sync. Enabled by default if the
master clock is not set to video. Use this option to enable frame dropping
for all master clock sources, use -noframedrop to disable it.
- -infbuf
- Do not limit the input buffer size, read as much data as possible from the
input as soon as possible. Enabled by default for realtime streams, where
data may be dropped if not read in time. Use this option to enable
infinite buffers for all inputs, use -noinfbuf to disable it.
- -filter_threads
nb_threads
- Defines how many threads are used to process a filter pipeline. Each
pipeline will produce a thread pool with this many threads available for
parallel processing. The default is 0 which means that the thread count
will be determined by the number of available CPUs.
- q, ESC
- Quit.
- f
- Toggle full screen.
- p, SPC
- Pause.
- m
- Toggle mute.
- 9, 0
- Decrease and increase volume respectively.
- /, *
- Decrease and increase volume respectively.
- a
- Cycle audio channel in the current program.
- v
- Cycle video channel.
- t
- Cycle subtitle channel in the current program.
- c
- Cycle program.
- w
- Cycle video filters or show modes.
- s
- Step to the next frame.
Pause if the stream is not already paused, step to the next
video frame, and pause.
- left/right
- Seek backward/forward 10 seconds.
- down/up
- Seek backward/forward 1 minute.
- page down/page
up
- Seek to the previous/next chapter. or if there are no chapters Seek
backward/forward 10 minutes.
- right mouse
click
- Seek to percentage in file corresponding to fraction of width.
- left mouse
double-click
- Toggle full screen.
ffplay-all(1), ffmpeg(1), ffprobe(1),
ffmpeg-utils(1), ffmpeg-scaler(1), ffmpeg-resampler(1),
ffmpeg-codecs(1), ffmpeg-bitstream-filters(1),
ffmpeg-formats(1), ffmpeg-devices(1),
ffmpeg-protocols(1), ffmpeg-filters(1)
The FFmpeg developers.
For details about the authorship, see the Git history of the
project (https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg), e.g. by typing the command git
log in the FFmpeg source directory, or browsing the online repository at
<https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg>.
Maintainers for the specific components are listed in the file
MAINTAINERS in the source code tree.