Provided by: ffmpeg_7.1.1-1ubuntu2_amd64 
NAME
ffplay - FFplay media player
SYNOPSIS
ffplay [options] [input_url]
DESCRIPTION
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.
OPTIONS
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.
Options that take arguments support a special syntax where the argument given on the command line is
interpreted as a path to the file from which the actual argument value is loaded. To use this feature,
add a forward slash '/' immediately before the option name (after the leading dash). E.g.
ffmpeg -i INPUT -/filter:v filter.script OUTPUT
will load a filtergraph description from the file named filter.script.
Stream specifiers
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 stream group specifier or program ID is also
specified. In this case it is based on the ordering of the streams in the group or 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.
g:group_specifier[:additional_stream_specifier]
Matches streams which are in the group with the specifier group_specifier. if
additional_stream_specifier is used, then it matches streams which both are part of the group and
match the additional_stream_specifier. group_specifier may be one of the following:
group_index
Match the stream with this group index.
#group_id or i:group_id
Match the stream with this group id.
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. The colon character ':' in key or value needs to
be backslash-escaped.
disp:dispositions[:additional_stream_specifier]
Matches streams with the given disposition(s). dispositions is a list of one or more dispositions (as
printed by the -dispositions option) joined with '+'.
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.
Generic options
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 named filter_name. Use the -filters option to get a
list of all filters.
bsf=bitstream_filter_name
Print detailed information about the bitstream filter named bitstream_filter_name. Use the -bsfs
option to get a list of all bitstream filters.
protocol=protocol_name
Print detailed information about the protocol named protocol_name. Use the -protocols option to
get a list of all protocols.
-version
Show version.
-buildconf
Show the build configuration, one option per line.
-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.
-dispositions
Show stream dispositions.
-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:
x86
mmx
mmxext
sse
sse2
sse2slow
sse3
sse3slow
ssse3
atom
sse4.1
sse4.2
avx
avx2
xop
fma3
fma4
3dnow
3dnowext
bmi1
bmi2
cmov
ARM
armv5te
armv6
armv6t2
vfp
vfpv3
neon
setend
AArch64
armv8
vfp
neon
PowerPC
altivec
Specific Processors
pentium2
pentium3
pentium4
k6
k62
athlon
athlonxp
k8
-cpucount count (global)
Override detection of CPU count. This option is intended for testing. Do not use it unless you know
what you're doing.
ffmpeg -cpucount 2
-max_alloc bytes
Set the maximum size limit for allocating a block on the heap by ffmpeg's family of malloc functions.
Exercise extreme caution when using this option. Don't use if you do not understand the full
consequence of doing so. Default is INT_MAX.
AVOptions
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.
Main options
-x width
Force displayed width.
-y height
Force displayed height.
-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.
Advanced options
-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.
-enable_vulkan
Use vulkan renderer rather than SDL builtin renderer. Depends on libplacebo.
-vulkan_params
Vulkan configuration using a list of key=value pairs separated by ":".
-hwaccel
Use HW accelerated decoding. Enable this option will enable vulkan renderer automatically.
While playing
q, ESC
Quit.
f Toggle full screen.
p, SPC
Pause.
m Toggle mute.
9, 0
/, *
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.
SEE ALSO
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)
AUTHORS
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.
FFPLAY(1)