Codecs
The codec status table is a
complete list of all supported codecs, regenerated daily.
Some binary codecs for use with MPlayer are available in the
download section
of our homepage.
If you have a Win32 codec which is not supported yet,
please read the codec importing HOWTO
and help us add support for it.
Video codecsXvidXvid is a free software MPEG-4 ASP
compliant video codec. Note that Xvid is not necessary to decode Xvid-encoded
video. libavcodec is used by
default as it offers better speed.
Installing Xvid
Like most open source software, it is available in two flavors:
official releases
and the CVS version.
The CVS version is usually stable enough to use, as most of the time it
features fixes for bugs that exist in releases.
Here is what to do to make Xvid
CVS work with MEncoder:
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid logincvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid co xvidcorecd xvidcore/build/generic./bootstrap.sh && ./configure
You may have to add some options (examine the output of
./configure --help).
make && make install
Recompile MPlayer.
x264x264
is a library for creating H.264 video.
MPlayer sources are updated whenever
an x264 API change
occurs, so it is always suggested to use
MPlayer from Subversion.
If you have a GIT client installed, the latest x264
sources can be gotten with this command:
git clone git://git.videolan.org/x264.git
Then build and install in the standard way:
./configure && make && make install
Now rerun ./configure for
MPlayer to pick up
x264 support.
Audio codecsSoftware AC-3 decoding
This is the default decoder used for files with AC-3 audio.
The AC-3 decoder can create audio output mixes for 2, 4, or 6 speakers.
When configured for 6 speakers, this decoder provides separate output of
all the AC-3 channels to the sound driver, allowing for full "surround
sound" experience without the external AC-3 decoder required to use the
hwac3 codec.
Use the option to select the number of output
channels. Use for a stereo downmix. For a 4
channel downmix (Left Front, Right Front, Left Surround and Right Surround
outputs), use . In this case, any center
channel will be mixed equally to the front channels.
will output all the AC-3 channels as they are
encoded - in the order Left, Right, Left Surround, Right Surround, Center and
LFE.
The default number of output channels is 2.
To use more than 2 output channels, you will need to use OSS, and have a
sound card that supports the appropriate number of output channels via the
SNDCTL_DSP_CHANNELS ioctl. An example of a suitable driver is emu10k1
(used by Soundblaster Live! cards) from August 2001 or newer (ALSA CVS is
also supposed to work).
Hardware AC-3 decoding
You need an AC-3 capable sound card, with digital out (S/PDIF). The card's
driver must properly support the AFMT_AC3 format (C-Media does). Connect
your AC-3 decoder to the S/PDIF output, and use the option. It is experimental but known to work with C-Media
cards and Soundblaster Live! + ALSA (but not OSS) drivers and DXR3/Hollywood+
MPEG decoder cards.
libmad supportlibmad
is a multiplatform, integer (internally 24bit PCM) only
MPEG audio decoding library. It does not handle broken files well, and it
sometimes has problems with seeking, but it may perform better on FPU-less
(such as ARM)
platform than mp3lib.
If you have a proper installation of
libmad,
./configure will notice and support for MPEG audio
decoding via libmad will be built
automatically.
Hardware MPEG audio codec
This codec (selected by ) passes through MPEG audio
packets to hardware decoders, such as the ones found in full-featured DVB cards
and DXR2 adapters.
Don't use it in combination with any other audio output device
(such as OSS and ALSA) that isn't able to decode it (you will hear
only white noise).
AAC codec
An open source AAC decoder called FAAD2 is available from
.
MPlayer includes a copy of it in its source tree.
If you want to use the external library instead, install it and pass
to ./configure.
FAAD2 binaries are not available from audiocoding.com, but you can (apt-)get
Debian packages from
Christian Marillat,
Mandrake/Mandriva RPMs from the P.L.F
and Fedora RPMs from Livna.
If you choose to build from source, you do not need all of FAAD2 to decode
AAC files, libfaad is enough. Build it like this:
cd faad2/
sh bootstrap
./configure
cd libfaad
make
make install
AMR codecs
Adaptive Multi-Rate speech codec is used in third generation (3G) mobile
phones.
Reference implementation is available from
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project
(free for private use).
To enable support, download and install support libraries for
AMR-NB and AMR-WB
following the instructions on that page. Recompile MPlayer afterwards.
Win32 codecs importing HOWTOVFW codecs
VFW (Video for Windows) is the old Video API for Windows. Its codecs have
the .DLL or (rarely) .DRV
extension. If MPlayer fails at playing your AVI
with this kind of message:
UNKNOWN video codec: HFYU (0x55594648)
It means your AVI is encoded with a codec which has the HFYU fourcc (HFYU =
HuffYUV codec, DIV3 = DivX Low Motion, etc.). Now that you know this, you
have to find out which DLL Windows loads in order to play this file. In our
case, the system.ini contains this information in a
line that reads:
VIDC.HFYU=huffyuv.dll
So you need the huffyuv.dll file. Note that the audio
codecs are specified by the MSACM prefix:
msacm.l3acm=L3codeca.acm
This is the MP3 codec. Now that you have all the necessary information
(fourcc, codec file, sample AVI), submit your codec support request by
mail, and upload these files to the FTP site:
ftp://upload.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/<codecname>/
On Windows NT/2000/XP search for this info in the registry,
e.g. search for "VIDC.HFYU". To find out how to do this, look at
the old DirectShow method below.
DirectShow codecs
DirectShow is the newer Video API, which is even worse than its predecessor.
Things are harder with DirectShow, since
system.ini does not contain the needed information,
instead it is stored in the registry and
we need the GUID of the codec.
New Method:
Using Microsoft GraphEdit (fast)
Get GraphEdit from either DirectX SDK or
doom9.
Start graphedit.exe.
From the menu select
GraphInsert Filters.
Expand item DirectShow Filters.
Select the right codec name and expand item.
In the entry DisplayName look at the text in
winged brackets after the backslash and write it down (five dash-delimited
blocks, the GUID).
The codec binary is the file specified in the
Filename entry.
If there is no Filename and
DisplayName contains something like
device:dmo, then it is a DMO-Codec.
Old Method:
Take a deep breath and start searching the registry...
Start regedit.
Press CtrlF, disable
the first two checkboxes, and enable the third. Type in the fourcc of the
codec (e.g. TM20).
You should see a field which contains the path and the filename (e.g.
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\TM20DEC.AX).
Now that you have the file, we need the GUID. Try searching again, but
now search for the codec's name, not the fourcc. Its name can be acquired
when Media Player is playing the file, by checking
FilePropertiesAdvanced.
If not, you are out of luck. Try guessing (e.g. search for TrueMotion).
If the GUID is found you should see a FriendlyName
and a CLSID field. Write down the 16 byte CLSID,
this is the GUID we need.
If searching fails, try enabling all the checkboxes. You may have
false hits, but you may get lucky...
Now that you have all the necessary information (fourcc, GUID, codec file,
sample AVI), submit your codec support request by mail, and upload these files
to the FTP site:
ftp://upload.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/<codecname>/
If you want to add a codec yourself, read
DOCS/tech/codecs.conf.txt.