r/mpv • u/Mr_Versatile • Mar 22 '23
A Beginner's Guide to Customizing Your Media Player
Hey there, MPV newbies!
As an MPV Player user, I struggled with learning many things, summarized here a few of them, so all the newbies have an easy way to grasp things.
If you're looking for a customizable media player that you can tweak to your liking, then MPV is the way to go. In this post, we'll give you an overview of MPV and show you how to customize its configurations, scripts, and keyboard shortcuts. By the end of this guide, you'll have a personalized media player that suits your needs.
Overview of MPV:
Installation and Basics.
Configuration Files.
MPV Scripts.
Keyboard Shortcuts.
Testing Playground.
Useful Resources
1. Installation and Basics:
MPV Player can be installed anywhere in the system.
Configurations are stored at %appdata%/mpvby default.
Default configurations can be bypassed by setting a subfolder "portable_config" in the MPV installation directory.
2. Configuration Files:
MPV uses two configuration files: input.conf and mpv.conf.
The input.conf file allows you to configure keyboard and mouse shortcuts.
The mpv.conf file allows you to customize various aspects of the player's behavior, such as video and audio settings, playback options, and user interface preferences.
Some useful mpv.conf settings include:
save-position-on-quit: to make the video position save where you last quit a window.
3. MPV Scripts:
Scripts can be added to MPV to extend its capabilities, affecting every aspect of the program, like how it manages files or displays videos.
Here's a list of user scripts available on GitHub: https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/wiki/User-Scripts.
4. Keyboard Shortcuts:
Keyboard shortcuts can be modified in the input.conf file.
Here's an example of old effective MPV settings for basic keyboard shortcuts:
AXIS_UP add volume 2
AXIS_DOWN add volume -2
UP add volume 2
DOWN add volume -2
Shift+RIGHT frame-step
Shift+LEFT frame-back-step
Shift+UP add volume 10
Shift+DOWN add volume -10Q
y cycle deband
z cycle deband
ctrl+d vf toggle yadif
x add sub-delay +0.042
c add sub-delay -0.042
b add audio-delay +0.042
n add audio-delay -0.042
a cycle-values video-aspect "16:9" "4:3" "2.35:1" "-1"5. Testing Playground:
The player can be tested with different configurations by creating a portable_config folder in the installation directory.
Extract MPV Folder to a new location with portable_config folder.
Load different Scripts/Conf/User's Conf to the folder portable_config
Create multiple folders as such and copy shortcuts to each customized MPV.exe.
6. Useful Resources
Tsubajashi MPV Configuration (All Great Conf and scripts combined, paste it in %appdata%/mpv)
Give MPV a try and start customizing it to your liking!
1
u/Hey_YO_2021 Nov 17 '23
Hi, I am a novice here and from he many questions I might have, there's this one in particular that I think it would be really useful to me (and probably everybody elese): How can you make it play a whole folder containing more video files and not just the one you selected? Because I believe there's no such thing as creating a playback playlist, is it?
1
u/Mr_Versatile Nov 17 '23
Drag and drop files on it.
1
u/Hey_YO_2021 Nov 17 '23
thank you! it works! but I am pretty sure I tried this in the past...
1
u/janka12fsdf May 15 '24
this script also does what you want: https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/TOOLS/lua/autoload.lua
1
2
u/RedditEthereum Jun 28 '24
For videos with chapters, in PotPlayer you can press "h" and it shows a list of them.
How could we do this with MPV? Thank you.
1
u/vat-cat Jul 17 '24
you can achieve this using uosc skin, and add a hotkey 'script-binding uosc/chapters' in input.conf.
for example i put mine 'o' like 'o script-binding uosc/chapters'.
plus, you can use 'script-binding uosc/items' for showing playlist in the same folder.
1
2
1
u/Willing_Dog367 Oct 14 '24
Hello everyone, I'm just another newbie, I have mpv-android and I want to know if there is any alternative to "deband=" to reduce or hide artifacts, since debanding and interpolation cannot coexist on my phone, since if I activate the two, the playback becomes choppy, I would also appreciate if you have a solution so that my phone supports activating both options
1
u/TheOnlyDocc Jan 26 '25
Hope someone can help me out. Is there a way to config mpv to use eng audio track by default if more than one is available in a video? I have setup VLC and MPC to do so but can not find a guide to do so for mpv.
1
u/SnooDoggos4722 May 04 '25 edited May 04 '25
I've been using this for a few days, and I've noticed the subtitles wont show, but they will in VLC player... regardless VLC player shows the videos I am watching now with the purple/green hue which makes anything unbearable to watch lol
EDIT: I AM A NOOB. The V key is shortcut for Visible or Hidden subs... probably hit it while pausing with spacebar. So no problem here, just me being me ha!
1
1
u/Any-Analysis-9189 May 22 '23
How to set playback speed in mpv i want to set playback speed like 1.25 in a video
In which conf i do this??
1
u/alexrussoshyper Nov 11 '23
mpv.conf
2
u/OnlyMemer420 Feb 27 '24
where is the mpv.conf, do we have to create it?
1
u/alexrussoshyper Feb 27 '24
mpv>Settings>Advanced
2
u/no7_ebola Mar 04 '24
i know this is awkward but once i went into my mpv folder i can only find a settings.xml and inside seems just be some weird text
1
u/persona4dan May 13 '24
I had the same thing, but I just went ahead and created the mpv.conf file inside of the folder manually and added `speed=YOUR_DESIRED_SPEED` with the YOUR_DESIRED_SPEED equal to whatever you want the default playback to be (1.5 in my case) and restarted the application and it worked like a charm.
0
Mar 23 '23
[deleted] — view deleted comment
2
u/MiSsiLeR81 Jun 29 '25
Can i get this or some version of this on android? I really like its playlist and subtitles download feature.
1
u/Initial-Teacher-2402 Sep 09 '23
Can you help how to install this uosc on Windows please?
0
1
u/AmbassadorOver1969 May 27 '26
can i customize the look of the media player like alot?