mpv Media Player

mpv is a free and open-source media player based on the MPlayer and mplayer2 projects, designed to be lightweight, minimalistic, and highly configurable. Forked from mplayer2 in 2013 by Vincent Lang, mpv has become the preferred media player for power users and developers due to its high-quality video output and scripting capabilities. Key features: high-quality video output with a modern GPU video rendering pipeline using OpenGL, Vulkan, or D3D11, supporting advanced scaling algorithms (lanczos, ewa_lanczos, spline, bicubic), interpolation, temporal dithering, and HDR tone mapping. Hardware acceleration via VAAPI (Intel and AMD), VDPAU (NVIDIA Linux), NVDEC (NVIDIA Windows/Linux), VideoToolbox (macOS), D3D11VA and DXVA2 (Windows), and MMAL (Raspberry Pi) for efficient decoding of H.264, HEVC/H.265, AV1, VP9, and other codecs. Frame-perfect playback with accurate frame timing, frame interpolation for smooth motion at arbitrary display refresh rates, and frame dropping strategies for maintaining sync on slow hardware. Subtitle support for SubRip, ASS/SSA (with libass for advanced rendering), VTT, SRT, PGS, and other formats with multi-track subtitles, external subtitle loading, and styling customization. Audio support including WASAPI (Windows exclusive mode), PulseAudio, ALSA, CoreAudio, and more with gapless playback, replay gain, and audio normalization. Screenshot capture at native or display resolution. Lua scripting for extending functionality with custom commands, key bindings, OSD overlays, and event handlers. JavaScript scripting for web developers. JSON IPC protocol for remote control and integration with other applications. Highly configurable via command-line options and mpv.conf configuration file. On-screen controller (OSC) for mouse and touch interaction. Thumbnail generation. Cross-platform on Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD. Used as the video rendering backend for other players including IINA (macOS) and Celluloid (GNOME). Open source under GPL.