See the codec status table for the complete, daily generated list. Quite a few codecs are available for download from our homepage. Grab them from our codecs page.
The most important ones above all:
libavcodec, and
RealVideo 3.0 & 4.0 codecs using RealPlayer
libraries
If you have a Win32 codec not listed here which is not supported yet, please read the codec importing HOWTO and help us add support for it.
This section contains information about the DivX4 and DivX5 codecs of Project Mayo. Their first available alpha version was OpenDivX 4.0 alpha 47 and 48. Support for this was included in MPlayer in the past, and built by default. We also used its postprocessing code to optionally enhance visual quality of MPEG-1/2 movies. Now we use our own, for all file types.
The new generation of this codec is called DivX4 and can even decode
movies made with the infamous DivX codec! In addition it is much faster
than the native Win32 DivX DLLs but slower than
libavcodec.
Hence its usage as a decoder is
discouraged. However, it is useful for
encoding. One disadvantage of this codec is that it is not available under an
Open Source license.
DivX4 works in two modes:
The -vc odivx method is usually faster, due to the fact that it transfers image data in YV12 (planar YUV 4:2:0) format, thus requiring much less bandwidth on the bus. For packed YUV modes (YUY2, UYVY) use the -vc divx4 method. For RGB modes the speed is the same, differing at best according to your current color depth.
If your -vo driver supports direct rendering, then -vc divx4 may be faster, or even the fastest solution.
The DivX4/5 binary codec library can be downloaded from avifile or divx.com Unpack it, run ./install.sh as root and do not forget adding /usr/local/lib to your /etc/ld.so.conf and running ldconfig.
Get the CVS version of the OLD OpenDivX core library like this:
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.projectmayo.com:/cvsroot login
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.projectmayo.com:/cvsroot co divxcore
This core library is split into a decore and encore library that have to be compiled separately. For the decore Library, simply type
cd divxcore/decore/build/linux make cp libdivxdecore.so /usr/local/lib ln -s libdivxdecore.so /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so.0 cp ../../src/decore.h /usr/local/include
Alas, for the encore library there is no Linux Makefile available, and the MMX optimized code only works on Windows. You can still compile it, though, by using this Makefile.
cd ../../../encore/build mkdir linux cd linux cp path/Makefile . make cp libdivxencore.so /usr/local/lib ln -s libdivxencore.so /usr/local/lib/libdivxencore.so.0 cp ../../src/encore.h /usr/local/include
MPlayer autodetects DivX4/DivX5 if it is properly installed, just compile as usual. If it does not detect it, you did not install or configure it correctly.
FFmpeg contains an open source codec package, which is capable of decoding streams with various audio and video codecs. It also offers an impressing encoding facility and higher speed than the Win32 codecs or the DivX.com DivX4/5 libraries!
It contains a lot of nice codecs, especially important are the MPEG-4 variants: DivX3, DivX4, DivX5, Windows Media Video 7/8 (WMV1/WMV2). Also a very interesting one is the WMA decoder.
The most recent codec deserving credit is the Sorenson 3 (SVQ3) codec. This is the first, completely opensource implementation. It is even faster than the original. Be sure to prefer this instead of the binary codec!
For a complete list of supported codecs please visit the FFmpeg homepage. Supported video and audio codecs.
If you use an MPlayer release you have
libavcodec
right in the package, just build as usual. If you use
MPlayer from CVS you have to extract
libavcodec from
the FFmpeg CVS tree as FFmpeg releases are very rare. The CVS is mostly stable
and offers the most features. In order to achieve this do:
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@mplayerhq.hu:/cvsroot/ffmpeg login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@mplayerhq.hu:/cvsroot/ffmpeg co -P ffmpeg/libavcodec ffmpeg/libavutil
Move the libavcodec and libavutil directories from the FFmpeg sources to the root of the MPlayer CVS tree. It should look like this: main/libavcodec main/libavutil
Symlinking is not enough, you have to copy/move it!
If you prefer having libavcodec
updated at the same time you update
MPlayer CVS, put the following line into the
main/CVS/Entries file:
D/libavcodec////
D/libavutil////
Compile. configure should detect problems before compilation.
MPlayer from CVS does contain a
libavcodec subdirectory, but it does
not contain the source for
libavcodec!
You must follow the steps above to obtain the source for this library.
With FFmpeg and my Matrox G400, I can view even the highest resolution DivX movies without dropped frames on my K6-2 500.
Be advised that the XAnim binary codecs are packaged with a piece of text claiming to be a legally binding software license which, besides other restrictions, forbids the user to use the codecs in conjunction with any program other than XAnim. However, the XAnim author has yet to bring legal action against anyone for codec-related issues.
INSTALLATION AND USAGE. MPlayer is capable of employing the XAnim codecs for decoding. Follow the instructions to enable them:
Download the codecs you wish to use from the XAnim site. The 3ivx codec is not there, but at the 3ivx site.
OR download the codecs pack from our codecs page
Use the --with-xanimlibdir option to tell
configure where
to find the XAnim codecs. By default, it looks for them at
/usr/local/lib/codecs,
/usr/local/lib/xanim/mods,
/usr/lib/xanim/mods and
/usr/lib/xanim.
Alternatively you can set the environment variable
XANIM_MOD_DIR to the directory of the XAnim codecs.
Rename/symlink the files, cutting out the architecture stuff, so they will have filenames like these: vid_cvid.xa, vid_h263.xa, vid_iv50.xa
XAnim is video codec family xanim, so you may want
to use the -vfm xanim option to tell MPlayer
to use them if possible.
Tested codecs include: Indeo 3.2, 4.1, 5.0, CVID, 3ivX, H.263.
MPlayer can play Vivo (1.0 and 2.0) videos. The most suitable codec for 1.0 files is FFmpeg's H.263 decoder, you can use it with the -vc ffh263 option. For 2.0 files, use the Win32 DLL through the -vc vivo option. If you do not supply command line options MPlayer selects the best codec automatically.
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 are decoded by the multiplatform native libmpeg2 library, whose source code is
included in MPlayer. We handle buggy MPEG-1/2
video files by catching Signal 11
(segmentation fault), and quickly
reinitializing the codec, continuing exactly from where the failure
occurred. This recovery technique has no measurable speed penalty.
MPlayer is able to play most of the older codecs
used in AVI and MOV files.
In the past they were decoded with binary Win32 codecs, but now we have
native codecs for most of them using
libavcodec.
MPlayer supports decoding all versions of RealVideo:
libavcodec
Download Real codecs from http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/ and extract them to the /usr/local/lib/codecs directory. If you want to store them in a different location, pass the --with-reallibdir option to configure.
RealPlayer libraries currently only work with Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Cygwin on the x86, Alpha and PowerPC (Linux/Alpha and Linux/PowerPC have been tested) platforms and with Mac OS X.
XviD is a free software MPEG-4 ASP compliant video codec, which features two pass encoding and full MPEG-4 ASP support, making it a lot more efficient than the well-known DivX codec. It yields very good video quality and good performance due to CPU optimizations for most modern processors.
It began as a forked development of the OpenDivX codec. This happened when ProjectMayo changed OpenDivX to closed source DivX4 (now DivX5), and the non-ProjectMayo people working on OpenDivX got angry, then started XviD. So both projects have the same origin.
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 (you need at least
autoconf 2.50,
automake and libtool):
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid co xvidcore
cd xvidcore/build/generic
./bootstrap.sh
./configure
You may have to add some options (examine the output of ./configure --help).
make && make install
If you specified --enable-divxcompat, copy ../../src/divx4.h to /usr/local/include/.
Recompile MPlayer with
--with-xvidlibdir=/path/to/libxvidcore.a
--with-xvidincdir=/path/to/xvid.h
Sorenson is a video codec developed by Sorenson Media and licensed to Apple who distribute it with their QuickTime Player. We are currently able to decode all version of Sorenson video files with the following decoders:
libavcodec)
libavcodec)
COMPILING MPLAYER WITH QUICKTIME LIBRARIES SUPPORT
Currently only 32-bit Intel platforms are supported.
download MPlayer CVS
download QuickTime DLL pack from http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/
extract QuickTime DLL pack to your Win32 codecs directory (default: /usr/local/lib/codecs/)
compile MPlayer
x264 is a library for
creating H.264 video streams.
It is not 100% complete, but currently it has at least some kind
of support for most of the H.264 features which impact quality.
There are also many advanced features in the H.264 specification
which have nothing to do with video quality per se; many of these
are not yet implemented in
x264.
Encoder features
CAVLC/CABAC
Multi-references
Intra: all macroblock types (16x16, 8x8, and 4x4 with all predictions)
Inter P: all partitions (from 16x16 down to 4x4)
Inter B: partitions from 16x16 down to 8x8 (including SKIP/DIRECT)
Ratecontrol: constant quantizer, constant bitrate, single or multipass ABR, optional VBV
Scene cut detection
Adaptive B-frame placement
B-frames as references / arbitrary frame order
8x8 and 4x4 adaptive spatial transform
Lossless mode
Custom quantization matrices
Parallel encoding of multiple slices
H.264 is one name for a new digital video codec jointly developed by the ITU and MPEG. It can also be correctly referred to by the cumbersome names of "ISO/IEC 14496-10" or "MPEG-4 Part 10". More frequently, it is referred to as "MPEG-4 AVC" or just "AVC".
Whatever you call it, H.264 may be worth trying because it can typically match the quality of MPEG-4 ASP with 5%-30% less bitrate. Actual results will depend on both the source material and the encoder. The gains from using H.264 do not come for free: Decoding H.264 streams seems to have steep CPU and memory requirements. For instance, on a 1733 MHz Athlon, a DVD-resolution 1500kbps H.264 video requires around 35% CPU to decode. By comparison, decoding a DVD-resolution 1500kbps MPEG-4 ASP stream requires around 10% CPU. This means that decoding high-definition streams is almost out of the question for most users. It also means that even a decent DVD rip may sometimes stutter on processors slower than 2.0 GHz or so.
At least with x264,
encoding requirements are not much worse than what you are used to
with MPEG-4 ASP.
For instance, on a 1733 MHz Athlon a typical DVD encode would run
at 5-15fps.
This document is not intended to explain the details of H.264, but if you are interested in a brief overview, you may want to read The H.264/AVC Advanced Video Coding Standard: Overview and Introduction to the Fidelity Range Extensions.
MPlayer uses
libavcodec's H.264
decoder.
libavcodec has had at
least minimally usable H.264 decoding since around July 2004,
however major changes and improvements have been implemented since
that time, both in terms of more functionalities supported and in
terms of improved CPU usage.
Just to be certain, it is always a good idea to use a recent CVS
checkout.
If you want a quick and easy way to know whether there have been
recent changes to libavcodec's
H.264 decoding, you might keep an eye on
FFmpeg CVS repository's web interface.
If you have the subversion client installed, the latest x264 sources can be gotten with this command:
svn co svn://svn.videolan.org/x264/trunk x264
MPlayer sources are updated whenever
an x264 API change
occurs, so it is always suggested to use CVS
MPlayer as well.
Perhaps this situation will change when and if an
x264 "release" occurs.
Meanwhile, x264 should
be considered very unstable, in the sense that its programming
interface is subject to change.
x264 is built and
installed in the standard way:
./configure && make && sudo make install
This installs libx264.a in /usr/local/lib and x264.h is placed in
/usr/local/include.
With the x264 library
and header placed in the standard locations, building
MPlayer with
x264 support is easy.
Just run the standard:
./configure && make && sudo make install
The configure script will autodetect that you have satisfied the
requirements for x264.