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:
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 MPEG1/2 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.
DivX4Linux works in two modes:
-vc odivx-vc divx4The -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.
Note: 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 logincvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.projectmayo.com:/cvsroot co divxcore
cd divxcore/decore/build/linux
make
cp libdivxdecore.so /usr/local/lib
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so.0
cp ../../src/decore.h /usr/local/include
cd ../../../encore/build
mkdir linux
cd linux
cp path/Makefile .
make
cp libdivxencore.so /usr/local/lib
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.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 encoded with H263/MJPEG/RV10/DivX3/DivX4/DivX5/MP41/MP42/WMV1/WMV2/HuffYUV video, or WMA (Windows Media Audio) audio codecs. Not only some of them can be encoded with, but it also offers higher speed than the Win32 codecs or the DivX.com DivX4/5 library!
It contains a lot of nice codecs, especially important are the MPEG4 variants: DivX3, DivX4, DivX5, Windows Media Video 7 (WMV1). Also a very interesting one is the WMA decoder.
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 don't work with MPlayer. In order to achieve this do:
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ffmpeg.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ffmpeg logincvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ffmpeg.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ffmpeg co ffmpeglibavcodec directory from the FFmpeg sources to the
root of the MPlayer CVS tree. It should look like this:
main/libavcodec
Note: 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.
MPlayer is capable of employing the XAnim codecs for decoding. Follow the instructions to enable them:
--with-xanimlibdir option to tell configure where
to find the XAnim codecs. By default, it looks for them at
/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.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, h263.
MPlayer can play Vivo (1.0 and 2.0) videos. The most suitable codec
for 1.0 files is FFmpeg's H263 decoder, you can use it with the -vc
ffh263 option. For 2.0 files, use the Win32 DLL (-vc vivo).
Anyway, MPlayer selects automatically the best codec.
MPEG1 and MPEG2 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.
This is a very old and very bad codec from Microsoft. In the past it was
decoded with the msvidc32.dll Win32 codec, now we have our own
open source implementation (by Mike
Melanson).
MPlayer uses its own open source, multiplatform Cinepak decoder (by Dr. Tim Ferguson), by default. It supports YUV outputs, so that hardware scaling is possible if the video output driver permits it.
It is recommended to download and install RealPlayer8 or RealONE, because
MPlayer can use their libraries to decode files with RealVideo 2.0 -
4.0 video. The MPlayer configure script should detect the
RealPlayer libraries in the standard locations of a full installation. If it
does not, tell configure where to look with the
--with-reallibdir option.
Note: RealPlayer libraries currently only work with Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Cygwin on the x86 and Alpha platforms.
XViD is a forked development of the OpenDivX codec. It 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.
XViD is currently available only from CVS. Here are the download and installation instructions:
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid logincvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid co xvidcorecd xvidcore/build/genericMakefile.linuxx86) to fit your needs.make -f Makefile.linuxx86divx4.h and xvid.h header files from
xvidcore/src/ to /usr/local/include/.encore2.h and decore.h from the DivX4Linux
package, and copy them to /usr/local/include/.--with-xvidcore=/path/to/libxvidcore.a.Sorenson is a video codec family developed by Sorenson Media and licensed to Apple who distribute it with their QuickTime Player. We are currently able to decode all versions of Sorenson video files with the following decoders:
-vc svq1 and -vc ffsvq1 options respectively.
Some files may work with one of them, and not with the other, so test
both decoders. The decoder was written (reverse engineered) by the
xine authors.NOTE: currently only 32bit Intel platforms are supported.
$ ./configure --enable-qtx-codecs/usr/lib/win32)The most important audio codecs above all:
This is the default decoder used for files with AC3 audio.
The AC3 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 AC3 channels to the sound driver, allowing for full "surround sound" experience without the external AC3 decoder required to use the hwac3 codec.
Use the -channels option to select the number of output
channels. Use -channels 2 for a stereo downmix. For a 4
channel downmix (Left Front, Right Front, Left Surround and Right Surround
outputs), use -channels 4. In this case, any center channel will
be mixed equally to the front channels. -channels 6 will output
all the AC3 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).
You need an AC3 capable sound card, with digital out (SP/DIF). The card's
driver must properly support the AFMT_AC3 format (C-Media does). Connect
your AC3 decoder to the SP/DIF output, and use the -ac hwac3
option. It is experimental but known to work with C-Media cards,
Soundblaster Live! using ALSA (but not OSS) drivers and DXR3/Hollywood+ MPEG
decoder cards.
libmad is a multiplatform MPEG audio decoding library. It does not handle broken files well, and it sometimes has problems with seeking.
To enable support, compile with the --enable-mad configure
option.
The audio codec used in VIVO files depends on whether it is a VIVO/1.0 or VIVO/2.0 file. VIVO/1.0 files have g.723 audio, and VIVO/2.0 files have Vivo Siren audio. Both are supported.
On how to install RealPlayer libraries, see the RealVideo section.
QDesign audio streams (fourcc: QDMC, QDM2) are found in MOV/QT files. Both versions of this codec can be decoded with QuickTime libraries. For installation instructions please see the Sorenson video codec section.
Qualcomm audio stream (fourcc: Qclp) is found in MOV/QT files. It can be decoded with QuickTime libraries. For installation instructions please see the Sorenson video codec section.
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://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/[codecname]/
Note: 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 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 andNew Method: Using Microsoft GraphEdit (fast)
graphedit.exe.DirectShow Filters.DisplayName look at the text in winged brackets
after the backslash and write it down (five dash-delimited blocks, the
GUID).Filename
entry.Note: If there is no Filename entry and DisplayName
contains something like device:dmo, then it is a DMO-Codec.
Old Method: Take a deep breath and start searching the registry...
regedit.Ctrl-f, disable the first two checkboxes, and enable
the third. Type in the fourcc of the codec (e.g. TM20).C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\TM20DEC.AX).Note: 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://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/[codecname]/