Introduction to MPlayer
MPlayer is an open-source multimedia player that has been a cornerstone of the Linux ecosystem for over two decades. Its ability to play virtually any audio and video format, combined with low resource consumption, makes it an essential tool for both home users and system administrators.
History and evolution
Originally created in 2000 by Árpád Gereöffy, MPlayer was born as an academic project aimed at demonstrating the viability of a cross-platform player based on open-source libraries. Over the years it has received contributions from developers worldwide, incorporating support for new codecs, improvements in video output, and an increasingly powerful command-line interface.
Main features
- Support for over 200 audio and video codecs, including MPEG, AVI, MKV, FLV, WebM and many others.
- Video output via X11, OpenGL, VAAPI, VDPAU, DirectDraw (on Windows) and buffer frames.
- Audio output through ALSA, PulseAudio, OSS, Jack and SDL.
- Real-time video and audio filters (scaling, deinterlacing, equalization, noise reduction).
- Compatibility with subtitles in SSA, ASS, SRT, SUB and VobSub formats.
- Ability to play network streams (HTTP, FTP, MMS, RTSP) and devices such as TV‑tuner or webcam.
- Loop, step-by-step playback mode and speed control.
Basic usage from the command line
Running MPlayer is as simple as typing mplayer archivo.mp4 in the terminal. The player automatically detects the file type and selects the appropriate codecs. If you need to specify a video or audio driver, you can use the -vo and -ao options respectively.
Useful command examples
- Play a DVD:
mplayer dvd://1 - Watch a YouTube stream (using youtube-dl):
mplayer $(youtube-dl -g https://youtu.be/xxxx) - Convert a video to MP3 audio:
mplayer -vo null -ao pcm:fast:file=temp.wav archivo.mkv && lame temp.wav salida.mp3 - Enable external subtitles:
mplayer -sub subtitles.srt archivo.avi - Play in fullscreen with OpenGL output:
mplayer -vo gl -fs archivo.mp4
Configuration and customization
MPlayer reads its configuration from the file ~/.mplayer/config. There you can set default options such as the video driver, initial volume, or filter activation. For users who prefer a graphical interface, there are front‑ends like GMPlayer, SMPlayer or VLC (which can in turn use MPlayer as a backend). These wrappers add menus, playlists, and equalizer controls without losing the power of the core.