File properties

Starting from KPlayer 0.5 each file and URL has its own set of properties. They include information that KPlayer found out about the file, like time length, video size, frame rate, bitrates, and so on, as well as various options you can set, like name, video aspect, subtitles, and many more.

Most properties can be set through the File Properties dialog. The Properties dialog for the currently loaded file or URL can be opened from the File menu, or using the Properties button on the main toolbar, or from the right click popup menu. You can also open the Properties dialog for an entry in the multimedia library by right clicking it and selecting Properties..., or by using the Properties... command on the Library menu.

An easier way to set file properties is by holding the Shift key when changing a setting. For example, if you hold Shift and select Soft Frame Dropping from the Player menu, KPlayer will remember that setting for the current URL, and use it the next time you play it. After it is done playing the current URL, it will revert the Frame drop setting to the default, the one that was in effect before you changed it with Shift. On the other hand, if you change the Frame drop setting without holding Shift, the new setting will become the default, and will be used for all URLs that do not have it set explicitly.

Volume, contrast, brightness, hue and saturation are handled in a special way when it comes to file properties. Instead of remembering the exact setting when you hold Shift, KPlayer will remember the setting relatively to the default.

For example, if you have a file that was recorded louder than your other files, when playing that file you can hold Shift and adjust the volume level to be the same as for other files. KPlayer will remember this as something like “lower the volume by 10 units when playing this file”. If later you for example have a party and need to play your files louder than usual, you turn the volume up (without holding Shift), so all files play louder, then when the turn of that one file comes, KPlayer will lower the volume by 10 units while playing it, so it again has the same volume level as the other files, and then turn the volume 10 units up when it moves to the next file.

Another example, you find a video that is dark and so needs to be played with higher brightness than other videos. So you hold the Shift key and drag the brightness slider up. KPlayer remembers the higher brightness for this file, and then goes back to playing at normal brightness when you play another file. Suppose you did that at night, and next time you play the videos during daylight, so you want to play all of them at higher brightness. Then you drag the brightness slider up, this time without holding Shift, so the setting is made the default and applied to all videos that do not have a brightness property set. When the turn of the dark video comes, KPlayer sees that it needs to be played at an even higher brightness and turns it further up, but only for the duration of that one video, and then restores it back to the default you set.

Choosing the Full Screen command or clicking the Maximize or Restore button in the title bar while holding Shift will set the Full screen property. Choosing an aspect command with Shift will set the Display size property to set aspect and the aspect you choose, and also will set the Maintain aspect property. A zooming command on the View menu when chosen with Shift will set the Display size property to set size and the fixed size, and so will resizing the window if you press Shift before you begin resizing the window.

This special function of the Shift key can be turned off on the Controls page in KPlayer Settings.

There are two special cases when you can also hold Shift to modify KPlayer behavior. First, you can hold Shift when telling it to play a file or URL or dropping files onto KPlayer window. KPlayer will then load the first file or URL but will not start playing it. You can then open its File Properties and make your choices before starting to play it.

Second, if you hold Shift when choosing the Play command from the Player menu or clicking the Play button, KPlayer will first stop the helper process that it runs once for each file to try and figure out the time length of the file. This is needed rarely if ever, only when the helper process causes any problems.

KPlayer will remember properties for every file or URL that it opens, even those that are removed from the playlist, until the total number reaches the limit set on the General page in KPlayer Settings under Meta information cache size limit, by default 10000. After that it will start discarding the oldest entries. Playing an entry makes it the most recent entry in the cache. If you have very many files, you can set the cache size limit higher, but as some point it may start affecting KPlayer performance.

Following are the available file properties, listed by pages in the File Properties dialog.

General properties

Name: This is the name that KPlayer will display for this file or URL in the multimedia library, on the current playlist and also in the title bar when the file is loaded. Changing this property will not change the actual file system name of the file.
Path or URL: The file system path to the file or the URL of the file or stream. This property is read only. To use a different path or URL, open it with the Play... or Play URL... command on the File menu, or by dragging and dropping it onto KPlayer window, or starting KPlayer with URL argument(s), for example by launching files from Konqueror File Manager or clicking a link in Konqueror Web Browser.
Type: The type of the item. For a device, track, title or channel it is the device type. For other items it is the MIME type if known.
Frequency: The frequency in MHz of a DVB, PVR or TV channel. For other items this property is not applicable and not shown.
Playlist: MPlayer currently is not smart enough to automatically detect and play a playlist file like pls or m3u, so KPlayer has to explicitly tell it to parse a file as a playlist. The auto setting lets KPlayer use the file extension to guess if it is a playlist file. The playlist extensions KPlayer recognizes are ram, rpm, smi, smil, asx, m3u, pls and strm. If a file that is not a playlist has one of these extensions, or a playlist file has a different extension, you will need to correctly set this property in order to be able to play the file or stream.
Length: The time length of the file. KPlayer tries to detect it with precision of one tenth of a second, and usually gets it pretty close to the real length. This property is read only.
Channels: The list of channels available on a TV or PVR device. KPlayer chooses the default channel list based on the country setting in KDE Control Center, or Western Europe if that is not set. You can change the channel list here. Not applicable to other items.
Driver: Input driver for a TV or PVR device. By default this is set to Video4Linux 2, but if your driver only supports the old Video4Linux interface, like for example the gspcav1 driver, select Video4Linux from this list. Not applicable to other items.
Channel file: A DVB device needs a file listing the available channels and their properties. KPlayer looks for a file having channels.conf as part of its name in ~/.mplayer, /etc/mplayer and /usr/local/etc/mplayer and uses the first matching file it finds. You can change the channel file path here. If you don't have a channel file, you can generate it using the scan utility that comes with DVB drivers.

Size properties

Original size: The original video size, empty for audio only files. This property is read only, but see the next property.
Display size: Here you can set the initial video size KPlayer will use when it starts playing the file, unless you turned off the option to Resize main window automatically on the General page in KPlayer Settings. The default setting will use the Minimum initial video width option from the General page in KPlayer Settings. The set size setting will use the fixed initial size you specify. The set aspect setting will again use the Minimum initial video width option, but will apply the fixed initial aspect you specify.
Full screen: Normally you would leave this at the default setting, which will keep the full screen state of the previous file. The yes setting will force full screen mode unless this is an audio only file, and the no setting will force the normal windowed mode.
Maximized: When the file is not played full screen, the yes setting for this option will force maximized window mode, and the no setting will force normal window mode. The default setting will keep the window state of the previous file.
Maintain aspect: Here you can set the Maintain aspect option specifically for this file. The default setting will keep the Maintain aspect option you choose globally.

Video properties

Track: The auto option tells MPlayer to choose a video track automatically. The set ID option lets you enter a number giving the video track ID to play. This option is set when you select a video track from the Video submenu of the Player menu. The submenu will list the available video tracks for files and streams that have more than one video track.
Contrast, Brightness, Hue and Saturation: The default option uses the same setting as for other files. The set to option sets the specified initial contrast, brightness, hue or saturation when loading the file. The add and substract options adjust the contrast, brightness, hue or saturation relative to the normal setting. See the introduction section of this HOWTO for more details and some examples of how this works.
Codec: Specifies the video codec to use when playing this file. The default setting will use the codec chosen on the Video page in KPlayer Settings, normally auto. The auto setting will tell MPlayer to choose the codec it thinks is the best for playing this file.
Bitrate and Framerate: The video bitrate and framerate of the file or stream. These properties are read only.
Input: The auto option tells MPlayer to choose a TV or DVB input automatically. The set to option lets you enter a number giving the device input to use. Only applicable to TV, PVR and DVB devices.
Format: The auto option tells MPlayer to choose a TV video output format automatically. The other options let you specify the video format explicitly. Only applicable to TV and PVR devices.
Norm: The auto option tells MPlayer to choose a TV norm automatically. The set ID option lets you enter a number giving the TV norm. The other options let you specify the TV norm explicitly. Only applicable to TV and PVR devices.

Audio properties

Track: The auto option tells MPlayer to choose an audio track automatically. The set ID option lets you enter a number giving the audio track ID to play. This option is set when you select an audio track from the Audio submenu of the Player menu. The submenu will list the available audio tracks for files and streams that have more than one audio track.
Volume: The default option uses the same sound volume as for other files. The set to option sets the specified initial volume when loading the file. The add and substract options will adjust the volume relative to the normal volume level. See the introduction section of this HOWTO for more details and some examples of how this works.
Delay: Delay of the sound relative to video. By default this property is remembered automatically when you use Increase Delay and Decrease Delay commands from the Audio submenu of the Player menu. The default setting always resets audio delay to zero when a file is loaded.
Codec: This specifies the audio codec to use when playing this file. The default setting will use the codec chosen on the Audio page in KPlayer Settings, normally auto. The auto setting will tell MPlayer to choose the codec it thinks is the best for playing this file.
Bitrate and Samplerate: The audio bitrate and samplerate of the file or stream. These properties are read only.
Mode: The auto option tells MPlayer to choose a TV audio mode automatically. The other options let you specify the audio mode explicitly. Only applicable to TV and PVR devices.
Input: The auto option tells MPlayer to choose a TV or DVB audio input automatically. The set to option lets you enter a number giving the audio input to use. Only applicable to TV, PVR and DVB devices.
Immediate mode: When disabled, MPlayer will capture audio from the same device as video. When enabled, tells MPlayer to capture audio through a cable going from the TV card to the sound card. Only applicable to TV and PVR devices.
Capture and Device: The audio capture system, either ALSA or OSS, and the input device. Only applicable to TV and PVR devices.

Subtitle properties

Track: The none option disables subtitle display. The external option tells MPlayer to display subtitles loaded from an external file given by the External path property below. The set ID option lets you enter a number giving the ID of an internal subtitle track to display. This option is set when you load subtitles from a subtitle file or when you select a subtitle track or the None option from the Subtitles submenu of the Player menu. The submenu lists the available subtitles for files and streams that have embedded subtitle tracks or for which you load subtitles from a subtitle file.
External path: Path to the subtitle file to be loaded for this file or stream. By default this property is set automatically when you use the Load Subtitles... command on the File menu.
External type: The auto option tells KPlayer to determine the type of the external subtitles based on the file extension. The vobsub option sets the VobSub type explicitly, and the normal option tells KPlayer that these are not VobSub subtitles.
Autoload: Tells KPlayer whether to try to autoload subtitles for this file. The default setting uses the Autoload options from the Subtitles page in KPlayer Settings. This property is only available for local files. For all other URLs it is set to no.
Position: Vertical subtitle position, 0 being at the top of the video area, and 100 at the bottom. The default setting simply keeps the last used position.
Delay: Delay of the subtitles relative to video. By default this property is remembered automatically when you use Increase Delay and Decrease Delay commands from the Subtitles submenu of the Player menu. The default setting always resets subtitle delay to zero when a file with subtitles is loaded.

Advanced properties

Additional command line arguments: Lets you specify additional arguments to be passed to MPlayer. You can either append the arguments to the ones given on the Advanced page in KPlayer Settings or override them. The default option uses the arguments given in KPlayer Settings.
Demuxer: This specifies the demultiplexer to use when playing this file. The default setting will use the demuxer chosen on the Advanced page in KPlayer Settings, normally auto. The auto setting will tell MPlayer to choose the demuxer it thinks is the best for playing this file.
Frame drop: If your system is too slow to play the file properly, you can tell MPlayer to drop some frames. The soft setting drops fewer frames than the hard one, so you should try it first. The default setting uses the Frame drop option from the Advanced page in KPlayer Settings. You can also change this option while playing a file using commands on the Advanced submenu of the Player menu. If you hold Shift when choosing them, KPlayer by default will remember the property for the current file.
Cache size: Here you can set the cache size MPlayer should use for this file. See the Cache size sections in Advanced configuration micro-HOWTO, KDE I/O Slaves micro-HOWTO and Online Radio and TV micro-HOWTO for details.
Build index: This property allows you to choose whether MPlayer should build a new index always (force), never (no) or only if the file does not have it (yes).
Use KIOSlave: Some URL types, like HTTP, FTP and Samba, can be played either directly with MPlayer or through a KDE I/O Slave. Generally you should set this option if MPlayer cannot play those URLs directly.
Use temporary file: When playing a URL using a KDE I/O Slave, data can either be passed to MPlayer through a named pipe or stored in a temporary file before playing. For URLs passed directly to MPlayer this option has no effect.
Hardware compression: Enables MJPEG compression in hardware for a TV device and lets you specify the decimation (image size) and the compression quality from 0 to 100. Only applicable to PVR and TV devices that support hardware compression.