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MPV 0.40.0 Released with NVIDIA RTX HDR Support [Ubuntu PPA]

Last updated: March 27, 2025 — Leave a comment

MPV, the popular free open-source media player, released new 0.40.0 version after half an year of development.

The new MPV release added NVIDIA RTX Video HDR support, which can be enabled by using --vf=d3d11vpp=nvidia-true-hdr option. And, HDR is now natively supported when using direct rendering (DRM) and dmabuf-wayland on Linux.

The release added new clipboard property with native backends for Windows, macOS, and Linux on Wayland, allowing for native clipboard access, which is useful for scripting.

The on-screen control now offers right-click menu options. User can now right-click on play/pause button to choose whether loop current playback or not, and right-click on volume icon to select audio device.

Right-click on volume icon to choose audio device

MPV 0.40.0 also introduced mpv:// protocol, which can be used to start mpv from web browser or anything that would trigger url handler for given protocol.

Other changes include Windows support in umpv helper script, support for HDR metadata, as well as:

  • Add select.lua options for watching history, edition, DVD/Blu-Ray titles.
  • New positioning.lua script for cursor-centric zooming and drag to pan
  • Support for wp-color-management-v1 protocol and support xdg-activation on Wayland.
  • Update console.lua with persistent command history
  • New --playlist-exts and --archive-exts
  • And more. See the github releases page for details.

How to Install MPV 0.40

MPV does not provide official packages. It however offers links to the source code, and unofficial Windows, macOS, and Linux packages in its website via the link below:

MPV Installation

For Ubuntu 22.04 (without libmpv), Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 24.10, I’ve built the new release package into this unofficial PPA with amd64 (AMD/Intel) and arm64/armhf (e.g., RasPi) platforms support.

To add the PPA and install mpv 0.40 from it, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run commands below one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/mpv
sudo apt update
sudo apt install mpv

(Optionally) you may remove the PPA by using command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/mpv

And remove the mpv package if you want via command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove mpv
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MPV 0.39.0 Added Multi-touch, NVIDIA & Intel VSR Scaling Support

Last updated: September 29, 2024 — 1 Comment

MPV, the popular free open-source Linux media player, released version 0.39.0 last week. Here are the new features and Ubuntu PPA for Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 users.

The new MPV 0.39.0 introduced Video Super Resolution scaling support with Intel and NVIDIA RTX GPUs. It’s a technology that can use your GPU to upscale low resolution video to higher resolutions. For AMD GPUs, the feature will be integrated into the FFmpeg library.

According to the official release note, the feature is implemented through the d3d11va filter, meaning that it’s Windows only. To enable it, either use vf set d3d11vpp=scale=nvidia:scale-target in your mpv.conf file or see the official documentation for the command line options.

MPV media player

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Celluloid, GTK4 GUI for MPV, Adds Floating Header-bar, Faster Loading

Last updated: June 24, 2024 — Leave a comment

Celluloid, free open-source GTK4 GUI front-end for MPV, released new 0.27 version hours ago.

Celluloid, formerly GNOME MPV, is a media player interacts with mpv via the client API, allowing access to mpv’s powerful playback capabilities, while providing a modern user interface that looks native in Ubuntu, Fedora Workstation, and other Linux with GNOME Desktop.

The new 0.27 release introduced floating header-bar in the windowed mode. It can be enabled, along with floating controls, either in “Preference” dialog or by running gsettings command. They only appear when moving mouse cursor over the video, so user can watch video without distraction.

Floating header-bar & controls only appear on mouse hover

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GNOME Expects to Use New “Showtime” as Core Video Player

Last updated: June 9, 2024 — Leave a comment

GNOME, the default desktop for Ubuntu, expects to replace its core Totem video player with ‘Showtime’, which is still in development stage.

Due to switch to GTK4, GNOME has replaced some of the core apps, including image viewer, text editor, camera app, and terminal emulator. And, Decibels is proposed as core app for playing audio files.

As the current Totem video player has not been maintained for nearly a year and sticks to GTK3, Showtime is submitted and accepted into the GNOME Incubator, which will be the core app if it reaches the required maturity.

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MPV 0.38.0 Released with Zooming in/out Shortcut (Ubuntu PPA)

Last updated: April 19, 2024 — Leave a comment

MPV, the popular free open-source media player, announced new 0.38.0 release few days ago!

The release improved --deinterlace with auto value, and --deinterlace-field-parity to automatically turn on deinterlacing. It can improve the overall clarity, sharpness of the video, by converting interlaced video (commonly found in analog television, VHS, Laserdisc, digital television (HDTV)) into a progressive form.

Without using config file, users can now press and hold Ctrl key then use mouse wheel scrolling to zoom in or zoom out the video playback.

Ctrl + Mouse Wheel to zoom in/out

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Kodi 21 “Omega” Stable Officially Released! [How to Install]

Last updated: April 2, 2025 — Leave a comment

After more than a year of development, Kodi media player 21, code-name “Omega”, is finally released!

Kodi 21 is a new major release. It’s now based on FFmpeg 6.0, that features Radiance HDR image support, VAAPI decoding and QSV decoding for 10/12bit 422, 10/12bit 444 HEVC and VP9, MediaCodec decoder, and various other exciting new features, see ffmpeg.org for details.

For macOS, the release supports HiDPI (retina) displays using its native implementations for window displays. And, it fixed crash on speech recognition activation, improved window resizing when moving (or fallback when display disconnected) from one display to another, and implemented Hotkeycontroller for media keys.
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QMPlay2 Released 24.03.16 with Vulkan Video Decoding Support

Last updated: March 18, 2024 — Leave a comment

QMPlay2, the free open-source Qt media player, released version 24.03.16 few days ago.

QMPlay2 is a Qt based media player that uses FFmpeg as backend for most video and audio codecs support. It also supports Audio CD, raw files, Rayman 2 music and chiptunes, as well as ALSA, PulseAudio or PipeWire sound servers. And, it has built-in a browser to search & play YouTube videos.

The most recent 24.03.16 release added better support for FFmpeg 6.1, and experimental Vulkan Video decoder support. So, since this release, the media player now supports hardware accelerated video playback through following APIs:

  • Vulkan Video (needs FFmpeg 6.1).
  • CUVID (NVIDIA only)
  • DXVA2 (Windows Vista and higher)
  • D3D11VA (Vulkan, Windows 8 and higher)
  • VDPAU/VA-API (X11 for VDPAU, Linux/BSD only)
  • VideoToolBox (macOS only).

QMPlay2 YouTube browser


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Parole media player updates with Middle Click Actions to Tray Icon

Last updated: December 4, 2023 — Leave a comment

 

Parole, the lightweight media player for XFCE Desktop, released version 4.18.1 few days ago.

The new release updates the app icons with 32px, 64px, 96px sizes support, so it should have a cleaner look in system menus like App Finder, Whisker Menu.

The extensions icons have been updated using newer Xfce palette, and semi-transparent borders giving it a sharper look in dark themes.

The system tray icon now is disabled outside X11. And, it now supports middle click actions to control video playback:

  • middle click to pause/resume playback.
  • middle wheel scrolling over tray icon to volume up/down.

Other changes in the release include:

  • Allow to built without X11 support and therefore whithout XfceSMClient.
  • Fix critical warning and memory leak
  • mpris2: Properly disconnect signal handlers
  • honor gtk-dialogs-use-header as Xfce 4.18 is CSD opt-in.
  • Small UI Improvements and many translation updates

How to Install Parole 4.18.1:

At the moment of writing, there’s no binary package of Parole 4.18.1 for Ubuntu.

But it’s not hard to compile the package from the source (tested in XUbuntu 22.04):

  • First, open terminal and run command to install the build dependency packages: 
    sudo apt install debhelper-compat gtk-doc-tools intltool libclutter-1.0-dev libclutter-gtk-1.0-dev libdbus-1-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libgstreamer1.0-dev libgtk-3-dev libnotify-dev libtagc0-dev libxfce4ui-2-dev libxfconf-0-dev pkg-config xfce4-dev-tools
  • Then, download the source tarball by going to XFCE website via the link below:
    Download Parole 4.18.1
  • Extract the source tarball, then right-click on the new generated folder, and select “Open in Terminal”. Finally, run the 3 commands below one by one to compile it from source: 
    ./configure
    make -j4
    sudo make install

NOTE: It by default installs the parole executable to /usr/local/bin without overriding the pre-installed one. Meaning you’ll have 2 versions of the media player installed in your system, while the app icon in menu will launch the newer 4.18.1 version.

(Uninstall) By opening the source folder in terminal, you may also uninstall the media player by running command:

sudo make uninstall
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PPA Updated for VLC 3.0.21 for Ubuntu 24.04, 22.04 & 20.04

Last updated: June 7, 2024 — 13 Comments

For VLC users who prefer installing the player via the classic .deb package, here’s an Ubuntu PPA contains the most recent (3.0.21 updated) for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04.

VLC media player is available in Ubuntu system repository, but always old. For the most recent version, VideoLAN provides Snap package, which however runs in sandbox environment.


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Parole Media Player 4.18 Released! How to Install via PPA

Last updated: February 19, 2023 — Leave a comment

Xfce’s Parole media player announced the 4.18.0 released a day ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10 and their based systems.

Parole is a modern simple video player based on the GStreamer. It’s an free opensource app fit well in the lightweight XFCE desktop, though also works in other Linux desktops.

The new version 4.18.0 was released last night. It’s been more than 2 years since the last release, there’s however NO big changes but only bug-fixes, minor improvements, and translation updates.

Changes in Parole 4.18.0 according to the NEWS file:

  • Hovering mouse wheel over a speaker icon can also increase volume now.
  • Reduce playback control panel to stay 2 seconds when in full-screen mode.
  • Fix memory leak when loading cover image.
  • Some icon updates and translation updates.

How to Install Parole 4.18.0 via PPA in Ubuntu:

The project does not provide official binary packages. Besides building from the source tarball, XUbuntu, Linux Lite, Linux Mint, and of course other Ubuntu based systems can get it from this unofficial PPA.

NOTE: Parole seems not working good in GNOME desktop with Wayland session. Meaning Ubuntu and Fedora workstation with default desktop environment need to switch to classic Xorg for this app.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or search for and open terminal window from start menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue. The PPA support for Ubuntu 20.04 and higher with both amd64 and arm64/armhf cpu architecture types.

2. Some Ubuntu based systems may need to manually update package index after adding PPA. To do so, run command:

sudo apt update

3. Finally, either upgrade the media player from an existing version (if any) using Software Updater (Update Manager), or run command in terminal to install it:

sudo apt install parole

Uninstall Parole or Restore original package

To restore the original version, run command in terminal to purge the PPA as well as downgrade the package:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Or, you can remove the Ubuntu PPA either via “Software & Updates” tool under “Other Software” tab, or run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

To remove the media player, use command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove parole
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