MPlayer vs mpv

MPlayer is a movie player for Linux, macOS and Windows, with additional listed support for BSD, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and QNX. It plays formats including MPEG, AVI, Ogg/OGM, ASF/WMV, MOV/MP4, RealMedia, Matroska and DVD, and accepts streams over protocols such as HTTP/FTP, RTP/RTSP, MMS/MMST, MPST and SDP. Subtitle support covers 12 formats, as well as DVD subtitles and closed captions. The player includes playback-speed control, an on-screen status display and multiple video output drivers; hardware acceleration is listed. Its MEncoder component can create MPEG program stream files. MPlayer is free under GNU General Public License version 2. The download page lists version 1.5, created on 2022-02-27, as the latest release and recommends current Subversion source for newer features and fixes. The graphical interface is not under further development and receives limited bug fixing. A complete installation requires source code and binary codecs; the GUI also needs a skin.

mpv is a free, open-source command-line media player for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. It plays a wide range of media formats, audio and video codecs, and subtitle types, including Matroska (MKV) and MP4, with network playback and 4K playback support. Its interface is deliberately limited: there is no full graphical interface, only a small on-screen controller for basic playback. Video output is based on OpenGL, Vulkan, and D3D11, with scaling, color management, frame timing, interpolation, and HDR features. mpv can use hardware decoding APIs on its supported platforms, and decoding can be switched on while the player is running. Scripts and user-created scripts can extend its behavior; developers can also use its C API to embed it in other applications. The project is actively developed. The default license is GPLv2 or later, with LGPLv2.1 or later available for builds configured with -Dgpl=false. Only the latest stable release receives security updates.