---
title: First playback
description: Grant only the access you need, open your first file, and establish a clean playback baseline.
---

Begin with default rendering and gesture settings. A clean baseline makes device-specific decoder, shader, and subtitle problems much easier to isolate.

1. **Choose media access**

    Grant video or audio access when you want mpvRx to build a local library. You can still open individual files through Android's document picker without exposing unrelated folders.

2. **Open a source**

    Pick a file from **Home**, **Recents**, or Android's share/open-with flow. For a remote stream, use **Open URL**.

3. **Confirm hardware decoding**

    Play a representative file with default decoder and render settings. Open the statistics view if you need codec, frame-rate, dropped-frame, or power information.

4. **Tune one layer at a time**

    Configure gestures and controls first. Add shaders, Anime4K, custom profiles, or scripts only after normal playback is stable.

## Player essentials

- Tap once to show or hide controls.
- Seek with the timeline, configured tap zones, or horizontal swipe.
- Open the track controls to select audio and subtitle streams.
- Use the More sheet for aspect ratio, filters, frame navigation, loops, and advanced actions.
- Back navigation can return to browsing while unified background playback continues.

## A reliable baseline

For broad device compatibility, keep `mpv.conf` empty initially and use the app's defaults. If power use matters more than advanced rendering, prefer the classic `gpu` path, disable unnecessary shaders, and compare results using the statistics page.