Video, HDR, and shaders
Configure render backends, HDR pipelines, debanding, Anime4K, filters, and thermal-aware playback.
Start with automatic hardware decoding and the default renderer. Advanced processing can improve difficult content, but it also increases GPU load, heat, and battery use.
Render backend
mpvRx can select between OpenGL and Vulkan paths and between mpv’s gpu and gpu-next output behavior. Driver quality varies by device.
HDR pipelines
The bundled hdr-toys collection provides 77 GLSL shaders and four high-level modes:
- BT.2100 PQ for HDR10-style sources
- BT.2100 HLG
- BT.2020 gamut mapping
- Linear HDR, including optional SDR-to-HDR boosting
Correct output depends on the source metadata, display capability, Android composition path, and renderer. Compare against the unmodified image before keeping a pipeline enabled globally.
Anime4K
Seven presets are available: Off, A, B, C, A+, B+, and C+. Device-oriented quality choices provide Fast, Balanced, and High tiers. mpvRx can disable Anime4K for high-resolution content and lower its quality under thermal pressure.
Anime4K is most useful for compatible animated sources at lower resolutions. It is not a universal sharpness switch.
Debanding and filters
- CPU debanding uses
gradfun. - GPU debanding exposes iterations, threshold, range, and grain.
- Video filter presets include Vivid, Cinematic, Dramatic, Ghibli Style, Neon Pop, and Deep Black.
- Ambient GLOW and FRAME_EXTEND modes render around the video with configurable blur, color, warmth, vignette, and noise controls.
- Automatic cropping can analyze supported videos for encoded black borders.
Tune GPU debanding
| Control | Effect |
|---|---|
| Iterations | Repeats the debanding pass; higher values increase GPU cost. |
| Threshold | Controls how readily subtle gradients are treated as banding. |
| Range | Expands the neighborhood sampled around each pixel. |
| Grain | Adds controlled noise to mask remaining quantization steps. |
Begin with one iteration and conservative threshold/range. Too much processing can erase intentional texture or add visible noise.
Ambient modes
GLOW extends color and light beyond the picture, while FRAME_EXTEND uses the frame itself as the surrounding composition. Settings include sample count, blur, intensity, saturation, warmth, vignette, and dither/noise.
mpvRx caches compiled shader configurations and reduces the effective sample budget under thermal pressure. Adjust one parameter at a time; sample count and blur radius usually have the largest performance impact.
Filter presets
Presets are creative starting points rather than calibration profiles. Preview them on representative bright, dark, animated, and skin-tone scenes before applying one broadly. Deep Black can crush shadow detail on an already dark master; vivid or neon looks can clip saturated colors.
Automatic crop
Auto Crop samples several frames and looks for persistent encoded borders. It is conservative around dark scenes, short files, rotation, and changing aspect ratios, then caches a successful result for repeat playback.
Disable it for intentional letterboxing, rapidly changing aspect ratios, or content where edge darkness is part of the image. Crop, stretch, pan, zoom, and ambient output share the final video geometry.
Watch thermal behavior
The thermal monitor samples headroom during playback. Shader budgets and Anime4K choices can be reduced before sustained heat becomes dropped frames. Use Statistics and refresh rate to compare FPS, dropped frames, decoder state, temperature, and power draw after each change.