Video playback

The main feature of XBMC is playing back videos. This page describes the controls, features, and settings related to video playback.

On screen display (OSD)


When playing a video full screen you can bring up the on-screen-display controls by pressing or  or on remote the  (or the equivalent button on your remote control).

Mini player controls
While in the GUI you are able to browse all of XBMC and even look at pictures while playing music or videos. During GUI playback you can call up the Mini player controls at any time. In the default skin Confluence, you can do this two ways:

Sidebar
While the sidebar tab is present and while media is playing, bringing up the sidebar/blade menu by navigating to the left will reveal a small selection of player controls.

Window
A pop-up window with mini player controls can be brought up in Confluence while media is playing. For a keyboard press while video is playing in the background.

OSD audio and subtitle settings

 * Volume
 * Allows you to adjust the playback volume


 * Volume Amplification (Dynamic Range Compression)
 * Allows you to adjust how much the audio range is compressed, making the loud and soft sounds closer in volume. This is useful when watching movies with loud sound effects such as explosions at night.


 * Audio Offset
 * Adjusts how long that the audio is delayed in relation to the video. This is useful when viewing poorly synced videos.


 * Audio Stream
 * If the video file contains more than one audio stream you can select them here.


 * As of v12 Frodo, XBMC will auto select audio language based on your global settings. See: Settings/Appearance.
 * Output stereo to all speakers
 * Outputs stereo to all speakers


 * Audio output
 * Select output device for the current stream


 * Enable Subtitles
 * Enable or disables subtitles. Subtitle tracks with the "forced" flag are unaffected by this and should always display.


 * Subtitle Offset
 * Adjusts how long that the subtitles are delayed in relation to the video


 * Subtitle
 * Allows you select which subtitles are displayed


 * As of v12, XBMC will auto select subtitle language based on your global settings. Also - Set as default for all Movies is now Set as default for all Videos. See: Settings/Appearance.
 * Browse for Subtitle
 * Allows you to browse the filesystem for the file used to display the subtitles


 * Set as default for all videos
 * Selecting this will make the current settings the default



OSD video settings



 * Deinterlace settings
 * Auto / On / Off


 * Deinterlace method
 * Auto Select - Tries to guess the best method.
 * DeInterlace -
 * Sync Odd - (Only for HQ Pixel rendermethod, also NEEDS an interlaced display: PAL* or NTSC*.)
 * Sync Even - (Only for HQ Pixel rendermethod, also NEEDS an interlaced display: PAL* or NTSC*.)
 * None
 * Video scaling method
 * Changes the size of a video frame in order to match the resolution of the display device. All methods here are non-adaptive so they may produce different amount of aliasing, blurring and edge halos. There are no best methods it’s up to personal taste what method you should use. The methods are:


 * Auto - If supported uses Lanczos3 Optimized when video resolution is lower than 720p (1280x720) and video FPS is lower than 30, otherwise it uses Bilinear.
 * Bilinear - fairly simple and fast method (video resized with this method may appear slightly smoothed/blurred but with no edge halos also called ringing artifacts).
 * Bicubic - more sophisticated method than Bilinear (more precise and slightly sharper video than Bilinear, but can introduce some ringing artifacts).
 * Lanczos2 - 4-tap filter that uses a 2-lobe Lanczos windowed sinc function (sharper than Bicubic with less aliasing).
 * Spline36 Optimized - 4-tap + 3-lobe filter, more precise than Lanczos2, which tries to produce the sharpest image with slightly less ringing artifacts then Lanczos3 Optimized (differences only noticeable with high resizing factors or when downsizing).
 * Lanczos3 Optimized - 4-tap filter that uses a 3-lobe Lanczos windowed sinc function (comparable results to Spline36 Optimized, with less aliasing and more sharpness, but more ringing artifacts).
 * Spline36, Lanczos31 - 6-tap filters that are more precise variants of above "Optimized" versions (they are sharper but might produce more ringing artifacts in some situations).
 * Characteristics of different methods:


 * Sharpness - Bilinear < Bicubic < Lanczos2 < Spline36 Optim < Lanczos3 Optim < Spline36 < Lanczos3
 * Aliasing artifacts - Lanczos3 < Spline36 < Lanczos3 Optim < Spline36 Optim < Lanczos2 < Bicubic < Bilinear
 * Ringing artifacts - Bilinear (no ringing) | Bicubic < Lanczos2 < Spline36 Optim < Lanczos3 Optim < Spline36 < Lanczos3
 * 1 On GL builds these methods are slower than the optimized versions; this is the reason why they are not available by default but can be activated by advanced users in advancedsettings.xml


 * Crop Black Bars
 * Choosing this will crop any black bars encoded at the top, bottom or sides of your video. This will fix some issues with videos being displayed at the incorrect aspect ratio.


 * View Mode
 * Allows you to choose how the video is displayed. The options are:


 * Normal - Movie is displayed so that at least 1 dimension fills the screen. No cropping will occur. Aspect ratio is unaffected.
 * Zoom - Movie is zoomed in, and the movie cropped so that there are no black bars on screen. Aspect ratio is unaffected.
 * Stretch 4x3 - Movie is stretched to fill a 4x3 frame. Aspect ratio is changed.
 * Stretch 14x9 - Movie is stretched to fill a 14x9 frame. Aspect ratio is changed.
 * Stretch 16x9 - Movie is stretched to fill a 16x9 frame. Aspect ratio is changed.
 * Original Size - Movie is displayed so that the height (in pixels) displayed is the height of the movie exactly. No zooming is performed. Aspect ratio is unaffected.
 * Custom - Movie is displayed using the Zoom and Pixel Ratio settings as defined in the video On Screen Display. See below for more details.
 * Zoom Amount
 * Allows you to control how much that the view is zoomed into the video.


 * Vertical shift
 * Determines the amount a the video is shifted up on vertical axys on current display (helpful for projectors)


 * Pixel Ratio
 * Allows you to adjust the pixel ratio that the video is displayed at. This can be used to adjust videos that are not displaying at the proper aspect ratio.


 * Postprocessing


 * Brightness
 * Adjust brightness


 * Contrast
 * Adjust contrast


 * [VDPAU] Noise reduction (only visible when VDPAU is in use)
 * Select level of noise reduction for video content


 * [VDPAU] Sharpness (only visible when VDPAU is in use)
 * Select sharpness amount to apply to video content


 * Non-linear stretch
 * When enabled the stretching method doesn't look so wide in middle of video area


 * Set as default for all videos
 * Selecting this will make the current settings the default


 * Video Calibration
 * Opens the Video Calibration Window

Video bookmarks
This feature allows you to create bookmarks within your videos in order to be able to return to a certain point in them. This could be compared to chapters in DVD videos. In order to create them, go to the point in your video that you wish to bookmark, select the button with the folded paper (from the Videos OSD), and select Create Bookmark. To jump to a previously stored bookmark, simply highlight and select it through the Videos OSD.

You can clear all the saved bookmarks by selecting Clear Bookmarks.

On-Screen Video Diagnostics
On Screen Video Diagnostics, or Codec Info, can be displayed when a video is playing by pressing, or the corresponding control on your remote.

A detailed explanation of the displayed values can be found on the Codecinfo page.