Node-MPV

A wrapper to comfortably use mpv player with node.js. It provides functions for the most of the commands needed to control the player. It's easy to use and highly flexible.

The module keeps an instance of mpv running in the background (using mpv's --idle) and communicates over the Json IPC API.

It also provides direct access to the IPC socket. Thus this module is not only limited to the methods it provides, but can fully communicate with the mpv API.

This module requires mpv to be installed on your system to work

For streaming playback such as YouTube and SoundCloud youtube-dl is required

Important

In version 0.13.0 the behaviour of mute() has changed. Use toggleMute() instead.

Install

npm install node-mpv

OS X

brew install mpv youtube-dl

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian)

sudo apt-get install mpv youtube-dl

youtube-dl is only required if you want to stream videos or music from YouTube, SoundCloud or other websites supported by youtube-dl. See here for a list of supported websites.

Usage

mpv = require('node-mpv');
mpvPlayer = new mpv();

You optionally pass a Json object with options to the constructor. Possible options, along with their default values are the following

{
    "audio_only": false,
    "binary": null,
    "debug": false,
    "ipcCommand": null,   
    "socket": "/tmp/node-mpv.sock",
    "time_update": 1,
    "verbose": false,
}

• audio_only will add the --no-video and --no-audio-display argument and start mpv in audio only mode
• binary will use the provied path to a mpv binary instead of using the one found in $PATH
• debug prints error messages
• ipc_command allows to set the ipc command to start the ipc socket. Possible options are --input-unix-socket and --input-ipc-server. This is usually not needed since Node-MPV is able to determine the correct command by itself, for the most part
• socket specifies the socket mpv opens
• time_update the time interval in seconds, how often mpv should report the current time position, when playing a title
• verbose will print various information on the console

You can also provide an optional second argument, an Array containing mpv command line options. A list of available arguments can be found in the documentation

mpvPlayer = new mpv({
  "verbose": true,
  "audio_only": true
},
[
  "--fullscreen",
  "--fps=60"
]);

Mpv is then easily controllable via simple function calls.

mpvPlayer.loadFile("/path/to/your/favorite/song.mp3");
mpvPlayer.volume(70);

Events are used to detect changes.

mpvPlayer.on('statuschange', function(status){
  console.log(status);
});

mpvPlayer.on('stopped', function() {
  console.log("Gimme more music");
});

Methods

Load Content

• loadFile (file, mode="replace")

  Will load the file and starts playing it. This behaviour can be changed using the mode option

  • replace(default) replace current title and play the file immediately
  • append appends the title to the playlist
  • append-play appends the title to the playlist. If the playlist was empty this title is played

  There is another append function in the playlist section, which can be used to append files and streams.

• loadStream (url)

  Exactly the same as loadFile but loads a stream specified by url, for example YouTube or SoundCloud.

  mode is the same as in loadFile.

  This function should be used to load YouTube and SoundCloud playlists, as loadPlaylist will not work with those.

Controlling MPV

• play ()

  Starts playback when in pause state

• stop ()

  Stops the playback entirely

• pause ()

  Pauses playback

• resume ()

  Resumes from pause mode

• togglePause ()

  Toggles the pause mode

• mute ()

  This methods behaviours has changed with version 0.13.0, use toggleMute() instead

  Mutes the player

• unmute ()

  Unmute the player

• toggleMute ()

  Toggles between muted and unmuted

• volume (volumeLevel)

  Sets volume to volumeLevel. Allowed values are between 0-100. All values above and below will just set the volume to 0 or 100 respectively

• adjustVolume (value)

  Adjusts the volume with the specified value. If this results in the volume going below 0 or above 100 it will be set to 0 or 100 respectively

• seek (seconds)

  Will jump back or forth in the song for the specified amount of seconds. Going beyond the duration of the song results in stop of playback

• goToPosition (seconds)

  Jumps to the position specified by seconds. Going beyond the boundaries of the song results in stop of playback

• loop (times)

  Loops the current title timesoften. If set to "inf" the title is looped forever

Playlists

• loadPlaylist (playlist, mode="replace")

  Loads a playlist file. mode can be one of the two folllowing

  This function does not work with YouTube or SoundCloud playlists. Use loadFile or loadStream instead

  • replace (default) Replaces the old playist with the new one
  • append Appends the new playlist to the active one

• append (file, mode="append")

  Appends file (which can also be an url) to the playlist.

  • append (default) Append the title
  • append-play When the playlist was empty the title will be started

• next (mode="weak")

  Skips the current song. modecan be one of the following two

  • weak (default) If the song is the last song in the playlist it is not skipped
  • strong The song is skipped and playback is stopped

• prev (mode="weak")

  Skips the current song. modecan be one of the following two

  • weak (default) If the song is the first song in the playlist it is not stopped
  • strong The song is skipped and playback is stopped

• clearPlaylist ()

  Clears the playlist

• playlistRemove (index)

  Removes the song at index from the playlist. If index is set to "current" the current song is removed and playback stops

• playlistMove (index1, index2)

  Moves the song at index1 to the position at index2

• shuffle ()

  Shuffles the play into a random order

Audio

• addAudioTrack (file, flag, title, lang)

  Adds an audio file to the video that is loaded.

  • file The audio file to load
  • flag (optional) Can be one of "select" (default), "auto" or "cached"
  • title (optional) The name for the audio track in the UI
  • lang (optional) the language of the audio track

  flag has the following effects

  • select - the added audio track is selected immediately
  • auto - the audio track is not selected
  • cached - select the audio track, but if a audio track file with the same name is already loaded, the new file is not added and the old one is selected instead

• removeAudioTrack ()

  Removes the audio track specified by id. Works only for external audio tracks

• selectAudioTrack (id)

  Selects the audio track associated with id

• cycleAudioTracks ()

  Cycles through the audio tracks

• adjustAudioTiming (seconds)

  Shifts the audio timing by seconds

• speed (scale)

  Controls the playback speed by scale which can take any value between 0.01 and 100

  If the --auto-pitch-correction flag (on by default) is used, this will not pitch the audio and uses a scaletempo audio filter

Video

• fullscreen ()

  Goes into fullscreen mode

• leaveFullscreen ()

  Leaves fullscreen mode

• toggleFullscreen ()

  Toggles between fullscreen and windowed mode

• screenshot (file, option)

  Takes a screenshot and saves it to file. options is one of the following

  • subtitles (default) Takes a screenshot including the subtitles
  • video Only the image, no texts
  • window The scaled mpv window

• rotateVideo (degrees)

  Rotates the video clockwise. degree can only be multiples of 90 and the rotation is absolute, not relative

• zoomVideo (factor)

  Zooms into the video. 0 does not zoom at all, 1 zooms double and so on

• brightness (value)

  Sets the brightness to value. Allowed values are between -100 and 100

• contrast (value)

  Sets the contrast to value. Allowed values are between -100 and 100

• saturation (value)

  Sets the saturation to value. Allowed values are between -100 and 100

• gamma (value)

  Sets the gamma to value. Allowed values are between -100 and 100

• hue (value)

  Sets the hue to value. Allowed values are between -100 and 100

Subtitles

• addSubtilte (file, flag, title, lang)

  Adds a subtitle file to the video that is loaded.

  • file The subtitle file to load
  • flag (optional) Can be one of "select" (default), "auto" or "cached"
  • title (optional) The name for the subtitle file in the UI
  • lang (optional) The language of the subtitle

  flag has the following effects

  • select - the added subtitle is selected immediately
  • auto - the subtitle is not selected
  • cached - select the subtitle, but if a subtitle file with the same name is already loaded, the new file is not added and the old one is selected instead

• removeSubitlte (id)

  Removes the subtitle file specified by id. Works only for external subtitle

• selectSubitlte (id)

  Selects the subtitle associated with id

• cycleSubtitles ()

  Cycles through all available subtitles

• toggleSubtitleVisibility ()

  Toggles between hidden and visible subtitle

• showSubtitles ()

  Shows the subtitle

• hideSubtitles ()

  Hides the subtitles

• adjustSubtitleTiming (seconds)

  Shifts the subtitle timing by seconds

• subtitleSeek (lines)

  Jumps as many lines of subtitles as defined by lines. Can be negative. This will also seek in the video.

• subitlteScale (scale)

  Adjust the scale of the subtitles

Properties

These methods can be used to alter properties or send arbitary commands to the running mpv player. Information about what commands and properties are available can be found in the list of commands and list of properties sections of the mpv documentation.

The most common commands are already covered by this modules API. This part enables you to send any command you want over the IPC. With this you are not limited the methods defined by this module.

• setProperty (property, value)

  Sets the specified property to the specified value

• setMultipleProperties (properties)

  Calls setProperty for every property specified in the arguments Json object. For example

  setMultipleProperties({
      "volume": 70,
      "fullscreen": true
  });

• getProperty (property, [id])

  Gets information about the specified property.

  If an id is used, the answer comes via a getrequest event containing the id and the property.

  If no id was set this function returns a promise delivering the property. It can be used as in the example below

   mpvPlayer.getProperty('duration').then(function(duration) {
     console.log("Duration: ", duration);
   });

• addProperty (property, value)

  Increased the property by the specified value. Needless to say this can only be used on numerical properties. Negative values are possible

• multiplyProperty (property, value)

  Multiply the specified property by value

• cycleProperty (property)

  Cycles the values of an arbitrary property

• command (command, args)

  Sends the command to the mpv player with the arguments specified in args The Json command

  `{"command": ["loadfile", "audioSong.mp3"]}`

  becomes a function call

  `command("loadfile",["audioSong.mp3"]`

• freeCommand (command)

  This will send an arbitrary command to the mpv player. It must however follow the specification of the Json IPC protocol. Its syntax can be found in the documentation.

  A trailing "\n" will be added to the command.

Observing

• observeProperty (property, id)

  This will add the specified property to the statusupdate event which is emitted whenever one of the observed properties changes.

  The Ids 0-12 are already taken by the properties which are observed by default.

• unobserveProperty(id)

  This will remove the property associated with the specified id from the statusupdate.

  Unobserving default properties may break the module.

Events

The Node-MPV module provides various events to notify about changes of the mpv player's state.

• started

  Whenever mpv starts playing a song or video

• stopped

  Whenever the playback has stopped

• paused

  Whenever mpv was paused

• resumed

  Whenever mpv was resumed

• timeposition <seconds>

  When a song or video is currently playing and the playback is not paused, this event will emit the current position in seconds.

  When creating the mpv instance you can set a parameter, how often this event should occur. Default is every second

• getrequest <id, data>

  Delivers the reply to a function call to the getRequest method

• statuschange <status object>

  Whenever the status of one of the observed properties changes, this event will be emitted providing the complete status object

  By default various properties are already observed and the status object looks like the following

  {
    "mute": false,
    "pause": false,
    "duration": null,
    "volume": 100,
    "filename": null,
    "path": null,
    "media-title": null,
    "playlist-pos": 0,
    "playlist-count": 0,
    "loop": "no"
  }

  If the player is running in video mode the following properties are present as well.

  {
    "fullscreen": false,
    "sub-visibility": false
  }

  • filename When playing a local file this contains the filename. When playing for example a YouTube stream, this will only contain the trailing url

  • path Provides the absolute path to the music file or the full url of a stream

  • media-title If available in the file this will contain the title. When streaming from YouTube this will be set to the video's name

    This object can expanded through the observeProperty method making it possible to watch any state you desire, given it is provided by mpv

Observing

node-mpv allows you to observe any property the mpv API offers you, by simply using the observeProperty function.

observeProperty(property, id);

This will add the property to status update object emitted by the statuschange event. Everytime that property changes such an event will be triggered.

By calling unobserveProperty(id) the property associated with that id is removed from the statuschange

By default node-mpv is already observing some useful properties by default.

{
  "mute": Boolean,
  "pause": Boolean,
  "duration": Number,
  "volume": Number,
  "filename": String,
  "path": String,
  "media-title": String,
  "playlist-pos": Number,
  "playlist-count": Number,
  "loop": Number // this one can be set to "inf" for endless looping
}

If node-mpv is not run in audio_only mode the following two properties will be observed, too

{
  "fullscreen": Boolean,
  "sub-visibility": Boolean
}

The IDs 0 - 12 are already used for the default properties. Unobserving them will most likely break the module.

For more information on the statuschange part, check the event section.

Bug with observing playlist-count

As of mpv version 0.17.0, the playlist-count property is not updated as one would expect. It is not updated on playlistRemove and append. I already filed an issue about that and the problem was already fixed. If you need this feature you will have to build and install mpv yourself. Instructions for that can be found on the projects GitHub page.

Example

var mpvAPI = require('./mpv.js');
var mpvPlayer = new mpvAPI();

// This will load and start the song
mpvPlayer.loadFile('/path/to/your/favorite/song.mp3');

// This will bind this function to the stopped event
mpvPlayer.on('stopped', function() {
  console.log("Your favorite song just finished, let's start it again!");
    mpvPlayer.loadFile('/path/to/your/favorite/song.mp3');
});

// Set the volume to 50%
mpvPlayer.volume(50);

// Stop to song emitting the stopped event
mpvPlayer.stop();

Known Issues

IPC Command

The command line argument to start the IPC socket has changed in mpv version 0.17.0 from --input-unix-socket to --input-ipc-socket. This module uses regular expressions to find the version number from the mpv --version output. If mpv is compiled from source, the version number is stated as UNKNOWN and this module will assume, that you use the latest version and use the new command.

If you use self compiled version stating UNKNOWN as the version number below mpv version 0.17.0 you have to use the ipc_command option with '--input-unix-socket'.

To check this enter the following in your command shell

mpv --version

MPV Player 0.18.1

MPV Player version 0.18.1 has some issues that the player crashes sometimes, when sending commands through the ipc socket. If you're using version 0.18.0 try to use a newer (or older) version.

To check your version number enter the following in your command shell

mpv --version

Changelog

See changelog for more information or API breaking changes