Video playback

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Home icon grey.png   ▶ Video library
▶ Settings
▶ 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  Enter or M or on remote the OK (or the equivalent button on your remote control).

  1. Previous
  2. Rewind
  3. Play/Pause
  4. Stop
  5. Fast Forward
  6. Next
  7. Scrub bar (touch/clickable)

A. Subtitle downloader (via add-on)
B. Video settings
C. Audio and subtitle settings
D. Bookmarks
E. DVD Menu (if playing back a DVD disc or ISO)


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 M 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.
Stereo upmix
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#International.
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 video
Auto / On / Off
Deinterlace method
  • Auto select - Tries to guess the best method.
  • DeInterlace -
  • None
  • Editor note: need updated deinterlace methods listed here.
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:
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:
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 ?
Stereoscopic mode of video
?
Stereoscopic mode inverted
?

Set as default for all videos
Selecting this will make the current settings the default
Video calibration
Opens the Video calibration window

Video bookmarks


Subtitles

Kodi supports both stand-alone subtitle and embedded subtitles. Most major subtitle formats are supported. Kodi can also search and download subtitles directly from full screen playback.

Internet video and audio streams

Various internet video and audio streams can be played back in Kodi as if they were locally stored on your media center by using STRM files. As long as the format and streaming-method (network-protocol) is supported by Kodi, stream can be added. These are basic text files that look like <name>.strm and contain a URL to the internet stream. STRM files can also be added to the video library and can have cover art, summaries, etc.

Some internet sites may have an add-on available that can also access these media streams, rather than having to manually create STRM files. See Add-ons for more information on how to find and install add-ons.

Playlists

  • Basic playlists - The Basic Playlist is a user created list of music or video that does not require a correctly scraped library as it uses the folder paths to the media files. As the playlist is based on paths, different classes of media can be mixed, like movies and episodes. The list can be created within Kodi or transferred from another media player.
  • Smart playlists - Smart Playlists are a versatile feature that allow you to create customised lists of media that may be more suited to your browsing preference. They are a set of rules/filters that allow you to display a sub set of the media in your library.

UPnP

Kodi can be used as a UPnP Server that will stream its library contents to other players on the network, or it can be used as a UPnP Client that can receive music and video from a UPnP Server on the network.

AirPlay

As of v11 (Eden), Kodi has very limited support for being an AirPlay target, allowing any device/platform that can run Kodi to receive some AirPlay content.

3D

Starting in v13, Kodi supports a number of passive 3D video formats such as SBS, TAB, anaglyph or interlaced. This support extends to the Kodi GUI including subtitles and on-screen-controls.

On-Screen Video Diagnostics

File:Video.codecinfo.jpg
Video playback with Codec Info enabled

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

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