# File properties

Starting from &kplayer; 0.5 each file and URL has its own set of properties. They include information that &kplayer; found out about the file, like time length, video size, frame rate, bitrates, and so on, as well as various options you can set, like name, video aspect, subtitles, and many more.

Most properties can be set through the File Properties dialog. The Properties dialog for the currently loaded file or URL can be opened from the File menu, or using the Properties button on the main toolbar, or from the right click popup menu. You can also open the Properties dialog for an entry on your playlist by right clicking it in the Playlist Editor and selecting Properties, or by using the Properties command on the Playlist menu.

An easier way to set file properties is by holding the &Shift; key when changing a setting. For example, if you hold &Shift; and select Soft Frame Dropping from the Player menu, &kplayer; will remember that setting for the current URL, and use it the next time you play it. After it is done playing the current URL, it will revert the Frame drop setting to the default, the one that was in effect before you changed it with &Shift;. On the other hand, if you change the Frame drop setting without holding &Shift;, the new setting will become the default, and will be used for all URLs that do not have it set explicitly.

Volume, contrast, brightness, hue and saturation are handled in a special way when it comes to file properties. Instead of remembering the exact setting when you hold &Shift;, &kplayer; will remember the setting relatively to the default.

For example, if you have a file that was recorded louder than your other files, when playing that file you can hold &Shift; and adjust the volume level to be the same as for other files. &kplayer; will remember this as something like lower the volume by 10 units when playing this file. If later you for example have a party and need to play your files louder than usual, you turn the volume up (without holding &Shift;), so all files play louder, then when the turn of that one file comes, &kplayer; will lower the volume by 10 units while playing it, so it again has the same volume level as the other files, and then turn the volume 10 units up when it moves to the next file.

Another example, you find a video that is dark and so needs to be played with higher brightness than other videos. So you hold the &Shift; key and drag the brightness slider up. &kplayer; remembers the higher brightness for this file, and then goes back to playing at normal brightness when you play another file. Suppose you did that at night, and next time you play the videos during daylight, so you want to play all of them at higher brightness. Then you drag the brightness slider up, this time without holding &Shift;, so the setting is made the default and applied to all videos that do not have a brightness property set. When the turn of the dark video comes, &kplayer; sees that it needs to be played at an even higher brightness and turns it further up, but only for the duration of that one video, and then restores it back to the default you set.

Choosing the Full Screen command or clicking the Maximize or Restore button in the title bar while holding &Shift; will set the Full screen property. Choosing an aspect command with &Shift; will set the Display size property to set aspect and the aspect you choose, and also will set the Maintain aspect property. A zooming command on the View menu when chosen with &Shift; will set the Display size property to set size and the fixed size, and so will resizing the window if you press &Shift; before you begin resizing the window.

This special function of the &Shift; key can be turned off on the Controls page in &kplayer; Settings.

There are two special cases when you can also hold &Shift; to modify &kplayer; behavior. First, you can hold &Shift; when opening a file or URL or dropping files onto &kplayer; window. &kplayer; will then load the first file (if told to do so on the Playlist page in &kplayer; Settings) but will not start playing it. You can then open its File Properties and make your choices before starting to play it. This trick will not work when launching files from &konqueror; or somesuch.

Second, if you hold &Shift; when choosing the Play command from the Player menu or clicking the Play button, &kplayer; will first stop the helper process that it runs once for each file to try and figure out the time length of the file. This is needed rarely if ever, only when the helper process causes any problems.

&kplayer; will remember properties for every file or URL that it opens, even those that are removed from the playlist, until the total number reaches the limit set on the Playlist page in &kplayer; Settings under Cache size limit, by default 1000. After that it will start discarding the oldest entries. Playing an entry makes it the most recent entry in the cache. If you have very many files, you can set the Cache size limit higher, but as some point it may start affecting performance.

Following are the available file properties, listed by pages in the File Properties dialog.

## General properties

Path or URL

  The file system path to the file or the URL of the file or stream. This property is read only. To use a different path or URL, open it with Open or Open URL on the File menu, or by dragging and dropping it onto &kplayer; window, or starting &kplayer; with URL argument(s), for example by launching files from &konqueror; File Manager or clicking a link in &konqueror; Web Browser.

Name

  This is the name that &kplayer; will display for this file or URL in the playlist and also in the title bar when the file is loaded. It will also be shown and can be changed on the Meta Info tab of the File Properties dialog in &konqueror;. Modifying it will not change the actual file system name of the file.

Playlist

  &mplayer; currently is not smart enough to automatically detect and play a playlist file like `pls` or `m3u`, so &kplayer; has to explicitly tell it to parse a file as a playlist. The auto setting lets &kplayer; use the file extension to guess if it is a playlist file. The playlist extensions &kplayer; recognizes are `ram`, `rpm`, `smi`, `smil`, `asx`, `m3u`, `pls` and `strm`. If a file that is not a playlist has one of these extensions, or a playlist file has a different extension, you will need to correctly set this property in order to be able to play the file or stream.

Length

  The time length of the file. &kplayer; tries to detect it with precision of one tenth of a second, and usually gets it pretty close to the real length. This property is read only.

Original size

  The original video size, empty for audio only files. This is also read only, but see the next property.

Display size

  Here you can set the initial video size &kplayer; will use when it starts playing the file, unless you turned off the option to Resize main window automatically on the General page in &kplayer; Settings. The default setting will use the Minimum initial video width option from the General page in &kplayer; Settings. The set size setting will use the fixed initial size you specify. The set aspect setting will again use the Minimum initial video width option, but will apply the fixed initial aspect you specify.

Full screen

  Normally you would leave this at the default setting, which will keep the full screen or maximized state of the previous file. The normal setting will force normal windowed mode for this file, the full screen setting will force full screen mode unless it is an audio only file, and the maximized setting will force maximized window mode.

Maintain aspect

  Here you can set the Maintain aspect option specifically for this file. The default setting will keep the Maintain aspect option you choose globally.

## Video properties

Contrast, Brightness, Hue and Saturation

  The default option uses the same setting as for other files. The set to option sets the specified initial contrast, brightness, hue or saturation when loading the file. The add and substract options adjust the contrast, brightness, hue or saturation relative to the normal setting. See the introduction section of this HOWTO for more details and some examples of how this works.

Codec

  Specifies the video codec to use when playing this file. Right below this option you can choose whether &mplayer; will fall back on other codecs if the one you choose fails. The default setting will use the codec chosen on the Video page in &kplayer; Settings, normally auto. The auto setting will tell &mplayer; to choose the codec it thinks is the best for playing this file.

Bitrate and Framerate

  The video bitrate and framerate of the file. These properties are read only. For variable bitrate files the bitrate property will show the initial bitrate.

## Audio properties

Volume

  The default option uses the same sound volume as for other files. The set to option sets the specified initial volume when loading the file. The add and substract options will adjust the volume relative to the normal volume level. See the introduction section of this HOWTO for more details and some examples of how this works.

Delay

  Delay of the sound relative to video. By default this property is remembered automatically when you use Increase Delay and Decrease Delay commands from the Audio submenu of the Player menu. The default setting always resets audio delay to zero when a file is loaded.

Codec

  This specifies the audio codec to use when playing this file. Right below this option you can choose whether &mplayer; will fall back on other codecs if the one you choose fails. The default setting will use the codec chosen on the Audio page in &kplayer; Settings, normally auto. The auto setting will tell &mplayer; to choose the codec it thinks is the best for playing this file.

Bitrate

  The audio bitrate of the file. This property is read only. For variable bitrate files this will show the initial bitrate.

## Subtitle properties

Autoload

  Tells &kplayer; whether to try to autoload subtitles for this file. The default setting uses the Autoload options from the Subtitles page in &kplayer; Settings. Setting this to no allows you to enter the path or URL of the subtitles you want to use in the next field. This property is only available for local files, for all other URLs it is set to no.

Path or URL

  The subtitles to be used for this file. By default this property is set automatically when you use Load Subtitles, Load Subtitle URL or Unload Subtitles commands from the File menu.

Visibility

  Subtitle visibility. The default setting always shows subtitles when a file with subtitles is loaded.

Position

  Vertical subtitle position, 0 being at the top of the video area, and 100 at the bottom. The default setting simply keeps the last used position.

Delay

  Delay of the subtitles relative to video. By default this property is remembered automatically when you use Increase Delay and Decrease Delay commands from the Subtitles submenu of the Player menu. The default setting always resets subtitle delay to zero when a file with subtitles is loaded.

## Advanced properties

Additional command line arguments

  Lets you specify additional arguments to be passed to &mplayer;. You can either append the arguments to the ones given on the Advanced page in &kplayer; Settings or override them. The default option uses the arguments given in &kplayer; Settings.

Frame drop

  If your system is too slow to play the file properly, you can tell &mplayer; to drop some frames. The soft setting drops less frames than the hard one, so you should try it first. The default setting uses the Frame drop option from the Advanced page in &kplayer; Settings. You can also change this option while playing a file using commands on the Player menu. If you hold &Shift; when choosing them, &kplayer; by default will remember the property for the current file.

Cache size

  Here you can set the cache size &mplayer; should use for this file. See the Cache size sections in Advanced configuration micro-HOWTO, &kde; I/O Slaves micro-HOWTO and Online Radio and TV micro-HOWTO for details.

Build index

  This property allows you to choose whether &mplayer; should build a new index always (force), never (no) or only if the file does not have it (yes).

Use KIOSlave

  Some URL types, like HTTP, FTP and Samba, can be played either directly with &mplayer; or through a &kde; I/O Slave. Generally you should set this option if &mplayer; cannot play those URLs directly.

Use temporary file

  When playing a URL using a &kde; I/O Slave, data can either be passed to &mplayer; through a named pipe or stored in a temporary file before playing. For URLs passed directly to &mplayer; this option has no effect.