path: root/doc/en/howto-properties.docbook

<sect1 id="howto-properties">
<title>File properties</title>

<para>Starting from &kplayer; 0.5 each file and <acronym>URL</acronym> 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.</para>

<para>Most properties can be set through the <link linkend="properties">File
Properties dialog</link>. The <guilabel>Properties</guilabel> dialog for the
currently loaded file or <acronym>URL</acronym> can be opened from the
<link linkend="menu-file"><guimenu>File</guimenu></link> menu, or using the
<guibutton>Properties</guibutton> button on the
<link linkend="toolbar-main">main toolbar</link>, or from the <link
linkend="popup-main">right click popup menu</link>. You can also open the
<guilabel>Properties</guilabel> dialog for an entry in the
<link linkend="parts-library"><interface>multimedia library</interface></link>
by <mousebutton>right</mousebutton> clicking it and selecting
<guimenuitem>Properties...</guimenuitem>, or by using the
<guimenuitem>Properties...</guimenuitem> command on the
<link linkend="menu-library"><guimenu>Library</guimenu> menu</link>.</para>

<para>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
<guimenuitem>Soft Frame Dropping</guimenuitem> from the
<guimenu>Player</guimenu> menu, &kplayer; will remember that setting for
the current <acronym>URL</acronym>, and use it the next time you play it.
After it is done playing the current <acronym>URL</acronym>, it will revert
the <guilabel>Frame drop</guilabel> setting to the default, the one that
was in effect before you changed it with &Shift;. On the other hand, if you
change the <guilabel>Frame drop</guilabel> setting without holding &Shift;,
the new setting will become the default, and will be used for all
<acronym>URL</acronym>s that do not have it set explicitly.</para>

<para>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.</para>

<para>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 <quote>lower the volume by 10 units when playing
this file</quote>. 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.</para>

<para>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.</para>

<para>Choosing the <guimenuitem>Full Screen</guimenuitem> command or clicking
the <guibutton>Maximize</guibutton> or <guibutton>Restore</guibutton> button
in the <link linkend="parts-title-bar">title bar</link> while holding &Shift;
will set the <guilabel>Full screen</guilabel> property. Choosing an aspect
command with &Shift; will set the <guilabel>Display size</guilabel> property
to <guilabel>set aspect</guilabel> and the aspect you choose, and also will
set the <guilabel>Maintain aspect</guilabel> property. A zooming command on
the <guimenu>View</guimenu> menu when chosen with &Shift; will set the
<guilabel>Display size</guilabel> property to <guilabel>set size</guilabel>
and the fixed size, and so will resizing the window if you press &Shift;
before you begin resizing the window.</para>

<para>This special function of the &Shift; key can be turned off on the
<link linkend="settings-controls">Controls page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>.</para>

<para>There are two special cases when you can also hold &Shift; to modify
&kplayer; behavior. First, you can hold &Shift; when telling it to play a file
or <acronym>URL</acronym> or dropping files onto &kplayer; window. &kplayer;
will then load the first file or <acronym>URL</acronym> but will not start
playing it. You can then open its <guilabel>File Properties</guilabel> and make
your choices before starting to play it.</para>

<para>Second, if you hold &Shift; when choosing the
<guimenuitem>Play</guimenuitem> command from the <guimenu>Player</guimenu>
menu or clicking the <guibutton>Play</guibutton> 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.</para>

<para>&kplayer; will remember properties for every file or
<acronym>URL</acronym> that it opens, even those that are removed from the
playlist, until the total number reaches the limit set on the
<link linkend="settings-general"><guilabel>General</guilabel> page</link> in
<guilabel>&kplayer; Settings</guilabel> under <guilabel>Meta information cache
size limit</guilabel>, by default 10000. 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 &kplayer; performance.</para>

<para>Following are the available file properties, listed by pages in the
<link linkend="properties">File Properties</link> dialog.</para>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-general">
<title><link linkend="properties-general">General</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Name</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>This is the name that &kplayer; will display for this file or
<acronym>URL</acronym> in the
<link linkend="parts-library"><interface>multimedia library</interface></link>,
on the current playlist and also in the <link linkend="parts-title-bar">title
bar</link> when the file is loaded. Changing this property will not change the
actual file system name of the file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Path or URL</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The file system path to the file or the <acronym>URL</acronym>
of the file or stream. This property is read only. To use a different path or
<acronym>URL</acronym>, open it with the <guimenuitem>Play...</guimenuitem> or
<guimenuitem>Play URL...</guimenuitem> command on the <guimenu>File</guimenu>
menu, or by dragging and dropping it onto &kplayer; window, or starting
&kplayer; with <acronym>URL</acronym> argument(s), for example by launching
files from &konqueror; File Manager or clicking a link in &konqueror; Web
Browser.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Type</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The type of the item. For a device, track, title or channel it
is the device type. For other items it is the <acronym>MIME</acronym> type if
known.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Frequency</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The frequency in <acronym>MHz</acronym> of a
<acronym>DVB</acronym>, <acronym>PVR</acronym> or <acronym>TV</acronym> channel.
For other items this property is not applicable and not
shown.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Playlist</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>&mplayer; currently is not smart enough to automatically detect
and play a playlist file like <literal>pls</literal> or <literal>m3u</literal>,
so &kplayer; has to explicitly tell it to parse a file as a playlist. The
<guilabel>auto</guilabel> setting lets &kplayer; use the file extension to guess
if it is a playlist file. The playlist extensions &kplayer; recognizes are
<literal>ram</literal>, <literal>rpm</literal>, <literal>smi</literal>,
<literal>smil</literal>, <literal>asx</literal>, <literal>m3u</literal>,
<literal>pls</literal> and <literal>strm</literal>. 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.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Length</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>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.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Channels</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The list of channels available on a <acronym>TV</acronym> or
<acronym>PVR</acronym> device. &kplayer; chooses the default channel list based
on the country setting in &kcontrolcenter;, or <guilabel>Western
Europe</guilabel> if that is not set. You can change the channel list here.
Not applicable to other items.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Driver</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Input driver for a <acronym>TV</acronym> or
<acronym>PVR</acronym> device. By default this is set to
<guilabel>Video4Linux 2</guilabel>, but if your driver only supports the old
Video4Linux interface, like for example the <literal>gspcav1</literal> driver,
select <guilabel>Video4Linux</guilabel> from this list. Not applicable to other
items.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Channel file</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>A <acronym>DVB</acronym> device needs a file listing the
available channels and their properties. &kplayer; looks for a file having
<literal>channels.conf</literal> as part of its name in
<filename>~/.mplayer</filename>, <filename>/etc/mplayer</filename> and
<filename>/usr/local/etc/mplayer</filename> and uses the first matching file
it finds. You can change the channel file path here. If you don't have a channel
file, you can generate it using the <command>scan</command> utility that comes
with <acronym>DVB</acronym> drivers.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-size">
<title><link linkend="properties-size">Size</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Resolution</guilabel>, <guilabel>Original
size</guilabel> and <guilabel>Current size</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Resolution of the video is adjusted to the correct aspect ratio
to get the original video size, which is then adjusted to get the current size
by taking into account any filters applied to the video. These properties are
empty for audio only files, and they are read only, but see the next
property.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Display size</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Here you can set the initial video size &kplayer; will use
when it starts playing the file, unless you turned off the option to
<guilabel>Resize main window automatically</guilabel> on the
<link linkend="settings-general">General page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting will use the
<guilabel>Minimum initial video width</guilabel> option from the
<link linkend="settings-general">General page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>. The <guilabel>set size</guilabel> setting will use the
fixed initial size you specify. The <guilabel>set aspect</guilabel> setting
will again use the <guilabel>Minimum initial video width</guilabel> option,
but will apply the fixed initial aspect you
specify.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Full screen</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Normally you would leave this at the
<guilabel>default</guilabel> setting, which will keep the full screen state of
the previous file. The <guilabel>yes</guilabel> setting will force full screen
mode unless this is an audio only file, and the <guilabel>no</guilabel> setting
will force the normal windowed mode.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Maximized</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>When the file is not played full screen, the
<guilabel>yes</guilabel> setting for this option will force maximized window
mode, and the <guilabel>no</guilabel> setting will force normal window mode.
The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting will keep the window state of the
previous file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Maintain aspect</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Here you can set the <guilabel>Maintain aspect</guilabel> option
specifically for this file. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting will keep
the <guilabel>Maintain aspect</guilabel> option you choose
globally.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-video">
<title><link linkend="properties-video">Video</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Track</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> option tells &mplayer; to choose
a video track automatically. The <guilabel>set ID</guilabel> option lets you
enter a number giving the video track ID to play. This option is set when you
select a video track from the
<link linkend="submenu-video"><guisubmenu>Video</guisubmenu></link> submenu of
the <guimenu>Player</guimenu> menu. The submenu will list the available video
tracks for files and streams that have more than one video
track.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Contrast</guilabel>,
<guilabel>Brightness</guilabel>, <guilabel>Hue</guilabel>
and <guilabel>Saturation</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>default</guilabel> option uses the same setting
as for other files. The <guilabel>set to</guilabel> option sets the specified
initial contrast, brightness, hue or saturation when loading the file.
The <guilabel>add</guilabel> and <guilabel>substract</guilabel> options adjust
the contrast, brightness, hue or saturation relative to the normal setting. See
the <link linkend="howto-properties">introduction section</link> of this HOWTO
for more details and some examples of how this
works.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Codec</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Specifies the video codec to use when playing this file. The
<guilabel>default</guilabel> setting will use the codec chosen on the
<link linkend="settings-video">Video page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>, normally <guilabel>auto</guilabel>. The
<guilabel>auto</guilabel> setting will tell &mplayer; to choose the codec it
thinks is the best for playing this file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Bitrate</guilabel> and
<guilabel>Framerate</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The video bitrate and framerate of the file or stream. These
properties are read only.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Input</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> option tells &mplayer; to choose
a <acronym>TV</acronym> or <acronym>DVB</acronym> input automatically. The
<guilabel>set to</guilabel> option lets you enter a number giving the device
input to use. Only applicable to <acronym>TV</acronym>, <acronym>PVR</acronym>
and <acronym>DVB</acronym> devices.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Format</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> option tells &mplayer; to choose a
<acronym>TV</acronym> video output format automatically. The other options let
you specify the video format explicitly. Only applicable to
<acronym>TV</acronym> and <acronym>PVR</acronym>
devices.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Norm</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> option tells &mplayer; to choose
a <acronym>TV</acronym> norm automatically. The <guilabel>set ID</guilabel>
option lets you enter a number giving the <acronym>TV</acronym> norm. The other
options let you specify the <acronym>TV</acronym> norm explicitly. Only
applicable to <acronym>TV</acronym> and <acronym>PVR</acronym>
devices.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-audio">
<title><link linkend="properties-audio">Audio</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Track</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> option tells &mplayer; to choose
an audio track automatically. The <guilabel>set ID</guilabel> option lets you
enter a number giving the audio track ID to play. This option is set when you
select an audio track from the
<link linkend="submenu-audio"><guisubmenu>Audio</guisubmenu></link> submenu of
the <guimenu>Player</guimenu> menu. The submenu will list the available audio
tracks for files and streams that have more than one audio
track.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Volume</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>default</guilabel> option uses the same sound
volume as for other files. The <guilabel>set to</guilabel> option sets the
specified initial volume when loading the file. The <guilabel>add</guilabel>
and <guilabel>substract</guilabel> options will adjust the volume relative
to the normal volume level. See the
<link linkend="howto-properties">introduction section</link> of this HOWTO
for more details and some examples of how this
works.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Delay</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Delay of the sound relative to video. By default this property
is remembered automatically when you use <guimenuitem>Increase
Delay</guimenuitem> and <guimenuitem>Decrease Delay</guimenuitem> commands
from the <link linkend="submenu-audio"><guisubmenu>Audio</guisubmenu>
submenu</link> of the <guimenu>Player</guimenu> menu. The
<guilabel>default</guilabel> setting always resets audio delay to zero when a
file is loaded.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Codec</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>This specifies the audio codec to use when playing this file.
The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting will use the codec chosen on the
<link linkend="settings-audio">Audio page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>, normally <guilabel>auto</guilabel>. The
<guilabel>auto</guilabel> setting will tell &mplayer; to choose the codec it
thinks is the best for playing this file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Bitrate</guilabel> and
<guilabel>Samplerate</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The audio bitrate and samplerate of the file or stream. These
properties are read only.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Mode</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> option tells &mplayer; to choose
a <acronym>TV</acronym> audio mode automatically. The other options let you
specify the audio mode explicitly. Only applicable to <acronym>TV</acronym> and
<acronym>PVR</acronym> devices.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Input</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> option tells &mplayer; to choose
a <acronym>TV</acronym> or <acronym>DVB</acronym> audio input automatically. The
<guilabel>set to</guilabel> option lets you enter a number giving the audio
input to use. Only applicable to <acronym>TV</acronym>, <acronym>PVR</acronym>
and <acronym>DVB</acronym> devices.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Immediate mode</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>When disabled, &mplayer; will capture audio from the same device
as video. When enabled, tells &mplayer; to capture audio through a cable going
from the <acronym>TV</acronym> card to the sound card. Only applicable to
<acronym>TV</acronym> and <acronym>PVR</acronym>
devices.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Capture</guilabel> and
<guilabel>Device</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The audio capture system, either <acronym>ALSA</acronym> or
<acronym>OSS</acronym>, and the input device. Only applicable to
<acronym>TV</acronym> and <acronym>PVR</acronym>
devices.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-subtitles">
<title><link linkend="properties-subtitles">Subtitle</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Track</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>none</guilabel> option disables subtitle display.
The <guilabel>external</guilabel> option tells &mplayer; to display subtitles
loaded from an external file given by the <guilabel>External path</guilabel>
property below. The <guilabel>set ID</guilabel> option lets you enter a number
giving the ID of an internal subtitle track to display. This option is set when
you load subtitles from a subtitle file or when you select a subtitle track or
the <guilabel>None</guilabel> option from the
<link linkend="submenu-subtitles"><guisubmenu>Subtitles</guisubmenu></link>
submenu of the <guimenu>Player</guimenu> menu. The submenu lists the available
subtitles for files and streams that have embedded subtitle tracks or for which
you load subtitles from a subtitle file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>External path</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Path to the subtitle file to be loaded for this file or stream.
This property is set automatically when you use the <guimenuitem>Load
Subtitles...</guimenuitem> command on the <guimenu>File</guimenu>
menu or drag and drop subtitle files onto &kplayer; window or use a command on
the <guisubmenu>Subtitles</guisubmenu> submenu of the <guimenu>Player</guimenu>
menu to display subtitles from an external subtitle
file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>External type</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> option tells &kplayer; to
determine the type of the external subtitles based on the file extension. The
<guilabel>vobsub</guilabel> option sets the VobSub type explicitly, and the
<guilabel>normal</guilabel> option tells &kplayer; that these are not VobSub
subtitles.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Encoding</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The encoding of the text in the subtitle file. If &mplayer;
does not decode the subtitles properly, set this property to the correct
encoding. You can also set the encoding globally in <link
linkend="settings-subtitles"><guilabel>&kplayer; Settings</guilabel></link>
if most of your subtitle files share the same
encoding.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Framerate</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> option uses the frame rate of the
video file. If the subtitle file does not have the same framerate as the video,
specify it in this property.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Autoload</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Tells &kplayer; whether to try to autoload subtitles for this
file. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting uses the
<guilabel>Autoload</guilabel> options from the
<link linkend="settings-subtitles">Subtitles page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>. This property is only available for local files. For all
other <acronym>URL</acronym>s it is set to
<guilabel>no</guilabel>.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Position</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Vertical subtitle position, 0 being at the top of the video
area, and 100 at the bottom. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting simply
keeps the last used position.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Delay</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Delay of the subtitles relative to video. By default this
property is remembered automatically when you use <guimenuitem>Increase
Delay</guimenuitem> and <guimenuitem>Decrease Delay</guimenuitem> commands
from the <link linkend="submenu-subtitles"><guisubmenu>Subtitles</guisubmenu>
submenu</link> of the <guimenu>Player</guimenu> menu. The
<guilabel>default</guilabel> setting always resets subtitle delay to zero when
a file with subtitles is loaded.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Closed caption</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Choose whether to display or hide closed caption subtitles.
You can set this property on a device, on a disk, or on an individual title on
a <acronym>DVD</acronym>. Other kinds of media do not have this
property.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-advanced">
<title><link linkend="properties-advanced">Advanced</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Additional command line arguments</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Lets you specify additional arguments to be passed to &mplayer;.
You can either <guilabel>append</guilabel> the arguments to the ones given on the
<link linkend="settings-advanced">Advanced page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel> or override them. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> option
uses the arguments given in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Demuxer</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>This specifies the demultiplexer to use when playing this file.
The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting will use the demuxer chosen on the
<link linkend="settings-advanced">Advanced page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>, normally <guilabel>auto</guilabel>. The
<guilabel>auto</guilabel> setting will tell &mplayer; to choose the demuxer it
thinks is the best for playing this file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Frame drop</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>If your system is too slow to play the file properly, you can
tell &mplayer; to drop some frames. The <guilabel>soft</guilabel> setting drops
fewer frames than the <guilabel>hard</guilabel> one, so you should try it first.
The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting uses the <guilabel>Frame
drop</guilabel> option from the
<link linkend="settings-advanced">Advanced page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>. You can also change this option while playing a file using
commands on the
<link linkend="submenu-advanced"><guisubmenu>Advanced</guisubmenu>
submenu</link> of the <link linkend="menu-player"><guimenu>Player</guimenu>
menu</link>. If you hold &Shift; when choosing them, &kplayer; by default will
remember the property for the current file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Cache size</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Here you can set the cache size &mplayer; should use for this
file. See the <guilabel>Cache size</guilabel> sections in
<link linkend="howto-settings">Advanced configuration micro-HOWTO</link>,
<link linkend="howto-slaves">&kde; <acronym>I/O</acronym> Slaves
micro-HOWTO</link> and <link linkend="howto-streams">Online Radio and TV
micro-HOWTO</link> for details.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Build index</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>This property allows you to choose whether &mplayer; should
build a new index always (<guilabel>force</guilabel>), never
(<guilabel>no</guilabel>) or only if the file does not have it
(<guilabel>yes</guilabel>).</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Use KIOSlave</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Some <acronym>URL</acronym> types, like
<acronym>HTTP</acronym>, <acronym>FTP</acronym> and Samba, can be played
either directly with &mplayer; or through a <link linkend="howto-slaves">&kde;
<acronym>I/O</acronym> Slave</link>. Generally you should set this option if
&mplayer; cannot play those <acronym>URL</acronym>s
directly.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Use temporary file</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>When playing a <acronym>URL</acronym> using a &kde;
<acronym>I/O</acronym> Slave, data can either be passed to &mplayer; through
a named pipe or stored in a temporary file before playing. For
<acronym>URL</acronym>s passed directly to &mplayer; this option has no
effect.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Hardware compression</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Enables <acronym>MJPEG</acronym> compression in hardware for a
<acronym>TV</acronym> device and lets you specify the decimation (image size)
and the compression quality from 0 to 100. Only applicable to
<acronym>PVR</acronym> and <acronym>TV</acronym> devices that support hardware
compression.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

</sect1>