# mpv media player

82 Hacker News commenters recommended mpv media player and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free, lightweight open-source player that handles almost any file and online video through yt-dlp; people praise its reliability. Common caveat: bare interface that relies on config files and command-line flags.

## Why people recommend it

- Plays YouTube well with yt-dlp (5 comments): "mpv + yt-dlp does not have this problem because it serves the users interests rather than the platform's." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49800962)) "When someone shares a YouTube link it goes straight to mpv which streams the video (and just the video)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49548007)) "I'm so spoiled by MPV with yt-dlp and mpv_sponsorblock_minimal. It's great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46195195))
- Plays nearly any video format (4 comments): "Today with modern tools like VLC or MPV and ffmpeg nearly anything can be viewed, streamed, or locally saved" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45901327)) "For multimedia there are very few use cases not covered by ffmpeg and mpv." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49762651)) "a Blu-Ray's data remuxed into an mkv you can play with mpv" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49131575))
- Hardware decoding and flexible output (4 comments): "The more effective way is to use a command-line video player like mpv that can leverage the hardware decoder" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48485723)) "mpv has both SDL and KMS output, and both can render to the framebuffer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48744480)) "it can also display pixels directly via DRM without a display server" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49624102))
- Reliable, feature-rich and well supported (4 comments): "mpv, which seems to have excellent support for everything you would want a player to do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50112122)) "mpv is mighty, reliable, fits into the environment with a frugal interface." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45851979)) "mpv, which in itself is really awesome; I like it more than vlc" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47415158))

## What people warn about

- Bare interface needs manual configuration (4 comments): "its complete reliance on command line flags and manually written config files makes it a bore." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46465226)) "MPV is not user friendly, but I was very impressed by the gapless playback." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46472372)) "mpv is really good but a little light on the GUI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48609394))
- Playback lag and frame drops (3 comments): "frame drops when playing back 60 FPS video in MPV" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47256901)) "mpv really lagging while vlc doing it fine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46476387)) "mpv now requires --hwdec=no, making 720p videos barely playable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45853366))
- Breaking changes to defaults (2 comments): "At least twice mpv has changed default behavior and ruined my day." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47327349)) "mpv now requires --hwdec=no, making 720p videos barely playable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45853366))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [VLC media player](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vlc-media-player.md): 172 recommend
- [Infuse video player](https://hackerapproved.com/p/infuse.md): 78 recommend
- [Kodi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kodi.md): 64 recommend
- [TV Explorer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tv-explorer.md): 37 recommend
- [Stremio](https://hackerapproved.com/p/stremio.md): 23 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "mpv media player", https://hackerapproved.com/p/mpv/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).