MPV 0.42 brings enhanced Wayland & HDR support and AMD frame rate conversion filter

The open-source media player MPV has released version 0.42, headlined by a new networking stack built on libcurl that introduces HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 support along with connection reuse, a meaningful upgrade for stream playback. Another long-standing wish granted in this release is full optical disc support: DVD-Video, Blu-ray HDMV and BD-J menu navigation, DVD-Audio playback, and direct playback of .iso images of DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and Blu-ray discs. Home theater enthusiasts also gain Dolby Vision Profile 7 enhancement layer support in the gpu-next renderer, while DSD-over-PCM (DoP) passthrough arrives via --audio-spdif=dsd for hi-fi audio setups.

The release also refines how content is presented and controlled. MPEG-TS programs and HLS variants are now exposed as editions, making it easier to switch between streams, and support for SRV3 (YouTube) subtitles lands through the subrandr library. On the interface side, a right-click context menu is populated from a new menu.conf file, and the on-screen controller gains a floating layout with Fluent icons activated via --script-opts=osc-layout=floating. A new API enables integration between the OSC and third-party thumbnailer scripts, promising a richer plugin ecosystem.

Under the hood, Linux and Windows users see substantial graphics improvements: Wayland gains session management and color management handled through the protocol rather than the Vulkan API, DRM gets improved HDR colorspace signalling, and libmpv receives a new D3D11 render API backend. Terminal video outputs (sixel, kitty and tct) have been reworked, alongside a rewritten display-sync audio drift compensation system and a new AMD frame rate conversion filter (--vf=amf_frc). Notably, --tls-verify is now enabled by default, tightening security out of the box. The release requires FFmpeg 6.1 or newer and libplacebo 7.387.0 or newer.