FFV1

[pgalbraith]

Is there a way to play FFV1 video?

[Raza-0007]

I don't have a sample file to test but smplayer running with mpv engine should be able to play FFV1 video, as mpv uses FFmpeg for rendering and FFmpeg should be able to decode FFV1 video.

[pgalbraith]

It works fine in native MPV (and many other players), but the same file in SMPlayer gives:

[mkv] Unknown/unsupported CodecID (V_FFV1) or missing/bad CodecPrivate data (track 1).
INFO_TRACK_0: video 1 '' '' no
INFO_TRACK_1: audio 1 '' '' no
(+) Video --vid=1 () (f) ( 704x480 24.000fps)
(+) Audio --aid=1 () (flac 2ch 48000Hz)
Failed to initialize a decoder for codec ''.
Video: no video
Exiting... (Errors when loading file)

[pgalbraith]

Also, FFV1 is not listed on the supported Formats and Codecs page, so I assume this is not by accident.

[Raza-0007]

That Formats and Codecs page is very old, meant for MPlayer as the rendering engine, and has not been updated in a long time. It is missing all the newer codecs like AV1, H265, VP8, VP9 etc. and smplayer plays all of them just fine.

I converted a small video to FFV1 and played it with smplayer and it is playing fine. There must be something in your settings that is preventing playback. I recommend resetting your settings to factory default, or if you are on Windows, download the portable version of smplayer, it will have default settings, and see if you can play your video on it.

[pgalbraith]

Thank-you for doing that. I've done some more testing and can confirm the SMPlayer is playing some FFV1 video for me (e.g. https://github.com/amiaopensource/video_test_patterns/blob/master/Matrix-1_ffv1.mkv plays fine), but not all, despite native MPV and MPC-HC and VLC being able to play the same video. I'll do some more testing to see if I can isolate specifically what is different about my video, that is causing a problem.

[pgalbraith]

@Raza-0007 it looks like the problem is specifically with the MKV container and the codec ID written for FFV1 video. Older versions of ffmpeg would write a "V_MS/VFW/FOURCC / FFV1" codec ID for FFV1 video, which I guess was a hack to trick older players to treat it like AVI video. But the "correct" codec ID is "V_FFV1" and only recent (> v7.0, maybe?) versions of ffmpeg write FFV1 video in MKV with that codec ID. The recent version of MPV that I have recognizes this codec ID.

A test file can easily be generated with recent versions of ffmpeg, this will not play in SMPlayer but will play in native MPV:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i testsrc=duration=10 -c:v ffv1 test_ffv1.mkv

Change it to a .avi file and it works.

[Raza-0007]

The recent version of MPV that I have recognizes this codec ID.

That probably explains it. I periodically update the mpv inside smplayer myself and the version of mpv I currently have inside smplayer is from August 2025, so it plays the FFV1 test file just fine for me.

I downloaded the latest portable version of smplayer and the included mpv inside is from March 2024, and it does not play the same test FFV1 file.

So as you discovered, the solution is to just update the mpv inside smplayer to the latest version. The March 2024 mpv is too old now.