Solved Playing YouTube videos in Media Player Classic (MPC)

spapakons · Apr 21, 2025

When installing a new version of MPC BE or MPC-HC check your settings. Some are returned to their default values and you need to configure them again.

Edwin · Apr 21, 2025

spapakons said:
When installing a new version of MPC BE or MPC-HC check your settings. Some are returned to their default values and you need to configure them again.

All good here..., as long as you don't check this box:

spapakons · Apr 21, 2025

I don't, but I have done several changes to LAV Video Decoder and other filters and not all are retained.

Bart Z Lederman · May 21, 2026

I'm also working on this problem. I want to read from streams, but this also works for YouTube. I use yt-dlp and pipe it to a player. The player can be VideoLAN/VLC, MPV, FFPLAY, or MPC.

This works for me:

yt-dlp --quiet --progress --ignore-errors --no-live-from-start --skip-unavailable-fragments --keep-fragments ^
--no-check-certificates --console-title --socket-timeout 4 -f 3321
"https://amg01258-raycomsports-powernationau-samsungau-18bwc.amagi.tv/playlist.m3u8" -o - | "C:\Program Files (x86)\K-Lite Codec Pack\MPC-HC64\mpc-hc64.exe" -

The reason for using yt-dlp and all of the options instead of just using MPC directly is because some streams are very erratic, and yt-dlp is able to compensate for that. And, as mentioned, yt-dlp can still download from YouTube and a wide variety of other sources. This also allows watching a video in 'real' time without having to wait for it to download and store it on your drive.

(If anyone cares I can post examples for the other players).

However, I also have a question. I want to also pass commands to MPC at the same time as the video to do things like set or change the window size, but I can't figure out if MPC allows that. (I also have to admit that I've run into a lot of problems because I keep confusing mpv with mpc.) Is it possible to start MPC-HC64 from the command line and pass commands or qualifiers at the same time? It doesn't have any problems picking up the video stream as input.

Josey Wales · May 21, 2026

-

In MPC -BE the above settings work for me.

Bart Z Lederman · May 21, 2026

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying here. Perhaps I didn't explain properly, but nothing on the settings page seems relevant to this topic to me, and I already have those settings.

What I'm doing now is this (stripped down to the basics):

yt-dlp http://somethinglaythis -o - | "C:\Program Files (x86)\K-Lite Codec Pack\MPC-HC64\mpc-hc64.exe" -

What I want to do is something like this:

yt-dlp http://somethinglaythis -o - | "C:\Program Files (x86)\K-Lite Codec Pack\MPC-HC64\mpc-hc64.exe" volume 50 -

So far I haven't found a way to add commands or qualifiers from the command line to change how MPC plays.

das10 · May 21, 2026

I don't use yt-dlp, but have you seen the Command line switches for MPC, in the MPC Menu > Help > Command Line Switches?
eg: from that help panel volume is set using "/volume N Set Volume, where N is a range from 0 to 100"
maybe something like this (though I don't know if it works or not)
yt-dlp http://somethinglaythis -o - | "C:\Program Files (x86)\K-Lite Codec Pack\MPC-HC64\mpc-hc64.exe" /volume 50

Bart Z Lederman · May 21, 2026

I've only tried one qualifier, but now it looks like it is finally working. Thanks for the pointer: I think the manual web page I read didn't make it clear how to format the different options as some start with - or -- and just assume you know the others start with / (or I'm just not reading it properly). I'm also still confusing the different players.

I think it was worth the effort. Using yt-dlp as the "front end" really opens up many possibility, like being able to supply login credentials to YouTube, or being able to select the YouTube stream size you want with the '-f' option, or being able to automatically re-connect to a stream when there is a 'glitch'.

This is not in any way meant to criticize MPC: YouTube is a challenge to download or stream properly, and many internet streams are not formatted very well (some are downright bizarre) and require special handling that the creators of MPC could never have anticipated.

Could you please suggest the web page that has the clearest list of the options?

spapakons · May 22, 2026

Bart Z Lederman said:
I'm also working on this problem. I want to read from streams, but this also works for YouTube. I use yt-dlp and pipe it to a player. The player can be VideoLAN/VLC, MPV, FFPLAY, or MPC.

This works for me:

yt-dlp --quiet --progress --ignore-errors --no-live-from-start --skip-unavailable-fragments --keep-fragments ^
--no-check-certificates --console-title --socket-timeout 4 -f 3321
"https://amg01258-raycomsports-powernationau-samsungau-18bwc.amagi.tv/playlist.m3u8" -o - | "C:\Program Files (x86)\K-Lite Codec Pack\MPC-HC64\mpc-hc64.exe" -

The reason for using yt-dlp and all of the options instead of just using MPC directly is because some streams are very erratic, and yt-dlp is able to compensate for that. And, as mentioned, yt-dlp can still download from YouTube and a wide variety of other sources. This also allows watching a video in 'real' time without having to wait for it to download and store it on your drive.

(If anyone cares I can post examples for the other players).

However, I also have a question. I want to also pass commands to MPC at the same time as the video to do things like set or change the window size, but I can't figure out if MPC allows that. (I also have to admit that I've run into a lot of problems because I keep confusing mpv with mpc.) Is it possible to start MPC-HC64 from the command line and pass commands or qualifiers at the same time? It doesn't have any problems picking up the video stream as input.

Download yt-dlp and Deno and put a copy in the MPC-HC folder. Every time you copy-paste a video URL it will open and play as if it was a local video with the settings you want. The video can be almost any site, not only YouTube. Dailymotion, Facebook, TV channel website. Then you can go File -> Save a copy and download it.

GitHub - yt-dlp/yt-dlp: A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader - yt-dlp/yt-dlp

github.com

GitHub - denoland/deno: A modern runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript.

A modern runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript. Contribute to denoland/deno development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

PS: If some day you cannot open YouTube or other site, you have to update yt-dlp and Deno to work again. They change code from time to time to prevent downloading videos.

Solved Playing YouTube videos in Media Player Classic (MPC)

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