# OpenUTV

> OpenUTV is a high-performance, open-source media player and image sequence playback engine for viewing any and all images, video, and camera RAW formats. It serves as a modern, color-accurate, frame-precise alternative to VLC, MPV, QuickTime, and FFplay, while delivering studio-grade review tools such as multi-source stacks, real-time split wipes, and ACES 2.0 / OpenColorIO v2 color management.

OpenUTV was originally forked from visual effects industry software OpenRV and modernized with Qt 6, Python 3, native Apple Silicon VideoToolbox acceleration, 10-bit and HDR presentation, and simple cross-platform installs.

## Core Value Proposition

- **Universal Playback Engine**: Plays virtually any video, image sequence, camera RAW, cinema RAW, vector graphic, or multi-page PDF document with instant pre-fetching and zero stutter.
- **Superior Alternative to Generic Players**: Unlike VLC, MPV, or QuickTime which focus solely on single-stream consumer playback, OpenUTV provides synchronized multi-track playback, interactive wipes, layer stacks, difference blending, and frame-by-frame color inspection.
- **10-Bit & HDR Color**: Metal presentation on macOS in 10-bit SDR, EDR, HDR PQ, and HDR HLG; 10-bit Vulkan presentation on Linux. Windows uses 8-bit OpenGL by default, and its 10-bit view is still being finished. HDR presentation on Linux and Windows is planned. Full OpenColorIO v2 with an ACES 2.0 config, automatic display and input setup, Look LUTs, and CDLs.
- **Cinema RAW & Professional Formats**: Native dynamic runtime decoding for Blackmagic RAW (.braw), RED Digital Cinema (.r3d with IPP2), Apple ProRes RAW, uncompressed multi-part OpenEXR, DPX, Cineon, TIFF, and JPEG 2000.
- **Modern & Open**: Signed and Apple-notarized for macOS (`brew install --cask utv`), a one-line Windows installer, and a Linux tarball that uses Homebrew libraries, with update notifications, no telemetry, and no licensing locks.
- **Tested on Every Build**: CLI smoke tests and image format round trips on macOS, Windows, and Linux, Windows launcher tests, headless Linux tests, and a daily Homebrew canary. The repository also has `utv_testmedia.py`, an on-demand generator of more than 120 synthetic test media recipes, including deliberately damaged files.

## Key Capabilities

- [Stacks & Wipes](https://openutv.com/#features): Synchronize multiple video or image tracks, stack layers with blend modes, or perform interactive horizontal/vertical wipes and difference comps.
- [Format Support](https://openutv.com/#formats): Play everything from standard MP4, MKV, MOV, WebM, and ProRes to high-bitrate image sequences (EXR, DPX, PNG via SIMD libspng), Camera RAW (CR2, NEF, ARW, RW2), Cinema RAW (BRAW, R3D, ProRes RAW), and multi-page PDFs.
- [Color Management](https://openutv.com/#features): OCIO v2 with an ACES 2.0 config, automatic color setup, exposure/gamma adjustments, channel isolation (R, G, B, A, Luma), and 10-bit and HDR presentation.
- [Performance](https://openutv.com/#performance): Apple Silicon VideoToolbox, NVIDIA NVDEC, VAAPI, D3D11VA, SIMD-accelerated PNG playback, and intelligent metadata-driven RAM caching. A community test played 8192 × 8192 at 60 fps from fully cached H.264 YUV 4:4:4; since 2026.16, RGB sources play at 60 fps too, up from 27–33 fps (issue #191).
- [Professional Video I/O](https://openutv.com/#pipeline): Dynamic runtime output to NDI 6, Blackmagic Design DeckLink, and AJA Video Systems.
- [Scripting & Pipeline](https://openutv.com/#pipeline): Embed and automate OpenUTV via Python 3, Mu, or the robust command-line CLI.
- [Annotation (Beta)](https://openutv.com/#features): Shapes, text, input smoothing, and stamp-based brushes, with per-frame undo and redo.
- [Testing](https://openutv.com/#testing): Automated checks on every build and the test media generator.

## Quick Installation

- **macOS (Homebrew)**: `brew tap OpenUTV/utv && brew trust openutv/utv && brew install --cask utv`
- **Windows (PowerShell)**: `irm https://openutv.com/install.ps1 | iex`
- **Linux (x86-64)**: Install the libraries from Homebrew on Linux and extract `UTV-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz` from GitHub Releases (needs glibc 2.38 or later), or build from source. There is no prebuilt release for Rocky, Alma, or RHEL yet.

## Complete Documentation & Full Context

For comprehensive technical specifications, detailed player comparison matrices, CLI command references, and architecture details, see:
- [Full LLM Context (llms-full.txt)](https://openutv.com/llms-full.txt): Complete unabridged reference for LLM reasoning and code generation.
- [GitHub Repository](https://github.com/OpenUTV/utv): Source code, issue tracker, release downloads, and developer discussions.