This is literally the stupidest thing I have ever seen a media player do UX wise.
The GUI for this CLI player supposedly accepts any input as a entry but the underlying CLI has a fatal flaw: INABILITY TO PARSE PLAYLISTS BY EXTENSION.
so for instance:
mpv /foo/bar/2000.m3u
Will instantly fail as it’s not a “file” by FFmpeg standards. That’s fine for FFmpeg with ultra specific bash scripts, but we’re talking UX for a media player.
To ACTUALLY launch a playlist:
mpv --playlist=/foo/bar/2000.m3u
Which means the only way to launch playlists is by Terminal/CLI.
For custom URL protocols like a TV Tuner with:
dvb://
This can’t be opened by the GUI unless you drag and drop selected text. (for instance, you type it into gedit or Kate, select the text, then drag it into the player.) The only other way to open it via a desktop shortcut is a shell script. If you’re in a DE, you have to use a shell script in order to actually directly launch a URL from a single shortcut or doing the simple act of getting a playlist to run.
This is one of the things that will prevent wide adoption of mpv because it’s meant for specific use cases and not general use. It’s great for looping a single file, but when it comes to pre-prepared playlists, this is where the UX fails dramatically.
Not impressed.
