mrv2 is an open source professional player and review tool for VFX, animation and computer graphics.
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If you are looking for pre-built binaries for Windows, Linux or macOS, they can be found in:
or in its mirror site at:
The source forge site also hosts beta builds (nightly builds with the latest changes):
The Linux releases are built on Rocky Linux 8.10 using SCL. The Linux beta builds are built on Ubuntu 24.04. The preferred OS for installation on Linux, however is one supporting GNOME 50+.
mrv2 and vmrv2 OFFICIAL RELEASE binaries run on Windows 10+, RedHat 8+ or Ubuntu 22.04+, and macOS 12.0+ Intel or Silicon.
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On macOS you install it by opening the .dmg file. When you do so, Apple's Gatekeeper will not allow it. The macOS application is currently not notarized, so when you launch it you will not be able to run it as macOS will warn you that the file is not secure as it was downloaded from internet. To avoid that, you need to open the Apple Logo->Settings->Privacy and Security and go to Security and allow "Opening Anyway". Alternatively, you can open /Applications/Terminal.app and run this command on your .dmg file.
sudo xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/your.dmgThen, you need to further follow some steps as in the README.md file provided in the installer.
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Windows, like macOS, also protect you from installing files from the Internet. Windows will popup a Blue box telling you Windows SmartScreen prevented the start of an unknown application and that you can place your PC at risk. Click on the More Information text and a Button that says Run anyway or similar should appear. Click on it and follow the standard instructions to any Windows installer.
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On Linux, in order to install the .rpm or .deb packages requires your user to have sudo permissions.
On Debian (Ubuntu, etc) systems, you would install with:
sudo dpkg -i mrv2-v1.0.0-Linux-amd64.deb
On Red Hat (Rocky Linux, etc), you would install it with:
sudo rpm -i mrv2-v1.0.0-Linux-amd64.rpm
Once you install it, you can run mrv2 by just typing mrv2 or vmrv2 in the shell, as a symlink to the executable is placed in /usr/bin. The installers will also associate file extensions and install an icon for easy starting up in the Desktop icon of the user that installed it. For running mrv2 with the icon, you need to select it and use the right mouse button to open the menu and choose Allow Launch.
If you lack sudo permissions in your organization, you should download the .tar.gz file and you can uncompress it with:
tar -xf mrv2-v1.0.0-Linux-amd64.tar.gz
That will create a folder in the directory you uncompress it from. You can then run mrv2 by using the mrv2.sh shell script in the bin/ subdirectory.
The source code is written in C++20 and uses CMake for the build system, with some bash scripts for auxiliary tasks.
The core of the playback engine is a custom version of tlRender (www.github.com/darbyjohnston/tlRender.git).
Currently supported:
- Movie files (H264, MP4, VPX, WEBM, AV1, etc.)
- Image file sequences (Cineon, DPX, JPEG, OpenEXR, PNG, PPM, TIFF, TGA, BMP, PSD)
- RAW Camera Formats (CR2, CR3, X3F, etc).
- Multi-channel audio
- Color management
- HDR support
- A/B comparison
- Native OpenTimelineIO with dissolves
- .otioz file bundles
- Creation of OpenTimelineIO playlists
- OpenEXR multichannel, multiview, YC, tiled and multipart support
- Environment mapping (Spherical and Cubic)
- Python3 API and Plugin system
- Network connections
- Stereo 3D (Anaglyph, Scanlines, Columns, Checkered, Side by Side)
- PDF Exporting of Annotations and Notes
- Linux Wayland support
- Internationalization (Translations) support
- Editing
- Pen and Tablet support on all platforms
- OpenGL and Vulkan backends
- Linux and Windows aarch64 (untested, only tested compilation)
Besides the basic API documentation included, there is a special channel on youtube.com where you can find some tutorials on its basic use: