Video Backends

Video Backends

For video wallpapers the plugin offers two engines.

Backend	When to use	Notes
MPV (default)	Almost always the one you want: hardware decoding, more container formats, and it backs the scene renderer's video-texture path.	Needs an MPV-enabled build, which every package and source build in Installation already is. If libmpv isn't present at runtime, the plugin falls back to QtMultimedia on its own.
QtMultimedia	Fallback for when MPV gives you trouble.	Runs on GStreamer, so install the codec packages: gst-libav on Arch, gstreamer1-libav on Fedora. Slower and pickier about formats.

Switch backends in the plugin's General/Settings tab.

Troubleshooting video

• Choppy playback → try the other backend.
• Black frame, no video → try the other backend; check codec packages installed.
• No sound → check the plugin's mute toggle; for QtMultimedia, install gst-plugins-good, gst-plugins-bad, gst-plugins-ugly.
• Hardware decoding not engaging on MPV → verify with vainfo (Intel/AMD) or vdpauinfo (NVIDIA).

Why two backends?

MPV is faster, handles more containers, and feeds the scene renderer's video-texture pipeline that some Scene wallpapers use to embed a video as a layer (see Scene Renderer → IVideoTexture). QtMultimedia stays around as a fallback that needs no special build, for the rare time MPV won't cooperate.