#1153·broot

Feature request: live video preview via mpv --vo=kitty

Author: ry-grandCreated Apr 11, 2026Updated Apr 13, 2026
Labelsenhancement

Currently I use this transformer for video files, which works well:

{
    input_extensions: [ "mkv", "mp4", "webm", "avi", "mov", "flv", "wmv", "m4v", "ts", "mpg", "mpeg", "3gp" ]
    output_extension: png
    mode: image
    command: [ "ffmpeg", "-ss", "00:00:05", "-i", "{input-path}", "-vframes", "1", "-y", "{output-path}" ]
}

However, it of course only produces a static thumbnail. What I would really like is live playback in the preview panel using mpv's kitty output driver:

mpv --profile=sw-fast --vo=kitty --vo-kitty-use-shm=yes --really-quiet --pause video.mkv

This is not possible with the current transformer model as it is file-in file-out, and --vo=kitty renders escape sequences directly to the terminal rather than writing to a file. I am not sure how large a change this would be, but I believe it would require something like a passthrough mode where broot positions the cursor at the top left of the preview panel, spawns the process, and terminates it on deselection. Something similar has been discussed in #943 where another user wanted to pass the preview region to neovim entirely, which I would personally find very useful as well.

Is there any chance you would consider supporting something like this?