Switch Audio Streams During Playback in FFplay

When playing media files or live streams with multiple audio tracks in FFplay, you can easily switch between them on the fly. This article explains the keyboard shortcuts and command-line options required to toggle between different audio streams during live playback, helping you manage multi-language tracks or commentary channels seamlessly.

Keyboard Shortcut to Toggle Audio Streams

The easiest way to switch audio streams while FFplay is running is by using a simple keyboard shortcut:

• Press the a key on your keyboard.

Every time you press a, FFplay will cycle to the next available audio stream in the current program. If there are three audio streams, pressing a will loop through stream 1, stream 2, stream 3, and then back to stream 1.

Selecting a Specific Audio Stream on Startup

If you want to open a file and immediately start playing a specific audio stream instead of the default one, you can specify this in your command line using the -ast (audio stream) option.

FFplay indexes streams starting from 0. To select a specific stream, use the following syntax:

ffplay -ast [stream_index] input_file

For example, to start playback using the second audio stream (index 1):

ffplay -ast 1 movie.mkv

Cycling Through Programs (For TS and Live Broadcasts)

In some broadcast streams, such as MPEG-TS files, multiple audio and video streams are grouped into “programs.” If pressing a does not give you the desired track, you may need to switch the active program first:

• Press the p key to cycle through the available programs.

Once you are on the correct program, you can use the a key again to toggle the audio streams assigned to that specific program.