Changed

• vd_lavc: prefer Vulkan hwdec when available
• vd_lavc: prefer non-copy hwdec before falling back to -copy variant
• vo: move vo_mediacodec_embed to not be the default on Android
• sub/osd_libass: don't rerender OSD if not changed
• vo: prefer vo_gpu_next over vo_gpu by default
• vo_gpu_next: respect ICC profile color space over any metadata
• vo_gpu_next: linearize sRGB as a pure 2.2 power function
• meson: warn if building with SDL2 due to known problems
• osxbundle: make bundle category configurable and default to video
• ao_pipewire: avoid setting any media.role by default

Options and Commands

Added

• sub: add control for libass caching options (glyph-limit, bitmap-max-size)
• vo: add options to control background tile appearance (transparency)
• command: add default and forced flags to the track add commands
• vo_gpu_next: add options to control subtitle peak for HDR output
• video/out/d3d11: add d3d11 composition mode support
• vd_lavc: add --hwdec-threads
• stream_bluray: add --bluray-angle
• vo_gpu_next: add options to control output colorspace metadata more precisely
• sub: make --sub-fix-timing configurable
• vo_gpu_next: add --hdr-reference-white
• audio/out: add --audio-set-media-role

Changed

• options: revert --prefetch-playlist default back to 'no'
• vo_gpu_next: change --target-colorspace-hint to 'auto' by default
• options: handle runtime --wid change
• options: reduce swapchain-depth to 2 by default
• screenshot: add osd and scaled flags to screenshot commands

Fixes and Minor Enhancements

• vo_kitty: add auto-multiplexer-passthrough option
• vd_lavc: enable FFv1 hwaccel by default
• clipboard-wayland: prevent reading from hung up fd
• demux_mkv: fix compilation after deprecated definitions removal
• filters: handle flipping video if displaymatrix indicates so
• player/scripting: fix race condition when destroying clients
• {osd,msg}: use PU codepoints for escape codes instead of invalid UTF-8
• vo_dmabuf_wayland: only load needed hardware decoding drivers
• video/image_writer: tag accurate bit depth
• demux_lavf: fix unconstrained cache size with wrapped AVFrame packets
• libarchive: fix reading name of certain UTF-8 files
• sub/sd_lavc: fix decoding with libaribb24
• ao_avfoundation: fix memory leak
• osc.lua: fix volume icon not updating while paused
• context_wayland: implement target_csp for wayland
• vo_gpu: fix target colorspace for redrawn frames
• vo_dmabuf_wayland: don't set HDR metadata on SDR transfers
• vo_gpu_next: don't do partial updates on hint luminance
• sub/ass_mp: add missing padding for ass packer
• stream_dvb: allow to enforce DVB-S/T for old zap format channels.conf
• demux_libarchive: fix reading archives with '%' in stream URL path
• vo_gpu_next: allow UINT upload if no other format is supported
• ytdl_hook.lua: fix incorrect default format used with yt-dlp
• vo_gpu_next: allow unsetting LUTs
• stream_bluray: use bd_get_main_title() to get main title
• vo_gpu_next: when tone-mapping, set better maxCLL value
• stream_libarchive: seek source stream to 0 before probing
• path-unix: support ~~desktop path expansion
• ytdl_hook.lua: don't crash if playlist entries don't have an usable URL
• mac/vulkan: fix frame not displayed when paused
• mac/common: render first frame on init if possible
• video/out/w32_common: support --wid=0
• demux_mkv: map and expose hearing/visual impaired flags
• player/misc: show percentage progress for --stream-dump
• command: fix null dereference for invalid command in input-commands
• cplugin: fix missing init of pfn_mpv_get_time_ns
• vo_dmabuf_wayland: actually reuse OSD buffers
• mp_image: add support for AVAlphaMode
• vo_gpu_next: add --border-background=blur and --background-blur-radius
• demux/cue: fix crash when there are no tracks
• vf_format: add some basic HDR10 metadata
• vo/context_android: fix surface tearing on resize
• meson: remove redundant 'sdl2' option
• mac/common: fix window position on multi monitor setups
• vo_gpu_next: limit min_luma to 1000:1 contrast ratio in SDR mode
• ao_pipewire: fix some incorrect channel mappings
• wayland: correct geometry handling for rotated outputs
• demux: clear packet pool when upper memory limit is lowered
• mp_image: add ycgco-{re,ro} support
• wayland: convert luminance values to libplacebo space
• vo: trigger manual redraws at most at slightly over display fps
• osxbundle: add new macOS 26 compatible App icon
• wayland: support color-management-v1 version 2

This listing is not complete. Check DOCS/client-api-changes.rst for a history of changes to the client API, and DOCS/interface-changes.rst for a history of changes to other user-visible interfaces.

A complete changelog can be seen by running git log v0.40.0..v0.41.0 in the git repository or by visiting https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/compare/v0.40.0...v0.41.0.

Note that the release binary assets are our CI builds. These builds are reasonably useful, but don't include everything which mpv supports (e.g. there's no encoding support).