PW-CAT(1) General Commands Manual PW-CAT(1)
NAME
pw-cat - Play and record media with PipeWire
SYNOPSIS
pw-cat [options] [FILE]
pw-play [options] [FILE]
pw-record [options] [FILE]
pw-midiplay [options] [FILE]
pw-midirecord [options] [FILE]
DESCRIPTION
pw-cat is a simple tool for playing back or capturing raw or encoded
media files on a PipeWire server. It understands all audio file formats
supported by libsndfile.
OPTIONS
-h | --help
Show help.
--version
Show version information.
-v | --verbose
Verbose operation.
-R | --remote=NAME
The name the remote instance to connect to. If left unspecified,
a connection is made to the default PipeWire instance.
-p | --playback
Playback mode. Read data from the specified file, and play it
back. If the tool is called under the name pw-play or
pw-midiplay this is the default.
-r | --record
Recording mode. Capture data and write it to the specified file.
If the tool is called under the name pw-record or pw-midirecord
this is the default.
-m | --midi
MIDI mode. FILE is a MIDI file. If the tool is called under the
name pw-midiplay or pw-midirecord this is the default.
--media-type=VALUE
Set the media type property (default Audio/Midi depending on
mode). The media type is used by the session manager to select
a suitable target to link to.
--media-category=VALUE
Set the media category property (default Playback/Capture de-
pending on mode). The media type is used by the session manager
to select a suitable target to link to.
--media-role=VALUE
Set the media role property (default Music). The media type is
used by the session manager to select a suitable target to link
to.
--target=VALUE
Set a node target (default auto). The value can be:
auto Automatically select (Default)
0 Don't try to link this node
<id> The id of a target node
--latency=VALUE[units]
Set the node latency (default 100ms)
The latency determines the minimum amount of time it takes for a
sample to travel from application to device (playback) and from
device to application (capture).
The latency determines the size of the buffers that the applica-
tion will be able to fill. Lower latency means smaller buffers
but higher overhead. Higher latency means larger buffers and
lower overhead.
Units can be s for seconds, ms for milliseconds, us for mi-
croseconds, ns for nanoseconds. If no units are given, the la-
tency value is samples with the samplerate of the file.
--list-targets
List the available targets for --target
-q | --quality=VALUE
Resampler quality. When the samplerate of the source or destina-
tion file does not match the samplerate of the server, the data
will be resampled. Higher quality uses more CPU. Values between
0 and 15 are allowed, the default quality is 4.
--rate=VALUE
The sample rate, default 48000.
--channels=VALUE
The number of channels, default 2.
--channel-map=VALUE
The channelmap. Possible values include: mono, stereo, sur-
round-21, quad, surround-22, surround-40, surround-31, sur-
round-41, surround-50, surround-51, surround-51r, surround-70,
surround-71 or a comma separated list of channel names: FL, FR,
FC, LFE, SL, SR, FLC, FRC, RC, RL, RR, TC, TFL, TFC, TFR, TRL,
TRC, TRR, RLC, RRC, FLW, FRW, LFE2, FLH, FCH, FRH, TFLC, TFRC,
TSL, TSR, LLFR, RLFE, BC, BLC, BRC
--format=VALUE
The sample format to use. One of: s8, s16 (default), s24, s32,
f32, f64.
--volume=VALUE
The stream volume, default 1.000.
AUTHORS
The PipeWire Developers <-
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/issues>; PipeWire is
available from https://pipewire.org
SEE ALSO
PipeWire(1), pw-mon(1),
PW-CAT(1)
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