1PW-CAT(1) General Commands Manual PW-CAT(1)
2
6 pw-cat - Play and record media with PipeWire
7
9 pw-cat [options] [FILE]
10 pw-play [options] [FILE]
11 pw-record [options] [FILE]
12 pw-midiplay [options] [FILE]
13 pw-midirecord [options] [FILE]
14
17 pw-cat is a simple tool for playing back or capturing raw or encoded
18 media files on a PipeWire server. It understands all audio file formats
19 supported by libsndfile.
20
22 -h | --help
23 Show help.
24 --version
26 Show version information.
27 -v | --verbose
29 Verbose operation.
30 -R | --remote=NAME
32 The name the remote instance to connect to. If left unspecified,
33 a connection is made to the default PipeWire instance.
34 -p | --playback
36 Playback mode. Read data from the specified file, and play it
37 back. If the tool is called under the name pw-play or
38 pw-midiplay this is the default.
39 -r | --record
41 Recording mode. Capture data and write it to the specified file.
42 If the tool is called under the name pw-record or pw-midirecord
43 this is the default.
44 -m | --midi
46 MIDI mode. FILE is a MIDI file. If the tool is called under the
47 name pw-midiplay or pw-midirecord this is the default.
48 --media-type=VALUE
50 Set the media type property (default Audio/Midi depending on
51 mode). The media type is used by the session manager to select
52 a suitable target to link to.
53 --media-category=VALUE
55 Set the media category property (default Playback/Capture de‐
56 pending on mode). The media type is used by the session manager
57 to select a suitable target to link to.
58 --media-role=VALUE
60 Set the media role property (default Music). The media type is
61 used by the session manager to select a suitable target to link
62 to.
63 --target=VALUE
65 Set a node target (default auto). The value can be:
66 auto Automatically select (Default)
68 0 Don't try to link this node
70 <id> The id of a target node
72 --latency=VALUE[units]
74 Set the node latency (default 100ms)
75 The latency determines the minimum amount of time it takes for a
77 sample to travel from application to device (playback) and from
78 device to application (capture).
79 The latency determines the size of the buffers that the applica‐
81 tion will be able to fill. Lower latency means smaller buffers
82 but higher overhead. Higher latency means larger buffers and
83 lower overhead.
84 Units can be s for seconds, ms for milliseconds, us for mi‐
86 croseconds, ns for nanoseconds. If no units are given, the la‐
87 tency value is samples with the samplerate of the file.
88 --list-targets
90 List the available targets for --target
91 -q | --quality=VALUE
93 Resampler quality. When the samplerate of the source or destina‐
94 tion file does not match the samplerate of the server, the data
95 will be resampled. Higher quality uses more CPU. Values between
96 0 and 15 are allowed, the default quality is 4.
97 --rate=VALUE
99 The sample rate, default 48000.
100 --channels=VALUE
102 The number of channels, default 2.
103 --channel-map=VALUE
105 The channelmap. Possible values include: mono, stereo, sur‐
106 round-21, quad, surround-22, surround-40, surround-31, sur‐
107 round-41, surround-50, surround-51, surround-51r, surround-70,
108 surround-71 or a comma separated list of channel names: FL, FR,
109 FC, LFE, SL, SR, FLC, FRC, RC, RL, RR, TC, TFL, TFC, TFR, TRL,
110 TRC, TRR, RLC, RRC, FLW, FRW, LFE2, FLH, FCH, FRH, TFLC, TFRC,
111 TSL, TSR, LLFR, RLFE, BC, BLC, BRC
112 --format=VALUE
114 The sample format to use. One of: s8, s16 (default), s24, s32,
115 f32, f64.
116 --volume=VALUE
118 The stream volume, default 1.000.
119
121 The PipeWire Developers <‐
122 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/issues>; PipeWire is
123 available from https://pipewire.org
124
126 PipeWire(1), pw-mon(1),
127 PW-CAT(1)