vmrv2 v1.4.0 vulkan

This beta release of v1.4.0 corresponds to: 21 of August of 2025 at 00:26:34 Buenos Aires, Argentina (-0300 UTC/GMT).

It does not support NDI® on any platform.

It works on Windows 8.1+ (without USD support), Ubuntu 22.04 LTS+, macOS 13 (amd64 also without USD support) and macOS M1/M2/M3 (arm64).

It may contain bugs, new untested features and more.

Enjoy!

---

v1.4.0 Notes

Prices after v1.4.0

• Buy mrv2 (or Vulkan vmrv2) for personal use at a cost of u$50, paid by a Paypal donation (I will use the email to verify purchase and issue a yearly license).

• Buy mrv2 (or Vulkan vmrv2) for personal use to own at a cost of u$150, paid by a Paypal donation (I will use the email to verify purchase and issue a non-expiring license).

Differences between Vulkan and OpenGL

• Vulkan is a new open source API, compared to OpenGL that it might get deprecated on some platforms like macOS. It supports true HDR (High Dynamic Range), it is about two times faster than the OpenGL version but it does not support OpenUSD. It is also less buggy on Linux Wayland, at least with NVidia drivers.
• OpenGL's only benefit at this point is that it supports OpenUSD.

Vulkan Demo Version

The Vulkan releases at:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mrv2/files/vulkan

directory are versions for you to evaluate vmrv2 before a purchase and report bugs or performance issues. Currently, when run as demo these versions don't have:

   - Annotations
   - A/B Comparisons
   - OpenEXR Layer switching
   - NDI support

History

• Added license_helper for easy licensing of vmrv2.
• Added backend used to -version flag.
• Added tabulation to -version flag's output.
• Made Vulkan's mrv2 be installed as vmrv2 to distinguish it from the OpenGL version and allow having both installed easily.
• Fixed a useless icons directory on macOS and a missing one on Windows.
• Turned off screen saver/suspending as it was not friendly to some users.
• Added Alt + LMB when in scrubbing mode to scrub slower.
• Added a Preference to set a multiplier on how slow with Alt + LMB.
• Added a Preference to control how scrubbing looping behavior works. It can be set to Button (the UI timeline setting), Inactive or Active.
• Fixed Vulkan's DPI and scaling of images/videos within the viewport.
• Made audio stop playback when the window is minimized, except on older Wayland versions.
• Fixed YUV Original look up crashing the viewer.
• Fixed YUV Original pixel values as they were not matching the Full ones.
• Added Preferences->Behavior->Allow Screen Saver to control whether mrv2 blocks the screen saver when running.
• Fixed blocking Suspend mode on Windows.
• Improved performance of Vulkan shaders' compilation for faster start ups.
• Added to title bar an (E) when non-saved Edit changes are present and (A) when annotations have been done.
• Fixed Vulkan macOS builds.
• Fixed Vulkan HDR support when Windows' HDR monitor was set to SDR.
• Improved scrubbing behavior.
• Fixed Wayland port on Linux distributing some incorrect Wayland libraries.
• Fixed Vulkan macOS installs, without having to set environment variables. Now you can actually click on the icon (after you authorize the permissions to the application). It DOES work now!
• Fixed macOS distro not installing a local python into the .app directory.
• Fixed Linux distro shipping two wayland DSOs by mistake.
• Made macOS Vulkan work with Retina.
• Fixed Vulkan crashing bug when going to presentation mode with NVidia 575 drivers.
• Fixed hiding of Timeline in normal mode leaving a gap of 30 pixels.
• Fixed a lag when scrubbing with one or more of the thumbnail panels active.
• Fixed fullscreen mode in Vulkan backend.
• Fixed loading of some animated .gif files.
• Added a Preferences->Thumbnails->Refresh Thumbnails in Panels Manually to avoid auto refreshing of thumbnails. You have to go to any thumbnail and RMB->Update->Thumbnails.
• Added thorough list of Wayland compositors with their version commands.
• Added Desktop Envionment report when using X11 or Wayland.
• Fixed finding all preferences with MRV2_STUDIOPATH and STUDIOPATH.
• Fixed framing when loading a session file.
• Improved startup times from the command-line and when loading the first clip.
• Added reporting of Studio location if MRV2_STUDIOPATH or STUDIOPATH are set.
• Fixed saving of movies in Vulkan.
• Fixed saving of movies at half and quarter resolution in Vulkan.
• Fixed saving of single frames in Vulkan.
• Fixed saving of single frames at half and quarter resolution in Vulkan.
• Added Stereo3D Anaglyph support to Vulkan.
• Fixed hanging on Wayland with Vulkan's windows when they were going off-screen.
• Fixed saving of Prores and DNXHD with the correct profiles.

Notes on installation

• On macOS you install it by opening the .dmg file, and dragging the vmrv2 icon to the Applications directory. If there's already a vmrv2 version, we recommend you overwrite it. The macOS application is currently not notarized, so when you launch it you will not be able to run it as macOS will warn you that the file is not secure as it was downloaded from internet. To avoid that, you need to open the Apple Logo->Settings->Privacy and Security and go to Security and allow "Opening Anyway". Alternatively, you can do it from the Terminal, by:

  sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Applications/vmrv2.app/

• Windows and Chrome, like macOS, also protect you from installing files from the Internet. When you first download it with Chrome it may warn you that it is not an usual archive to be downloaded. Make sure to click on the right up arrow menu to Save it anyway. You cannot open the .exe from Chrome directly. You will need to open Windows Explorer and go to the Downloads directory. You should then run it from there. Then Windows will popup a Blue box telling you Windows SmartScreen prevented the start of an unknown application and that you can place your PC at risk. Click on the More Information text and a Button that says Run anyway or similar should appear. Click on it and follow the standard instructions to any Windows installer. One note about the Windows install. When asked if you want to add vmrv2 to your PATH, it is recommended to answer No to it, as it avoids DLLs conflicts with other applications that use common libraries like FFmpeg or OpenUSD.

• On Linux, in order to install the .rpm or .deb packages requires your user to have sudo permissions.

On Debian (Ubuntu, etc) systems, you would install with:

  sudo dpkg -i vmrv2-vulkan-Linux-amd64.deb

On Fedora, you would install it with:

  sudo rpm -i vmrv2-vulkan-Linux-amd64.rpm

Once you install it, you can run mrv2 by just typing vmrv2 in the shell, as a symlink to the executable is placed in /usr/bin. The installers will also associate file extensions and install an icon for easy starting up in the Desktop icon of the user that installed it. For running vmrv2 with the icon, you need to select it and use the right mouse button to open the menu and choose Allow Launch.

If you lack sudo permissions in your organization, you should download the .tar.gz file and you can uncompress it with:

  tar -xf vmrv2-vulkan-Linux-amd64.tar.gz

That will create a folder in the directory you uncompress it from. You can then run vmrv2 by using the mrv2.sh shell script in the bin/ subdirectory.

Notes about Vulkan on Windows

In order to get HDR, you currently need to have Windows 10+ (11 is ideal) and an HDR monitor.

Notes about Vulkan on NVidia Linux

In order to get HDR, you currently need to have the KWin6 or GNOME48 compositors and an HDR monitor.

It will likely work with any NVidia RTX 3080+ or similar AMD board, but it will require you to choose and test your hardware carefully.

The preferred NVidia driver tested for best performance is nvidia-driver-570 (default on Ubuntu 25.04 with GNOME48).

For best performance with the NVidia driver, you can modify:

    sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Modify line 11 to from:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nvidia_drm.modeset=1 nvidia_drm.fbdev=1"

To this content:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nvidia_drm.modeset=1 nvidia_drm.fbdev=1 nvidia.NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0"

   sudo update-grub
   sudo reboot

Notes about Vulkan on macOS Intel

• Only up to Vulkan 1.3 is currently supported.
• HDR on macOS needs a MacBook Pro. MacBook Pro Intel will give you up to 1000 Nits of HDR depending on model.
• MacBook Pro Silicon should work with any M1 device up to HDR+.