Playback

Finch plays MKV, MP4 and most other video files, with HEVC, AV1, Dolby and DTS sound, and styled subtitles, through mpv. Hardware decoding is used when the machine has it.

Picking up where you left off

Your place is saved every ten seconds and when you stop (a sudden power-off can lose the last 30 to 40 seconds). Start something you were part way through and Finch says “Starting from 14:32” and carries on from there. Past 90 percent counts as watched. Continue Watching on Home resumes at once.

Play next

When an episode ends, Finch offers “Next episode” with a countdown (ten seconds by default). Settings, then Playback, has “Next episode countdown”: None (the next episode plays at once), 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds. Press A to play it now, or press any other button to cancel and go back to the episode list. Each show’s menu (Y on the show) has “Play next episode”: On, Off, or As in Settings, so one show can differ from Settings, then Playback. If the Deck goes to sleep while the countdown is up, it waits for A when the Deck wakes instead of starting an episode by itself.

Previous and next episode

While an episode plays, LB goes to the previous episode and RB to the next, in the show’s order with specials last, whatever its Play next and Shuffle settings. The player menu (Y) has “Previous episode” and “Next episode” at the top too. Your place in the episode you leave is kept. At either end Finch says “This is the first episode.” or “This is the last episode.” and keeps playing; an episode on a drive that isn’t plugged in is not skipped, Finch asks you to plug it in instead.

Sleep timer

Open the player menu with Y while something plays and choose Sleep timer: Off, After this episode, or from 15 minutes up to 3 hours in steps of 15. The sound fades over the last ten seconds before playback stops. Time the Deck spends asleep counts: if the timer runs out while it sleeps, the video is paused when it wakes and Finch says so, without the sleeping cat. When playback stops, the screen goes black with a sleeping cat and “Sleep timer ended. Good night!” for 30 seconds, then fades to the screensaver. Any button on the cat takes you back to the page you started from, and any button on the screensaver brings the cat back (either press does nothing else). The screen shows no hints.

Screensaver

After the sleep timer, and over a video left paused on the player for 5 minutes with no button pressed, the screen goes black with a dim paw print bouncing off its edges, a new colour on every bounce. Every few minutes it lands in a corner, and a burst of small paws fades away. After 30 minutes on the screensaver the paw fades out too and the screen stays black. Any button wakes it, and that press does nothing else: over a paused video it takes you back to the player with its controls showing, and the video stays paused. Finch doesn’t keep the Deck awake, so the Deck’s own dimming and sleep settings still apply.

Skipping openings, recaps, credits and previews

When a file’s chapters are named Opening, Intro, Recap, Previously, Credits, Ending or Preview, a skip button appears on X (or the button Settings, then Controls, gave that job). It hides 6 seconds after the chapter starts or after your last button press, but X still works until the chapter ends. Files without named chapters have nothing to skip. LT and RT change chapter in any file that has them.

Remembered choices

Finch remembers the audio and subtitle choice you make for each show and movie, and picks the same language and title in its other files. The show’s or movie’s Y menu has “Forget audio and subtitle choices” under “More…” to start over. Each profile keeps its own.

Shuffle

The show menu (Y on a show) has Shuffle, On or Off. With it on, the next episode is a random unwatched one instead of the following one, and it keeps picking as each ends. On a show you have seen through, it picks from all of them instead, never the episode that just finished. Specials are left out of shuffle unless a show has nothing else to pick.

Hiding spoilers

The show menu (Y on a show) also has Hide spoilers: On, Off, or As in Settings. With it on, an episode you haven’t watched shows a plain tile instead of its picture, on the show’s page and on Home; its title stays. “Hide spoilers in new shows” in Settings, then Playback, turns it on for every show you haven’t chosen for. Each profile keeps its own.

Pausing and leaving

B pauses the video and goes back. Open it from Home, or its show or movie page, and it resumes where it stopped. To keep the video playing when you go back, turn off “Pause when leaving a video” in Settings, then Playback. Finch also pauses when the Deck sleeps, and on a desktop when its window loses focus. The Steam overlay doesn’t pause it: under Steam the video plays on behind the overlay, as games do.

Settings that affect playback

Open Settings, then Playback:

Passthrough: send Dolby and DTS sound to the receiver untouched. Leave it off unless your receiver decodes them. When the sound stalls under passthrough in the first seconds of a file, Finch decodes it itself and says so (it sees mpv’s audio clock stop).
Volume: also in the player menu.
Pause when leaving a video: whether B pauses (on) or keeps the video playing (off).
Subtitle size: 50 to 200 percent. Subtitle position: one percentage from −100% (lower) to +100% (higher), 0% the default, in steps of 5. Raising and lowering move the text the same distance. In the player menu, Left and Right change the highlighted row and A pauses or plays the video.
Preferred audio and subtitle language: Finch picks a matching track when the file has one.
Play next episode: whether the next episode is offered when one ends; each show can switch it off in its own menu.

Battery saver

Settings, then Advanced, has Battery saver: Automatic, On or Off. Automatic turns it on after 30 seconds of running on battery at 20% or less on the Deck’s own screen, and off again after 30 seconds of charging, a full battery, an external display (a window bigger than 1280 by 800, or a display plugged in) or a charge above 25%. On keeps it on whatever the battery says. Finch says “Battery saver is on (running on battery at 20% or less).” and “Battery saver is off.” when Automatic changes it. While it is on:

Menus move without animations.
Only the pictures on screen are prepared, not the ones around them, and title backgrounds are prepared at half size.
Finding new files’ lengths and fetching posters and descriptions wait while a video plays, and carry on when it stops.
Pictures taken from videos wait until Battery saver is off.
Videos decode with fewer threads (mpv’s vd-lavc-threads at 2) and keep using hardware decoding.
Nothing bounces on the screensaver: after the sleep timer the sleeping cat stays and moves to a new place every 30 seconds, and over a paused video the paw sits still and moves every 30 seconds.

Finch only redraws the screen when something on it changes (the screensaver’s bouncing paw redraws 30 times a second), with or without Battery saver; with it on, Finch also checks for button presses half as often (every 16 milliseconds instead of 8).

My file won’t play

“Plug in <drive> to play this”: the drive with the file is not connected.
“Can’t play this file”: mpv could not open it. Try the file on a computer; if it plays there, the codec may not be supported by this build.
“Finch closed twice while reading this file, so it won’t open it again.”: reading the file made Finch close at two launches in a row, so Finch leaves it alone: no length, no frame picture, and it won’t play. A newer version of Finch tries it again; to try it sooner, delete set-aside.json in Finch’s cache folder (~/.cache/finch, or ~/.var/app/dev.quietfield.Finch/cache/finch for the Flatpak) from Desktop mode.
No sound with passthrough on: Finch decodes the sound itself when the sound stalls under passthrough; a TV that plays silence without stalling still needs passthrough turned off.
Subtitles missing: Finch shows the file’s own subtitle tracks. External subtitle files next to the video with the same name are picked up too.