---
name: "lives"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "lives"
version: "3.0.2-1.1"
release: "Debian 11 (Bullseye)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/lives"
---

# lives(1)

LiVES is a Video Editing System

## NAME

LiVES - LiVES is a Video Editing System

## SYNOPSIS

**lives** \<video\_file\> \<start\_time\> \<frames\> \[ -help \] \[ -version \] \[ -set setname \| -noset \] \[ -nogui \] \[ -aplayer ap \] \[ -jackopts opts \] \[ -norecover \| -recover \] \[ -oscstart port \| -nooscstart \] \[ -devicemap mapfile \]

## DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents briefly the **lives** command.

**LiVES**  lets you start editing and making video right away, without having to worry about formats, frame sizes, or framerates. LiVES will let you start creating your own tools, utilities and effects via the built in RFX builder.

## OPTIONS

\-help Show all commandline options and exit

- \-version

  Print the version, copyright and licensing details, and exit

- \-set setname

  Start up lives and autoload set setname

- \-noset

  Do not load any set on startup

- \-nogui

  Do not show the GUI (experimental)

- \-aplayer ap

  Start with selected audio player. ap can be mplayer, sox or jack. Note: This sets the audio player permanently. You can change it in preferences.

- \-jackopts opts

  opts is a bitmap of jack startup options \[1 = jack transport client, 2 = jack transport master, 4 = start jack transport server, 8 = pause audio when video paused, 16 = start jack audio server\]  Note: jackopts are temporary, only for this instance. You need to set them in Preferences if you want to make permanent changes.

- \-norecover

  Force no loading of crash recovery

- \-recover

  Force loading of crash recovery (if present)

- \-oscstart port

  Start OSC listener on UDP port port if LiVES is compiled with OSC support

- \-nooscstart

  Do not start OSC listener

- \-devicemap mapfile

  Load in device mapping file mapfile at startup

## SEE ALSO

[**mplayer**(1)](/mplayer/1.md), [**ImageMagick**(1)](/ImageMagick/1.md), [**ffmpeg**(1)](/ffmpeg/1.md).\

## AUTHOR

lives was written by Gabriel "Salsaman" Finch.

This manual page was originally written by Gürkan Sengün \<gurkan@phys.ethz.ch\>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others). This man page has been updated by Gabriel "Salsaman" Finch \<salsaman@xs4all.nl\> and Harry Rickards \<harry@linux.com\>