NAME
pacat - Play back or record raw or encoded audio streams on a PulseAu‐ dio sound server SYNOPSIS paplay [options] [FILE] parecord [options] [FILE] pacat [options] [FILE] parec [options] [FILE] pamon [options] [FILE] pacat help pacat version DESCRIPTION pacat is a simple tool for playing back or capturing raw or encoded audio files on a PulseAudio sound server. It understands all audio file formats supported by libsndfile. OPTIONS
-h | help Show help. version Show version information.
-r | record Capture audio data and write it to the specified file or to STD‐ OUT if none is specified. If the tool is called under the name parec this is the default.
-p | playback Read audio data from the specified file or STDIN if none is specified, and play it back. If the tool is called under the name pacat this is the default.
-v | verbose Enable verbose operation. Dumps the current playback time to STDERR during playback/capturing.
-s | server=SERVER Choose the server to connect to.
-d | device=SINKORSOURCE Specify the symbolic name of the sink/source to play/record this stream on/from.
monitor-stream=INDEX Record from the sink input with index INDEX.
-n | client-name=NAME Specify the client name paplay shall pass to the server when connecting.
stream-name=NAME Specify the stream name paplay shall pass to the server when creating the stream. volume=VOLUME Specify the initial playback volume to use. Choose a value
between 0 (silent) and 65536 (100% volume). rate=SAMPLERATE Capture or play back audio with the specified sample rate. Defaults to 44100 Hz. format=FORMAT Capture or play back audio with the specified sample format. Specify one of u8, s16le, s16be, s32le, s32be, float32le,
float32be, ulaw, alaw, s32le, s32be, s24le, s24be, s24-32le,
s24-32be. Depending on the endianness of the CPU the formats s16ne, s16re, s32ne, s32re, float32ne, float32re, s32ne, s32re,
s24ne, s24re, s24-32ne, s24-32re (for native, resp. reverse endian) are available as aliases. Defaults to s16ne. channels=CHANNELS Capture or play back audio with the specified number of chan‐ nels. If more than two channels are used it is recommended to
use the channel-map option below. Defaults to 2.
channel-map=CHANNELMAP Explicitly choose a channel map when playing back this stream. The argument should be a comma separated list of channel names:
front-left, front-right, mono, front-center, rear-left, rear-
right, rear-center, lfe, front-left-of-center, front-right-of-
center, side-left, side-right, top-center, top-front-center,
top-front-left, top-front-right, top-rear-left, top-rear-right,
top-rear-center, or any of the 32 auxiliary channel names aux0 to aux31.
fix-format If passed, the sample format of the stream is changed to the native format of the sink the stream is connected to.
fix-rate If passed, the sampling rate of the stream is changed to the native rate of the sink the stream is connected to.
fix-channels If passed, the number of channels and the channel map of the stream is changed to the native number of channels and the native channel map of the sink the stream is connected to.
no-remix Never upmix or downmix channels.
no-remap Never remap channels. Instead of mapping channels by their name this will match them solely by their index/order. latency=BYTES Explicitly configure the latency, with a time specified in bytes in the selected sample format. If left out the server will pick the latency, usually relatively high for power saving reasons.
Use either this option or latency-msec, but not both.
latency-msec=MSEC Explicitly configure the latency, with a time specified in mil‐ liseconds. If left out the server will pick the latency, usually relatively high for power saving reasons. Use either this option or latency, but not both.
process-time=BYTES Explicitly configure the process time, with a time specified in bytes in the selected sample format. If left out the server will
pick the process time. Use either this option or process-time- msec, but not both.
process-time-msec=MSEC Explicitly configure the process time, with a time specified in miliseconds. If left out the server will pick the process time.
Use either this option or process-time, but not both. property=PROPERTY=VALUE Attach a property to the client and stream. May be used multiple times raw Play/record raw audio data. This is the default if this program is invoked as pacat , parec or pamon
file-format[=FFORMAT] Play/record encoded audio data in the file format specified. This is the default if this program is invoked as paplay and parecord
list-file-formats List supported file formats. LIMITATIONS Due to a limitation in libsndfile paplay currently does not always set the correct channel mapping for playback of multichannel (i.e. sur‐ round) audio files, even if the channel mapping information is avail‐ able in the audio file. AUTHORS
The PulseAudio Developers
freedesktop (dot) org>; PulseAudio is available from http://pulseau‐ dio.org/ SEE ALSO pulseaudio(1), pactl(1) Manuals User pacat(1)