FrankyRenderer 1.2

FrankyRenderer is a new free video renderer for 64-bit Windows, built for people who want the best possible picture from MPC-BE or PotPlayer.

It takes the core of MPC Video Renderer and hands the image processing to libplacebo, the same library that powers the mpv player.

The result is madVR-style upscaling, HDR tone mapping and Dolby Vision support in a renderer that is still being updated every few days.

What FrankyRenderer Actually Does

A renderer is the last step in a video player. Once the video has been decoded, the renderer resizes the picture to your screen, converts the colours and hands each frame to the graphics card.

That last step decides how sharp, smooth and accurate the picture looks. FrankyRenderer replaces your player's built-in renderer with one that has far more control over scaling, HDR and colour.

It runs on Direct3D 11, so any reasonably modern graphics card can drive it. The heavier settings, such as neural upscaling shaders, need a capable GPU.

Where It Fits in Your Player

FrankyRenderer does not open or decode video files by itself. It is one link in the usual DirectShow chain on Windows:

• Splitter: opens the MKV or MP4 file and separates video, audio and subtitles.
• Decoder: turns the compressed video into pictures, usually LAV Filters or the MPC Video Decoder.
• Renderer: FrankyRenderer scales, tone maps and colour-corrects those pictures and puts them on screen.
• Subtitles: drawn by the renderer itself, or by XySubFilter, which version 1.2 now supports.

If you already use LAV Filters with MPC-BE or PotPlayer, nothing else in that chain has to change. Our LAV Filters setup guide covers hardware decoding if you have not set it up yet.

Which Players It Works With

Only two players can select FrankyRenderer at the moment, and both need fairly recent builds.

• MPC-BE: version 1.9.3 or newer, which lists FrankyRenderer in its video renderer settings.
• PotPlayer: the 64-bit Beta build 261030 or newer. Older stable builds do not offer it.

It is a 64-bit renderer only, so 32-bit players cannot load it. MPC-HC and other DirectShow players are not on the supported list.

How to Install It

The download is a single ZIP of about 16.5 MB that works with both players. There is no installer wizard, just two small scripts.

• Extract the ZIP to a folder you will keep, such as C:\FrankyRenderer.
• Run Install.cmd from that folder to register the renderer with Windows.
• Open your player's settings and choose FrankyRenderer as the video renderer.
• Press Ctrl+J during playback to see the statistics overlay and confirm it is working.

Upgrading from an older version takes one extra step. Export your settings, close all players, run the old Uninstall.cmd, then extract the new ZIP and run Install.cmd again.

The Features Worth Knowing About

• Three HDR modes: pass HDR straight to an HDR TV, tone map it to your monitor's peak brightness, or tone map it to SDR for a normal screen.
• Dolby Vision: Profile 7 FEL and MEL from UHD Blu-ray folders, plus Profile 5 and 8, without an extra filter.
• Upscaling: classic filters such as EWA Lanczos and Spline, plus 23 bundled mpv shaders including FSRCNNX, RAVU and Anime4K.
• Smooth Motion: blends frames to reduce judder when the film's frame rate does not match your screen.
• NVIDIA extras: RTX Video Super Resolution, RTX Video HDR for SDR videos, and native HDR10 passthrough with the Windows HDR switch left off.
• Black bars: detects bars burned into the video and can crop or zoom to fill the screen, without mistaking end credits for bars.
• Profiles: give a folder its own settings, for example a different upscaler for anime, and set each display separately.

Not sure where to start? The Quality menu has Fast, Default and High Quality presets, and "Measure this PC" picks settings that your graphics card can actually keep up with.

What's New in Version 1.2

• New HDR mode: "Tone Map HDR to Display Peak" keeps HDR output but rolls off highlights the screen cannot show, which suits HDR monitors and laptops.
• Easier setup: a redesigned settings menu with themes, German and Chinese translations, quality presets and the "Measure this PC" button.
• Folder profiles and a "Same Settings on All Displays" switch.
• XySubFilter support and RTX Video HDR for SDR videos.
• Fixes: Dolby Vision Profile 7 now uses the enhancement layer on UHD Blu-ray, and washed-out 16-bit output with Windows HDR off is fixed.
• Smaller download: about 16 MB, down from 20 MB, thanks to a slimmer FFmpeg build.

FrankyRenderer, madVR or MPC Video Renderer?

If you try MPC Video Renderer first, our MPC Video Renderer setup guide walks through it in MPC-BE.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

FrankyRenderer only had its first release on 21 October 2026, and its developer calls it a work in progress. If you need a set-and-forget renderer for a family media PC, give it a few more months.

It has been tested on Windows 11 only. Windows 10 should work, but nobody has confirmed it officially yet.

AMD users lose one feature: native HDR passthrough is NVIDIA-only for now, so on AMD you switch on Windows HDR instead. If HDR still looks grey, see why HDR video looks washed out on a PC.

If you just want 4K and HDR files to play without tuning anything, a self-contained player is easier. mpv uses the same libplacebo engine out of the box, and VLC Media Player plays almost anything.

Our roundup of the best free 4K video players for PC compares the options side by side.

Technical Specs

Quick questions

Download FrankyRenderer 1.2 and see how your films look with it, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.