FYI - Get the meta data about a video

2017-06-17 1 min read editmentary video · post-production · ffmpeg · mediainfo

You don’t need an NLE to view the meta data about a media file. There are plenty of free tools that you can use from the command line that will tell you about what is in a video.

I know what you are saying. “Uh… and I care because???” 8 or 9 times out of ten, ya don’t. BUT on the off chance that you actually work with video content during post-production or delivery, it may be a thing. Especially if you need to

Verify a video has sound before delivering (ahem posting) it.
Verify the audio levels are not too high (its not too loud)
Verify that the video is not showing black screen. This is also referred too as commercial black.

Here’s how.

Before We Start

Download and install MediaInfo
Download and install FFMpeg

NOTE: Both MediaInfo and FFMpeg are available via package managers for Apple, Linux, and Windows (i.e., homebrew, chocolatey, apt-get)

Let’s Get Started!

MediaInfo

Get meta data using MediaInfo

mediainfo --full http://any10http1.turner.com/news/finished/cnn/videos_repository/tv/2017/06/17/i-wasnt-fired-i-was-dancing.cnn_1280x720_3500k.mp4

Get meta data using MediaInfo in XML format

mediainfo --full --output=XML http://any10http1.turner.com/news/finished/cnn/videos_repository/tv/2017/06/17/i-wasnt-fired-i-was-dancing.cnn_1280x720_3500k.mp4

FFProbe

ffprobe -v quiet -print_format json -show_format -show_streams http://any10http1.turner.com/news/finished/cnn/videos_repository/tv/2017/06/17/i-wasnt-fired-i-was-dancing.cnn_1280x720_3500k.mp4

Resources

VVO Gist

Disagree? Did I miss something? Comment below .