How can you determine video meta data eg container codex dimensions aspect ratio in an existing video file?

Answer 1

Okay, two possible ways:

1) The GSpot Codec Information Appliance from http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

This is a really fantastic utility - but it only runs in Windows... :(

2) Use mplayer in -identify mode. Here is a very quick and dirty script I wrote:

#!/bin/bash

# run mplayer in -identify mode and capture output

#

# uncomment and amend the next line if mplayer is not in your path

# export mplayer_PATH= {your path to mplayer}

#

info="$mplayer_PATH/mplayer -identify -frames 0 -vo null -ao null $1 2>/dev/null | grep ID_ >> video_probe_results"

eval "$info";

cat "video_probe_results"

rm "video_probe_results"

The sort of output it gives you is:

ID_VIDEO_ID=0

ID_AUDIO_ID=1

ID_FILENAME=../Desktop/CG_SC_R01_copy.mp4

ID_DEMUXER=mov

ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=avc1

ID_VIDEO_BITRATE=0

ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=346

ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=288

ID_VIDEO_FPS=25.000

ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=0.0000

ID_AUDIO_FORMAT=mp4a

ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=256000

ID_AUDIO_RATE=44100

ID_AUDIO_NCH=2

ID_LENGTH=1652.36

ID_VIDEO_CODEC=ffh264

ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=256000

ID_AUDIO_RATE=44100

ID_AUDIO_NCH=2

ID_AUDIO_CODEC=faad