How to find basic codec and compression info of a media file in Linux

These methods will show you howto find all the basic codec, compression, bitrates, etc. of any video, audio, or other graphical multimedia.

file (Unix)
file (Unix) is an amazing little program that will give basic info on just about every file type. It does this by reading certain parts of the file to get basic stuff.


 * Usage
 * Ececute: file FILE_TO_GET_INFO
 * Example: file movie.avi


 * Video
 * Output: movie.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 624 x 352, 23.98 fps, video: XviD, audio: MPEG-1 Layer 3 (stereo, 48000 Hz)


 * Audio
 * Output: audio.mp3: MPEG ADTS, layer III, v1, 320 kBits, 44.1 kHz, Stereo


 * Picture
 * Output: photo.jpg: JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.01


 * Text
 * Normal text file
 * Output: textfile.txt: ASCII text
 * PDF file
 * Output: document.pdf: PDF document, version 1.5
 * Microsoft Word document
 * Output: document.doc: Microsoft Installer

ImageMagick

 * identify chop.jpg
 * Output: chop.jpg JPEG 343x350 343x350+0+0 8-bit DirectClass 88.5KB 0.010u 0:00.020

Image: chop.jpg Format: JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group JFIF format) Class: DirectClass Geometry: 343x350+0+0 Resolution: 72x72 Print size: 4.76389x4.86111 Units: Undefined Type: TrueColor Endianess: Undefined Colorspace: RGB Depth: 8-bit Channel depth: red: 8-bit green: 8-bit blue: 8-bit Channel statistics: Red: min: 0 (0) max: 255 (1) mean: 194.617 (0.763205) standard deviation: 42.601 (0.167063) kurtosis: 1.98703 skewness: -1.64869 Green: min: 0 (0) max: 255 (1) mean: 144.857 (0.568065) standard deviation: 81.7396 (0.320548) kurtosis: -1.52894 skewness: -0.491915 Blue: min: 0 (0) max: 255 (1) mean: 128.774 (0.504997) standard deviation: 85.5932 (0.33566) kurtosis: -1.64887 skewness: -0.4056 Image statistics: Overall: min: 0 (0) max: 255 (1) mean: 117.062 (0.459067) standard deviation: 95.46 (0.374353) kurtosis: -1.79467 skewness: -0.151822 Rendering intent: Undefined Interlace: None Background color: white Border color: rgb(223,223,223) Matte color: grey74 Transparent color: black Compose: Over Page geometry: 343x350+0+0 Dispose: Undefined Iterations: 0 Compression: JPEG Quality: 100 Orientation: Undefined Properties: comment: CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v62), quality = 100
 * identify -verbose chop.jpg
 * Output

date:create: 2010-10-06T14:40:21-06:00 date:modify: 2010-10-06T14:40:11-06:00 jpeg:colorspace: 2 jpeg:sampling-factor: 2x2,1x1,1x1 signature: 3e8d91d77f3b693f38633f1a877df75b2f943311bc16ed0f9002f4031a988f50 Artifacts: verbose: true Tainted: False Filesize: 88.5KB Number pixels: 120K Pixels per second: 6.003M User time: 0.010u Elapsed time: 0:01.020 Version: ImageMagick 6.6.2-5 2010-07-18 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org

MPlayer
to be added

FFmpeg
The i switch is key. That stands for "input". Without specifying what operation to perform on the source/input file, it will revert to a default behavior of reporting (in addition to build information about the ffmpeg binary executable and its linked libraries,) info about the streams that the container file contains (consists of), as well as how each individual (media) stream is encoded (what algorithm/format/codec). If metadata (in the container file) is available, such as timestamps, that will be output (reported) as well.

ffprobe is one of the front-end Apps (programs) that uses the back-end (underlying) ffmpeg libraries. It's purpose is to probe the (given source) file and report on it. In particular, it lists the media (multimedia) streams (usually one for video and one for audio) as well as what format / encoding the bitstream is compressed/encoded in. It can report metadata of the container file (such as a timestamp or author).


 * Is there any effective difference between (the output/result) of  and  ?  Both make use of the same underlying libraries. Fleetwoodta (talk) 01:37, December 28, 2014 (UTC)

fork
The codebase of (from) the FFMPEG project was forked into a new project that goes by the name of Libav. (one app is: AVconv.)

Read:
 * http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html
 * http://stackoverflow.com/a/9477756 from (which is one of the answers to (as part of the thread of) : ) "What are the differences and similarities between ffmpeg, libav, and avconv?"

MediaInfo
MediaInfo

official changelog

http://www.VideoHelp.com/tools/MediaInfo

Download from official website

Media Player Classic
MediaInfo is used in Media Player Classic which is open-source freeware for Windows that basically is a graphical front-end for/to/of Mplayer that looks like the good ol' U.I. of Windows Media Player 6.2 (1999 era).

Official: http://mpc-hc.org/

Graphical based
to be added