How to determine video codec of a file with FFmpeg

ffmpegvideo

I often have problems reading AVI files with my TV's DVD player if they are not DivX or Xvid (e.g., DX50 is not readable).

I'd like to make a fast script to determine the video codec of these files before burning them to CD-ROM or DVD.

The command

ffmpeg -i file.avi

prints the "container" of the video stream (mpeg4, mpeg2, etc), not the codec.

Any hint?

Thanks

Best Answer

mediainfo

mediainfo --Inform="Video;%Codec%" video.mkv

will in my case return:

V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC

Answer made possible thanks to How to find duration of a video file using mediainfo in seconds or other formats?

ffprobe (ffmpeg) easy way

Assuming your video has one video stream only:

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=codec_name \
  -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 video.mkv

Will in my case return:

h264

Answer made possible thanks to How to get video duration in seconds?

ffprobe (ffmpeg) dirty way

This method is easier to understand but messy.

To get the codec information without playing back the file, use ffprobe.

$ ffprobe video.mkv
[...]
Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'video.mkv':
  Metadata:
    ENCODER         : Lavf56.25.101
  Duration: 00:28:05.15, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 4353 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High 4:4:4 Predictive), yuv444p, 1280x960, SAR 1:1 DAR 4:3, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 1k tbn, 59.94 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      ENCODER         : Lavc56.26.100 libx264
    Stream #0:1: Audio: vorbis, 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp (default)
    Metadata:
      ENCODER         : Lavc56.26.100 libvorbis

To extract the video codec information - since ffmpeg sends information to stderr - pipe and grep it:

$ ffprobe video.mkv 2>&1 >/dev/null | grep Stream.*Video
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High 4:4:4 Predictive), yuv444p, 1280x960, SAR 1:1 DAR 4:3, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 1k tbn, 59.94 tbc (default)

To reduce the output even further, introduce sed:

$ ffprobe video.mkv 2>&1 >/dev/null |grep Stream.*Video | sed -e 's/.*Video: //' -e 's/[, ].*//'
h264

1. concat video filter

Use this method if your inputs do not have the same parameters (width, height, etc), or are not the same formats/codecs, or if you want to perform any filtering.

Note that this method performs a re-encode of all inputs. If you want to avoid the re-encode, you could re-encode just the inputs that don't match so they share the same codec and other parameters, then use the concat demuxer to avoid re-encoding everything.

ffmpeg -i opening.mkv -i episode.mkv -i ending.mkv \
-filter_complex "[0:v] [0:a] [1:v] [1:a] [2:v] [2:a] \
concat=n=3:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" \
-map "[v]" -map "[a]" output.mkv

2. concat demuxer

Use this method when you want to avoid a re-encode and your format does not support file-level concatenation (most files used by general users do not support file-level concatenation).

$ cat mylist.txt
file '/path/to/file1'
file '/path/to/file2'
file '/path/to/file3'
    
$ ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i mylist.txt -c copy output.mp4

For Windows:

(echo file 'first file.mp4' & echo file 'second file.mp4' )>list.txt
ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i list.txt -c copy output.mp4

3. concat protocol

Use this method with formats that support file-level concatenation (MPEG-1, MPEG-2 PS, DV). Do not use with MP4.

ffmpeg -i "concat:input1|input2" -codec copy output.mkv

This method does not work for many formats, including MP4, due to the nature of these formats and the simplistic concatenation performed by this method.

If in doubt about which method to use, try the concat demuxer.

Best Answer

mediainfo

ffprobe (ffmpeg) easy way

ffprobe (ffmpeg) dirty way

Related Solutions

Ffmpeg usage to encode a video to H264 codec format

How to concatenate two MP4 files using FFmpeg

1. concat video filter

2. concat demuxer

3. concat protocol

Also see

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