MediaInfo is a
free
Free may refer to:
Concept
* Freedom, the ability to act or change without constraint or restriction
* Emancipate, attaining civil and political rights or equality
* Free (''gratis''), free of charge
* Gratis versus libre, the difference betw ...
,
cross-platform
Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...
and
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
program that displays technical information about media files, as well as tag information for many audio and video files. It is used in many programs such as XMedia Recode,
MediaCoder __NOTOC__
MediaCoder is a proprietary transcoding program for Microsoft Windows, developed by Stanley Huang since 2005.
Features
MediaCoder uses various open-source (and several proprietary) audio and video codecs to transcode media files to dif ...
,
eMule
eMule is a Free software, free peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. Started in May 2002 as an alternative to eDonkey2000, eMule connects to both the eDonkey network and the Kad network. The distinguishing features of eM ...
, and
K-Lite Codec Pack
The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of audio and video codecs for Microsoft Windows DirectShow that enables an operating system and its software to play various audio and video formats generally not supported by the operating system itself. Th ...
. It can be easily integrated into any program using a supplied . MediaInfo supports popular video formats (e.g.
Matroska
Matroska (styled Matroška) is a project to create a container format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture, or subtitle tracks in one file. The Matroska Multimedia Container is similar in concept to other containers like ...
,
WebM
WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by ...
,
AVI
Avi is a given name, usually masculine, often a diminutive of Avram (given name), Avram, Avraham, etc. It is sometimes feminine and a diminutive of the Hebrew spelling of Abigail (name), Abigail.
People with the given name include:
* Avi (author ...
,
WMV
Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: the original video compression technolog ...
,
QuickTime
QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...
,
Real
Real may refer to:
Currencies
* Argentine real
* Brazilian real (R$)
* Central American Republic real
* Mexican real
* Portuguese real
* Spanish real
* Spanish colonial real
Nature and science
* Reality, the state of things as they exist, rathe ...
,
DivX
DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a discontinued digital video format. Created in part by Circuit City, it was an unsuccessful attempt to create an alternative to video rental in the United States. The format's poor reception from consumers resu ...
,
XviD) as well as lesser known or emerging formats. In 2012 MediaInfo 0.7.57 was also distributed in the
PortableApps format.
MediaInfo provides a
command-line interface
A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with software via command (computing), commands each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user ...
for displaying the provided information on all supported platforms. Additionally, a
GUI
Gui or GUI may refer to:
People Surname
* Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing''
* Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order
* Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician
* Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...
for viewing the information on
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
and
macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
is provided.
Technical information
MediaInfo reveals information such as:
* General: Title, author, director, album, track number,
date
Date or dates may refer to:
* Date, the fruit of the date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'')
* Jujube, also known as red date or Chinese date, the fruit of ''Ziziphus jujuba''
Social activity
*Dating, a form of courtship involving social activi ...
,
duration
* Video:
codec
A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder.
In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...
,
aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...
,
framerate
Frame rate, most commonly expressed in frame/s, or FPS, is typically the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (frames) are captured or displayed. This definition applies to film and video cameras, computer animation, and motion capture s ...
,
bitrate
In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time.
The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction ...
* Audio:
codec
A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder.
In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...
,
sample rate
In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal to a discrete-time signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave to a sequence of "samples".
A sample is a value of the signal at a point in time and/or ...
, channels, language,
bitrate
In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time.
The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction ...
* Text:
subtitle
Subtitles are texts representing the contents of the audio in a film, television show, opera or other audiovisual media. Subtitles might provide a transcription or translation of spoken dialogue. Although naming conventions can vary, caption ...
language
* Chapters: numbers of chapters, list of chapters
[MediaInfo About Page](_blank)
/ref>
MediaInfo 0.7.51 and newer retrieve codec information optionally from tags or by computation. Thus in the case of misleading tags erroneous codec information may be presented.
MediaInfo installer was previously bundled with "OpenCandy
OpenCandy was an adware module and a potentially unwanted program classified as malware by many anti-virus vendors. They flagged OpenCandy due to its undesirable side-effects. It was designed to run during installation of other desired software. P ...
". However, you were able continue the installation process without installing it. This is no more the case since April 2016.
Supported input formats
MediaInfo supports just about any video and audio file including:
* Video: MXF, MKV, OGM, AVI
Avi is a given name, usually masculine, often a diminutive of Avram (given name), Avram, Avraham, etc. It is sometimes feminine and a diminutive of the Hebrew spelling of Abigail (name), Abigail.
People with the given name include:
* Avi (author ...
, DivX
DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a discontinued digital video format. Created in part by Circuit City, it was an unsuccessful attempt to create an alternative to video rental in the United States. The format's poor reception from consumers resu ...
, WMV
Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: the original video compression technolog ...
, QuickTime
QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...
, RealVideo
RealVideo, also spelled as Real Video, is a suite of proprietary format, proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks — the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and was at version 15. RealV ...
, Mpeg-1
MPEG-1 is a Technical standard, standard for lossy compression of video and Audio frequency, audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively ...
, MPEG-2
MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...
, MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...
, DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVDs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in most of the world in the 2000s. As of 2024, it competes with the high-definition Blu-ray Disc, while both rece ...
(VOB), DivX
DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a discontinued digital video format. Created in part by Circuit City, it was an unsuccessful attempt to create an alternative to video rental in the United States. The format's poor reception from consumers resu ...
, XviD, MSMPEG4, ASP, H.264
Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and d ...
(Mpeg-4 AVC)
* Audio: OGG
Ogg is a digital multimedia container format designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of digital multimedia. It is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation and is free and open, unrestricted by software patents. Its name is ...
, MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...
, WAV
Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced or ) is an audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on personal computers. The format was developed and published for the first time in 1991 ...
, RealAudio
RealAudio, also spelled Real Audio, is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelit ...
, AC3, DTS, AAC
AAC may refer to:
Aviation
* Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California
* Airborne aircraft carrier, a type of aircraft
* Alaskan Air Command, a radar network
* American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New ...
, M4A, AU, AIFF AIFF may refer to:
* Audio Interchange File Format
* All India Football Federation, the national governing body of Association football in India
Film festivals
* Addis International Film Festival, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
* Alexandria Internation ...
, Opus
Opus (: opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera ...
* Subtitles: SRT, SSA, ASS
Ass most commonly refers to:
* Buttocks (in informal American English)
* Donkey or ass, ''Equus africanus asinus''
**any other member of the subgenus ''Asinus''
Ass or ASS may also refer to:
Art and entertainment
* Ass (album), ''Ass'' (albu ...
, SAMI
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ne ...
Supported operating systems
MediaInfo supports Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
XP or later, macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
, Android,[MediaInfo for Android](_blank)
/ref> iOS
Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
(iPhone
The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...
/ iPad
The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...
)[MediaInfo for iOS](_blank)
/ref> Solaris
Solaris is the Latin word for sun.
It may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film
* ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem
** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg
** ''Sol ...
and many Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
and BSD
The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...
distributions.[MediaInfo Download Page](_blank)
/ref> MediaInfo also provides source code so essentially any operating system or platform can be supported. An old version 0.7.60 for Windows 95 to 2000 exists.
There is a Doom9
Doom9 is a website featuring information on digital audio and video manipulation (mostly video) and digital copyrights. It is also the forum username of the author of the page, an Austrian who was a college student at the time of the creation of ...
thread for MediaInfo developers also covering simplified and modified
implementations.
Licensing
Up to version 0.7.62 the MediaInfo library was licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License
The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...
, while GUI and CLI were provided under the terms of the GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...
. Starting with version 0.7.63 the project switched to a BSD 2-clause license
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD licens ...
("Simplified BSD License").[Change log]
on MediaInfo websiteMediaInfo(Lib) License
on MediaInfo website
See also
*GSpot Codec Information Appliance
*FFmpeg
FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing vide ...
command line tool ffprobe
*ExifTool
ExifTool is a free and open-source software program for reading, writing, and manipulating image, audio, video, and PDF metadata. As such, ExifTool classes as a tag editor. It is platform independent, available as both a Perl library (Image::Ex ...
References
External links
*
* {{Openhub, MediaInfo
Cross-platform free software
Free multilingual software
Free multimedia software
Free software programmed in C++
Metadata
Software that uses wxWidgets
Software using the BSD license