A free and cross-platform CLI/GUI tool that gives you metadata information of media files
MediaInfo is a multi-platform and open source application that provides users with both a command-line program and a graphical user interface for visualizing various characteristics of audio and video files.
It displays detailed information about the tags, codecs and containers of almost any multimedia file (see below for supported formats). The application has been designed from the ground up to be compatible with Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.
Features at a glance
Key features include the ability to read a wide range of audio and video file formats, provides users with multiple view modes that can be highly customized, ability to export the information to Plain Text, HTML or CSV files, as well as localization and internationalization capabilities.
As mentioned, the program runs primarily in any terminal emulator, but thanks a graphical user interface is allows users to easily and quickly load any multimedia file and view the codec used, overall bit rate mode, overall bit rate, encoded date, tagged date, as well as video and audio streams.
In addition, it allows you to go the the official website of the respective codec used to encode the video and/or audio file loaded in the application, as well to download a player for that multimedia format.
Supports a wide range of multimedia file formats
Supported file formats include MKV, AVI, DivX, XviD, OGM, WMV, Real Media, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DVD (VOB) and QuickTime for video files, MP3, FLAC, WAV, OGG, AC3, DTS, AAC, M4A, RA, AU and AIFF for audio files, and SRT, ASS, SSA and SAMI for subtitles.
The application can also display (if available) general information about a file, such as title, duration, author, track number, director album and date, aspect ratio, fps, sample rate, channels, language of subtitle, list of chapters, and count of chapters.
Bottom line
In conclusion, MediaInfo is a decent and useful application for analysis of media files under the Linux platform. It supports a plethora of video and audio files for which it displays a great number of information.
