First Look: Analyze Media with MediaInfo

Posted on by Larry

Jim McQuaid, at TurnipFilms.com, suggested I look into MediaInfo.

“I don’t recall ever hearing you mention “MediaInfo,” a utility that I find immensely useful. I use a Mac version – no idea if there’s a PC version. It displays all of the metadata and virtually everything you might want to know about video and audio.”

It actually does even more than that, quickly and easily.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

MediaInfo is a convenient unified display of the most relevant technical and tag data for video and audio files. It is free, available through the MacApp store, though the developer – MediaArea – requests donations to support their work on their website as well as offering subscriptions to unlock more features in the program.

It runs on Mac, Windows, Android, iOS and thirteen flavors of Unix…. Everything but Bic pens.

The software reads all common media files, displays the information on screen, and exports the metadata as text, CSV, HTML and others. The graphical user interface is easy to use, more detailed than you expect, and exports to all common text file formats.

MediaInfo is a very cool program to add to your media toolbox.

Developer: MediaArea
Website: https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo
Mac App store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mediainfo/id510620098?mt=12
Price: Free, donation requested on their website.

HOW IT WORKS

Open the app, then drag one or more media files on top of it. The default “Easy” view – shown above – provides basic information about the file.

Switch to “Tree” view for lots more details on video, audio, timecode and other files associated with the media.

You can export the data in any of 20 different formats, to transfer wherever you need.

SUMMARY

MediaInfo is affordable, fast, easy-to-use and invaluable when it comes time to figure out what’s actually inside your media files.

I purchased a lifetime subscription and it is now a permanent part of my editing software suite. I encourage you to give it a try.

EXTRA CREDIT

You can subscribe for a year or lifetime and get additional features. The one I like is the file compare; which is a fast way to spot differences between files, as shown with the red text below.


(Click to see a larger image.)


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