How to get h264 video info?

Asked 21/1, 2012 at 16:28 Answered 28/5, 2013 at 22:52

How can I get specific h264 video information from video file? I need to know profile (Baseline/Main/High) and is there B-Frames in movie?

Wheeling answered 21/1, 2012 at 16:28 Comment(5)

Just getting the information in general? Sounds off-topic for this site. If you're trying to get it in code, tell us more about the code. Language, environment, etc. – Dosh 21/1, 2012 at 16:33

What is video file? There are various container format, capable or not of storing H.264 video. – Coolant 21/1, 2012 at 18:37

I'm looking for any possible way to determine this things, any library, any command-line application. In my work I use C# and ffmpeg app, but it can't give me special codec information. – Wheeling 22/1, 2012 at 8:24

@RomanR. It will be perfect, if solution works with all possible containers. – Wheeling 22/1, 2012 at 8:34

for a specific attributes, if you already know variable names for them, to process in a batch for example, it's better to use show_entries with ffprobe and not show_format or show_streams. I just answered similar question here – Kuchen 30/3, 2016 at 19:45

I've found out that the best way for this is using FFprobe with -show_streams parameter. It shows both h.264 profile and B-frames usage for video streams of the movie.

ffprobe -show_streams -i "file.mp4"

[STREAM]
index=0
codec_name=h264
codec_long_name=H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10
profile=High
codec_type=video
codec_time_base=1001/48000
codec_tag_string=avc1
codec_tag=0x31637661
width=1920
height=1080
has_b_frames=0
sample_aspect_ratio=0:1
display_aspect_ratio=0:1
pix_fmt=yuv420p
level=40
timecode=N/A
is_avc=1
nal_length_size=4
id=N/A
r_frame_rate=24000/1001
avg_frame_rate=24000/1001
time_base=1/48000
start_time=0.000000
duration=252.168583
bit_rate=5617233
nb_frames=6046
nb_read_frames=N/A
nb_read_packets=N/A
TAG:creation_time=1970-01-01 00:00:00
TAG:language=und
TAG:handler_name=VideoHandler
[/STREAM]

Wheeling answered 31/12, 2012 at 10:22 Comment(2)

With which tool I can get some information like GOP size?! Value for CRF and etc?! – Boredom 22/8, 2015 at 13:16

how do u select specific streams only? – Proconsulate 25/2, 2019 at 5:5

Does mediainfo provide the output you need? http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

(if you're on a Mac, you can install easily with brew. > brew install media-info)

$ mediainfo Dream.House.sample.mkv 
General
Unique ID                        : 247222296143464620093895254679791638636 (0xB9FD4845398D136BB4A1628DB750986C)
Complete name                    : Dream.House.sample.mkv
Format                           : Matroska
Format version                   : Version 2
File size                        : 126 MiB
Duration                         : 1mn 56s
Overall bit rate                 : 9 042 Kbps
Encoded date                     : UTC 2011-12-15 03:44:07
Writing application              : mkvmerge v3.0.0 ('Hang up your Hang-Ups') built on Dec 12 2009 15:20:35
Writing library                  : libebml v0.7.9 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1mn 56s
Bit rate                         : 5 843 Kbps
Width                            : 1 280 pixels
Height                           : 544 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 2.40:1
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.350
Stream size                      : 81.5 MiB (65%)
Language                         : English

Audio #1
ID                               : 2
Format                           : DTS
Format/Info                      : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                         : A_DTS
Duration                         : 1mn 56s
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 6 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                        : 24 bits
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Delay relative to video          : 67ms
Stream size                      : 21.1 MiB (17%)
Language                         : Russian

Audio #2
ID                               : 3
Format                           : DTS
Format/Info                      : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                         : A_DTS
Duration                         : 1mn 56s
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 6 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                        : 24 bits
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Delay relative to video          : 67ms
Stream size                      : 21.1 MiB (17%)
Language                         : English

Toponym answered 21/1, 2012 at 16:38 Comment(2)

+1 worked with ubuntu 12.10 $ sudo apt-get install mediainfo; – Justification 28/2, 2014 at 11:42

mediainfo inspects the 264 format settings (e.g. CABAC) while ffprobe does not – Bornie 22/1, 2018 at 18:32

ffprobe, as of version 1.0.7 provides a nicely formated JSON output with the -print_format json command switch.

You can use it like this:

ffprobe -v quiet -print_format json -show_format Ramp\ -\ Apathy.mp3

Which produces the follwing output:

{
    "format": {
        "filename": "Ramp - Apathy.mp3",
        "nb_streams": 2,
        "format_name": "mp3",
        "format_long_name": "MP2/3 (MPEG audio layer 2/3)",
        "start_time": "0.000000",
        "duration": "203.638856",
        "size": "4072777",
        "bit_rate": "159999",
        "tags": {
            "title": "Apathy",
            "artist": "Ramp",
            "album": "Evolution Devolution Revolution",
            "date": "1999",
            "genre": "Metal"
        }
    }
}

Prance answered 28/5, 2013 at 22:52 Comment(1)

@ρss I have updated the answer with the proper content. – Prance 3/1, 2016 at 14:23

Use G-Spot to detect the information.

Get it here

Nudnik answered 21/1, 2012 at 16:36 Comment(1)

But it doesn't show any number for GOP size or B Frame!? – Boredom 23/8, 2015 at 5:53

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