\input texinfo @c -*- texinfo -*- @settitle ffprobe Documentation @titlepage @center @titlefont{ffprobe Documentation} @end titlepage @top @contents @chapter Synopsis The generic syntax is: @example @c man begin SYNOPSIS ffprobe [options] [@file{input_file}] @c man end @end example @chapter Description @c man begin DESCRIPTION ffprobe gathers information from multimedia streams and prints it in human- and machine-readable fashion. For example it can be used to check the format of the container used by a multimedia stream and the format and type of each media stream contained in it. If a filename is specified in input, ffprobe will try to open and probe the file content. If the file cannot be opened or recognized as a multimedia file, a positive exit code is returned. ffprobe may be employed both as a standalone application or in combination with a textual filter, which may perform more sophisticated processing, e.g. statistical processing or plotting. Options are used to list some of the formats supported by ffprobe or for specifying which information to display, and for setting how ffprobe will show it. ffprobe output is designed to be easily parsable by a textual filter, and consists of one or more sections of a form defined by the selected writer, which is specified by the @option{print_format} option. Sections may contain other nested sections, and are identified by a name (which may be shared by other sections), and an unique name. See the output of @option{sections}. Metadata tags stored in the container or in the streams are recognized and printed in the corresponding "FORMAT" or "STREAM" section. @c man end @chapter Options @c man begin OPTIONS @include avtools-common-opts.texi @section Main options @table @option @item -f @var{format} Force format to use. @item -unit Show the unit of the displayed values. @item -prefix Use SI prefixes for the displayed values. Unless the "-byte_binary_prefix" option is used all the prefixes are decimal. @item -byte_binary_prefix Force the use of binary prefixes for byte values. @item -sexagesimal Use sexagesimal format HH:MM:SS.MICROSECONDS for time values. @item -pretty Prettify the format of the displayed values, it corresponds to the options "-unit -prefix -byte_binary_prefix -sexagesimal". @item -of, -print_format @var{writer_name}[=@var{writer_options}] Set the output printing format. @var{writer_name} specifies the name of the writer, and @var{writer_options} specifies the options to be passed to the writer. For example for printing the output in JSON format, specify: @example -print_format json @end example For more details on the available output printing formats, see the Writers section below. @item -sections Print sections structure and section information, and exit. The output is not meant to be parsed by a machine. @item -select_streams @var{stream_specifier} Select only the streams specified by @var{stream_specifier}. This option affects only the options related to streams (e.g. @code{show_streams}, @code{show_packets}, etc.). For example to show only audio streams, you can use the command: @example ffprobe -show_streams -select_streams a INPUT @end example To show only video packets belonging to the video stream with index 1: @example ffprobe -show_packets -select_streams v:1 INPUT @end example @item -show_data Show payload data, as an hexadecimal and ASCII dump. Coupled with @option{-show_packets}, it will dump the packets' data. Coupled with @option{-show_streams}, it will dump the codec extradata. The dump is printed as the "data" field. It may contain newlines. @item -show_error Show information about the error found when trying to probe the input. The error information is printed within a section with name "ERROR". @item -show_format Show information about the container format of the input multimedia stream. All the container format information is printed within a section with name "FORMAT". @item -show_format_entry @var{name} Like @option{-show_format}, but only prints the specified entry of the container format information, rather than all. This option may be given more than once, then all specified entries will be shown. This option is deprecated, use @code{show_entries} instead. @item -show_entries @var{section_entries} Set list of entries to show. Entries are specified according to the following syntax. @var{section_entries} contains a list of section entries separated by @code{:}. Each section entry is composed by a section name (or unique name), optionally followed by a list of entries local to that section, separated by @code{,}. If section name is specified but is followed by no @code{=}, all entries are printed to output, together with all the contained sections. Otherwise only the entries specified in the local section entries list are printed. In particular, if @code{=} is specified but the list of local entries is empty, then no entries will be shown for that section. Note that the order of specification of the local section entries is not honored in the output, and the usual display order will be retained. The formal syntax is given by: @example @var{LOCAL_SECTION_ENTRIES} ::= @var{SECTION_ENTRY_NAME}[,@var{LOCAL_SECTION_ENTRIES}] @var{SECTION_ENTRY} ::= @var{SECTION_NAME}[=[@var{LOCAL_SECTION_ENTRIES}]] @var{SECTION_ENTRIES} ::= @var{SECTION_ENTRY}[:@var{SECTION_ENTRIES}] @end example For example, to show only the index and type of each stream, and the PTS time, duration time, and stream index of the packets, you can specify the argument: @example packet=pts_time,duration_time,stream_index : stream=index,codec_type @end example To show all the entries in the section "format", but only the codec type in the section "stream", specify the argument: @example format : stream=codec_type @end example To show all the tags in the stream and format sections: @example format_tags : format_tags @end example To show only the @code{title} tag (if available) in the stream sections: @example stream_tags=title @end example @item -show_packets Show information about each packet contained in the input multimedia stream. The information for each single packet is printed within a dedicated section with name "PACKET". @item -show_frames Show information about each frame contained in the input multimedia stream. The information for each single frame is printed within a dedicated section with name "FRAME". @item -show_streams Show information about each media stream contained in the input multimedia stream. Each media stream information is printed within a dedicated section with name "STREAM". @item -count_frames Count the number of frames per stream and report it in the corresponding stream section. @item -count_packets Count the number of packets per stream and report it in the corresponding stream section. @item -show_private_data, -private Show private data, that is data depending on the format of the particular shown element. This option is enabled by default, but you may need to disable it for specific uses, for example when creating XSD-compliant XML output. @item -show_program_version Show information related to program version. Version information is printed within a section with name "PROGRAM_VERSION". @item -show_library_versions Show information related to library versions. Version information for each library is printed within a section with name "LIBRARY_VERSION". @item -show_versions Show information related to program and library versions. This is the equivalent of setting both @option{-show_program_version} and @option{-show_library_versions} options. @item -bitexact Force bitexact output, useful to produce output which is not dependent on the specific build. @item -i @var{input_file} Read @var{input_file}. @end table @c man end @chapter Writers @c man begin WRITERS A writer defines the output format adopted by @command{ffprobe}, and will be used for printing all the parts of the output. A writer may accept one or more arguments, which specify the options to adopt. The options are specified as a list of @var{key}=@var{value} pairs, separated by ":". A description of the currently available writers follows. @section default Default format. Print each section in the form: @example [SECTION] key1=val1 ... keyN=valN [/SECTION] @end example Metadata tags are printed as a line in the corresponding FORMAT or STREAM section, and are prefixed by the string "TAG:". A description of the accepted options follows. @table @option @item nokey, nk If set to 1 specify not to print the key of each field. Default value is 0. @item noprint_wrappers, nw If set to 1 specify not to print the section header and footer. Default value is 0. @end table @section compact, csv Compact and CSV format. The @code{csv} writer is equivalent to @code{compact}, but supports different defaults. Each section is printed on a single line. If no option is specifid, the output has the form: @example section|key1=val1| ... |keyN=valN @end example Metadata tags are printed in the corresponding "format" or "stream" section. A metadata tag key, if printed, is prefixed by the string "tag:". The description of the accepted options follows. @table @option @item item_sep, s Specify the character to use for separating fields in the output line. It must be a single printable character, it is "|" by default ("," for the @code{csv} writer). @item nokey, nk If set to 1 specify not to print the key of each field. Its default value is 0 (1 for the @code{csv} writer). @item escape, e Set the escape mode to use, default to "c" ("csv" for the @code{csv} writer). It can assume one of the following values: @table @option @item c Perform C-like escaping. Strings containing a newline ('\n'), carriage return ('\r'), a tab ('\t'), a form feed ('\f'), the escaping character ('\') or the item separator character @var{SEP} are escaped using C-like fashioned escaping, so that a newline is converted to the sequence "\n", a carriage return to "\r", '\' to "\\" and the separator @var{SEP} is converted to "\@var{SEP}". @item csv Perform CSV-like escaping, as described in RFC4180. Strings containing a newline ('\n'), a carriage return ('\r'), a double quote ('"'), or @var{SEP} are enclosed in double-quotes. @item none Perform no escaping. @end table @item print_section, p Print the section name at the begin of each line if the value is @code{1}, disable it with value set to @code{0}. Default value is @code{1}. @end table @section flat Flat format. A free-form output where each line contains an explicit key=value, such as "streams.stream.3.tags.foo=bar". The output is shell escaped, so it can be directly embedded in sh scripts as long as the separator character is an alphanumeric character or an underscore (see @var{sep_char} option). The description of the accepted options follows. @table @option @item sep_char, s Separator character used to separate the chapter, the section name, IDs and potential tags in the printed field key. Default value is '.'. @item hierarchical, h Specify if the section name specification should be hierarchical. If set to 1, and if there is more than one section in the current chapter, the section name will be prefixed by the name of the chapter. A value of 0 will disable this behavior. Default value is 1. @end table @section ini INI format output. Print output in an INI based format. The following conventions are adopted: @itemize @item all key and values are UTF-8 @item '.' is the subgroup separator @item newline, '\t', '\f', '\b' and the following characters are escaped @item '\' is the escape character @item '#' is the comment indicator @item '=' is the key/value separator @item ':' is not used but usually parsed as key/value separator @end itemize This writer accepts options as a list of @var{key}=@var{value} pairs, separated by ":". The description of the accepted options follows. @table @option @item hierarchical, h Specify if the section name specification should be hierarchical. If set to 1, and if there is more than one section in the current chapter, the section name will be prefixed by the name of the chapter. A value of 0 will disable this behavior. Default value is 1. @end table @section json JSON based format. Each section is printed using JSON notation. The description of the accepted options follows. @table @option @item compact, c If set to 1 enable compact output, that is each section will be printed on a single line. Default value is 0. @end table For more information about JSON, see @url{http://www.json.org/}. @section xml XML based format. The XML output is described in the XML schema description file @file{ffprobe.xsd} installed in the FFmpeg datadir. An updated version of the schema can be retrieved at the url @url{http://www.ffmpeg.org/schema/ffprobe.xsd}, which redirects to the latest schema committed into the FFmpeg development source code tree. Note that the output issued will be compliant to the @file{ffprobe.xsd} schema only when no special global output options (@option{unit}, @option{prefix}, @option{byte_binary_prefix}, @option{sexagesimal} etc.) are specified. The description of the accepted options follows. @table @option @item fully_qualified, q If set to 1 specify if the output should be fully qualified. Default value is 0. This is required for generating an XML file which can be validated through an XSD file. @item xsd_compliant, x If set to 1 perform more checks for ensuring that the output is XSD compliant. Default value is 0. This option automatically sets @option{fully_qualified} to 1. @end table For more information about the XML format, see @url{http://www.w3.org/XML/}. @c man end WRITERS @chapter Timecode @c man begin TIMECODE @command{ffprobe} supports Timecode extraction: @itemize @item MPEG1/2 timecode is extracted from the GOP, and is available in the video stream details (@option{-show_streams}, see @var{timecode}). @item MOV timecode is extracted from tmcd track, so is available in the tmcd stream metadata (@option{-show_streams}, see @var{TAG:timecode}). @item DV, GXF and AVI timecodes are available in format metadata (@option{-show_format}, see @var{TAG:timecode}). @end itemize @c man end TIMECODE @include syntax.texi @include decoders.texi @include demuxers.texi @include protocols.texi @include indevs.texi @include authors.texi @ignore @setfilename ffprobe @settitle ffprobe media prober @c man begin SEEALSO ffmpeg(1), ffplay(1), ffserver(1) and the FFmpeg HTML documentation @c man end @end ignore @bye