Determining The Actual Format of a File

[Vantage]

So you download a video file off the internet, start playing it and try seeking. It takes 15 seconds to complete the seek and the audio and video have to catch up to each other. Plus there are tons of huge blurry blocks. There is no way that this file is MPEG encoded like the .mpg extension on it would imply. More likely its an asf or avi of some sort and Windows is just automatically switching to the correct decoder for the format. So, how do you find out exactly what format (mpeg, mpeg2, DivX 3,4,5, asf, WMV) the file encoded in? Some thing to do with FourCC codes maybe? Also, assume you already have the file.

[avih]

right-click -> properties??

[QuoVadis]

Dragging the file into GraphEdit may show you the right format, if the necessary DS filters are installed. If you don't want to install all filters seperately, just take one of the big codec packs (like Nimo, etc.)

[Vantage]

Dragging and dropping the files into graphedit works very well. I can now identify .asf, .mpeg, .avi and .m2v files irrespective of their windows extension. Thanks!

[benedict]

Try "MovieID", available from DivX Digest (http://www.divx-digest.com/index.html) (free). No install, but place a shortcut to it on your desktop. Then locate your video in Explorer and drag-n-drop it over that shortcut. If it doesn't tell you everything you need to know, it'll at least give you a good headstart.

Note also: It will do this even if your file has the wrong file extension on it.

[1loser]

Originally posted by benedict
Try "MovieID", available from DivX Digest (http://www.divx-digest.com/index.html) (free). No install, but place a shortcut to it on your desktop. Then locate your video in Explorer and drag-n-drop it over that shortcut.
Thanks for the tip it's works pretty good.

I good way to use it is to create a folder for the program and than a shortcut called MovieID. Instead of putting it on your desktop, locate the hidden folder called "SendTo" and place the short inside that folder. You can even create folders for different types of shortcuts like "graphic", "editing", "media players". If you use several media players like myself, this makes it easy to load a movie or mp3. Than all you need to do is find the file in windows explorer and right-click and send to that program. It doesn't work for every program but does for most.

[benedict]

Good idea. Thanks.

I had already added VirtualDub to my SendTo. Don't know why I didn't think to do that with MovieID also.:)

[Zenitram]

Originally posted by Vantage
So you download a video file off the internet, start playing it and try seeking. It takes 15 seconds to complete the seek and the audio and video have to catch up to each other. Plus there are tons of huge blurry blocks. There is no way that this file is MPEG encoded like the .mpg extension on it would imply. More likely its an asf or avi of some sort and Windows is just automatically switching to the correct decoder for the format. So, how do you find out exactly what format (mpeg, mpeg2, DivX 3,4,5, asf, WMV) the file encoded in? Some thing to do with FourCC codes maybe? Also, assume you already have the file.

MediaInfo is exacly what you need http://www.mediaarea.net/mediainfo

[chemmajik]

Also last but not least you can view the header with a binary editor/viewer the best kind will just buffer sectors instead of loading the whole movie within memory.

[slimz]

Just use gspot.
Version 2.21 is in the doom9 downloads section under AVI Editing tools.
Run gspot, and drag the video file onto it.