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# 1. Introduction

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 the form:

    [SECTION]
    key1=val1
    ...
    keyN=valN
    [/SECTION]

Metadata tags stored in the container or in the streams are recognized and printed in the corresponding “FORMAT” or “STREAM” section, and are prefixed by the string “TAG:”.

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# 2. Invocation

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## 2.1 Syntax

The generic syntax is:

    ffprobe [options] [‘input_file’]

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## 2.2 Generic options

These options are shared amongst the ff* tools.

‘`-L`’

  Show license.

‘`-h, -?, -help, --help`’

  Show help.

‘`-version`’

  Show version.

‘`-formats`’

  Show available formats.

  The fields preceding the format names have the following meanings:

  ‘`D`’

    Decoding available

  ‘`E`’

    Encoding available

‘`-codecs`’

  Show available codecs.

  The fields preceding the codec names have the following meanings:

  ‘`D`’

    Decoding available

  ‘`E`’

    Encoding available

  ‘`V/A/S`’

    Video/audio/subtitle codec

  ‘`S`’

    Codec supports slices

  ‘`D`’

    Codec supports direct rendering

  ‘`T`’

    Codec can handle input truncated at random locations instead of only at frame boundaries

‘`-bsfs`’

  Show available bitstream filters.

‘`-protocols`’

  Show available protocols.

‘`-filters`’

  Show available libavfilter filters.

‘`-pix_fmts`’

  Show available pixel formats.

‘`-loglevel loglevel`’

  Set the logging level used by the library. loglevel is a number or a string containing one of the following values:

  ‘`quiet`’
  ‘`panic`’
  ‘`fatal`’
  ‘`error`’
  ‘`warning`’
  ‘`info`’
  ‘`verbose`’
  ‘`debug`’

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## 2.3 Main options

‘`-convert_tags`’

  Convert the tag names in the format container to the generic FFmpeg tag names.

‘`-f format`’

  Force format to use.

‘`-unit`’

  Show the unit of the displayed values.

‘`-prefix`’

  Show a SI prefixes of the displayed values. Unless “-byte_binary_prefix” option is used all the prefix are decimal.

‘`-byte_binary_prefix`’

  Force the use of binary prefixes for byte values.

‘`-sexagesimal`’

  Use sexagesimal format HH:MM:SS.MICROSECONDS for time values.

‘`-pretty`’

  Prettify the format of the displayed values, it corresponds to the options “-unit -prefix -byte_binary_prefix -sexagesimal”.

‘`-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”.

‘`-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”.

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# About This Document

This document was generated by Charlie & on January 16, 2011 using texi2html 1.82.

The buttons in the navigation panels have the following meaning:

Button | Name | Go to | From 1.2.3 go to
--- | --- | --- | ---
[ < ] | Back | Previous section in reading order | 1.2.2
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[ >> ] | FastForward | Next chapter | 2
[Top] | Top | Cover (top) of document |
[Contents] | Contents | Table of contents |
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[ ? ] | About | About (help) |

where the Example assumes that the current position is at Subsubsection One-Two-Three of a document of the following structure:

- 1. Section One
  - 1.1 Subsection One-One
    - ...
  - 1.2 Subsection One-Two
    - 1.2.1 Subsubsection One-Two-One
    - 1.2.2 Subsubsection One-Two-Two
    - 1.2.3 Subsubsection One-Two-Three <== Current Position
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    - ...
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This document was generated by Charlie & on January 16, 2011 using texi2html 1.82.