[MEncoder-users] Is there a tool that can report on the structureof mpg files?

[John Bovey]

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:08:48 +0530
"Nitin Jain" <nitinj1981 at gmail.com> wrote:

> what exactly are you looking for? as in what kind of differences... it
> could be something as deep-rooted as the algorithms used for doing the
> motion estimation.... or it could be just the usual stream meta-data
> parameters, which can be extracted from the container (file format)
> also... for the latter, you can try vlc (enable the 'messages' tab on
> it).

I am not really sure what I am looking for but I had a couple of
reasons for asking the question. One is I am new to digital video and I
thought it would help me to understand if I could see inside different
mpg files. A more concrete reason is that I am trying to create DVDs
that will play on our hardware DVD player. Some mpg files cause the
player to freeze, whereas others play ok (after converting into DVDs, of
course). Since there is no possibility of getting diagnostics from the
player, the only recourse is to try different mpg creation tools and
parameters, but this seems very hit and miss. If I could extract
information about the mpg files then I might be able to pinpoint the
difference between the large number of files that will play and the few
that will not.

As to the kinds of information, obviously header fields but also
statistics that can be obtained by analysing the video and audio
streams: bit rates, presence or absence of different kinds of
fields, ...? I suppose that if nothing really exists then I could try
writing one myself - it would certainly be an effective way of learning.

John Bovey