METADATA(1)
===========
:doctype: manpage
NAME
----
metadata - media file metadata for human consumption
SYNOPSIS
--------
*asciidoc* ['OPTIONS'] 'FILE'...
DESCRIPTION
-----------
The *metadata(1)* command formats and displays metadata of one or more
input media files.
*metadata(1)* is powered by FFmpeg (libav*).
OPTIONS
-------
*-A, --all-tags*::
Print all metadata tags of the container and all streams,
including commonplace tags -- major_brand, minor_version,
compatible_brands, handler_name, etc. -- that are mostly
predictable.
*-c, --checksum*::
Include the SHA-256 checksum(s) of the file(s) in the output.
(Slow for large files.)
*-h, --help*::
Print help information.
*-s, --scan*::
Decode beginning frames to determine scan type.
+
By default, *metadata(1)* determines video scan type by looking at
stream-level field order metadata, but sometimes this info is not
available. In such cases, for performance, progressive scan is assumed
(in the output, there is a "\*" symbol next to "Progressive scan" to
indicate this uncertainty). The '--scan' option forces the decoding of
a moderate number of frames (could be slow, especially when frames are
large, e.g. in the case of 4K HDR HEVC-encoded content) to see if
frames are actually progressive or interlaced. Note that '--scan' has
no effect when the scan type is clear from stream-level field order
(i.e., when output without '--scan' is "Interlaced scan", or
"Progressive scan" without a "*").
+
Justification for the default behavior: (1) Scan type is just one
property that a user might not even care about (it is easy to
determine qualitatively and empirically too), so it doesn't make sense
to spend a disproportionate amount of time on it by default. (2) It is
my belief that interlaced content is on the decline anyway.
Increasingly more content is produced and delivered digitally;
and interlaced TV displays are apparently on their way out.
*-t, --tags*::
Print metadata tags of the container and all streams, but omit
some "boring" ones.
*-V, --version*::
Print version information.
BUGS
----
Plese send bug reports to <https://github.com/zmwangx/metadata>.
AUTHOR
------
Zhiming Wang <metadata@zhimingwang.org>
SEE ALSO
--------
ffprobe(1)
COPYING
-------
Copyright \(C) 2018 Zhiming Wang. This software is released for free
under the MIT License as published by the Open Source Initiative.