Getting video dimension / resolution / width x height from ffmpeg

Question

How would I get the height and width of a video from ffmpeg's information output. For example, with the following output:

$ ffmpeg -i video.mp4
...
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'video.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 1
    compatible_brands: isomavc1
    creation_time   : 2010-01-24 00:55:16
  Duration: 00:00:35.08, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 354 kb/s
    Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264 (High), yuv420p, 640x360 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 597 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25k tbn, 50 tbc
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2010-01-24 00:55:16
    Stream #0.1(und): Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 109 kb/s
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2010-01-24 00:55:17
At least one output file must be specified

How would I get height = 640, width= 360?

Answer 1

Use ffprobe

Example 1: With keys / variable names

ffprobe -v error -show_entries stream=width,height -of default=noprint_wrappers=1 input.mp4
width=1280
height=720

Example 2: Just width x height

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v -show_entries stream=width,height -of csv=p=0:s=x input.m4v
1280x720

Example 3: JSON

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v -show_entries stream=width,height -of json input.mkv 
{
    "programs": [

    ],
    "streams": [
        {
            "width": 1280,
            "height": 720
        }
    ]
}

Example 4: JSON Compact

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v -show_entries stream=width,height -of json=compact=1 input.mkv 
{
    "programs": [

    ],
    "streams": [
        { "width": 1280, "height": 720 }
    ]
}

Example 5: XML

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v -show_entries stream=width,height -of xml input.mkv 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ffprobe>
    <programs>
    </programs>

    <streams>
        <stream width="1280" height="720"/>
    </streams>
</ffprobe>

---

What the options do:

• -v error Make a quiet output, but allow errors to be displayed. Excludes the usual generic FFmpeg output info including version, config, and input details.

• -show_entries stream=width,height Just show the width and height stream information.

• -of option chooses the output format (default, compact, csv, flat, ini, json, xml). See FFprobe Documentation: Writers for a description of each format and to view additional formatting options.

• -select_streams v:0 This can be added in case your input contains multiple video streams. v:0 will select only the first video stream. Otherwise you'll get as many width and height outputs as there are video streams. -select_streams v can be used to show info from all video streams and avoid empty audio stream info in JSON and XML output.

• See the FFprobe Documentation and FFmpeg Wiki: FFprobe Tips for more info.

Answer 2

Have a look at mediainfo Handles most of the formats out there.

If you looking for a way to parse the output from ffmpeg, use the regexp \d+x\d+

Example using perl:

$ ./ffmpeg -i test020.3gp 2>&1 | perl -lane 'print $1 if /(\d+x\d+)/'
176x120

Example using python (not perfect):

$ ./ffmpeg -i /nfshome/enilfre/pub/test020.3gp 2>&1 | python -c "import sys,re;[sys.stdout.write(str(re.findall(r'(\d+x\d+)', line))) for line in sys.stdin]"

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]['176x120'][][][]

Python one-liners aren't as catchy as perl ones :-)

Answer 3

As mentioned here, ffprobe provides a way of retrieving data about a video file. I found the following command useful ffprobe -v quiet -print_format json -show_streams input-video.xxx to see what sort of data you can checkout.

I then wrote a function that runs the above command and returns the height and width of the video file:

import subprocess
import shlex
import json

# function to find the resolution of the input video file
def findVideoResolution(pathToInputVideo):
    cmd = "ffprobe -v quiet -print_format json -show_streams"
    args = shlex.split(cmd)
    args.append(pathToInputVideo)
    # run the ffprobe process, decode stdout into utf-8 & convert to JSON
    ffprobeOutput = subprocess.check_output(args).decode('utf-8')
    ffprobeOutput = json.loads(ffprobeOutput)

    # find height and width
    height = ffprobeOutput['streams'][0]['height']
    width = ffprobeOutput['streams'][0]['width']

    return height, width