What's the best way to get video metadata from a video file in ASP.Net MVC using C#?

Question

I've been searching on Google and StackOverflow for a good couple of hours. There seems to be a lot of similar questions on StackOverflow but they are all about 3-5 years old.

Is using FFMPEG still the best way these days to pull metadata from a video file in a .NET web application? And if so, what's the best C# wrapper out there?

I've tried MediaToolkit, MediaFile.dll without any luck. I saw ffmpeg-csharpe but that looks like it hasn't been touched in a few years.

I haven't found any current data on this subject. Is the ability to pull metadata from a video built into the latest version of .NET now?

I'm basically looking for any direction at this point.

I should add that whatever I use could be invoked thousands of times per hour so it will need to be efficient.

Answer 1

Have a look at MediaInfo project (http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo)

it gets extensive information about most media types, and the library is bundled with a c# helper class which is easy to use.

You can download the library and helper class for windows from here:

http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download/Windows (DLL without installer)

The helper class is located at Developers\Source\MediaInfoDLL\MediaInfoDLL.cs, simply add it to your project and copy the MediaInfo.dll to your bin.

Usage

you can obtain information by requesting specific parameter from the library, Here is a sample:

[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] Args)
{
    var mi = new MediaInfo();
    mi.Open(@"video path here");

    var videoInfo = new VideoInfo(mi);
    var audioInfo = new AudioInfo(mi);
     mi.Close();
}

public class VideoInfo 
{
    public string Codec { get; private set; }
    public int Width { get; private set; }
    public int Heigth { get; private set; }
    public double FrameRate { get; private set; }
    public string FrameRateMode { get; private set; }
    public string ScanType { get; private set; }
    public TimeSpan Duration { get; private set; }
    public int Bitrate { get; private set; }
    public string AspectRatioMode { get; private set; }
    public double AspectRatio { get; private set; }

    public VideoInfo(MediaInfo mi)
    {
        Codec=mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "Format");
        Width = int.Parse(mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "Width"));
        Heigth = int.Parse(mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "Height"));
        Duration = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(int.Parse(mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "Duration")));
        Bitrate = int.Parse(mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "BitRate"));
        AspectRatioMode = mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "AspectRatio/String"); //as formatted string
        AspectRatio =double.Parse(mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "AspectRatio"));
        FrameRate = double.Parse(mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "FrameRate"));
        FrameRateMode = mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "FrameRate_Mode");
        ScanType = mi.Get(StreamKind.Video, 0, "ScanType");
    }
}

public class AudioInfo
{
    public string Codec { get; private set; }
    public string CompressionMode { get; private set; }
    public string ChannelPositions { get; private set; }
    public TimeSpan Duration { get; private set; }
    public int Bitrate { get; private set; }
    public string BitrateMode { get; private set; }
    public int SamplingRate { get; private set; }

    public AudioInfo(MediaInfo mi)
    {
        Codec = mi.Get(StreamKind.Audio, 0, "Format");
        Duration = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(int.Parse(mi.Get(StreamKind.Audio, 0, "Duration")));
        Bitrate = int.Parse(mi.Get(StreamKind.Audio, 0, "BitRate"));
        BitrateMode = mi.Get(StreamKind.Audio, 0, "BitRate_Mode");
        CompressionMode = mi.Get(StreamKind.Audio, 0, "Compression_Mode");
        ChannelPositions = mi.Get(StreamKind.Audio, 0, "ChannelPositions");
        SamplingRate = int.Parse(mi.Get(StreamKind.Audio, 0, "SamplingRate"));
    }
}

You can easily obtain all information in string format by callingInform():

        var mi = new MediaInfo();
        mi.Open(@"video path here");
        Console.WriteLine(mi.Inform());
        mi.Close();

if you need more information about available parameters, you can simply query all of them by calling Options("Info_Parameters"):

        var mi = new MediaInfo();
        Console.WriteLine(mi.Option("Info_Parameters"));
        mi.Close();

Answer 2

It may be little late... You can do this with minimal code using the NuGet package of MediaToolKit

For more info get going from here MediaToolKit