Probe and generate JSON report

Problem

Probe and generate a “clean” JSON report, without the FFmpeg headers.

Solution

ffprobe \
    -show_format \
    -show_streams \
    -print_format json \
    -loglevel quiet \
    input_file

General command

ffprobe \
    -show_format \
    -show_streams \
    -print_format print_format \
    -loglevel log_level \
    input_file

Command syntax

ffprobe

starts the command

-show_format

shows the technical metadata of the container

-show_streams

shows the technical metadata of the streams, including the codexes

-print_format print_format

set the output printing format to json

-loglevel log_level

set the amount of additional information included into the report

input_file

path, name and extension of the input file

Discussion

The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format has two advantages: it can easily be parsed and processed by machines, and it is human-readable as well. Other possible output printing formats include:

• xml
• flat

The -print_format parameter has the alias -of (output format).

The -loglevel parameter has the alias -v (verbosity). It supports the following values:

• quiet
• panic
• fatal
• error
• warning
• info
• verbose
• debug
• trace

which allows to choose the amount of additional information to be included in the report.

2020-07-15