Understanding video Parameters: ffprobe

FFMpeg is an open source tool used for manipulating videos, that is used across the industry. There are thousands of parameters and combinations that can be used in a nearly infinite number of combinations. In this post, we'll look at ffprobe, which is a video diagnostic tool. When you run ffprobe against a video, you'll learn all the parameters of the video.

In order to simplify the use of ffprobe, we've launched ffprobe.a.video. This does not use any api.video function, but by entering a video url, you can get all the information about the video in question.

show formats

The show formats response is an overview of your video. For example, when we run the mp4 version of a video through the tool, we get the following output:

filename : https://cdn.api.video/vod/vi4blUQJFrYWbaG44NChkH27/mp4/1080/source.mp4

nb_streams : 2

nb_programs : 0

format_name : mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2

format_long_name : QuickTime / MOV

start_time : 0.000000

duration : 20.155000

size : 11300487

bit_rate : 4485432

probe_score : 100

tags : [object Object]

There are 2 streams (an audio and video), and the video is an mp4, 20 seconds long and is 11.3 MB. The bitrate of the video is 4.5 MB per second (MBPS).

When I look at this, I mostly am concerned about the duration, the size and the bitrate. A high video bitrate (and a slow internet connection) can lead to video playback issues.

Show Streams

the show streams parameter will have an entry for each stream (if there is more than one). In most videos there will be two streams,and audio and a video stream. The order of the 2 streams is not important - so while the example here is 0: video; 1: audio, your video may be in the opposite order.

Video

index : 0

codec_name : h264

codec_long_name : H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10

profile : High

codec_type : video

codec_time_base : 1/60

codec_tag_string : avc1

codec_tag : 0x31637661

width : 608

height : 1080

coded_width : 608

coded_height : 1088

closed_captions : 0

has_b_frames : 2

sample_aspect_ratio : 1215:1216

display_aspect_ratio : 9:16

pix_fmt : yuv420p

level : 30

chroma_location : left

refs : 1

is_avc : true

nal_length_size : 4

r_frame_rate : 30/1

avg_frame_rate : 30/1

time_base : 1/15360

start_pts : 0

start_time : 0.000000

duration_ts : 308224

duration : 20.066667

bit_rate : 4368063

bits_per_raw_sample : 8

nb_frames : 602

disposition : [object Object]

tags : [object Object]

There's a lot of data here to understand, but my highlights are:

• codec - the video encoding
• profile - has to do with the quality of the encoding
• width
• height - the video dimensions
• frame_rate - in the case above - 30 frames per second

I sometimes look at the number of b_frames (more b frames means more compression), the video bitrate - but for the most part, these are the features that interest me,

audio

codec_name : aac

codec_long_name : AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)

profile : LC

codec_type : audio

codec_time_base : 1/44100

codec_tag_string : mp4a

codec_tag : 0x6134706d

sample_fmt : fltp

sample_rate : 44100

channels : 2

channel_layout : stereo

bits_per_sample : 0

r_frame_rate : 0/0

avg_frame_rate : 0/0

time_base : 1/44100

start_pts : 0

start_time : 0.000000

duration_ts : 887777

duration : 20.130998

bit_rate : 127551

max_bit_rate : 128000

nb_frames : 868

disposition : [object Object]

tags : [object Object]

My interests in the audio section: Is there an audio stream? Even the presence of an empty stream adds weight to the video. If the video is going to be a silent video (website background, animated GIF replacement), you might want to consider removing the audio stream.

I generally look at the sample_rate and bit_rate - what is the audio quality? Do we need it to be higher or lower?

Conclusion

Ffprobe is a quick tool that can be used to look at the metadata of a video. ffprobe.a.video is a simple tool to quickly obtain this data from videos already posted on the internet. You can start building right now with a free sandbox account.