Alternative to Exiv2 for video metadata

[11august]

Hello the EXIFTool team!

With my partner we would like to test another external lib than Exiv2* for reading video metadata in our photos/videos analysis software. We've been said that Mediainfo could be interesting. What do you think of it?

As a preliminary check of what kind of metadata are read by Mediainfo versus Exiftool, I've compared the two with a .mp4 video and noticed that some metadata doesn't appears in Exiftool, such as Chroma subsampling, Scan type...

*Do you know if Exiv2 still really provides reliable metadata for videos?

[StarGeek]

We've been said that Mediainfo could be interesting. What do you think of it?

While I can't offer any opinion on MediaInfo (I had never heard of it until about a month and a half ago), I can share Phil's response to your question about the differences.

As a preliminary check of what kind of metadata are read by Mediainfo versus Exiftool, I've compared the two with a .mp4 video and noticed that some metadata doesn't appears in Exiftool, such as Chroma subsampling, Scan type...

Phil has said

ExifTool only extracts metadata, it doesn't decode the video stream to get the actual parameters.

I also believe that Phil has said working to add stream decoding will open a whole bunch of new problems, so this ability is unlikely to be added in the foreseeable future.