Feature request: new option to limit number of embedded files processed

[Francois Visagie]

Hi Phil,

Still a very happy user here . I'm currently implementing a script that uses ExifTool to inspect the first few frames of video (AVCHD) files. It's all working very nicely, except that it's unnecessarily slow! This despite me having implemented the suggestions in the performance enhancement section.

As you probably expect, the reason is that I need to specify the '-ee' option to access per-frame data (embedded files). While my script only needs data from the first 5 or so, there's no way of similarly limiting ExifTool's processing. This results in ExifTool unnecessarily processing the whole file which takes a substantial amount of time for large files.

Please consider adding an option which limits the number of embedded files processed, at least?

Many thanks,
Francois

[Phil Harvey]

Hi François,

I will think about this, but it is more difficult than it sounds.  First, the information you are talking about isn't stored per video frame.  It is in a separate stream entirely, typically one record per second or so.  With metadata in different streams possibly arriving a different rates, it is difficult to know when the Nth "embedded document" has been completely extracted.  Also, the -ee feature does different things for different file formats, and if I implement something like this it must make sense for all formats, not just AVCHD.

- Phil

[Francois Visagie]

No problems, I'd understand if this didn't make its way into the tool.