Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

General
MediaInfo Graphical Interface (GUI)
MediaInfo Command Line Interface (CLI)
MediaInfo Library (DLL)

General

What is the canonical URL of the website?

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net

The installer tries to connect to the Internet!

OpenCandy is used by the Windows GUI installer for recommending other software you may find valuable during the installation .
You can look at the OpenCandy privacy policy.
If you don't have an OpenCandy screen during the install, or if you don't click on "Yes, Install" (this is NOT the default action) in this screen, nothing is done.
If even with these explanations you don't want OpenCandy stuff, you can:

Pay me every month for not having it (I spend a lot of time on MediaInfo, and I try to live from this work)
Use the package without the installer
Use your own installer (this is open source, you can do it)
Donate! Donors (whatever the donation) don't have the OpenCandy screen

Keep in mind that nothing is installed without your consent.
More information is available at the Powered by OpenCandy page.

MediaInfo tries to connect to the Internet!

Yes, it tries (if "Check for newest version" is checked).
When this checkbox is checked, MediaInfo connects to mediaarea.eu website too for anonymous statistics. (how often MediaInfo is used, which OS/Language/Country is the most used...)
If you don't want to autorize anonymous statistics, uncheck the "Check for newest version" checkbox.

In the SourceForge repository, there are multiple filenames. Which one should I download?

It depends on what you require:

A graphical interface : MediaInfo GUI
A Command line interface : MediaInfo CLI
A DLL to interface with other software : MediaInfo DLL

After this, you must select your operating system:

Win : Windows 95 to Windows XP
Lin : Linux distribution

And your platform:

686 : Intel Pentium, AMD Athlon
AMD64 : Intel EMT64 enabled CPU, AMD Athlon64

In the SourceForge repository, there are multiple file versions. Which one should I download?

Always the latest version, except if:

The version is tagged "beta". You can download this, but be warned, this is not a stable version.
The person who asked you to download specified the version. Download this version, as the developer may not have tested the latest version

Why is format not supported?

Because I don't have specifications for it!
If you have documentation about the format, please contact me.

A file is not properly detected. What should I do?

Please open a ticket. I'd like a copy of your file.

I would like to have MediaInfo translated into my language. Why don't you translate it into my language?

Because I don't speak your language! ;-)
If you have an hour, you can translate it (in the options dialog box), and send me the file (from ./plugins/ directory). This is not difficult; you only need some knowledge of English.

What's KiB, MiB, GiB?

These are binary prefixes.
For example, 1 KiB is 1024 bytes, 1 KB is 1000 bytes.
The difference is not important with small files (only 2.4% for "K"), but becomes more and more important with bigger numbers (1 GB is only ~0.93 GiB, 1 TB is only 0.90 TiB!).
MediaInfo makes every attempt to be precise and does not tolerate errors of such magnitude when posting numbers even though Microsoft continues to confuse the issue in its operating system.
See the Binary prefix Wikipedia page for more information.
Anyway you can:

use the complete output with raw values (-f in the CLI or "advanced mode" in the GUI) --> "File size: 4700000000" instead of "File size: 4.37 GiB"
use your own language file (--Language=file://xxx.csv in the CLI, choose your own language file in the GUI). Language files are in the GUI package, you can edit " GiB" and other fields as you desire).

Why are there spaces in numbers?

Yes, there is a space in "1 920 pixels" for example.
This is the international standard ("SI style").
This standard is the official one for 96% of the world population (All countries except U.S.A.). I currently don't plan to change this default display although you can:

use the complete output with raw values (-f in the CLI or "advanced mode" in the GUI) --> "Width: 1920"
use your own language file (--Language=file://xxx.csv in the CLI, choose your own language file in the GUI). Language files are in the GUI package, you can edit the "Thousand_Separator" field as you desire).

My question is not here. What should I do?

You might get help on the forums.

MediaInfo GUI

What is the licence?

MediaInfoGUI licence is GPL.

How do I compile from source?

The source code can be downloaded here.
You need Borland C++ 6 to compile it.
There is a help file to assist in compiling dependencies.

Why isn't there a GUI version of MediaInfo for Linux?

VCL (the graphical library of Borland) is not portable (this is the only one), so I can't adapt the GUI for Linux.
If you know how to program with wxWidgets (a standard graphical library), and are interested in adapting MediaInfo to wxWidgets, then I am interested. Please contact me!

MediaInfo Cmd

What is the licence?

MediaInfoCmd licence is GPL.

Why aren't there more options for the command line?

I didn't spend much time coding it, due to less interest from users.
You can add a feature request.

How do I compile from source?

The source code can be downloaded here.
Note : there are a lot of dependencies, so you may have difficulty compiling them. There is a help file to assist in compiling dependencies.

MediaInfo DLL

What is the licence?

MediaInfoDLL licence is LGPL.

Why doesn't the DLL work with software name?

Maybe the software doesn't support the latest version of the DLL.

Try asking the software developer to modify his software
Try downloading an older version of the DLL

How do I import data from your DLL?

Download the DLL package. There are some examples, in many different languages (standard C, standard C++, GCC, MinGW, Borland C++ Builder, Microsoft Visual C++, Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft C#, Microsoft J#)
There is also an SDK.

I'd rather have static libraries

This is only possible with C++.
On the download page, there is package with:

Library compiled with Borland C++ builder 6
Library compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ 9 (aka 2005). Warning : the project is statically linked to the multithreaded C++ library, and options are C++ compliant (Be careful. In standard C++, wchar_t is a type, not a short int).

If you want to use other compilers or options, you must compile from source.

How do I compile from source?

The source code can be downloaded here.
Note : there are a lot of dependencies, so you may have difficulty compiling them. There is a help file to assist in compiling dependencies.