[Audio/Video] Determining which codec to use

With the multiple video and audio formats available, it may happens that you are unable to play a media file as a video codec or audio is missing. What codec missing? Where to download? These features are describe below.

GSpot

GSpot is a free software to detect codecs for playback of multimedia files. It also displays information about the file such as multimedia bitrate (sampling rate) or the number of frames per second (fps) of a movie.

MediaInfo

MediaInfo(a free software providing free and open access to source code, GPL) listiing the all codecs needed as well as technical information about your video and audio files.

MediaInfo features:

General: title, author, director, album, track number, date, duration ...
Video: codec, shape, fps, debit ...
Audio: codec, frequency, number of channels, language, speed ...
Text: codec, subtitle language
Chapters: number of chapters, list of chapters

Formats supported

DivX, XviD, H263, H.263, H264, x264, ASP, AVC, iTunes, MPEG-1, MPEG1, MPEG-2, MPEG2, MPEG-4, MPEG4, MP4, M4A, M4V, QuickTime, RealVideo, RealAudio, RA, RM, MSMPEG4v1, msmpeg4v2, MSMPEG4v3, VOB, DVD, WMA, VMW, ASF, 3GP, 3GPP, 3gp2

MediaInfo can also read these formats:

Video: MKV, OGM, AVI, DivX, WMV, QuickTime, Real, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DVD (VOB) ...
Codecs: DivX, XviD, msmpeg4, ASP, H.264, AVC ...)
Audio: OGG, MP3, WAV, RA, AC3, DTS, AAC, M4A, AU, AIFF ...
Subtitles: SRT, SSA, ASS, SAMI ...

VLC

The VLC player (Free software) can read almost all the videos without installing any additional codec.


Linux: Transcode

Transcode is a program able to convert most video formats. It also provides a tool tcprobe, which gives us all the parameters of a video file, including video and audio codecs to be use:

http://linuxreviews.org/man/tcprobe/
http://www.transcoding.org/cgi-bin/transcode?Tcprobe

E.g

tufs@debian:~$ tcprobe -i test_8_02.avi        
[tcprobe] RIFF data, AVI video
[avilib] V: 25.000 fps, codec=XVID, frames=1482, width=640, height=338
[avilib] A: 48000 Hz, format=0x55, bits=0, channels=2, bitrate=128 kbps,
[avilib]    1470 chunks, 947692 bytes, CBR
[avilib] A: 48000 Hz, format=0x55, bits=0, channels=2, bitrate=128 kbps,
[avilib]    1470 chunks, 947692 bytes, CBR
[tcprobe] summary for test_8_02.avi, (*) = not default, 0 = not detected
import frame size: -g 640x338 [720x576] (*)
       frame rate: -f 25.000 [25.000] frc=3
      audio track: -a 0 [0] -e 48000,0,2 [48000,16,2] -n 0x55 [0x2000] (*)
                   bitrate=128 kbps
      audio track: -a 1 [0] -e 48000,0,2 [48000,16,2] -n 0x55 [0x2000] (*)
                   bitrate=128 kbps
           length: 1482 frames, frame_time=40 msec, duration=0:00:59.280
 tufs@debian:~$