package for basic examination of .dv video files?

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 19:42 -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Nov 2009, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 13:49 -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > > is there a package of basic .dv video file utilities, particularly
> > > for just *examining* the properties of a .dv file?  i've yum
> > > searched and nothing jumps out at me.  i'm just after some
> > > command-line utilities that allow me to *inspect* the innards of
> > > various video file formats, not necessarily do any
> > > transformations.  thanks.
> >
> > Try tcprobe (part of the transcode package). I don't know if it
> > handles DV but it's easy to test.
> 
>   yup, that's a start, but i'm not sure how to parse the output:
> 
> $ tcprobe -i sample.dv
> [tcprobe] Digital Video (NTSC)
> [tcprobe] summary for sample.dv, (*) = not default, 0 = not detected
> import frame size: -g 720x480 [720x576] (*)
>      aspect ratio: 4:3 (*)
>        frame rate: -f 29.970 [25.000] frc=4 (*)
>       audio track: -a 0 [0] -e 32000,16,2 [48000,16,2] -n 0x1 [0x2000] (*)
>                    bitrate=1024 kbps
> $
> 
>   i'm unfamiliar with the output format of tcprobe, so what's the deal
> with two different frame sizes being printed?  and two different frame
> rates?  how should i interpret that?  thanks.

Yes, I've often wondered that myself :-) The manual is silent on this
subject. However a possible interpretation is that the bracketed numbers
indicate defaults. Thus 720x480 is a 4x3 aspect ratio but the actual
frame size is different so the video will be distorted. Transcode can
crop, pad or rescale it to the correct ratio if required.

poc