mkvtoolnix/doc/man/mkvinfo.1

.\"     Title: mkvinfo
.\"    Author: Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.73.2 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
.\"      Date: December 2009
.\"    Manual: User Commands
.\"    Source: MkvToolNix 3.0.0
.\"
.TH "MKVINFO" "1" "December 2009" "MkvToolNix 3\&.0\&.0" "User Commands"
.\" disable hyphenation
.nh
.\" disable justification (adjust text to left margin only)
.ad l
.SH "NAME"
mkvinfo \- Print information about elements in Matroska files
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP 8
\fBmkvinfo\fR [options] {source\-filename}
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
This program lists all elements contained in a
Matroska(TM)\&. The output can be limited to a list of tracks in the file including information about the codecs used\&.
.PP
\fB\-g\fR, \fB\-\-gui\fR
.RS 4
Start the
GUI\&. This option is only available if mkvinfo was compiled with
GUI
support\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-checksums\fR
.RS 4
Calculates and display the
\fBAdler32\fR
checksum for each frame\&. Useful for debugging only\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-summary\fR
.RS 4
Only show a terse summary of what
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
finds and not each element\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-command\-line\-charset\fR \fIcharacter\-set\fR
.RS 4
Sets the character set to convert strings given on the command line from\&. It defaults to the character set given by system\'s current locale\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-output\-charset\fR \fIcharacter\-set\fR
.RS 4
Sets the character set to which strings are converted that are to be output\&. It defaults to the character set given by system\'s current locale\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-r\fR, \fB\-\-redirect\-output\fR \fIfile\-name\fR
.RS 4
Writes all messages to the file
\fIfile\-name\fR
instead of to the console\&. While this can be done easily with output redirection there are cases in which this option is needed: when the terminal reinterprets the output before writing it to a file\&. The character set set with
\fB\-\-output\-charset\fR
is honored\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-ui\-language\fR \fIcode\fR
.RS 4
Forces the translations for the language
\fIcode\fR
to be used (e\&.g\&. \'de_DE\' for the German translations)\&. It is preferable to use the environment variables
\fILANG\fR,
\fILC_MESSAGES\fR
and
\fILC_ALL\fR
though\&. Entering \'list\' as the
\fIcode\fR
will cause
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
to output a list of available translations\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-verbose\fR
.RS 4
Be more verbose\&. See the section about
verbosity levels
for a description which information will be output at which level\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
.RS 4
Show usage information and exit\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
.RS 4
Show version information and exit\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB@\fRoptions\-file
.RS 4
Reads additional command line arguments from the file
\fIoptions\-file\fR\&. Lines whose first non\-whitespace character is a hash mark (\'#\') are treated as comments and ignored\&. White spaces at the start and end of a line will be stripped\&. Each line must contain exactly one option\&. There is no meta character escaping\&.
.sp
The command line \'\fBmkvinfo \-v \-v input\&.mkv \-\-redirect\-output info\&.txt\fR\' could be converted into the following option file:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
# Be more verbose
\-v
\-v
# Parse input\&.mkv
input\&.mkv
# and write the output to info\&.txt
\-\-redirect\-output
info\&.txt
     
.fi
.RE
.RE
.SH "VERBOSITY LEVELS"
.PP
The
\fB\-v\fR
option can be used to increase
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)\'s verbosity level and print more information about the current file\&.
.PP
At level 0
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
will print only the track headers it finds and their types\&.
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
will exit as soon as the headers are parsed completely (more technical: as soon as the first cluster is encountered)\&. In this level the seek head entries and the cues will not be displayed \-\- even if they\'re located in front of the track information\&.
.PP
At level 1
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
will also print all
Matroska(TM)
elements encountered for the complete file but the seek head entries and the cue entries\&. If the summary mode is enabled then
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
will output the frame position as well\&.
.PP
At level 2
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
will also print the seek head entries, the cue entries and the file position at which each
Matroska(TM)
element can be found at\&.
.PP
At level 3 and above
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
will print some information that is not directly connected to a
Matroska(TM)
element\&. All other elements only print stuff about the elements that were just found\&. Level 3 adds meta information to ease debugging (read: it\'s intended for developers only)\&. All lines written by level 3 are enclosed in square brackets to make filtering them out easy\&.
.SH "EXIT CODES"
.PP

\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
exits with one of three exit codes:
.sp
.RS 4
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'
\fB0\fR
\-\- This exit codes means that the run has completed successfully\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'
\fB1\fR
\-\- In this case
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
has output at least one warning, but the run did continue\&. A warning is prefixed with the text \'Warning:\'\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'
\fB2\fR
\-\- This exit code is used after an error occured\&.
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
aborts right after outputting the error message\&. Error messages range from wrong command line arguments over read/write errors to broken files\&.
.RE
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP

\fBmkvmerge\fR(1),
\fBmkvextract\fR(1),
\fBmkvpropedit\fR(1),
\fBmmg\fR(1)
.SH "WWW"
.PP
The latest version can always be found at
\fIthe MKVToolNix homepage\fR\&[1]\&.
.SH "AUTHOR"
.PP
\fBMoritz Bunkus\fR <\&moritz@bunkus\&.org\&>
.sp -1n
.IP "" 4
Developer
.SH "NOTES"
.IP " 1." 4
the MKVToolNix homepage
.RS 4
\%http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/
.RE