mkvtoolnix/doc/man/mkvinfo.1

'\" t
.\"     Title: mkvinfo
.\"    Author: Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.79.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
.\"      Date: 2016-11-29
.\"    Manual: User Commands
.\"    Source: MKVToolNix 9.6.0
.\"  Language: English
.\"
.TH "MKVINFO" "1" "2016\-11\-29" "MKVToolNix 9\&.6\&.0" "User Commands"
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.SH "NAME"
mkvinfo \- Print information about elements in Matroska(TM) files
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP \w'\fBmkvinfo\fR\ 'u
\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\-t\fR, \fB\-\-track\-info\fR
.RS 4
Show statistics for each track in verbose mode\&. Also sets verbosity to 1 if it was at level 0 before\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-x\fR, \fB\-\-hexdump\fR
.RS 4
Show the first 16 bytes of each frame as a hex dump\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-X\fR, \fB\-\-full\-hexdump\fR
.RS 4
Show all bytes of each frame as a hex dump\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-z\fR, \fB\-\-size\fR
.RS 4
Show the size of each element including its header\&.
.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\*(Aqs 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\*(Aqs 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\&. \*(Aqde_DE\*(Aq for the German translations)\&. Entering \*(Aqlist\*(Aq as the
\fIcode\fR
will cause the program to output a list of available translations\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-debug\fR \fItopic\fR
.RS 4
Turn on debugging for a specific feature\&. This option is only useful for developers\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-engage\fR \fIfeature\fR
.RS 4
Turn on experimental features\&. A list of available features can be requested with
\fBmkvinfo \-\-engage list\fR\&. These features are not meant to be used in normal situations\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-gui\-mode\fR
.RS 4
Turns on GUI mode\&. In this mode specially\-formatted lines may be output that can tell a controlling GUI what\*(Aqs happening\&. These messages follow the format \*(Aq#GUI#message\*(Aq\&. The message may be followed by key/value pairs as in \*(Aq#GUI#message#key1=value1#key2=value2\&...\*(Aq\&. Neither the messages nor the keys are ever translated and always output in English\&.
.sp
This switch has nothing to do with the
\fB\-\-gui\fR
parameter which causes mkvinfo to display its own GUI\&.
.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\-\-check\-for\-updates\fR
.RS 4
Checks online for new releases by downloading the URL
\m[blue]\fBhttp://mkvtoolnix\-releases\&.bunkus\&.org/latest\-release\&.xml\fR\m[]\&. Four lines will be output in
key=value
style: the URL from where the information was retrieved (key
version_check_url), the currently running version (key
running_version), the latest release\*(Aqs version (key
available_version) and the download URL (key
download_url)\&.
.sp
Afterwards the program exists with an exit code of 0 if no newer release is available, with 1 if a newer release is available and with 2 if an error occured (e\&.g\&. if the update information could not be retrieved)\&.
.sp
This option is only available if the program was built with support for libcurl\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB@\fR\fIoptions\-file\fR
.RS 4
Reads additional command line arguments from the file
\fIoptions\-file\fR\&. Lines whose first non\-whitespace character is a hash mark (\*(Aq#\*(Aq) 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\&.
.sp
Several chars can be escaped, e\&.g\&. if you need to start a non\-comment line with \*(Aq#\*(Aq\&. The rules are described in
the section about escaping text\&.
.sp
The command line \*(Aq\fBmkvinfo \-v \-v input\&.mkv \-\-redirect\-output info\&.txt\fR\*(Aq could be converted into the following option file:
.sp
.if n \{\
.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
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.RE
.SH "VERBOSITY LEVELS"
.PP
The
\fB\-v\fR
option can be used to increase
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)\*(Aqs 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\*(Aqre 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\*(Aqs intended for developers only)\&. All lines written by level 3 are enclosed in square brackets to make filtering them out easy\&.
.SH "TEXT FILES AND CHARACTER SET CONVERSIONS"
.PP
For an in\-depth discussion about how all tools in the MKVToolNix suite handle character set conversions, input/output encoding, command line encoding and console encoding please see the identically\-named section in the
\fBmkvmerge\fR(1)
man page\&.
.SH "EXIT CODES"
.PP
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
exits with one of three exit codes:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
\fB0\fR
\-\- This exit codes means that the run has completed successfully\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
\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 \*(AqWarning:\*(Aq\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
\fB2\fR
\-\- This exit code is used after an error occurred\&.
\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 "ESCAPING SPECIAL CHARS IN TEXT"
.PP
There are a few places in which special characters in text must or should be escaped\&. The rules for escaping are simple: each character that needs escaping is replaced with a backslash followed by another character\&.
.PP
The rules are: \*(Aq \*(Aq (a space) becomes \*(Aq\es\*(Aq, \*(Aq"\*(Aq (double quotes) becomes \*(Aq\e2\*(Aq, \*(Aq:\*(Aq becomes \*(Aq\ec\*(Aq, \*(Aq#\*(Aq becomes \*(Aq\eh\*(Aq and \*(Aq\e\*(Aq (a single backslash) itself becomes \*(Aq\e\e\*(Aq\&.
.SH "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES"
.PP
\fBmkvinfo\fR(1)
uses the default variables that determine the system\*(Aqs locale (e\&.g\&.
\fILANG\fR
and the
\fILC_*\fR
family)\&. Additional variables:
.PP
\fIMKVINFO_DEBUG\fR, \fIMKVTOOLNIX_DEBUG\fR and its short form \fIMTX_DEBUG\fR
.RS 4
The content is treated as if it had been passed via the
\fB\-\-debug\fR
option\&.
.RE
.PP
\fIMKVINFO_ENGAGE\fR, \fIMKVTOOLNIX_ENGAGE\fR and its short form \fIMTX_ENGAGE\fR
.RS 4
The content is treated as if it had been passed via the
\fB\-\-engage\fR
option\&.
.RE
.PP
\fIMKVINFO_OPTIONS\fR, \fIMKVTOOLNIX_OPTIONS\fR and its short form \fIMTX_OPTIONS\fR
.RS 4
The content is split on white space\&. The resulting partial strings are treated as if it had been passed as command line options\&. If you need to pass special characters (e\&.g\&. spaces) then you have to escape them (see
the section about escaping special characters in text)\&.
.RE
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP
\fBmkvmerge\fR(1),
\fBmkvextract\fR(1),
\fBmkvpropedit\fR(1),
\fBmkvtoolnix-gui\fR(1)
.SH "WWW"
.PP
The latest version can always be found at
\m[blue]\fBthe MKVToolNix homepage\fR\m[]\&\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2\&.
.SH "AUTHOR"
.PP
\fBMoritz Bunkus\fR <\&moritz@bunkus\&.org\&>
.RS 4
Developer
.RE
.SH "NOTES"
.IP " 1." 4
the MKVToolNix homepage
.RS 4
\%https://mkvtoolnix.download/
.RE