Ask the TUAW readers: Getting Movie Info

TUAW reader Jeep wrote in asking us whether we could track down a simple way to find out the details of a video file including the format, resolution, bitrate and so forth–preferably without loading the files into VLC. I did come up with a few solutions, but none of them seem particularly universal. Some work well on AVI files, others on MPEG-4, but none of my solutions provide the one-size-fits-all approach that would help Jeep out. He wants to be able to see whether the results of VisualHub compression are produced by better compression algorithms or by throwing away too much video definition.

Here's a quick run-down of the techniques I threw out there. If you have a better solution, please let us know in the comments.

Use the command line file utility. Issuing "file" gives you some information about AVI files and not much information about MP4 or M4V files.

Use column view in Finder. Selecting a movie shows you the kind of file, its size, its dimensions and its duration but little else.

Use qt_info. Qt_info is part of the qt_tools set from Omino. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to offer some of the key information Jeep was looking for: especially codecs in use and data rate.

Use AppleScript. If your files are opened in QuickTime, you can access nearly all the movie and track properties via AppleScript. This goes against the principle of speed and not having open the file in a viewing application.

Use QuickTime or VLCs built-in information. If you are willing to open the movies up in a player, you can get quick and easy access to all their stats, codecs and so forth. In QuickTime, for example, just open the info window with Command-I, but Jeep specifically asked not to do this.

So TUAW readers, what alternatives do you have in your tool set?