                                 MovieID
                               Version 1.00


This program identifies the file format of movie files and displays
information about them.  It identifies all popular movie file formats,
including AVI, DivX, ASF, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, QuickTime, and RealMedia.

The program was created for several reasons:

1.  To identify the format of a movie file that was named with an incorrect
    file name extension.  This program parses the file to determine the file
    format, and does not use the file extension.  Incorrect file extensions
    are frequently found on files downloaded over the internet.

2.  To identify the player and/or codecs needed to view a specific file.
    This program includes a database of all known video and audio compression
    formats, which should help you to determine the codec needed to display a
    particular file.  This is frequently a problem with files downloaded over
    the internet.

3.  To display some basic information about the file.  This is really just a
    bonus, and was not the original goal of this program.  But since the
    information is readily available, it is displayed to the user.  Not all
    file formats display all information, but the program displays any
    information it can easily find.

4.  To help diagnose MediaPlayer problems.  If your MediaPlayer configuration
    gets screwed up, this program will still work.  It doesn't use any multi-
    media system calls.  All file parsing is done by this program.

5.  To display information FAST.  You can get most of the same information
    by opening a file in the appropriate player application, but it usually
    takes longer and requires multiple steps.

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Installation:

This is a Win32 console (command-line) program, but it can easily be used as
the target of a drag-and-drop.  It's so simple that no install program is
needed.

To install it, simply copy the files "movieid.exe" and "movieid.cdb" to
any directory in your PATH (the WINDOWS directory will work, but is not
recommended).  The command-line usage is as follows:

  MOVIEID filename

Pretty simple!  It then displays information about the format of the file.

To use it as the target of a drag-and-drop, place the enclosed PIF file
(shortcut) on your desktop.  Then drag a movie file onto it.  That's all
there is to it!

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File Formats Detected:

                                 Typical File
Name                             Extension(s)   MIME Type
------------------------------   ------------   ----------------------------
Audio Video Interleaved (AVI)     .avi          video/x-msvideo
Advanced Systems Format (ASF)     .asf .wmv     video/x-ms-asf
MPEG-1 Video Elementary Stream    .mpg .mpeg    video/mpeg
MPEG-1 System Stream              .mpg .mpeg    video/mpeg
MPEG-1 Embedded System Stream     .mpg .mpeg    video/mpeg
MPEG-2 Video Elementary Stream    .mpg .mpeg    video/mpeg
MPEG-2 Program Stream             .mpg .mpeg    video/mpeg
QuickTime                         .mov .qt      video/quicktime
RealMedia                         .rm           application/vnd.rn-realmedia


Information Displayed for Each File Format:

                                     Video  Video  Audio   Audio
           Video   Audio             Size   Frame  Sample  Bit    Audio
File Type  Codecs  Codecs  Duration  (WxH)  Rate   Rate    Rate   Channels
---------  ------  ------  --------  -----  -----  ------  -----  --------
AVI           *      *        *        *      *      *       *       *
ASF           *      *        *        *             *       *       *
MPEG-1        -     (2)      (1)       *      *      *       *       *
MPEG-2        -     (2)      (1)       *      *     (2)     (2)     (2)
QuickTime    (3)    (3)      (3)      (3)    (3)    (3)             (3)
RealMedia                     *        *      *              *

(1) = not available in some Video Elementary Streams
(2) = only detects MPEG audio streams (layers 1, 2, and 3)
(3) = not available on files with compressed headers

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License and Support:

MovieID is free to anyone who wants it.  Use it as you wish!  There are no
guarantees, but please let me know if you find any problems.  Thanks.

If you encounter any video or audio formats that are not in the database or
would like to recommend additional information for the database (such as codec
download sources), please let me know.  I plan to add more information to the
codec database when I have time.  If possible, please supply the following
information for each new video or audio format:

  1.  FourCC code or format ID
  2.  Format name
  3.  Format author (this may or may not be the codec author)
  4.  Format author's web site
  5.  Additional information, such as codecs that can decode this format

If you have any movie files that are not recognized by this program, please
let me know too.  It would help if you could make a copy of the movie file
available for me to test, but it's not absolutely necessary.  Please don't
send me any movies through the email!  Contact me first and we can arrange
something.

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Author/Contact Information:

  Christopher P. LaRosa
  cplarosa@yahoo.com
  http://www.geocities.com/cplarosa/movieid/
