mp4csv

Exports file information from MP4 and (maybe eventually) AVI files to a CSV for statistical processing. I needed this to process a large number of video files from my trail cameras (to keep track of wildlife coming and going) and didn't want to do it by hand.

The following information is exported:

Column Name	Description
filename	The name of the file
file_size	The size of the file in bytes
creation_time	The creation date and time of the file as a DateTime<Local>
modification_time	The modification date and time of the file as a DateTime<Local>
duration	The duration of the video in seconds
bitrate_kbps	The bitrate of the video in kilobits per second
fps	The frame rate of the video in frames per second

While this is hardly exhaustive, it is all I needed for my purposes. If you need more, please feel free to open an issue or a PR - it should be relatively easy to add more fields.

Usage

Usage: mp4csv <FILE(S)>... [OPTIONS]

Arguments:
  <FILE(S)>...  One or more file(s) to process. Wildcards and multiple_occurrences files (e.g. here/*.mp4 there/*.MP4)
                are supported.

Options:
  -q, --quiet                            Don't produce any output except errors while working.
  -p, --print-summary                    Print summary detail for each session processed.
  -i, --input-csv <input-csv>            A CSV file with a list of files to process in the first column. The first row is
                                         assumed to be a header and is ignored.
  -c, --csv-filename [<csv-filename>]    The name of the resulting CSV file containing the video metadata summaries.
                                         Default is `video-data.csv` is none is specified.
  -j, --json-filename [<json-filename>]  The name of the resulting JSON file containing the video metadata summaries. Default is `video-data.json` is none is specified.
  -h, --help                             Print help (see more with '--help')
  -V, --version                          Print version

Example:

mp4csv data/mp4/*.mp4 -j -c

Results in the following files.

JSON:

[
  {
    "filename": "data/mp4/EvenSolberg_20230325_004746___0003.mp4",
    "size_bytes": 186870641,
    "creation_time": "2023-03-25T00:47:46-07:00",
    "modification_time": "2023-03-25T00:47:46-07:00",
    "duration": 60.0,
    "bitrate_kbps": 24202.0,
    "fps": 60.0
  }
]

CSV:

filename,size_bytes,creation_time,modification_time,duration,bitrate_kbps,fps
data/mp4/EvenSolberg_20230325_004746___0003.mp4,186870641,2023-03-25T00:47:46-07:00,2023-03-25T00:47:46-07:00,60.0,24202.0,60.0

Installation

From Source

git clone
cd mp4csv
cargo install --path .

You can also inspect the justfile and potentially run just release to build a release version of the binary and place it into /usr/local/bin.

You can also download a binary from the Releases page and put somewhere in your path.

To Do

• Add the ability to recurse directories. Right now you need to be able to use the ** wildcard to recurse directories.
  • This is not a huge issue since you can just recurse directories yourself and pass the list of files to mp4csv using the -i option.
• Add the ability to parse AVI files. Right now I'm having to convert them to MP4s to get the information I need, and getting ffmpeg to retain the creation date is a pain.
• Add more fields
• Add the ability to specify the output format (e.g. JSON, YAML, etc.)
• Add the ability to select which fields to output