Get duration of video file from command line?

Question

In Windows, is there a way to get the duration (e.g. in seconds) of an AVI file from the command line?

I'm fine with using 3^rd party tools - the more common, the better.

Answer 1

MediaInfo is a great tool for extracting such information, there's both a GUI and CLI version. Here is a summary of its basic command line options, you'll probably want to pass it just the filename or include a -f switch for more details.

Answer 2

You can use the following PowerShell script

$path = $Args[0]
$shell = New-Object -COMObject Shell.Application
$folder = Split-Path $path
$file = Split-Path $path -Leaf
$shellfolder = $shell.Namespace($folder)
$shellfile = $shellfolder.ParseName($file)

$shellfolder.GetDetailsOf($shellfile, 27);

Save it as a *.ps1 file, e.g. duration.ps1. Call it like duration.ps1 path\to\video\file

It'll give time in hh:mm:ss form. If you want it as seconds then change the last line to [timespan]::Parse($shellfolder.GetDetailsOf($shellfile, 27)).TotalSeconds

This works for any types that has duration that Windows can read. I made it from the below sources

• Get MP3/MP4 File’s MetaData
• Use PowerShell to Find Metadata from Photograph Files

Of course because it uses Shell.Application, you can use any WScript languages to achieve the same purpose. For example here's a hybrid bat-jscript version, just save it as a normal *.bat file and pass the video file path to it:

@if (@CodeSection == @Batch) @then

@echo off
cscript //e:jscript //nologo "%~f0" %1
exit /b

@end

// JScript Section

var filepath = WScript.Arguments.Item(0);
var slash = filepath.lastIndexOf('\\');
var folder = filepath.substring(0, slash);
var file = filepath.substring(slash + 1);

var shell = new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application");
var shellFolder = shell.NameSpace(folder);
shellfile = shellFolder.ParseName(file);
var duration = shellFolder.GetDetailsOf(shellfile, 27);
WScript.Echo(duration);

You'll also need to split time and multiple the hours/minutes to get seconds, but that's trivial