It can be very frustrating when you open a media file only to find that your player can’t play it. The problem is often located in the codec of the file. Codec is used to compress large files in order to reduce the number of bytes they consume on your device’s memory. The codec is basically divided into two parts, the first part encoding the file and the second decoding it. MediaInfo works along similar lines to MediaInfo Mac and is designed to detect the necessary codec to access a video file as well as providing general information about the media type. MediaInfo is a little more advanced that MediaInfo Mac as it has the capacity to handle other file types, such as documents and audio. MediaInfo reveals the basic information about a file, including the file name, the length of playtime and the size of the file. It can also provide more detailed information about the codec itself, the bitrate and the resolution.
MediaInfo is a free application that displays all relevant data for selected files. Depending on where you download the program from, you may find there are some other items bundled in with it so be sure to check the notifications prior to installing the software. It is a simple application that supports a wide range of different file formats, including WMV, QuickTime, MPEG-4 and many others, including subtitles files. MediaInfo has now been improved even further with the MediaInfo Plus add-on which provides a multiple list view for you to scrutinise the data and tags of any downloaded media files. This software gives you the option of viewing information about your files either in a list or in a tree format. While its interface isn’t wildly imaginative, it is consistent with a Microsoft layout that is familiar to the majority of computer users. MediaInfo will also display information in either HTML or in plain text which is particularly handy if you are sharing information in a help forum. The one negative about this application is that it fails to provide direct links to enable you to search for missing codecs. While it isn’t complicated to search for these using your usual search engine, it would be nice to see this function incorporated into the package in future.
