How can I check the integrity of a video file (avi, mpeg, mp4...)?

Question

This title could be somewhat misleading, so let me explain ...

I'm downloading a video file ... mpeg, avi - being one of the popular formats. Now, if I am downloading it, and the download breaks in the middle of the uhm ... download, then, for example, Windows Media Player will give out some error and refuse to play it (although the file is, let's say, 98% complete). But, players like KMPlayer, or MediaPlayer Classic will play it up until that point (as the matter of fact, they can play it while it is being downloaded as well).

So, I'm interested, ... without using any means of download (download managers and alike) to secure the file is completely downloaded, how can one verify whether the video file is downloaded whole, and that it is complete ?

Answer 1

You can use a feature in ffmpeg video converter: if you will specify it to recode video to nothing it will just read input file and report any errors that will appear. This is a very fast process because video frames are just being read, checked and silently dropped.

Example command line: (for Linux)

ffmpeg -v error -i file.avi -f null - 2>error.log

-v error means a certain level of verbosity (to show some errors that are normally hidden because they don't affect playability a much).

You will get a full error log with some generic information about file ffmpeg will output, so this will probably require your attention, through filters can be written to perform batch check of similar files.

FFmpeg is also available for Windows here. The command line will be almost identical with an exception of stderr redirect:

ffmpeg.exe -v error -i file.avi -f null - >error.log 2>&1

Answer 2

I liked idea of using ffmpeg -f null above, but I'd actually like to automate process of using that output. In particular, common scenario I have with my music video collection is that I have few clips which have same resolution, and I'd like to diff verification logs for those files to remove ones broken the most.

Unfortunately, ffmpeg so far doesn't have a way to disable its interactive mode, which outputs noise for this case of usage. I ended up hacking simple wrapper script to do filtering:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
import os
import re

t = os.popen('ffmpeg -v 5 -i "%s" -f null - 2>&1' % sys.argv[1]).read()
t = re.sub(r"frame=.+?\r", "", t)
t = re.sub(r"\[(.+?) @ 0x.+?\]", "[\\1]", t)
print t

Example output:

[mpeg1video]ac-tex damaged at 21 17
[mpeg1video]Warning MVs not available
[mpeg1video]concealing 22 DC, 22 AC, 22 MV errors
[mpeg1video]Warning MVs not available
[mpeg1video]concealing 22 DC, 22 AC, 22 MV errors
[mpeg1video]ac-tex damaged at 13 9

Answer 3

For windows, You can 'batch' check integrity for videos on current folder and all subfolders with this bat file:

checkvideo.bat

@echo off
set "filtro=%1"
if [%filtro%]==[] (
    set "filtro=*.mp4"
    )
for /R %%a in (%filtro%) do call :doWork "%%a"
PAUSE
exit /B


:doWork
    C:\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe -v error -i %1 -f null - > "%~1.log" 2>&1

Use:

checkvideo.bat [filter]

If you don't give one filter, will get '*.mp4'.

Samples: checkvideo.bat checkvideo.bat *.avi

Setup: Download FFmpeg for Windows from here: https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/ and unzip them Change C:\ffmpeg\bin\ in the bat file for the path where you have unzipped ffmpeg Put checkvideo.bat on a folder included in the Path or add his folder to Path environment variable

UPDATE: As of September 18,2020, the above link is no longer valid so Windows users can download FFmpeg form here or here

Answer 4

This one liner using ffprobe checks each input and returns either OK or ERROR, followed by the name of the file.

for i in *; do ffprobe -v error "$i" 2>/dev/null && echo "OK => '$i'" || echo "ERROR => '$i'"; done

I created a fake .mp4 file by running touch video.mp4 to simulate a corrupted video. Result:

OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x1 - Know Your Plot.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x2 - Understand Plants.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x3 - Planting Schemes & Themes.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x4 - Practical Planting.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x5 - Caring For Your Garden.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x6 - Problem Solving.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x7 - The Productive Garden.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x8 - The Gardening Year.mp4'
ERROR => 'video.mp4'

The actual ffprobe errors can be shown by removing the 2>/dev/null redirection:

for i in *; do ffprobe -v error "$i" && echo "OK => '$i'" || echo "ERROR => '$i'"; done

OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x1 - Know Your Plot.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x2 - Understand Plants.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x3 - Planting Schemes & Themes.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x4 - Practical Planting.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x5 - Caring For Your Garden.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x6 - Problem Solving.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x7 - The Productive Garden.mp4'
OK => 'How To Be A Gardener 1x8 - The Gardening Year.mp4'
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x559de0c58900] moov atom not found
video.mp4: Invalid data found when processing input
ERROR => 'video.mp4'

Adjust the for loop to check only specific extensions or files:

for i in *.mkv; do ...

for i in *S01E*.mp4; do ...

Answer 5

Although this is an old post, and I'm sure there's other ways to valid video files now. However, for a full video file check, you can use mplayer.exe.

Using the below (.bat) script will recursively check video files and save validated ones in a integritychecked.log file (to skip next time its run).

if not "%1" equ "" (
    pushd %1
) else (
    pushd "%~dp0"
)
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=#" %%a in ('"prompt #$H#$E# & echo on & for %%b in (1) do rem"') do (
  set "DEL=%%a"
)
echo This script with validate video files in the folder/sub-folders. Please ensure mplayer.exe is accessible in PATH.
echo.
echo Either run this script from the desired (parent) directory or specify the directory when running this script. eg checkvideo.bat <full path>
echo.
pause
echo.
REM Append date and time to integritychecked.log file
for /f "tokens=1-9 delims=/:. " %%d in ("%date% %time: =0%") do echo Started: %%g%%f%%e_%%h%%i%%j>>integritychecked.log
FOR /F "delims=" %%G in ('dir /b /s .mkv .mp4 .mpg .mpeg .xvid .webm .m2v .m4v .3gp .3g2 .avi .mov .flv .wmv') DO (
    REM Confirm if already checked or not from log file 
    set found=0
    for /F "usebackq tokens=" %%s in ("integritychecked.log") do (
        if %%G equ %%s (
            set found=1
            REM echo "FOUND = %%G = %%s"
        )
    )
if !found! equ 0 (
    echo Verifying &quot;%%G&quot;
    mplayer -tsprobe 10000000 -benchmark -forcedsubsonly  -mc 0 -nosound -nosub -noautosub -vo null &quot;%%G&quot; 2&gt;&quot;%%G.log&quot;
    REM ffmpeg -v error -i &quot;%%G&quot; -map 0:1 -f null - 2&gt;&quot;%%G.log&quot;
    FOR %%F in (&quot;%%G.log&quot;) DO (
        if %%~zF equ 0 (
            del %%F
            call :colour 0a &quot;Video is good&quot;
            echo.
            echo. 
        ) else (
            call :colour 0c &quot;Error in video file:&quot;
            echo.
            type %%F
            call :colour 0e &quot;This can be found in the video's .log file&quot;
            echo.
            echo.
        )
    )
    REM Save entry to log file (as checked)
    echo %%G&gt;&gt;integritychecked.log
) else (
    echo already verified &quot;%%G&quot;...skipping.
)

)
call :colour 0a "Verifying complete!" && echo.
pause
cd %~p0
exit /b
:colour
set "param=^%~2" !
set "param=!param:"=&quot;!"
rem Prepare a file "X" with only one dot
<nul > X set /p ".=."
findstr /p /A:%1 "." "!param!..\X" nul
<nul set /p ".=%DEL%%DEL%%DEL%%DEL%%DEL%%DEL%%DEL%"
rem Delete "X" file
del X
exit /b

Answer 6

I really liked the ffmpeg version provided by How can I check the integrity of a video file (avi, mpeg, mp4...)? but I wanted a version that would only tell me if ffmpeg failed to play the video in a way that stopped it (I can deal with frame drops), and I wanted it to be linux based. I came to the solution below. I also wanted more information about what was happening while it was scanning, so I opted for scanned/total/errored outputting whenever a file starts scanning.

#!/bin/bash
# Name: mediaCheck
# Purpose: Confirm all media in a path can be played back using ffmpeg
# Requires:
# * ffmpeg in $PATH
# * date in $PATH
# * find in $PATH
function checkReqs {
checks requirements for the script
requires="ffmpeg date find"
 re=0
 for i in $requires; do
  if ! which $i > /dev/null; then
   ((re++))
   echo "$i is required in path for this script"
   fi
  done
 if [ "$re" -gt 0 ]; then
  echo "Requirements not met"
  exit 1
  fi
}
function pathCheck {
if there isn't a path, use pwd, otherwise clean up whatever is provided.
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  lPath=mediaCheck.log
  cPath=$(pwd)
  else
   cPath=$(readlink -f $1)
   lPath=$1
   fi
 }
function pdate {
my prefered date formatting
date +%FT%H:%M:%S
}
function checkMedia {
the actual ffmpeg command
ffmpeg -v error -i $1 -f null - &> "$1.log"
}
function findItems {
our main loops
first a set of common file types
for mtype in flv avi m4v mkv mp4; do
  c=0; e=0
Get a total per file type
ttotal=$(find $1 -type f -name *.$mtype | wc -l)
then the actual lookup and check
for i in $(find $1 -type f -name *.$mtype); do
    echo -ne "$(pdate) $c out of $ttotal $mtype files checked with $e errors.\r"
    ((c++))
    # check media, and if we fail, increment error counter.
    if ! checkMedia "$i" ; then
    ((e++))
    echo "$i failed" >> $lPath.log
    fi
   done
   echo "$(pdate) $c out of $ttotal $mtype files checked with $e errors."
   unset c e
  done
}
set blank cpath
cPath=''
uncomment the line below if this script isn't behaving as expected
set -x
Check requirements before anything else
checkReqs
Then generate a path
pathCheck $1
Make sure we don't stumble on names with spaces
IFS=$'\n'
echo "$(pdate) scan started."
findItems $cPath
echo "$(pdate) scan complete."

Answer 7

I have developed this python script which checks media files integrity (or tries to), please read instructions for details and limits, also feedbacks are appreciated: https://github.com/ftarlao/check-media-integrity

Answer 8

I wrote a wrapper for the ffmpeg command in the form of a GUI-based Python program to batch scan video files in a selected directory; assessing if the files are healthy or corrupt. This is based on the command posted above: ffmpeg -v error -i file.avi -f null - 2>error.log

The program is supported on Windows and macOS and is in the form of a portable executable for either OS. Simply download and run. Regards!

https://github.com/nhershy/CorruptVideoFileInspector

Answer 9

The issue with the other answer using ffmpeg to recode to null format is that it takes really a long time. Especially, if you want to check multiple files in a directory.

A quick way would be to generate thumbnails for all the videos, and see where thumbnail generation fails.

find . -iname "*.mp4" | while read -r line; do 
  line=`echo "$line" | sed -r 's/^\W+//g'`; 
  echo 'HERE IT IS ==>' "$line"; 
  if ffmpeg -i "$line" -t 2 -r 0.5 %d.jpg; 
    then echo "DONE for" "$line"; 
  else echo "FAILED for" "$line" >>error.log; 
  fi; 
done;

This method turned out to be much FASTER than other methods.

However, there is a CAVEAT. This method can yield wrong results, because sometimes thumbnail can be generated even for corrupt files. E.g. if the video file is corrupted only at the end, this method will fail.

Answer 10

Easier version

for file in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -v error -i "$file" -f null - >error.log 2>&1; print "$file"; done

This will print the file name as they are being processed.

error.log will contain the errors.

Answer 11

fluent-ffmpeg

var ffmpeg = require('fluent-ffmpeg');
var ff = new ffmpeg();

ff.on('start', function(commandLine) {
  // on start, you can verify the command line to be used
})
.on('progress', function(data) {
  // do something with progress data if you like
})
.on('end', function() {
  // do something when complete
})
.on('error', function(err, stdout, stderr) {
  // handle error conditions
  console.log('Error: ' + err.message)
  console.log('ffmpeg output:\n' + stdout)
  console.log('ffmpeg stderr:\n' + stderr)
})
.addInput('path\to\file')
.addInputOption('-xerror')
.addInputOption('-v error')
.output('-')
.outputOptions('-f null')
.run();

Reference:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43349360/how-to-check-for-corrupted-webm-video-using-node-js-and-fluent-ffmpeg

Answer 12

def check(dirpath):
    files = [f for f in listdir(dirpath) if isfile(join(dirpath, f))]
    invalidfiles = []
    for filename in files:
        cmd_args = ['ffprobe', dirpath + '/' + filename]
        pipes = subprocess.Popen(cmd_args, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
        #If you are using python 2.x, you need to include shell=True in the above line
        std_out, std_err = pipes.communicate()
        if 'invalid data' in std_out.decode('utf-8').lower() :
            invalidfiles.append(dirpath + '/' + filename)
            continue
        if 'invalid data' in std_err.decode('utf-8').lower() :
            invalidfiles.append(dirpath + '/' + filename)
            continue
    return invalidfiles

Answer 13

The one-liner I use is:

nice find . \( -iname \*.mp4 -o -iname \*.avi -o -iname \*.mkv \) -exec bash -c  'ffmpeg -v error -xerror -i "{}" -f null - || echo error in "{}"' \;

• nice lowers the priority so as not to interfere with system performance
• find looks for MP4/AVI/MKV files (case-insensitive) recursively, starting from the current directory
• ffmpeg -xerror stops with an error code on the first decoding error
• echo prints the damaged file's name

In my experience, adding -map 0:1 option to ffmpeg (in order to decode only audio) can significantly speed up processing, but at a price of false negatives. E.g. it rarely detects incomplete MP4 files, because audio data usually takes about 10% of the total clip, so the probability that an arbitrary cut through a file will damage the audio track is also about 10%.

Answer 14

MediaInfo is a great tool for getting info about any video file you care to throw at it. This may be able to highlight the info you want.

Another tool is GSpot but it hasn't been updated since 2007.

Try giving each one a known good and known bad file and compare the results.

I used to use GSpot until it stopped being updated, then switched to MediaInfo