mediastreamcmp

mediastreamcmp is a command-line tool that ensures two media files have identical video and audio streams. This is particularly useful for verifying the success of a remuxing operation (e.g., changing from .mkv to .mp4) or determining if the differences between two seemingly identical video files are only due to metadata.

Features

• Stream Comparison: Compares video and audio streams between two media files using MD5 hashes to ensure they are identical.
• Remux Verification: Helps verify that a remuxing process (changing container formats) was successful without altering the underlying streams.
• Metadata Ignorance: Allows you to focus on the content of the streams, ignoring differences in metadata that do not affect the actual media.

Usage

mediastreamcmp <file1> <file2>

• <file1>: The first media file to compare.
• <file2>: The second media file to compare.

Example

To compare two video files, video1.mkv and video2.mp4, run:

mediastreamcmp video1.mkv video2.mp4

If the files have identical video and audio streams, the output will be:

The files are identical in terms of audio and video streams.

If the files differ in their streams, the output will indicate that they are not identical.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Go: Make sure you have Go installed on your system. You can download it from golang.org.
• FFmpeg: This tool relies on ffmpeg and ffprobe for stream extraction and hashing. You can install FFmpeg via package managers like apt, brew, or directly from ffmpeg.org.

Build from Source

To install mediastreamcmp, clone the repository and build the binary using Go:

git clone <repository-url>
cd mediastreamcmp
go build -o mediastreamcmp

This will produce the mediastreamcmp binary in the current directory.

Installation via Go

Alternatively, you can install the tool directly using go install:

go install <repository-url>@latest

Use Cases

• Remux Verification: After converting a file from one container format to another (e.g., .mkv to .mp4), use mediastreamcmp to ensure the streams are unchanged.
• Duplicate Detection: When you have two video files that look almost identical, mediastreamcmp can help determine if they differ only in metadata or in their actual streams.
• Quality Assurance: Verify that no unintended changes were introduced during video processing or editing workflows.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please submit pull requests, report issues, or suggest improvements.

Acknowledgments

mediastreamcmp relies on the powerful FFmpeg suite to handle media stream extraction and hashing.