How to dump timecode from QuickTime metadata

[Milivoj]

REDline has this great feature of being able to output the metadata of .r3d files.

Would anybody know of a command-line utility which would do the same thing for QuickTime files?

Once my .R3D files are encoded in QT ProRes, I would like to get a listing of the QT metadata (particularly the timecode info) for further processing.

Of course, I could hack something together by using the QT file name to find the original R3D, and using redline on the original. But I'm hoping there is something simpler which would just print the metadata directly from the QT to stdout.

Google found me various GUI stuff which displays the info, but no basic command-line tool.

[Gunleik Groven]

Isn't this basically what Monkey extract does?

Gunleik

[Milivoj]

As far as I could see, not at all: "It is a way to automate rendering using an EDL. It will scan the EDL and render only the footage contained in the cut with optional handles."

What I'm looking for is a command-line program to print qt metadata like timecode to the terminal window, like redline does.

[Gunleik Groven]

Sure you're not talking rubbermonkey... Or I may well be wrong.

What I was thinking is that either Monkey or RedRushes can extract ALE files, which pretty much jave the data you're looking for...

But I may be way off, of course.

[MichaelP]

MetaCheater does this.

Michael

[Milivoj]

MetaCheater does indeed display the info in it's GUI. But as far as I could see, it's not a command-line tool either, so I can't use it in a broader shell script.

[Gunleik Groven]

blush... :)

[Mel Matsuoka]

There are two awesome OSX based commandline utilities that let you get info and manipulate Quicktime movies:

QT_Tools: Specifically, the qt_info command. Running it without args gives you a metadata dump like this.

QTCoffee: Awesomer than awesome commandline QT manipulation utility.

Not sure what platform you're on, so apologies in advance if you were looking for a Windows/Linux solution.

[Dave Rice]

I've looked into both QT_Tools and QTCoffee. qt_info does display some information about the timecode track in the quicktime wrapper, but it doesn't display information about the properties of the timecode like max24, visual or not, font, size, placement, drop frame, start value, etc.
Milivoj have you found any answer to this?
Dave

[Milivoj]

I have not been able to find a good tool to extract the TC information from these QT files. Apparently, the info is in a quite recent Quicktime atom, and the documentation I found discouraged me to try to parse it myself.

I did find one tool listing the info, but in a very weird and unpractical way. The "timecodereader" program appeared to write the timecode to STDERR instead of STDOUT, and came with a javascript wrapper, and an un-edited man page template. It didn't feel like a reliable tool, so I eventually didn't use it. But in case it does help someone, it is here: http://www.creative-workflow-hacks.c...ux-a-solution/ .

My original need was to create an XML of Merged clips for FCP. I intended to use the TC, but eventually used the slate numbers instead (I had these in the original audio files and in a database linking RED file names to the slate numbers).

The tool which lists all the info in an easy to parse way is redline (with the --printMeta option). So if you you can get to the original RED file from the Quicktime, it appears to be the best way for now.