ASP.NET - how to read attributes (length, resolution, codec) of video files

Question

I'm working on an ASP.NET app that allows users to upload video files. After the user uploads, I need to determine some of the attributes of the media - namely it's duration/length, resolution, and codec (if possible).

What's the simplest way to approach this? Should I use the WMP SDK - this seems to involve actually instantiating the media player on the server. Is there anything in the framework to do this, or do I need to rely on an external library?

I'm not concerned about displaying or streaming the video back to the user.

Answer 1

There is nothing in the framework, you will need some sort of library. The best I've seen (but it has been a year or so since I've looked) is taglib-sharp:

http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/TagLib_Sharp

The site seems to be down right now, but I see that it's been ported to fink (for OSX) only a couple of months ago, so I assume that is temporary.

oops, just saw that you're not the first to ask a question along these lines and I'm not the first to suggest taglib-sharp:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/68283/viewedit-mp3-id3-data-in-c

(note: it supports audio and video files).

hth