"Unable to load MediaInfo library"

[Ingmar_1]

I'm new to c# and I'm trying to write a movie database that retrieves data from IMDB. For the codecs I found MediaInfo. The included example in winforms works fine, but when I try to use the library in my console application I get the error "Unable to load MediaInfo library".
I did:

• Put MediaInfo.dll in \bin\debug
• Included the file MediaInfoDLL.cs in my project
• In the source code added "using MediaInfoLib;"

So why do I get the error ?

Sourcecode:

 class Program
    {
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var mi = new MediaInfo();
            mi.Open(@"H:\\watch\\Fitzcarraldo.mkv");
            Console.WriteLine(mi.Inform());
            Console.ReadKey();
            mi.Close();
        }
    }

[Reverend Jim]

I can't answer your question but I think you may want to check out Movie DB API. I use it to get movie info via code.

[Ingmar_1]

Thanks, but the API is for the movie nfo, not codec nfo (mkv, avi, x246, aac, ac3,....)

[Reverend Jim]

I was confused by

I'm trying to write a movie database that retrieves data from IMDB

since IMDB lists a lot of details about a movie, but not the codec since that is not movie specific.

[rproffitt]

I've tackled CODECs so many times so how about:

1. The FOURCC ?
2. Examples abound for C# search with https://www.google.com/search?q=c%23+retrieve+fourcc

This is not about your top question about IMDB but about getting at the codec information.
I'm guessing here you might want to try VLC's decoding information.

1. Example at https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=94045

[Ingmar_1]

Well, I finally figured it out: in project properties I had to change "any cpu" to x64.

@rproffitt
Thanks, I will look into it and see if I can use it.

[Reverend Jim]

Here's how I get the media info via code (Python). Save this to a file with a py extension (e.g. mediainfo.py) then run it with the name of a video file as a parameter.

import os
import re
import subprocess

def execCmd(cmd=""):
    return subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode().splitlines()

class MediaInfo(object):
    """
    Runs MediaInfo.exe and arranges the output in a more code-friendly way.
    Information is returned as key-value pairs in three dictionaries for the
    three sub-categories of inf which are General, Video, and Audio.
    """
    def __init__(self,file):

        self.General = {}
        self.Audio   = {}
        self.Video   = {}

        if os.path.isfile(file):

            for line in execCmd('mediainfo.exe "%s"' % file):

                line = line.replace('\r','').strip()
                flds = line.split()

                if len(flds) == 1:
                    if   flds[0] == "General": dict = self.General
                    elif flds[0] == "Video":   dict = self.Video
                    elif flds[0] == "Audio":   dict = self.Audio
                elif len(flds) > 1:
                    colon = line.find(":")
                    dict[line[:colon].strip()] = self.fixnums(line[colon+1:].strip())

    def fixnums(self, str):
        """
        Takes a string and removes blanks embedded in number. For example,
        the string '1 024 kb/s' is converted to '1024 kp/s'.
        """
        emb = re.compile(r'(\d+) (\d+)')
        str = re.sub(emb,r'\1\2',str)
        return str

if __name__ == "__main__":

    import sys

    info = MediaInfo(sys.argv[1])

    print("\nGeneral:")
    for key in info.General:
        print("    %s:%s" % (key,info.General[key]))

    print("\nVideo:")
    for key in info.Video:
        print("    %s:%s" % (key,info.Video[key]))

    print("\nAudio:")
    for key in info.Audio:
        print("    %s:%s" % (key,info.Audio[key]))

[Ingmar_1]

Thanks, I will give it a try.