---
name: "tcprobe"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "transcode"
version: "3:1.1.7-9+b4"
release: "Debian 8 (Jessie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/tcprobe"
---

# tcprobe(1)

probe multimedia streams from medium and print information on the standard output

## NAME

tcprobe - probe multimedia streams from medium and print information on the standard output

## SYNOPSIS

- **tcprobe**

  **-i** *name* \[ **-B** \] \[ **-M** \] \[ **-T** *title* \] \[ **-b** *bitrate* \] \[ **-H** *n* \] \[ **-f** *seekfile* \] \[ **-d** *verbosity* \] \[ **-v** \]

## COPYRIGHT

**tcprobe** is Copyright (C) by Thomas Oestreich.

## DESCRIPTION

**tcprobe** is part of and usually called by **transcode**.\
 However, it can also be used independently.\
 **tcprobe** reads source (from stdin if not explicitely defined) and prints on the standard output.

## OPTIONS

- **-i** *name*

  Specify input source.  If ommited, *stdin* is assumed.\
   You can specify a file, directory, device, mountpoint or host address as input source.  **tcprobe** usually handles the different types correctly.

- **-B**

  Binary output to stdout for use in transcode.

- **-M**

  Use EXPERIMENTAL mplayer probe, useful for streams that tcprobe doesn't recognize elsewhere. With this option enabled, tcprobe merely acts as a frontend for mplayer; of course mplayer binary needs to be installed and avalaible somewhere in PATH.

- **-T** *title*

  Probe for DVD *title*

- **-H** *n*

  This option tells **tcprobe** to scan *n* MB of input data. Default is to scan 1 MB. To detect all subtitles and audio tracks (if available) it is highly recommended that this *n* should be at least increased to 10 or even higher. Very often only some audio tracks start during the first MB of a VOB or DVD file so transcode cannot detect them if not called with a higher value. Please note that [transcode(1)](/transcode/1.md) has a similar -H option as well which has the same meaning.

- **-s** *n*

  Skip the first *n* bytes of the input stream. Default is to skip no bytes.

- **-b** *bitrate*

  Set audio encoder bitrate to *bitrate*

- **-f** *seekfile*

  Read index/seek information from *seekfile*. This is especially useful for AVI files when it takes a long time to probe when there is no index in the AVI available. Also see [aviindex(1)](/aviindex/1.md).

- **-d** *level*

  With this option you can specify a bitmask to enable different levels of verbosity (if supported).  You can combine several levels by adding the corresponding values:

  QUIET         0

  INFO          1

  DEBUG         2

  STATS         4

  WATCH         8

  FLIST        16

  VIDCORE      32

  SYNC         64

  COUNTER     128

  PRIVATE     256

- **-v**

  Print version information and exit.

## NOTES

**tcprobe** is a front end for probing various source types and is used in **transcode**'s import modules.

## EXAMPLES

The command **tcprobe -i foo.avi** will print interesting information about the AVI file itself and its video and audio content.

## AUTHORS

**tcprobe** was written by Thomas Oestreich\
 \<ostreich@theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de\> with contributions from many others.  See AUTHORS for details.

## SEE ALSO

[**aviindex**(1)](/aviindex/1.md), [**avifix**(1)](/avifix/1.md), [**avisync**(1)](/avisync/1.md), [**avimerge**(1)](/avimerge/1.md), [**avisplit**(1)](/avisplit/1.md), [**tcprobe**(1)](/tcprobe/1.md), [**tcscan**(1)](/tcscan/1.md), [**tccat**(1)](/tccat/1.md), [**tcdemux**(1)](/tcdemux/1.md), [**tcextract**(1)](/tcextract/1.md), [**tcdecode**(1)](/tcdecode/1.md), [**transcode**(1)](/transcode/1.md)