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

# tcscan(1)

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

## NAME

tcscan - scan multimedia streams from medium and print information on the standard output

## SYNOPSIS

- **tcscan**

  **-i** *name* \[ **-x** *codec* \] \[ **-e** *r\[,b\[,c\]\]* \] \[ **-b** *bitrate* \] \[ **-w** *num* \] \[ **-f** *rate* \] \[ **-d** *verbosity* \] \[ **-v** \]

## COPYRIGHT

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

## DESCRIPTION

**tcscan** is part of and usually called by **transcode**.\
 However, it can also be used independently.\
 **tcscan** 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.  **tcscan** usually handles the different types correctly.

- **-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

**tcscan** is a front end for scaning various source types and is used in **transcode**'s import modules. **tcscan** does a complete scan of the source to gather information.

## EXAMPLES

The command **tcscan -i foo.avi** prints header information about the AVI-file itself and lists details on the video and audio content, e.g., keyframes, chunk structure.

The command **cat audio.pcm \| tcscan -x pcm -e 48000,16,2** simply determines the playtime lenghth of the raw audio stream.

The command **tcscan -x mp3 -i input.mp3** will print the number of chunks in the MP3 file and the average bitrate.

## AUTHORS

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

## SEE ALSO

[**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)