Media Files Meta Info Identification

Lately I have setup a home pc for my parents and I have to install windows for them even I myself advocate open source, that's the platform my brother knows how to work with and he can help my parents in case there's technical problem as I'm about to move to new place.

I have installed Firefox browser, OpenOffice and Vlc media player for them. Since my parents prefer to watch movies, I have found a Open Source application that can help them to identify the media files and download the correct codec. You can find the application here -

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

Mediainfo is small application but very neat although it can't support all codecs yet, you can just load the media file and it will try to identify what kind of containers and media formats are embedded in the file and extract the useful meta information for you. Here's the basic look of it when I load the Joker.avi file -

You can change to tree view to read more details information(I prefer this) -

Of course the most useful feature for end user should be the "mouse click" where you can fetch the correct codecs to solve the problem of playing media file.

I already told you I advocate Open Source Softwares!

Enjoy ;]