Free local video utility
Read the records inside an MP4 or MOV file.
See container dates, movie duration, file brands and individual track headers. This video metadata viewer reads selected records locally and gives you a downloadable report with the original integer values and interpretation limits.
Up to 512 MiB. File contents stay in this browser. This reads selected container headers without playing or uploading the video.
Try a controlled example
Download the 3-second test-pattern video. Then choose it above. It is a 320 × 180 synthetic animation, not footage of a person or event. Its creation date was deliberately set to September 27, 2026 UTC.
The expected movie duration is 3 seconds. The video track’s unrotated dimensions are 320 × 180. Compare those observations with the generation record below. Encoding versions can change the file bytes.
Generation command, checksum and independent ffprobe report. Example scope and CC0 license.
Start with the original file
- Choose a local MP4 or MOV file you are authorized to inspect. A social-media page URL is not a video file.
- Compare the movie and media-track dates and durations. Different values can describe different parts of a file; they are not automatically signs of manipulation.
- Save the JSON report alongside the original. It includes file size and header values, but no original filename and no cryptographic file identity.
- Use the video frame extractor for a visual reference. An extracted PNG is a new derivative and does not retain the full video’s records.
Why a date is not proof of when a video was filmed
The stored movie-header creation date describes a container record. Software can write, copy or edit it independently of the scene. This viewer interprets nonzero values using the 1904 UTC epoch and preserves the raw seconds in JSON. A zero value stays unspecified.
A file downloaded today may contain an old header date; a newly exported copy of an old recording may contain a newer one. Corroborate the event’s date with the original publisher, production history and other evidence.
Movie duration, track duration and rotated dimensions
The movie and each media track can use different time scales. The report divides duration units by the corresponding time scale; it leaves unspecified durations unresolved. Audio and video tracks need not have identical durations.
The width and height shown here are fixed-point values from the track header before its display matrix. A portrait video can therefore have stored dimensions that differ from its displayed orientation. This tool does not decode samples, apply edits or read a frame rate.
What this viewer inspects
It reads MP4/QuickTime file-type brands, movie timing headers, track dimensions, media timing headers and handler types. It skips media payloads and reads at most 2 MiB of headers within a 512 MiB file, with limits of 4,096 boxes and 64 tracks. Malformed inspected headers and unsupported header versions produce an explicit error. This is not a full-container conformance check.
Fragmented files can have zero or incomplete header durations. A fragmentation notice means this viewer encountered a relevant marker; it does not mean all fragments were decoded.
MKV, WebM and AVI containers are outside this viewer’s scope. GPS, camera identifiers, custom tags, subtitles, codecs, signatures and private metadata payloads are not inspected. An empty or missing field means it was not read here; it is not a privacy clearance or proof that no metadata exists.
Does video metadata prove AI generation?
No. These editable records help document a file, but they do not establish authorship or authenticity. The viewer does not detect deepfakes, verify a person’s identity or authenticate Content Credentials. Combine source checks and file observations without overstating either.