What file formats does Media Inspector support?
Everything its FFmpeg and MediaInfo engines can parse: MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, MXF, MPEG-TS, and DVD-Video among the containers, with video codecs from H.264, HEVC, AV1, ProRes and VP9 to MPEG-2, and audio from Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital and DTS-HD to AAC, FLAC, Opus, MP3 and PCM. If a file plays somewhere, Media Inspector can almost certainly dissect it.
Is Media Inspector a MediaInfo app for the Mac?
Media Inspector is built on MediaInfoLib — the same open-source engine behind MediaInfo — wrapped in a fully native macOS app. It also goes beyond metadata: real decoded frame thumbnails, embedded cover-art extraction, and branded, print-ready PDF reports.
Do my files ever leave my Mac?
No. Media Inspector is fully sandboxed and works completely offline — it has no network access, no analytics, and no telemetry. Everything is analyzed locally on your machine.
Can it generate contact sheets?
Yes. The Contact Sheet report lays real decoded frames on the page with frame-accurate timecodes under a header of key facts, and exports as a vector PDF or a high-resolution PNG or JPEG image — ready for a MAM system, a catalog, or a printed folder.
Which metadata properties can it display?
Over 1,500 properties across container, video, audio, subtitle, chapter and image streams. You choose per stream type which properties appear on screen and which are included in printed reports.
Can it verify files with checksums (fixity)?
Yes. Media Inspector computes MD5 and SHA-256 in a single streaming pass — on demand or automatically on open — shows them on the Container tab, prints them on QC, Archival and Delivery Manifest reports, and includes them in JSON and CSV exports.
Can it graph bitrate over time?
Yes. A single pass over the file charts the bitrate of every stream plus the container total — the combined graph on the Container tab, per-stream graphs on the Video and Audio tabs — and the graph prints on the QC and Archival reports.
Can I export the metadata as JSON or CSV?
Yes. Alongside PDF and plain-text reports, every inspection exports as machine-readable JSON (raw and formatted values with stable keys) or a flat CSV — ready for MAM ingest, catalogs, and spreadsheets.
Why is Media Inspector a good fit for archival facilities and film archives?
It turns every ingest into filing-ready documentation. The Archival Report combines full per-stream metadata — enough to verify that a digitization came out right before the source tape goes back on the shelf — with fixity checksums, measured loudness and light levels, custom provenance fields and your facility's branding. The Contact Sheet gives every asset a recognizable visual fingerprint, and the Delivery Manifest logs a whole ingest batch in one table, with a CSV for the catalog.
Can reports carry my company's branding and archival metadata?
Yes. A brand kit in Settings — company name, logo, accent color and a contact line — styles every report, and custom fields carry whatever your workflow needs (Facility, Original Media, Catalog Number, Barcode…). Save a report's setup as a preset and a whole collection gets consistent documentation.
Does it work on air-gapped or restricted facility networks?
Yes. Media Inspector has no network capability at all — analysis, reports, and exports all happen locally, so it behaves identically on ingest stations and QC workstations that never touch the internet. Nothing is uploaded, logged, or phoned home.
What are the system requirements, and what languages does it speak?
Media Inspector requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later and runs natively on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The app is localized in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese.
Does Media Inspector work with Shortcuts and automation?
Yes. It ships four native Shortcuts actions — Analyze Media File (to JSON or CSV), Generate Report (any of the six reports as PDF, HTML or CSV, by report type or from a saved preset, with an optional conformance policy), Compute File Checksum (MD5 or SHA-256), and Open in Media Inspector. Chain them into your own workflows, run them from a Finder right-click as Quick Actions, or drive them from automations — all without opening the app.
Can I batch-process an entire folder of files?
Yes — the actions are batch-aware. Select many files and run a Quick Action, or hand a whole folder to a shortcut, and Media Inspector produces one report, export, or checksum per file in a single pass — or one Delivery Manifest for the whole batch. A whole tape collection or ingest batch becomes a single command instead of an afternoon of clicking.
Can reports be generated automatically, without opening the app?
Yes. The Generate Report Shortcuts action renders the same reports as the app — pick a report type, a policy and a format, or use a saved preset — entirely in the background. Trigger it from a Finder Quick Action, a keyboard shortcut, or a folder-based automation, and the finished files land wherever you point them.
Can Media Inspector make a QC report with a pass/fail verdict?
Yes. The QC Report checks a file against a conformance policy — one of the built-ins or your own — and prints PASS, PASS WITH WARNINGS or FAIL, every failed rule with what was actually found, a measured-versus-declared table for bit rate, loudness and HDR light levels, and a sign-off block with signature lines and Approved / Rejected boxes. Any measurement the report needs runs automatically before it exports.
Can I make a delivery manifest, or compare files in a report?
Yes. Select several files and the Delivery Manifest lists them in one table — container, duration, resolution, codecs, audio, size, checksums and verdict — with totals and a CSV export. The Comparison Report puts two or three files side by side and lists only what differs, with an optional SHA-256 check that proves two copies are byte-identical.
Can I export a report as HTML?
Yes. Every report also exports as one self-contained HTML file — images and charts inlined, no JavaScript — that reads well on a phone and prints cleanly from any browser. Handy for emailing a QC result or posting a spec sheet to a review portal.