How to determine video codec of a file with FFmpeg

Question

I often have problems reading AVI files with my TV\'s DVD player if they are not DivX or Xvid (e.g., DX50 is not readable).

I\'d like to make a fast script to determine

Answer 1

Try MediaInfo instead.

It lists the codec for each stream and its output is simple enough to parse - there's also an XML output option if you prefer XPath like queries.