STREAM_TYPE(1)

✨ stream-type — guess the type of a stream file, bestie ✨

okay so real talk, this is the stream-type page from the General Commands Manual 💖 she's a little detective who looks at a mystery stream file and is like "hmm. i know what you are." 🕵️‍♀️✨

🎀 NAME 🎀

stream-type — guess the type of a stream file 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

stream-type [-err stdout] [-err stderr] [-verbose | -v] [-quiet | -q]
            in_file

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

So the whole vibe is: she tries to figure out whether your input stream is a Transport Stream, a Program Stream, or an Elementary Stream — and if it's that last one, whether it's H.262 or H.264 (aka MPEG-2 or MPEG-4/AVC respectively, iykyk). 🔥

ngl the mechanisms she uses are fairly crude 😭 like she's not doing forensic science, she's doing vibes-based guesswork. Here's what she's assuming:

• data is byte aligned 🧚
• for TS, the first byte in the file will be the start of a NAL unit, and PAT/PMT packets will be findable 👑
• for PS, the first packet starts immediately at the start of the file, and is a pack header 🎀
• if the first 1000 packets could be H.262 or H.264, then the data is assumed to be H.264 — because the program doesn't try to determine sensible sequences of H.262/H.264 packets, so this is a reasonable way of guessing 🤷‍♀️

⚠️ bestie listen — it is quite possible that data which is not relevant will be misidentified. she's guessing!! don't come for her 💀

🍓 Files 🍓

• in_file — is the file to analyse 🦋

💅 Switches 💅

• -err stdout — write error messages to standard output (this is the default btw ✨)
• -err stderr — write error messages to standard error (the Unix traditional way, old school iconic 👑)
• -v, -verbose — output more detailed information about how it is making its decision 🔍 (she's telling you her whole thought process, main character energy)
• -q, -quiet — only output error messages 🤫

🌈 RETURN VALUES 🌈

the exit value is literally her whole answer, so here's the decoder ring:

• 10 — if it detects Transport Stream
• 11 — if it detects Program Stream
• 12 — if it detects Elementary Stream containing H.262 (MPEG-2)
• 14 — if it detects Elementary Stream containing H.264 (MPEG-4/AVC)
• 5 — if it looks like it might be PES
• 9 — if it really cannot decide 😭
• 0 — if some error occurred 💀

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

• esdots(1)

okay that's the whole page bestie, go forth and identify those streams 🫶✨ this was the Debian edition, dated October 28, 2015 — mwah, slay, periodt 💅🎀