Calculate video runtime?

[iwasnevy]

I have to say I can't thank the users of this forum enough - as a noob, I wouldn't have gotten this far in the development of this database without the helpful feedback I've found here!

Kudos aside, I've got an interesting one I'm trying to accomplish, and I don't even know if it's possible.

I want to calculate the runtime of a video file and put it into a field. I imagine this would involve reading the metadata in the video file somehow, but I'm not even sure where to start!

The only thing I can think of is using an applescript to get the metadata and pass it into a FM field. I've integrated applescript into FM before, so that part's easy. I'll look into applescript a little later to see how to do it that way, but in the meantime...

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

:P

[iwasnevy]

I figured it out, and I'm rather proud of myself...

thought I'd post the solution in the hopes that it might help someone someday...

It uses an Applescript to get the filename and path to your video file from Filemaker. It then reads metadata information from the file and uses it to calculate the runtime and pass it back to Filemaker.

A few modifications to the Applescript and this could just as easily be used to get things such as image size and resolution from a jpg, length or bitrate of an audio track, or just about any metadata that you want to pull out of a media file.

File attached. Since it uses Applescript, it's Mac only...

Enjoy! :

get_runtime.zip