---
id: knowit
version: "0.6.1"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# knowit — Know better your media files

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 153.7K/mo

## What it is and what it does

KnowIt is a Python library and CLI tool that reads media files and extracts their technical metadata—codec, bitrate, resolution, audio channels, language, duration, and more. It wraps multiple backend providers (MediaInfo, FFmpeg, MKVToolNix, Enzyme) so you can choose which tool to use for introspection, and outputs results as structured JSON or YAML.

You use it when you need to programmatically inspect video or audio files in your application, or from the command line to quickly understand what's inside an MKV, MP4, or other container. It depends on babelfish, enzyme, pymediainfo, pyyaml, and trakit to handle language codes, codec detection, and format parsing. The library is actively maintained, supports Python 3.10 through 3.14, and has no known security vulnerabilities.

Use it for:

- Batch-process a media library to catalog codec, resolution, and audio track details for archival or validation
- Validate that uploaded video files meet encoding requirements before accepting them in a web application
- Extract language and codec metadata from MKV files to populate a media management database
- Inspect audio properties (channels, bitrate, sampling rate) to verify lossless vs. lossy compression
- Automate quality checks in a transcoding pipeline by reading source file specs before re-encoding

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Extracts detailed metadata from media files (video, audio, container format, codecs, bitrates, resolution, language) via CLI or Python API using pluggable backends like MediaInfo, FFmpeg, or MKVToolNix.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no security issues, imposes no licensing restrictions, and solves a concrete problem—reading media metadata—with low install friction and multiple backend options. Install it if you need to programmatically inspect video or audio files.

## Install

pip install knowit
uv add knowit
poetry add knowit

## Installing knowit

Before you install: Low friction install with five runtime dependencies. Actively maintained with a release 5 days ago and recent commits; suitable for production use.

License in practice: MIT license is permissive and imposes no restrictions on use, modification, or distribution in proprietary or open-source projects.

Quickstart:

pip install knowit

from knowit import KnowIt
knowit = KnowIt()
result = knowit.know('/path/to/video.mkv')
print(result)

Requires at least one external provider (MediaInfo, FFmpeg, or MKVToolNix) installed on the system for full format support; MKV is supported without external tools.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package's output structure and field names remain stable across minor versions
- Performance characteristics when processing large media files or batch operations
- Completeness of metadata extraction for less common codecs or container formats

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 153.7K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

video metadata extraction, media file information, codec and bitrate detection, mkv mp4 audio video analysis, ffmpeg mediainfo wrapper, extract video properties, media file introspection, media-metadata, cli-tool, video-analysis

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/knowit) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/knowit/)