Your S3 Videos Now Have Duration: How Local Tools Unlock Hidden Metadata

How long is that video in your S3 bucket? What resolution? What codec?

S3 has no idea. And neither do Backblaze, Google Cloud Storage, or any other object storage provider.

The Video Metadata Problem

Object storage APIs only return basic file metadata: name, size, modified date. Video-specific information like duration, resolution, and codec is embedded inside the file - and cloud providers don't extract it.

The Video Metadata Gap
What FFmpeg Can Extract
How Local Tools Work
Video Search Examples
Getting Started

The Video Metadata Gap

What S3 knows about your video:

{
  "Key": "videos/wedding-ceremony.mp4",
  "Size": 2147483648,
  "LastModified": "2024-06-15T14:30:00Z",
  "ETag": "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e"
}

What's actually in that file that S3 doesn't know:

Duration: 1 hour 23 minutes
Resolution: 3840 x 2160 (4K)
Codec: H.265 (HEVC)
Bitrate: 35 Mbps
Frame rate: 60 fps
Audio: AAC stereo, 320 kbps

What FFmpeg Can Extract

FileFortress uses FFmpeg (via ffprobe) to extract rich video metadata:

Video Stream

Duration (seconds)
Width & height
Codec (H.264, H.265, etc.)
Frame rate
Bitrate

Audio Stream

Codec (AAC, MP3, etc.)
Sample rate
Channels (stereo, 5.1)
Bitrate

How Local Tools Work

The Process

FileFortress identifies video files in your cloud storage
Downloads just enough to read the header (not the whole file)
Runs FFprobe locally on your device
Extracts metadata and stores in your local database
Cleans up temporary files

# Run FFmpeg extraction on video files
filefortress tools run --remote "My S3 Videos" \
  --filter "extension:mp4,mov,avi,mkv" \
  --tool ffprobe

# Processing...
# Extracted metadata from 1,247 videos
# New searchable fields: duration, width, height, 
#   videoCodec, audioCodec, framerate, bitrate...

Video Search Examples

Once metadata is extracted, powerful searches become possible:

# Find long videos (over 1 hour)
filefortress search --filter "duration:>3600"

# Find 4K videos
filefortress search --filter "width:>=3840"

# Find videos longer than 30 minutes
filefortress search --filter "duration:>1800 AND duration:<7200"

# Find H.265 encoded videos
filefortress search --filter "videoCodec:hevc"

# Find short clips (under 2 minutes)
filefortress search --filter "duration:<120"

Why This Matters

Imagine searching 10,000 videos for "that 5-minute clip from the conference." Without duration metadata, you'd have to download and check each file. With FileFortress, it's a one-second search.

Getting Started

Install FFmpeg: Required for video metadata extraction
Connect your video storage: S3, Backblaze, Google Cloud, etc.
Run the FFprobe tool: filefortress tools run --tool ffprobe
Search by video properties: Duration, resolution, codec, and more