FFMPEG Can't Display The Duration Of a Video

Question

I'm trying to use ffmpeg to capture frames from a video file, but I can't even get the duration of a video. everytime when I try to access it with pFormatCtx->duration I'm getting 0. I know the pointer initialized and contains the correct duration because if I use av_dump_format(pFormatCtx, 0, videoName, 0); then I actually get the duration data along with other information about the video. This is what I get when I use av_dump_format(pFormatCtx, 0, videoName, 0);:

Input #0, avi, from 'futurama.avi':
Duration: 00:21:36.28, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1135 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4 (Advanced Simple Profile), yuv420p, 512x384
[PAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc
Stream #0.1: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 192 kb/s 

I don't understand why av_dump_format can display duration and I can't. I checked the function definition, to display the duration, the function also uses pFormatCtx->duration. It's not just the duration other member variables also don't display the proper data when I call them in main.cpp

Here's my code:

extern "C" {
    #include<libavcodec/avcodec.h>
    #include<libavformat/avformat.h>
    #include<libswscale/swscale.h>
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    AVFormatContext *pFormatCtx = NULL;

    const char videoName[] = "futurama.avi";

    // Register all formats and codecs.
    av_register_all();
    cout << "Opening the video file";
    // Open video file
    int ret = avformat_open_input(&pFormatCtx, videoName, NULL, NULL) != 0;
    if (ret != 0) {
        cout << "Couldn't open the video file." << ret ;
        return -1;
    }
    if(avformat_find_stream_info(pFormatCtx, 0) < 0) {
        cout << "problem with stream info";
        return -1;
    }

    av_dump_format(pFormatCtx, 0, videoName, 0);
    cout << pFormatCtx->bit_rate << endl; // different value each time, not initialized properly.
    cout << pFormatCtx->duration << endl; // 0
    return 0;
}

I don't know if it helps but, I use QtCreator on Ubuntu and linked the libraries statically.

Answer 1

The duration property is in time_base units not milliseconds or seconds. The conversion to milliseconds is pretty easy,

double time_base =  (double)video_stream->time_base.num / (double)video_stream->time_base.den;
double duration = (double)video_stream->duration * time_base * 1000.0;

The duration is now in msec, just take the floor or ceil to get a whole number of msec, whichever you like.