Reading MP3 meta-data from ColdFusion

On friday I posted about how to read the meta-data for Swf (flash) file from ColdFusion and on the same note, I think it will be cool to read the meta-data for MP3 file as well. Here is the specification for MP3 header and it is fairly straight forward to read the header using the spec.

ColdFusion 8 knows how to read MP3 file and it can provide a set of meta-data for it. Though this functionality is not exposed via any tag or function, you can still use it. The meta-data it provides are

• Bit Rate : in kbps
• Frequency : in Hz
• Play duration : in second
• Version : integer
  • 0 - MPEG version 2.5
  • 1 - MPEG version 2
  • 3 - MPEG version 1
• Copy Right : true/false
• Channel mode : integer
  • 0 - Stereo
  • 1 - Joint Stereo
  • 2 - Dual Channel
  • 3 - Mono or Single Channel

Here is an example code.

<cfset mp3File = createObject("java", "coldfusion.util.MP3File").init("C:\music.mp3")>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getBitRate() : #mp3File.getBitRate()# kbps</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getFrequency() : #mp3File.getFrequency()# Hz</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getVersion() : #mp3File.getVersion()#</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getDuration() : #mp3File.getDuration()# Sec</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.isCopyRighted() : #mp3File.isCopyRighted()#</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getChannelMode() : #mp3File.getChannelMode()#</cfoutput><br>

Though you can use the above mentioned class (coldfusion.util.MP3File) without any problem, you must keep it in mind that it is unsupported and *might* change in future. Just a disclaimer !!! :-)

This class does not get you the ID3V1 or ID3V2 meta-data, but it should be easy for you to do it. For ID3V1, all you need to do is to read the last 128 bytes of the mp3 file and you have all the information required. Reading ID3V2 tag is little more involved and there are a number of open source java libraries available (common one being jidlib and jaudiotagger) which can be used.

Reading Flash (Swf) metadata from ColdFusion

Wouldn't it be cool if you could read the meta-data of Swf file in ColdFusion? The most common use case I can think of is to find the dimension of swf movie so that you can set the dimension for the same in object tag while you are embedding the flash movie in your page. And the good news is that you can do that currently in ColdFusion with just 2-3 lines of code!! All you need to do is to create a TagDecoder and decoder the header with it. Here is the complete code.

<cfscript>
  fis = createObject("java", "java.io.FileInputStream").init("C:\test.swf"); // Create the FileInputStream
  decoder = createObject("java", "macromedia.swf.TagDecoder").init(fis); // create TagDecoder
  header = decoder.decodeHeader(); // Decode the header.
  fis.close();
  rect = header.size;
  WriteOutput("
    Is Compressed : #header.compressed#<br>
    Frame Count : #header.framecount#<br>
    Frame rate : #header.rate#<br>
    Version : #header.version#<br>
    Height : #rect.getHeight()#<br>
    Width : #rect.getWidth()#");
</cfscript>

The height and width value that you see here would be in twips which is defined as 1/20 of a point or 1/1440 inch. This means, for a 72 dpi screeen, you will have to divide it by 20 to get the height and width in pixels.