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Merged
a-essawy merged 2 commits into from
Jul 21, 2026
Merged

docs: trim the ffprobe page #50

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a5d016e
docs: drop the probe-many-files section from the ffprobe page
a-essawy Jul 21, 2026
d113f02
docs: simplify what-comes-back and show the flags in the first example
a-essawy Jul 21, 2026
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53 changes: 5 additions & 48 deletions jobs/ffprobe.mdx
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ const client = createClient({ apiKey: "rb_YOUR_KEY" });

const job = await client.jobs.create({
type: "ffprobe",
params: { command: "https://cdn.rendobar.com/assets/examples/sample.mp4" },
params: { command: "ffprobe -show_format -show_streams https://cdn.rendobar.com/assets/examples/sample.mp4" },
});

const done = await client.jobs.wait(job.id);
Expand All @@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ job = requests.post(
headers=headers,
json={
"type": "ffprobe",
"params": {"command": "https://cdn.rendobar.com/assets/examples/sample.mp4"},
"params": {"command": "ffprobe -show_format -show_streams https://cdn.rendobar.com/assets/examples/sample.mp4"},
},
).json()["data"]

Expand All @@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ curl -X POST "https://api.rendobar.com/jobs" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"type": "ffprobe",
"params": { "command": "https://cdn.rendobar.com/assets/examples/sample.mp4" }
"params": { "command": "ffprobe -show_format -show_streams https://cdn.rendobar.com/assets/examples/sample.mp4" }
}'
# Returns { "data": { "id": "job_...", "status": "waiting" } }.
# Poll GET /jobs/{id} until "status": "complete", then read output.data.
Expand All @@ -94,38 +94,15 @@ A probe is a data job. The answer lands in `output.data`, and `output.file` is `

## What comes back

What you ask for decides what you get. Say nothing and Rendobar fills in the defaults; name your own sections or your own writer and it steps aside.

```mermaid
flowchart TD
cmd["your command"] --> writer{"writer flag?"}
writer -->|none, or json| shows{"any -show_ flag?"}
writer -->|csv, xml, flat| raw["output.data.stdout, raw text"]
shows -->|none| auto["format + streams + chapters, plus summary"]
shows -->|your own| picked["only the sections you named, no summary"]
```

Auto-fill adds only what your command left out:
Your flags are honored. Rendobar fills in only what you left out:

| You didn't pass | Rendobar adds |
|---|---|
| `-v` or `-loglevel` | `-v error` |
| A writer flag (`-of`, `-print_format`, `-output_format`) | `-print_format json` |
| Any `-show_*` flag | `-show_format -show_streams -show_chapters` |

<Warning>
Auto-fill works by category, not by flag. One `-show_*` of your own suppresses the whole trio, so `-show_frames -read_intervals %+#5` returns `frames` and nothing else. Ask for what you want alongside it:

```
-show_frames -show_format -show_streams -read_intervals %+#5 https://cdn.rendobar.com/assets/examples/sample.mp4
```
</Warning>

Everything else passes through untouched. This picks the primary video stream and reads four fields off it:

```
ffprobe -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=codec_name,width,height,r_frame_rate -print_format json https://cdn.rendobar.com/assets/examples/sample.mp4
```
So a bare URL returns `summary`, `format`, `streams`, and `chapters`. Name one `-show_*` yourself and it replaces the whole trio, so `-show_frames -read_intervals %+#5` comes back with `frames` and no `summary`. Pick a writer other than JSON and nothing is parsed at all: ffprobe's text lands in `output.data.stdout`.

Four things are rejected with `VALIDATION_ERROR` before the job is created: `-protocol_whitelist`, `-protocol_blacklist`, shell control characters (`>`, `|`, `;`), and `-o`/`-output_file`. Output always comes back to you and is never written to a file.

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -200,26 +177,6 @@ Every `summary` field name is stable. Write your checks against `summary.kind` a
Max execution time in seconds. Plan caps apply, same as [FFmpeg](/jobs/ffmpeg#parameters). A probe rarely approaches it.
</ParamField>

## Probe many files

One job probes one file. Submit one job per file and let them run together: probes are exempt from your concurrency limit, so they dispatch at once instead of queueing behind your other work.

```ts
const urls = [
"https://cdn.rendobar.com/assets/examples/sample.mp4",
"https://example.com/clip.mov",
"https://example.com/promo.webm",
];

const summaries = await Promise.all(
urls.map(async (url) => {
const job = await client.jobs.create({ type: "ffprobe", params: { command: url } });
const done = await client.jobs.wait(job.id);
return done.output.data.summary;
}),
);
```

## Reading the result

On a JSON run, `output.data` carries `summary` plus every section ffprobe emitted, under ffprobe's own field names:
Expand Down
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