SharpMediaInfo

Cross-platform .NET bindings and GUIs for MediaInfo, with the native library built from source (no runtime downloads), strongly-typed tracks generated at compile time, and desktop apps for Windows (WPF) and every platform (Avalonia).

Repository: https://github.com/simonebortolin/SharpMediaInfo

---

Highlights

• 🧩 Native built from source — mediainfo.dll / libmediainfo.so / libmediainfo.dylib are compiled per RID from the pinned MediaInfoLib submodule (ZenLib statically bundled), so there is no download step and the exact sources are reproducible.
• 🪢 Modern interop — the P/Invoke layer uses [LibraryImport] and marshals strings correctly on every OS (UTF‑16 wide API on Windows, UTF‑8 narrow API on Linux/macOS where wchar_t is 4 bytes).
• 🏗️ Source generators — track classes are generated from MediaInfoLib's own CSV parameter definitions (taken straight from the submodule), with JSON overrides for naming and typing.
• 🖥️ Two GUIs — WPF (Windows, Fluent) and Avalonia (Windows/Linux/macOS), sharing one MVVM core.
• ✅ Tested — unit + integration tests with TUnit; CI builds, tests and packs on Windows, Linux and macOS.
• 🎯 .NET 10 everywhere (the Roslyn source generator targets netstandard2.0), with the target framework centralized in a single Directory.Build.props property.

---

Project layout

Project	Description	TFM
SharpMediaInfo.Native	Native build + P/Invoke ([LibraryImport])	net10.0
SharpMediaInfo	Immutable model, MediaInfoBuilder, typed tracks & value types	net10.0
SharpMediaInfo.Generator	Incremental source generator (CSV → tracks)	netstandard2.0
SharpMediaInfo.GUI	Shared MVVM (ViewModels, services)	net10.0
SharpMediaInfo.GUI.WPF	WPF desktop app (Windows)	net10.0-windows
SharpMediaInfo.GUI.Avalonia	Avalonia desktop app (cross-platform)	net10.0 / net10.0-windows
SharpMediaInfo.*.Tests	TUnit test suites	net10.0
extern/MediaInfoLib, extern/ZenLib, extern/zlib	Pinned native sources (submodules)	—

---

Getting started

Prerequisites

• .NET 10 SDK
• To build the native library (done automatically on first build, per host RID):
  • Windows: Visual Studio with the Desktop development with C++ workload (the build retargets to whatever MSVC toolset is installed).
  • Linux/macOS: cmake and a C++ toolchain (build-essential / Xcode CLT), plus zlib headers.
  • Windows → Linux: a WSL distro with build-essential cmake (the build drives it automatically).

Clone (with submodules)

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/simonebortolin/SharpMediaInfo.git
# or, in an existing clone:
git submodule update --init --recursive

Build

dotnet build

The first build compiles the native library for your current RID from the submodule and caches it under SharpMediaInfo.Native/native/<rid>/; later builds are instant. To (re)build the Linux native from Windows via WSL:

dotnet msbuild SharpMediaInfo.Native -t:BuildNativeLinux

Run the tests

The test projects use TUnit (Microsoft.Testing.Platform), so run them with dotnet run:

dotnet run --project SharpMediaInfo.Tests
dotnet run --project SharpMediaInfo.Native.Tests
dotnet run --project SharpMediaInfo.GUI.Tests

Run the apps

# WPF (Windows)
dotnet run --project SharpMediaInfo.GUI.WPF

# Avalonia (Windows / Linux / macOS)
dotnet run --project SharpMediaInfo.GUI.Avalonia -f net10.0

---

Library usage

using SharpMediaInfo;

var media = MediaInfoBuilder.FromFile("movie.mkv")
    .WithReports()
    .Build();

Console.WriteLine($"Format : {media.General[0].Format}");
Console.WriteLine($"Video  : {media.VideoCount} track(s), Audio: {media.AudioCount} track(s)");
if (media.Video.Count > 0)
    Console.WriteLine($"Codec  : {media.Video[0].Format}");

// Static library information
Console.WriteLine(MediaInfo.LibraryVersion()); // "MediaInfoLib - v26.10"

A stream can be analyzed the same way with MediaInfoBuilder.FromStream(stream).

---

How the native build works

SharpMediaInfo.Native never downloads binaries. On build it runs SharpMediaInfo.Native/build/build-native.ps1 (Windows) or build-native.sh (Linux/macOS), which compile MediaInfoLib from the submodule and drop a single self-contained shared library into native/<rid>/. The MSBuild targets then copy it to runtimes/<rid>/native/ and the DLL-import resolver loads it at runtime. CI builds every RID on its own runner (macOS: one universal build split into osx-arm64 and osx-x64), caches each native by the pinned submodule commits, and assembles the full NuGet package.

Every release on master (and every pull request, as a pr-<N>-… pre-release that is replaced on each push and deleted when the PR closes) ships the NuGet packages plus self-contained desktop apps: Avalonia for win-x64, linux-x64, linux-arm64, osx-arm64 and osx-x64, and WPF for win-x64. Dependabot keeps the GitHub Actions current and Renovate the NuGet dependencies.

RID	Toolchain
win-x64, win-x86, win-arm64	MSVC solution (.sln/.slnx)
linux-x64, linux-arm64	CMake (ZenLib bundled, system zlib)
osx-x64, osx-arm64	CMake (ZenLib bundled; build-native.sh osx builds both from one universal pass)

Versions are pinned in Directory.Build.props (MediaInfoVersion, LibZenVersion); bumping them means updating the submodules to the matching tags. ZenLib has no release after v0.4.41, so it is pinned to the master commit current at the MediaInfoLib release (the MSVC2026 solution needs its Project/MSVC2026 projects). The release version is VersionPrefix in BuildVersion.props: bump it and merging to master tags and publishes vX.Y.Z.

The MediaInfo Bump workflow (.github/workflows/mediainfo-bump.yml) does this automatically once a month: when MediaInfoLib has a newer vYY.MM release it opens a pull request that moves both submodules, MediaInfoVersion, VersionPrefix (YY.M.0) and the README, and starts CI on it. Run it by hand from Actions → MediaInfo Bump → Run workflow (tick dry run to only see the diff).

---

Technology

• MediaInfoLib (native, MIT) built from source with ZenLib and zlib
• CommunityToolkit.Mvvm — source-generated MVVM
• Avalonia UI — cross-platform UI
• Polly — resilient single-instance IPC
• TUnit + Verify — testing and snapshot testing

License

MIT. MediaInfoLib and ZenLib are © MediaArea.net and distributed under their own (BSD-style) licenses.