If you've ever had problems playing a media file or reading a particular format, then one way to find out what the problem is is to inspect the codec it is using and its technical data.

MediaInfo Mac is a small but effective tool designed to analyze and give technical data for multimedia files of any kind. MediaInfo Mac can reveal the video and audio codecs used, the settings used for the original encoding, the type of container (AVI, MP4, MKV, etc), and far more technical data that will satisfy those seeking the most minute of details.

The interface is clean and simple and merely requires to you to browse to the file you want to check and click the 'Open File' button. The results are instantaneous, although the list is far longer than most users will need. It would have been useful to have had some way to filter the results to make sure that only the specific details are displayed but I guess it's better to have more info than not enough.

You can export all of the readings to file simply by clicking the 'Export' button. There are several options in the preferences to customize MediaInfo Mac, although most general users will get lost in the jargon. Unfortunately, there is no Help file so the only thing you can do is visit a video help forum recommended by the developer or leave a comment on his blog.

If you've found a media file that won't play in VLC player, then MediaInfo Mac might help you find out why. It's worth noting though, that if VLC Player can't play it, there's probably little you can do with the information it provides anyway.