Video::Info is a factory class for working with video files. When you create a new Video::Info object, something like this will happen: 1) open file, determine type. See Video::Info::Magic. 2) attempt to create object of appropriate class (ie, MPEG::Info for MPEG files, RIFF::Info for AVI files). 3) Probe the file for various attributes 4) return the created object, or a Video::Info object if the appropriate class is unavailable. WWW: http://search.cpan.org/dist/Video-Info/