Has anybody ever come across a file with a .meta extension?
I came across the reference when examining a file usage history in netanalysis. the user had apparently accessed a file ending in .meta in C/Users/<USER>/Videos/RealPlayer Downloads/
I know that is the folder that videos end up in by default when you use real player to download them from a web page but I can't find any references online to a .meta file (other than a Black and White game file) and was wondering if anybody could shed some light on what it might be.
Has anybody ever come across a file with a .meta extension?
Nope. Can't say that I have.
I came across the reference when examining a file usage history in netanalysis. the user had apparently accessed a file ending in .meta in C/Users/<USER>/Videos/RealPlayer Downloads/
Do you know what application was used to access the file? If you do some Registry analysis, you can see that the user accessed the file in their RecentDocs key, and then possibly use the file associations within the Registry to determine the application that is configured by default to access .meta files.
I know that is the folder that videos end up in by default when you use real player to download them from a web page but I can't find any references online to a .meta file (other than a Black and White game file) and was wondering if anybody could shed some light on what it might be.
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.meta doesn't seem to be a supported file/media type for RealPlayer
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What are the contents of the file?
Filext.com only shows a game associated with that file type
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Banjax
It appears that they are a form of control file (think .torrent) that contain data to control the streaming or downloading of a video file. I found this explanation
A metafile is really nothing more than a set of instructions for the media player application. In its simplest form, a metafile exists to do two things It causes the correct streaming media player to launch on the user’s computer, and it tells the player where to go to get the media file it’s supposed to play. A Real .RAM file, a QuickTime reference movie, and a Windows Media .ASX file are all metafiles. When you link to streaming video on your web page, it’s these metafiles that you link to rather than the actual video files themselves. When a user clicks a video link on a web page, the web server responds by sending a content header which contains the mime-type of the requested file. The browser uses the mime-type (rather than filename extensions) to decide which is the correct media player to launch. The content header is followed immediately by the contents of the metafile, which are passed on to the media player. These instructions in the metafile tell the media player how to to open its own connection to the media server to play the video.
The full article can be found here
I found that using "realplayer .meta files" in google retruned the best results.
Stu
Do you know what application was used to access the file? If you do some Registry analysis, you can see that the user accessed the file in their RecentDocs key, and then possibly use the file associations within the Registry to determine the application that is configured by default to access .meta files.
It appears to be set to bring up the open with list rather than any specific program
What are the contents of the file?
I don't actually have the file unfortunately just the reference to it that NetAnalyis' Histex tool pulled out, it just happened to be the only file that got flagged up by my IIOC keyword list
Buster thanks for the link although that seems to be talking about meta files in general and not a .meta file specifically so without the file to examine I can't tell if it is a metafile or just a file with the extension .meta