Remove anti-piracy XML in media (.mp4,.mkv) files using ffmpeg, mkvproedit

Here’s a cross-platform cleanup script (anti-anti-piracy) to sanitize .mp4 and .mkv video files by:

• Removing all metadata (title, album, creation_time, etc.)
• Stripping attachments (fonts, XML, logos)
• Avoiding re-encoding (safe & fast)
• Renaming output with .cleaned suffix

✅ Prerequisites

You’ll need:

• ffmpeg
• mkvpropedit (for .mkv only — optional)

🖥️ For Windows: install via Chocolatey:

choco install ffmpeg mkvtoolnix

🐧 For Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt install ffmpeg mkvtoolnix mkvtoolnix-gui

🧰 Shell Script: clean_media.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Clean .mp4 and .mkv files in current directory

shopt -s nullglob
for file in *.mp4 *.mkv; do
    ext="${file##*.}"
    base="${file%.*}"
    out="${base}.cleaned.${ext}"

    echo "Cleaning: $file → $out"

    if [[ "$ext" == "mp4" ]]; then
        ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel error \
            -i "$file" \
            -map 0 -c copy \
            -map_metadata -1 \
            -metadata creation_time= \
            "$out"

    elif [[ "$ext" == "mkv" ]]; then
        ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel error \
            -i "$file" \
            -map 0 -map -0:t \
            -c copy \
            -map_metadata -1 \
            -metadata creation_time= \
            "$out"

        # Optional: clean tags and attachments more deeply
        if command -v mkvpropedit >/dev/null 2>&1; then
            mkvpropedit "$out" \
                --tags all: \
                --edit info --delete title \
                --delete-attachments all
        fi
    fi
done

🧪 Example Before vs After

Before

• Metadata: ©nam, ©alb, title, creation_time, etc.
• Attachments: font.ttf, logo.jpg, tracking XML
• Tags: <plist>, site names (getwsodo.com, etc.)

After

• All metadata removed
• Attachments deleted
• No visible tags in ffprobe or mkvinfo

🛡️ Final Tip: Always Test on Copies First!

• Some media players (e.g., Plex) rely on metadata like title or chapter info.
• Cleaned videos will play fine but may lose cosmetic info.