The invention described herein provides a video analysis tool to assist a computer
programmer working on a program that effects video data. The tool may be integrated
with program code. When enacted, the tool obtains statistical information related
to the video data and information corresponding to functions of the code. The code
may be responsible for encoding, transcoding, and/or decoding video data, for example.
The tool is integrated with a video decoder to allow the information to be output
with raw video data. The present invention is particularly useful for developing,
debugging and analyzing programs responsible for encoding, transcoding, and/or
decoding video data, such as video data compressed according to an MPEG standard.