try
tell application "Finder"
set sel to selection as alias list
if sel ≠ {} then
set fSel to first item of sel
end if
end tell
set fSel to quoted form of (POSIX path of fSel)
set cmd to "mdls " & fSel
do shell script cmd
on error errMsg number errNum
set {cr, sep} to {return, "------------------------------------------"}
set e to sep & cr & "Error: " & errMsg & cr & sep & cr & "Error Number: " & errNum & cr & sep
beep
display dialog e
end try
It provides pretty good info for filetypes it understands. It doesn't seem to particularly like .flv files, but that's all I know off offhand.