How to convert video to images?

Question

How can I convert a video file to a sequence of images, for example one frame every N seconds. Can mplayer or ffmpeg do this? I have used MPlayer to grab screenshots manually but I would like to automate this for a long video.

Answer 1

With ffmpeg, you can do the following:

ffmpeg -ss -4 -i test.avi -s:v 320x240 -frames:v 1 -an test.jpg

This command generates a 320×240 sized JPG thumbnail at the 4th second in the video. Put this in a script that changes the time and file name and you're done.

Long version: Creating video thumbnails using ffmpeg

Answer 2

mplayer -vo jpeg -sstep 5 file.avi

will save a frame as a jpeg file every 5 seconds.

However, it will not stop at the end of the file, it will continue producing copies of the last frame. To avoid this, find the duration of the video in seconds (using another player) and subtract 2, and use this value for the -endposoption. For example, for a 147 second video:

mplayer -vo jpeg -sstep 5 -endpos 145 file.avi

Answer 3

If

$ mplayer -vo help | grep JPEG

finds something, you can use it to dump the video into a sequence of jpg files.

Answer 4

You can skip frames in VirtualDub. Just use "Decimate By" option located at Video -> Frame Rate menu. For example if you set "Decimate By 100" then use File -> Export -> Image sequence, it will save only every 100th frame.

Answer 5

With VLC 1.1.0 and above, you can use the scene video filter:

vlc C:\video\to\process.mp4 --rate=1 --video-filter=scene --vout=dummy --start-time=10 --stop-time=11 --scene-format=png --scene-ratio=24 --scene-prefix=snap --scene-path=C:\path\for\snapshots\ vlc://quit

The above saves 1 out of every 24 frames (--scene-ratio=24), starting at 00:00:10 and ending at 00:00:11.

Just tested and confirmed this works with VLC 2.0.3 on a fresh Windows 8 installation (I have no additional video plugins or software).

Full documentation: http://wiki.videolan.org/How_to_create_thumbnails

Answer 6

You could also try this

from the VLC command line...

vlc "C:\YOUR\file\path\file.avi" -V image --image-out-prefix=capname --image-out-ratio=60

file.avi is the video you want to capture from, capname is the prefix of the saved images, you might want to play around with the ratio (60 means that 1 out of 60 images is captured) You can add more commands, for example --image-out-format jpeg will save your caps as jpegs instead of of pngs, --snapshot-path lets you choose where to save your caps.

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Answer 7

VirtualDub can do this for you

File -> Export -> Image sequence