How to create a video from images using FFmpeg?

Question

Is it possible to use ffmpeg create a video from a set of sequences, where the number does not start from zero?

For example, I have some images [test_100.jpg, test_101.jpg, test_102.jpg, ..., test_200.jpg], and I want to convert them to a video. I tried the following command, but it didn't work (it seems the number should start from zero):

ffmpeg -i test_%d.jpg -vcodec mpeg4 test.avi

Any advise?

Answer 1

There is no need to rename files if using the -start_number switch like so:

ffmpeg -start_number n -i test_%d.jpg -vcodec mpeg4 test.avi

where n is the start of the sequence of stills.

Note, this will work as long as the sequence is unbroken once it starts. If there are gaps and you want all of the stills included, then renumbering may be necessary to fill the gaps.

There are some other switches you might find useful.

I use the following one liner to get a slower frame rate and to compress the images and have a smaller resulting video:

ffmpeg.exe -f image2 -framerate 25 -pattern_type sequence -start_number 1234 
        -r 3 -i Imgp%04d.jpg -s 720x480 test.avi

The -r 3 option sets the framerate of the resulting video to 3 frames per second so that I can see each still for a short period of time. The -s option rescales the pictures to the desired resolution to manage the size of the resulting video.

(In the Windows shell, replace -i Imgp%04d.jpg with -i "Imgp%%04d.jpg". Credit for this to Mike Fitzpatrick https://superuser.com/a/344178/153054)

Answer 2

you can use this below code snippet:

 cat *.jpg | ffmpeg -f image2pipe -r 1 -vcodec mjpeg -i - -vcodec libx264 out.mp4

Answer 3

You can find an example script in the ffmpeg documentation:

3.2 How do I encode single pictures into movies?

If you have large number of pictures to rename, you can use the following command to ease the burden. The command, using the bourne shell syntax, symbolically links all files in the current directory that match *jpg to the /tmp' directory in the sequence ofimg001.jpg', `img002.jpg' and so on.

x=1; for i in *jpg; do counter=$(printf %03d $x); ln "$i" /tmp/img"$counter".jpg; x=$(($x+1)); done

Then run:

ffmpeg -f image2 -i /tmp/img%03d.jpg /tmp/a.mpg

Answer 4

As far as I know, you cannot start the sequence in random numbers (I don't remember if you should start it at 0 or 1), plus, it cannot have gaps, if it does, ffmpeg will assume the sequence is over and stop adding more images.

Also, as stated in the comments to my answer, remember you need to specify the width of your index. Like:

image%03d.jpg

And if you use a %03d index type, you need to pad your filenames with 0, like :

image001.jpg image002.jpg image003.jpg

etc.

Answer 5

From ffmpeg's docs:

Using a glob pattern

ffmpeg also supports bash-style globbing (* represents any number of any characters).

This is useful if your images are sequential but not necessarily in a numerically sequential order as in the previous examples.

ffmpeg -r 1 -pattern_type glob -i 'test_*.jpg' -c:v libx264 out.mp4

So, as long as your files are sorted, using the -pattern_type glob switch should work for you.

Answer 6

I agree with Francisco, but as a workaround you could just write a quick script to move or create symbolic links to the files with the sequence numbers that ffmpeg needs. The script could then call ffmpeg and then remove the links or move the files back to their original locations.

Answer 7

look up

x=1; for i in *jpg; do counter=$(printf %03d $x); ln "$i"
/tmp/img"$counter".jpg; x=$(($x+1)); done

Answer 8

I used the flv encoder since my video was going in a flash player (Jwplayer)

ffmpeg -i %d.jpg -vcodec flv test.flv

Answer 9

You can do this with convert -morph:

convert *.jpg -delay 10 -morph 10 %05d.jpg

Answer 10

From the documentation, it seems you can simply use *

For example, for creating a video from filenames matching the glob pattern foo-*.jpeg:

ffmpeg -f image2 -pattern_type glob -framerate 12 -i 'foo-*.jpeg' -s WxH foo.avi

As a note, to improve affect the quality, the rate/fps might be important (eg, first specifying very low/high frame rate and then pass from a second filter that will make the slow motion video to normal?)

Answer 11

I know this is an old question but I came across it in Google while looking for the same answer. None of the answers here satisfied me completely so I did more searching and reading and this is a command that I came up with for my own problem.

cat {0032..1501}*.png | ffmpeg -f image2pipe -framerate 5 -i - -s 720x480 test2.avi

The reason why i'd use a command like this is...

1. Cat and -f image2pipe give you finer control over what images you use. For example it allows you to use bash features like bracket expansion and other commands like grep to fine-tune your results should you choose.
2. Fewer switches to remember.
3. I recommend NOT using -r, and just use -framerate instead. In my experience -r tends to drop frames more often.
4. Less complex, no unnecessary switches in use and it will work as-is. You may add more complexity (for example, specifying encoder) and fine tune to suit your needs.

Answer 12

In my case, it was a little trickier because of the numbers in the files. Here's how my images look like:

$ ls | head -5
2014_aq_unprocessed 001.jpg
2014_aq_unprocessed 002.jpg
2014_aq_unprocessed 003.jpg
2014_aq_unprocessed 004.jpg
2014_aq_unprocessed 005.jpg

and here's the command I used:

ffmpeg -i 2014_aq_unprocessed\ %3d.jpg  -vcodec mpeg4 test.avi