Create thumbnail from video using ffmpeg

Question

I need to create a thumbnail from video while uploading it to CDN.

I have been searching for this found this but I am not able to get the screen shot even after following steps.

I am using jwplayer for playing video

Can someone help me to create thumbnail while uploading video using ffmpeg

Solution 1

I do not know a way to make a screenshot WHILE uploading, but I do know how to do it after.

The simplest code is:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:01.000 -vframes 1 output.png

Run this script after you have uploaded the file. It should take only a short amount of time if the screenshot is taken in the beginning of the video. (first minute e.g.).

I do not think it is possible to take a screenshot while the file is still being uploaded.

Edit: removed -f image2 as it is guessed correct by ffmpeg

Solution 2

The other answers are fine... but for most "video" content, JPEG is a more space-efficient choice for a thumbnail image. This answer discusses JPEG quality settings.

And often you'll want to specify the thumbnail size - the below command (source) will scale the video down to fit in a 320x320 box (maintaining the aspect ratio by decreasing the smaller edge -- i.e. 320px on the long edge):

ffmpeg -ss 00:00:01.00 -i input.mp4 -vf 'scale=320:320:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease' -vframes 1 output.jpg

Solution 3

According to this documentation https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Seeking and my personal tests you should change places of -ss and -i like this

ffmpeg -ss 00:00:01.000 -i input.mp4 -vframes 1 output.png

The operation will become much faster as no video decoding will be done. Video will be parsed using keyframes instead, which is very fast.

Comments

[llogan]

The format is normally guessed from the output file extension, so -f image2 is not needed here.

[Hitesh]

what is -f image2 ?? here

[drumkruk]

-f is the format of the input/output (normally guessed by ffmpeg) and image2 is the demuxer. See ffmpeg documenation for more info: ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-formats.html#Demuxers @LordNeckbeard removed it from the answer

[llogan]

@hitesh -f image2 is generally used if the output is a variable.

[Hitesh]

where to give output image file path

[drumkruk]

absolute path: foo/bar/output.png

[Suchipi]

If you put -ss before -i, then you won't have to wait for the first minute of frames to go through. However, most decoders can't go to an exact timestamp, so you may end up slightly before your timestamp (eg 00:00:58 instead of 00:01:00).

[Shayan]

What's the $ sign?

[Shayan]

@llogan Do you happen to know what the $ sign means? I googled linux dollar sign, and I found an example: lsattr "$(realpath /etc/resolv.conf)" but I still don't understand why drumkruk is not using parentheses here.

[llogan]

@Shayan It is just a generic placeholder. To be more clear he could have simply used input.mp4. In some languages the $ indicates a variable.

[drumkruk]

@llogan you are right, it was not needed to have the variable there.

[Rizwan Ahmed]

But if shorter than 1sec, what will be?