Ffmpeg python convert video to frames. Includes examples and code snippets.

Ffmpeg python convert video to frames ffmpeg reads from an arbitrary number of inputs (which can be regular files, pipes Dec 29, 2021 · this video is specially made on opencv Python to Extract & capture images from a video file , I use opencv VideoCapture method to Split video frames into image and save in a folder. With CPU encoding, I don't have any problems: ffmpeg -i input -s 224x224 -pix_fmt bgr24 -vcodec rawvideo -an -sn -f image2pipe Jun 22, 2022 · FFmpeg is a very robust tool for different types of media operations, including extracting images from a video. However, we do not want to extract every frame from a video due to: information redundancy in successive video frames. You can still provide a low frame rate for the input, but give a more normal frame rate for the output. stream. ) using FFMPEG with, mkdir frames ffmpeg -i "%1" -r 1 frames/out-%03d. You Can also press the Thanks YouTube Dollar button In this tutorial, we explain how to extract frames of images from videos. jpeg But how can I improve the JPEG image quality? Apr 24, 2015 · Features Makes motion interpolated videos (increase a video's frame rate by rendering intermediate frames based on motion, uses a combination of pixel-warping and blending). 2) to generate a h264 video stream from images produced continuously from a process. png defines the naming pattern for extracted frames. Jan 14, 2016 · 63 I am trying to convert a MP4 video file into a series of jpg images (out-1. In this guide, we explored different methods of splitting videos into frames using Python, including using popular libraries like FFmpeg and a more robust and scalable solution like Cloudinary. We’ll also cover how to tweak things like codecs, resolution, bitrate, and CRF during the conversion process. open to perform stream read/write operations of video and audio Aug 6, 2024 · This blog post will guide you through the process of extracting frames from a video using FFmpeg, a powerful command-line tool for multimedia manipulation. Learn how to get the frame rate of a video using ffmpeg with this easy-to-follow guide. The Python code I am using is below command = [ "ffmpeg", "-ss", str (time), "-i"… There are tons of Python FFmpeg wrappers out there but they seem to lack complex filter support. VideoC-Af is a simple Python based video converter based on top of FFMpeg Multimedia Framework for converting video files from one format to another. We learn how to prepare the images and reference them in the FFmpeg commandline. Note: Changing frame rates requires the video to be re-encoded. Dec 5, 2024 · FFmpeg is a powerful open-source multimedia framework used to handle video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. I tried changing to the -framerate switch and then stripped the command down to only the essentials ffmpeg -i image%05d. See here for a demonstration of what I think you're trying to do, and the arguments to give ffmpeg to do so. Jul 26, 2014 · ffmpeg -r 1/5 -start_number 2 -i img%03d. I've looked on ffmpeg-python and opencv but I didn't find anything that applies to my case. png described here But I want to do it in Python. mp4 -r 1 frame%d. /images/swissGenevaLake%01d. Dec 11, 2024 · We are pleased to officially announce torchcodec, a library for decoding videos into PyTorch tensors. I need to extract frames from the video at 1 FPS. g. Video Frame Extractor Video Frame Extractor is a desktop application developed in Python using PyQt5. When running PyTorch models on videos, torchcodec is our recommended way to turn those videos into data your model can use. Creating a video from images involves combining multiple image frames, each captured at a specific moment in time, into a single video file. May 15, 2019 · Convert Video to Image sequence using ffmpeg. We’ve covered the basics, including how to convert formats, extract audio, trim clips, merge videos, and apply filters. FFmpeg is extremely powerful, but its command-line interface gets really complicated rather quickly - especially when working with Sep 9, 2017 · 1 What is the best way to extract individual yuv frames from a yuv video? Can we use ffmpeg? I'm able to extract individual jpg frames but am struggling to extract individual yuv frames. Fear not! FFmpeg, the swiss army knife of multimedia processing, comes to the rescue. At the end of extraction, there will be 771 images. mp4 output_%03d. ffmpeg -i video. wmv -ss 00:00:20 -t 00:00:1 -s 320×240 -r 1 -f singlejpeg myframe. How can I get the list of all I-frames's frame_number in a video in FFMpeg or Python? I would like to use the list to select only 10 of them and save them as PNG/JPEG. Includes examples and code snippets. May 2, 2025 · Wrapping Up Extracting frames from videos is a common technique with applications ranging from AI and healthcare to entertainment and security. If … This dilemma is intrinsic to ffmpeg, and ffmpeg-python tries to stay out of the way while users may refer to the official ffmpeg documentation as to why certain filters drop audio. I'm attaching below a code snipped I used to combine all png files from a folder called "images" into a video. Leverages interpolated frames to make fluid slow motion videos. Extracting frames from a video is simple using FFmpeg with use-cases - all frames, specific frame, timestamp-based, etc. I want images between different set of duration like between 2-6 seconds, then between 15 FFmpeg is an extremely powerful multimedia tool, but its command-line interface can be complex. The basic syntax for using FFmpeg to merge photos into a video is as follows: Oct 17, 2022 · This tutorial shows you how to extract images from a video using the versatile and open-source FFmpeg command-line tool. In other words, it’s a very fast video and audio converter that you can use to create a simple slideshow out of your still images. In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to create a video from multiple images using Python and OpenCV. Aug 15, 2019 · This function called extract_frames() takes a video path, a path to a frames directory, and a few extras like whether we want to overwrite frames if they already exist, or only do every x many frames. jpg, out-2. Combining FFmpeg with Python enables developers to automate media Sep 20, 2024 · In this article, we will guide you on how to extract a high-quality JPEG image from a video file using ffmpeg, and also provide a Python solution for automation. This process requires: Mar 18, 2024 · $ ffmpeg -i big_buck_bunny_720p_2mb. If you simply want to save a video as a frame-by-frame still image, you can do so with ffmpeg commands, but if you want to do some image processing before saving, Python and OpenCV are useful. Learn how to use FFmpeg in Python for video processing with the ffmpeg-python library. A detailed explanation of how the fps filter in ffmpeg decides to drop/duplicate frames is given in this post. Jul 28, 2023 · In context, "re-encoding" means that the each video frame is decoded into uncompressed video frame, then encoded (compressed) to JPEG image format. You can also use moviepy, opencv, or imageio approaches. The three Jan 4, 2021 · Learn how to create a video from images using FFmpeg in this tutorial. Your Oct 8, 2023 · In the realm of multimedia processing, the capability to convert a video into a series of images proves to be a potent asset. jpg ? Oct 29, 2015 · Have you built opencv with python and ffmpeg as instructed in the tutorial? brew install opencv --python27 --ffmpeg if you are using a different version of Python you will need to change it to your version. Aug 30, 2023 · Integrating FFmpeg's powerful media manipulation capabilities into your Python code becomes easy with the “ffmpeg-python” library. VideoCapture in python to seek to and capture a frame every second, then using PIL to crop the image into two squares. Feb 23, 2024 · Problem Formulation: This article addresses the challenge of converting a sequence of bytes, which represent video data, into a playable video format using Python. The process of JPEG decoding and encoding (re-encoding) is "lossy" (quality is lost), and the output images are different from the input video frames. Whichever one you choose, you can find examples for both below: ImageIO Installation: pip install imageio[ffmpeg] Usage: Reading May 28, 2015 · I want to capture video from a webcam and save it to an mp4 file using opencv. I tried the following command, but it did not work (it seems the number should start from zero): ffmpeg -i test_%d. jpg], and I want to convert them to a video. Example Process the audio and video portions of a stream independently: Feb 20, 2024 · When you want a quick and concise way to transform your NumPy array into a video, ffmpeg-python provides a Pythonic wrapper around ffmpeg’s comprehensive video processing capabilities. Jul 11, 2025 · Creating videos from multiple images is a great way for creating time-lapse videos. Main Features Pure-Python light-weight package interacting with FFmpeg executable found in your system Read, write, filter, and create functions for audio, image, and video data Context-managing ffmpegio. Feb 20, 2015 · Split both the videos into individual frames Compare each frame with the corresponding frame of the ref video using Python Image Lib Count the number of different frames to decide whether they are same. I am trying ffmpeg -r "30" -i "input. May 25, 2023 · Learn how to harness the capabilities of Python and the FFMPEG library to effortlessly extract frames from a video at regular intervals. May 20, 2012 · ffmpeg is complaining about there being a missing %d in the filename because you've asked it to convert multiple frames. If this is the case then use fps Dec 25, 2021 · In order to get enough information from videos, we often need to extract video frames. avi" but it doesn't work Nov 3, 2020 · Unfortunately, I don't think the problem is with the playing in VLC because the file sizes are drastically smaller than they'd need to be for a playable video. mpg -r 1/1 $filename%03d. The output video won't look different than your original command Aug 31, 2020 · I have a video that is 30 fps. The following modified code block illustrates how to achieve this: Jul 22, 2019 · FFMPEG has the ability to extract all frames from a video and save them as images, it also can extract frames at a lower frame rate than the source video. We support In this developer-focused guide, learn how to use the ‘ffmpeg-python’ library to convert video formats in Python. Sep 27, 2013 · This article shows how easy it is to read or write video frames with a few lines of Python, by calling the external software FFMPEG through pipes. My purpose for that is to send the video via HTTP post. video is a shorthand for stream['v']. Convert multiple images into a video slideshow containing audio and transition effects using FFmpeg. I found example code on stackoverflow (below) that works great. system("ffmpeg -f image2 -r 1/5 -i . Each image plays for 5 seconds in the video (because of the argument: -r 1/5). png In the above example, -i is used to provide the input video, -r defines the frame rate for extracting frames in frames per second (here, we’re using a rate of one frame per second), and frame%d. Maximum Efficiency with Video Frames and Python There are various methods for extracting frames from a video in Python, including using OpenCV and MoviePy. I have noticed that different versions of ffmpeg will produce different output file sizes Feb 28, 2016 · I'm trying to write code to extract 16 frames from a video file using ffmpeg (or openCV - open to suggestions) and python but I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out how to get started. Jul 22, 2011 · A complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. Write a script to process a number of frames, say 256, convert them back to a small, temporary video clip, concatenate (append) that with main video file (which will be up all clips concatenated), then loop and do the whole thing again from where you've left off Aug 2, 2023 · Learn to extract frames using FFmpeg. You could consider using an external tool like ffmpeg to merge the images into a movie (see answer here) or you could try to use OpenCv to combine the images into a movie like the example here. This post suggests this would be a better way of using ffmpeg to extract single frames ffmpeg -i n. is higher than the fps value then some frames will be omitted to match the fps value. Jun 29, 2018 · It is quite useful to be able to split a video stream onto a bunch of JPEGs (or whatever). This tutorial delves into a straightforward Python code illustration Jun 1, 2024 · Thanks I am not sure where to specify the path in your for loop but I changed it to python using subprocess and call ffmpeg like this but I am only getting 7 images out of a 5 min video when i specify 60 as frame interval in a 60 fps video, and i didnt see any text printed on the images. Python bindings for FFmpeg - with complex filtering support - kkroening/ffmpeg-python Oct 17, 2016 · how can i convert a video to images using ffmpeg? Example am having a video with total duration 60 seconds. But how can we do the exact reverse thing? I. Now I want to take a video and save it's frames as separate files at some fps. avi Any May 31, 2023 · To save the video with the same size as the source using ffmpeg-python, adjustments need to be made to the code snippet. avi -vf "scale=320:240,fps=25" frames/c01_%04d. Mar 31, 2024 · FFmpeg + Python: Crafting Your Multimedia Masterpieces Introduction Have you ever found yourself struggling to manipulate media files efficiently? Whether it's converting formats, extracting frames, or merging videos, handling multimedia tasks can be a daunting challenge. Is there a faster way to do it than this: ffmpeg -i file. ffmpeg-python works well for simple as well as complex signal graphs. Aug 11, 2025 · Extracting individual frames from a video is a fundamental task in video processing. mp4 This line worked fine but I want to create a video file from images in another folder. In this tutorial, we will be using the FFmpeg command-line tool to extract frames from the video below and save them as JPG/PNG images using several different commands. But maybe there are many I-frames, so probably I have to sample them. /videos/swissGenevaLake. . huge storage space needed by these video frames. Given the input as byte data from a video source, such as a camera feed or a video file, the desired output is a video file that can be played on standard media players. jpg [edit] After a bit more research, here is a command line which works outputing single png frames ffmpeg Jun 9, 2012 · Hi I need to extract frames from videos using ffmpeg. Oct 14, 2024 · You can extract and save video frames with Python using FFMpeg approach which is the fastest. I'm asking myself if there's a way to have this video in a variable that I can easily convert to bytes later. I am aiming to send this stream over websocket connection and decode it to indi How can I convert a video file to a sequence of images, for example one frame every N seconds. The answer by llogan says : Your player does not like 1 fps Many players behave similarly. , having a set of JPEGs, how to build a video stream using ffmpeg-python API? Convert list of images to video with FFMPEG FFmpeg is a powerful command-line tool that can be used to merge photos into a video. The only hitch is that I'm trying to save it as mp4, n Sep 5, 2022 · out. ts. If you want, at the end you can stitch the frames back together into a video that can be used as a video preview or trailer. It is fast, accurate, and easy to use. May 17, 2025 · Main Features Pure-Python light-weight package interacting with FFmpeg executable found in your system Read, write, filter, and create functions for audio, image, and video data Context-managing ffmpegio. HERE IS THE May 25, 2017 · I have opencv and ffmpeg but I don't know how to do it. It provides a simple and convenient way to convert videos into a series of images, which can be useful for various applications such as computer vision, machine learning, data analysis, and more. May 6, 2025 · How to convert images using FFmpeg to create a simple slideshow FFmpeg aims to be the best technical solution for developers who want to use this command line tool to convert multimedia files between formats. May 2, 2021 · It is possible, and relatively simple to seek and extract frames without loading whole movie into memory. ffmpeg will simply duplicate the frames. You'll learn how to extract all frames and specific frames and even control the output format, frame rate, etc. Which one to choose is situation-dependent and it is usually best to use the one you are already more familiar with. The demonstrating code What kind of background are you trying to remove? ffmpeg might be able to do the job. In this post, I want to share how to extract key frames from video to reduce the storage, but still capture enough information from a video. ts, convert it from 30fps to 5fps, and then copy it, any audio and the data streams into a new file called converted. There is some speed-up loss, when the requested frame to seek is not a key frame. You can use it to generate thumbnails for your videos or take a screenshot of the video at any given time. py:run () I can see that the subprocess waits for the ffmpeg to close, would you consider a PR with something like stream () or frames () that uses a generator to yield frames as numpy arrays? Is it possible to use ffmpeg to create a video from a set of sequences, where the number does not start from zero? For example, I have some images [test_100. Image names in my fol Jun 14, 2018 · Now, we will extract a frame as an image for each second of this video file using our python script that uses FFMPEG tool. Jun 16, 2025 · How do you convert images back to video using the same framerate as the original video? @pidgeon777 AFAIK, the frame rate is not saved in the extracted jpg files. 4 days ago · Discover how to integrate FFmpeg into your Python projects using ffmpeg-python. Makes smooth motion videos (simple blending between frames). it is the full frame of the image in a video. mp4 -vf fps=1 img/output%06d. Everything else One of the most time consuming parts of my pipeline is unpacking a video into frames (1 / sec) and then cropping the images into two overlapping squares for feeding into my neural network. To answer your question: there's a better way. 4. Video2Images is a Python script that allows you to extract frames from a video file or multiple video files and save them as individual images. If you are new to both then ImageIO is easier to learn, so it could be a good starting point. When FFmpeg is requested to seek a non-key frame, it seeks to the closest key frame before the requested frame, and decodes all the frames from the key frame to the requested frame. The interface is multilingual, displaying text in English by default, but it automatically adapts to Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, or Russian based on the system language. First install ffmpeg using the following command: sudo apt install ffmpeg import os os. So one has to enter that number on the command line when converting back to video. jpg timelapse. I get the video as a blob from a server - . The frame rate is reported by ffmpeg when extraction is done in the first place. When using ffmpeg to compress a video, I recommend using the libx264 codec, from experience it has given me excellent quality for small video sizes. In this beginner-friendly guide, we’ll cover essential video processing tasks like format conversion, trimming, extracting frames, adding watermarks, and more. In this tutorial, I guide you through downloading and settin Apr 21, 2021 · Extract a set of images (frames) from your video that are evenly spaced throughout using FFMPEG and Python. The number of frames is correct so my output should change from 20 minutes at 30fps to 25 minutes at 24fps. Can I use Apr 11, 2011 · I'm looking for a Python video processing library, similar to PIL, where I can iterate through all the frames of a source video, access the pixel data for each frame, draw onto each frame and save the result as a new video file. Jul 30, 2019 · The frames are extracted using OpenCV's VideoCapture, then each frame is processed independently and the sequence of frames has to be written down to a new video again. Aug 2, 2018 · So I would like to get the I-frames. Nov 25, 2022 · In video coding, I-frame or Intra frame (also known as keyframe) is a picture/frame that is coded independently of all other pictures/frames i. Highlights of torchcodec include: An intuitive decoding API that treats a video file as a Python sequence of frames. May 31, 2024 · I would like to extract a frame from this video using Python, FFmpeg, or any other suitable tool, without using Insta360 Studio to export the video to MP4 first. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets. webm encoded - and have it in python as a b I am trying to use ffmpeg to convert a . Sep 30, 2020 · 3 As far as I understand ffmpeg-python is main package in Python to operate ffmpeg directly. There are plenty of command line ways to do it, e. In this guide, we'll delve deep into Currently I am using this command to extract the images: ffmpeg -i input. mp4") Details: The aforementioned code creates a video from three images file, stored in the images folder. e. mp4 and they both work from the command line but falter being called via python script, this time with . jpg etc. VideoC-AF can take videos of any file format and can convert it to multiple / different formats. Jan 28, 2024 · This is the subject of the post ffmpeg-python outputs black screen when trying to save as mp4. Making two different methods to extract frames from videos with the timestamp with OpenCV or MoviePy libraries in Python. Sep 8, 2025 · Discover how to use FFmpeg with Python in 2025! Learn step-by-step integration, automate video processing, and optimize workflows with this comprehensive guide. jpg, , test_200. Mar 26, 2018 · Join simple filters with a comma: ffmpeg -i video. Can mplayer or ffmpeg do this? I have used MPlayer to grab screenshots manually but I would like to au Jun 30, 2021 · I'm trying to extract frames from video and save them to memory(ram). With OpenCV in Python, we can capture each frame sequentially from a video file or camera stream and save them as separate image files. Nov 16, 2012 · Using ffmpeg to convert a set of images into a video Apr 5, 2016 Original 2012-11-16, Updated 2016-04-05: cleanup and information about overlaying images. Apr 10, 2018 · From reading the _run. Mar 1, 2022 · Eventually I would use Python and module cv (OpenCV) because it can read frame by frame (probably using ffmpeg) from video file (or webcam, or stream) and save frame as image. We explain how to extract frames from mp4 or avi files by using FFmpeg. May 2, 2021 · A library that helps to convert volumetric video data into image frames with adjustable frame capturing rate functionality. jpg -vcodec mpeg4 test. It allows extracting all frames from a video using ffmpeg. I'm using cv2. Mar 13, 2021 · This ffmpeg-pyton command will take that video file input. Learn how to extract frames from long videos using FFmpeg and a simple Python automation script. open to perform stream read/write operations of video and audio Oct 19, 2022 · This article describes how to capture and save frames from video files such as mp4 and avi as still image files with OpenCV in Python. jpg -vcodec mpeg4 -y . The main reason why I created this library is to ease the video to image frames conversion process. png -c:v libx264 -r 30 -pix_fmt yuv420p out. jpeg fps When using the fps filter to extract frames be aware that if the input frame rate: is the same as the fps value then the filter is doing nothing and you can remove it. release() Then the video will be created as video. Learn how to extract frames from a video using FFmpeg. It can read a wide variety of inputs - including live grabbing/recording devices - filter, and transcode them into a plethora of output formats. mp4 and I can access it on memory. How is this possible in Python? I have the below code I got from online but I am not sure if its extracting frames i Yet another easy-to-use tool to extract frames from videos, for deep learning and computer vision. Whether you're using 1 day ago · 1 Synopsis ffmpeg [global_options] { [input_file_options] -i input_url} { [output_file_options] output_url} 2 Description ffmpeg is a universal media converter. Feb 4, 2021 · When the frame rate is changed, ffmpeg will drop or duplicate frames as necessary to achieve the targeted output frame rate. Extract the first frame, a specific frame or a sequence of frames and save them as images. jpg, test_102. open to perform stream read/write operations of video and audio Mar 6, 2020 · I am using python to do some basic image processing, and want to extend it to process a video frame by frame. ffmpeg-python provides a Pythonic way to work with FFmpeg, making video processing easier, more structured, and automation-friendly. I figure this must be something a lot of people deal with so, thought I'd May 2, 2025 · On-the-Fly Transformations: Frames can be resized, cropped, and formatted dynamically without reprocessing the entire video. Currently is under early development so only MP4, WEBM & MP3 are supported. 360 video to image frames. FFmpeg default behavior applies re-encoding (even when the input and the output are both in JPEG Welcome to Coding with Monir! In this tutorial, we dive into the powerful world of FFmpeg to show you how to extract high-quality frames from your videos quickly and easily. Sep 12, 2017 · I am trying to convert a video clip (MP4, yuv420p) from 30 fps to 24 fps. Specifically, the resolution and data rate parameters should be set to match the properties of the source video. Feb 5, 2024 · I'm using python and ffmpeg (4. avi" -vcodec "copy" "output. Main Features Pure-Python light-weight package interacting with FFmpeg executable found in the system Transcode a media file to another in Python Read, write, filter, and create functions for audio, image, and video data Context-managing ffmpegio. Explore the step-by-step process, from leveraging the ffmpeg-python module to extracting frames, and discover how to seamlessly stitch them back together into a dynamic video sequence. - jinyu121/video2frame Jul 31, 2020 · I am working with python in a jupyter notebook, and I am trying to use ffmpeg to specify the start and end images and convert several images from a folder into a single video. Learn to convert formats, extract audio, trim clips, merge streams, apply filters, and build automated media workflows with ease. Why ffmpeg? FFmpeg is widely used because it supports almost all multimedia formats and offers flexibility with its vast set of features. jpg, test_101. jpg However I keep getting errors like, Jul 23, 2025 · There are two libraries you can use: OpenCV and ImageIO. With a few lines of code, you can convert media formats, edit videos, extract audio, and more within your Python applications. I'm Kind of late, But VidGear Python Library's WriteGear API automates the process of pipelining OpenCV frames into FFmpeg on any platform in real-time with Hardware Encoders support and at the same time provides same opencv-python syntax. zqwl yxt yclphm zvldh khvd ezzwo wkwcts vig ogtha ctdsl fczc ocnias cdlzvi kqp ofzx