How to extract images from a Video using FFmpeg

Extracting images from a video depends upon the frames we are considering per second and then using that frame to output an image. So, here we need to control the frame rate, image format and in case you want a specific resolution of the image, you can do that by setting the frame size which is explained later.

This command is the most basic way of extracting images from a Video.

[shredder12]$ ffmpeg -i inputfile.avi -r 1 -f image2 image-%3d.jpeg

Now, let us see what all these different flags in the above command means.

• -r  This is used to set the frame rate of video. i.e. no. of frames to be extracted into images per second. The default value is 25, using which, would have yielded a large number of images.
• -f  This option defines the format we want to force/use, although removing this option shouldn't  cause any problem.
• image-%3d.jpeg  By %3d, we mean that we want the naming of the image files to be of the format "image-001.jpeg, image-002.jpeg.." and so on. If we had used image-%2d the names would have been image-01.jpeg, image-02.jpeg. You can use any format as per your choice.

We can also define the image size of the extracted images using the -s flag. The default option is to use the image size same as the video resolution.

[shredder12]$ ffmpeg -i inputfile.avi -r 1 -s 4cif -f image2 image-%3d.jpeg

4cif options stands for the frame size 704x576. There are a variety of options that you can use.

Now, if you want to set the duration for which image extraction will take place, you can use the '-t' option to set the duration in seconds.

[shredder12]$ ffmpeg -i inputfile.avi  -r  1  -t  4  image-%d.jpeg

Since, we are forcing 1 frame per second and the duration is only 4 seconds, the images extracted will be 4.

If you want to start the extraction from particular point, say 01:30:14 in the video for a specific duration(40 seconds), you can easily do it using the combination of '-ss' and '-t'. This should do it for you.

[shredder12]$ ffmpeg -i inputfile.avi  -r 1 -t  40 -ss  01:30:14 image-%d.jpeg

You can even set the number of video frames to record using '-vframes' flag.

[shredder12]$ ffmpeg -i inputfile.avi  -r 1 -vframes 120 -ss  01:30:14 image-%d.jpeg

This will record 120 frames of the video starting from 1:30:14 at 1frames per second. So, after 120 seconds, you should have 120 images.