jhd
14th December 2006, 01:02
I need to automatically create thumbnails for video files at the 25%, 50%, and 75% points. In the past, I've used ffmpeg for this, like:
/ffmpeg -i input_file.mp4 -an -ss 30 -an -r 1 -vframes 1 -y output_file.jpg.
The problem is that ffmpeg seems to scan through the entire file to do this, instead of just jumping to the requested time. So if I was looking for the last frame on a 30 minute movie, and the command ran at real-time, it would take 30 minutes to get that frame.
Needless to say, that's a problem. Is there a way to make ffmpeg a little smarter when it comes to grabbing thumbnails? Is there another command-line tool (that operates on Linux and/or OS X) that can capture thumbnails more quickly?
/ffmpeg -i input_file.mp4 -an -ss 30 -an -r 1 -vframes 1 -y output_file.jpg.
The problem is that ffmpeg seems to scan through the entire file to do this, instead of just jumping to the requested time. So if I was looking for the last frame on a 30 minute movie, and the command ran at real-time, it would take 30 minutes to get that frame.
Needless to say, that's a problem. Is there a way to make ffmpeg a little smarter when it comes to grabbing thumbnails? Is there another command-line tool (that operates on Linux and/or OS X) that can capture thumbnails more quickly?