Python - Extracting and Saving Video Frames

Question

So I've followed this tutorial but it doesn't seem to do anything. Simply nothing. It waits a few seconds and closes the program. What is wrong with this code?

import cv2
vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture('Compton.mp4')
success,image = vidcap.read()
count = 0
success = True
while success:
  success,image = vidcap.read()
  cv2.imwrite("frame%d.jpg" % count, image)     # save frame as JPEG file
  if cv2.waitKey(10) == 27:                     # exit if Escape is hit
      break
  count += 1

Also, in the comments it says that this limits the frames to 1000? Why?

EDIT: I tried doing success = True first but that didn't help. It only created one image that was 0 bytes.

Answer 1

From here download this video so we have the same video file for the test. Make sure to have that mp4 file in the same directory of your python code. Then also make sure to run the python interpreter from the same directory.

Then modify the code, ditch waitKey that's wasting time also without a window it cannot capture the keyboard events. Also we print the success value to make sure it's reading the frames successfully.

import cv2
vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture('big_buck_bunny_720p_5mb.mp4')
success,image = vidcap.read()
count = 0
while success:
  cv2.imwrite("frame%d.jpg" % count, image)     # save frame as JPEG file      
  success,image = vidcap.read()
  print('Read a new frame: ', success)
  count += 1

How does that go?

Answer 2

To extend on this question (& answer by @user2700065) for a slightly different cases, if anyone does not want to extract every frame but wants to extract frame every one second. So a 1-minute video will give 60 frames(images).

import sys
import argparse

import cv2
print(cv2.__version__)

def extractImages(pathIn, pathOut):
    count = 0
    vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture(pathIn)
    success,image = vidcap.read()
    success = True
    while success:
        vidcap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_POS_MSEC,(count*1000))    # added this line 
        success,image = vidcap.read()
        print ('Read a new frame: ', success)
        cv2.imwrite( pathOut + "\\frame%d.jpg" % count, image)     # save frame as JPEG file
        count = count + 1

if __name__=="__main__":
    a = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    a.add_argument("--pathIn", help="path to video")
    a.add_argument("--pathOut", help="path to images")
    args = a.parse_args()
    print(args)
    extractImages(args.pathIn, args.pathOut)

Answer 3

This is Function which will convert most of the video formats to number of frames there are in the video. It works on Python3 with OpenCV 3+

import cv2
import time
import os

def video_to_frames(input_loc, output_loc):
    """Function to extract frames from input video file
    and save them as separate frames in an output directory.
    Args:
        input_loc: Input video file.
        output_loc: Output directory to save the frames.
    Returns:
        None
    """
    try:
        os.mkdir(output_loc)
    except OSError:
        pass
    # Log the time
    time_start = time.time()
    # Start capturing the feed
    cap = cv2.VideoCapture(input_loc)
    # Find the number of frames
    video_length = int(cap.get(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_COUNT)) - 1
    print ("Number of frames: ", video_length)
    count = 0
    print ("Converting video..\n")
    # Start converting the video
    while cap.isOpened():
        # Extract the frame
        ret, frame = cap.read()
        if not ret:
            continue
        # Write the results back to output location.
        cv2.imwrite(output_loc + "/%#05d.jpg" % (count+1), frame)
        count = count + 1
        # If there are no more frames left
        if (count > (video_length-1)):
            # Log the time again
            time_end = time.time()
            # Release the feed
            cap.release()
            # Print stats
            print ("Done extracting frames.\n%d frames extracted" % count)
            print ("It took %d seconds forconversion." % (time_end-time_start))
            break

if __name__=="__main__":

    input_loc = '/path/to/video/00009.MTS'
    output_loc = '/path/to/output/frames/'
    video_to_frames(input_loc, output_loc)

It supports .mts and normal files like .mp4 and .avi. Tried and Tested on .mts files. Works like a Charm.

Answer 4

This is a tweak from previous answer for python 3.x from @GShocked, I would post it to the comment, but dont have enough reputation

import sys
import argparse

import cv2
print(cv2.__version__)

def extractImages(pathIn, pathOut):
    vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture(pathIn)
    success,image = vidcap.read()
    count = 0
    success = True
    while success:
      success,image = vidcap.read()
      print ('Read a new frame: ', success)
      cv2.imwrite( pathOut + "\\frame%d.jpg" % count, image)     # save frame as JPEG file
      count += 1

if __name__=="__main__":
    print("aba")
    a = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    a.add_argument("--pathIn", help="path to video")
    a.add_argument("--pathOut", help="path to images")
    args = a.parse_args()
    print(args)
    extractImages(args.pathIn, args.pathOut)

Answer 5

After a lot of research on how to convert frames to video I have created this function hope this helps. We require opencv for this:

import cv2
import numpy as np
import os

def frames_to_video(inputpath,outputpath,fps):
   image_array = []
   files = [f for f in os.listdir(inputpath) if isfile(join(inputpath, f))]
   files.sort(key = lambda x: int(x[5:-4]))
   for i in range(len(files)):
       img = cv2.imread(inputpath + files[i])
       size =  (img.shape[1],img.shape[0])
       img = cv2.resize(img,size)
       image_array.append(img)
   fourcc = cv2.VideoWriter_fourcc('D', 'I', 'V', 'X')
   out = cv2.VideoWriter(outputpath,fourcc, fps, size)
   for i in range(len(image_array)):
       out.write(image_array[i])
   out.release()


inputpath = 'folder path'
outpath =  'video file path/video.mp4'
fps = 29
frames_to_video(inputpath,outpath,fps)

change the value of fps(frames per second),input folder path and output folder path according to your own local locations

Answer 6

The previous answers have lost the first frame. And it will be nice to store the images in a folder.

# create a folder to store extracted images
import os
folder = 'test'  
os.mkdir(folder)
# use opencv to do the job
import cv2
print(cv2.__version__)  # my version is 3.1.0
vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture('test_video.mp4')
count = 0
while True:
    success,image = vidcap.read()
    if not success:
        break
    cv2.imwrite(os.path.join(folder,"frame{:d}.jpg".format(count)), image)     # save frame as JPEG file
    count += 1
print("{} images are extacted in {}.".format(count,folder))

By the way, you can check the frame rate by VLC. Go to windows -> media information -> codec details

Answer 7

This code extract frames from the video and save the frames in .jpg formate

import cv2
import numpy as np
import os

# set video file path of input video with name and extension
vid = cv2.VideoCapture('VideoPath')


if not os.path.exists('images'):
    os.makedirs('images')

#for frame identity
index = 0
while(True):
    # Extract images
    ret, frame = vid.read()
    # end of frames
    if not ret: 
        break
    # Saves images
    name = './images/frame' + str(index) + '.jpg'
    print ('Creating...' + name)
    cv2.imwrite(name, frame)

    # next frame
    index += 1

Answer 8

In 2022 you also have the option to use ImageIO to do this, which IMHO is much more hasslefree and readable.

import imageio.v3 as iio

for idx, frame in enumerate(iio.imiter("imageio:cockatoo.mp4")):
    iio.imwrite(f"extracted_images/frame{idx:03d}.jpg", frame)

Sidenote 1: "imageio:cockatoo.mp4" is a standard image provided by ImageIO for testing and demonstration purposes. You can simply replace it with "path/to/your/video.mp4".

Sidenote 2: You will have to install one of ImageIO's optional dependencies to read video data, which can be done via pip install imageio-ffmpeg or pip install av.

---

You can time this against OpenCV and you will find that, there isn't that much to gain from OpenCV on this front either:

Read-Only Timings
=================
OpenCV:         0.453
imageio_ffmpeg: 0.765
imageio_pyav:   0.272

Read + Write Timings
====================
OpenCV:         3.237
imageio_ffmpeg: 1.597
imageio_pyav:   1.506

By default, OpenCV and ImageIO+av are about equally fast when reading. Both direct bind into the FFmpeg libraries under the hood so this is rather unsurprising. However, ImageIO allows you to tweak FFmpeg's default threadding model (thread_type="FRAME") which is much faster when bulk reading.

More importantly, ImageIO is much faster at writing JPEG compared to OpenCV. This is because pillow is faster than OpenCV here which ImageIO capitalizes on. Writing images dominates runtime for this scenario, so you end up with an overall 2x improvement when using ImageIO instead of OpenCV.

Here is the code for reference:

import imageio.v3 as iio
import cv2
import timeit
from pathlib import Path

# create a common local file for benchmarking
video_file = "shared_video.mp4"

if not Path(video_file).exists():
    frames = iio.imread("imageio:cockatoo.mp4")
    meta = iio.immeta("imageio:cockatoo.mp4", exclude_applied=False)
    iio.imwrite(video_file, frames, fps=meta["fps"])

repeats = 10


def read_cv2():
    vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture(video_file)
    success, image = vidcap.read()
    idx = 0
    while success:
        cv2.imwrite(f"extracted_images/frame{idx:03d}.jpg", image)
        success, image = vidcap.read()
        idx += 1


def read_imageio_ffmpeg():
    for idx, frame in enumerate(iio.imiter(video_file, plugin="FFMPEG")):
        iio.imwrite(f"extracted_images/frame{idx:03d}.jpg", frame)


def read_imageio_pyav():
    for idx, frame in enumerate(
        iio.imiter(video_file, plugin="pyav", format="rgb24", thread_type="FRAME")
    ):
        iio.imwrite(f"extracted_images/frame{idx:03d}.jpg", frame)


time_cv2 = (
    timeit.timeit("read_cv2()", setup="from __main__ import read_cv2", number=repeats)
    / repeats
)
time_imageio_ffmpeg = (
    timeit.timeit(
        "read_imageio_ffmpeg()",
        setup="from __main__ import read_imageio_ffmpeg",
        number=repeats,
    )
    / repeats
)
time_imageio_pyav = (
    timeit.timeit(
        "read_imageio_pyav()",
        setup="from __main__ import read_imageio_pyav",
        number=repeats,
    )
    / repeats
)

print(
    f"""
Timings
=======
OpenCV:         {time_cv2:<3.3f}
imageio_ffmpeg: {time_imageio_ffmpeg:<3.3f}
imageio_pyav:   {time_imageio_pyav:<3.3f}
"""
)

Answer 9

Following script will extract frames every half a second of all videos in folder. (Works on python 3.7)

import cv2
import os
listing = os.listdir(r'D:/Images/AllVideos')
count=1
for vid in listing:
    vid = r"D:/Images/AllVideos/"+vid
    vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture(vid)
    def getFrame(sec):
        vidcap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_POS_MSEC,sec*1000)
        hasFrames,image = vidcap.read()
        if hasFrames:
            cv2.imwrite("D:/Images/Frames/image"+str(count)+".jpg", image) # Save frame as JPG file
        return hasFrames
    sec = 0
    frameRate = 0.5 # Change this number to 1 for each 1 second
    
    success = getFrame(sec)
    while success:
        count = count + 1
        sec = sec + frameRate
        sec = round(sec, 2)
        success = getFrame(sec)

Answer 10

This function extracts images from video with 1 fps, IN ADDITION it identifies the last frame and stops reading also:

import cv2
import numpy as np

def extract_image_one_fps(video_source_path):

    vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture(video_source_path)
    count = 0
    success = True
    while success:
      vidcap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_POS_MSEC,(count*1000))      
      success,image = vidcap.read()

      ## Stop when last frame is identified
      image_last = cv2.imread("frame{}.png".format(count-1))
      if np.array_equal(image,image_last):
          break

      cv2.imwrite("frame%d.png" % count, image)     # save frame as PNG file
      print '{}.sec reading a new frame: {} '.format(count,success)
      count += 1

Answer 11

I am using Python via Anaconda's Spyder software. Using the original code listed in the question of this thread by @Gshocked, the code does not work (the python won't read the mp4 file). So I downloaded OpenCV 3.2 and copied "opencv_ffmpeg320.dll" and "opencv_ffmpeg320_64.dll" from the "bin" folder. I pasted both of these dll files to Anaconda's "Dlls" folder.

Anaconda also has a "pckgs" folder...I copied and pasted the entire "OpenCV 3.2" folder that I downloaded to the Anaconda "pckgs" folder.

Finally, Anaconda has a "Library" folder which has a "bin" subfolder. I pasted the "opencv_ffmpeg320.dll" and "opencv_ffmpeg320_64.dll" files to that folder.

After closing and restarting Spyder, the code worked. I'm not sure which of the three methods worked, and I'm too lazy to go back and figure it out. But it works so, cheers!

Answer 12

i might be late here but you can use this pip package to quickly generate images from videos. You can also get images using specific fps.

pip install videoToImages

then type the following command in terminal

videoToimages --videoFolder [pathToVideosFolder]

Example: videoToimages --videoFolder "c:/videos"

for specific output fps , set --fps 10 to any required value. --fps 1 means one image per one second of the video.

Full commands:

• videoToimages --videoFolder "c:/videos"

• videoToimages --videoFolder "c:/videos" --fps 10 --img_size (512, 512)

Answer 13

This code is simple and guarantees reliable execution.

# path of video file
video_path = "path/to/video.mp4"

# Open video file
video = cv2.VideoCapture(video_path)

# number of frames in video
frame_count = int(video.get(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_COUNT))

# Convert frame to image and save to file
for i in range(frame_count):
    ret, frame = video.read()
    if ret:
        image_path = f"path/to/image_{i}.jpg"
        cv2.imwrite(image_path, frame)

# Close video file
video.release()

Answer 14

There are several reasons to extract slides/frames from a video presentation, especially in the case of education or conference related videos. It allows you to access the study notes without watching the whole video. I have faced this issue several times, so I decided to create a solution for it myself using python. I have made the code open-source, you can easily set up this tool and run it in few simple steps. Refer to this for youtube video tutorial. Steps on how to use this tool.

• Clone this project video2pdfslides
• Set up your environment by running "pip install -r requirements.txt"
• Copy your video path
• Run "python video2pdfslides.py <video_path>" Boom! the pdf slides will be available in in output folder Make notes and enjoy!