Get duration (optional)

Get duration using ffprobe. This is an optional step but is helpful if you will be scripting or automating the next commands.

ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 input.mp4

Example result:

60.000000

Output one frame every 5 seconds

Using the select filter:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "select='not(mod(t,5))',setpts=N/FRAME_RATE/TB" output_%04d.jpg

or

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "select='not(mod(t,5))'" -vsync vfr output_%04d.jpg

• Files will be named output_0001.jpg, output_0002.jpg, output_0003.jpg, etc. See image muxer documentation for more info and options.

• To adjust JPEG quality see How can I extract a good quality JPEG image from a video with ffmpeg?

Output specific number of equally spaced frames

This will output 12 frames from a 60 second duration input:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "select='not(mod(t,60/12))'" -vsync vfr output_%04d.jpg

You must manually enter the duration of the input (shown as 60 in the example above). See an automatic method immediately below.

Using ffprobe to automatically provide duration value

Bash example:

input=input.mp4; ffmpeg -i "$input" -vf "select='not(mod(t,$(ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 $input)/12))'" -vsync vfr output_%04d.jpg

With scale filter

Example using the scale filter:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "select='not(mod(t,60/12))',scale=120:-1" -vsync vfr output_%04d.jpg

$ffmpegPath = exec('which ffmpeg'); $ffprobePath = exec('which ffprobe');

$command = "$ffprobePath -v error -show_entries format=duration -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 $input_video"; $video_duration = shell_exec($command);

$thumbnails_output = 'output%02d.png'; $command = "$ffmpegPath -i $input_video -vf fps=3/$video_duration $thumbnails_output"; shell_exec($command);