View source for Talk:VLC HowTo/Make thumbnails

= I would like to know if it is ok to modify the page like this? =

Changes:

I added a linux section, but I'm not sure if it's good or not. Any sugestions?
And this is my very first edit so is more like a test for me to get the handle on things.

What I did try to do was give some more information and change some formatting.

==How to create a thumbnail from a video==

For all those people wanting a thumbnail from a video, use the following command:

(win)
<pre>vlc -V image --start-time 0 --stop-time 1 --image-out-format jpg --image-out-ratio 24 --image-out-prefix snap test.mpg vlc://quit</pre>

===What it does:===

When {{VLC}} runs it 'plays' the video for one second without actually showing the video on screen, and then quits, leaving us with a file named 'snap000000.jpg', containing an image of the first frame of the video.

===How it works:===

First select the image output with: '''-V image''' or '''--vout image'''. 

Next set the interval (in seconds) you want an image from with: '''--start-time 0 --stop-time 1'''
In my example the first second of the video. In that case you could omit the parameter --start-time. If you want an image from the 5th second fill in: '''--start-time 5 --stop-time 6'''

The image format will be .jpg because i provided: '''--image-out-format jpg'''. You could specify '''--image-out-format png''' to get a .png-image instead.

'''--image-out-ratio 24''' specifies we want one image out of 24. In my case the video contains 24 images per second so this is the right value. If your video has more images per seconds you should increase this value to prevend you get more images as one. If the number is too high (for example 500) it still produces only one image, so the actual value is not so important as long as it is higher then the images per second.

'''--image-out-prefix snap''' specifies the filename must start with 'snap'. You can prefix with a path, for example c:\snap and resulting images will be created there.

You can specify '''--image-out-replace'''. In that case Vlc produces the file 'snap.jpg'. This will prevent VLC from creating multiple images.



'''test.mpg''' specifies the video to play and finally '''vlc://quit''' forces vlc to quit when ready.

== Linux ==

=== Fedora===


==== What You Need: ====

* Video: [http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/download/ Big Buck Bunny]      License: [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 3.0]
* [http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ VLC Media Player]                              License: [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL 2.0]

With this two things the operation is the same for linux or windows.

==== Getting Started ====

Using this command in the folder that you download the movie(or you can pass the path to the file in the command line).

<pre>vlc -V image --start-time 13 --stop-time 14 --image-out-format png --image-out-width 128 --image-out-height 128 --image-out-ratio 24 --image-out-prefix thumbnail --image-out-replace big_buck_bunny_1080p_stereo.ogg vlc://quit</pre>

You should get something like this:<br/>

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Vlc_thumbnail_big_buck_bunny.png

Since I downloaded the '''big_buck_bunny_1080p_stereo.ogg''' that is the name of the file that I put in the command line. But you can do it with any video file you want to.<br/>
If the name of the file have spaces just put it in single or double quotes.<br/>
Ex:
'big buck bunny 1080p stereo.ogg' or "big buck bunny 1080p stereo.ogg" or '/home/[username here]/Desktop/big buck bunny 1080p stereo.ogg'

==== What Its Happening? ====

VLC will start playing the movie without the image because the images are not going to the display but to the output file '''"thumbnail"''' with the extension '''PNG''' that VLC created by now in the folder you launched the command in, and it should close after a second into the video(if the video starts from the begning probably VLC didn't recognize the file header see options references for more details), don't be worried if you hear the soundtrack. After that if you look at the folder you will see a new file called "snap.png".

If you want to understand what is going on read the options reference.

==== Options Reference ====

{| class="wikitable"
| '''Option'''
|
| '''Value'''
| '''Default'''
| '''Description'''
| '''Reference'''
|-
| '''Short'''
| '''Long'''
|
|
|
|
|-
| '''-V'''
| '''--vout'''
| image<br/>aa<br/>caca<br/>x11<br/>xvideo<br/>glx<br/>opengl<br/>snapshot<br/>dummy
| Automatically select<br/>the best method available.
| Select the output. This means where to send the video stream to.<br/> Using '''''image''''' as destination means VLC will create a file somewhere.
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/Video_Output Video Output]'''
|-
|
| '''--start-time'''
| integer
|
| Start time.<br/>The stream will start at this position (in seconds).<br/>ps: Beware that if VLC don't reconize the header of the file this doesn't work well.<br/>
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_command-line_help VLC Command Line Help]'''
|-
|
| '''--stop-time'''
| integer
|
| Stop time<br/>The stream will stop at this position (in seconds).<br/>ps: Beware that if VLC don't reconize the header of the file this doesn't work well.
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_command-line_help VLC Command Line Help]'''
|-
|
| '''--image-out-format'''
| png, jpeg
| png
| Choose the image file format for the output destination.
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/image Image video output]'''
|-
|
| '''--image-out-width'''
| integer
| -1
| You can force an image width.<br/>The default '''-1''' will adapt to the video characteristics.<br/>ps: If you don't set this parameter VLC will save the image with its original size.
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/image Image video output]'''
|-
|
| '''--image-out-height'''
| integer
| -1
| You can force the image height.<br/>The default '''-1''' will adapt to the video characteristics.<br/>ps: If you don't set this parameter VLC will save the image with its original size.
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/image Image video output]'''
|-
|
| '''--image-out-ratio'''
| integer
| 3
| Ratio of images to record. 3 means that one image out of three is recorded.<br/>The ratio is calculate based on the framerate of the video so if your video have a framerate of 24 frames per second and you set the --image-out-ratio to 3 you should get 8 image files.<br/>'''ps:''' Beware that if VLC don't reconize the header of the file this doesn't work.<br/>You have to use '''--image-out-replace''' instead.
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/image Image video output]'''
|-
|
| '''--image-out-prefix'''
| string
| img
| Prefix of the output images filenames.<br/>Output filenames will have the [prefix][NUMBER].[Image Format] form (ex: img101.png).<br/>Starting with VLC 0.9.0 you can also use [http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Play_HowTo/Format_String format time and meta variables].
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/image Image video output]'''
|-
|
| '''--image-out-replace'''
|
| disabled
| Always write to the same file. This means that the last image captured will be the one you will see saved.
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/image Image video output]'''
|-
|
| '''vlc://quit'''
|
|
| Special item to quit VLC.<br/>Works with the comand '''cvlc''' too.
| '''[http://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_command-line_help VLC Command Line Help]'''
|}


== Credits: ==
<br/>
[http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/ Big Buck Bunny] was produced by [http://www.blender.org/ Blender Foundation]