Converting AVI and MPEG Into Still Images

[D Hill]

On Tue, 13 May 2008 at 13:33 -0600, perrin at apotheon.com confabulated:

> On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 07:22:17PM +0000, D Hill wrote:
>> On Tue, 13 May 2008 at 13:12 -0600, perrin at apotheon.com confabulated:
>>
>>> On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 06:31:53PM +0000, D Hill wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Is there anything in the ports tree I can use to convert AVI and/or MPEG
>>>> videos into individual frames as jpg or a different still graphic format?
>>>
>>> MPlayer should be able to do that.  By the way, AVI is a container
>>> format, not a codec, and most AVIs use MPEG (in my experience) for video
>>> codec.
>>
>> Thanks for the info. I had not realized MPlayer does that. Josh Tolbert
>> also made the same suggestion. I shall pursue figuring out how it's done.
>
> There are at least two frame capture options for MPlayer that can be
> activated during playback -- I've gotten "screenshots" from video in the
> past in this manner, using the option that grabs many frame captures over
> a short period of time so that I could pick from among several to get the
> best image.  There may be other ways to do the same, or something
> similar.
>
> If I remember correctly, using the -vf option when you start MPlayer
> allows you to grab screenshots with the s (for single) or S (for constant
> frame capture) keyboard commands while it's running.  I don't know what
> the GMPlayer interface offers for the same functionality -- never use the
> thing.

Thanks for the tip. I did some Google searching and am actually doing it 
right from a terminal now:

   For the entire AVI:
   mplayer -vo jpeg -nosound my_avi.avi

   Starting from a specific spot:
   mplayer -vo jpeg -ss 00:15:00 -nosound my_avi.avi

   Starting from a specific spot for a number of frames:
   mplayer -frames 150 -vo jpeg -ss 00:15:00 -nosound my_avi.avi