Python - Extracting and Saving Video Frames

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 cv2vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture('big_buck_bunny_720p_5mb.mp4')success,image = vidcap.read()count = 0while 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?

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 sysimport argparseimport cv2print(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 + 1if __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)

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 cv2import timeimport osdef 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))            breakif __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.