Using Open Source to Create a Video Thumbnails Service

[mv4]

With a service like that, it helps to have scene detection capabilities as well - so you don't end up having to look at lots of very similar looking thumbnails. So - as opposed to extracting frames at pre-set intervals, extract them when things sufficiently change in the video. That also lets you vary extraction interval between fast action and static talking head-type scenes.

We've done a lot of similar work, will be happy to compare notes.

https://twitter.com/iTrendTV/status/814543110399229952

[contingencies]

when things sufficiently change in the video

This should frequently intersect with keyframes for decent/VBR encoded video, if I'm not mistaken.

[flavioribeiro]

that's awesome, would love to know more details about the stuff you guys are doing!

[ju-st]

Should have used an image thumbnailing service for the blog post (15MB of embedded images)

[NKCSS]

> We decided not to open source Lumberjack. At the end of the day the whole project is just some business logics around the open source projects I mentioned on this post.

:-/

[flavioribeiro]

once we fix caching and improve the nginx locations I'll make sure to release under github.com/nytimes but you'll see that there's no much going on over there, just some config files and the lua app. :)

[kiloreux]

As retarded as this question could be? Why not just use Ffmpeg? It's the ultimate tool for such tasks.

[FroshKiller]

Please don't use the word "retarded" like this. If you suspect you're asking a question with an obvious answer that you've missed, try saying "forgive my ignorance" instead.

There's nothing wrong with asking questions without self-deprecation, but if you're going to self-deprecate, try not to use hurtful language.

[corobo]

Purely curiosity at this point - it was something I wanted for a project a while back that has been retired - does anyone here know of the best way to get a good thumbnail from a video using ffmpeg?

I think back then I was looking to take 5-10 snaps somewhere between the 30-50% mark and then use the largest (I guess in theory more detail - not a blank frame) image

Does anyone have a better way, or even just know how to pull a snapshot at "30%" using ffmpeg? I think at the time I used outside code and ffprobe to figure out where 30% is, there's bound to be a better way than that

[detaro]

It uses Ffmpeg for the video processing bits.

[NicoJuicy]

Indeed, I did this in the past through ffmpeg. Great tool!

[flavioribeiro]

If you look at the thumbnails extractor, it calls libav methods that are essentially the core of ffmpeg. One of goal of this service is so journalists and editors can easily play and create thumbnails without command lines and terminals :)

[nsebban]

Your question is not retarded at all. FFMpeg IS the best tool to build a Thumbnail extraction service.

Over-engineering is sometimes quite fun, though.