[php] Generate preview image from Video file?

Is there a way in PHP given a video file (.mov, .mp4) to generate a thumbnail image preview?

I recommend php-ffmpeg library.

Extracting image

You can extract a frame at any timecode using the FFMpeg\Media\Video::frame method.

This code returns a FFMpeg\Media\Frame instance corresponding to the second 42. You can pass any FFMpeg\Coordinate\TimeCode as argument, see dedicated documentation below for more information.

$frame = $video->frame(FFMpeg\Coordinate\TimeCode::fromSeconds(42));
$frame->save('image.jpg');

If you want to extract multiple images from the video, you can use the following filter:

$video
    ->filters()
    ->extractMultipleFrames(FFMpeg\Filters\Video\ExtractMultipleFramesFilter::FRAMERATE_EVERY_10SEC, '/path/to/destination/folder/')
    ->synchronize();

$video
    ->save(new FFMpeg\Format\Video\X264(), '/path/to/new/file');

By default, this will save the frames as jpg images.

You are able to override this using setFrameFileType to save the frames in another format:

$frameFileType = 'jpg'; // either 'jpg', 'jpeg' or 'png'
$filter = new ExtractMultipleFramesFilter($frameRate, $destinationFolder);
$filter->setFrameFileType($frameFileType);

$video->addFilter($filter);

Solution #1 (Older) (not recommended)

Firstly install ffmpeg-php project (http://ffmpeg-php.sourceforge.net/)

And then you can use of this simple code:

<?php
$frame = 10;
$movie = 'test.mp4';
$thumbnail = 'thumbnail.png';

$mov = new ffmpeg_movie($movie);
$frame = $mov->getFrame($frame);
if ($frame) {
    $gd_image = $frame->toGDImage();
    if ($gd_image) {
        imagepng($gd_image, $thumbnail);
        imagedestroy($gd_image);
        echo '<img src="'.$thumbnail.'">';
    }
}
?>

Description: This project use binary extension .so file, It's very old and last update was for 2008. So, maybe don't works with newer version of FFMpeg or PHP.

Solution #2 (Update 2018) (recommended)

Firstly install PHP-FFMpeg project (https://github.com/PHP-FFMpeg/PHP-FFMpeg)
(just run for install: composer require php-ffmpeg/php-ffmpeg)

And then you can use of this simple code:

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$sec = 10;
$movie = 'test.mp4';
$thumbnail = 'thumbnail.png';

$ffmpeg = FFMpeg\FFMpeg::create();
$video = $ffmpeg->open($movie);
$frame = $video->frame(FFMpeg\Coordinate\TimeCode::fromSeconds($sec));
$frame->save($thumbnail);
echo '<img src="'.$thumbnail.'">';

Description: It's newer and more modern project and works with latest version of FFMpeg and PHP. Note that it's required to proc_open() PHP function.

Two ways come to mind:

• Using a command-line tool like the popular ffmpeg, however you will almost always need an own server (or a very nice server administrator / hosting company) to get that

• Using the "screenshoot" plugin for the LongTail Video player that allows the creation of manual screenshots that are then sent to a server-side script.