Videos have a certain number of frames per second depending on the standard (PAL: 25 and NTSC: 29.7). That's why when we want to view a frame from a paused clip and then take a screenshot of the player, that method usually ends up being a complicated task. For that reason, we thought of you and we're going to present three programs that extract video frames in a simple way.
The platforms allow you to take a specific frame from the video or an interval of frames. You'll only need to provide the output folder and determine the capture format (PNG, BMP, JPG, etc.) so that the environment then performs the process.
Free Video to JPG Converter
We'll start with Free Video to JPG Converter, surely one of the best free platforms for automatically extracting frames from a video. The tool stands out for the following features:
- Extract frames from several videos at the same time.
- Extract all frames in JPG format.
- Extract frames at intervals of 1 second, 2 seconds, 5 seconds, etc.
- Extract a total of 10, 20, 50, 200, 100, 500, and 1000 frames.
The compatible video formats are: MP4, OGG, VOB, WebM, MPG, MTS, etc. The program is available for Windows.
Batch Video To Image Extractor
Batch Video To Image Extractor, without a doubt, is the simplest and most effective program on the list for extracting video frames. Some of its functions are:
- Extract frames in batches from videos.
- Extract all frames from a video or from a specific time.
- Customize the output size of the captures.
- Set the number of frames per second.
- Extract every 10, 20, 50 frames, etc.
- Get a collage of several frames from a video.
The output formats for the captures are JPG, GIF, TGA, TIFF, PNG, PPM, BMP, etc. It's a free program available for Windows.
VLC Media Player
The last platform is VLC Media Player, one of the best multimedia players that exist and also a very good option for capturing video frames. The player has two methods:
- The first one is very simple: the only thing you have to do is play the video and press the “E” key to search for the frame (pressing “E” will advance frame by frame). Then, from the menu, select “Take a snapshot” and you'll store the frame capture.
- The second method is totally automatic. First, select the “Tools” option and click on “Preferences”. In the preferences window, you'll have to click on “All”, located at the bottom left. In the left menu, go to the video options and unfold the “Filters” option.
And in the right-hand box, choose “Scene video filter”. Go back to the left-hand box and, in the expanded Filters options, click on “Scene filter”. There you can leave the default settings, which are very good, or adjust them to your liking (you can manipulate the format, width, height of the capture, and the intervals, among other options). Now when you play the clip, captures of the video frames will be taken.
We hope that with these three options for extracting video frames, you'll have different platforms to take captures in a simple and automatic way.
