Generate video sprites using just Ffmpeg

Learn how to create video sprites with just FFmpeg — perfect for lightweight video previews.

The following is an example of a video preview of the
Big Buck Bunny
video using a sprite sheet generated from Ffmpeg. Hover over the image to see
the preview change.

Save the following shell script as sprite.sh, and update the permissions so
you can execute it (ie. chmod +x ./sprite.sh).

#! /usr/bin/bash

INPUT=$1
OUTPUT=$2
FRAMES=20


DURATION_S=$(ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 $INPUT)


FPS=$(echo "scale=8; $FRAMES / $DURATION_S" | bc)


ffmpeg \
  -y \
  -i "$INPUT" \
  -frames 1 \
  -q:v 2 \
  -filter_complex "fps=$FPS,pad=width=max(iw\,ih*(16/9)):height=ow/(16/9):x=(ow-iw)/2:y=(oh-ih)/2,scale=-1:135:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,tile=1x$FRAMES" \
  $OUTPUT

You can then run the script as follows:

./sprite.sh yourvideo.mp4 yourvideospritesheet.png

The ffmpeg command can be explained as follows:

• -y Override any existing output.

• -i "$INPUT" The input file.

• -frames 1 Only output a single image (one frame).

• -q:v 2 Ouput quality, 0 is the best.

• -filter_complex That’s where all the magic happens.

  • fps=$FPS Set the desired FPS to extract the 20 frames from the entire
    length of the video.
  • pad=width=max(iw\,ih*(16/9)):height=ow/(16/9):x=(ow-iw)/2:y=(oh-ih)/2 This
    pads the frame into a 16:9 aspect ratio and centres it.
  • scale=-1:135:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease This scales the frame
    down to 240×135.
  • tile=1x$FRAMES Finally we tile our output vertically into this grid, 1
    frame across, 20 frames down.

The final output image look as follows. Once combined with some basic CSS and
JS, the scrubbing preview seen at the start of this article can be achieved.

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