Generate Thumbnail Containers from Videos like YouTube

This repository is a comprehensive guide on the crucial process of generating thumbnail containers from videos. In recent years, numerous methods have been developed to enhance the demanding timeline manipulation for video browsing. One of the most widely used techniques for web-based video players is the utilization of lightweight thumbnail containers. These containers allow users to swiftly navigate through the video player and get an instant preview of a lengthy video by viewing the thumbnail preview in the web player interface. Due to their ease of integration and navigation in web-based video players, many renowned video-on-demand (VoD) streaming platforms have incorporated them into their end-user video players REF.

Orientation of thumbnails on a single thumbnail container image (left), and the thumbnail usage for instant preview in the client web-based YouTube video player (right).

Installation

1. Clone the repo by using the following command.

   git clone https://github.com/iamgmujtaba/vid2tc.git
   cd vid2tc
   

2. Create a conda environment and install packages.

   conda create -n vid2tc python=3.8 -y
   conda activate vid2tc
   

3. To install dependencies using pip, please type the command.

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

Usage

python .\main.py -h

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -i INP_PATH, --inp_path INP_PATH   Input videos path
  -o OUT_PATH, --out_path OUT_PATH   Output videos path
  -s SEG_LEN,  --seg_len SEG_LEN     Segments length (seconds)
  -a AUDIO,    --audio AUDIO         Extract audio (True/False)
  -f FRAMES,   --frames FRAMES       Extract video frames (True/False)
  --thumb_width THUMB_WIDTH          Width of each thumbnail
  --thumb_height THUMB_HEIGHT        Height of each thumbnail
  --thumb_interval THUMB_INTERVAL    Extract the first frame as thumbnails at every 1 second
  --thumb_container THUMB_CONTAINER  5x5 (row,column) is default Thumbnail Containers

Example

To generate thumbnail containers and prepare video segments, run the following script.

python .\main.py -i .\input\ -o .\output\

The main code is available at GitHub vid2tc.

Acknowledgement

The base code for this repository, which ensures its reliability, has been borrowed from Video Thumbnail Generator.