Scrappy mockup of a script to generate a thumbnail preview for a video found online...no need to download. Run me like: `python thumbnailgen.py -i http://example.com/video.f4v`

thumbnailgen.py

#!/usr/bin/env python


from subprocess import PIPE, Popen
import argparse
import os

''' 
Give me a url to a video file and I will return a thumbnail preview
Run me like: `python thumbnailgen.py -i https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/media/13729/content/arcmedia/mopix/107/107-1130.wmv?download=true`

***NOTES***
- Requires `ffmpeg` and `imagemagick` to be installed on local
- `ffmpeg` should be compiled `--with-openssl` so that it can access videos over https (https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/CompilationGuide)
- if script seems to run silently without creating output, it's most likely that ffmpeg or imagemagick are not congfigured properly in someway - run commands in makethumbs() and makenpreview() directly in command line to see if any errors pop up`

'''

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Command line tool to make a thumbnail montage preview image for a digital video with a url')
parser.add_argument('-i', '--inputfile', help='Url to video you want to turn into thumbnail preview. Is required', required=True)
args = vars(parser.parse_args())

__input__ = args['inputfile']
__path__ = './tmp_v'
FFMPEG_BIN = 'ffmpeg'
MONTAGE_BIN = 'montage'

def process(command):
    p = Popen(command, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, bufsize=10**8)
    output = p.stdout.read().decode("utf-8")
    error = p.stderr.read().decode("utf-8")
    return (output, error)

def makethumbs(i):
	command = [
	    FFMPEG_BIN,
	    '-v', 'error',
	    '-threads', '1',
	    '-i', i,
	    '-vf', 'fps=1/15',
	    './tmp_v/img_%03d.jpg'
	]
	return process(command)


def makepreview(d):
	imgs = os.path.join(d, "img_*.jpg")
	command = [
		MONTAGE_BIN, 
		'-geometry', '+4+4',
		imgs, './output.png'
	]

	return process(command)


def main(i, p):
	makethumbs(i)
	makepreview(p)

if __name__ == '__main__':

	main(__input__, __path__)