OpenCV + python — grab frames from a video file

Question

I can\'t seem to capture frames from a file using OpenCV -- I\'ve compiled from source on Ubuntu with all the necessary prereqs according to: http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wik

Answer 1

I'm using OpenCV 2.2.0, compiled on Ubuntu from source. I can confirm that the source code you provided works as expected. So the problem is somewhere else.

I couldn't reproduce your problem using mencoder (installing it is a bit of a problem on my machine) so I used ffmpeg to wrap a raw video in the AVI container:

ffmpeg -s cif -i ~/local/sample-video/foreman.yuv -vcodec copy foreman.avi

(foreman.yuv is a standard CIF image sequence you can find on the net if you look around).

Running the AVI from ffmpeg through your source gives this:

misha@misha-desktop:~/Desktop/stackoverflow$ python ocv_video.py foreman.avi

352.0
288.0


...

So things work as expected. What you should check:

• Do you get any errors on standard output/standard error? OpenCV uses ffmpeg libraries to read video files, so be on the lookout for informative messages. Here's what happens if you try to play a RAW video file without a container (sounds similar to your problem):

error:

misha@misha-desktop:~/Desktop/stackoverflow$ python ocv_video.py foreman.yuv 
[IMGUTILS @ 0x7fff37c8d040] Picture size 0x0 is invalid
[IMGUTILS @ 0x7fff37c8cf20] Picture size 0x0 is invalid
[rawvideo @ 0x19e65c0] Could not find codec parameters (Video: rawvideo, yuv420p)
[rawvideo @ 0x19e65c0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
GStreamer Plugin: Embedded video playback halted; module decodebin20 reported: Your GStreamer installation is missing a plug-in.

0.0
0.0

• Make sure your AVI file actually contains the required information to play back the video. At a minimum, this should be the frame dimensions. RAW video typically doesn't contain any information besides the actual pixel data, so knowing the frame dimensions and FPS is required. You can wrong-guess the FPS and still get a viewable video, but if you get the dimensions wrong, the video will be unviewable.
• Make sure the AVI file you're trying to open is actually playable. Try ffplay file.avi -- if that fails, then the problem is likely to be with the file. Try using ffmpeg to transcode instead of mencoder.
• Make sure you can play other videos, using the same method as above. If you can't, then it's likely that your ffmpeg install is broken.