How can I extract a good quality JPEG image from a video file with ffmpeg?

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Use -qscale:v to control quality

Use -qscale:v (or the alias -q:v) as an output option.

  • Normal range for JPEG is 2-31 with 31 being the worst quality.
  • The scale is linear with double the qscale being roughly half the bitrate.
  • Recommend trying values of 2-5.
  • You can use a value of 1 but you must add the -qmin 1 output option (because the default is -qmin 2).

To output a series of images:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -qscale:v 2 output_%03d.jpg

See the image muxer documentation for more options involving image outputs.

To output a single image at ~60 seconds duration:

ffmpeg -ss 60 -i input.mp4 -qscale:v 4 -frames:v 1 output.jpg

To continuously overwrite/update/save to a single image

Use -update 1 image muxer option. Example for once per second from a live streaming input:

ffmpeg -i rtmp://input.foo -q:v 4 -r 1 -update 1 output.jpg

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