Video Frame Extractor - Keyframes, Scene Changes & Thumbnails from Any Video

Turn video files into still images you can use: the real scene changes, a fixed number of evenly spaced thumbnails, or one frame every N seconds. Every frame gets a public image link and a timestamp, each video gets a contact sheet (a storyboard grid) and its metadata (duration, resolution, fps, codecs).

Built for AI pipelines: vision models such as GPT, Claude and Gemini read images, not video - this actor gives them the right frames in one call. No ffmpeg install, no servers, no API key. You pay only per frame extracted.

What does Video Frame Extractor do?

Video Frame Extractor downloads each video file you link to, reads its metadata (duration, resolution, fps, codecs) and saves still frames as JPG, PNG or WEBP with a timestamp: the real scene changes, a fixed number of evenly spaced frames, or one frame every N seconds. Every video also gets a contact-sheet grid. You get one dataset row per video with a public link to every frame.

Use cases

• Video understanding with LLMs - send 8-20 keyframes to a vision model to summarize, tag or moderate a video.
• Thumbnails - pick the best still for a video page, a course lesson or a product clip.
• Storyboards and contact sheets - review hours of footage at a glance.
• Ad and creative research - break your own or licensed ad videos into scenes to compare hooks and cuts.
• Dataset building - sample frames from recorded footage to train or evaluate computer-vision models.
• Quality checks - spot wrong intros or missing slates in a batch of exports (turn skipBlankFrames off to also see black frames).

Who is it for?

• AI engineers sending video to vision models (GPT, Claude, Gemini) that read images, not video.
• Video and content teams picking thumbnails and making storyboards.
• Ad and creative researchers breaking their own or licensed ads into scenes.
• ML and data teams sampling frames from footage for datasets.
• QA teams checking a batch of video exports at a glance.

Frame modes

Mode	What you get	Good for
auto (default)	First frame + the strongest scene cuts, topped up with evenly spaced frames to reach frameCount	A representative storyboard of any video
scenes	Only real scene changes (ffmpeg scene score above the threshold)	Edited videos, trailers, ads
count	Exactly N evenly spaced frames	Consistent sampling for AI
interval	One frame every N seconds	Long recordings, lectures, CCTV-style footage

Best thumbnails mode - auto-pick the best video thumbnail

Set mode to bestThumbnails and the actor picks the frames a person would choose as the video thumbnail, instead of returning a storyboard. Per video it scores about 40 candidate frames (the encoder's keyframes - the sharpest pictures in the file, placed at scene cuts - or evenly spaced frames for files with few keyframes) on:

• Sharpness (Laplacian variance; the face counts more than the background), exposure, contrast and colourfulness
• Faces (YuNet face detector): size, looking at the camera, eyes open, mouth not covered (a hand or object in front of it)
• Composition (rule of thirds / centred subject), with a small penalty for logos and end credits

Black, blank, blurry and duplicate frames are dropped, the best thumbnailCount frames (default 3, max 10) are kept with a minimum time gap so they are not three copies of one shot, and each one is checked against the next 0.75 s of video (a blink or motion blur on the chosen frame is swapped for a better neighbour).

Each thumbnail comes with its rank, thumbnailScore (0-100), a scoreBreakdown and optional free crops (thumbnailCrops: 16:9 for YouTube, 9:16 for Shorts / Reels / TikTok, 1:1, 4:5) centred on the faces or the main subject. Thumbnails are full resolution up to maxWidth (1280 by default - the YouTube thumbnail size; 0 = original).

{
    "videoUrls": ["https://your-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/episode-12.mp4"],
    "mode": "bestThumbnails",
    "thumbnailCount": 3,
    "thumbnailCrops": ["16:9", "9:16", "1:1"]
}

Cost: each returned thumbnail is one frame at the normal frame price - 3 thumbnails = $0.006 per video, so 1,000 videos = $6. The ~40 candidates that were scored and dropped, the crops and the contact sheet are free. The scoring is automatic and cannot judge everything a person does (an odd mid-word expression, on-screen text you would rather avoid), which is why it returns several ranked options rather than one.

How to use it

1. Click Try for free.
2. Paste direct links to your video files into Video URLs, one per line.
3. Pick a Mode: auto, scenes, count or interval.
4. Click Start, then open the frame links and the contact sheet from the results, or read them through the API.

Input

Field	What it does	Default
videoUrls	Direct links to video files (MP4, MOV, WEBM, MKV, AVI, TS...)	2 sample videos
mode	auto, scenes, count or interval	auto
frameCount	Frames per video for auto / count	12
intervalSeconds	Seconds between frames for interval	10
sceneThreshold	Scene-cut sensitivity (lower = more cuts)	0.3
maxFramesPerVideo	Cap for scenes / interval	50
skipBlankFrames	Step past black / fade-to-black / single-colour frames (up to 2 s forward); blank frames are dropped and not charged	true
imageFormat	jpg, png or webp	jpg
maxWidth	Downscale wider frames (0 = original resolution)	1280
contactSheet	Also save a grid image of all frames (free)	true
maxVideoSizeMb	Skip larger files	500

{
    "videoUrls": ["https://your-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/demo.mp4"],
    "mode": "count",
    "frameCount": 8,
    "maxWidth": 1024
}

Only direct file links are accepted. Pages of video platforms such as YouTube, TikTok or Instagram are refused on purpose - their terms do not allow downloading.

Output

One dataset item per video. Real output from a test run on the Sintel trailer (the frames array is trimmed to 2 of its 12 frames; sceneScore is set when the frame is a detected cut):

{
    "videoUrl": "https://media.w3.org/2010/05/sintel/trailer.mp4",
    "fileName": "trailer.mp4",
    "fileSizeBytes": 4372373,
    "durationSeconds": 52.21,
    "width": 854,
    "height": 480,
    "fps": 24,
    "videoCodec": "h264",
    "audioCodec": "aac",
    "bitrateKbps": 669,
    "container": "mov",
    "mode": "auto",
    "scenesDetected": 6,
    "frameCount": 12,
    "frames": [
        {
            "index": 4,
            "timestampSeconds": 10.877,
            "timecode": "00:00:10.877",
            "sceneScore": null,
            "width": 854,
            "height": 480,
            "bytes": 5121,
            "key": "b670602f-trailer-004-000010877ms.jpg",
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/YuY6xATAnCD87Tv00/records/b670602f-trailer-004-000010877ms.jpg?signature=..."
        },
        {
            "index": 5,
            "timestampSeconds": 16.5,
            "timecode": "00:00:16.500",
            "sceneScore": 1,
            "width": 854,
            "height": 480,
            "bytes": 29030,
            "key": "b670602f-trailer-005-000016500ms.jpg",
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/YuY6xATAnCD87Tv00/records/b670602f-trailer-005-000016500ms.jpg?signature=..."
        }
    ],
    "blankFramesSkipped": 0,
    "contactSheetUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/YuY6xATAnCD87Tv00/records/b670602f-trailer-contact-sheet.jpg?signature=...",
    "processingTimeMs": 4841,
    "error": null
}

The frame images and the contact sheet are stored in the run's key-value store; the url links open without an Apify login, so you can pass them straight to an AI model or a spreadsheet.

How much does it cost to extract frames from a video?

Pay per event: $0.002 per frame ($2 per 1,000 frames). The contact sheet, the metadata, skipped blank frames and videos that fail to download or decode are free.

Worked examples:

• 100 product videos x 8 frames each = 800 frames = $1.60
• One 2-hour lecture, one frame every 60 s = 120 frames = $0.24
• The default demo run above: 24 frames = $0.048

Set Maximum cost per run and the actor never extracts more frames than that budget allows.

Integrations and API

Run it from your own code with the official apify-client package (Python shown; JavaScript works the same way):

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("kantolabs/video-frame-extractor").call(run_input={
    "videoUrls": [
        "https://media.w3.org/2010/05/sintel/trailer.mp4"
    ],
    "mode": "count",
    "frameCount": 8
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Or get the results in a single HTTP call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/kantolabs~video-frame-extractor/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"videoUrls": ["https://media.w3.org/2010/05/sintel/trailer.mp4"], "mode": "count", "frameCount": 8}'

• AI agents (MCP): add the Apify MCP server to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client and the agent can call this Actor as a tool.
• No-code: Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, webhooks and Apify Schedules work out of the box.

Limits

• Direct file links only. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Twitch and Douyin pages are refused on purpose.
• 500 MB per video by default, up to 4 GB. Up to 200 frames per video.
• scenes mode scans every frame, so long videos take longer; count and interval decode only the frames they need.
• No audio or transcription - images and metadata only.
• count never returns more frames than the video really has (a 1-second clip at 30 fps gives at most 30), so you never pay for duplicates.
• Google Drive / Dropbox / OneDrive share links open a web page, not the file: use their direct-download link (Dropbox: ?dl=1).

FAQ

Which formats work? Anything ffmpeg can decode: MP4/H.264, H.265/HEVC, VP9/WEBM, AV1, MOV, MKV, AVI, MPEG-TS, M4V and more.

How big can the video be? 500 MB by default, up to 4 GB with maxVideoSizeMb. Long videos in scenes mode take longer because every frame is scanned for cuts; count and interval only decode the frames they need.

Will I get (and pay for) black frames? No, by default. Many videos fade in from black and scene cuts often pass through a black frame. With skipBlankFrames on (the default), a black or single-colour frame is replaced by the first frame with content in the next 2 seconds; if there is none, it is dropped and not charged (blankFramesSkipped counts them). Title cards - text on black - are kept. Turn the option off if you need frames at the exact planned timestamps.

Can I get the images as files? Yes - every frame is a record in the run's key-value store (download them all from the Storage tab or with the API).

Something is not working? Open an issue on the Issues tab - it is answered quickly.

Related Actors by Kanto Labs

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• AI Image Upscaler - Real-ESRGAN 2x/4x for photos and anime
• Image to Text OCR - text from photos, screenshots and scanned PDFs
• Bulk Image Downloader - every image from web pages to links and a ZIP