Hi,
since it’s possible to extract video clips from an ELAN file, I was wondering if it’s also possible to have ELAN create a number of images of a sign and save them separately or as a ‘comic strip’.
Thank you for your help,
Hi,
Not sure if this is what you’re thinking of as ‘comic strip’, but there is an option to export as File->Export as->Filmstrip Image.... This creates a single image with every n-th video frame within the selected interval, in a row.
Exporting a number of images of a sign (i.e. of an interval of a video) might be possible via File->Export as->Media Clip using Script... if the command line in the file ‘clip-media.txt’ can be modified such that e.g. ffmpeg produces single images from the interval. I don’t know if this is possible but you can give it a try (if I can find some time I’ll try as well).
-Han
PS I did some testing with ffmpeg (I have version 5.1.2) configured in my clip-media.txt file (which is either in the ELAN install folder, or, if you copied it there, in the ELAN data folder).
The following options seem to work (this is on Windows):
ffmpeg.exe -ss $begin(sec.ms) -t $duration(sec.ms) -i $in_file -r 2 $out_file
or
ffmpeg.exe -ss $begin(sec.ms) -t $duration(sec.ms) -i $in_file -vf "fps=2" C:\a_folder\image-%03d.png
I read there are sometimes issues with the -r option.
The $out_file part in the first variant allows you to select a folder and specify a file name for the output files, in which case you have to enter something like image-%03d.png in the file name field of the Save As dialog, to make sure a sequence is exported like ‘image-001.png’, ‘image-002.png’ etc.
Alternatively, in the second variant, the output location and file name are hard coded and whatever you enter in the Save As dialog is ignored. You’ll have to move the files in the file explorer after each export action (otherwise they will be overwritten).
Please see the ffmpeg manual for more information about the -r and -vf options.