Create thumbnail from a video url in IPhone SDK

I am trying to acquire a thumbnail from a video url. The video is a stream (HLS) with the m3u8 format. I've already开发者_开发技巧 tried requestThumbnailImagesAtTimes from the MPMoviePlayerController, but that didn't work. Does anyone have a solution for that problem? If so how'd you do it?

If you don't want to use MPMoviePlayerController, you can do this:

    AVAsset *asset = [AVAsset assetWithURL:sourceURL];
    AVAssetImageGenerator *imageGenerator = [[AVAssetImageGenerator alloc]initWithAsset:asset];
    CMTime time = CMTimeMake(1, 1);
    CGImageRef imageRef = [imageGenerator copyCGImageAtTime:time actualTime:NULL error:NULL];
    UIImage *thumbnail = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:imageRef];
    CGImageRelease(imageRef);  // CGImageRef won't be released by ARC

Here's an example in Swift:

func thumbnail(sourceURL sourceURL:NSURL) -> UIImage {
    let asset = AVAsset(URL: sourceURL)
    let imageGenerator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
    let time = CMTime(seconds: 1, preferredTimescale: 1)

    do {
        let imageRef = try imageGenerator.copyCGImageAtTime(time, actualTime: nil)
        return UIImage(CGImage: imageRef)
    } catch {
        print(error)
        return UIImage(named: "some generic thumbnail")!
    }
}

I prefer using AVAssetImageGenerator over MPMoviePlayerController because it is thread-safe, and you can have more than one instantiated at a time.

Acquire a thumbnail from a video url.

    NSString *strVideoURL = @"http://www.xyzvideourl.com/samplevideourl";
    NSURL *videoURL = [NSURL URLWithString:strVideoURL] ;
    MPMoviePlayerController *player = [[[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:videoURL]autorelease];
    UIImage  *thumbnail = [player thumbnailImageAtTime:1.0 timeOption:MPMovieTimeOptionNearestKeyFrame];
    player = nil;

Replace your video URL string with strVideoURL. You will get thumbnail as a output from video. And thumbnail is UIImage type data !

-(UIImage *)loadThumbNail:(NSURL *)urlVideo
{    
    AVURLAsset *asset = [[AVURLAsset alloc] initWithURL:urlVideo options:nil];
    AVAssetImageGenerator *generate = [[AVAssetImageGenerator alloc] initWithAsset:asset];
    generate.appliesPreferredTrackTransform=TRUE;
    NSError *err = NULL;
    CMTime time = CMTimeMake(1, 60);
    CGImageRef imgRef = [generate copyCGImageAtTime:time actualTime:NULL error:&err];
    NSLog(@"err==%@, imageRef==%@", err, imgRef);
    return [[UIImage alloc] initWithCGImage:imgRef];
}

Add AVFoundation framework in your project and don't forget to import <AVFoundation/AVFoundation.h> and you have to pass the path of your video saved in document directory as a parameter and receive the image as UIImage.

you can get the thumbnail from your video url with the use of below code

MPMoviePlayerController *player = [[[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:videoURL]autorelease];
UIImage  *thumbnail = [player thumbnailImageAtTime:0.0 timeOption:MPMovieTimeOptionNearestKeyFrame];

Maybe this is useful for someone else who faces the same problem. I needed an easy solution for creating a thumbnail for Images, PDFs and Videos. To solve that problem I've created the following Library (in Swift).

https://github.com/prine/ROThumbnailGenerator

The usage is very straightforward: var thumbnailImage = ROThumbnail.getThumbnail(url)

It has internally three different implementations and depending on the file extension it does create the thumbnail. You can easily add your own implementation if you need a thumbnail creator for another file extension.

Swift 3 Version :

func createThumbnailOfVideoFromFileURL(videoURL: String) -> UIImage? {
    let asset = AVAsset(url: URL(string: videoURL)!)
    let assetImgGenerate = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
    assetImgGenerate.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true
    let time = CMTimeMakeWithSeconds(Float64(1), 100)
    do {
        let img = try assetImgGenerate.copyCGImage(at: time, actualTime: nil)
        let thumbnail = UIImage(cgImage: img)
        return thumbnail
    } catch {
        // Set a default image if Image is not acquired
        return UIImage(named: "ico_placeholder")
    }
}

For Swift 3.0:

  func generateThumbnailForVideoAtURL(filePathLocal: NSString) -> UIImage? {
    let vidURL = NSURL(fileURLWithPath:filePathLocal as String)
    let asset = AVURLAsset(url: vidURL as URL)
    let generator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
    generator.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true

    let timestamp = CMTime(seconds: 1, preferredTimescale: 60)

    do {
        let imageRef = try generator.copyCGImage(at: timestamp, actualTime: nil)
        let frameImg    : UIImage = UIImage(cgImage: imageRef)
        return frameImg
    } catch let error as NSError {
        print("Image generation failed with error ::\(error)")
        return nil
    }
}

For Swift 5 you can get it this way:

First import AVKit or AVFoundation to ViewController

import AVKit

Code:

// Get Thumbnail Image from URL
private func getThumbnailFromUrl(_ url: String?, _ completion: @escaping ((_ image: UIImage?)->Void)) {

    guard let url = URL(string: url ?? "") else { return }

    DispatchQueue.main.async {
        let asset = AVAsset(url: url)
        let assetImgGenerate = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
        assetImgGenerate.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true

        let time = CMTimeMake(value: 2, timescale: 1)
        do {
            let img = try assetImgGenerate.copyCGImage(at: time, actualTime: nil)
            let thumbnail = UIImage(cgImage: img)
            completion(thumbnail)
        } catch {
            print("Error :: ", error.localizedDescription)
            completion(nil)
        }
    }
}

Usage

@IBOutlet weak imgThumbnail: ImageView! 

and then call getThumbnailFromUrl method and pass URL as a Sting

self.getThumbnailFromUrl(videoURL) { [weak self] (img) in

    guard let `self` = self else { return }

    if let img = img {
        self.imgThumbnail.image = img
    }
}

Thank you

Swift 2 code with AVAssetImageGenerator:

func thumbnailImageForVideo(url:NSURL) -> UIImage?
{
    let asset = AVAsset(URL: url)
    let imageGenerator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
    imageGenerator.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true

    var time = asset.duration
    //If possible - take not the first frame (it could be completely black or white on camara's videos)
    time.value = min(time.value, 2)

    do {
        let imageRef = try imageGenerator.copyCGImageAtTime(time, actualTime: nil)
        return UIImage(CGImage: imageRef)
    }
    catch let error as NSError
    {
        print("Image generation failed with error \(error)")
        return nil
    }
}