Create thumbnail from video file via file input

Question

I am attempting to create a thumbnail preview from a video file (mp4,3gp) from a form input type=\'file\'. Many have said that this can be done server side onl

Answer 1

Recently needed this so I wrote a function, to take in a video file and a desired timestamp, and return an image blob at that time of the video.

Sample Usage:

try {
    // get the frame at 1.5 seconds of the video file
    const cover = await getVideoCover(file, 1.5);
    // print out the result image blob
    console.log(cover);
} catch (ex) {
    console.log("ERROR: ", ex);
}

Function:

function getVideoCover(file, seekTo = 0.0) {
    console.log("getting video cover for file: ", file);
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        // load the file to a video player
        const videoPlayer = document.createElement('video');
        videoPlayer.setAttribute('src', URL.createObjectURL(file));
        videoPlayer.load();
        videoPlayer.addEventListener('error', (ex) => {
            reject("error when loading video file", ex);
        });
        // load metadata of the video to get video duration and dimensions
        videoPlayer.addEventListener('loadedmetadata', () => {
            // seek to user defined timestamp (in seconds) if possible
            if (videoPlayer.duration < seekTo) {
                reject("video is too short.");
                return;
            }
            // delay seeking or else 'seeked' event won't fire on Safari
            setTimeout(() => {
              videoPlayer.currentTime = seekTo;
            }, 200);
            // extract video thumbnail once seeking is complete
            videoPlayer.addEventListener('seeked', () => {
                console.log('video is now paused at %ss.', seekTo);
                // define a canvas to have the same dimension as the video
                const canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
                canvas.width = videoPlayer.videoWidth;
                canvas.height = videoPlayer.videoHeight;
                // draw the video frame to canvas
                const ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
                ctx.drawImage(videoPlayer, 0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
                // return the canvas image as a blob
                ctx.canvas.toBlob(
                    blob => {
                        resolve(blob);
                    },
                    "image/jpeg",
                    0.75 /* quality */
                );
            });
        });
    });
}