How can I create a video from an image sequence that is named with a date in the FFmpeg?

Question

I am using FFmpeg I'd like to create an mp4 using an image sequence.

But the images are not named sequentially, like 1, 2, 3, 4... Instead they are named with a time stamp in the form yyyy-mm-dd-mm.

How can I create a script to achieve this?

Answer 1

You can do it with scripting by renaming the files. I don't have a Windows machine at hand at the moment so I can't test this but this is what I would do in power shell:

First navigate to the directory containing the image sequence, then

mkdir sorted_images;
$serial=0;
Get-childItems *. jpg | sort-object date | %{
Cp $_ (".\sorted_images\image_{0}.jpg" -f ($serial.toString("00000")));
$serial++}

That script should copy all the jpg images in the current folder to a new folder and rename them with a five digit serial number. Try it out on some test images first because I haven't tested it myself.

Answer 2

It's rather a powershell-specific question than FFmpeg, but here you go:

ffmpeg -i <input> <some_encoding_options> -f mp4 "my_filename_"$(get-date).ToString("yyyy-MM-dd_HH-mm")".mp4"

Change the parameter of ToString to whatever you want, you can find more info about PS date formatting syntax here.

A little cheatsheet (all of these have leading zeroes):

• yyyy year
• MM month
• dd day
• hh hour in 12-hour format
• HH hour in 24-hour format
• mm minute