Tool for searching for a video's frame by an image file

Question

I've been searching for a tool that would take an image--a screenshot of a frame from a movie--and search every frame of one video from that same movie for that same image and give me either the frame number or a timestamp.

I've seen similar queries on this forum and there were ffmpeg command-lines that would do the job, but that hasn't worked out for me. Here is one command-line I've found there from 2016: Find Position in a Film/Video by a Frame

ffmpeg -i input.ts -loop 1 -i image.png -an -filter_complex "[0]crop=w:h:x:y[a];[1][a]blend=difference,blackframe=90:32" -f null - 

And this is the error message I got:

Input #0, mpegts, from 'input.ts':
  Duration: 02:04:46.06, start: 4200.000000, bitrate: 2037 kb/s
  Program 1
    Stream #0:0[0x1011](und): Video: h264 (High) (HDMV / 0x564D4448), yuv420p(tv, bt709, progressive), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 90k tbn, 47.95 tbc
Input #1, png_pipe, from 'image.png':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #1:0: Video: png, rgb24(pc), 953x398 [SAR 3779:3779 DAR 953:398], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 (h264) -> crop
  Stream #1:0 (png) -> blend:top
  blackframe -> Stream #0:0 (wrapped_avframe)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
[Parsed_crop_0 @ 0000028b59bfac00] [Eval @ 0000009124dfe6d0] Undefined constant or missing '(' in 'w'
[Parsed_crop_0 @ 0000028b59bfac00] [Eval @ 0000009124dfe6d0] Undefined constant or missing '(' in 'h'
[Parsed_crop_0 @ 0000028b59bfac00] Error when evaluating the expression 'h'
[Parsed_crop_0 @ 0000028b59bfac00] Failed to configure input pad on Parsed_crop_0
Error reinitializing filters!
Failed to inject frame into filter network: Invalid argument
Error while processing the decoded data for stream #1:0
Conversion failed!

Here another ffmpeg code I got from [here in 2018][1]:

ffmpeg -i "input.ts" -r 1 -loop 1 -i image.png -an -filter_complex "blend=difference:shortest=1,blackframe=99:32" -f null - 2>&1 | grep blackframe | sed 's/.*frame\:\(.*\)/\1/'

And here's the error message:

'grep' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

The version of ffmpeg I'm using is from December of 2020.

I also have Adobe's After Effects. Perhaps there's a plug-in of the tool I'm looking for.

Answer 1

The second ffmpeg command you posted works fine. The error message suggests that you are running the command on a non-unix-like system such as Windows. Just remove the part of the command after 2>&1 and it should work fine on windows. Here is the full command without unix/linux specific stuff: ffmpeg -i "input.ts" -r 1 -loop 1 -i image.png -an -filter_complex "blend=difference:shortest=1,blackframe=99:32" -f null -