Python VLC MediaPlayer – Taking Screenshot

Last Updated : 18 Aug, 2020

In this article we will see how we can take screen shot of the MediaPlayer object in the python vlc module. VLC media player is a free and open-source portable cross-platform media player software and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. MediPlyer object is the basic object in vlc module for playing the video. A screenshot, also known as ss, sc, screen capture, or screen grab, is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A common screenshot is created by the operating system or software running on the device. A screenshot or screen capture may also be created by taking a photo of the screen.

In order to do this we will use video_take_snapshot method with the MediaPlayer object

Syntax : media_player.video_take_snapshot(n, location, width, height)

Argument : It takes video output number, folder location and width and height of screenshot as argument

Return : It returns 0 on success, -1 if the video was not found

Below is the implementation

# importing vlc module 
import vlc 
  
# importing time module 
import time 
  
  
# creating vlc media player object 
media_player = vlc.MediaPlayer() 
  
# media object 
media = vlc.Media("death_note.mkv") 
  
# setting media to the media player 
media_player.set_media(media) 
  
# setting video scale 
media_player.video_set_scale(0.6) 
  
# start playing video 
media_player.play() 
  
# wait so the video can be played for 5 seconds 
# irrespective for length of video 
time.sleep(5) 
  
# taking screen shot 
media_player.video_take_snapshot(0, "F://test", 400, 300) 

Output :

Below is the folder location

Another example
Below is the implementation

# importing vlc module 
import vlc 
  
# importing time module 
import time 
  
# creating vlc media player object 
media_player = vlc.MediaPlayer() 
  
# media object 
media = vlc.Media("1mp4.mkv") 
  
# setting media to the media player 
media_player.set_media(media) 
  
  
# setting video scale 
media_player.video_set_scale(0.6) 
  
# start playing video 
media_player.play() 
  
# wait so the video can be played for 5 seconds 
# irrespective for length of video 
time.sleep(5) 
  
  
# taking screen shot 
media_player.video_take_snapshot(0, "F://test", 400, 300) 