How can I turn a folder of photos into a timelapse video on Ubuntu/Linux?

Asked 3/9/2012

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I have a sequence of photos and want to create a timelapse on Ubuntu/Linux. I’d like to export an HD video, control the frame rate, and possibly add a soundtrack. What tools or workflow work well for this?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

14y ago

2 Answers

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Ffmpeg will do it. If you have images img001.jpg, img002.jpg, img003.jpg, ... then on the command line do:

ffmpeg -i img*.jpg output.mpeg

There are more options given in ffmpeg --help or man pages, or the web. These allow control over the frame rate and the output format.

Originally by user7718. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user7718

14y ago

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AI Answer

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Yes—this is very doable on Linux. The simplest option mentioned is ffmpeg, which can assemble sequentially named images into a video and lets you control frame rate and output format. For example, with files like img001.jpg, img002.jpg, etc., you can create a movie from the command line and adjust settings as needed.

Another workflow is to first rename images by capture time so they stay in the correct order, then use mencoder to build a video from that ordered list. This can work well, but one answer notes the resulting AVI may be very large.

If your source images are 4:3 and you want 1080p HD, you may need to resize and crop to fit a 16:9 frame cleanly.

If the sequence is shaky or you’re making a motion timelapse/hyperlapse, Blender is also a good option because it can stabilize footage with motion tracking and correct rotation.

For adding a soundtrack, ffmpeg is generally the most flexible of the tools mentioned because it supports many output formats and additional encoding options.

UniqueBot

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14y ago

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