PySceneDetect CLI Reference
The PySceneDetect command-line interface is grouped into commands which can be combined together, each containing its own set of arguments:
scenedetect ([options]) [command] ([options]) ([...other command(s)...])
Where [command] is the name of the command, and ([options]) are the arguments/options associated with the command, if any. Options associated with the scenedetect command below (e.g. --input, --framerate) must be specified before any commands. The order of commands is not strict, but each command should only be specified once.
Commands can also be combined, for example, running the 'detect-content' and 'list-scenes' (specifying options for the latter):
scenedetect -i vid0001.mp4 detect-content list-scenes -n
A list of all commands is printed below. Help for a particular command can be printed by specifying 'help [command]', or 'help all' to print the help information for every command.
Lastly, there are several commands used for displaying application version and copyright information (e.g. scenedetect about):
version: Displays the version of PySceneDetect being used.about: Displays PySceneDetect license and copyright information.
Global Options
PySceneDetect Option/Command List:
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Usage: scenedetect [OPTIONS] COMMAND1 [ARGS]... [COMMAND2 [ARGS]...]...
For example:
scenedetect -i video.mp4 -s video.stats.csv detect-content list-scenes
Note that the following options represent [OPTIONS] above. To list the
optional [ARGS] for a particular COMMAND, type `scenedetect help COMMAND`.
You can also combine commands (e.g. scenedetect [...] detect-content save-
images --png split-video).
Options:
-i, --input VIDEO [Required] Input video file. May be specified
multiple times to concatenate several videos
together.
-o, --output DIR Output directory for all files (stats file, output
videos, images, log files, etc...).
-f, --framerate FPS Force framerate, in frames/sec (e.g. -f 29.97).
Disables check to ensure that all input videos have
the same framerates.
-d, --downscale N Integer factor to downscale frames by (e.g. 2, 3,
4...), where the frame is scaled to width/N x
height/N (thus -d 1 implies no downscaling). Each
increment speeds up processing by a factor of 4 (e.g.
-d 2 is 4 times quicker than -d 1). Higher values can
be used for high definition content with minimal
effect on accuracy. [default: 2 for SD, 4 for 720p, 6
for 1080p, 12 for 4k]
-fs, --frame-skip N Skips N frames during processing (-fs 1 skips every
other frame, processing 50% of the video, -fs 2
processes 33% of the frames, -fs 3 processes 25%,
etc...). Reduces processing speed at expense of
accuracy. [default: 0]
-s, --stats CSV Path to stats file (.csv) for writing frame metrics
to. If the file exists, any metrics will be
processed, otherwise a new file will be created. Can
be used to determine optimal values for various scene
detector options, and to cache frame calculations in
order to speed up multiple detection runs.
-v, --verbosity LEVEL Level of debug/info/error information to show.
Setting to none will suppress all output except that
generated by actions (e.g. timecode list output).
-l, --logfile LOG Path to log file for writing application logging
information, mainly for debugging. Make sure to set
"-il debug" as well if you are submitting a bug
report.
-q, --quiet Suppresses all output of PySceneDetect except for
those from the specified commands. Equivalent to
setting "--info-level none", and overrides the
current info-level, even if --info-level/-il is
specified.
-h, --help Show this message and exit.
Command List
Commands:
about Print license/copyright info.
detect-content Perform content detection algorithm on input...
detect-threshold Perform threshold detection algorithm on...
help Print help for command (help [command]).
list-scenes Prints scene list and outputs to a CSV file.
save-images Create images for each detected scene.
split-video Split input video(s) using ffmpeg or...
time Set start/end/duration of input video(s).
version Print version of PySceneDetect.
time Command
PySceneDetect time Command
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Usage: scenedetect time [OPTIONS]
Set start/end/duration of input video(s).
Time values can be specified as frames (NNNN), seconds (NNNN.NNs), or as a
timecode (HH:MM:SS.nnn). For example, to start scene detection at 1
minute, and stop after 100 seconds:
time --start 00:01:00 --duration 100s
Note that --end and --duration are mutually exclusive (i.e. only one of
the two can be set). Lastly, the following is an example using absolute
frame numbers to process frames 0 through 1000:
time --start 0 --end 1000
Options:
-s, --start TIMECODE Time in video to begin detecting scenes. TIMECODE
can be specified as exact number of frames (-s 100
to start at frame 100), time in seconds followed by
s (-s 100s to start at 100 seconds), or a timecode
in the format HH:MM:SS or HH:MM:SS.nnn (-s 00:01:40
to start at 1m40s). [default: 0]
-d, --duration TIMECODE Maximum time in video to process. TIMECODE format
is the same as other arguments. Mutually exclusive
with --end / -e.
-e, --end TIMECODE Time in video to end detecting scenes. TIMECODE
format is the same as other arguments. Mutually
exclusive with --duration / -d.
-h, --help Show this message and exit.
detect-content Command
PySceneDetect detect-content Command
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Usage: scenedetect detect-content [OPTIONS]
Perform content detection algorithm on input video(s).
detect-content
detect-content --threshold 27.5
Options:
-t, --threshold VAL Threshold value (float) that the delta_hsv frame
metric must exceed to trigger a new scene.
Refers to frame metric delta_hsv_avg in stats
file. [default: 30.0]
-m, --min-scene-len FRAMES Minimum size/length of any scene, in number of
frames. [default: 15]
-h, --help Show this message and exit.
detect-threshold Command
PySceneDetect detect-threshold Command
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Usage: scenedetect detect-threshold [OPTIONS]
Perform threshold detection algorithm on input video(s).
detect-threshold
detect-threshold --threshold 15
Options:
-t, --threshold VAL Threshold value (integer) that the delta_rgb
frame metric must exceed to trigger a new scene.
Refers to frame metric delta_rgb in stats file.
[default: 12]
-m, --min-scene-len FRAMES Minimum size/length of any scene, in number of
frames. [default: 15]
-f, --fade-bias PERCENT Percent (%) from -100 to 100 of timecode skew
for where cuts should be placed. -100 indicates
the start frame, +100 indicates the end frame,
and 0 is the middle of both. [default: 0]
-l, --add-last-scene If set, if the video ends on a fade-out, an
additional scene will be generated for the last
fade out position.
-p, --min-percent PERCENT Percent (%) from 0 to 100 of amount of pixels
that must meet the threshold value in orderto
trigger a scene change. [default: 95]
-b, --block-size N Number of rows in image to sum per iteration
(can be tuned for performance in some cases).
[default: 8]
-h, --help Show this message and exit.
list-scenes Command
PySceneDetect list-scenes Command
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Usage: scenedetect list-scenes [OPTIONS]
Prints scene list and outputs to a CSV file. The default filename is
$VIDEO_NAME-Scenes.csv.
Options:
-o, --output DIR Output directory to save videos to. Overrides global
option -o/--output if set.
-f, --filename NAME Filename format to use for the scene list CSV file.
You can use the $VIDEO_NAME macro in the file name.
[default: $VIDEO_NAME-Scenes.csv]
-n, --no-output-file Disable writing scene list CSV file to disk. If set,
-o/--output and -f/--filename are ignored.
-q, --quiet Suppresses output of the table printed by the list-
scenes command.
save-images Command
PySceneDetect save-images Command
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Usage: scenedetect save-images [OPTIONS]
Create images for each detected scene.
Options:
-o, --output DIR Output directory to save images to. Overrides global
option -o/--output if set.
-f, --filename NAME Filename format, *without* extension, to use when
saving image files. You can use the $VIDEO_NAME,
$SCENE_NUMBER, and $IMAGE_NUMBER macros in the file
name. [default: $VIDEO_NAME-
Scene-$SCENE_NUMBER-$IMAGE_NUMBER]
-n, --num-images N Number of images to generate. Will always include
start/end frame, unless N = 1, in which case the image
will be the frame at the mid-point in the scene.
-j, --jpeg Set output format to JPEG. [default]
-w, --webp Set output format to WebP.
-q, --quality Q JPEG/WebP encoding quality, from 0-100 (higher
indicates better quality). For WebP, 100 indicates
lossless. [default: JPEG: 95, WebP: 100]
-p, --png Set output format to PNG.
-c, --compression C PNG compression rate, from 0-9. Higher values produce
smaller files but result in longer compression time.
This setting does not affect image quality, only file
size. [default: 3]
split-video Command
PySceneDetect split-video Command
----------------------------------------------------
Usage: scenedetect split-video [OPTIONS]
Split input video(s) using ffmpeg or mkvmerge.
Options:
-o, --output DIR Output directory to save videos to. Overrides
global option -o/--output if set.
-f, --filename NAME File name format, to use when saving image files.
You can use the $VIDEO_NAME and $SCENE_NUMBER
macros in the file name. [default: $VIDEO_NAME-
Scene-$SCENE_NUMBER]
-h, --high-quality Encode video with higher quality, overrides -f
option if present. Equivalent to specifying
--rate-factor 17 and --preset slow.
-a, --override-args ARGS Override codec arguments/options passed to FFmpeg
when splitting and re-encoding scenes. Use double
quotes (") around specified arguments. Must
specify at least audio/video codec to use (e.g. -a
"-c:v [...] and -c:a [...]"). [default: "-c:v
libx264 -preset veryfast -crf 22 -c:a copy"]
-q, --quiet Suppresses output from external video splitting
tool.
-c, --copy Copy instead of re-encode using mkvmerge instead
of ffmpeg for splitting videos. All other
arguments except -o/--output and -q/--quiet are
ignored in this mode, and output files will be
named $VIDEO_NAME-$SCENE_NUMBER.mkv. Significantly
faster when splitting videos, however, output
videos sometimes may not be split exactly,
especially if the scenes are very short in length,
or the input video is heavily compressed. This can
lead to smaller scenes being merged with others,
or scene boundaries being shifted in time - thus
when using this option, the number of videos
written may not match the number of scenes that
was detected.
-crf, --rate-factor RATE Video encoding quality (x264 constant rate
factor), from 0-100, where lower values represent
better quality, with 0 indicating lossless.
[default: 22, if -h/--high-quality is set: 17]
-p, --preset LEVEL Video compression quality preset (x264 preset).
Can be one of: ultrafast, superfast, veryfast,
faster, fast, medium, slow, slower, and veryslow.
Faster modes take less time to run, but the output
files may be larger. [default: veryfast, if
-h/--high quality is set: slow]