Getting a single frame out of a movie

[LizzieL]

Sorry, another technical question - I'm getting too old for all this modern technology!

I have just returned from holiday and in some of the museums / archeological sites we visited, I could not use my Digital SLR camera (the authorities classified DSLRs as professional) but phone cameras could be used. I rarely use my phone as a camera, so not familiar with the function. When I looked at photos teasterday, I found some were not single images but short movies (1 second or so). These are not a little movie which duplicates the single image like OH's phone makes. They are my only photographic record of certain places. Is it possible to easily extract a single frame from this movie? It has a .MOV extension and was made on an i-phone

[Neale1961]

Is this any help?
https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/imovie/mova556deb9f/mac

[LizzieL]

Thank you but I don't have a Mac, just a pc running Win 11. But there might be some similar sofware I can use.

[AlanBoyd]

If you do have a Mac then I imagine that Neale1961’s suggestion will be best.

On your iPhone the quick way to do this is to play the move and try to pause it where you wish to have the image then take a screenshot. However this image will include all of the on-screen video controls so the part that you are interested in may be obscured. If not you can simply crop the screenshot image to remove the unwanted parts.

The better way to do it on your phone is to install a ‘Frame Grabber’ app. There are lots but I have just now experimented with one called Frame Grabber, developer Tranquility Base which seems to be free and is fairly straightforward to use. When you first open it it will ask for access to lots of places on your phone, but just decline everything except the Photos. After that I think it should be easy to follow — just be aware that it stores the images that you capture in it’s internal ‘Queue’ and you have to go into that, select those you wish to keep and Share/save them back to Photos.

 I have no connection with this app or developer.

[AlanBoyd]

Reading your original post, I now realise that you must have Live capture turned on. If you open the image in Photos there may be a subtle icon in the top left hand corner (probably saying ‘Live’) If you tap on that you have various options and one of them is to simply turn Live off.

[LizzieL]

On your iPhone the quick way to do this is to play the move and try to pause it where you wish to have the image then take a screenshot. However this image will include all of the on-screen video controls so the part that you are interested in may be obscured. If not you can simply crop the screenshot image to remove the unwanted parts.

Tried that on my pc and yes all the video controls obscured the important part of the picture.

I'll look into frame grabber

[LizzieL]

Reading your original post, I now realise that you must have Live capture turned on. If you open the image in Photos there may be a subtle icon in the top left hand corner (probably saying ‘Live’) If you tap on that you have various options and one of them is to simply turn Live off.

No live is always off.  I have a movie INSTEAD of the intended still photo, not AS WELL AS. My OH always gets both, I do not, I get one or the other seemingly randomly.

[ikas]

LizzieL - If you have transferred the videos to your PC then you can use VLC Media Player to capture a single frame. VLC is a great free video player and you can download it at
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/.

Once you have installed VLC open your video using Media>Open File and when it is playing take a snapshot using Video>Take Snapshot or Shift S. The snapshot will be downloaded to your default pictures folder. You can also stop the video and take a snapshot if that is easier.

[LizzieL]

LizzieL - If you have transferred the videos to your PC then you can use VLC Media Player to capture a single frame. VLC is a great free video player and you can download it at
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/.

Once you have installed VLC open your video using Media>Open File and when it is playing take a snapshot using Video>Take Snapshot or Shift S. The snapshot will be downloaded to your default pictures folder. You can also stop the video and take a snapshot if that is easier.

Thanks, I've now downloaded the software, but it doesn't seem to want to know a .mov file. It flashes up on the screen for a millisecond and is then replaced by traffic cone!
I get the same thing (without traffic cone) with Irfan view which I tried first