Frequently Asked Questions

How can I fix ImportError: No module named cv2?

As of PySceneDetect 0.7, the OpenCV dependency is bundled with the install. The standard scenedetect package depends on opencv-python:

pip install scenedetect

For server environments without GUI libraries, install the headless variant instead, which depends on opencv-python-headless:

pip install scenedetect-headless

Both packages ship the same scenedetect Python module -- you only need one.

How can I enable video splitting support?

Video splitting is performed by ffmpeg (https://ffmpeg.org/download.html) or mkvmerge (https://mkvtoolnix.download/downloads.html) depending on which command line arguments are used. Ensure the tool is available and somewhere in your system's PATH folder.

How can I fix the error Cannot split video due to too many scenes?

This error occurs on Windows platforms specifically when the number of detected scenes is too large. This is because PySceneDetect internally invokes other commands, such as those used for the split-video command.

You can get around this issue by simply invoking those tools manually, using a smaller sub-set of scenes (or splitting the scene list into multiple parts). You can obtain a comma-separated list of timecodes by using the list-scenes command.

See Issue #164 for details, or if you have any further questions.

How can I fix the error Failed to read any frames from video file?

Unfortunately, the underlying library used to perform video I/O was unable to open the file. Try using a different backend by installing PyAV (pip install av) and see if the problem persists.

This can also happen due to videos having multiple audio tracks (as per #179). If the PyAV backend does not succeed in processing the video, as a workaround you can remove the audio track using either ffmpeg or mkvmerge:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -an output.mp4

Or:

mkvmerge -o output.mkv input.mp4