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Use Auto Thumbnail Generator

This is a Premium feature.

Thumbnail images help identify videos in a gallery without playing them. When you add videos from third-party services like YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and Rumble, our plugin automatically fetches the thumbnail image for the video via their respective APIs and links them with your videos. However, this is not possible for self-hosted videos.

Luckily, our PREMIUM version provides the options to generate thumbnails for self-hosted videos using FFMPEG or the HTML5 CANVAS API.

  1. Automatically Using FFMPEG
  2. Manually Capture a Thumbnail from the Video

1. Automatically Using FFMPEG

To enable automatic thumbnail generation, your server must have FFMPEG installed. Follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Video Gallery → Settings in your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
  2. Select the Auto Thumbnail Generator submenu.
  3. Configure your FFMPEG Path, then click on the Test FFMPEG button to ensure the configured path is valid.
  4. Set the Number of images to auto-generate.
  5. Save the changes.

Once enabled, when you add a video using the Self Hosted / External URL source type, the plugin will automatically generate thumbnails from the video file and display them under the Image field. You can then select the best-suited thumbnail for your video and save the form.

2. Manually Capture a Thumbnail from the Video

Alternatively, you can play the video and capture a scene manually using the Capture Image option.

Steps to Enable & Use the Capture Image Feature:

  1. Enable the Capture Image button from the Auto Thumbnail Generator settings page.
  2. When adding a new video, locate the Capture Image button under the Image field.
  3. Click this button to open a popup where you can play the video.
  4. Pause at the desired scene and capture the frame as a thumbnail.

Important Note on CORS Restrictions:

  • This feature relies on HTML5 Canvas to generate images from the video file.
  • If your video is hosted on an external web server (e.g., Amazon S3), you may encounter this error: “Sorry, your video file server doesn’t give us permission to generate an image from the video.”
  • To resolve this, ensure the video server sends the correct CORS headers:
    • Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
    • OR Access-Control-Allow-Origin: <Your Website URL>

For more details, refer to: Enable CORS

The Auto Thumbnail Generator simplifies video management by allowing you to generate thumbnails automatically or manually.

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