Breakthrough/PySceneDetect

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

5275 stars · 538 forks observed · 2026-10-21

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

PySceneDetect is a Python and OpenCV-based program and library for detecting scene cuts and transitions in videos, with multiple detection algorithms (content, adaptive, hash, histogram, threshold). It offers both a command-line interface and a Python API, and can split videos via ffmpeg/mkvmerge or export timecodes in formats like EDL, OTIO, HTML, and CSV.

Use cases

• split a video into individual scenes automatically
• detect fast cuts and fades in footage
• find scene boundaries to feed into ffmpeg or mkvmerge
• analyze shot lengths in films for academic research
• process surveillance camera footage into clips
• remove commercials from recorded TV
• find loop points for GIFs and cinemagraphs
• save first/last frames of each detected scene

When to choose

• you need automated, content-aware scene/shot boundary detection in Python
• you want a CLI tool to split videos on cuts without writing code
• you need timecode output compatible with standard video editing tools
• you want an embeddable, extensible detection API with pluggable algorithms

When to avoid

• you need semantic scene understanding (objects, actions) rather than cut detection
• you work primarily outside Python and need a GUI-based video editor
• you require real-time detection on live streams with strict latency constraints

Facets

library · maturity stable

video-processing image-processing computer-vision cli media computer-vision developer-tools python cross-platform cli scene-detection opencv ffmpeg shot-detection video-splitting timecodes video docker

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markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="Breakthrough/PySceneDetect")