got video thumbnails working, added another pip packages to the README, and edited the templates/files.html accordingly.

files.py

@@ -79,39 +79,21 @@ class FileData():
 
     def generateVideoThumbnail(self, file):
         #overall wrapper function for generating video thumbnails
-        frame = self.video_to_frames(file)[0]
-        fthumbnail = self.image_to_thumbs(frame)["160"]
+        vcap = cv2.VideoCapture(file)
+        res, im_ar = vcap.read()
+        while im_ar.mean() < 15 and res:
+            res, im_ar = vcap.read()
+        im_ar = cv2.resize(im_ar, (160, 90), 0, 0, cv2.INTER_LINEAR)
+        #save on a buffer for direct transmission
+        res, thumb_buf = cv2.imencode('.jpeg', im_ar)
+        # '.jpeg' etc are permitted
+        #get the bytes content
+        bt = thumb_buf.tostring()
+        fthumbnail = base64.b64encode(bt)
+        fthumbnail = str(fthumbnail)[2:-1]
+        print(fthumbnail)
         return fthumbnail
 
-    def video_to_frames(self, video_filename):
-        #Extract frames from video
-        cap = cv2.VideoCapture(video_filename)
-        video_length = int(cap.get(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_COUNT)) - 1
-        frames = []
-        if cap.isOpened() and video_length > 0:
-            frame_ids = [0]
-            if video_length >= 4:
-                frame_ids = [round(video_length * 0.25)]
-            count = 0
-            success, image = cap.read()
-            while success:
-                if count in frame_ids:
-                    frames.append(image)
-                success, image = cap.read()
-                count += 1
-        return frames
-
-    def image_to_thumbs(self, img):
-        #Create thumbs from image
-        height, width, channels = img.shape
-        thumbs = {"original": img}
-        sizes = [160]
-        for size in sizes:
-            if (width >= size):
-                r = (size + 0.0) / width
-                max_size = (size, int(height * r))
-                thumbs[str(size)] = cv2.resize(img, max_size, interpolation=cv2.INTER_AREA)
-        return thumbs
 
     ##############################################################################
     # HACK: At present this only handles one path (need to re-factor if we have  #