I’ve cobbled up this command line from various answers that works great for me to get the absolutely first frame out from a video. I use this to save a thumbnail screenshot for the video.
ffmpeg -i inputfile.mkv -vf "select=eq(n\,0)" -q:v 3 output_image.jpg
Explanation:
The select filter -vf "select=eq(n\,0)" is to select only frame #0.
-q:v allows you to set the quality of the output jpeg between 1 and 31. Lower the number, higher the quality. 2 – 5 works good, I use 3.
Note: This will get you an image with the same size as the video. To get a thumbnail, you can use the scale filter to get a thumbnail to fit whatever width you need, like so:
ffmpeg -i inputfile.mkv -vf "select=eq(n\,0)" -vf scale=320:-2 -q:v 3 output_image.jpg
The above command will give you a thumbnail jpeg that will be scaled to match width of 320, and height will be calculated to match the aspect ratio.