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matplotlib.animation.Animation.save

Animation.save(filename, writer=None, fps=None, dpi=None, codec=None, bitrate=None, extra_args=None, metadata=None, extra_anim=None, savefig_kwargs=None)

Saves a movie file by drawing every frame.

Parameters:

filename : str

The output filename, e.g., mymovie.mp4

writer : MovieWriter or str, optional

A MovieWriter instance to use or a key that identifies a class to use, such as ‘ffmpeg’ or ‘mencoder’. If None, defaults to rcParams['animation.writer']

fps : number, optional

frames per second in the movie. Defaults to None, which will use the animation’s specified interval to set the frames per second.

dpi : number, optional

Controls the dots per inch for the movie frames. This combined with the figure’s size in inches controls the size of the movie. If None, defaults to rcparam['savefig.dpi']

codec : str, optional

The video codec to be used. Not all codecs are supported by a given MovieWriter. If None, default to rcParams['animation.codec']

bitrate : number, optional

Specifies the number of bits used per second in the compressed movie, in kilobits per second. A higher number means a higher quality movie, but at the cost of increased file size. If None, defaults to rcParam['animation.bitrate']

extra_args : list, optional

List of extra string arguments to be passed to the underlying movie utility. If None, defaults to rcParams['animation.extra_args']

metadata : dict, optional

Dictionary of keys and values for metadata to include in the output file. Some keys that may be of use include: title, artist, genre, subject, copyright, srcform, comment.

extra_anim : list, optional

Additional Animation objects that should be included in the saved movie file. These need to be from the same matplotlib.Figure instance. Also, animation frames will just be simply combined, so there should be a 1:1 correspondence between the frames from the different animations.

savefig_kwargs : dict, optional

Is a dictionary containing keyword arguments to be passed on to the ‘savefig’ command which is called repeatedly to save the individual frames.

Notes

fps, codec, bitrate, extra_args, metadata are used to construct a MovieWriter instance and can only be passed if writer is a string. If they are passed as non-None and writer is a MovieWriter, a RuntimeError will be raised.