How to seek in FFmpeg C/C++

Question

Does anyone know how to implement seeking by seconds (or milliseconds) in FFmpeg. I currently have a loop running through the frames of a video using av_read_frame() and I want to determine what time this frame should be at in seconds. If it gets to a certain point then I want to seek to a later point in the video. By the way it is not a video player, just processing the frames. Ive heard I should be able to get the dts or pts from the packet but its always returning 0.

Answer 1

NOTE: This is out of date, it should still work but there is now av_seek_frame() to do it officially.

I didn't write this but here is some code from a sample I have

bool seekMs(int tsms)
{
   //printf("**** SEEK TO ms %d. LLT: %d. LT: %d. LLF: %d. LF: %d. LastFrameOk: %d\n",tsms,LastLastFrameTime,LastFrameTime,LastLastFrameNumber,LastFrameNumber,(int)LastFrameOk);

   // Convert time into frame number
   DesiredFrameNumber = ffmpeg::av_rescale(tsms,pFormatCtx->streams[videoStream]->time_base.den,pFormatCtx->streams[videoStream]->time_base.num);
   DesiredFrameNumber/=1000;

   return seekFrame(DesiredFrameNumber);
}

bool seekFrame(ffmpeg::int64_t frame)
{

   //printf("**** seekFrame to %d. LLT: %d. LT: %d. LLF: %d. LF: %d. LastFrameOk: %d\n",(int)frame,LastLastFrameTime,LastFrameTime,LastLastFrameNumber,LastFrameNumber,(int)LastFrameOk);

   // Seek if:
   // - we don't know where we are (Ok=false)
   // - we know where we are but:
   //    - the desired frame is after the last decoded frame (this could be optimized: if the distance is small, calling decodeSeekFrame may be faster than seeking from the last key frame)
   //    - the desired frame is smaller or equal than the previous to the last decoded frame. Equal because if frame==LastLastFrameNumber we don't want the LastFrame, but the one before->we need to seek there
   if( (LastFrameOk==false) || ((LastFrameOk==true) && (frame<=LastLastFrameNumber || frame>LastFrameNumber) ) )
   {
      //printf("\t avformat_seek_file\n");
      if(ffmpeg::avformat_seek_file(pFormatCtx,videoStream,0,frame,frame,AVSEEK_FLAG_FRAME)<0)
         return false;

      avcodec_flush_buffers(pCodecCtx);

      DesiredFrameNumber = frame;
      LastFrameOk=false;
   }
   //printf("\t decodeSeekFrame\n");

   return decodeSeekFrame(frame);

   return true;
}