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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.