Techniques are disclosed for automatic static summarization of videos. For example, a method of creating a static summary of a video comprises the following steps. Shots in the video are detected, wherein the detected shots are frames of the video having a correlation. The detected shots are clustered into clusters based on similarity. The clusters of shots are ranked. At least a portion of the shots are selected based on cluster ranking for inclusion in the static summary. The static summary is generated by combining thumbnail images of the selected shots. Prior to the ranking step, the method may further comprise detecting a presence of slides in any of the shots, and the ranking of a given shot is based in part on whether the shot is a slide. By way of example, such static summaries can be shared in emails and in calendar applications.