Use picture for thumbnail

[cclloyd9785]

Here is a screenshot of what i mean. That is an .mp4 movie.

 

[AngelProcesser]

Are you sharing a library of media with both operating systems?

 

[cclloyd9785]

No.

 

[cclloyd9785]

bump

 

[reghakr]

All my .mp4 files show the first frame of the movie or video.

I use KmPlayer,but I don't really think that's the reason why, it's the default for .mp4 filesas far as i can tell

I highly doubt you can change that. It displays the first frame.

 

[cclloyd9785]

So if i edited each movie, to put the poster for the first frame, then it would show?

 

[reghakr]

If you were somehow able to remove the first frame, either that would screw the file up completely or it would display the second frame.

 

[Darryl Licht]

How can i use a picture for the thumbnail for my music and/or movies.

AKA. I have a movie, but in explorer, i want it to show the movie poster i have saved as a jpg instead of some random frame in the movie.

Try Yammm... it is an awesome app for WMC. Written by our very own miknho. Automatically searches Internet DB's for your movie info... adds images, ratings, and synopsis!

Get it here: Mikinho | Yammm

 

[globalist3]

Hey everyone,

I signed up specifically to find an answer to this question.

There must be a way to do so because I have some video files as well that have the movie poster as the thumbnail rather than a frame from the video itself, just like the OP. Check out the difference between the screenshots:



Any ideas as to why the Star Trek and TDK video files have movie posters for icons? And how can I make the rest of my movie library like that? (Note: This has nothing to do with customizing folder thumbnails.)

 

[Pichu]

I have found that the reason why some thumbnails do not appear is because you are running a 64 bit version of windows with a 64 bit explorer. If you have 64 bit codecs for your vlc, then the thumbnails should appear immediately. Your trouble is mkv. I have experienced this issue myself. Basically, I don't know if, but I doubt that vlc provides a 64 bit mkv codec that explorer can use to generate thumbnails.

This is why, I suggest to you, use windows media player with shark007's codec package, which is the best codec package, that doesn't alter your windows files, or mess up the media foundation.

Now, if you managed to find a 64 bit mkv codec somewhere, a splitter, or something that allows perhaps the windows media foundation H.264 codec to create the thumbnail, go to start menu and type in disk cleanup. Delete all your thumbnail and regenerate everything from scratch

Cheers!

 

[globalist3]

Thanks for the reply Pichu.

I'm running Windows 7 x86, hence it's 32-bit.

I don't want to make it go back to rendering the thumbnails as a screenshot from the video file, but instead I want to change the rest of the thumbnails in my video library so each video file's thumbnail is the corresponding movie poster.

If the TDK and Star Trek MKV files are able to do this, then there should be a way to do so with the other MKV's and maybe even AVI's. That's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm starting to think that it might be somehow coded into the file itself. Not sure though.

You might be correct about it being only the MKV file and no thumb.db or other Windows file

 

[Pichu]

ooo that is difficult to accomplish...
As far as I know, that specific type of thumbnail is encoded directly into your video files. Not all video files have this feature. Most of the time, it is MPEG files that have this feature, not MKV with its H.264. Thus, I do not think, though, I'm not sure, that mkv even supports such a feature, as this is almost exclusively in mpeg and a few other formats. My suggestion would be to either get mpeg copies of such files, or find a splitter for mkv (apparently, vlc didn't load a mkv splitter into directshow to be accessed by other applications, only for vlc itself) that either directshow or windows media foundation can utilize to generate a thumbnail.

Sorry, but in this case, you can either modify the video file and risk losing your data, find copies of these videos in mpeg format, or simply find a mkv splitter that can generate regular thumbnails. (I suggest the Haali splitter as I have used it without issue.)

 

[Darryl Licht]

Do you mean you want the poster or CD cover as the image shown in WMC? If so, get YAMMM! It does it automatically for you... or find the image you want manually and save it as folder.jpg in that movies folder!

 

[cclloyd9785]

Guys i found it out. It was just put into iTunes. I did it with all my movies. Now its embedded directly into the .mp4 file.

 

[globalist3]

Thank you all for your contribution.

cclloyd9785 is right. iTunes lets you alter the artwork for the .m4v and .mp4 files for the movies and Windows Explorer picks this up and display the artwork rather than a screenshot as the thumbnail. So mystery solved! It's metadata after all.

So for those, like me, who helplessly searched the Internet for an answer: You can add/change/delete the artwork for M4Vs and MP4s using iTunes. Windows Explorer (at least in Windows 7) displays the iTunes artwork as the file's thumbnail in Explorer.

Now the question is... do I have to convert all my AVIs and MKVs into MP4s or M4Vs for me to be able to get that effect, or can I add artwork as metadata to other video files without using iTunes?

 

[Pichu]

Thank you all for your contribution.

cclloyd9785 is right. iTunes lets you alter the artwork for the .m4v and .mp4 files for the movies and Windows Explorer picks this up and display the artwork rather than a screenshot as the thumbnail. So mystery solved! It's metadata after all.

So for those, like me, who helplessly searched the Internet for an answer: You can add/change/delete the artwork for M4Vs and MP4s using iTunes. Windows Explorer (at least in Windows 7) displays the iTunes artwork as the file's thumbnail in Explorer.

Now the question is... do I have to convert all my AVIs and MKVs into MP4s or M4Vs for me to be able to get that effect, or can I add artwork as metadata to other video files without using iTunes?

Generally, you cannot convert the avi or mkv to mp4 or m4v without some serious encoding. That equals loss in quality unfortunately. If you search online hard enough though, you can find such freeware programs. You can also use windows live movie maker though I am not sure whether it allows you to convert to mp4.

Another solution is possibly to extract everything out of the mastroka container or the avi container. The container contains the video audio, and subtitle files that are combined into a container in which you play a video in. If you can find a program to extract the H.264 video file, the mp3 audio file, and the .ssa, .ass, etc subtitle file, and find another program somehow that places these three components into a mp4 container, you might get the task completed. Though i know the general concept, i have no experience and cannot recommend to you any programs sorry Im sure the people on this forum though, can.

 

[winsev]

If you have QuickTime Player Pro you can save it as an mpeg-4 without transcoding using "Passthrough".

Avidemux can also save out as MP4. YAMB can also re-mux MP4.

 

[Darryl Licht]

Is this what you all want?

Here is a screenshot of my movies folder I use with WMC.


If you want this same view, and you dont want to have to download every movie poster or dvd front cover to do so.
Try Yammm (Yet Another Media Meta Manager).
Its just too easy to use and AUTOMATIC.

Yammm runs as a Windows Service and will download meta data, artwork, rename folders, rename files and\or create playlists. Metadata can be any combination of dvdid.xml, mymovies.xml and\or XBMC nfo file. All meta information and artwork is provided via either themoviedb.org or thetvdb.com. If you haven't checked them out please do so and contribute where possible.

The primary reason for creating Yammm was meta manager that runs "headless" without ANY user interaction and used folder.jpg instead of custom artwork locations. This is important to me as I use various HTPC software depending on the situation and development. I also found that most did not match well. Yammm uses various checks other than the provider's score value

Oh yes... these images also show in WMC!!!

 

[cclloyd9785]

Can i embed the cover.jpg or cover.png directly into the movie file though? Also with Yamm, can I edit things like the parental rating and other info? Cause my movies dont have the rating on them.

Edit: And does Yamm make movies show up on my media play that is build into my samsung LED tv?

 

[Darryl Licht]

Can i embed the cover.jpg or cover.png directly into the movie file though? Also with Yamm, can I edit things like the parental rating and other info? Cause my movies dont have the rating on them.

Edit: And does Yamm make movies show up on my media play that is build into my samsung LED tv?

YAMM doesnt embed those items it downloads and places them into that movies folder. What format are your movies in?

As for the Samsung tv... I doubt it. Does that TV have a WMC extender built into it? If so, maybe...