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More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: glynor on January 20, 2006, 01:59:55 pm

Title: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: glynor on January 20, 2006, 01:59:55 pm
Click on the thumbnail below to see the screen-shot of my thumbnail problem:

(http://www.geocities.com/ri0n/mc/thumbnail_problem_thumb.jpg) (http://www.geocities.com/ri0n/mc/thumbnail_problem.jpg)

Notice the problem with the thumbnails I have circled in this screenshot.  The images themselves are fine.  They open in Photoshop and look fine.  Also, they "open" fine inside MC as long as I have the "Optimize image quality" option disabled in Image Playback (which I assume does some sort of Auto-Color type effect to the onscreen display), though if "Optimize" is enabled I see many of these same effects in my MC-screen-display of the images too.  The artifacts are widespread, but somewhat random.  If I delete all the thumbnails from within MC and have it rebuild them, these might be okay, but other ones will be messed up.

The pictures that show this thumbnail corruption are always JPEGS.  The vast majority of my images are shot with Canon digital cameras (these particular ones were at my wedding in September shot with a Canon EOS-1D Mark II but many of my other images come from a Canon 20D and a Canon S70).  I've never done a serious test to see if the same thing happens to the smattering of Nikon and Fuji JPEGs I have lying about (a task that would be much easier if MC fully supported all of the EXIF data embedded in the images), but it is certainly widespread on my systems.

I have actually had this problem with MC for a long, long time but never bothered to complain.  I secretly hoped it would be fixed in a future version without having to resort to complaining I suppose, but alas, no such luck.

So... Any ideas?

Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: Alex B on January 20, 2006, 02:07:48 pm
The image is scaled by forum SW, isn't it? I think you need to crop it more or add an external link. The forum limit is 800x600.
Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: glynor on January 20, 2006, 02:15:29 pm
Good catch.  Thanks.
Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: JimH on January 20, 2006, 05:55:08 pm
So part of the image paints correctly and the rest is disturbed?

I don't think I've ever seen that.

Have you seen it on more than one PC?

Weird.  Video driver?

Nice wedding!  Congratulations!
Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: glynor on January 21, 2006, 11:16:47 am
So part of the image paints correctly and the rest is disturbed?

I don't think I've ever seen that.

Have you seen it on more than one PC?

Weird.  Video driver?
Exactly.  I could, if needed, post additional screenshots or send some example files.  My library is FULL of screwy thumbs (on just about every screenful there are at least three - four that are messed up).

I have seen it on three different PCs, though they all are using the same basic cameras I listed above.  Two of the PCs have identical libraries, the other is at work and has a different set of pictures, but suffers the same problem.

They do also all have ATI-based video cards, if that could possibly be it.  All running different versions of the Catalyst drivers, but generally relatively new drivers.  As I mentioned, this issue has been happening for a long time, so it's been through multiple versions of drivers, multiple clean-reinstalls, and many, many versions of MC.  The video card related info is here:

"main" PC: Sapphire ATI X800 XL AGP Video Card, with Catalyst 6.01
HTPC: ATI-branded X800 XT All In Wonder AGP Video Card, with Catalyst 5.09
Office PC: ATI-branded 9600XT All In Wonder AGP Video Card, with Catalyst 5.11

Nice wedding!  Congratulations!

Thanks!  We had a blast.  Not that much has changed, as my wife and I have been living together for 8 years, but it is nice to have it "official" finally.

The presents were good too.   ;)

Oh, and MC was the DJ, which worked splendidly (and saved us about $700).
Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: glynor on March 29, 2006, 03:42:45 pm
I think this problem might be back with the recent build (it was fixed a long while ago -- I think something to do with JPEG size maybe)....

I'm seeing the corruption again.  Perhaps some of the optimizations made for speed?
Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: glynor on March 29, 2006, 05:39:26 pm
Hmmmm.... Nevermind.

It seems to be a problem with my network card or my disk controller on one of my machines.  The pictures themselves are being corrupted if I move them across the network.

 >:( >:( >:(
Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: Matt on March 29, 2006, 06:24:41 pm
Hmmmm.... Nevermind.

It seems to be a problem with my network card or my disk controller on one of my machines.  The pictures themselves are being corrupted if I move them across the network.

 >:( >:( >:(

Run a memory test.

This helped me find a bad OCZ stick in my machine recently:
http://www.hcidesign.com/memtest/

Good luck.
Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: Doof on March 29, 2006, 09:41:45 pm
Hmmmm.... Nevermind.

It seems to be a problem with my network card or my disk controller on one of my machines.  The pictures themselves are being corrupted if I move them across the network.

 >:( >:( >:(

I was just about to post that the only time I'd seen such behavior was when the pictures had become corrupted after am infamous hard drive crash of mine. :P
Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: glynor on March 30, 2006, 10:22:36 am
Yeah... I tested fairly extensively last night (until 3am or so).  I'm now pretty sure it's the onboard NIC on my new board (which is brand new and does have some BIOS issues that still need sorted).

I haven't re-tested the RAM yet, but when I first got the board I did run my standard suite of stability tests which includes an overnight run of Memtest86.  Everything was fine then...  I'll probably give that a go this afternoon when I get back home (in addition to trying a PCI LAN card).

I'm reasonably sure it isn't a hard drive or a drive controller now, as the corruption only occurs when I transfer the files across the LAN.  If I transfer the files from drive to drive on the system (using a couple of different drives both internal and external) I have no issues.  Erg!!!
Title: Re: Thumbnail Artifacts ... Why?
Post by: glynor on March 30, 2006, 08:58:52 pm
Hmmm.... I'm re-running my basic stability tests on your recommendation Matt, and it isn't going too well.

Failed a run of OCCT (a simple torture test, like a super-pumped Prime95).  It's main advantage over Prime95 is that it's pretty quick (whereas Prime95 can take a long time to spit up errors), OCCT runs for 30 minutes.

I made some adjustments (pulled out a drive I recently installed and removed/reinserted the RAM), and ran through a Memtest86 pass succesfully.  Now I'm running OCCT again (after which I'll probably re-run my LAN test if it passes).

Thanks for the reminder though, I might have tried re-imaging the system before I re-tested the hardware.  Who knows if this will fix it or not, but at I'm glad I checked at least.